Johnny Punish: Global War Against Extremism Hits Snag at Fox News:

Judge Pirro Jumps off Extremist Bridge. Today, Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox News gave an effective rant against the mother of the Boston Marathon bombers essentially calling for her to be taken to Gitmo, and tried as a terrorist, for raising Jihadi children, and making comments that were clearly anti American. In listening to Judge Pirro, she had many salient and clear headed thoughts that this pro humanity writer actually agrees with, however, her conclusion is that we should suspend the American justice system to deal with such people that anger her. Check her out what she actually says in this video: Now, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has dealt with this same issue. But he did so in a much different way. Last week, he outlined how Fox News was advocating the complete destruction of our civil liberties, our Bill of Rights, and US Constitution. He did so in a funny way, it had this writer on the floor laughing his ass of (LHAO). Check him out here, warning! Hold on to your chair! The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes Indecision Political Humor. The Daily Show on Facebook. Both were effective speakers for their audience. But their arguments highlight the divide, not only within the USA, but internationally in that many people don't really know whom we are at war with, and what to do about it? Are we at war with Islam? Christianity? Judaism? Iran? Chechneya? Oklahoma? Newtown? North Korea? Some crazy mother? Whom are we at war with? As it turns out, many countries, not only the USA, have an extremist challenge at home, and have to deal with domestic terrorism. Surprise! It is worse in many other countries! And you thought the USA was all alone? So while it feels like Americans are unique in experiencing terror, the real truth is that it's a worldwide challenge. What is truly needed is global examination of this challenge, but that is not on the table right now. Instead, we have Judge Pirro, and her fans cheering and yelling at the top of their lungs, to suspend rights in America, when they feel it warrants. They don't seem to understand that the whole world has this challenge, and that suspending rights won't resolve a darn thing, except hurt everyone else, who is normally law abiding, creating even more anger. Moreover, the hawks certainly do not aim to acknowledge that the USA itself is engaged in global terrorism, both directly and indirectly, causing deaths daily around the world, as it seeks to achieve its' global hegemony. This aggression is NOT a good way to win friends and influence people.    

Rick Rozoff: NATO's Worldwide Expansion in the Post World Era!

One of the most significant developments of the post Cold War era, and certainly the most ominous, is the transformation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a military bloc created by the United States during the genesis of the Cold War in 1949, into one that has grown to encompass the entirety of Europe, has expanded military partnerships throughout the world, and has waged war on three continents. In 2006 Kurt Volker, at the time with the State Department, and two years afterwards US ambassador to NATO, boasted that the year before NATO had been engaged in eight simultaneous operations on four continents. Two years later, the State Departments Daniel Fried, told the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe: When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, NATO was an Alliance of 16 members, and no partners. Today, NATO has 26 members, with 2 new invitees, prospective membership for others, and over 20 partners in Europe and Eurasia, seven in the Mediterranian, four in the Persian Gulf, and others from around the world. Although then Secretary of State, James Baker had assured Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev at the time of German reunification in 1990, that NATO would not be moved one inch eastward, the very act of merger occurring as it did, led to the German Democratic Republic being absorbed not only into the Federal Republic, but NATO, and hence the latter immediately moving east to the borders of Poland and Czechoslovakia, and closer to that of the Soviet Union. The two invited nations Fried mentioned above are Albania and Croatia, which became full members of the military bloc in 2009, completing a decade of expansion that saw NATO membership grow by 75 percent from 16 to 28. NATO expansion to the east, has provided the Pentagon and its Western allies with bases and other military facilities in Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Romania for wars to the east and south. Macedonia, which would also have been absorbed in 2009, except for the name dispute with NATO member Greece, is now in a new category of nations being groomed for full NATO membership, the alliance refers to as aspirant countries. The others currently are Bosnia, Georgia and Montenegro. With the Partnership for Peace program, that was used to promote twelve new Eastern European into NATO between 1999 and 2009, every non Soviet member of the Warsaw Pact and three former Soviet republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Mediterranean Dialogue, the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative and, as of last year, the newly formed Partners Across the Globe, whose initial members are Afghanistan, Australia, Iraq, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Korea, NATO members and partners number at least 70 nations, well over a third of those in the world. 

Stephen Lendman: Fabricated Intelligence and the WMD Pretext:

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

Barry Chamish: The CIA Hoax Report!

A phony CIA report on Israel is being distributed by a notoriously iffy Canadian website. The problem is its conclusions may be right for all the wrong reasons. We will dive into those reasons, as soon as we divest ourselves of this purported "study." The report begins with the cliche, of Israel being a colonial Apartheid state, which will be destroyed, when millions of Palestinians all decide to move back there. I will dismiss this observation with the endlessly quoted tourists of the 19th century, like Twain and Balzac, who reported an empty Palestine, where the Jews were the majority in centers like Jerusalem, Tsfat and Tiberius. The British takeover in 1917 attracted a new population of ancient Palestinians attracted by jobs. If you want to talk colonial takeover, start with the Hashemite dynasty, moved by the British from Mecca to Jordan, a generation before there was an Israel. A study conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has cast doubt over Israel's survival beyond the next 20 years. The CIA report predicts an inexorable movement away from a two state, to a one state solution, as the most viable model, based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid, while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region. In short, the CIA, if it claims to be professional, would never have written such a silly introduction. This is a classic far left cliche. But the misinformation gets even sillier. The study, which has been made available only to a certain number of individuals, further forecasts the return of all Palestinian refugees to the occupied territories, and the exodus of two million Israelis, who would move to the US in the next fifteen years. There are over 500,000 Israelis with American passports, and more than 300,000 living in the area of just California, International lawyer Franklin Lamb said in an interview with Press TV on Friday, adding that those who do not have American or western passports, have already applied for them. We begin with the accurate fact, that half a million Israelis boast American passports. Then the baloney. According to this hoax, All other Israelis have already applied for their passports. In other words, Everyone is getting ready to leave. This is not according to the alleged CIA report, but is a citation from a lawyer no one has heard of commenting on this dumb hoax. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that Israel is not going the way of South Africa or the Soviet Union, which kept their colonial populations, but to an even more appealing end, where all the Jews leave.   

Katrina Richardson: How Can White Americans Be Free?

No people come into possession of a culture, without having paid a heavy price for it: James Baldwin Measure, measure, measure. We learn to measure first. We spend our days measuring, and when we count, we start at one. Every number after is a relation to one. Two is after one. Three is after one. And so on. Every child knows that one is Whiteness. The beginning In the beginning there was Whiteness. This is the glittering starting point. This is The Default. This is what we measure everything else against. It's clear that we as Black and Brown Americans, are still recovering from the racist indoctrinations of the past 500 years. Though laughable it sounds, white Americans, too, have suffered from this crime. As our country began, and brown races were systematically denied the right to be human, and so internalized the role of the savage, white consciousness bullied its way into objectivity. The white mind became the unbiased mind, that objectively observed all the rest. This is called The Default: This belief that the white experience is a neutral and objective experience, and white consciousness is the standard consciousness, unless otherwise specified. White culture, and American culture as a whole, suffers from the tragedy of whiteness, as the default setting. Being The Default keeps white Americans from being liberated, because it denies them a specific identiy, by absorbing them into neutral blankness. This creates a lonely detachment from the rest of the world. Being The Default is the largest privilege granted to white Americans, yet it is so deeply entrenched, it is the most visible, we cannot see the edges of the atmosphere, but it exists. Whites benefit from being The Default, by having inherent legitimacy, in a way that is denied to people of color. Their experience of life, is normal. Whites are free from the constant awareness, and constant awareness, and subsequent constant paranoia, of existing in another person's world. Because The Default has so successfully dominated our subconscious, because our egos have been shaped by it from the moment of birth, we perpetuate it in micro ways, while fighting inequality with more obvious actions. The silent poison continues to poison. Whiteness as The Default, keeps brown people in subjugation by convincing them, that every part of their being, physical, spiritual and emotional, exist within a white narrative. When you are made to exist within something you are forced to be smaller than that which contains you. This is precisely the basis of racist thought. Brown existence, brown consciousness is smaller.         

Dr. Franklin Lamb: Pushing Al Qaeda to Take on Hezbollah!

This is one damn fine idea, what took us so long to see a simple solution that was right in front of our eyes for Christ's sake, Senator John McCain of Bomb, bomb Iran, and no-fly zones for Syria notoriety, reportedly demanded to know from Dennis Ross during a recent Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) brain storming session in Washington DC. Ross, a founder of WINEP with Israeli government start up cash, presumably reimbursed unknowingly by American taxpayers, and currently WINEP's Counselor, reportedly responded to the idea of facilitating Al Qeada, to wage jihad against Hezbollah with the comment: Shiites are not the only ones seeking death, to demonstrate their resistance to whatever. Plenty of other Muslims also want to die, as we saw last week in Boston. Let 'em all go at it, and Israel can sweep out their shit when it's over. One Congressional staffer attending the WINEP event emailed me, Dennis spoke in jest, well I assumed he did, but who knows anymore? Things are getting even crazier inside some of these pro Israel think tanks around here. Featured on the front page of its April 25 edition, the Zionist compliant New York Times, writes that the Assad regime is apparently recovering but, it must be understood that for all of the justified worries about the al Qaeda affiliated rebels Assad remains an ally of Iran and Hezbollah. The Times adopts the views of Islamo-phobe, Daniel Pipes, who recommends that the US try to keep the two sides in Syria fighting as long as possible until they destroy each other. Pipes, now serving as an adviser to John McCain, wrote in the Washington Times on April 11, Evil forces pose less danger to us, when they make war on each other. This keeps them focused locally, and it prevents either one from emerging victorious, and thereby posing a grater danger. Western powers should guide enemies to a stalemate by helping whenever side is losing, so as to prolong their debilitating conflict. Both Jeffrey Feltman, UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs, and Susan Rice, US Permanent Representative to the UN, have at a minimum impliedly joined in the intriguing idea of siccing Jabhat al Nusra on the Party of God. This scheme, if launched, would be Feltman's 14th attempt to topple Hezbollah and defeat the Lebanese National Resistance to the occupation of Palestine, since he first arrived in Beirut from Tel Aviv in 2005, to become US Ambassador to Lebanon. This observer, among others in this region, sense that given the aura still enveloping the American Embassy here, that Jeffrey never really left his Lebanese ambassadorial post, and continues to occupy this position from his new UN office. 

Watch: The Daily Show Takes on the Bush Library,

and disaster-piece Theater. On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart and senior correspondent Al Madrigal took on the newly unveiled, George W. Bush Presidential Library. The team took particular shots at Decision Points Theater, the absurd exhibit, where museum patrons get a chance to relive some of Dubya's most controversial moments in his shoes. But any Bush library is going to have to grapple with some of the damaging decisions made by this administration, Iraq, Katrina, the financial crisis, hopefully the Bush center has found away to explore these issues, that are both informative and objective, Stewart said, before introducing what he calls Disaster-piece Theater. Jon then turned to senior correspondent Al Madrigal, who reported live from the library, wielding a George W. Bush Steak on a Stick. Decision Points theater: amazing. I aced it by the way, Madrigal said. Invade Iraq? Yes. Rescue New Orleans? No. Bail out Wall Street? Pass the checkbook. Jon, curious, asked, Knowing what we know now, why did you choose yes on invading Iraq? Well, Madrigal replied. The choices were: A, Leave a mad man in power, that will destroy civilization or B, be a little bitch, Madrigal said, further explaining that those who choose B face a video of Bush, telling users they made the wrong decision. You're making that up right? Stewart checked. No, that's actually what happens at the George W Bush museum, Madrigal said, reflecting a very sad reality. Luckily for presidential enthusiasts, similar exhibits exist in other libraries, Madrigal explained. There is a decision points room at the Clinton presidential library, Actually it's just a crotch level hole in the wall. A decade after President George W Bush ordered the unprovoked invasion of Iraq, one of the enduring mysteries has been why. There was the rationale, sold to a frightened American people in 2002 to 2003, that Saddam Hussein was plotting to attack them with Weapons of Mass Destruction, but no one in power believed that. There have been other, more plausible explanations. George Bush the younger, wanted to avenge a perceived slight to George Bush the elder, while also outdoing his father as a war president. Vice President Dick Cheney had his eye on Iraq's oil wealth, and the Republican Party saw an opportunity to create its permanent majority behind a glorious victory in the Middle East. Though George W Bush's defenders vigorously denied being motivated by such crass thinking, those rationales do seem closer to the truth. However, there was another driving force behind the desire to conquer Iraq: The neoconservative belief that the conquest would be a first step toward installing compliant pro US regimes throughout the Middle East, and letting Israel dictate final peace terms to its neighbors.