The War Around Us

Scott Thill: 3 Ways to Expose Our Rotten Corporate State!

2012-01-29T03:26:00.000-08:00

He may no longer be running for president of the United States of South Carolina, but the Colbert Report's hyperreal satirist Stephen Colbert is still educating viewers on America's arcane political machinery, while schooling mainstream journalists on how to properly inform the citizenry. He's participated in the democratic process by recently launching the super PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and campaigning for office in both 2008 and 2012, and he's amassed a well-funded war chest of still unknown size, with which he plans on creating more attack ads to monkey-wrench the electoral status-quo, and perhaps more. Some in Colbert Nation, including this writer, spend much time dreaming that Colbert announces a surprise third-party run for the White House. If only to further illuminate the two-party system at its worst, and at best, to strike a blow for satirists and other culture jammers who would seriously think about local or national politics as a worthy side project. "The Yes Men come the closest to Colbert for using existing rules and structures to expose and satirize their intent," media theorist Douglas Rushkoff told AlterNet. "Of course, Timothy Leary ran for governor of California, and Abbie Hoffman levitated the Pentagon, but Colbert is clearly on a scale that would have been hard to imagine early on."

Donovan Slack: Obama hosts George HW and Jeb Bush at White House

2012-01-29T03:03:00.000-08:00

Unbeknownst to the press, President Obama met Friday evening with former president George HW Bush and his son, former Florida governor Jeb Bush in the Oval Office. White House officials did not list the meeting on the president's schedule, but released a photo on Flickr. According to the photo's time stamp, the meeting occurred shortly after 5 PM, about the time the president returned to the White House from a fundraiser. When asked what the men discussed, and why it wasn't on the schedule, the White House released a statement saying, "The three men enjoyed a personal visit in the Oval Office, as they have done on previous occasions when President Bush is in Washington." The Bushes are in town to attend the exclusive Alfalfa Club dinner Saturday, an annual get-together for Washington power brokers that Obama also is scheduled to attend, according to the Associated Press. The meeting came at an interesting time politically, just one day after Obama, in an interview with ABC News, blamed predecessor George W. Bush for policies that brought on the greatest recession since the Great Depression. He also blamed him for initiating the expansion of food stamp rolls. Jeb Bush has also played a critical role in the GOP presidential primary contest in Florida, primarily by saying he wouldn't play a role. His endorsement would have been key in the race, currently neck and neck between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, but Jeb Bush said last week that he would remain neutral.

Richard Lightbown: What does Libya tell us about intervention in Syria and Iran?t

2012-01-29T02:36:00.000-08:00

As regional war threatens drastic and unforeseen consequences in the Middle East, some commentators claim that humanitarian benefits justify Western intervention in repressive states. This claim is worth considering in the context of the events that have befallen Libya. No one should be under any illusions about the intentions of Western governments in Libya following their activities throughout the 42 years of Muammar Qadafi's rule. During this time there were 39 coup attempts inspired by US, British and French agencies, most of which were centered on Benghazi and the province of Cyrenaica. Many involved an attempt at assassination, as did the US fighter-bomber attack on Tripoli in 1986, in which eight of the 18 aircraft flying from Britain specifically targeted Col Qadafi's private residence. Qadafi's overthrow began as an uprising in Benghazi which followed a Facebook call, from London on 17 February 2011, to commemorate the 2005 massacre at Abu Salim prison. In response to the ensuing fighting, the UN Security Council unanimously approved resolution 1970 on 26 February. Calling for an end to violence, it required all member states to apply an arms embargo, which also prohibited the provision of technical assistance, training, finance and all other assistance related to military activities. It soon became clear that British forces were in breach of the resolution, when six members of the SAS were taken prisoner by rebels in Benghazi on 4 March. What the troop was trying to achieve, and what went wrong with the operation has never been revealed.

David Alexander: Pentagon cuts Reshape Military, trim Costs.

2012-01-28T04:09:00.000-08:00

The Pentagon unveiled a 2013 budget plan that would cut $487billion in spending over the next decade by eliminating nearly 100,000 ground troops, mothballing ships and trimming air squadrons in a bid to create a smaller, agile force with a new strategic focus. The funding request, which includes painful cuts that will be felt across the country, comes at a historic turning point for the military as it winds down 10 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and shifts its strategic focus to the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East. The budget plan, sharply criticized by some lawmakers, sets the stage for a new struggle between President Barack Obama's administration and Congress over how much the Pentagon should spend on national security as the country tries to curb its trillion-dollar budget deficits. "Make no mistake, the savings that we are proposing will impact 50 states and many districts, congressional districts across America," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a news conference at the Pentagon on Thursday. "This will be a test of whether reducing the deficit is about talk or action." Panetta, previewing a budget to be made public February 13, said he would ask for a $525 billion base budget for the 2013 fiscal year, the first time since the September 11, 2001, attacks that the Pentagon has asked for less than the previous year. Panetta said he would seek $88.4 billion to support overseas combat operations, primarily in Afghanistan, down from $115 billion in 2012 largely due to the end of the war in Iraq and the withdrawal of US forces there at the end of last year.

Brian Ross: Bribes, Chinese Mob Ties Alleged at Gingrich Money Man!

2012-01-28T03:42:00.000-08:00

The casino company run by the principal financial backer of Newt Gingrich's presidential bid, Sheldon Adelson, has been under criminal investigation for the last year by the Department of Justice and the Securities Exchange Commission for alleged bribery of foreign officials, according to corporate documents. In a separate civil lawsuit, a former executive of the company has alleged that Adelson ordered him to keep quiet about sensitive issues at the Sands casinos on the Chinese Island of Macau, including the casinos' alleged "involvement with Chinese organized crime groups, known as Triads, connected to the junket business." The triads, Chinese organized crime syndicates, are allegedly involved in organizing high stakes gambling junkets for wealthy Chinese travelers. In its filings with the SEC, Adelson's company says it became aware of the investigation in February 2011, when it received a subpoena from the SEC requesting "documents relating to its compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act." The company said it "intends to cooperate with the investigation," which it said may have been triggered by the allegations in the lawsuit by Steven C. Jacobs, a former Sands executive who says he helped run the Macau operation. The federal investigation was first reported last year by Las Vegas newspapers and the financial press.

theguardian: Iran won't build nuclear weapon in 2012!

2012-01-28T03:16:00.000-08:00

Iran is unlikely to move towards building a nuclear weapon in 2012, because it cannot yet produce enough weapon-grade uranium and is being deterred by sanctions and the prospect of an Israeli attack, according to a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security (Isis). The report by the Institute founded by nuclear expert David Albright offers a more temperate view of Iran's nuclear program than some of the heated rhetoric that has surfaced since the United States and its allies stepped up sanctions on Teheran. The Isis analysis is revealed after a prediction that Israel will attack Iran in 2012 to try and stop any nuclear bomb program. "Iran is unlikely to decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is today," the report said. The US and Iran are engaged in a war of words over sanctions, with Tehran threatening to retaliate by blocking oil shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The United States has said it will not allow that to happen. There are concerns the situation might spiral into a military confrontation that neither side wants. The Isis report, financed by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, says Iran had not made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. USIP is an independent, non-partisan center created by the US Congress in 1984 that receives federal government funding. "Iran is unlikely to break out in 2012, in great part because it is deterred from doing so," says the Isis report, which has not yet been publicly released.

Michael Webster: America is no longer the Land of the Free!

2012-01-27T03:13:00.000-08:00

The United States is no longer the shining light leading the rest of the world in regards to freedom and liberty. The President signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) under the radar late on New Years Eve of 2011. The new law takes away American basic constitutional rights. The new law now in effect robs all Americans of our due process of law, which nullifies many principles and rights afforded all Americans in our Constitution and Bill of Rights guaranteed by our Founding Fathers. These rights were given to us by our founding fathers, and many Americans have given their lives to protect these basic and fundamental rights. President Obama has just stated a policy that he can have any American citizen killed without any charge, without any review, except his own. If he is satisfied that you are a terrorist, he says that he can kill you anywhere in the world, including on American soil, anywhere in the United States. Americans can be arrested and taken to jail without the right of a phone call, right to a lawyer, and without being charged with any crime. With this new law in place, law enforcement can break down your door at your home without warrant, and take you and any member of your family into custody, whisking you off to jail without any charge. He can imprison you in a foreign country and keep you locked up forever, totally without any due process. By this law, enforcement is granted the right to torture American citizens without charge, creating a Guantanamo Prison Style detention for anyone deemed a threat by American authorities. This new law explicitly creates a police state in America.

William Pfaff: Is a Nuclear Iran Really to Be Feared?

2012-01-27T02:44:00.000-08:00

The obsession of the American foreign policy community, as well as most American and a good many international politicians, by the myth of Iran's "existential" threat to Israel, brings the world steadily closer to another war in the Middle East. The debate over Iran takes for granted that the country soon will have nuclear weapons and would use them. The debate back in 2002-03 over Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of nuclear weapons did the same. After the United States had gone to war against Iraq, no such weapons were found to exist. The actual winner of the war that followed the American invasion of Iraq was Israel, which saw Iraq, its principal regional rival destroyed at no cost to itself. The military victor of the war, but politico-strategic loser, was the United States, which destroyed Iraq, a country in no position to harm the United States, at a trillion-dollar cost, enormous human suffering and waste, and the effective transfer of Iraq to Iran's zone of military and strategic influence. The present debate over Iran's nuclear program, like the pre-2003 debate concerning Iraq's nonexistent WMD program, has never extended to the most important question in the matter: What difference would it make if Iran did have nuclear weapons? What would it do with them, considering the nuclear deterrent force possessed by Israel, generally thought to be the fifth or sixth largest nuclear power in the world? Between the start of the nuclear era to the end of the Cold War, tens if not thousands of earnest scholars, strategists, pacifist activists, journalistic commentators, politicians and prospective victims of nuclear war brooded over how nuclear weapons might be used in war. They cannot stop aggression, but they will exact a serious penalty for it!

The Telegraph: Iran will not be hurt by Oil Embargo!

2012-01-27T02:14:00.000-08:00

Speaking to state television, Mr Ahmadinejad declared: "Once our trade with Europe was around 90 percent, but now it has reached to 10 percent, and we are NOT seeking this 10 percent. Experience has shown that the Iranian nation will NOT be hurt." "For the past 30 years the Americans have not been buying oil from us. Our central bank has no relations with you," he added. Mr Ahmadinejad however reiterated that the Islamic republic is ready to sit down with world powers for talks on its nuclear program. "They have this excuse that Iran is dodging negotiations, while this is not the case," he said. "Why should we run away from the negotiations?" The EU voted on Monday to ban new oil contracts, and to end existing contracts by July 1. Iran has threatened to to retaliate by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the main export route for supplies of about 17mbpd from the Middle East. On Sunday, the HMS Argyll was part of a flotilla of warships that entered the Strait. Meanwhile a draft report by the Institute for Science and International Security said Iran is unlikely to move toward building a nuclear weapon this year because it does not yet have the capability to produce enough weapon-grade uranium. The report by the institute founded by nuclear expert David Albright offered a more temperate view of Iran's nuclear program than some of the heated rhetoric that has surfaced since the United States and its allies stepped up sanctions on Tehran.

Reuters Reporter: How growing numbers of wealthy Americans aregetting ready for Armageddon!

2012-01-26T02:49:00.000-08:00

When Patty Tegeler looks out the window of her home overlooking the Appalachian Mountains in southwestern Virginia, she sees trouble on the horizon. 'In an instant, anything can happen,' she told Reuters. 'And I firmly believe that you have to be prepared.' Ms Tegeler is among a growing subculture of Americans who refer to themselves informally as 'preppers.' Some are driven by fear of imminent societal collapse, others are worried about terrorism, and many have a vague concern that an escalating series of natural disasters is leading to some type of environmental cataclysm. They are following in the footsteps of hippies in the 1960s who set up communes to separate themselves from what they saw as a materialistic society, and the survivalists in the 1990s who were hoping to escape the dictates of what they perceived as an increasingly secular and oppressive government. Preppers, though are worried about no government. Ms Tegeler, 57, has turned her home in rural Virginia into a 'survival center,' complete with a large generator, portable heaters, water tanks, and a two-year supply of freeze-dried food that her sister recently gave her as a birthday present. She says that in case of emergency, she could survive indefinitely in her home, and she thinks that emergency could come soon. 'I think this economy is about to fall apart,' she said. A wide range of vendors market products to preppers, mainly online. They sell everything from water tanks to guns to survival skills. Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck seems to preach preppers' message when he tells listeners: 'It's never too late to prepare for the end of the world as we know it.'

Martin Evans: Nat Rothschild seeks 'very substantial' damages! y

2012-01-26T02:20:00.000-08:00

Nat Rothschild, one of Britain's wealthiest men, has launched a High Court action after he was accused of being the "puppet-master" behind a controversial deal involving Lord Mandelson and the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Billionaire financier Mr Rothschild, 40, who is now based in Switzerland, is demanding "very substantial" damages after a story appeared in the Daily Mail in May 2010, accusing him of arranging a meeting at which a $500 million aluminium deal was struck. According to the article, Mr Rothschild, who was educated at Eton and Oxford and is heir to to the Rothschild banking dynasty, deliberately used Lord Mandelson in order to impress Mr Deripaska. Mr Rothschild's counsel, Hugh Tomlinson QC, said the story was extremely damaging to his client's reputation as a leading figure in the business world. He told the judge, Mr Justice Tugendhat, who was hearing the case at London's High Court without a jury, that while Lord Mandelson had been the main focus of the article, it portrayed Mr Rothschild in a very negative light. The suggestion was, he explained, that his client had acted as a kind of "puppet-master" who deliberately engineered a meeting at a Moscow restaurant in order to help the deal to go through.

Helena Smith: Greece Names and Prosecutes Tax Evaders!

2012-01-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

Singer Tolis Voskopoulos and retired basketball player Michael Misounof among 4,000 citizens identified. Prospects of Greece securing a debt deal that might save the eurozone from further turmoil were eclipsed on Monday by the news that some of the nation's leading celebrities have been hoodwinking the taxman for years. As the world frets over the country's increasingly unmanageable debt burden, the finance ministry has revealed that 4,151 Greeks owe C14.nbn to the state, more tha the C14.5bn bond repayment Athens has to make in March. The list includes the singer Tolis Voskopoulos, a former basketball star, Michael Misounof and high-profile entrepreneurs, many of them behind bars. Fifteen offenders owed more than C100m each in back taxes with one man, an accountant serving several life sentences, owing C952m. Greece is estimated to have lost about C15bn in unpaid taxes according to an EU report released in November. The nearly C152bn owed by those named and shamed on Monday is the equivalent of 0.7% of the country's gross economic output. The dodgers had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide earnings, often stashing their money in offshore accounts. Tax evasion is seen as the single biggest drain on revenues with EU and IMF officials, blaming the country's missed budget targets on this dodge. With ordinary citizens hard hit by rising inflation, deepening recession and repeated wage and pension cuts, Athens' ten-week-old interim government has moved speedily to prosecute tax evaders with culprits being arrested and charged for the first time. "It is no longer easy to be a tax evader in Greece," said George Pagoulatus, a senior adviser to prime minister Lucas Papademos.

Emily Gosden: Tony Hayward Accused of 'lying' over Gulf Spill!

2012-01-25T13:34:00.000-08:00

Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP, has been accused of giving untruthful evidence to US Congress, by plaintiffs suing for damages over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In court filings, lawyers argue that Mr Hayward "at best, has a unique view of the truth", citing his congressional testimony from June 2010, in which they claim he was untruthful over the the scope of BP's internal investigation into the disaster. The allegations were made in response to BP's attempts to preclude parts of Mr Hayward's deposition, when he was questioned by the plaintiff's lawyers in preparation for the court case, from being used in evidence at the trial on the grounds that he was asked "improper questions". In a 'motion in limine', BP's lawyers argue that Mr Hayward faced "questions posed in bad faith or aimed at unreasonably annoying, embarrassing, or oppressing the deponent and queries seeking opinions and conclusions about BP's legal responsibilities". Lawyers for the claimants responded with the allegations that Mr Hayward had been untruthful before Congress, claiming it was therefore "proper to question his veracity". BP said some of the issues raised in the deposition had been consistent with official investigations. Mr Hayward declined to comment.

Brig Nadir Mir: Ron Paul - The American for Real Change!

2012-01-25T07:09:00.000-08:00

Ron Paul, among Republican Party Candidates for the 2012 US Presidential elections, is the American for real change. Reminding the world of virtues that had made the USA a model for the world in yester years. Like many Great Americans, he is honest, brave, smart, honorable, generous and futuristic. Ron Paul, a suave politician reminds folks of the American Revolutionary Spirit of 1776. Of the courage to stand up for truth, challenging conventional wisdom and chiseling a pragmatic road map for the future. Cognizant of the fact that a Neo-con led decade of 2000-2010 had ruined America, he advocates Neo atonement and redemption. As a patriotic American, he knows the good hearted people of our USA were again being led astray by the pied pipers cabal of Globalists, Military-Industrial Complex and Neo-con remnants. This time the issue is more serious than declining at home and being over stretched abroad. If the War Lobby-cum Globalists have their way, they may drive our USA into a World War, as a Ron Paul supporter, Benton exclaimed. 'We need another armed conflict, like we need a hole in our heads!' Attacking Iran or Pakistan will be, as Julius Caesar once said: "Crossing the Rubicon". Putin had earlier reportedly told his Generals: "Prepare for Armageddon!" Now, after alleged interference from the west in Russian Politics has been termed as 'an act of war' by some Moscow Quarters. The Chinese Navy was recently put on high alert by Beijing. Russia-China had coordinated their stance on Syria, to block the NATO onslaught. War beyond Syria, into Iran and Pakistan will spiral out of control as a regional Nuclear World War.

John Pilger: The World War on Democracy!!

2012-01-25T06:18:00.000-08:00

Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people's resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos Islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, "Keep smiling girls!"Sitting in her kitchen in Maritius many years later, she said, "I didn't have to be told to smile. I was a happy child, because my roots were deep in the islands, my paradise. My great-grandmother was born there, I made six children there. That's why they couldn't legally throw us out of our homes, they had to terrify us into leaving or force us out. At first, they tried to starve us. The food ships stopped arriving then. They spread rumors we would be bombed, then they turned on our dogs." In the early 1960s the Labor government of Harold Wilson secretly agreed to a demand from Washington that the Chagos archipelago, a British colony, be "swept" and "sanitized" of its 2,500 inhabitants so that a military base could be built on the principal island, Diego Garcia. "They knew we were inseparable from our pets," said Lisette, "When the American soldiers arrived to build the base, they backed their big trucks against the brick shed where we prepared the coconuts. Hundreds of our dogs had been rounded up and imprisoned there. Then they gassed them through tubes from the trucks' exhausts. You could hear them crying."

Sara Flounders: Resist US War Threats on Iran!

2012-01-25T05:46:00.000-08:00

There is growing apprehension that through miscalculation, deliberate provocation or a staged false flag operation, a US war with Iran is imminent. The dangerous combination of top US officials' public threats, the Pentagon's massive military deployment, continued drone flights and industrial sabotage against Iran provides an ominous warning. The corporate media have been more than willing to cheer industrial sabotage, computer viruses and targeted assassinations. War maneuvers with Israel scheduled for mid-January were suddenly postponed January 15 until May or later. The US Congress overwhelmingly voted to include binding provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, and President Obama signed the legislation Dec. 31, ordering Iran's economic strangulation. These NDAA provisions demand that every other country in the world join this economic blockade of Iran or face US sanctions themselves. This itself is an act of war. Iran has directly charged the CIA for the January 11 assassination of physicist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, which has outraged Iranians. Roshan is the fourth scientist killed in five targeted assassinations in two years. Whether or not a war will actually erupt, it is essential to look at the powerful forces that lay the groundwork for such a conflagration. A US war would kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians and create region-wide destabilization. It would cause a wild, speculative hike in oil and gas prices, devastating fragile economies of the poorest countries and unhinging the increasingly shaky euro-zone. Revolutionary Marxists like Fidel Castro, political leaders in China and Russia, and even a hardened Israeli general have joined many political commentators to warn that a US or US-supported Israeli attack on Iran could quickly become a far wider war.

Pamela Owen: Newspaper Publisher Apologises for saying Israel should Assassinate Obama!

2012-01-24T05:25:00.000-08:00

The publisher of a Jewish newspaper who suggested that Israel assassinate Barack Obama in a weekly column, has apologized. Andrew Adler made the controversial statement in the Atlanta Jewish Times, a paper which serves the Jewish community in Atlanta, US. He claimed ordering an assassination of President Obama could be one of three ways to protect the people of Israel. Mr Adler suggested that attacking Hezbollah and Hamas or ordering the destruction of Iran's nuclear facilities were also a possibility. In the original article, he said: "Yes, you read "three" correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. "Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this is an almost unfathomable idea, which has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles? 'Another way of putting "three" in perspective goes something like this: How far would you go to save a nation comprised of seven million lives, Jews, Christians and Arabs alike? 'You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.' Mr Adler was presenting a hypothetical situation from the perspective of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's potentially disastrous conflicts with the Arab world. He claimed he has not received this much reaction about anything he has written since the 1970s. Mr Adler has now issued a formal apology and insisted he only wrote the piece to provoke a reaction from his readers.

Stephen Sniegoski: Gingrich Backer is Sheldon Adelson!

2012-01-24T04:57:00.000-08:00

Gingrich's faltering presidential campaign was completely resuscitated by a 5 million donation from Las Vegas casino king and super-Zionist Sheldon Adelson. According to Wikipedia, Adelson is currently the 8th wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $23.3 billion. Rising from the ashes, Gingrich now has won the South Carolina primary and has a decent chance of becoming the Republican presidential nominee. Adelson has been the major backer of Gingrich for some time. A Washington Post article on the Adelson-Gingrich connection, though kept out of the first section of the paper states: "Perhaps no other major presidential candidate in recent times has had his fortune based so squarely on the contribution of a single donor, as Gingrich has on Adelson, who spent millions in support of Gingrich and his causes over the past five years." As the Washington Post points out, Adelson and his Israeli-born wife, Miriam, have spent time and money lobbying for a bill to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Gingrich has promised that his first executive order as president would be the embassy move. Adelson is an ardent Zionist. Since 2007 the Adelson Family Foundation has made contributions totaling $100 million to Birthright Israel, which finances Jewish youth trips to Israel. Adelson is such a hard-line Zionist that he even stopped supporting AIPAC when it appeared to support a 2007 peace initiative championed by Olmert, President Bush, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

David Swanson: War and Being and Nothingness!

2012-01-23T04:37:00.000-08:00

The best book I've read in a very long time is a new one: "The End of War" by John Horgan. Its conclusions will be vigorously resisted by many, and yet, in a certain light, considered perfectly obvious to some others. The central conclusion, that ending the institution of war is entirely up to us to choose, was, arguably, reached by among many others before and since, John Paul Sartre sitting in a cafe utilizing exactly no research. Horgan is a writer for "Scientific American," and approaches the question of whether war can be ended as a scientist. It's all about research. He concludes that war can be ended, has in various times and places been ended, and is in the process of being ended on the earth right now. The war abolitionists of the 1920s Outlawry movement would have loved this book, would have seen it as a proper extension of the ongoing campaign to rid the world of war. But it is a different book from theirs. It does not preach the immorality of war. That idea, although proved truer than ever by the two world wars, failed to prevent the two world wars. When an idea's time has come and also gone, it becomes necessary to prove to people that the idea wasn't rendered impossible or naive by "human nature" or grand forces of history, or any other specter. Horgan, in exactly the approach required, preaches the scientific observation of the success, albeit incomplete as yet, of preaching the immorality of war.

David Swanson: Constitutional Amendment to Create Public Financing.i

2012-01-23T04:11:00.000-08:00

I recently recommended a comprehensive Constitutional amendment addressing the corruption of our elections. The largest piece of it, largely inspired by an amendment drafted by Russell Simmons, had not been introduced in Congress, until now. Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just introduced HJRes 100, which proposes this Constitutional Amendment: Section 1. All Campaigns for President and Members of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate shall be financed entirely with public funds. No contributions shall be permitted to any candidate for Federal office from any other source, including the candidate. Section 2. No expenditures shall be permitted in support of any candidate for Federal office, or in opposition to any candidate for Federal office, from any other source, including the candidate. Nothing in this section shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press. Section 3. The Congress shall, by statute, provide limitations on the amounts and timing of the expenditures of such public funds. Section 4. The Congress shall, by statute, provide criminal penalties for any violation of this Article. Section 5. The Congress shall have the power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Bob Unruh: Judge Whacks Obama in Eligibility Case

2012-01-23T03:46:00.000-08:00

A Georgia judge has refused a demand from Obama to quash a subpoena to appear at a series of administration hearings Jan.26 at which residents of the state are challenging, as allowed under a state law, his name on the 2012 presidential ballot. WND reported this week when Obama outlined a defense strategy for a number of state-level challenges to his candidacy in 2012, which argue that states have nothing to do with the eligibility of presidential candidates. "Presidential electors and Congress, not the state of Georgia, hold the constitutional responsibility for determining the qualifications of presidential candidates," Obama's lawyer argued in a motion to quash a subpoena for him to appear at the hearings in Atlanta Jan. 26. "The election of President Obama by the presidential electors, confirmed by Congress, makes the documents and testimony sought by plaintiff irrelevant," the lawyer said. Judge Michael M. Malihi, however, took a different view. "Defendant argues that 'if enforced, the subpoena requires him to interrupt duties as president of the United States' to attend a hearing in Atlanta, Georgia. However, defendant fails to provide any legal authority to support his motion to quash the subpoena to attend," he wrote in his order, released today!

Siv O'Neall: Hunger is a 'Weapon of Mass Destruction'.

2012-01-22T06:52:00.000-08:00

Every five seconds, a child under 10 dies of hunger. Thirty-five million people die each year from hunger or its immediate aftermath. One billion people are permanently and severely malnourished, and the situation is becoming increasingly catastrophic. In his latest book "Mass Destruction, the Geopolitics of Hunger, Jean Ziegler talks about the current state of the world and the neoliberal politics of starvation of the poor, which has led to a crisis situation amounting to calculated murder. What we are witnessing today is the worst hunger crisis in human history. It is all because of human greed, colossal mismanagement for profit. Professor Ziegler deals in detail with the various causes of the current worldwide hunger disaster, which could have been avoided. This crisis is not determined by fate. The world could perfectly well provide food for 12 million people, almost double of the present population of 7 million. So what made this murderous situation possible, where thousands of people are dying (37,000 every day) from lack of food and clean water. It could have been avoided. It should not be happening: The goals of the agro-industry, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill and Bunge, et al. is to suck the life out of small farmers all over the world, especially in Africa and southern Asia.

Eric Walberg: The Afghan Dust is Settling!!

2012-01-22T06:21:00.000-08:00

Yes, it really is another Vietnam, and just as in 1972, presidential elections will make no difference. Scarcely a word is heard about foreign affairs amid US election talk, despite the many fires around the world that the US military is either stoking or trying to douse, depending on your point of view. Other than Republican contender Ron Paul, not a serious candidate for the mainstream, no one questions the plans for war on Iran, Israel's continued expansion in the Occupied Territories, or US plans to end the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The problem is that decisions about these vital American policies are not for mere presidents or presidential hopefuls to mull over. The one principled decision that US President Obama made, his first upon coming to office, was to announce that he would close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year. After all, he had voted against his predecessor's ill-fated invasion of Iraq, and it was on this basis that he was able to energize an otherwise an otherwise disillusioned Democratic base and surge past the more acceptable white alternatives Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Obama's record on foreign policy has been shocking in retrospect. His call from Cairo for a new dispensation in the Middle East soon after his vow to close Guantanamo, along with this vow, are now in history's dustbin.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey: Afghanistan: NATO's drug paradise!

2012-01-22T05:56:00.000-08:00

The Taliban government in Afghanistan was fighting against the production of opium and had greatly reduced it. With their collective resources, armies and wisdom of NATO's 40 nations firmly entrenched in the country for over a decade, the findings of the latest UN report are a disgrace. What NATO wanted in Afghanistan we all know, and this was very clear to all, before the Mujaheddin were launched by the FUKUS-Axis (France, UK, US and Israel) in the 1970s to destabilize the only socially progressive government. Afghanistan had provided good governance for all its citizens, including women and children, in an inclusive society devoid of gender-based exclusion. The FUKUS-Axis, as usual, could not have cared less about human rights, women's rights or children's rights, as it launched the Mujaheddin through the Pakistani Madrassah, armed, aided and abetted them and threw them into battle against the Soviet Armed Forces. When the Mujaheddin morphed into the Taliban movement, women's rights were suppressed, but so was the production of opium. Under NATO, the drug barons apparently have a free hand to engage in what they know best, how to produce as much heroin as possible to flood the streets of our cities, enriching the handful who control this evil trade.

Bill Moyers: Why I am Returning to the Air!

2012-01-21T06:51:00.000-08:00

You already may have heard that I'd be coming back in January with a new series on the public television station nearest you, but you may not have heard exactly why. It's not just that I lack retirement skills, as my wife and co-editor, Judith, keeps reminding me. Or that the squeaky rocking chair on the front porch got on my nerves. I'm coming back because in tumultuous times like these, I relish the company of people who try to make sense of the tumult. These are the people I'll bring to our new broadcast, Moyers & Company. Journalism has long been for me a continuing course in adult education. Given what's happening in this country, it's time to sign up for more classes. The lack of civility and common sense that has paralyzed our democracy, the vast economic and social inequality that sends both left and right raging in the streets, the corrosive influence of money in politics, we're in a tailspin with little hope for a course correction from our elected leadership or corporate-dominated media. The need for voices of reason, simple and eloquent, has rarely been stronger. Those voices, whether they be from artist or social critic, philosopher or poet, historian or physicist, can bring us truth, inspiration, even hope.

Dr. Mercola: Why is the US Doubling Its Pharmaceutical Protection?Protection?

2012-01-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

The US government has awarded a $433-million contract to pharmaceutical company Siga Technologies for 1.7 million doses of an experimental smallpox drug called ST-246 (Tecovirimat). In this time of limited resources and heavy budget deficits, the decision to spend nearly half a billion dollars to stockpile a drug of questionable safety and effectiveness, for a strictly theoretical danger, is puzzling, and that is an extreme understatement. Siga's ST-246, which reportedly works by blocking the ability of the smallpox virus to spread to other cells, has been granted "fast-track" status by the US Food and Drug Administration. Under this accelerated approval process, experimental drugs are brought to the market sooner, even though they've only been tested on a small number of people, and their effects and safety risks are nit clearly understood. Unfortunately, there are serious, and sometimes fatal consequences of bringing drugs to market without adequate safety testing, and its unclear why there is an urgent need for this drug that would warrant "fast-track" approval. Even Siga's Web site notes smallpox is "no longer found in the natural environment."

President Obama Seeks Grater Power To Shrink The Fed

2012-01-21T00:43:00.000-08:00

President Barack Obama is asking Congress for the power to shrink the federal government and merge federal agencies in an effort to make government more efficient and consumer friendly. The president is calling it "a big idea". Obama is trying to rally Republicans in Congress to get behind the plan, which would save $3 billion over 10 years. Under the proposal, six major trade and commerce agencies with overlapping programs would be merged. The Commerce Department would be among those that would cease to exist. President Ronald Reagan is the last president who had the type of reorganizational power that Obama is seeking from Congress. President Barack Obama will ask Congress on Friday for greater power to shrink the federal government, and he would start by trying to merge six major trade and commerce agencies whose overlapping programs can be baffling to business, the White House said Friday. The Commerce Department would be among those that would cease to exist. Obama will call on Congress to give him a type of reorganizational power last held by a president when Ronald Reagan was in office.

Marjorie Cohn: Pressure Israel, Not Iran

2012-01-21T00:23:00.000-08:00

Neocons in Israel and the United States are escalating their rhetoric to prepare us for war with Iran. Even the infamous John Yoo, architect of George W Bush's illegal torture and spying programs, is calling on the Republican presidential candidates to "begin preparing the case for a military strike to destroy Iran's nuclear program." Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the legal right to produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has found no evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said on CBS that Iran is not currently trying to build a nuclear weapon. Nevertheless, the United States and Israel are mounting a campaign of aggression against Iran. The United States has imposed punishing sanctions against Iran that are crippling Iran's economy, and pressuring other countries and strong-arming financial institutions to stop buying oil from Iran, the world's third largest exporter. The Obama administration is also preparing new punitive measures that target the Central Bank of Iran.

Steven Erlanger and Alissa J. Rubin: France Weighs Pulout after 4 of its Soldiers are Killed!

2012-01-20T23:43:00.000-08:00

President Nicolas Sarkozy of France suspended military training and assistance for Afghan forces on Friday and said he would consider an early withdrawal from Afghanistan after an Afghan soldier shot and killed four French soldiers on a base in eastern Afghanistan. The killings are designed to sap Western moral and hasten the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan sooner than agreed NATO deadline of 20 of the end of 2014, when Afghan forces are supposed to be ready to defend the country on their own. A rising number of the attacks have also been borne of simmering animosity between coalition forces and the Afghan they fight alongside and train. With many European countries facing unprecedented economic pressures at home, such attacks by Afghan soldiers on foreign troops have added to public questioning of the value of continued involvement involvement in Afghanistan. If France were to reduce its troops early or precipitously, it could spur other countries to follow suit, Western and Afghan officials warned. France has been a firm ally of the United States in Afghanistan, with the fourth-largest contingent of troops, according to NATO figures, and 82 French soldiers have died, many of them killed in fighting in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan, where Friday's shooting occurred. Facing a fierce battle for his reelection, Mr. Sarkozy said that security had better improve in Afghanistan if France were going to stay.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: Privatization and Empire-Building!

2012-01-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

The following is a 2011 article by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya for the Italian journal Eurasia about the manipulation of national constitutions as a neo-colonial means of empire-building. The article presents an important overview of the US empire building process: The USA has re-written the constitution of vanquished nations since the Second World War. In the last two decades, however, Washington has managed to totally restructure vanquished states economically and politically by de-centralizing them and legalizing foreign tutelage over their political structure and their national economies. From the former Yugoslavia to Afghanistan and Iraq, this process has gone hand-in-hand with war and both an immediate and extended foreign military presence. The new national constitutions of these countries have been central to the process and opened the door for the integration of these states into Washington's empire-building project. The geography of a nation is also fixed in its national constitution, such as the state's definitions of its own national and internal borders. Taking this observation one step further, it has to be said that constitutions can also be utilized and redefined to meet specific geo-political objectives. This is where an important and very relevant modern geo-political issue comes into the forefront of analysis when looking at countries that have been at war with the United States of America and its allies. Looking back at the Second World War, the constitutions of Japan and Germany were re-written after their defeats either directly by Washington or under Allied supervision. The Pentagon also erected military bases in both Germany and Japan that began to alarm Soviet leaders. The reconfiguring of both Germany and Japan served Washington's geo-political interests. This is evident when studying the Japanese Constitution, which was written by the US military: Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution renounces Japan's sovereign right to declare war or to maintain a standing navy, air force, and army. Japan was effectively neutralized by its new national constitution as a potential military rival or threat in East Asia and the Pacific.

Tom Burghardt: Terror Attacks, US Israeli War Games!

2012-01-20T02:46:00.000-08:00

Amid rising tensions over bogus Western claims that Iran plans to build nuclear weapons, upcoming American war games with Israel have the potential of escalating into a deadly confrontation. A miscalculation, or deliberate provocation by the West, designed to maneuver the Iranians into "firing the first shot," could have disastrous consequences far beyond the confines of the Persian Gulf. That provocation wasn't long in coming! Despite an agreement reached by Iran with the P 5+1 group of nations (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany), to restart talks in Turkey over the nuclear issue, the CIA-Mossad-Mek terror campaign took a dark turn this week; a sign that the imperialist powers, spearheaded by the United States, aim to scupper negotiations even before they start. On Tuesday, an Iranian university professor, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 32, a chemistry expert and director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was murdered after two assailants on a motorcycle attached magnetic bombs to his car. Analyst Richard Silverstein wrote on the Tikun Olam web site Wednesday that "my own confidential Israeli source confirms today's murder was the work of the Mossad and MEK, as have been a number of previous operations I've reported here." Silverstein averred that "the method recalls another series of assassinations that occurred of Fereidoun Abbassi Davani (who was seriously wounded) and his colleague Majid Shahriari (who was killed). Today's killing occurred two years to the day after the assassination of another scientist, Massoud Ali Mohammadi." According to Fars News Agency, the blast which killed Roshan "also wounded two other Iranian nationals in Seyed Khandan neighborhood in Northern Tehran."

Matthew Rosenberg: Afghan Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces!

2012-01-20T02:10:00.000-08:00

American and other coalition forces are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report obtained by The New York Times. A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust runs deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan. Underscoring the danger, four NATO service members were killed, and a number were wounded on Friday, when a gunman wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon on them, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan where the incident occurred and a Western official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. The Afghan police official, Asdullah Hamidi, said the shooting happened in Tagab District, an area that is viewed as dangerous and dominated by insurgent forces. French soldiers make up the majority of the forces operating in the area. The gunman is in custody, a NATO official said.

Dr. Ismail Salami: Nuclear Assassinations are the Tip of the Iceberg!

2012-01-19T02:10:00.000-08:00

"I saw a motorcycle. They were wearing ski masks, black ski masks. They were two people. I saw the motorcycle speed by. I saw them. It seems as if they had something in their hands," this is how a female witness described the scene of the Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan. As the blade of blame is being directed against the CIA and Mossad for orchestrating the brutal assassination of the 32-year-old Iranian scientist in broad daylight in Tehran on Wednesday morning. "I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran," US Defense Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters on Thursday. Also, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the US had nothing to do with the assassination. "We were not involved in any way, in any way, with regards to the assassination that took place in Iran," he said. "I'm not sure who was involved, but I can tell you one thing: the United States was not involved in that kind of effort. That's not what the United States does." Yeah, Right! The US is not the only party party which has chosen to be in denial: Israeli President Shimon Peres also denied on Thursday that Israel was involved in the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist. In an interview with CNN, Peres was asked if Israel was involved in the nuclear assassination, to which he answered: "Not to the best of my knowledge."

Rev. John W. Whitehead: Privatizing the War on Terror!

2012-01-19T01:39:00.000-08:00

America's troops may be returning home from Iraq, but contrary to President Obama's assertion that "the tide of war is receding," we're far from paying the costs of war. In fact, at the same time that Obama is reducing the number of troops in Iraq, he's replacing them with "military contractors" at far greater expense to the taxpayer, and redeploying American troops to other parts of the globe, including Africa, Australia and Israel. In this way, the "war on terror" is privatized, the American economy is bled dry, and the military-security industrial complex makes a killing - literally and figuratively speaking. The war effort in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has already cost taxpayers more than $2 trillion and could go as high as $4.4 trillion before it's all over. At least $31 billion of that $2 trillion was lost to waste and fraud by military contractors, who do everything from janitorial and food service work to construction, security and intelligence, jobs that used to be handled by the military. That translates to a loss of $12 million a day since the US first invaded Afghanistan. To put it another way, over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on military contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad. According to the Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors, As a result, the US employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. For those signing on for contractor work, many of whom are hired by private contracting firms after serving stints in the military, it is a lucrative, albeit dangerous career path. While base pay for an American soldier hovers somewhere around $19,000 per year, contractors are reportedly pulling in between $150,000 to $250,000 per year.

Global Gulag: America, Welcome to the Fourth Reich!

2012-01-19T01:01:00.000-08:00

We, the heirs of the Third Reich, have been an integral part of the American Government since Patton crossed the Rhine! American Fascism did not start with World War II. Before Operation Paperclip, the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of the conflict, the annals of internal despotism were well established. With the open door policy for German engineering, the political ideology of state worship was bound to travel across the Atlantic. The Pampas of Argentina or the backwaters of Paraguay were the preferred location for those who openly professed their reprehensible loyalty to the Fuehrer principle. However, do not blame all those ex-Nazis for selecting the shores of the Americas for their new domicile. Their seeds were planted long ago in the offices of Wall and Broad Streets. Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will saga shares more than one wants to admit about the dark side of American History. Do not be confused. National Socialism is an abhorrent notion to most Americans. Nevertheless, the political foundation of that false ideology is based on pure Fascism, forged in a marriage of the Corporate/State that produces this demented offspring. The systematic destruction of the essential purpose and motivation for the American Revolution is undeniably with any objective examination of the regretful legacy of domestic tyranny. This record of monocracy is one of a criminal class, as opposed to the iron fist of a single man. If you believe this an erroneous assessment, consider the following chronicle: From the beginning of the Republic, the Federalists conspired for the illegal passage of their central government constitution in order to form a competing world empire with their British cousins. Their leader was Alexander Hamilton, who championed making individual states subservient to the original crony capitalists. When the Father of our Country, George Washington admonished about the dangers of entangling alliances, the world was warned that the drive towards independent liberty was compromised under this new Federal system.

The Economist: Levenson's inquiry - The Desmond Defence

2012-01-18T03:51:00.000-08:00

Most of the newspaper folk who have testified to the Leveson inquiry into the British press, set up in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, have been rather supportive of the inquiry's aims. Although they have strongly defended free speech, they have tended to concede that some form of stricter newspaper regulation is in order. A few have the zeal of converts to the regulatory cause, and then there's Richard Desmond. Mr. Desmond, who owns the Daily Express and the Daily Star newspapers, testified last afternoon. The effect was akin to to one of those strings of small explosives that, when your correspondent was a child, friends would occasionally smuggle into the country from France. His competitors are "idiots", he explained. He attacked the Daily Mail, calling it the "Daily Malicious". He called the inquiry "the worst thing that's ever happened to newspapers" and suggested he would very much like to be rid of it. He complained bitterly about the former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, whose name nonetheless slipped his mind. There was a particularly splendid moment when Mr Desmond was reminded that Kate and Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared in 2007, had objected to fully 38 stories published in one of his newspapers over a four-month period.

Chris Hedges: Why I am Suing Barack Obama!

2012-01-18T03:26:00.000-08:00

Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint Friday in the Southern US District Court in New York City on Chris Hedges' behalf as a plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president Dec. 31. The act authorizes the military, in Title X, Subtitle D, entitled "Counter-Terrorism," for the first time in more than 200 years, to carry out domestic policing. With this bill, which will take effect March 3, the military can indefinitely detain without trial any US citizen deemed to be a terrorist or an accessory to terrorism. Suspects can be shipped by the military to our offshore penal colony in Guantanamo Bay and kept there until "the end of hostilities." This is a catastrophic blow to civil liberties. Chris spent many years in countries where the military had the power to arrest and detain citizens without charge, and he has been in some of these jails. He has friends and colleagues who have "diappeared" into military gulags. He knows the consequences of granting sweeping and unrestricted policing power to the armed forces of any nation. While his battle may be quixotic, it is one that has to be fought if we are to have any hope of pulling this country back from corporate fascism.

Lisa Karpova: US Pushing World to the Brink of World War

2012-01-18T03:01:00.000-08:00

While local US police use excessive force and violence against OWS protesters, the US government continues to attempt to spread "freedom and democracy" of this same kind around the world. Reports come daily about beatings, clubbings, tasering, a female having her bicycle thrown at her, and disabled veterans being abused. Meanwhile, Libya attempts to free itself from this "freedom and democracy" scourge brought to Libya by thousands of terrorists: murderers, psychopaths, head chopping nut cases that enjoy bodily mutilation even when the body is already dead, raping women, looting, burning. Oh, the joy of freedom and demon-crazy compliments of NATO Nazis. NATO literally dumped this murderous trash into Libya, to fight along local criminals and traitors in order to plunder the country's resources. So NATO did more than drop illegal weaponry, including chemical and biological agents - white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and sarin, There have even been outbreaks of white phosphorous, depleted uranium and sarin, as well as tuberculosis. The country's water supply has been bombed and poisoned, and tuberculosis outbreaks are now common.

Attorney Orly Taitz: Georgia Judge Subpoenas Obama!

2012-01-17T07:21:00.000-08:00

Attorney Orly Taitz has reported that a Georgia Judge has issued a subpoena demanding Barack Obama appear in court January 26 and produce his original long form birth certificate, passport records, college registration records and more. Dr. Orly Taitz, attorney for one of the plaintiffs in the Georgia eligibility cases working their way rapidly through the courts, posted a copy of what is reportedly asubpoena, issued by Judge Michael Malihi of Georgia. The subpoena demands that Barack Obama himself appear in court on January 26, and bring with him a laundry list of official documents that will prove or disprove his eligibility for office. The list is frankly a "birther's" dream. Unlike previous cases, where only certain documents were requested or discussed, this subpoena issued by Judge Malihi includes every document that serious eligibility experts have been discussing from the beginning. The list requires Obama to produce each of the following: Any and all birth records, including a long form birth certificate. While we take a moment to rejoice in a court finally willing to examine the Constitutional status of Obama, who, evidence supports as being not a lawful president but a Usurper-in-Chief, we cannot rest on our laurels. While we may hope that Georgia will be the beginning of the end of the line for the Obama campaign, motions to quash and vicious legal push back by Team Obama are a given. We must work MUCH harder now to open battle on many more fronts, and compel the rest of the States to do their "due diligence" and demand Obama provide PROOF POSITIVE evidence of eligibility to appear on our ballots!

Robert Parry: Herding Americans to War with Iran!

2012-01-17T03:24:00.000-08:00

For many Americans the progression toward war with Iran has the feel of cattle being herded from the stockyard into the slaughterhouse, pressed steadily forward with no turning back, until some guy shoots a bolt into your head. Any suggestion of give-and-take negotiations with Iran is mocked, while alarmist propaganda, a ratcheting up of sanctions, and provocative actions, like Wednesday's assassination of yet another Iranian scientist, push Americans closer to what seems like an inevitable bloodletting. Even the New York Times now acknowledges that Israel, with some help from the United States, appears to be conducting a covert war of sabotage and assassination inside Iran. "The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim on Wednesday, when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran's morning rush hour," Times reporter Scott Shane wrote in Thursday's editions. Though US officials emphatically denied any role in the murder, Israeli officials did little to discourage rumors of an Israeli hand in the bombing. Some even expressed approval. Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said he didn't know who killed the scientist, but added: "I am definitely not shedding a tear."The latest victim, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, was the fifth scientist associated with Iran's nuclear program to be killed in the past four years.

Bill Moyers: Is This Land Made for You and Me?

2012-01-17T03:01:00.000-08:00

The traveling medicine show known as the race for the Republican presidential nomination has moved on from Iowa and New Hampshire, and all eyes are now on South Carolina. Well, not exactly all. At the moment, our eyes are fixed are fixed on some big news from the great state of Oklahoma, home of the legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie, whose 100th birthday will be celebrated later this year. Woody saw the ravages of the Dust Bowl and the Depression firsthand. His own family came unraveled in the worst hard times, and he wrote tough, yet lyrical stories about the men and women who struggled to survive, enduring the indignity of living life at the bone, with nothing to eat and no place to sleep. He traveled from town to town, hitchhiking and stealing rides in railroad boxcars, singing his songs for spare change or a ham sandwich. What professional success he had during his own lifetime, singing in concerts and on the radio, was often undone by politics and the restless urge to keep moving on. "So long, it's been good to know you," he sang, and off he would go. What he wrote and sang about caused the oil potentates and preachers who ran Oklahoma to consider him radical and disreputable. For many years he was the state's prodigal son, but times change, and that's the big news. Woody Guthrie has been rediscovered, even though Oklahoma's more conservative than ever, one of the reddest of our red states, with a governor who's a favorite of the Tea Party.

Dennis Rahkonen: Pretty Boy Mitt, Contemporary Capitalism!

2012-01-17T02:36:00.000-08:00

Piracy, pillage and plunder were how ruthless individuals historically first came to acquire great wealth. Later, slavery and feudalism allowed emerging aristocrats to luxuriate while masses suffered. Then came the Gilded Age of robber barons and callous tycoons, who would still be merciless exploiting us except for reforms won by trust busters and labor unions. No one could credibly laud such predatory behavior, but Mitt Romney is an enthusiastic practitioner of even what other Republican presidential aspirants are condemning as downsizing, outsourcing, deeply immoral "vulture capitalism."Romney exemplifies the worst of the greed-driven social irresponsibility that tanked our economy in 2008. His tone-deaf remark "I like being able to fire people" was followed by an interview answer in which he said that worsening American income disparity should be addressed in "quiet rooms." Forget painfully impacted workers at street rallies or other venues of public protest! At Bain Capital, Romney stripped countless wage-earners of their livelihoods, all for cruelly maximized private profit. Folk legend Woody Guthrie's words from his song Pretty Boy Floyd forcefully spring to mind: As through this world I've wandered, I've seen lots of funny men; Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen.

Robert C. Koehler: On the Momentum of Cynicism and War

2012-01-16T09:04:00.000-08:00

"No matter how futile, repulsive or dysfunctional war may be, it persists" Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her book Blood Rites. A fascinating story in the New York Times just after Christmas showed this "persistence" unfolding before our very eyes. Remember Iraq? The sale of arms to Iraq, $11 billion worth of almost everything: Fighter jets, battle tanks, cannons, armored personnel carriers, armor and helmets, even sport utility vehicles, is going to move forward even though it makes little sense from multiple points of view, including US geopolitical interests. As far as I can tell, the sale is going through because "war persists", or something persists, a force invisible to reporters and beyond the control of diplomats, at least those who speak on the record. "The Obama administration is moving ahead with the sale," the Times informs us, "despite concerns that that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is seeking to consolidate authority, create a one-party Shiite-dominated state and abandon the American-backed power-sharing government." Well, so much for "democracy". So much for talking about anything noble. Excuse me if I seem to be speaking as though I'm surprised. The only thing that surprises me is how quickly and thoroughly our pretenses disintegrate once we're done with them, and how badly we get on with business as usual. Or rather, business as usual gets on with us.

Tom Engelhardt: A Military First Policy on a Destabilizing Planet! r

2012-01-16T08:32:00.000-08:00

Here's the way it actually wend down in Washington last week: A triumphant performance by a commander-in chief, who wants you to know that he's at the top of his game. When it came to rolling out a new 10-year future of the US military, the leaks to the media began early and the message was clear. One man in charge of your future safety and security. His name is Barack Obama. Don't worry, he has things in hand. Unlike the typical president, so the reports went, he held sic meetings with top Pentagon officials, the Joint Chiefs, the service heads, and his military commanders to plan the next decade of American war making, and he was no civilian bystander at those meetings. On a planet where no other power has more than two aircraft carriers in service, he personally nixed a Pentagon suggestion that the country's aircraft battle groups be reduced from 11 to 10, lest China think our power-projection capabilities were weakening in Asia. His secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, spared no words when it came to the president's role, praising his "vision and guidance and leadership". Panetta described Obama's involvement thus: "This has been an unprecedented process, to have the president of the United States participate in discussions involving the development of a defense strategy.

Nat Parry: The Enduring Shame of Guantanamo!

2012-01-16T06:50:00.000-08:00

When the Guantanamo prison camp, originally dubbed by the US military Camp X-Ray, opened in January 2002, the United States came under international criticism that was nearly unprecedented in its intensity in modern US history. Some of the loudest complaints came from the staunchest US ally, the United Kingdom, where three cabinet ministers, Robin Cook, Patricia Hewitt and Jack Straw, expressed concern that international agreements about the treatment of prisoners war were being breached. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, also objected to the camp and called on President George W. Bush's administration to follow the Geneva Conventions. In a January 19, 2002 column in the British Independent, Robinson argued that because the Afghanistan conflict was of an international nature, "the law of international armed conflict applies." She took issue with the administration's assertion that the prisoners were "unlawful combatants" and thus outside the protections of the Geneva Conventions. European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said that despite the Sept. 11 atrocities, "changing our values and our way of life would be terrorism's first victory." Amnesty International expressed concern about the tactics being used surrounding the camp. Keeping prisoners incommunicado, sensory deprivation, the use of unnecessary restraint and the humiliation of people through tactics such as shaving them, are all classic techniques employed to 'break' the spirit of individuals ahead of interrogation," the human rights group said.

John Hooper: Italian Cruise Ship Disaster!

2012-01-15T14:27:00.000-08:00

If you have seen Titanic. That's what it was like: As icy seawater began to swamp the Costa Concordia, passengers desperately scrambled down ropes to safety. They fought over lifeboats, a mother crawled up almost vertical corridors in pitch blackness with her daughter, and elderly couples sobbed as icy decks slipped under water. A harrowing picture is emerging of the chaotic evacuation of more than 4,000 people from the luxury cruise ship that sank in the Mediterranean off the coast of Tuscany, killing at least three, and leaving several others critically hurt. As divers continued to search for possible missing or trapped passengers and crew of the Costa Concordia, survivors described scenes of total panic and confusion aboard, as crew were at first unwilling, then unable to launch lifeboats, while the ship listed into the freezing sea. Survivors described climbing down ladders and ropes to escape. Kirsty Cook, one of eight British dancers working on the cruise, said that she was "lucky to be alive" after using a rope ladder to climb down to a rescue boat. Another dancer, Rosie Metcalf, 22, from Dorset, had to cling to a fire hose before being winched to safety by a helicopter crew.

Tom Engelhardt: Obama Shows His War-Mongering Side

2012-01-15T03:15:00.000-08:00

Here's the ad for this moment in Washington: Militarized superpower adrift and anxious in alien world. Needs advise. Will pay. Please respond respond quickly. PO Box 1776-2012, Washington, DC. Here's the way it actually went down in Washington last week: a triumphant performance by a commander-in-chief who wants you to know that he's at the top of his game. When it came to rolling out a new 10-year plan for the future of the US military, the leaks to the media began early, and the message was clear. One man is in charge of your future safety and security. His name is Barack Obama. And - not to worry -he has things in hand. Unlike the typical president, so the report went, he held six, count'em: six! meetings with top Pentagon officials, the Joint Chiefs, the service heads, and hid military commanders to plan out the next decade of American war making, and he was no civilian bystander at those meetings either! On a planet where no other power has more than two aircraft carriers in service, he personally nixed a Pentagon suggestion that the country's aircraft carrier battle groups be reduced from 11 to 10, lest China think our power-projection capabilities were weakening in Asia. His secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, spared no words when it came to the president's role, praising his "vision and guidance and leadership".???

The Economist: Free Will and Politics!

2012-01-15T02:50:00.000-08:00

My colleague has a beautifully written post at Big Think on recent challenges to the idea of free will. He argues that the claim that free will is an illusion is itself illusory, as it misunderstands the idea of the term "illusion". To claim that something is an illusion is to say that it is a deceptive representation of some other actually existing thing which one has experienced. For example, a desert mirage looks like the sea, but there is no water out there. But internal experiences, such as the sense of having free will don't have any external referent. The sense of having is only an internal experience, and there is no way someone could have an illusory experience of the sensation of freedom, as opposed to a real experience of the sensation of freedom. It'd be like having an illusion of being angry, or, as he more elegantly put it: "That free will you thought you felt, that was an illusion." I think this misses the most important point about contemporary challenges to the idea of free will. The notion that free will is an illusion because reality is mechanistically determined is the old 19th century challenge to free will, Dostoevsky's "Underground Man" piano-key universe of predictable physical collisions.

Ron Paul: The large-sale Government Intervention in The Eonomy? yh

2012-01-15T02:27:00.000-08:00

The large-scale government intervention in the economy is going to end badly! Any number of pundits claim that we have passed the worst of the recession. Green shoots of recovery are supposedly popping up all around the country, and the economy is expected to resume growing soon at an annual rate of 3% to 5%. Many of these same people who insisted that the economy would continue growing last year, even while it was clear that we were already in the beginning stages of a recession. A false recovery is under way. I am reminded of the outlook in 1930, when the experts were certain that the worst of the Depression was over and that recovery was just around the corner. The economy and stock market seemed to be recovering, and there was optimism that the recession, like many of those before it, would be over in a year or less. Instead, the interventionist policies of Hoover and President Roosevelt caused the Depression to worsen, and the Dow Jones industrial average did not recover to 1929 levels until 1954. I fear that our stimulus and bailout programs have already done too much to prevent the economy from recovering in a natural manner and will result in yet another asset bubble. The Fed has already overseen a 95% loss in the dollar's purchasing power since 1913. If we do not stop this profligate spending soon, we risk hyperinflation and seeing a 95% devaluation every year!

Brother Nathanael: The Jewish War On Vladimir Putin!

2012-01-14T03:40:00.000-08:00

A new clash of civilizations is now unfolding before our very eyes: While the atheistic West is in decline, a renewed Russia, based on Christian Faith, the historic Church, and cultural unity, whose leader is a devout Orthodox Christian, is emerging as an opposing force to the pernicious spread of Zionist imperialism. It was at the World Economic Forum, held in Davos Switzerland in 2009 that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signaled to the Judaic-empowered West that its era of a "unipolar" world was coming to an end. "Not only the architecture of global finance is to be changed. We're talking about the fact that a system of interaction based on a number of centers should replace the unipolar world. The demonization of Russia's leader, which I call "The Jewish War on Vladimir Putin," then shifted into high gear. The smearing had already begun in 2007, when Gerald Levin's and Norman Pearlstine's Time Magazine portrayed Putin as a tyrannical monster as Time's Man of the Year. It all came to a head during the Duma parliamentary elections held in Russia's provinces last month. Even before the so-called 'election monitoring groups' issued their reports, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at a "human rights" meeting in Lithuania, accused Putin of "rigging" the vote. Putin was quick to respond, pointing out that Clinton's blatant lie of voter fraud signaled to Zionist-funded NGO's to begin their staged, well-rehearsed, anti-Putin protests.

Aaron Klein: Obama Czar to "Infiltrate" Social Network Sites!

2012-01-14T03:13:00.000-08:00

Just prior to his appointment by President Obama's so-called regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein wrote a lengthy academic paper suggesting the government should "infiltrate" social network websites, chat rooms and message boards. Such "cognitive infiltration", Sunstein argued, should be used to enforce a US government ban on "conspiracy theorizing." Among the beliefs Sunstein classified as a "conspiracy theory" is advocating that the theory of global warming is a deliberate fraud. The find comes as a government document reportedly relates the US Department of Homeland Security's command center routinely monitoring dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, Wikileaks and news sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report. Reuters reported that a "privacy compliance review" issued by the DHS last November confirms that since last June 2010, the department's national operations center has been operating a "Social Networking/Media Capability" which involves regular monitoring of "publicly available online forums, blogs, public websites and message boards." The government document states such monitoring is meant to "collect information used in providing situational awareness, and establishing a common operating picture" to help manage national or international emergency events. Adolf Hitler would have been SO PROUD!!

Finian Cunningham: Obama Administration is CEO of Murder Inc.

2012-01-14T02:44:00.000-08:00

Clinton denies US involvement in murder of nuclear scientist. After months of relentless threats against Iran, in which the Islamic Republic has been warned bu no less than the President of the United States that "no options are off the table", the US is now denying it had a role in the assassination of a top Iranian nuclear scientist this week. The terrorist formula of all options of aggression being available to Washington has been reiterated time and again by defense secretary Leon Panetta and other senior Washington figures, and even extends to pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. Recall, for example, Hillary Clinton telling the Islamic Republic that it would be "obliterated". Furthermore, the "all options" American strategy has been demonstrated in practice, with systematic cyber attacks on Iranian computer networks, the incursion of CIA aerial drones into the country's territory, and deadly explosions at military or nuclear research facilities. The no-holds barred American terror diplomacy against Iran can also be traced back to cruise missile attacks on Iranian oil installations in 1987 and the blowing out of the sky of an Iranian civilian airliner by an American warship in 1988, killing 290 passengers on board. In that context, official US denials are not worth the paper they are written on.

The Unjust Media: The Four Myths!

2012-01-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

It is not accidental that when anyone attempts to examine the nature of Zionism, its origins, history and dynamics, they meet with people who terrorize or threaten them. Quite recently, after mentioning a meeting on the plight of the Palestinian people during an interview on KPFK, a Los Angeles radio station, the organizers of the public meeting were deluged with bomb threats from anonymous callers. Nor is it easy in the United States or Western Europe to disseminate information about the nature of Zionism as a political movement. Even the announcement on university campuses of authorized forums or meetings on the subject invariably engenders a campaign designed to close off discussion: Posters are torn down as fast as they are put up. Meetings are packed by flying squads of Zionist youth, who seek to break them up. Literature tables are vandalized and leaflets and articles appear, accusing the speaker of anti-Semitism or, in the case of those of Jewish origin, of self-hatred. Vindictiveness and slander are so universally meted out to anti-Zionists because the disparity between the official fiction about Zionism and the Israeli state, on the one hand, and the barbarous practice of this colonial ideology and coercive apparatus, on the other, is so vast. People are in shock when they have an opportunity to hear or read about the century of persecution suffered by the Palestinians, and thus, the apologists for Zionism are relentless in seeking to prevent dispassionate examination of the virulent and chauvinistic record of the Zionist movement, and of the state which embodies its values. The irony of this is that when we study what the Zionists have written and said, particularly when addressing themselves, no doubt remains about what they have done, or their place in the political spectrum, dating from the last quarter of the 19th century to the present day!\\\\k

Paul Fassa: No Low Dose Aspirin for Heart Attack Protection!

2012-01-13T05:42:00.000-08:00

Some of us are aware of one or two negative side effects from low dose daily aspirin use to prevent heart attacks, but lately, more side effects, serious ones, of daily aspirin dosing are making the risks outweigh the advantages completely. Fortunately, there are natural substitutes that match or surpass the daily aspirin routine for heart attack protection. As late as 2007, a massive aspirin TV ad promoting daily low dose aspirin took hold over millions, despite the growing awareness of side effects from this routine. Aspirin zombies were awakened: Several studies had been conducted on daily aspirin use for over two decades. The studies had mixed results, which were mostly negative. The gastric stomach bleeding and ulcer production came in at close to one-third of the trial subjects. That seemed tolerable to some, since second heart attacks were reduced. However, fatal heart attacks were actually not reduced at all by taking low dose aspirin daily. After a few more years of observation, other side effects became manifest. Those on daily aspirin regimes had a twofold increase in hemorrhagic brain strokes, which cripple and kill. This is because aspirin only thins blood, making coagulation difficult when needed. In other, more recent studies, kidney and liver problems appeared as a result of daily low-dose aspirin. And now, another side effect from low dose aspirin has popped up: Blindness. The age group usually involved with daily with daily aspirins for heart protection is the same group most vulnerable to Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD).

Scavenging Soros: $2 Billion European Bonds!!

2012-01-13T05:12:00.000-08:00

Billionaire market speculator and philanthropist George Soros bought $2 billion worth of European bonds from now-bankrupt MF Global, the same debt that pushed the firm to collapse, according to The Wall Street Journal. When MF Global filed for bankruptcy, the firm sold part of the bonds, but still had about $4.8 billion worth of them on its books, CNBC reports. They were turned over to KPMG, MF Global's London clearing house, LCH Clearnet, the Journal said, quoting a KPMG spokeswoman. When KPMG offered the bankrupts firm's European debt to a variety of big investors, most of them passed. However, they were able to find one investor willing to buy the bonds at rock-bottom prices: George Soros. A spokesman for Soros declined to give details about the company's positions. "While our firm is always in the market, we have a policy of not disclosing details of our positions," the spokesman told the Wall Street Journal. KPMG told the Journal that the overwhelming majority of the European sovereign debt portfolio was liquidated by LCH before the second week in November, reports CNBC.

Ralph Benko: The Death Certificate of the Paper Dollar

2012-01-12T06:49:00.000-08:00

The dollar death certificate arrives in the mail this week. The Bank of England, "The Old Lady of Thread-needle Street" one of the most staid, cautious and dignified entities in the world of monetary policy, signals that the fiduciary currency standard ushered in on August 15, 1971 is, empirically measured, far inferior to the gold standard erected at Bretton Woods. Fellow Forbes.com columnist Charles Kadlec thoroughly reprises and analyzes the facts submitted to a candid world by the Bank of England in a paper to be officially published December 20, 2011. The Bank of England's Financial Stability Paper No.13. Reform of the international Monetary and Financial System, reported at Bloomberg BusinessWeek and reviewed here, is being seen by many monetary policy observers around the world as the "coroner's report on the death of the world dollar standard. What next? Presciently, at the watershed October 5-6 Heritage Foundation Conference on the Stable Dollar: Why we need it and How to Achieve it. Forbes' editor-in-chief Steve Forbes called for escalating the discourse from "whether" we should restore the gold standard to "how" to do so. The floodgates open.

Fanatic Rabbi Teaches "Goyim Slavery" ???

2012-01-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

In its 30 years of existence, Shas has evolved from a marginal ethnic political group to Israel's fourth largest party in the Knesset, and is today the unchallenged kingmaker of Israeli politics. Its leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, as quoted in Israel's Jerusalem Post, teaches: The sole purpose of non-Jews, according to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas's Council of Tarah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator: "Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world, only to serve the People of Israel," he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat. Now, Shas, or in its full name, the Sephardic Torah Guardians Movement, is attempting to establish a beachhead among American Sephardic Jews and, it hopes, replicate its success in Israel. On December 4, the group launched its United States affiliate, American Friends of Shas, based in Brooklyn. The new organization's goals are still in flux and, while activists agree its main mission should be raising the profile of Shas in America, some are also calling for active fundraising to support the party's operations in Israel.

Brother Nathaneal Kapner: Romney & Obama??

2012-01-12T04:59:00.000-08:00

Some call it 'Hedging your Bet' while others call it 'playing both sides.' But it all amounts to the same thing: Jewry CONTROLS the elections. The question to be asked by all savvy election observers is not, "who will be our next president?" If we simply follow the money, it appears that our choice has already been narrowed down to two Zionist lackeys: With Huntsman in the wings as a "sleeper" candidate, and Ron Paul sidelined by the wretched Jew-owned media, Romney and Obama. It all boils down to this: What flavor of Jew-control do you want? Republican flavor? Then you've got the Republican Jewish Coalition. Democrat flavor? Then you've got the National Jewish Democratic Council. Both have Billions at their command to dictate a Jewish agenda to either party. And what is the Jewish agenda? Growing up as a Jew, this author never heard during a presidential election with regard to any of the candidates, "Is he good for America?" NO, never. What I did constantly hear was, "Is he good for the Jews?" And that is the ONLY candidate that can possibly be nominated by either party. This is because international Jewry controls both the money and the media that goes into the "making" of a presidential candidate. Period. View entire Story!!! Although Obama faces a loss of Jewish funders due to his Middle East policy, his Jewish supporters from his 2008 race show no defections. Alan Solow, former chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, and a major Obama fundraiser, said the "would-be-donors" in his Rolodex are "responding" just fine!!

Chris Hedges: The Cross and the Lynching Tree!

2012-01-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

The Cross and the Lynching Tree are separated by nearly two thousand years. One is the universal symbol of the Christian faith, the other is the quintessential symbol of black oppression in America. Though both are symbols of death, one represents a message of hope and salvation, while the other signifies the negation of that message by white supremacy. Despite the obvious similarities between Jesus' death on the cross, and the death of thousands of black men and women strung up to die on a lamppost or tree, relatively few people, apart from black poets, novelists, and other reality seeing artists have explored the symbolic connections. Yet, I believe this is a challenge we must face. What is at stake is the credibility and the promise of the Christian gospel, and the hope that we may heal the wounds of racial violence that can continue to divide our churches and our society. So begins James Cone, perhaps the most important contemporary theologian in America, who has spent a lifetime pointing out the hypocrisy and mendacity of the white church and white-dominated society while lifting up and exalting the voices of the oppressed. He writes from his experiences as an African-American growing up in segregated Arkansas, and his close association with the Black Power movement. But what is more important is that he writes out of deep religious conviction, one I share, that the true power of the Christian gospel is its unambiguous call for liberation from forces of oppression and for a fierce and uncompromising condemnation of all who oppress. Cone, who teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, writes on behalf of all those whom the Salvadoran theologian and martyr Ignacio Ellacuria called "the crucified peoples of history." He writes for the forgotten and the abused, the marginalized and the despised. He writes for those who are penniless, jobless, landless and without political or social power. He writes for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and those who are transgender. He writes for undocumented farm workers toiling in misery in the nation's agricultural fields. He writes for Muslims who live under the terror of war and empire in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he writes for us. He understands that until white Americans can see the cross and the lynching tree together, "until we can identify Christ with a 'recrucified' black body hanging from from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.

Francis Boyle: Waging War is a Criminal Act!!!

2012-01-11T06:02:00.000-08:00

Waging War against Iran is a criminal act, in violation of International Law, The death toll from World War III will be incalculable: Article 2 of the United Nations Charter requires the pacific settlement of the international dispute between the United States and Iran. To the same effect is article 33 and the entirety of Chapter VI of the United Nations Charter that mandate and set up numerous procedures for the pacific settlement of the international dispute between the United States and Iran. And, of course Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits both the threat of force and use of force by the United States against Iran. Furthermore, both Iran and the United States are parties to the Kellog-Briand Peace Pact of 1928, upon which legal basis the Nazi Leaders were prosecuted by the United States at Nuremberg for Crimes against Peace, sentenced to death, and then executed. Mr. Obama, are you certain you want to go down that same slippery path???

Tom Engelhardt: New Strategic Plan for US Military?

2012-01-11T05:44:00.000-08:00

Last week, the president made a rare appearance at the Pentagon to unveil a new strategic plan for US military policy and spending over the next decade. Let's leave the specifics for a future TomDispatch post and focus instead on the historical footnote: Obama was evidently the first president to offer remarks from a podium in the Pentagon press room. He made the point himself: "I understand this is the first time a president has done this. It's a pretty nice room. Yet no one thought to make anything of it, even though it tells much about our NEW American world. After all, when was the last time the president appeared at the Environmental Protection Agency to announce a 10-year plan for a "leaner, meaner" approach to the environment, or at the Education Department to outline the next decade of blue-skies thinking and spending fr giving our children a leg-up in a competitive world? Or how about at a State Department podium to describe future planning for a more peaceable planet more peaceably attained? Unfortunately, you can't remember such moments, and neither can America's reporters, because they just aren't part of Washington life, and strangest of all, no one finds this the tiniest bit odd or worth commenting on. Over the last decade, this country has been so strikingly militarized that no one can imagine 10 years of serious government planning or investment not connected to the military or the national security state. It's a dangerous world out there, so we are regularly told by officials who don't mention that no military that no military is built to handle the scariest things around. War and the sinews of war are now our business, and the US military is our go-to-outfit of choice for anything from humanitarian action to diplomacy!

Adele M. Stan: New Hampshire Primary Designed for National Media!

2012-01-11T05:14:00.000-08:00

For all the talk about the glories of retail politics in the Granite State's first-in-the nation primary, you'd think the spectacle now gripping New Hampshire and the GOP presidential hopefuls have at each other was all about winning the votes of New Hampshirites. Don't believe a word of it. The New Hampshire primary, as it exists today, is an elaborate reality show designed for national, not local, media. New Hampshire is just the stage set, one its officials are eager to provide, both for the business it brings to the state, as hordes of reporters fill up hotels and restaurants, and for the importance it confers on local political brokers, who would otherwise be mere petty chieftains of a small, if beautiful, idiosyncratic state. Media create the storyline, choosing which timeworn nuggets to play up, which manufactured controversies to amplify, and which extras get selected to play the role of the typical New Hampshire voter. The candidates know this, of course, and do their best to manipulate the media. Often, the voters are lost in the shuffle, which tents to piss them off, a lesson Rep. Ron Paul learned the hard way. Of the three campaign events I've attended in the last 24 hours, only one, a town-hall meeting conducted by former US Senator Rick Santorum in Salem, actually drew more voters than media.

Telegraph Media Group: Rush Hour Bomb Blasts in Baghdad!

2012-01-10T05:38:00.000-08:00

Attacks killed at least 57 people, as Iraq faced a political crisis, with its vice president accused of running death squads. The apparently coordinated blasts, which left at least 200 people wounded, were the first major sign of violence in a crisis that has threatened the country's fragile political truce, and heightened sectarian tensions. The attacks, the deadliest in more than two weeks, largely coincided with the morning rush hour, and security forces cordoned off bomb sites, AFP correspondents and officials said. They struck in the Allawi, Bab al-Muathem and Karrada districts of central Baghdad, the Adhamiyah, Shuala and Shaab neighborhoods in the north, Jadriyah in the east, Ghazaliyah in the west and Al-Amil and Dura in the south, the officials said. The violence comes with Iraqi politicians at loggerheads over the warrant issued for the arrest of Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanding that Kurdish authorities hand over the Sunni Arab leader, who is holed up in their autonomous region. Hashemi denies the charges. Maliki has also called for his Sunni deputy Saleh al-Mutlak, who belongs to the same Iraqiya bloc as Hashemi, to be sacked after he described the Shiite-led government as a "dictatorship".

Fars News Agency: Capture of US Hi-Tech Drone by Iran!

2012-01-10T05:16:00.000-08:00

Capture of the US Hi-Tech Drone signifies Iran's Power in Electronic Warfare. A prominent retired Egyptian General said the capture of the United States' stealth drone by Iran earlier this month demonstrated Tehran's power in electronic warfare, and added that Iran's high high capability of electronic warfare will be highly detrimental to the Israeli regime. Iran's capture of the spy drone shows Iran's capture of the spy drone shows Iran's great progress in electronic warfare, Talat Moslem told FNA on Wednesday. Iran can stand against the Zionist regime through its electronic warfare technology, and this is an advantage of Iran's progress in electronic warfare, the retired general said." Tel Aviv is among the sides that will lose much due to Iran's progress in electronic warfare," Moslem reiterated. In relevant remarks earlier this month, a senior parliamentarian in Tehran underlined Iran's advanced technological capabilities and possibilities, and said the Iranian Armed Forces intend to simulate the design and reproduce the US RQ-170 Sentinel stealth aircraft: "Relying on their scientific capabilities, the Armed Forces will be able to simulate the RQ-170 aircraft soon," Vice-Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Hossein Ebrahimi told FNA days after Iran displayed the hunted drone on TV. "Iran enjoys different possibilities and precious technologies that the enemies of our country are not aware of," he added.

Nazemroaya: Could the US Navy be Defeated by Iran?g

2012-01-10T04:47:00.000-08:00

After years of US threats, Iran is taking steps which suggest that it is both willing and capable of closing the Straight of Hormuz. On December 24, 2011 Iran started its Velayat-90 naval drills in, and around the Straight of Hormuz, and extending from the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea. Since the conduct of these drills, there has been a growing war of words between Washington and Tehran. Nothing the Obama Administration or the Pentagon have done or said so far, however, has deterred Tehran from continuing its naval drills. Besides the fact that it is a vital transit point for global energy resources, and a strategic choke-point, two additional issues should be addressed in regards to the Strait of Hormuz. The second pertains to the role of Iran in co-managing the strategic strait in accordance with international law, and its sovereign national rights. The maritime traffic that goes through the Strait of Hormuz has always been in contact with Iranian naval forces, which are predominantly composed of the Iranian Regular Force Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Navy. In fact, Iranian naval forces monitor and police the Strait of Hormuz along with the Sultanate of Oman, via the Omani enclave of Musandam. More important, to transit through the Strait of Hormuz, all maritime traffic, including the US Navy, must sail through Iranian territorial waters. Almost all entrances into the Persian Gulf are made through Iranian territorial waters. Iran allows foreign ships to use its territorial waters in good faith, and on the basis of Part III of the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea's maritime transit passage provisions that stipulate that vessels are free to sail through the Strait of Hormuz and similar bodied of water on the basis of speedy and continuous navigation between an open port and the high seas. Although Tehran in custom follows the navigation practices of the Law of the Sea, Tehran is not legally bound by them.

Harriet Sherwood: Israel Will Launch Gaza Offensive Sooner or Later!

2012-01-09T03:32:00.000-08:00

A new Israeli military offensive against Gaza will be launched "sooner or later", and will be "swift and painful", Israel's most senior military officer has warned. Benny Gantz, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, was speaking on the third anniversary of the start of a major three-week assault on Gaza, during which around 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed. That offensive was "an excellent operation that achieved deterrence for Israel vis-a-vis Hamas", Gantz told Army Radio on Tuesday. He added that there were signs that the deterrent effect was wearing thin. "Sooner or later, there will be no escape from conducting a significant operation," he said. "The IDF knows how to operate in a determined, decisive and offensive manner against terrorists in the Gaza Strip." Within hours of Gantz's comments, the Israeli military launched two airstrikes on Gaza, killing one person and injuring 10, according to local reports. A spokesman for the IDF said direct hits on two "terrorist squads with global jihad associations" had been confirmed. According to security officials quoted by Israel Radio, one of the targets was a cell en route to Sinai with the intention of launching an attack on Israel from Egypt. Since the end of the Gaza war in January 2009, Hamas has attempted to enforce a ceasefire among militant groups, although sporadic rocket fire has continued. Israel ho;ds Hamas, as the de facto government, responsible for all rocket fire emanating from Gaza. There have been suggestions in recent weeks that Hamas is ready to distance itself further from attacks on Israel as part of its reconciliation process with its rival faction Fatah!

The Unjust Media: The Four Myths!!

2012-01-09T03:02:00.000-08:00

It is not accidental that when anyone attempts to examine the nature of Zionism, its origins, history and dynamics, they meet with people who terrorize or threaten them. Quite recently, after mentioning a meeting on the plight of the Palestinian people during an interview on KPFK, a Los Angeles radio station, the organizers of the public meeting were deluged with bomb threats from anonymous callers. Nor is it easy in the United States or Western Europe to disseminate information about the nature of Zionism, or to analyze the specific events which denote Zionism as a political movement. Even the announcement on university campuses of authorized forums and meetings on the subject invariably engenders a campaign designed to close off discussion: Posters are torn down as fast as they are put up. Meetings are packed by flying squads of Zionist youth who seek to break them up. Literature tables are vandalized and leaflets and articles appear, accusing the speaker of anti-Semitism or, in the case of those of Jewish origin, of self-hatred. Vindictiveness and slander are so universally meted out to anti-Zionists because the disparity between the official fiction about Zionism and the Israeli state, on the one hand, and the barbarous practice of this colonial ideology and coercive apparatus on the other, is so vast. People are in shock when they have an opportunity to hear or read about the century of persecution suffered by the Palestinians, and, thus, the apologists for Zionism are relentless in seeking to prevent coherent, dispassionate examination of the virulent and chauvinistic record of the Zionist movement and of the state which embodies its values.

Ted Thornhill: Massive Solar Storm Could Knock Out Radio Signals

2012-01-09T02:36:00.000-08:00

Skywatchers will be hoping for clear skies from today because particles from a recent solar storm will slam into Earth and produce amazing Northern Lights, or auroras. On the downside, experts expect radio blackouts for a few days, caused by the radiation from the flare, or coronal mass ejection (CME), causing magnetic storms. The flare is part of a larger increase of activity in the Sun, which runs in 11-year cycles. It is expected to peak around 2013. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center wrote: 'Category G1 (Minor) radio blackouts are expected until 31 December.' Devices that depend on radio waves include GPS systems, radios and mobile phones. A coronal mass ejection contains billions of tons of gases bursting with X-rays and ultraviolet radiation that are flung into space at around 5 million mph. They are mind-bogglingly hot, around 100,000,000C. The Earth is occasionally hosed by these ejections, leading to amazing shimmering light shows.

Peter Scheizer: The USA is the Illuminati's Military Enforcer

2012-01-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

To make sure American politicians play their role, Congressmen are allowed to own stocks in defense contractors, and make millions of dollars buying and selling them using insider knowledge: In 2006, 151 members of Congress had $195.5 million invested in defense corporations. Their average net worth was $910,000 compared to $100,000 for American families in general. Over 50 range between $5 million and $190 million. John Kerry is at the top end of the scale. For the psychopaths on Capitol Hill. each new military escapade is a lottery windfall. While insider trading carries hefty prison terms for common people, it is perfectly legal for US congressmen. They are free to own shares in companies that are regulated by committees they sit on. Members of congress can trade freely using insider knowledge they have about regulations or events that could affect specific industries or the stock market as a whole, such as an economic crash, a new law, or war: Peter Scheizer, a researcher at Stanford Univesity, who is writing a book on insider trading on Capitol Hill, told CBS that congressmen have a simple outlook. This is a venture opportunity. This is an opportunity to leverage your position in public service, and use that position to enrich yourself, your friends, and your family.' They are running a criminal enterprise in all but name. Scheizer: "We know that during the health care debate, people were trading health care stocks. We know that during the financial crisis of 2008, they were getting out of the market, before the rest of America really knew what was going on." If you are a member of Congress and sit on a 'defense committee', you are free to trade as much defense stock as you want: A shocking example is former presidential candidate John Kerry, who has $30 million invested in defense contractors. Wars are planned by groups such as the Council of Foreign Relations, founded by David Rockefeller. They feature both politicians and CEO's of defense contractors!

Gerald Celente Predictions for 2012!

2012-01-08T07:52:00.000-08:00

Festering socio-economic/financial/geopolitical trends will climax next year. "Some will arrive with a big bang, and others less dramatically, but no less consequentially." On December 28, Financial Times contributor Mark Mallock-Brown headlined "The downward slide continues,the great revolt will come later," saying: "Next year is not going to be better. Whatever temporary economic fixes are applied to the euro-zone, American deficits and unemployment, the overheated Chinese real estate market, petering Indian reforms, or stalling Brazilian growth," expect more slide. Global economic dislocations are "increasingly disorderly." Deceptive political rhetoric may prove to be the "calm before the storm." As Progressive Radio New Hour regular Jack Rasmus explains, they consistently miss major turning points,"including their failure to predict the epic recession of 2008, their erroneous prediction of a rapid 'V'-shape recovery in 2009-10, and now their failure to foresee what's coming in the Eurozone, China and Emerging markets." Rasmus called mainstream economists "birds without wings." Practically all of them missed the impending 2008 crisis that will almost certainly emerge no later than early 2013 and potentially much earlier, as Eurozone, China and other economies crater. Obama's economic programs failed badly. Instead of creating jobs, helping homeowners, resurrecting housing, and aiding troubled state and local governments, he focused on Wall Street bailouts, transferring wealth to America's super-rich, and relying on business to hire, when they're hoarding cash, treading water, and not expanding.

Stephen Lendman: Grim 2012 Economic Outlook!!

2012-01-08T07:22:00.000-08:00

Year's end is not just about holiday season binge shopping, parties, and over-indulgence. It's also when economic predictions surface. The Wall Street Journal publishes consensus views. On December 23, it headlined, "Risks Cloud Outlook for Economy in 2012," saying: "The economy is poised for another year of muddling through. Most private economists forecast a modest 2% growth rate for the US, with a pace subdued by housing woes, a lackluster job market, and cuts by government." "They also warn of potential spillover from weaknesses abroad, including a mild recession apparently underway in Europe." Concerns and uncertainties highlighted include global weakness, threatening US exports, weak housing demand with foreclosures affecting prices, protracted unemployment and weak job creation, and government belt tightening. Overall, mainstream economists predict continued recovery from crisis conditions beginning in late 2007. In fact, heading into it, they forecast continued good times. According to former market analyst Bob Farrell: "When all the experts and forecasts agree, something else is going to happen." In other words, when mainstream consensus forecasts one way, expect another. On December 22, on the Finance News Network, investor/author/analyst Jim Rogers sees current problems worsening because of too much spending and debt. Asked to elaborate on what matters most, he said "too much debt" is problem one, because the Fed "keeps printing money." It spells trouble because it won't stop until "systemic collapse." "It's going to be very, very serious pain. You're going to see riots in the street. You're going to see serious, serious problems, perhaps more war."No matter who leads America, he added, he has "absolutely no confidence at all that anything's going to be done!"

Craig Andresen: Case Pending Challenging Obama's Presidency!

2012-01-08T06:49:00.000-08:00

The liberty Legal Foundation has announced that the case pending in Georgia, challenging Obama's eligibility HAS BEEN ACCEPTED! This is great news, considering Obama and his team of attorneys had been actively trying to have his case denied. The Georgia court, in agreeing to hear the case, could well be setting the stage for other states in which quite similar cases are pending: Arizona and Tennessee both have such cases waiting right now. This case, in Georgia, deals specifically with the Natural Born Citizen issue. In a previous article,we brought up the Minor vs Happersett case from 1875, in which the Supreme Court defined a NBC as one who has 2 parents which were citizens at the time of the subject's birth. We also cited 3 other cases in which the Supreme Court defined a NBC as one who has two parents which were citizens at the time of the subject's birth. We also cited 3 other cases in which the Supreme Court, previous to the Minor case, said the same thing. Since Obama's father, at the time of his birth, was NOT a US citizen, nor did he ever become one, according to US Supreme Court in 1875, Obama is NOT a Natural Born Citizen. If not a NBC then, according to the Constitution, Obama is ineligible to serve as President! So, how long will THIS take before a hearing will occur? Not nearly as long as you might think: The Georgia court will hear this at 9am on January 26th 2012. This is likely NOT to be the final word, as either way it goes, one can expect immediate requests for a hearing or appeals to higher, in this case the US Supreme Court!

Pravdaru: Naked Ukrainian Feminists Tortured in Belarus

2012-01-08T05:26:00.000-08:00

Activists of Ukraine's FEMEN movement claim that they were kidnapped after their topless action against the regime of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The action took place in the Belarusian capital Minsk, on December19. The women have already returned to Ukraine. In the meantime, the chief of the KGB of Belarus, Vadim Zaitsev, stated that his agents had not taken any actions against the Ukrainian women. According to him, it was a predetermined provocation against the "special services" of Belarus. Inna Shevchenko, Oksana Shachko and Alexander Nemchinova arrived in Kiev on Wednesday night. The women came to the Ukrainian capital accompanied by the Ukrainian consul. The consul arrived at the village of Beki, the Gomel region of Belarus, immediately, after it was said that the FEMEN activists were staying there. The women said they had been tortured by strangers in the woods, Interfax reports with reference to the press secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine, Alexander Dikusarov. The press release posted on FEMEN's LiveJournal page said that Inna Shevchenko was the first to have contacted the movement. The woman said that she and her two associates had been seized by "special services" of Belarus. According to her, the agents blindfolded the women and put them in the bus, which then traveled all night. Afterwards, the agents took them to the forest, poured oil on them, and threatened to put them on fire. The men also made the Ukrainian women strip naked, ant threatened them with a knife. The women said the agents were filming all of these torture events. When the men got tired with what they were doing, they took the women's documents and money, and left them alone in the forest.

Gideon Levy: World Must Interfere in Israel's Internal Affairs!

2012-01-07T02:52:00.000-08:00

The new world will eventually tell Israel: Stay in the occupied territories, but give all of its residents equal rights and justice. What will Israel say then? Interference in its internal affairs? Foreign intervention? You've got to be kidding! Of all of Israel's complaints against the world, one is especially brazen: Goodness gracious, the world is 'meddling' in the Jewish state's internal affairs: When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she understands what's happening here, and it reminds her more of Iran than Israel, the Zionist response has been: "It would be better for the public's representatives to direct their attention to what is happening in their own countries." as Environmental Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan put it. When Europe becomes outraged over hate crimes in Israel, the brazen response is the Europeans adopted the lowest of resolutions in taking Israel to task, and when the world takes an interest in Israel's policy toward refugees and migrant workers, this prompts a demand for an end to foreign interference, as Ronen Shoval,the founder of the right-wing organization Im Tirtzu said. Israel may be the last country on earth with the right to be outraged over foreign interference. Since its founding, Israel has not ceased working around the world to bring Jews here, it has clandestinely carried out underground subversive activity among shady regimes, it has openly preached abroad for Jews to leave their native lands and immigrate here, it has clandestinely carried out underground subversive activity among shady regimes, it has openly preached abroad for Jews to leave their native lands and immigrate here, or at least send financial support, and Israel has moved heaven and earth against manifestations of anti-Semitism and supports parallel alternative Jewish and Zionist educational systems around the world. It is also a country that simultaneously calls on the world to maintain the blockade of Gaza, because of Hamas' rise to power there. Israel has acted in Lebanon and elsewhere in support of one communal faction against another. It has not ceased to meddle in the internal affairs of foreign countries and entities, so of all countries, it should not be heard to complain about foreign interference.

US Engineered Sanctions No Coup De Grace For Iran!!i

2012-01-07T02:16:00.000-08:00

In a 'dramatic move' which was apparently contrary to his desire, US President Barack Obama on Saturday signed into law tough new sanctions against Iran, targeting the country's Central Bank and financial sector in a bid to administer an economic "coup de grace' against Iran. Foreign firms are now to make a choice between doing business with the Iranian financial sector and Central Bank or the US economy and financial sector. In signing the bill, Obama harbored some secret fear that such an act would would skyrocket the oil prices, and that it would be terminally detrimental to the ailing economy of Washington as well as to the global economy. Needless to say, such a measure was encouraged and propelled by the warmongers in the White House and the powerful Zionist lobby. The UN Security Council has already imposed four rounds of sanctions against Iran for 33 years, inflicting adverse damage on the economy, albeit with no determining impact on the political approach of the country. However, decades of of anti-Iran US-engineered sanctions have failed to stall the progress of the Islamic country, which is moving towards self-sufficiency in all economic spheres. Therefore, Washington officials have been ill advised in believing that by slapping more sanctions on Iran, they will be able to bring to its knees a nation who adheres to their ideology of no submission!

Agence France-Presse: Iran Shrugs at Looming EU Oil Bant y

2012-01-07T01:52:00.000-08:00

Iran on Thursday played down the impact of new Western sanctions targeting its vital oil sector, after European diplomats said they have reached preliminary agreement on an EU oil ban from the Islamic republic. The National Iranian Oil Company said demand was so high for Iranian oil that it would have no trouble selling it elsewhere. "We hope that Iran's oil is not sanctioned officially, but if so, we have taken the needed agreements," the company's director of international affairs, Mohsen Qamsari was quoted as saying in a report on Iran's oil ministry website. The 27-nation European Union has struck "an agreement in principle" to ban Iranian oil imports, an EU diplomat in Brussels told AFP. Negotiations were ongoing to determine when the ban should start, though France said it hoped to see it announced at an EU foreign ministers' meeting on end of January. The West's sanctions squeeze on Iran stems from fears the country is trying to develop an atomic bomb under cover of a nuclear program it insists is exclusively for peaceful, civilian use. Iran exports around 18 percent of its oil to the European Union, making the bloc the second-biggest destination after China. Oil revenues make up 80 percent of Iran's foreign currency earnings.

Pravda: CIA Infects South American Leaders With Cancer!

2012-01-06T05:09:00.000-08:00

Over an 18 month period, four "progressive" leaders of Latin America and their fellow citizens were shocked by the diagnosis delivered by their physicians: CANCER. Fernando Lugo, Luis Inacio, Lula da Silva, Hugo Chavez, and recently Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner were given this disagnosis. The Presidents of Paraguay, Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina suspiciously turned out on the verge of survival. Chavez immediately warned that the disease may be a "new weapon of the empire to eliminate unwanted leaders." Maybe, but oddly enough, the result was the opposite. All politicians not only did not stop their political life and moved away from responsibilities, buy on the contrary, dramatically increased their rating, and rallied around there supporters. First, in August of 2010, 60-year-old Paraguayan President Fernando Luga was diagnosed with a tumor of the lymphatic system. After six sessions of chemotherapy in Sao Paulo and Asuncion, doctors reported that the tumor was gone. He was elected in 2008 with a mandate of five years. He resigned his ecclesiastical rank and became the second leftist president in the history of that country. 66-year-old former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was diagnosed with larynx cancer in October of 2011, nine months after the transfer of power to Dilma Russef. In his case, the doctors did not operate, citing that he may lose his voice forever!

Michel Chossudovsky: The War On Iran- Deployment of US Troops to Israel!

2012-01-06T04:39:00.000-08:00

The Islamic Republic of Iran has been threatened with military action by the US and its allies for the last eight years. Now, the US Navy has been deployed. Iran's naval exercises, which commenced on December 24th were conducted in an area which is controlled by US Fifth Fleet, based in Bahrain. Meanwhile, a new round of economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran have been unleashed, targeting Iran's Central Bank, leading to a dramatic plunge of Iran's currency. A the same time Iran has been involved in "war games" in the Persian Gulf: Reacting to US threats, Iran has declared that it would "consider" blocking the shipment of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. Roughly 40 % of the world's oil tanker shipments transit the strait daily, carrying 15.5 million barrels of Saudi, Iraqi, Iranian, Kuwaiti, Bahraini, Qatari and United Emirates crude oil, leading the United States Energy Information Administration to label the Strait of Hormuz "the world's most important oil checkpoint." There is a symbiotic relationship between War and the Economic Crisis. The planning of the Iran War is being carried out at the crossroads of a worldwide economic depression, which is conducive to widening social inequalities, mass unemployment and the impoverishment of large sectors of the world population. Crushing social movements on the domestic front, including all forms of resistance to America's military agenda and its neo liberal economic policies, is an integral part of the United States' hegemonic role Worldwide. Does Constitutional Government in the eyes of the Obama Administration constitute an encroachment to "The Globalization of War"?

Arash Norouzi: "Israel Wiped off The Map"

2012-01-06T04:08:00.000-08:00

This rumor was fabricated by the Mossadegh Project and Global Research in January 2007. The rumor was fabricated by the American media with a view to discredit Iran's head of state and providing a justification for waging an all out war against Iran. Of course, the story was placed for media manipulation and propaganda purposes. Iran is blamed for refusing to abide by the "reasonable demands" of the "international community". Realities are twisted and turned upside down: Iran is being accused of wishing to start a war, a pre-emptive attack with nuclear warheads. Of course, this scenario is absurd. It Iran were attacked, we would be in a World War III scenario. Iran does not constitute a threat to Global Security. Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, and does not constitute a threat to Israel. A dangerous rumor has been spread that could have catastrophic implications. According to the legend, Iran's President has threatened to destroy Israel, or, to quote the misquote, "Israel must be wiped off the map". Contrary to belief, this statement was never made: On Tuesday, October 25th 2005, at the Ministry of Interior conference hall in Tehran, newly elected Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a speech, reportedly attended by thousands, titled "The World Without Zionism". Posters surrounding him displayed this comment prominently in English, for the benefit of the International Press. Two small orbs representing the United States and Israel are shown falling through the hour glass' narrow neck and crashing to the bottom.

William A. Cook: America's Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost!n

2012-01-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

"Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred, and terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said y'all, not a reverend who preaches about racism. Prophets fare poorly in their own country, yet countries would do well to hearken to their prophets. Scorn, ridicule, and innuendo attend their pronouncements, as the righteous defend their actions as logical, existential and necessary. Jeremiah Wright suffered such scorn and mockery because he understood the consequences of revenge on the innocent and the defenseless, justified by whatever inane discourse. Wright spoke truth to power that Sunday after 9/11, and the righteous cried to heaven condemning him to perdition for defaming America, for even suggesting that revenge for the sake of revenge is the motivation of the arch fiend against the Almighty, the foulest, most ignorant, most amoral rational for action. Prophets anticipate truth: They review a nation's past history and can predict its future. Witness America's past as the Reverend Wright did that Sunday morning, and what America is doing now repeats its ugliness. Wright said this about America's past: He pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said "Americas chickens are coming home to roost." "We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism. "We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel." "We bombed Qaddafi's home and killed his child." "We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they'd never get back home.

Dan Gainor: Why Don't we hear about Soros' Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations? 4d

2012-01-05T06:47:00.000-08:00

When liberal investor George Soros gave $1.8 million to National Public Radio, it became part of the firestorm of controversy that jeopardized NPR's federal funding, but that gift only hints at the widespread influence the controversial billionaire has on the mainstream media. Soros, who spent $27 million trying to defeat President Bush in 2004, has ties to more than 30 mainstream news outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post,the Associated Press, NBC and ABC. Prominent journalists like ABC's Christiane Amanpour and former Washington Post editor, and now Vice President Len Downie serve on boards of operations that take Soros cash. This despite the Society of Professional Journalists' ethical code, stating: "avoid all conflicts, real or perceived." This information is part of an upcoming report by the Media Research Centers Business & Media Institute, which has been looking into George Soros and his influence on the media. The investigative reporting start-up ProPublica, which recently won its second Pulitzer Prize, initially was given millions of dollars from the Sandler Foundation to "strengthen the progressive infrastructure" - "progressive" being the code word for very liberal.

Alex Newman: China, Japan Agree to Reduce Reliance on US Dollar

2012-01-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

The government of Japan and the communist dictatorship ruling mainland China announced a landmark agreement this week to facilitate trade between the two partners without using the US dollar, relying instead on the Japanese yen and the Chinese yuan. According to the terms of the deal, the two governments agreed to encourage trade directly in yen and yuan without having to use American dollars as an intermediary, the current practice. Companies in Japan and China will soon be able to convert the currencies directly, and the Japanese government also agreed to hold Chinese yuan in its foreign-reserves portfolio. It remains unclear exactly how and when the agreement will be implemented, but according to news reports, both governments have already set up a working group to iron out the details. Officials said the move was aimed at reducing risk and transaction costs. The new currency deal comes as the communist Chinese dictatorship has been taking increasingly bold steps to expand the international role of the yuan. The regime's officials have also become ever-more vocal in attacking the dollar's global reserve status, calling instead for a more international system managed by a world entity such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Syria Update: US Government Gives Green Light to MSM

2012-01-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

This morning, I woke up to the following news headlines: I found the US media and their quasi extension reporting on stale, at least 6-month old US operations on Syria. Now, that's much better! I think it's safe to assume that the media has given the 'green light' by the White House and Pentagon to report on long-ongoing war preparations, aka 'intervention' plans, on Syria, while making it sound as fresh-new-recent. Let's read together: Obama Administration Secretly Preparing Options for Aiding the Syrian Opposition. As the violence in Syria spirals out of control, top officials in President Barack Obama's administration are quietly preparing options for how to assist the Syrian opposition, including gaming out the unlikely option of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria, and preparing for another major diplomatic initiative. After several weeks of having no top-level administration meetings to discuss the Syria crisis, the National Security Council (NSC) has begun an informal, quiet inter-agency process to create and collect options for aiding the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable. Right! According to these reporters, up until now our imperialistic hawks have been sitting on their butts and doing absolutely nothing on Syria's month-long prewar crisis.

Karl W B Schwarz: DC Politics An Un-American Fascist Scam

2012-01-04T05:36:00.000-08:00

Often, during a person's journey through life, there will come a time when he encounters an abyss. Most will stop and gaze down into it before turning away to seek a safer place called home. Only the insane or ignorant will continue forward and step into it, and still pretend that all is rosy. Tragically, the second group characterizes most of contemporary America. That is what is happening in American political circles, where the Liberal Left has morphed into a "War Party" because they realized that the Republicans were successfully selling the message that only they would defend America from the "boogeyman". Actually, both parties excel in plundering America, and neither is worth in defending America: Yes, just give up those "freedoms" and "liberties" for no protection whatsoever. Most Americans start off in life as Southern Conservative Democrats, a moniker that is no different than being a Republican. However, in the past, a person could barely get elected in the Deep South with an "R" by there name, and the entire region controlled by Demo-thug Bubbas that could not spell Mom and Dad frontwards and backwards. Ronald Reagan was the first Republican to realize and capitalize on this conservatism when he swept the South and many Southern Conservative Democrats turned into Republicans in 1980!

Taliban hit Bagram base, kill US forces!

2012-01-04T05:11:00.000-08:00

The Taliban militants say they have attacked the largest American military base in Afghanistan, killing many US troops, Press TV reports. A Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Sunday that the fatalities had been caused after the militants hit the US Bagram Air Base, north of the Afghan capital Kabul with nine missiles. He added that they launched the attack when US forces were celebrating the start of the new year. Afghan officials also announced that the heavily-fortified airbase had been hit by a barrage of rockets, but claimed that the attack had not caused any casualties. The Taliban have intensified their attacks against the US-led foreign forces occupying Afghanistan. The heightened militancy has been interpreted as a reaction to the foreign presence. US military officials have said there are currently 91,000 US troops in Afghanistan, down from the peak of 101,000 in June 2011. The Taliban are conducting the strikes, despite the US secret talks with the militants as part of Washington's strategy to withdraw from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. In related posts, NATO forces kill four Afghan school children. Taliban shoot down US drone. Pakistan denies firing rockets into Afghanistan. Taliban spokesman claims US chopper downing. Forces of fear: US as bad as Taliban, refugees claim. US holding direct secret talks with Taliban!

Pravda.ru: Interference in Russian Affairs is an Act of War

2012-01-03T04:54:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, the heroes will stay home. The west, and particularly the United States, are not in a position to criticize the Russian election process, nor are they in a position to criticize the ever popular leader, Vladimir Putin. It is well known that what makes Vladimir Putin so supremely electable are all of his great deeds in restoring Russia to a decent place in the world, with much worldwide respect, fiscally sound and responsible, strong and stable. Who can compete with that in the bankrupt, hypocritical, international law breaking, war mongering west where you will find no stronger, more determined supporters of terrorism? Can even one leader be found among the lot of them that actually did something for the people of their own country? Absolutely not. Russia is a country with its own time honored traditions, a source of much pride for every Russian citizen. The history, the culture and beauty have no rivals anywhere. The west is the one who lost everything with the pseudo-conclusion of the Cold War. They can no longer be looked upon in the same manner as before. The curtain fell, the wall is down, the empire and the emperor is naked. Their Wall Street public relations firms were selling a highly defective product, the concept of "freedom and democracy" in the west. Casting a vote is no guarantee that any citizen in the west has anything to say about what their country does, be it in matters of social services to society or foreign issues. All you have to do is look at Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Syria. Is there any end to that list?

Emma Reynolds: Migrants Flooding OUT of Europe in Search of Jobs!

2012-01-03T04:28:00.000-08:00

Tens of thousands of Portuguese, Greek and Irish people are abandoning their homelands as job prospects look increasingly dire. Migrants used to see the EU as a top destination for work and a better lifestyle, but now a stream of Europeans are leaving the continent, figures show. In the past year, 2,500 Greeks have left Australia alone and at least 10,000 Portuguese people have moved to Angola, according to the Guardian. Ireland's official statistics predicted that 50,000 people will have deserted their home country by the end of the year, with many heading to Australia and the US. The trend could become even worse, with Britain potentially losing its pull for workers who have vital skills to contribute. With migration trends reversing, unusual routes have apparently become popular, including Lisbon to Luanda, Dublin to Perth and Barcelona to Buenos Aires. Portugal's foreign ministry reportedly said 97,616 of its people are now registered at the consulates in Benguele and Luanda, almost double the number who were there in 2005. The Portuguese are also heading in droves to former colonies such as Brazil and Mozambique, with Brazil seeing a 50 per cent rise in foreign residents in just a year. Goncalo Pires, a graphic designer who moved from Lisbon to Janeiro, told the Guardian: 'Its a pretty depressing environment in Portugal. In Brazil, by contrast, there are lots of opportunities to find work, to find clients and projects. Joy Drosis, who left her homeland of Greece for Australia,said she felt she would have been doomed if she had stayed.

Susan Lindauer: Iraq: Legacy of Deception and Costs!t

2012-01-03T04:00:00.000-08:00

Most Americans are astonished to discover that right up to 9/11, the CIA was developing a "Real Politik" vision of Iraq that recognized the fast approaching collapse of UN Sanctions. The CIA was preparing for Peace, with a ruthless determination that the United States would capture the lion's share of spoils from Iraqi Reconstruction contracts in any post-sanctions period. German pilots transporting medical supplies and doctors into Baghdad International Airport at the end of the Clinton Administration had blasted the myth of invincibility surrounding sanctions. To this day, those pilots are anonymous, but they changed the equation in total. Their courage honoring the Berlin Airlifts in the Cold War was quickly copied. Across Europe and the Arab world, activists began to organize humanitarian flights into Baghdad. On the Security Council, France and Russia argued strenuously that the ban on air travel had been self imposed, and the no-fly zone could not prohibit humanitarian flights. By this time, UN sanctions had killed over 1.7 million Iraqis, wiped out literacy in a single generation, and created artificial starvation in the world's second most oil-rich nation. Iraq's world-class hospitals that once rivaled London and New York had been ravaged. Sick of the misery, the global community refused to stay silent any longer. The CIA saw the writing on the wall. International loathing for "genocide by sanctions" had reached such a peak of outrage, that there was no possibility of re-crafting the hated policy. Secretary of State Colin Powell's vision of "smart sanctions" had come too late. The CIA was determined to control the agenda for the advantage of the United States, however. And so quietly through my back channel, we undertook a proactive, covert dialogue over exactly what concessions Iraq would offer the United States, in exchange for lifting the sanctions. As a long-time opponent of sanctions myself, I was eager to get results.

Julian Rose: An Open Letter to Farmers and Consumers!

2012-01-02T03:56:00.000-08:00

Listen: do you want to survive? Do you want to have something edible on your plate? Do you seriously believe that what you currently buy from the supermarkets and hypermarkets is actually providing you with your nutritional needs? Do you even care? Or are you "too busy to think about it." Do you ever read the label on the packaging? Do you know what all those 'e' numbers mean? The synthetic preservat -ives colors and additives which form a significant part of the 'food' you eat, do you realize what they are doing to you and to your children and your grandchildren? Well I'll tell you: They are destroying your immune systems, that's what they are doing. They are eating away at your natural resistance to disease. They are hardening your arteries. They are contributing to the chances of getting cancer. Have you noticed that people are getting sick more and more frequently? If you haven't noticed you must have been asleep for the past decade. How many times have you felt "really well" recently? Not often? Have you wondered why? Do you take any interest in the quality of what you put in your belly? Yes? Then why do you still go to those huge supermarket stores that sell you junk food wrapped up in pretty packaging? Did you know that the 'fresh food' they sell you is never less than 4 days old? That it has often traveled half way around the world before it gets to you? That it is coming from huge mono-cultural fields whose soils have been soused with pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and nitrates? You don't know what nitrates are? They are toxic stimulants that force plants to grow faster and bigger than they would naturally. All large scale farmers use them. The residues from these nitrates end up in our drinking water, and therefore in your bellies, and so do the pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. So do you begin to get the picture?

Rafi: From Israel: Vote Ron Paul and Let My People Go!

2012-01-02T03:24:00.000-08:00

Lately, I've been having trouble sleeping. I sit here in my living room in Karnei Shomron, Israel, on the 8th night of Chanukah, wondering what other miracles lay in store on January 3rd and in the months ahead. The name Ron Paul is constantly at my fingertips. I've typed it in so many times the past month it's insane. I'm experiencing an excitement I've rarely ever felt, and I don't even live in America any -more. During the last Republican debate I woke myself up at 3am Israel time to watch an 8pm EST live stream on YouTube, with no fatigue whatsoever. I'm on overdrive, and I can't calm myself. I've only recently figured out what this excitement actually is. I first got interested in the whole freedom move -ment, when I heard that Ron Paul wanted to end all foreign aid, including my country, Israel. This seemed like a spectacular idea to me. I hate the idea of taking American taxpayer money I don't need. The only reason we take it, by the way, is not because we need it. It's that we don't want to feel alone, and Jews always always feel a deep existential isolation and loneliness. "As I see them from the mountain tops, gaze on them from the heights, this is a people that dwells alone, not counted among the Nations," says Balaam of the People of Israel in Numbers 23:9. We still feel that loneliness. So we take the money. It's shameful, it's theft, it's destructive, it's morally wrong, and it makes people hate us for tying them into a conflict they have no business trying to solve. I wanted it to end, and didn't trust any Israeli leader to give it up on his own, so I looked up more about Ron Paul.

Pravda.ru: A Nightmare Scenario for America!

2012-01-02T02:49:00.000-08:00

Imagine one day, that suddenly and without warning, every single vehicle in the United States built after the 1970's was totally incapable of running. No going to the grocery store, in fact no more food deliveries by truck anymore to your local store. There would be no trains, planes or buses running. Only muscle powered canoes on the waterways. Imagine that there is no longer any electricity. You cannot keep your food from spoiling in the refrigerator. There is no heat, no air conditioning. No electric tools or appliances work. There is no way to pump water to your house, so you are also without water. Imagine that there is no telephone service of any sort. You cannot communicate with anyone unless you walk to where they are, which means no more computers, no internet, no cellular phones or iPods, no television or radio. Your world would be silent, except for the occasional bird chirp or dog barking, which won't last long with no food for the dog. Perhaps there might be human screams of hunger or despair. The country has been transported back to the stone age. Your ability to grow your own food is limited to your access to seeds and whether or not you get enough rain. There are riots in the cities. The only people who have access to fresh food are those with guns, who can hunt, and those by bodies of water with edible fish.

Nancy Atkinson: DARPA's New Spy Satellite!

2012-01-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

"It sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake" could be the new theme song for a new satellite being developed by DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's latest proof-of-concept project is called the "Membrane Optical Imager for Real-Time Exploitation (MOIRE) and would provide real-time images and video of any place on earth at any time, a capability that, so far, only exists in the realm of movies and science fiction. The details of this huge eye-in-the-sky look like something right out of science fiction, and it would be interesting to determine if it could have applications for astronomy as well. DARPA says the program aims to demonstrate the ability to manu -facture large membranes and large structures to hold the optics flat, and also to demonstrate the secondary optical elements needed to turn a diffraction-based optic into a wide bandwidth imaging device. The MOIRE program began in March 2010, and is now in the first phase of development, where DARPA is testing the concept's viability. Phase 2 would entail system design, with Ball Aerospace doing the design and building to test a 16-foot (5m) telescope for flight tests in orbit.

Jim Kirwan: Endings!!!

2012-01-01T04:54:00.000-08:00

In two days the funeral for the United States will be complete. The gravestone should read, Born 1776, Died 2011. The cause of death was the total failure of the public to participate in any of the things that could have kept this nation alive. This is of course the same basic reason why every successful nation in the past also died - because of greed, corruption and lawlessness that in one way or another led to the death of so many billions of people, only to know that the evil which conquered each and every viable state would itself also be totally destroyed in the end, forcing the survivors to start all over again from the beginning. The causes for this funeral go back into the depths of Millennia, but since this place does not believe in real history, we have only to look back as far as the beginning of the New Millennia that began in the year 2000 A.D., when the president was appointed by the US Supreme Court on 12-12
-2000. That was very quickly followed by the coup in the White House that was run by Dirty-Dick-Cheney, who proceeded to create the US Energy Policies that have been directing virtually every decision beginning in February 2001, when the secret spying on every American began.

Hugo Gye: US is Giving South American Leaders Cancer?

2012-01-01T04:32:00.000-08:00

The US government could be responsible for a recent spate of cancer among South American leaders, according to Venezuela's outspoken president Hugo Chavez. He suggested that the US might have "invented technology to spread cancer", and warned other left-wing heads of state that they could be targeted next. Mr. Chavez, one of several Latin American leaders to have contracted the disease in the last year, said he had developed his theories after Fidel Castro described the CIA's repeated attempts to assassinate him. Although the Venezuelan leader insisted he was 'not accusing anyone', his controversial theory is unlikely to improve relations between the US and Venezuela. Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, president of Argentina, announced on Tuesday that she was suffering from thyroid cancer, which has a high survival rate. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez received treatment in Cuba earlier this year for an unknown cancer. He had his fourth and final bout of chemotherapy in Cuba last month. He had surgery to remove a tumor from his pelvic region in June, and is now being evaluated by doctors, who hope he may fully recover. Argentinian leader Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said on Dec. 22 that she has thyroid cancer. The disease was discovered during routine medical tests, but it is thought she has a good chance of survival.

Jonathan Easley: Ron Paul says Defense Bill assures Descent into Totalitarianism!i

2011-12-31T13:24:00.000-08:00

GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul warned that the National Defense Authorization Act, which was passed by Congress this month, will accelerate the country's "slip into tyranny" and virtually assures "our descent into totalitarianism." "The founders wanted to set a high bar for the government to over -come in order to deprive an individual of life or liberty," Paul, the libertarian congressman from Texas, said Monday in a weekly phone message to supporter. "To lower that bar is to endanger everyone. When the bar is low enough to include political enemies, our descent into totalitarianism is virtually assured. The Patriot Act, as bad as its violations against the Fourth Amendment was, was just one step down the slippery slope. The recently passed National Defense Authorization Act continues that slip into tyranny, and in fact, accelerates it significantly." The NDAA is the nearly $670 billion defense bill that covers the military budget, and funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. One controversial provision mandates the detention of terror suspects, and reaffirms the administration's authority to detain those suspected of having ties to terrorist organizations. "The Fifth Amendment is about much more than the right to remain silent in the face of government questioning," Paul continued. "It contains very basic and very critical stipulations about the due process of law. The government cannot imprison a person for no reason, and with no evidence presented, and without access to legal council. The danger of the NDAA is its alarmingly vague, undefined criteria for who can be indefinitely detained by the US government without trial."

Robert Johnson: US Civilians Decide Whom to Kill with Military Drones!

2011-12-31T07:31:00.000-08:00

President Obama's enormous expansion of the US drone program may be pushing too fast for military staffing to keep up: David S Cloud of the Los Angeles Times reports that the military is now forced to rely on a string of civilian contractors placed at all levels along the "kill chain." These are the people who analyze incoming drone video, and decide when to fire Hellfire missiles. According to Cloud, an American civilian played a "central role" in the Predator attack that accidentally killed 15 Afghans in 2010, information that "surprised" the investigating Army officer. Manning the drone fleet is a mounting issue in the Air Force. It takes more staff to fly a drone than an F-15, and with more drones than ever in the air, non-government employees are increasingly employed to analyze video, and keep the UAVs in the air. The Air Force says it takes 168 people to fly a Predator for 24 hours, and 300 people to keep a Global Hawk aloft for the same time. The Air Force owns 230 Reapers, Predators, and Global Hawks, flying 50 of them at any given time, but the 730 more drones being added to the fleet over the next ten years explains why military personnel are now being asked to fly four drones at once!

The Telegraph: US Eyes first BP Criminal Carges over Gulf Oil Spill!

2011-12-31T03:56:00.000-08:00

US prosecutors are readying criminal charges against British oil giant BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident that led to the catastrophic Gulf oil spill, the Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday. The charges, if brought and prosecuted by the US Justice Department would be the first criminal charges over the disaster: Prosecutors are focusing on US-based BP engineers and at least one supervisor, who they say may have provided false information to regulators on the risks of deep water drilling in the Gulf. Felony charges for providing false information in federal documents may be made public early next year, said the Wall-Street Journal. A conviction on that charge would carry a fine and up to five years in prison, the newspaper said. The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) has already issued a second list of violations regarding BP's operation of the Macondo well that blew out in April 2010, causing the worst maritime environmental disaster in history. The US drilling safety agency has said it determined BP failed to conduct an accurate pressure integrity test in one area of the well. In four different sections of the well, BP failed to suspend drilling operations at the Macondo, when the safe drilling margin was not maintained, the agency said. An explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20, 2010, killed 11 people, and the well gushed oil into the ocean for 87 days, polluting the southern US shoreline, and crippling the local tourism and fishing sectors.

Tony Greenstein: In Israel They Shackle Palestinian Children!

2011-12-31T03:20:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the most shocking of all things in Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is the way that children are treated. It is unimaginable that a Jewish Israeli child would be brought to court in shackles, or even be placed in a court of law. Beatings and abuse of children by the Israeli military is common, and judges, such as the one below, don't even blink an eye. Thus is legal racism established! Below is a paper circulated by Dr Derek Summerfield from Defense for Children International, Palestine Section, on the shooting of children working near the northern border of Gaza. True, in the military courtroom itself, Palestinians are neither shot nor beaten. They are not 'targeted for elimination' nor even sentenced to death, at least not in the courtroom. But the military court is also a place where all illusions die, and hopes! Because that is where Palestinians learn that injury caused them is no error, nor misunderstand -ing, but a matter of policy. That is where they learn that law, regarding Palestinians is nothing short of another kind of weapon, one of many. Among the tanks and planes, and cluster bombs and checkpoints and Separation Walls and white phosphorus and the IOF spokesman: The military court is the end of ends, the last judgment, the final accusation, apriori, of Palestinians only because they are Palestinians. In courtroom number 2, where children are put on trial, is the place beyond that end. Only two family members are allowed to come to the trial. This is usually the only time they can come to see their son, and they do! Time after time. They may bring cigarettes and money for the long day awaiting them. Nothing else! Not even medication, tissues, food, a book or a newspaper. Visitors are allowed to bring a notebook and a pen, but no tissues. We have no privileges concerning tissues!

The Independent: The Battle for Israel's Soul!

2011-12-31T02:29:00.000-08:00

If the State of Israel is threatened, the assumption has been, that threat comes from outside, from militant Palestinian groups vowing to drive it into the sea or, more recently, from Iran. It is increasingly apparent, however, that the survival of Israel as a democratic and modern state is also threatened from within, specifically by its own ultra-Orthodox minority. Economically, a far larger proportion of ultra-Orthodox Jews rely on the state for support than do other Israelis. They represent a diplomatic and security liability, spearheading unauthorized settlements and refusing military service on conscientious grounds. In their politics and social mores, they are deeply conservative, and their big families mean that their influence is growing faster than that of any other group. This is leading to more and more conflicts within Israel itself. Scuffles in Beit Shemesh near Jerusalem this week, and a protest rally against the harassment by ultra-Orthodox men of girls on their way to school are just the latest, and most virulent instances of this culture clash spilling out on to the street. While many senior politicians, including President Shimon Peres, and the opposition leader, Tzipi Livni, have come out in spoken support of Israel's secular democracy, their efforts only illustrate how difficult it is to defend moderation against zealotry of whatever kind. This is a struggle for the soul of Israel, and it is not going away.

Nile Bowie: Naked Neo-Imperialism for Post-Gadhafi Libya!

2011-12-30T13:00:00.000-08:00

While the unconcealed hypocrisy that led to the emergence of a new Libya fades from the public consciousness, the governments of the West are beginning to reap the the profits of their invest -ments. Under a mandate to protect civilians, these allied forces armed radical factions of Islamist fighters, and showered white phosphorus tipped ordnance onto densely populated residential areas. While sponsoring politicians equated the Libyan rebels to "heroic" advocates of western democracy, fighting for freedom, these "men"committed racially motivated beheadings and executions of migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa, and filled mass graves with the corpses of their fellow countrymen, especially Gaddafi loyalists. Before being sodomized with a combat knife and extra judicially assassinated by foreign funded rebel fighters, Muammar Gadhafi oversaw one of Africa's most prosperous nations. With an annual economic growth of 10% and extensive programs for social welfare, public healthcare and education, Libya was viewed as a place of relative opportunity with numerous jobs for migrant workers from neighboring countries in the region. Gadhafi advocated the creation of an African Union with its own Central Bank and Monetary Fund, and a Gold Dinar currency, a move that would directly threaten the financial oligarchy of the Franco-Anglo-American powers that funded his demise.