Bill Moyers: The Best Congress the Banks' Money Can Buy!

Here we go again. Another round of the game we call Congressional Creep. After months of haggling and debate, Congress finally passes "reform legislation" to fix a serious rupture in the body politic, and the President signs it into law, but the fight's just begun, because the special interests immediately set out to win back what they lost when the reform became law. They spread money like manure on the campaign trails of key members of Congress. They unleashed hordes of lobbyists on Capitol Hill, cozy up to columnists and editorial writers, spent millions of lawyers who relentlessly pick at the law, trying to rewrite or water down the regulations required for enforcement. Before you know it, what once was an attempt at genuine reform creeps back toward business as usual. It's happening right now with the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed two years ago in the wake of our disastrous financial meltdown. Just last week, for example, both parties in the House overwhelmingly approved two bills that already would change Dodd-Frank's rules on derivatives, those convoluted trading deals recently described by the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as "the largest dark pool in our financial markets." Especially vulnerable is a key provision of Dodd-Frank known as the Volcker Rule, so named by President Obama after the former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. It's an attempt to keep the banks in which you deposit your money from gambling your savings on the bank's own, sometime risky investments. It will come as no surprise that the financial sector hates the Volcker Rule and is fighting back hard!  

Robert Sheer: Obama by Default?

The Republicans are a sick joke, and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice in the coming presidential election but Barack Obama. With Ron Paul out of it, and warmongering hedge fund hustler Mitt Romney the likely Republican nominee, the GOP has defined itself indelibly as the party of moneyed greed and unfettered imperialism. It is with chilling certainty that one can predict that a single Romney appointee to the Supreme Court would seal the coup of the 1 percent that already is well on its way toward purchasing the nation's political soul. Romney is the quintessential Citizens United super PAC prophet of imperial hubris, blaming everyone from the Chinese to laid-off American workers for our problems. Everyone, that is, except the Wall Street-dominated GOP, which midwifed the Great Recession under George W Bush and now seeks to blame Obama for the enormous deficit spawned by the party's wanton behavior. Without a militarily sophisticated enemy anywhere on the planet, the United States, thanks to the Bush-bloated budget, now spends almost as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. Yet the GOP honchos dare claim they are for small government, even as their chosen candidate champs at the bit to go to war with Iran. They obviously learned nothing from the disasters of Bush the Second, who hijacked the tragedy of 9/11 to launch the most wasteful orgy of military spending in US history in his failed effort to take out an al-Qaida enemy that had no significant military arsenal. That enemy was later eliminated by Obama, whom the Republicans still obstinately refuse to credit for accomplishing what Bush failed to. Can you imagine the explosion of preening self-congratulation that would have resulted if a GOP president had done the deed?

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: The Complicity of the UN

So-called "Humanitarian Wars", especially under the guise of "the Responsibility to Protect", re a modern form of imperialism. The standard pattern that the United States and its allies use to execute them is one where genocide and ethnic cleansing are vociferously alleged by a coalition of governments, media organizations, and non-governmental front organizations. The allegations "often lurid and unfounded" then provide moral and diplomatic cover for a variety of sanctions that undermine and isolate the target country in question, and thereby pave the way for military intervention. This is the post-Cold War modus operandi of the US and NATO. In facilitating this neo-imperialism, the United Nations has been complicit in the hijacking of its own posts and offices by Washington. Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been appointed a "special peace envoy" with a mediating role in Syria. Yet, how can Annan be evaluated as an "honest broker" considering his past instrumental role in developing the doctrine of R2P" the very pretext that has served to facilitate several US/NATO criminal wars of aggression? Furthermore, the evidence attests that the US and its allies "despite mouthing support for Annan's" supposed peace plan are not interested in a mediated, peaceful solution in Syria. As the Cold War began to wind down in the late-1980s and early-1990s, NATO saw the opportunity that would arise from the geopolitical vacuum following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc. Not only did NATO begin transforming from a defensive organization into an offensive military body, the US-led alliance began to embrace a supposed humanitarian mandate for this purpose.    

Mikhail Sinelnikov: Double Standards of Human Rights in the US and Russia

US authorities sentenced 63-year-old Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai to imprisonment. The head of the American Board of Kashmir is a fault of for lobbying the interests of Islamabad in the US. The evidence is considerable sums of money he received from Pakistan. His Russian "colleagues" are not only free, but also enjoy the high title of "human rights defenders". The news can be presented, for example, like this: "American authorities sentenced to prison the oldest human rights activist of the United States, 63-year-old Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai. Most of his life, Fai contributed to peace in the world, promoting democracy and strengthening the friendship of people, heading the Kashmiri American Council, a non-governmental organization (NGO) located in Washington, DC and founded in 1990. The events, certainly, suggest that the US totalitarian regime prosecutes uncompromising fighters for human rights, and then turns them into "prisoners of conscience." We will not forget and forgive!" The same piece of news may be presented in another way: "The US Justice Department is authorized to state that the Federal Court of the Eastern District of Virginia has sentenced a US citizen Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai to two years in prison, and a subsequent three-year stay under open surveillance by authorities for participation in the conspiracy aimed at secret funding of his lobbying efforts in the United States related to Kashmir by Pakistan's government." The human rights activist Fai violated FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act), the American law regulating the activities of NGOs receiving financial support from abroad. Under this law, all foreign grants must first be registered with the relevant services to the penny, and second, must be spent exactly on the purposes for which they have been allocated.  

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: The Complicity of the UN

"Humanitarian" wars, especially under the guise of the "Responsibility to Protect", are a modern form of imperialism. The standard pattern that the United States and its allies use to execute them is one where genocide and ethnic cleansing are vociferously alleged by a coalition of governments, media organizations, and non-governmental front organizations. The allegations "often lurid and unfounded" then provide moral and diplomatic cover for a variety of sanctions that undermine and isolate the target country in question, and thereby pave the way for military intervention. This is the post-Cold War modus operandi of the US and NATO. In facilitating this neo-imperialism, the United Nations has been complicit in the hijacking of its own posts and offices by Washington. Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has been appointed a "special peace envoy" with a mediating role in Syria. Yet, how can Annan be evaluated as an "honest broker" considering his past instrumental role in developing the doctrine of R2P, the very pretext that has served to facilitate several US/NATO criminal wars of aggression? Furthermore, the evidence attests that the US and its allies, despite mouthing support for Annan's supposed peace plan, are not interested in a mediated, peaceful solution in Syria. As the Cold War began to wind down in the late 1980s and early 1990s, NATO saw the opportunity that would arise from the geopolitical vacuum following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc. Not only did NATO begin transforming from a defensive organization into an offensive military body, the US-led alliance began to embrace a 'supposed' humanitarian mandate for this purpose. It is through this purported embrace of humanitarianism that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was able to change into an offensive, interventionist military force, indeed the largest such force ever, in the history of the world!

Felicity Arbuthnot: Afghanistan, A Tale of Three Tragedies!

March was another month of tragic, needless lives lost, the searing grief of mothers and fathers for lost sons and daughters. Shockingly stark, however, has been the impression, that the powers that-be, for a swathe of public in the West, some deaths are indisputedly regarded as, more tragic, more noteworthy, than others. On 6th March, six British soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. Corporal Jake Hartley (20) and Privates Anthony Frampton (20) Christopher Kershaw (19) Daniel Wade (20) and Daniel Wilford (20) and Sergeant Nigel Coupe (33) died when their armored vehicle was blown up. The resulting fire reportedly burned all night. More youthful annihilations in an invasion and occupation, illegal, ill-conceived and long lost. Human sacrifices at the alter of political ego, dying because the powerful would still lose, throw away, the lives of others, than "lose face" "one hundred and twenty five months since "the war" started. In the US, five of the six would have been too young to even order a drink in a bar, but are old enough to die for monumental imperial folly, regional foothold, and a pipeline. Before the month ended, two more British servicemen were shot, and yet another, blown to eternity. In Parliament Prime Minister Cameron paid vacuous tribute. They died, he said: "Keeping our country safe."What nonsense. There are no Afghan hordes massing across the English Channel, planning invasion with near antique rifles, some so ancient they have Queen Victoria's insignia on, relics from another historic British folly. Prince Harry, cavorting round the Caribbean, filling in time before returning to Afghanistan in an Apache Attack Helicopter, with fire power of 632 rounds a minute, plus up to sixteen Hellfire missiles, to wipe out more villagers, their homes, hung his head and declared himself "Devastated". Flags in their home and base towns in the UK flew at half mast! 

Fox News: WikiLeaks Publishes Millions of Emails from US Think Tank.

Notorious whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has published five million emails from a geopolitical analysis company that Reuters likened to a "shadow CIA." The emails, stolen in late December from the US based company, could reveal private information on Stratfor readers and subscribers, the details of sensitive sources, and even throw light on the intelligence-gathering community, Reuters reported. According to a WikiLeaks statement accompanying the posting of the documents, they reveal the inner workings of the intelligence publisher, which works with companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and various government agencies. "The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods," the website reads. It cites a December 6, 2011 email from CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalia, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. "You have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control. This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase," the email reportedly reads. The company released a statement early Monday morning on its Facebook page, describing the release of emails as "deplorable." "This is a deplorable, unfortunate, and illegal breach of privacy." the company said. Some of the emails may be forged or altered to include inaccuracies, some may be authentic. We will not validate either, nor will we explain the thinking that went into them. Having had our property stolen, we will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them."

Julie Levesque: Fabricating a Smoking Gun to Attack Iran?

Israeli Spies Disguised as Iranian Soldiers on Mission inside Iran: A report published in The Sunday Times on March 25 suggests that Israel is using a permanent base in Iraqi Kurdistan to launch cross-border intelligence missions in an attempt to find a "smoking gun" evidence that Iran is building a nuclear warhead. Western sources told the Times, Israel is using a permanent base in Iraqi Kurdistan to launch cross-border intelligence missions in an attempt to find "smoking gun" evidence that Iran is building a nuclear warhead. Western sources told the Times Israel was monitoring "radioactivity and magnitude of explosives tests" and that "special forces used Black Hawk helicopters to carry commandos disguised as members of the Iranian military and using Iranian military vehicles". The sources believe that Iranians are trying to hide evidence of warhead tests in preparation for a possible IAEA visit". The number of Israeli intelligence missions at the Parchin military base in Iran has increased in the past few months, according to the article. During that period, Tehran has been negotiating with the IAEA, which had requested to visit Parchin. According to Iran's permanent representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, both parties had agreed in early February that the visit would take place in March. The IAEA requested to visit Parchin in late January and late February, after having agreed to a visit in March. The IAEA thus requested to visit the military complex exactly at the same time Israel was intensifying its secret operations to allegedly search for a "smoking gun." A few years ago it has been suggested that Israel was the source of fake intelligence, a stolen laptop, related to Iran's alleged nuclear program.

Lisa Karpova: Strike Against Iran Planned for Summer!

An attack on Iran might happen in the summer, the Chief of Staff of Russian Army General Nikolai Makarov, warned today on the channel Russia Today. When referring to the tensions created around the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, Makarov noted that the West, especially the military in Washington and Tel Aviv, are preparing an act of war against the Persian country in April or no later than June this year. The argument used for aggression, which Tehran considers artificially made to justify a war, refers to the alleged Iranian attempt to develop a nuclear program with military pretensions. But Iran defends its right to use atomic energy for peaceful purposes and to produce fuel for its nuclear facilities. The West reacts with bellicosity and more unilateral sanctions against the Persian state each time it refers to new programs to develop the atomic sphere and to reiterate its peaceful character, the source warned. Makarov reiterated that Iran was the target of cyber attacks, while many of its scientists were victims of fatal attacks, whose authorship Tehran attaches to Israeli intelligence. The Iranian authorities captured an unmanned US spy plane, cited the Russian high command. Moreover, the United States maintains a large concentration of naval forces in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, while Tel Aviv now accuses Iran of being behind the alleged attempts to organize attacks on Israeli embassies in Tblisi and New Delhi. The Russian military considered that the outbreak of a conflict with Iran could spread through the Middle East with a domino effect and unpredictable consequences, with the possibility of becoming even in an international confrontation.

Tom Burghardt: "Final Curtain Call" in America" and the Death of Democracy!

Over decades, the maintenance of power and class privileges by corporate, financial and political elites have relied on covert and overt forms of violence, oftentimes in unspoken arrangements with transnational criminal networks, the global drug trade, or intelligence connected Far-Right terrorists, the Minions who staffed and profited from Operations Condor and Gladio come to mind. Once viewed as the proverbial "tip" of the imperial spear that advanced elitist dreams of "full-spectrum dominance," the "plausibly deniable" puppeteering which formerly characterized such projects now take place in full daylight, with nary a peep from bought-off guardians of our "ersatz" democratic order, or a public narcotized by tawdry spectacles. Take your pick! Mixing intellectual and moral squalor in equal measure with the latest high-tech gizmos on offer from Silicon Valley or Chengdu, the general societal drift towards total data totalitarianism, once the hallmark of police states everywhere, is a backdrop where "too big to fail" is a code for "to important to jail". With the current global economic crisis, brought on in no small part by private and public actors resorting to various frauds and market manipulations which reward privileged insiders, we have reached a social endpoint that analyst Michel Chossudovsky has accurately described as the "criminalization of the state," that is, the historical juncture where "war criminals legitimately occupy positions of authority, which enable them to decide 'who are the criminals', when in fact, they are the criminals." It should hardly surprise us then, that American "hero," Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, accused of murdering 17 innocent Afghan civilians, including 9 children and then burning their bodies, joined the Army after the 9/11 attacks not out of a sense of patriotic "duty," but because he was a thief and a swindler! 

Tom Engelhardt: The Intelligence Bureaucracy That Ate Our World!

I was out of the country only nine days, hardly a blink in time, but not enough, as it happened, for another small, airless room to be added to the American national security labyrinth. On March 22nd, Attorney General Eric Holder and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, J. signed off on new guidelines allowing the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), a post-9/11 creation, to hold on to information about Americans in no way known to be connected to terrorism - about you and me, that is, for up to five years. (Its previous outer limit was 180 days.) This, Clapper claimed, "will enable NCTC to accomplish its mission more practically and effectively." Joseph K.,that icon of single-lettered anonymity from Franz Kafka's novel The Trial, would undoubtedly have felt right at home in Clapper's Washington. George Orwell would surely have had a few pungent words to say about those anodyne words "practically and effectively," not to speak of "mission." For most Americans, though, it was just life as we've known it since September 11, 2001, since we scared ourselves to death and accepted that just about anything goes, as long as it 'supposedly' involves protecting us from terrorists. Basic information or misinformation, possibly about you, is to be stored away for five years, or until some other attorney general and director of national intelligence thinks it's even more practical and effective to keep you on file for 10 years, 20 years, or until death do us part, and it hardly made a ripple. If Americans were to hoist a flag designed for this moment, it might read "Tread on Me" and use that classic illustration of the boa constrictor swallowing an elephant from Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince. That, at least, would catch something of the absurdity of what the National Security Complex has decided to swallow of our "American world."

Chris Hedges: Coming To A Gulag Near You!

The security and surveillance state does not deal in nuance or ambiguity. Its millions of agents, intelligence gatherers, spies, clandestine operatives, analysts and armed paramilitary units live in a binary world of opposites, of good and evil, black and white, opponent and ally. There is nothing in between: You are for or against us. You are a patriot or an enemy of freedom. You either embrace the crusade to physically eradicate evildoers from the face of the earth, or you are an Islamic terrorist, a collaborator or an unwitting tool of terrorists. And now that we have created this monster, it will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to free ourselves from it. Our 16 national intelligence agencies and army of private contractors feed on paranoia, rumor, rampant careerism, demonization of critical free speech and often inventive narratives. They justify their existence, and their consuming of vast governmental resources, by turning even the banal and the mundane into a potential threat, and by the time they finish, the nation will be a gulag. This is why the National Defense Authorization Act for the Fiscal Year 2012, (NDAA), which was contested by me and three other plaintiffs before Judge Katherine B Forrest in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Thursday, is so dangerous. This act, signed into law by President Barack Obama last December 31, puts into the hands of people with no discernible understanding of legitimate dissent, the power to use the military to deny due process to all deemed to be terrorists, to terrorist sympathizers, and hold them indefinitely in military detention. The deliberate obtuseness of the NDAA's language, which defines "covered persons" as those who "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces," makes all Americans, in the eyes of our expanding homeland security apparatus, potential terrorists. 

Reuters: Uruguay Wants to Barter Rice for Oil with Iran

Uruguay is Latin America's top rice exporter. Uruguay will ask Iran if the south American country can export rice in exchange for oil, the government said. Iran used to be a major destination for Uruguayan rice, but the impact of US and EU sanctions, aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear ambitions has put a strain on financing. "If Iran is willing to barter oil for rice, we will do it, and we will take out currency from the operation," said Agriculture Minister Tabare Aguerre. Uruguay is Latin America's top rice exporter, and an ally to the United States in the region. Washington has said that it would slap sanctions on countries that buy crude from Iran. Pressure from Washington and Brussels, which will slap EU-wide embargo on Iranian oil from July as part of a campaign against Tehran's nuclear program, has led to a rally in oil prices this year as markets fear supply shortages. Uruguay, the world's No.7 rice supplier, exported 90,000 tons of rice to Iran in 2011, according to Felipe Liambias and Luis Andres Henao, edited by David Gregorio.

The USS Liberty Memorial!

On June 8, 1967, US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty was suddenly and brutally attacked on the high seas an international waters by the air and naval forces of Israel. The Israeli forces attacked with full knowledge that this was an American ship and lied about it. Survivors have been forbidden for 40 years to tell their story under oath to the American public. Since I was at the time the Intelligence Operations Officer of the 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany, I was the one to bring this sad story to Colonel Antero Akkula, who immediately ordered me to bring this sad story to the attention of General Sherrer, our commanding General. As I raced up the flight of stairs to the General's office, I was struck by the perfidy of our Israeli "Ally". When I stood silently in the General's doorway, I heard him say: With friends like Israel, we have no need of enemies! The USS Liberty Memorial web site tells the story of Israeli betrayal. The USS Liberty Memorial web site tells the story of Israeli betrayal, and is dedicated to the memory of the 34 brave men who died. After surveiling USS Liberty for more than nine hours with almost almost hourly aircraft overflights and radar tracking, the air and naval forces of Israel attacked the Liberty in international waters without warning. USS Liberty was identified as a US naval ship by Israeli reconnaissance aircraft nine hours before the attack and continuously tracked by Israeli radar and aircraft thereafter. Sailing in international waters at less than five knots, with no offensive armament, the Liberty was not a military threat to anyone. The Israeli forces attacked without warning and without attempting to contact the ship. Thirty four Americans were killed in the attack and another 174 were wounded.

Mark Dankof: The Treyvon Martin Case

In a nutshell, the Treyvon Martin case is a classic manipulation of the American public, and a diversionary tactic par excellence on the part of a Zionist-controlled American Corporate Media for reasons classically obvious only to those in this country who can still think, and exercise dispassionate judgment accordingly. Irresponsible, racially oriented demagoguery comes to us via electronic barrage from the usual Establishment shills in the African-American community, evidenced by the inflammatory rhetoric and self-serving actions of Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, and Chicago Congressman Bobby Rush (D-ILL), among others. Although it has received less media attention, the racist wing of the American Right Populist movement has been equally irresponsible, as evidenced by simian statements and analysis laced with vicious appellations directed at African Americans like "nigger," "chimps," and "coons."Neither side can claim to know yet what really happened in Florida and all its nuances and dimensions. Both sides fail to understand the Real Game in how this terrible situation is being deliberately exploited at the expense of decent people of good will with different shades of skin color. One thing is not in doubt. The issues surrounding this tragedy discussed by Pat Buchanan in his essay, "It's All About Race Now," will not be aired on CNN or MSNBC. A second thing is not in doubt. Lost in all this is the way the false Hegelian dialectic between mutually public racists African American and European serves as a strategically-designed diversion from the real issues confronting a sick and terminally ill American culture, economic, and political system. 

Leon Watson: McDonald's Turned Me Into a Prostitute!

A woman has launched a lawsuit against McDonald's, claiming the fast food giant turned her into a prostitute. Shelley Lynn, from California, says the burger joint should have protected her against her 'predatory' ex-husband and former boss Keith Handley. Mr Handley hired her to work behind the counter 30 years ago at his franchise in Arroyo Grande before the pair began dating five years later. But when Ms Lynn lost her job, the relationship, and her life, started to break down. Lynn said Hanley, who still runs the franchise, forced her termination to make her more vulnerable to his demands. She blames McDonald's for putting her at the mercy of a company that provided no protections for female employees against predatory bosses. Ms Lynn is also suing Handley and his restaurant company Ivernia in California Central District Court. Ms Lynn says that Handley, who still runs the franchise, forced her termination to make her more vulnerable to his demands. 'McDonald's had no policy in place whereby Lynn could have filed a grievance against Handley, Ivernia, and McDonald's, she said in the filed court documents. Ms Lynn said Handley lied when he said he would help her fulfill her dreams of working as a Las Vegas dancer. He bought her a home in Vegas to live in, but then told her she'd have to get a job as a prostitute in one of the legal brothels to pay for it. The complaint said: 'Handley then began pressuring Lynn on an almost daily basis, arguing: It was no big deal to engage in sex to make money, that she would lose her home and everything she had, which was true.' Lynn said she took a job at the Chicken Ranch in Pahrump, Nevada, where she became a 'top booker,' required to sleep with up to 12 men at night.

Jim Hightower: The Truth About the US Postal Service

What do 50 cents buy these days? Not a cuppa joe, a pack of gum or a newspaper. But if you can get a steal of a deal for a 50-cent piece: a first-class stamp. Plus a nickel in change. Each day, six days a week, letter carriers traverse 4 million miles toting an average of 563 million pieces of mail, reaching the very doorsteps of our individual homes and workplaces in every single community in America. From the gated enclaves and penthouses of the ueber-wealthy to the inner-city ghettos and rural colonias of America's poorest families, the US Postal Service literally delivers. All for 45 cents. The USPS is an unmatched bargain, a civic treasure, a genuine public good that links all people and communities into one nation. So, naturally, it must be destroyed. For the past several months, the laissez-fairyland blogosphere, assorted corporate front groups, a howling pack of congressional right-wingers and a bunch of lazy mass media sources have been pounding out a steadily rising drumbeat to warn that our postal service faces impending doom. It's "broke," they exclaim. USPS "nears collapse", it's "a full-blown financial crisis!" These gloomsayers claim the national mail agency is bogged down with too many overpaid workers and costly brick-and-mortar facilities, so it can't keep up with the instant messaging of Internet services and such nimble corporate competitors as FedEx. Thus, say these contrivers of their own conventional wisdom, the Postal Service is unprofitable and is costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year in losses. Wrong! Since 1971, the Postal Service has not taken a dime from taxpayers. 

Devvy Kidd: What's Wrong With These Headlines?

US troops in Afghanistan now have far-reaching new protections against rogue killers among their Afghan allies, including assigned "guardian angels", fellow troops who will watch over them when they sleep. Marine General John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan, ordered the added protections in recent weeks to guard against insider threats, according to a senior military official. They come in the wake of 16 attacks on US and coalition forces by Afghans that now represent nearly one-fifth of all combat deaths this year." Do the cheerleaders of those illegal, immoral invasions and occupations of countries like Afghanistan not get it yet about 'blow-back'? As I wrote in my recent column regarding the Obama/Socotro administration proposing to impose higher medical premiums for vets, here we are with our troops, who will be veterans someday, having to guard each other even when sleeping, against Afghani's who don't want our troops there. I wish that those who wave the flag and cheer on our soldiers in those countries remember the body bags you never see on the propaganda machine called TV. 1/5th of all combat deaths isn't just a statistic. Every one of those soldiers is dead, and their families and friends will forever have a huge hole in their hearts. For what? Please, don't insult my intelligence by sending me email they're fighting for our freedom. That carefully crafted "justification" long ago wore out its place in history. While the troops are there to protect the opium poppy crops, a sick culture of death, and where pedophilia is common in some regions, here is what their president, Hamid Karzai, said as the flag-draped coffins continue to arrive back on US soil: The Americans in Afghanistan are demons".  

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey: Slutwalk, A New Movement!

It started in the USA and Canada, after a Toronto policeman said if women want to avoid being raped or victimized, they should not dress like sluts. The reaction was instead of telling women how to dress, the police should tell men not to rape. Now the movement has come to Europe. Thousands of "sluts" took to the streets of London on Saturday. Over 5,000 women took to the streets in London on Saturday in the latest Slutwalk, a movement which defends a woman's right to dress as she pleases without the insinuation that if someone says something or gropes her, "she was asking for it". The notion that a woman should not dress in a certain way to avoid being raped or victimized is as absurd as it is insulting, the result of hundreds of years of macho culture and male supremacy, running along the same lines as "women are too emotionally unbalanced to form an opinion and vote" and in some countries, for instance post-Saddam Iraq, a man has the right to beat his wife "if she misbehaves". The word "slut" seems to have had several meanings and interpretations over time. Its etymology comes from the Germanic Schlutt (slovenly woman), Swedish slata (idle woman). It was originally taken to mean lazy or careless, or uncared-for appearance. Hard pieces in bread arising from sloppy kneading were called "slut's pennies" in the 18th century. However, it was not restricted to women. In the 14th century, Chaucer uses the word sluttish to describe an untidy or unkempt man. Samuel Pepys (17th century) uses the word to describe a happy, bold girl: "Our little girl Susan is a most admirable slut, and pleases us mightily".      

Dianna C. Cotter: Barack Obama Case Threatened into Silence

On March 7th, 2012, Pravda called out the US press for its deliberate neglect of the largest scandal in modern American history. Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio released credible forensic evidence that Barack Obama, presumed President of the United States, presented to the world a forged Birth Certificate on April 27th, 2011. Since then, the scandal has only expanded. Former United States Postal Service worker Allen Hulton has recently come forward with compelling testimony given under Oath, which leads to only one conclusion: Barack Obama attended College in the United States as a Foreign Student. In the summer of 2008, the presidential primary season was winding down, and America could not help but note the fervor a significant number of media personalities expressed while supporting the candidacy of Barack Obama. Indeed, it was collectively decided within the liberal media, that Obama's associations with racist pastors and violent domestic terrorists was to be suppressed. The exposure of the "Journolist" email scandal in 2010 made this glaringly clear: Stories like Obama's ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright Jr. of the Trinity United Church, and more relevant, to Bill Ayers and his radical past in the Weather Underground Organization were to remain largely un-reported and un-investigated. Any realistic investigation into Barack Obama's background was to be minimized, inquiries eventually mocked, and investigators labeled racists. These tactics have isolated honest media who could and should have reported on these and other important stories, yet have inexplicably remained silent. Now we know why!

RT: US Obstructing Kandahar Massacre?

The defense lawyer for Robert Bales, who is accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians, is blaming the US for blocking his team's fact-finding mission into the Kandahar incident. He says he can't interview witnesses and prosecutors won't cooperate. John Henry Browne claims US forces in Afghanistan obstructed him and his associates from reaching the injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar province to interview them about the incident, Reuters reports. Brown also said that after investigators interviewed the injured, they let them go freely with collecting any contact information, making it virtually impossible to find them. He further charges they are not sharing the data which was obtained from the witnesses with his team. He says Bales' defense has only managed to talk to US soldiers in Afghanistan, but not the actual victims of the attack. Browne explains that the military prosecutors who filed the charges against Bales have been possibly unwilling to cooperate because "they are concerned about the strength of their case." The lawyer complained of an "almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client." Browne's statements raise even more suspicion about whether the US really wants to punish the guilty party to the fullest extent of the law, or if the government is concealing some ugly truth about the Kandahar massacre. An independent Afghan probe into the killings alleges that up to 20 US soldiers were involved.