AllterNet: By Noam Chomsky: We Have the Means to End Civilization as We Know It:

How Revolutionary Pacifism Can Preserve the Species. The following is the text of a lecture given by Chomsky upon being awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, November 1, 2011. It remains one of the most powerful and persuasive arguments for recognizing the dangers that modern, industrialized warfare pose to the future of humankind. As we all know, the United Nations was founded "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." The words can only elicit deep regret when we consider how we have acted to fulfill that aspiration, though there have been a few significant successes, notably in Europe. For centuries, Europe had been the most violent place on earth, with murderous and destructive internal conflicts and the forging of a culture of war that enabled Europe to conquer most of the world, shocking the victims, who were hardly pacifists, but were "appalled by the all-destructive fury of European warfare," in the words of British military historian Geoffrey Parker. And it enabled Europe to impose on its conquests what Adam Smith called "the savage injustice of the Europeans," England in the lead, as he did not fail to emphasize. The global conquest took a particularly horrifying form in what is sometimes called "the Anglosphere," England and its offshoots, settler-colonial societies in which the indigenous societies were devastated and their people
dispersed or exterminated. But since 1945 Europe has become internally the most peaceful and in many ways most humane region of the earth, which is the source of some its current travail, an important topic that I will have to put aside. In scholarship, this dramatic transition is often attributed to the thesis of the "democratic peace": democracies do not go to war with one another. Not to be overlooked, however, is that Europeans came to realize that the next time they indulge in their favorite pastime of slaughtering one another, the game will be over: civilization has developed means of destruction that can only be used against those too weak to retaliate in kind, a large part of the appalling history of the post-World War II years. It is not that the threat has ended. US-Soviet confrontations came painfully close to virtually terminal nuclear war in ways that are shattering to contemplate, when we inspect them closely. And the threat of nuclear war remains all too ominously alive, a matter to which I will briefly return. Can we proceed to at least limit the scourge of war? One answer is given by absolute pacifists, including people I respect though I have never felt able to go beyond that. A somewhat more persuasive stand, I think, is that the pacifist thinker and social activist A.J. Muste, one of the great figures of 20th century America, in my opinion: what he called "revolutionary pacifism." Muste disdained the search fir peace without justice. He urged that "one must be a revolutionary before one can be a pacifist", by which he meant that we must cease to "acquiesce so easily in evil in evil conditions," and must deal "honestly and adequately with this ninety percent of our problem", the violence on which the present system is based, and all the evil, material and spiritual, this entails for the masses of men throughout the world."
   

Kurt Nimmo: Infowars.com: Obama and Cameron Chat About Murdering Syrians!

Despite an obvious lack of evidence the Syrian government was responsible for a chemical attack outside of Damascus earlier this week, Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron have reached an understanding that a "serious response" aimed at the government of Bashar al-Assad and his military is in order. Barack Obama pressured to act on Syria: Obama and Cameron spent 40 minutes on the telephone Saturday. According to reports, the pair decided the Syrian government is "almost certainly responsible for the assault that is believed to have killed as many as 1,400 people in Damascus in the middle of last week," the Guardian reported on Saturday. "The prime minister and President Obama are both gravely concerned by the attack that took place in Damascus on Wednesday and the increasing signs that this was a significant chemical weapons attack carried out by the Syrian regime against its own people," a spokesman for No. 10 Downing Street told the newspaper. "The UN security council has called for immediate access for UN investigators on the ground in Damascus. The fact that President Assad has failed to co-operate with the UN suggests that the regime has something to hide." "They reiterated that significant use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options. They agreed that it is vital that the world upholds the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons would merit a serious response from the international community and both have tasked officials to examine all the options. They agreed that it is vital that the world upholds the prohibition on the use of chemical weapons and deters further outrages. They agreed to keep in close contact on the issue." British officials are attempting to head off  any reasoned opposition to a military attack by floating a now common canard used to deflect criticism when the United States, Britain, France and other nations prepare to engage in state-sponsored terrorism. "I know that some people in the world would like to say that this is some kind of conspiracy brought about by the opposition in Syria," said the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, on Thursday. "I think the chances of that are vanishingly small and so we do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime." Probable action includes missile strikes and the establishment of a no-fly zone over Syria, according to The Mirror. The United States has stationed F-16 fighter jets and Patriot missiles in Jordan in preparation for inevitable attacks. Military action is now imminent. On Monday, defense bosses from the United Kingdom, France and other nations will meet in Amman, Jordan, to discuss military options, according to the Independent. Earlier in the week, the New York Times and the rest of the establishment media admitted there is scant evidence Syria perpetuated the attack, but over the last few days the media has reached a consensus reminiscent of the propaganda blitz in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq that Syria is responsible despite as paucity of evidence. "Clearly, the United States, France and Britain want public opinion on their side for stepped up intervention in Syria. They've decided to declare Assad and the Syrian military guilty of using a weapon of mass destruction, writes Stephen Gowans. "But the conviction of guilt, as is evident through the statements of politicians and reporting of newspapers, rests on no sound evidentiary basis, indeed, on no evidence at all." 

By Ewen MacAskill, Guardian UK: Snowden Files: NSA Paid Millions to Cover Prism Compliance Costs

for Tech Companies. Top-secret files show first evidence of financial relationship. Prism companies include Google and Yahoo, says NSA. Costs were incurred after 2011 Fisa court ruling. The National Security Agency paid millions of dollars to cover the costs of major internet companies involved in the Prism surveillance program after a court ruled that some of the agency's activities were unconstitutional, according to top-secret material passed to the Guardian. The technology companies, which the NSA says includes Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook, incurred the costs to meet new certification demands in the wake of the ruling from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court. The October 2011 judgment, which was declassified on Wednesday by the Obama administration, found that the NSA's inability to separate purely domestic communications from foreign traffic violated the fourth amendment. While the ruling did not concern the Prism program directly, documents passed to the Guardian by whistle-blower Edward Snowden describe the problems the decision created for the agency and the efforts required to bring operations into compliance. The material provides the first evidence of a financial relationship between the tech companies and the NSA. The intelligence agency requires the Fisa court to sign annual "certifications" that provide the legal framework for surveillance operations. But in the wake of the court judgement these were only being renewed on a temporary basis while the agency worked on a solution to the processes that had been ruled illegal. An NSA newsletter entry, marked top secret and dated December 2012, discloses the huge costs this entailed. "Last year's problems resulted in multiple extensions to the certifications' expiration dates which costs this entailed. "Last year's problems resulted in multiple extensions to the certifications' expiration dates which cost millions of dollars for Prism providers to implement each successive extension costs covered by Special Source Operations," it says. An NSA newsletter entry dated December 2012 disclosing the costs of new certification demands. Special Source Operations, described by Snowden as the "crown jewel" of the NSA, handles all surveillance programs, such as Prism, that rely on "corporate partnerships" with telecoms and internet providers to access communications data. The disclosure that taxpayers' money was used to cover the companies' compliance costs raises new questions over the relationship between Silicon Valley and the NSA. Since the existence of the program was first revealed by the Guardian and the Washington Post on June 6, the companies have repeatedly denied all knowledge of it and insisted they only hand over user data in response to specific legal requests from the authorities. An earlier newsletter, which is undated, states that the Prism providers were all given new certifications within days of the Fisa court ruling. "All Prism providers, except Yahoo and Google, were successfully transitioned to the new certifications. We expect Yahoo and Google to complete transitioning to the new certifications. We expect Yahoo and Google to complete transitioning by Friday 6 October."     

By Glenn Greenwald, Guardian UK: Snowden: UK Government Now Leaking Documents About Itself!

The NSA whistle-blower says: 'I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent' The Independent this morning published an article, which it repeatedly "documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden" disclosing that "Britain runs a secret internet-monitoring station in the Middle East to intercept and process vast quantities of emails, telephone calls and web traffic on behalf of Western intelligence agencies." This is the first time the Independent has published any revelations purportedly from the NSA documents, and it's the type of disclosure which journalists working directly with NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden have thus far avoided. That leads to the obvious question: who is the source for this disclosure? Snowden this morning said he wants it to be clear that he was not the source for the Independent, stating: I have never spoken with, worked with, or provided any journalistic materials to the Independent. The journalists I have worked with, have, at my request, been judicious and careful in ensuring that only things disclosed are what the public should know but that does not place any person in danger. People at all levels of society up to and including the President of the United States have recognized the contribution of these careful disclosures to a necessary public debate, and we are proud of this record. "It appears that the UK government is now seeking to create an appearance that the Guardian and Washington Post's disclosures are harmful, and they are doing so by intentionally leaking harmful information to The Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information to the Independent and attributing it to others. The UK government should explain the reasoning behind this decision to disclose information that, were it released by a private citizen, they would argue is a criminal act." In other words: right as there is a major scandal over the UK's abusive and lawless exploitation of its Terrorism Act, with public opinion against the use of the Terrorism law to detain David Miranda, and right as the UK government wants but that has never happened before. That is why Snowden is making clear: despite the Independent's attempt to make it appears that it is so, he is not their source for that disclosure. Who, then, is? The US government itself has constantly used this tactic: aggressively targeting those who disclose embarrassing or incriminating information about the government in the name of protecting the sanctity of classified information, while simultaneously leaking classified information prolifically when doing so advances their political interests. One other matter about the Independent article: it strongly suggests that there is some agreement in place to restrict the Guardian ongoing reporting about the NSA documents. Speaking for myself, let me make one thing clear: I'm not aware of, nor subject to, any agreement that imposes any limitations of any kind on the reporting that I am doing on these documents. I would never agree to any such limitations. As I've made repeatedly clear, bullying tactics of the kind we saw this week will not deter my reporting of those I'm working with in any way. I'm working hard on numerous new and significant NSA stories and intend to publish them the moment they are ready.  

By Zerio Hedge: US Has "Strong Indications" Assad Used Chemical Weapons,

Russia Says Rebel False Flag. The US is back at it again. For a while it seemed as if the Egyptian situation would promptly escalate to all out war, and necessitate the US "liberation" of this or that interest or ideology and certainly putting the Suez canal under US-controlled lock-down until following a series of epically bungled missteps, Obama and John Kerry managed to alienate the Saudis and the Israelis who are firmly behind the new military counter-coup government in Egypt, while the US still has to admit a coup ever happened. Which means only Plan B for middle-east escalation remains: Syria. Sure enough, this morning we woke up to the horrible news that hundreds of people had died following the use of nerve gas in an area close to Damascus in an attack that the "democratic" media, and the Qatari mercenaries, scrambled to pin on the Assad regime. Just like in June the US "found" Assad had used chemical weapons, only for the UN and Russia to accuse the US of fabricating the data, and for the chemical weapon warehouse of the rebels to be uncovered shortly thereafter, which meant the Syria narrative would have to be put on hiatus for a few months: after all the lies were getting perilously close to those used by Bush in the Iraqi WMD fiasco. Well, the administration appears certain enough time has passed by and has relaunched the old "blame Assad" plot-line, with the WSJ reporting minutes ago that the US "sees strong indications" that Syria's government used chemical weapons in the attacks. What those are is unclear as the US does not actually have presence on the ground, and neither have any UN inspectors have been able to investigate. But why not go for round two of the false flag fabrication: maybe this time it will fly? Syrian authorities denied using chemical weapons in their renewed offensive on Wednesday, accusing
the opposition of fabricating claims or staging gas attacks themselves. "These claims are categorically false and completely baseless and are part of the filthy media war waged by some countries against Syria," a spokesman for Syria's armed forces said. U.S. officials disagreed on Wednesday. "There are strong indications there was a chemical weapons attack, clearly by the government," a senior administration official said. "But we do need to do our due diligence and get all the facts and determine what steps need to be taken." The United Nations Security Council, in an emergency meeting in New York, backed calls for a prompt investigation of the allegations, which came just days after a U.N. team arrived in Damascus to look into earlier claims of chemical-weapons use by both sides. In other words, the US had its mind made up already not only before the investigation, but mere hours after the news broke. The allegations, if verified, would represent the largest use of chemical weapons since the regime of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein attacked Kurdish and Iranian citizens with them in the late 1980s. Oh yes, remember all those Iraqi WMDs that were supposedly hiding in every bar and alley that served as the basis for "humanitarian" intervention and the liberation of the enslaved Iraqi oil wells? We do. Oh yes, remember all those Iraqi WMDs that were supposedly hiding in every bar and alley that served as the basis for "humanitarian" intervention and the liberation of the Iraqi oil wells? We do.  

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment: How to Create a Dictatorship!

How to turn a democracy into a STASI authoritarian state in 10 easy steps: 1. Misuse the concept of a Top Secret government document, say, the date of D-Day and extend classification to trillions of mundane documents a year. 2. Classify all government crimes and violations of the Constitution as secret. 3. Create a class of 4.5 million privileged individuals, many of them corporate employees, with access to classified documents but allege it is illegal for the public to see leaked classified documents. 4. Spy on the public in violation of the Constitution. 5. Classify environmental activists as terrorists while allowing Big Coal and Big Oil to pollute and destroy the planet. 6. Share info gained from NSA spying on public with DEA, FBI, local law enforcement to protect pharmaceuticals & liquor industry from competition from pot, or protect polluters from activists. 7. Falsify to judges and defense attorneys how allegedly incriminating info was discovered. 8 Lie and deny to Congress you are spying on the public. 9. Criminalize the revelation of government crimes and spying as Espionage. 10. Further criminalize whistle blowing as "Terrorism", have compradors arrest innocent people, detain them, and confiscate personal effects with no cause or warrant i.e. David Miranda, partner of Glenn Greenwald. Presto, what looks like a democracy is really an authoritarian state ruling on its own behalf and that of 2000 corporations, data-basing the activities of 312 million innocent citizens and actively helping destroy the planer while forestalling climate activism.

By Wolf Richter, Testosterone Pit.com: German Government Warns Key Entities

Not To Use Windows 8 Links The NSA. According to leaked internal documents from the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) that Die Zeit obtained, IT experts figured out that Windows 8, the touch-screen enabled, super-duper but sales challenged Microsoft operating system is outright dangerous for data security. It allows Microsoft to control the computer remotely through a built-in backdoor. Keys to that backdoor are likely accessible to the NSA, and in an unintended ironic twist, perhaps even to the Chinese. The backdoor is called "Trusted Computing," developed and promoted by the Trusted Computing Group, founded a decade ago by the all-American tech companies AMD, Cisco, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, and Wave Systems. Its core element is a chip, the Trusted Platform Module (TPM), and an operating system designed for it, such as Windows 8. Trusted Computing Group has developed the specifications of how the chip and operating systems work together. Its purpose is Digital Rights Management and computer security. The system decides what so had been legally obtained and would be allowed to run on the computer, and what software, such as illegal copies and Trojans, should be disabled. The whole process would be governed by Windows, and through remote access, by Microsoft. Now there is a new specifications out, TPM 2.0 is activated by default when the computer boots up. The user cannot turn it off. Microsoft decides what software can run on the computer, and the user cannot influence it in any way. Windows governs TPM 2.0. And what Microsoft does remotely is not visible to the user. In short, users of Window 8 with TPM 2.0 surrender control over their machines the moment they turn it on for the first time. It would be easy for Microsoft or chip manufacturers to pass the backdoor keys to the NSA and allow it to control those computers. NO, Microsoft would never do that, we protest. Alas, Microsoft , as we have learned from the constant flow of revelations, informs the US government of security holes in its products well before it issues fixes so that government agencies take advantage of the holes and get what they are looking for. Experts at the BSI, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the Federal Administration warned unequivocally against using computers with Windows 8 and TPM 2.0. One of the documents from early 2012 lamented, "Due to the loss of full sovereignty over the information technology, the security objectives of 'confidentiality' and 'integrity' can no longer be guaranteed." Elsewhere, the document warns, "This can have significant consequences on the IT security of the Federal Administration," And it concludes, "The use of 'Trusted Computing' technology in this form is unacceptable for the Federal Administration and for operators of critical infrastructure." Another document claims that Windows 8 with TPM 2.0 is "already" no longer usable. But Windows 7 can "be operated safely until 2020." After that other solutions would have to be found for the IT systems of the Administration. The documents also show that the German government tried to influence the formation of the TPM 2.0 specifications, a common practice in processes that take years and have many stakeholders, but was rebuffed. Others have gotten what they wanted, Die Zeit wrote. The NSA for example. At one of the last meetings between the TCG and various stakeholders, someone dropped the line, "The NSA agrees."