Dan Glazebrook: The War on Libya: A grand Display of NATO's Lynch Mob Mentality!

Review of Maximilian Forte's powerful new book, "Slouching Toward Sirte: NATO's War on Libya and Africa". Now available to order from Global Research. This book presents a withering indictment of liberal humanitarianism and its collusion in imperialist designs on Africa, as seen in NATO's Libya campaign of 2011. The media has gone very quiet on Libya of late. Clearly, liberal imperialists don't like to dwell on their crimes. This is not surprising. The "modus operandi" of the humanitarian imperialist is not one of informed reflection, but only permanent outrage against leaders of the global South, besides, in the 'topsy-turvy' world of liberal interventionism, the failure to act is the only crime of which the West is capable. As Forte puts it, their moral code holds that, if we do not act, we should be held responsible for the actions of others. When we do act, we should never be held responsible for the actions of others. When we do act, we should never be held responsible for our own actions. With Gaddafi dead, the hunt is for a new hate figure, on whom we spew venom, Assad Jong-Un, far more satisfying than actually evaluating our own role in the creation of human misery. This is the colonial mentality of the liberal lynch mob. For the governments that lead to war, of course. it makes perfect sense that we do not stop to look back at the last invasion, before impatiently demanding the next one. If we realized, for example, that the 1999 bombing of Serbia actually facilitated the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, that it was supposedly designed to prevent, we might not be so ready to demand the same treatment for every other state, that falls short of our illusory ideals. That is why this book is so important. Thoroughly researched and impeccably referenced, it tells the story of the real aims and real consequences of the war on Libya in its historical perspective. Its author, Maximilian Forte, is well placed to do so. A professor of social anthropology in Montreal, much of his writing and research in recent years, has been dedicated to the new imperialism, and especially its humanitarian cover. He was among the first to really expose violent racism within the Libyan insurrection, and its role in facilitating NATOs goals in Africa, and has provided consistently excellent analyses of the media coverage surrounding the conflict. One of the books accomplishments, is its comprehensive demolition of the wars supposed justifications. Forte shows us that there was no mass rape committed by Gaddafi forces, as alleged by Susan Rice, Hillary Clinton, Luis Ocampo and others at the time, but later refuted by Amnesty International, the UN, and even the US army itself. Despite hysterical media reports, there was no evidence of aerial bombing of protesters, as even CIA chief Robert Gates admitted.

Stephen Lendman: Fabricated Intelligence and the WMD Pretext.

Obama heads closer to war on Syria. A previous article discussed spurious allegations of Syrian chemical weapons use. Obama calls using them a game changer. He also said their use crosses are red line. Syrian officials categorically deny using them. According to Information Minister Omran al-Zoabi: Even if Syria does have chemical weapons, our leadership and our military, will not use them either against Syrians or against Israelis, above all for moral reasons, and secondarily on legal and political grounds. On April 24, The New York Times headlined US Says it Suspects Assad Used Chemical weapons, but our leadership and our military will not use them, either against Syrians or against Israelis, above all for moral reasons, and secondarily on legal and political grounds. On April 24, The New York Times headlined "US Says It Suspects Assad Used Chemical Weapons," saying: "American intelligence agencies now assess, with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, but it said it needed conclusive proof, before President Obama would take action. On April 25, the White House Office of Legislative Affairs director Miguel Rodriguez addressed Syria. His letter to Senators John McCain (R.AZ) and Carl Levin
(D. MI) said: At the president's direction, the United States government has been closely monitoring the potential use of chemical weapons within Syria. We have kept the relevant committees of Congress fully informed of our assessment on this issue, consistent with our statutory obligations. Our intelligence community does access with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically the chemical agent sarin. This assessment is based in part on physiological samples. Our standard of evidence must build on these intelligence assessments, as we seek to establish credible and corroborated facts. For example, the chain of custody is not clear, so we cannot confirm how the exposure occurred, and under what conditions. We do not believe that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would very likely have originated with the Assad regime. Thus far, we believe that the Assad regime maintains custody of these weapons, and has demonstrated a willingness to escalate its horrific use of violence against the Syrian people. Because of our concern, about the deteriorating situation in Syria, the president has made it clear,that the use of chemical weapons to terrorist groups, is a red line for the United States of America.

Evan Resnick: The Perils Of Containing China!

The Obama Administration's policy of "rebalancing" to the Asia Pacific appears to be a nascent attempt to contain China. It would behoove US policymakers to recognize a key distinction between Washington's current proto-containment of China, and its successful containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Obama Administration officials have emphatically denied that the much discussed US policy of "rebalancing" towards the Asia Pacific, represents an attempt to contain China. Sceptics may be forgiven, however, for taking these denials with the proverbial grain of salt. The military, diplomatic, and economic components of the re-balance, which the administration previously dubbed the "pivot" collectively make little sense, other than as a nascent effort to thwart China's geopolitical expansion. Laying the foundations for containment. Militarily, the US has deployed Marines to Australia, dispatched Littoral Combat Ships to Singapore, and engaged in intensified defense cooperation with its formal allies of Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines, as well as with other states in the region, such as New Zealand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and India. Additionally, the Department of Defense has pledged to recalibrate its distribution of naval capabilities between the Atlantic and Pacific theaters by the year 2020, from a 50-50 split, to a 60-40 split favoring the latter. These initiatives, in turn, followed on the heels of the administration's early 2010 announcement of a US $6.4 billion sale of advanced weaponry to Taiwan. The US has complemented these military moves with a more assertive diplomatic posture in Southeast Asia. The most high profile initiative in this regard, has been its constructive engagement of the reformist Thein Sein regime in Myanmar, which was exemplified by President Obama's highly symbolic visit to that country, as well as Cambodia, in the immediate wake of his November 2012 reelection. The administration has also adopted a more intrusive position, regarding the ongoing maritime dispute regarding the South China Sea, striking a posture that directly contravenes China's expansive claims. Finally, even the economic pillar of the re-balance, the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership, a regional free trade zone, consisting of 12 potential partner states, appears designed to exclude China. The TPP framework is restricted to countries capable of meeting high US standards, in such areas as intellectual property rights, labor, and environmental standards, in which China lags far behind the other prospective members.     

Tomgram: Todd Gitlin, The Tinsel Age of Journalism!

After all these decades, here is the strange thing: What I remember are his hands, not his face. But perhaps that is fitting for a writer. His name is Robert Shaplen, and he was a correspondent for the New Yorker. My parents knew him and, as a boy, I idolized him. From World War II on, he covered Asia. He seemed to me the most adventurous man on the planet. With him in mind, I was sure that there could be nothing better or more romantic than being a foreign correspondent. That, of course, was before I grew up and discovered that I did not even like to travel. It was a dream of the newspaper itself, and the habit learned in boyhood, now disappearing from much of our world, of reading the paper daily, sports section first, then front to back. Even now, it's an addiction I can't shake. When it comes to the print paper, however, I'm increasingly part of a lonely crowd. I first realized the change was coming in the early 2000s. Back then, I used to parachute into the Berkeley journalism school every spring to be an editor to a crew of future reporters. Every morning, you could get free copies of the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, and a couple of other papers. As a lifelong news junkie, it seemed like heaven to me. But to my surprise, my students often did not take the papers at all, free or not. One day, one of them explained that by the time she hits school, she had already checked out the New York Times, and the LA Times online twice, the night before and that morning. The actual paper was already older than Methuselah in her eyes. Today, Todd Gitlin, who wrote a classic account of how the news misreported the New Left and antiwar movements of the 1960s The Whole World Is Watching, and how TV worked back in the 1980s Inside Prime Time, offers a reminder that my journalistic dreams were just that. The news, with the usual notable exceptions, was generally a tawdry affair in the service of power. Still, can there be any question that, as the newspaper fades, we are entering a new age of conglomerated mainstream chaos? You only needed to check out the "coverage" of the Boston bombing aftermath, which you would have had to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss, to know that. What possible dreams, other than coverage nightmares could emerge from that? If we got what must have been the largest, most militarized manhunt in our history, for two young men briefly on the run in one city, I suspect we also got the largest, most intensive, least impressive media coverage for a single event of probably little long term import. It was the sort of thing that gives the word overkill a bad name. Have we learned nothing from the over the top reaction to the 9/11 attacks? The case itself may fade, but the example of shutting down a city, and flooding it with thousands of heavily up armored police and SWAT teams won't, nor will the flooding of it with just about every media resource that exists on the planet!

Colin Todhunter: Political Opportunism. The Boston Marathon Tragedy

used as a pretext to extend the Global War on Terrorism. In a 2011 interview for an Australian TV channel, US Republican Senator John McCain talked about Islamic extremism, spreading if left unchecked by military intervention in Afghanistan and elsewhere. In the same interview, he spoke of the US having held fast in Iraq, and having succeeded there. He stated that we must do the same in Afghanistan, because we are succeeding there too. In the warped world of neo-con mouthpieces like McCain, the ongoing carnage and turmoil that US led criminality has caused in the two countries in question, equates with success. Given the problems at home, it comes as little surprise that US public support for militarism abroad has been waning for some time. McCain is fully aware of this. His comments were little more than an attempt to hoodwink the public into continuing to support the US war of global terror, because he knows that people have other things in their minds, such as housing foreclosures, the outsourcing of jobs and livelihoods, increasing impoverishment, the crackdown on civil liberties, and the slaughter of often poor men who fight wars that have no end in sight. The public is also becoming increasingly aware, that over half of government spending goes to the military, when it could be better spent in other areas. In 2006, former US military commander and CIA boss General Petraeus said the US strategy is to conduct a war of perceptions continuously through the news media. People like McCain are the foot soldiers in such a war, and hope that the public mindset can be manipulated with propaganda about US national security interests, perceived military successes, and fear about Islamic extremism. No doubt both Petraeus and McCain have taken their cue from US commentator Walter Lippmann, who in the 1920s said that responsible men make decisions, and had to be protected from the bewildering herd of the public. Lippman believed that the public should be subdued, obedient, and distracted from what is really happening, and should be admiring with awe the leaders, who save them from destruction from what is really happening, and should be admiring with awe the leaders, who save them from destruction and provide peace. The words of Lippman might have been ringing loud and clear in the minds of many observers, as people came onto the streets of Boston to celebrate and chant USA, USA, after the authorities had suspended civil liberties, and effectively implemented Martial Law in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon explosions. Saved from destruction and admiring their leaders with awe!

Roi Tov: Israel's Lag BaOmer: On a Failed Revolt, a Fake Zohar and a Festival

of Fraudulent Empire-hood. Bomer! Bome! Bomeh! What does that mean? The man in front of me was shouting, it was typical. Bolivians think that linguistic misunderstandings are solved by shouting. If that doesn't work, they opt for physical violence. That teaches you well! Next time answer properly, was the answer I feared. In a desperate effort to avoid being beaten, I remembered that we were just after Easter. Do you mean Lag Ba' Omer? I asked, and got a positive answer. It was not the first time that members of my congregation displayed impossible knowledge on non Biblical Hebrew. It was a sign that Israel had visited them. Suddenly they knew how to pronounce "SSS." It celebrates a failed revolt, a fake Zohar, and the Festival of Fraudulent Empire-hood, I said and moved away hurriedly. Who knew how he would react to the word Zohar? The event highlighted a recurrent problem regarding Israeli affairs. Hebrew is practically unknown, and its speakers often purposely confuse things. For example, the recently produced Oliver Stone's The Untold History of the United States was killed with silk gloves by the Israeli Administration. How Heraclius turned the Jews out of Jerusalem Image in the 15th Century Histoire des Empereurs Manuscript Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War. It was broadcast by a secondary channel, its reviews were misplaced and oddly phrased, and its name was mistranslated as The Secret History of the USA, making it difficult to find references, unless discovering the dirty trick. One of the reviews inversed the blame in a typical Hebrew fashion, hinting that Stone was attempting a 1984 style manipulation. The purposeful misnaming caused it to be obscured by reviews of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. There is no better testimony to the excellence of Stone's work that this carefully staged censorship. This is repeated almost in every affair. State agents have one Hebrew name, but they spell it in various ways in Roman script. Even festivals are disguised under Biblical roots, while their nature was changed. Lag Ba' Omer, to be celebrated in the last weekend of April 2013, is a good example of this. When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn from Nazi Germany. The logo shown above belongs to Chabad, a proselyting Haredi organization. Revealing the esoteric soul of Torah, it says below the name of the festival. It hints to the relationship between Lag Ba' Omer and the Zohar, which is the basic text behind Kabbalah, the most mystical stream of Judaism, which is closely related to Hasidic communities. In recent years, it has become popular in Hollywood. Singer Madonna likes to be portrayed with tattoos of Hebrew letters, which according to Kabbala have magical powers. 

Stephen Lendman: Terrorists Are Us!

State sponsored terrorism defines US policy. Double speak duplicity conceals it. Double think manipulates public opinion to ignore inconvenient truths. Howard Zinn once asked: How can you make war on terrorism, if war is terrorism? Waging war on terrorism gives government a perpetual war and a perpetual atmosphere of repression, and it generates perpetual profits for corporations. But it is going to make the world a far more unstable and dangerous place. Terrorism replaced communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country, for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. Since WW II, there has not been a more warlike nation in the world than the United States. Zinn added that governments are terrorists on an enormously large scale. None in world history match America. Waging war on humanity is official policy. US law calls international terrorism activities involving violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States, or of any State, or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State: are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population. Influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping, and occur primarily outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. The US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism (TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984, called it the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological in nature, through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. Merriam Webster calls it the systematic use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. In his book, Terrorism, Theirs and Ours, Eqbal Ahmad called state sponsored terrorism most important of all. It includes torturte, burning of villages, destruction of entire peoples, and genocide on a massive scale. It's called self defense, protecting national security, and or promoting democracy. Doing so conceals America's dark side. War on humanity follows.

Jonathan Bernstein: Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News!

to actually write any bills. Are Republicans even trying? There is good evidence to suggest they are not. While I have been saying that the GOP is broken and hopelessly dysfunctional, Rachel Maddow has come up with a new name for part of that dysfunction. Republicans are post policy. To some extent, that is because they will simply oppose whatever Barack Obama proposes, but there is also an even more interesting aspect of it, that they simply have given up on and lost the capacity for developing policy ideas. And, no, it is not just because they are conservatives, and conservatives are inherently less likely to have policy ideas. A look at the evidence will demonstrate this. Here is the story: Over the last couple of decades, majority parties in the House of Representatives have taken to reserving the very first bill numbers for their party's agenda. Normally, bills are just numbered in order, when they are introduced: HR 637 is usually the bill introduced just after HR 636, and just before HR 638. But that is just custom, and at some point a new custom evolved to save HR 1 through HR 5, and then through HR 10, for important party agenda bills. Which leads to the embarrassing fact that no one seems to have noticed about this year's House Republicans. Over 100 days into the current Congress, their agenda is almost completely empty. In fact, of the 10 reserved slots, there is only one bill filed. That is HR 3, a bill to force the building of the Keystone XL pipeline. Even that is pretty minimal, it is far more of a symbolic position than it is an energy policy. And even that took until March 15, to introduce. But at least, it is a real bill, and to their credit it is a substantive measure, even if it is not an overall energy policy. Beyond that, Republicans have announced that HR 1 is reserved for a tax reform bill. There is, however, no bill, at least not so far. For the rest of them, and for that matter for HR1, nothing. All you get is Reserved for the Speaker. That is pathetic. It was not true two years ago, when the Republican majority took over in 2009. By the end of the 112th Congress, which was hardly a high achiever, Republicans had filed bills for nine of the 10 reserved spots. HR 1, that year was for continuing appropriations, and was filed on February 11. HR 2 was to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and was introduced on January 5. In fact, by April 2011, eight of the 10 bills had been dropped into the hopper.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky: The Chechen Connection, Al Qaeda and the Boston Marathon Bombings!

Global Research will be publishing a series of articles and reports, with a view to promoting Boston Truth. The underlying objective is to confront and challenge the official version of events, concerning the Boston bombings, as well as the twisted and convoluted interpretations of the mainstream media. We invite our readers to endorse Boston Truth, and spread the word on social media, independent media and blog sites. Nine thousand heavily armed police, including SWAT teams, were deployed in a manhunt to capture a 19 year old student at U-Mass, after his brother, Tamerian Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon terror mastermind, was shot dead by police, allegedly after a car chase, and shoot out with police. Prior to the conduct of a police investigation, the 19 year old student has already been designated as guilty. The fundamental legal principle of innocent until proven guilty has been scrapped. In the words of President Obama, a graduate of Harvard Law School, the Boston 19 year old student is guilty of heinous crimes, without evidence, and prior to being charged in a court of law. Whatever hateful agenda drove these suspects to such heinous crimes, without evidence, and prior to being charged in a court of law. Whatever hateful agenda drove these men to such heinous acts will not, cannot, prevail. Whatever they thought they could achieve, they have already failed. Why did young men,who grew up and studied here as part of our communities, and our country resort to such violence? Coupled with the alleged anthrax and ricin letters in Washington DC, which mysteriously surfaced in the immediate wake of the Boston tragedy, both Washington and the media, have underscored the Tsarnaev brothers tenuous ties to Chechnya's militant jihadist insurgency. According to the Wall Street Journal, quoting expert scholarly opinion: the Chechen family background is maybe a part of what leads the two suspects to do what they do, said Lorenzo Vidino, an expert on Chechen militants at the Center for Security Studies in Zurich. A profile on the Russian social networking site V-kontakte, that appears to belong to Dzhonar Tsarnaev, includes o propaganda clip, rallying jihadists to go to Syria, to fight alongside rebels there, citing sayings from the Prophet Muhammad. Amply documented, it just happens that the jihadist foreign fighters in Syriam are recruited by the US and its allies. What is implied is that even if the suspects are not tied to a Muslim extremist network, their embedded cultural heritage and Muslim background incites them quite naturally, to commit acts of violence.

Robert Parry: Bush and his Cronies, Bear Ultimate Responsibility for Torture!

So what is stopping us from prosecuting them? Now that a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel has reached the conclusion that President George W. Bush and his top advisers bear ultimate responsibility for authorizing torture in violation of domestic and international law, the question becomes, what should the American people and their government do. The logical answer would seem to be: Prosecute Bush and his cronies, or turn them over to an international tribunal, if the US legal system can't do the job. After all, everyone, including President Barack Obama, and possibly even Bush himself, would agree with the principle that no man is above the law. At least that is what they profess in public, but they then apply this principle selectively, proving that they don't really mean it at all. The real world standard seems to be: You are above the law, if you have the political or economic clout, to make prosecution difficult or painful. Then, more flexible rules apply. For instance, we are told that Pvt. Bradley Manning may have had good intentions, in exposing US government wrongdoings to Wiki-Leaks, but he still must be punished for taking the law into his own hands. The only question seems to be, whether he should be imprisoned for 20 years or life. Even the US soldiers at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, who imitated the abusive techniques that Bush and his advisers authorized in more limited situations had to face justice. Eleven were convicted at court martial, and two enlisted personnel, Charles Graner and Lynndie England, were sentenced to ten and three years in prison, respectively. A few higher level officers had their military careers derailed. But the buck pretty much stopped there. It surely did not extend up to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush. They simply engaged in a game of circular excuse making, claiming that they had relied on Justice Department legal guidance, and thus their own criminal actions were not criminal at all. Yet, along with its judgments about torture, the 577 page report from the Constitution Project, obliterated that line of defense, by detailing how the Bush administration's lawyers offered up acrobatic legal opinions to justify the brutal interrogations, which included water-boarding, sleep deprivation, stress position, forced nudity and other acts constituting torture.

Tom Engelhardt, Field of Nightmares. Filling the Empty Battlefield.

Chalmers Johnson's book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was published in March 2000, and just about no one noticed. Until then, blow-back had been an obscure term of CIA trade-craft, which Johnson defined as the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. In his prologue, the former consultant to the CIA and eminent scholar of both Mao Zedong's peasant revolution and modern Japan labeled his Cold War self a spear carrier for the empire.After the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, he was surprised to discover that the essential global structure of that other Cold War colossus, the American superpower, with its vast panoply of military bases, remained obdurately in place as if nothing whatsoever had happened. Almost a decade later, when the Evil Empire was barely a memory, Johnson surveyed the planet and found an informal American empire of immense reach and power. He also became convinced that, in its global operations, Washington was laying the groundwork all around the world, for future forms of blow-back. Johnson noted portents of a twenty first century crisis, in the form of, among other things, terrorist attacks on American installations and embassies. In the first chapter of Blow-back, he focused in particular on a former protege of the United States by the name of Osama bin Laden and on the Afghan War against the Soviets, from which he and an organization called al-Qaeda had emerged. It had been a war, in which Washington backed to the hilt, and the CIA funded and armed, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalists, paving the way years later for the Taliban to take over Afghanistan. Talk about unintended consequences! The purpose of that war had been to give the Soviet Union a Vietnam style bloody nose, which it more than did. All of this laid the foundation for well, in 1999 when Johnson was writing, no one knew what. But he, at least, had an inkling, which on September 12, 2001, made his book look prophetic indeed. He emphasized one other phenomenon: Americans, he believed, had freed ourselves of any genuine consciousness of how we might look to others on this globe. With Blow-back, he aimed to rectify that, to paint a portrait of how that informal empire, and its historically unprecedented garrisoning of the world looked to others, and so explain why animosity and blow-back were building globally. After September 11, 2001, his book leaped to the center of the 9/11 display tables in bookstores nation wide and became a bestseller, while blow-back and that phrase unintended consequences made their way into everyday language.

Jim W. Dean: One Torpedo 7000 Tons of Explosives, 580 Men Gone!

Friendly Planes Do Not Fire, a Personal Story. This is the third anniversary that we have run the SS Paul Hamilton tragedy, the largest loss of life on a Liberty Ship during WWII. Each year a few more families of the 580 killed, find the article and contact me, most have known nothing but the date their ancestor was killed. Bob Jones widow Helen passed on all the archival material they dug out, after the 50 year classification had run out. I was in the unique position of course to publish it here, and will every year, as we continue to find more and more families. The surprise this year was to have the radio operator, Wayne Witt Bates, on the USS Mosley contact me with the startling revelation that when the torpedo bombers were coming in on a bow attack, they received a message of Friendly Planes Do not fire. This first wave went by the Mosley unmolested, and got the Paul Hamilton, the fortune of war. But in all the post action reports, this key radio message fell through the cracks. So we say thanks to Al Gore for inventing the Internet, without which we would never have been able to do any of this. It is all amazing teamwork from people who care, and that is a set up for a favor I want to ask you all. We have been posting queries on surname genealogy forums fishing to find more families of the 580 men, but the initial test got no bites. The KIA link has all the names in alphabetical order. If any of you readers have any of these surnames among your family, let's see if we can let more of these families know what really happened, and why. After the first publishing in 2011, I had been contacted by Chuck Wales, formerly the Navy Lt. and torpedo officer on the USS Landsdale, who was also torpedoed, and sunk during the same convoy attack. As luck would have it, he had lived 15 minutes from my mother's house for 55 years, and they had never met. I was able to arrange a surprise visit with a print new reporter along to record the event, for the photo above. Chuck is 91 now, still snow skiing, but sold his glider last year and I don't think he does canoe racing anymore. On this day, April 20th, 1944, the largest loss of life on a WWII Liberty ship took place when the SS Paul Hamilton was sunk with all hands. But these men were killed not once, but twice. Yes, the German Junkers torpedo bombers did their work. But as their various body parts rained down on the nearby ships of the convoy, no one knew then that details of the incident would be classified for 50 years. 

Amy Goodman: How Do We Know That the Boston Bombings Were an Act of Terrorism?

Authorities have used a public safety exception to delay reading Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda right, to remain silent, and to have an attorney present, a move that has sparked controversy. The Obama administration has been criticized in the past, for rolling back Miranda rights after unilaterally expanding the public safety exception in 2010. A group of Republican lawmakers, have also called for Tsarnaev to be held as an enemy combatant, but the Obama administration has signaled its intention to try him in civilian court. Constitutional lawyer, and Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald joins us to discuss the legal issues surrounding the case. It's sort of odd, that the debate is Lindsey Graham's extremist theory to hold Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, or rushing to give President Obama, credit for what ought to be just reflexive, which it is, if you arrest a US citizen on US soil of a crime, before you imprison him, you actually charge him with the crime, and give him the right to a lawyer, Greenwald says. The fact those are the two sort of extremes being debated, I think, is illustrative of where we have become. Amy Goodman: The Justice Department is expected to bring charges, as early as today, against 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is accused with his deceased older brother of the Boston Marathon bombings, that killed three people, and injured more than 170. An FBI high value detainee interrogation team is now in Boston Marathon bombings, that killed three people, and injured more than 170. An FBI high value detainee interrogation team is now in Boston to question the suspect, who remains hospitalized in Boston in critical but stable condition. There are conflicting reports about whether the college student has already begun responding to questions from interrogators, and to what extent he is even capable of speaking, given his injuries. Authorities say they plan to use a public safety exception, to delay reading Tsarnaev his Miranda rights to remain silent. and to have an attorney present. The decision to question the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, without an attorney present, has been criticized by some legal groups. In a statement, the Center for Constitutional Rights said, quote, However horrific the crime, continuing to erode constitutional rights invited continued abuse by law, that the person can be advised of his or her rights, and a determination can be made, whether there is probable cause to have arrested the person. And that is what really safeguards the rights is having the court involved in the process. The Obama administration in 2011, also said that they intend to seek legislation, to give them the power to delay that significantly in terrorism cases.     

Ellen Brown: The Tower of Basel: Secretive Plans for the Issuing of a Global Currency.

This carefully researched article by Ellen Brown, was first published in April 2009. It sheds light on the current crisis of the World monetary system. In an April 7,2009 article in the London Telegraph, titled The G20 Moves the World a Step Closer to a Global Currency, Ambrose Evans Pritchard wrote: A single clause in Point 19 of the communique issued by the G20 leaders, amounts to revolution in the global financial order. We have agreed to support a general SDR allocation, which will inject $250 bn into the world economy and increase global liquidity, it said. SDRs are Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic paper currency, issued by the International Monetary Fund, that has lain dormant for half a century. In effect, the G20 leaders have activated the IMFs power to create money, and begin global quantitative easing. In doing so, they are putting a de facto world currency into play. It is outside the control of any sovereign body. Conspiracy theorists will love it! Indeed they will. The article is subtitled, The world is a step closer to a global currency, backed by a global central bank, cloaked with the power to issue the global currency, and police monetary policy for all humanity? When the worlds central bankers met in Washington last September, they discussed what body might be in a position to serve in that awesome and fearful role. A former governor of the Bank of England stated: The answer might already be staring us in the face, in the form of the Bank for International Settlements. The IMF tends to couch its warnings about economic problems in a very diplomatic language, but the BIS is more independent and much better placed to deal with this, if given the power to do so. And if the vision of a global currency outside government control, does not set off conspiracy theorists, putting the BIS in charge of it surely will. The BIS has been scandal ridden, ever since it was branded with pro Nazi leanings in the 1930's. Founded in Basel, Switzerland, in 1930, the BIS has been called the most exclusive, secretive, and powerful supranational club in the world. Charles Higham wrote in his book Trading with the Enemy that by the late 1930s, the BIS had assumed an openly pro-Nazi bias, a theme that was expanded on the BBC Time-watch film titled Banking with Hitler, broadcast in 1998. In 1944, the American government backed a resolution at the Bretton Woods Conference, calling for the liquidation of the BIS, following Czech accusations that it was laundering gold stolen by the Nazis from occupied Europe, but the central bankers succeeded in quietly snuffing out the American resolution.   

Dr. Kevin Barrett: Holocaust history denial: A clear and present danger!

Bishop Richard Williamson has been prosecuted for Holocaust heresy. I used to believe in the Holocaust. Not as a religion, I've never been to any of the museum temples, or made a pilgrimage to Auschwitz, or pored over the sacred texts. And I never was stupid, or crazy enough to accept the Holocaust as a valid excuse for the Zionist theft of Palestine. If the Holocaust had anything to do with Israel, then Israel would have been established in Germany, not Palestine. In short, I believes in the Holocaust as history, because I assumed that 99% of Western academic historians can't be wrong. I assumed that about six million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis in concentration camps, mostly in gas chambers, as part of a preplanned effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe. As far as I knew, all of the reputable Historians believed this. The handful of dissenters, I assumed, were cranks of one sort or another. And though I had met many Muslim academic colleagues, who were Holocaust skeptics, I thought they were probably biased, due to their anti-Zionism. Then in 2006, out of the blue, for no apparent reason, I was attacked on Wikipedia as a holocaust denier. In fact, I was a well known skeptic about 9/11, not the Holocaust. I knew next to nothing about the controversies surrounding the "alleged" gas chambers. Wikipedia claimed I was a supporter of David Irving, Mark Green, and Ernst Zundel. In fact, I had never heard of Green, and barely even knew the names of Irving and Zundel. I had spent most of the 1990s reading every French literary classic for my French Literature MA, then learning Arabic, and studying Islam and Morocco for my Ph.D, while supporting my wife, and two small children, so I wasn't really paying attention to Holocaust controversy news. I tried to correct the erroneous information, which came from some crank's personal website, and had never been checked, much less corroborated, along with the dozens of other derogatory factual errors, on my Wikipedia page. The corrections would always be removed, and the lies, reinstated, by the next day. Sometimes it happened in a matter of hours. This was enough to make me slightly paranoid. But as hippies used to say,just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. Somebody was trying to frame me as a Holocaust denier, presumably to damage my credibility on 9/11. Why would they do that? By 2010 or so, I finally got around to reading a few books about the Holocaust controversies. The first book I read was Denying History, by Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman. It had been recommended as the best introduction to why the Holocaust deniers are wrong.

Jill Richardson: How Monsanto Went From Selling Aspirin to Controlling Our Food Supply!

Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world's top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It's time we take a closer look at who is controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch, recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto. Patty Lovera, Food and Water Watch assistant director, says they decided to focus on Monsanto, because they felt a need to put together a piece, where people can see all of the aspects of this company. It really strikes us, when we talk about how clear it is, that this chemical company that wanted to expand its reach, she says. A chemical company that started buying up seed companies. She feels it is important for food activists to understand all of the ties between the seeds and the chemicals. Monsanto was founded as a chemical company in 1901, named for the maiden name of its founder's wife. Its first product was the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company's own telling of its history emphasizes its agricultural products, skipping forward from its founding to 1945, when it began manufacturing agrochemicals like the herbicide 2,4-D. Prior to its entry into the agricultural market, Monsanto produced some harmless, even beneficial products like aspirin. It also made plastics, synthetic rubber, caffeine, and vanillin, an artificial vanilla flavoring. On the not so harmless side, it began producing toxic PCB's in the 1930's According to the new report, a whopping 99 percent of all PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyls, used in the US were produced at a single Monsanto plant in Sauget, Illinois. The plant churned out toxic PCBs from the 1930s, until they were banned in 1976. Used as coolants and lubricants in electronics, PCBs are a carcinogenic, and harmful to the liver, endocrine system, immune system, reproductive system, developmental system, skin, eye, and brain. Even after the initial 1982 cleanup of this plant, Sauget is still home to two Superfund sites. A Superfund site is defined by the EPA as an uncontrolled or abandoned place, where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people. This is just one of several Monsanto facilities that became Superfund sites. Despite its modern day emphasis on agriculture, Monsanto did not even create an agricultural division within the company until 1960. It soon began churning out new pesticides, each colorfully named under a rugged Western theme: Lasso, Roundup, Warrant, Lariat,Bullet, Harness, etc. 

Jason Langley: Silencing the British People, The Legacy of Thatcherism and the Iraq War!

It is often said that power corrupts, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. If a person or a group of people has the power to do as they wish, without fear of having to answer for their actions in a meaningful manner, would they feel obligated to listen to those who protest against their actions? Would they feel that those with less power than their own, are worthy of being heard? Since the War on Terror began, Britain has followed the example set by the US, clamping down on civil liberties, protest and dissent. Not all actions taken in this regard, have been related to the alleged threat of Islamic terrorism. Some have come about through a need to alter a historical narrative. Some have come about through chances offered by legal fallout, some have come about, in order to keep an agenda on track, and so on. Below are some examples of such moments in the recent history of Britain, where chances to silence, or at the very least, downplay dissent, have been seized upon with gusto by the  British elite. February 2003 saw the largest political protest in British history. An estimated two million Britons took to the streets of London, as part of a wider global movement to march against the looming Iraq war. The protest united people of all ages, ethnicities, faiths and political persuasions. The noise was deafening. A rolling forest of placards and flags covered the streets around the heart of the British capital, calling for peace. In places, parts of the route became so packed with marchers, that movement slowed to a standstill. The establishment's response to the march was to ignore it. Then Prime Minister Tony Blair, a disciple of Margaret Thatcher, was elected by a landslide in 1997. He dominated the British political landscape, and apparently became so used to getting his own way, that he felt the concerns of the protestors bore no consideration as his government continued to plan their attack against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Blair, with the backing of the media, had done everything possible to sell the Iraq War to the British public, a hindsight of which was the now infamous September Dossier. The dossier, among other things, alleged that Hussein would have been able to attack Europe with his fictitious arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, within forty five minutes of the order being given. On a related note, there is the case of Dr David Kelly. Kelly was a Ministry of Defense biological warfare expert, and former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, who came to public notice in July 2003, when he was revealed to be the source cited in a report by BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan. The report alleged that the dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been sexed up,, and that British intelligence were concerned about some of the claims made.

Roi Tov: Sharp Shift in Isreal's Strategy!

Few foreign leaders participated in Margaret Thatcher's funeral. Most allies of the UK sent mid range delegations, after all, few would like to be defined as Thatcherists. Even Prime Minister Cameron, when asked for the justification for the expensive funeral, similar to the one awarded to Winston Churchill, said that she had been the first female Prime Minister, avoiding to mention any of her monstrous actions. The sumptuous event was planned years ago, by Thatcher herself and a crypto Thatcherist, Prime Minister Tony Blair. The Big Ben was silenced during the event, but the bestial bells of fanatic ultra nationalism rung stronger than ever. A clear exception was Israel, which sent its Prime Minister and his Third Lady to the event. A wobbling Netanuyahu, who recently lost his place in the 2013 Time 100 most influential people to his #2, won't miss State funerals. Who knows? Strange accidents happen in Israel, as Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon and others can't testify. Sharp Shift Only yesterday, I commented on a self censorship of Hebrew media, that caught me by surprise. Yet, not everything is censored in Israel. Large military moves and substantial arrivals of military items from abroad enter this category. What is the point of censoring what everyone watching the Israeli ports can easily discover? What is the point of censoring the existence of a major drill, when troops can be seen moving unexpectedly? Thus, Israel discloses such information, hoping to stop the disclosure of secret details. This is not the only dramatic change. In 1992, following the Gulf War, Israel upgraded ots Aga, Hebrew acronym for Civil Defense, with the Home Front Command, its commander was upgraded from brigade general to major general. Over the years, the Command grew incredibly, absorbing funds that were needed for the air force. The mew Command was highly criticized by its disastrous performance during the 2006 War between Israel and Hezbollah. Yet, the problems went beyond its performance. Israel got clumsy. Aga worked under the Civilian Defense Law, which was inherited by the Home Front Command. A related organization is Israel Police, which operates under the Police Order. The choice between the two, while operating in civilian area is determined by the Army Law. The choice is done by the size of the event. Massive events are operated by the Home Front Command, smaller ones by the police. Over the years, Israel created a redundancy, which is criticized by citizens unwilling to be under the army orders during an emergency. The 2006 War proved them right.   

Tony Cartalucci: Contractors at Boston Marathon Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation.

What appear to be private contractors, wearing unmarked, matching uniforms, and operating an unmarked SUV, affixed with communication equipment near the finish line of the Boston Marathon shortly after the bomb blast, can be seen beforehand, standing and waiting just meters away from where the first bomb was detonated. The contractor types had moved away from the bomb's location, before it detonated, and could be seen just across the street, using communications equipment, and waiting for similar dressed and equipped individuals, to show up after the blasts. An already widely distributed photo, showing the contractor types on the bottom left, just left of where the bomb was placed and detonated. The men are wearing matching, unmarked uniforms, large black bags, and appear to be waiting, separately, and behind the rest of the crowd. In the upper left corner, a wooden structure forming one half of a temporary photography bridge over the finish line, can be seen and serves as a useful reference, when establishing the contractor types position in other photos. After the explosion, two of the contractors seen by the wall next to the bomb, appear across the street, both using communication equipment. This photo too has been distributed and enlarged many times across the internet. An unmarked SUV with considerable amount of communication gearon the roof appears, surrounded by identically dressed men. The vehicle parks near the bleachers. The men, numbering between 6-8, then begin tearing up the skirting around temporary bleachers erected for the event, opposite the explosion, before taping it off. Then, what an FBI bomb squad truck, pulls up directly behind the contractor types SUV, with a woman clearly wearing the letters FBI on her tactical vest, emerging and speaking with the contractor types. Together, they disappear from the scene, leaving their vehicles behind. What appears to be an FBI bomb squad truck pulls in, with a woman wearing what is clearly the letters FBI on her vest. She talks with two contractors and event staff tore up, is now taped off. The FBI truck and contractor SUV sit seemingly abandoned, neither the FBI agent, nor the contractors can be seen. What they did, or where they went remains so far. It should be noted, that with the exception of the contractor types, all other responders at the scene, including the FBI agent, can be clearly identified, from police to the fire department, to medics, and even individuals wearing vests wit BAA Physician written on them. It should also be noted that no other uniformed individuals can be seen standing near the bomb site from the contractor types.

Pravda.ru: USA loses the struggle against terrorism!

Is the Boston tragedy a continuation of September 11th? The explosions that rocked Boston on April 15th, provide some basis for an affirmative answer to this question. The US security is under serious threat, and the US government does not know where to look for its trail. Among the offended marathon participants, in the camp of patriotic groups, or Al Qaeda? The US authorities are forced to admit, that they do not know the organizers of the terrorist act, and finding them will not be easy. Barack Obama defined the explosion as terrorism, thus removing other possible versions. On April 16th, law enforcement officials said that the bombs that exploded in Boston, were made out of common pressure cookers stuffed with nails, ball bearings and gunpowder. Egg timers were used as bomb detonators. The authoritative source of US security officials, said that this pattern was not consistent with al Qaeda. But patterns may change over time, especially given the strengthening of control measures over the US citizens, tourists, migrants and persons illegally residing in the country. In addition, it cannot be ruled out, that the primitive bombs were made specifically in order to keep the investigation of terrorist attacks on the wrong track. Three people were killed in the attack: an 8 year old boy and two women, one of whom is a Chinese citizen, graduate of the University of Boston. All of them were among the spectators. The number of injured, according to some reports, exceeds 150 people. Of these, many are seriously injured, and some may remain permanently disabled. Why were the bombs not detected immediately? According to law enforcement, the bombs were hidden in inconspicuous sport bags, or backpacks with dark nylon, and left by a mentally unbalanced loner, perhaps someone among the failed marathon participants, the location of the murder weapon was chosen symbolically, the finish line as the end of life. The psychologists believe that the criminal was a lone terrorist, he could safely leave the bag on the pavement, in order to distract the police, and stand quietly near them until the  explosion. Doctors of Boston hospitals praised the medical staff working at the scene. They were able to send the injured to the hospitals, where each individual could be given the most effective medical care. Despite the extensive work of the police, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies, so far there is no accurate version, of what has happened. At this time, no one has claimed the responsibility for this terrorist act.   

Gordon Duff: Boston Terror: The Real Attack.Veterans TodayHad it Right!

They were set up, FBI followed them for years, Tsarnaev's mother to RT. The video below crediting Info Wars contains significant information. Lt. Col. Potter has less than half the story, washed clean of Israeli involvement and a clear background. However, I recommend the video just the same. What is sad, is that Sandy Hook was so obvious, and he never saw it coming. If we allow this outrage, the Boston false flag to stand, patsies blamed for an FBI/Mossad operation, we can only expect, not just more of the same, but Lt. Col. Potter has some of it right. This week's terror attack in Boston, is not the first incredible failure of intelligence, and law enforcement America has suffered. By incredible, I mean exactly that, not to be believed. Before the smoke had cleared, the Israeli Lobby and DEBKA had identified domestic terrorists with Mid East connections as the guilty parties. This, alone, was taken as a confirmation that a very real conspiracy was involved, this time the most obvious false flag terror attack yet. Highest sources weigh in on Boston Bombing. During 9/11, NORAD and the entire United States Air Force vaporized, just like the FBI, DHS and Boston PD security did. We are getting used to it, being lied to and frankly, being murdered as well. Within minutes of the Boston attack, America's intelligence and Special Operations community, put their back channel round robin into motion. This is how America's top intelligence operatives informally share sensitive information on threats. Those with the highest access to both human and signals intelligence, those tasked with tracking and killing terrorists came to a very startling conclusion. An American agency was involved, out first guess is that it is the FBI. HadI asked this question three years ago and did, I would have been called a conspiracy theorist, and, in fact, I was. Now I am told, Duff, you were right all along, we feel like such idiots. America's Special Operations community has, of late, been under attack. The group, long closely allied with their Israeli counterparts and still maintaining strong friendships with Israeli counterparts, is now skeptical of the souring relationship and Netanyahu's poor leadership. Moreover, many of America's elite warriors have been shocked to find groups they belonged to, listed as terrorist. Their conservative politics and patriotism, is now being characterized as a threat to national security. The new policy that has brought suspicion upon many of America's military, and intelligence leaders originates from Tel Aviv. None saw this coming, this betrayal. In 2005, President Bush appointed Michael Chertoff, an Israeli citizen, as director of the Department of Homeland Security. It was Chertoff's job, while Secretary of DHS, to place all law enforcement, counter terrorism and domestic surveillance operations under Israeli control. This was done by directing all contracts to Israeli companies, all equipment, all training and full access to all intelligence databases. American companies, even disabled veteran owned, were excluded until they took on Israeli partners.