Stephen Lendman: NATO is NOW USING NUCLEAR WEAPONS in LIBYA

As part of a Libya International Observer Team, Middle East Analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya headlined his July 5 Global Research Article: "NATO War Crimes - Scientist finds Depleted Uranium". The sites targeted include Civilians and Libya's Civilian Infrastructure! Scientists have confirmed radioactive isotopes at bombed sites from field surveys, and an analysis was conducted at the Libyan Nuclear Energy Institution. The "bottom line result" showed that many sites contained even higher than expected doses of uranium from NATO missiles and ordnance fragments. In interviews, an investigator said cluster bombs and other weapons are used freely in civilian neighborhoods, and are targeting non-military sites with illegal "dirty bombs", just as our US used to contaminate Fallujah in Iraq for centuries. In the case of Fallujah, independent observers discovered an enormous number of birth defects. On April 14, Foreign Policy in Focus columnist Conn Hallinan told Press TV that: The fact that the US is denying the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions is just nonsense." When used against tanks, enormous fireballs are visible, a unique DU signature. As a result, "long-term consequences for Libyans are going to be severe." On April 19, investigative journalist and author Dave Lindorff also told Press TV that strong evidence points to DU, saying: "The way some of these armored vehicles and tanks have been hit look like it's pretty strong evidence that it is depleted uranium. It's the kind of explosive burn that you get from that particular ammunition, and certainly the US has been flying A-10's, which generally use DU shells in their armaments." On June 6, Dr. Randy Short repeated the same charge, telling Press TV viewers that the NATO targeted Tripoli residential areas were hit with DU weapons, cluster bombs, and other "illegal" substances. Depleted uranium weapons cause cancer, birth defects and other diseases. Using them in built-up areas in effect targets civilians. First developed by the Navy in 1968, Israel tested them under US supervision during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Later, they were sold to 29 or more countries, but never used until the 1991 Gulf War, when America broke an international prohibition. Thereafter, thousand of tons contaminated air, water and soil in targets zones and well beyond. Although no international convention or treaty bans them, they are de facto and de jure illegal under the 1907 Hague Convention, prohibiting "poison or poisoned weapons" use. Also, under the 1925 Geneva Protocol, as well as later under Geneva and other conventions, specifically banning chemical, biological, and other poisoned weapons. In all forms, DU is radioactive and chemically toxic, thus conforming to Hague's poisonous weapons definition. Using them is therefore a war crime.

Eric Walberg: Egypt vs IMF - Time to Default?

It is no secret that Egypt has put all its faith in the US and Western international institutions since the days of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, contracting a huge foreign debt, a process that was increasingly corrupt, despite the watchful eyes of various agencies. This debt is financed by foreign banks, and must be repaid in dollars, with interest. If much of the money they create, and then "lend" is siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts, that is Egypt's problem. No one is trying to change the people who gave Mubarak or his henchmen their money, and then let them re-deposit it with them, but it takes two to tango! Whether or not a fraction of it actually helps the "Ahmeds" in the meantime, it is the Egyptian people who are held responsible for all of it, and who must comply with IMF "adjustment programs" involving privatization, deregulation, regressive taxation, an end to subsidies of the poor, and a "heaping helping" of unpleasant "tough love". Egypt's revolution momentarily shattered the complacency of this devilish scenario. The explosion under the weight of the grinding poverty the system produced caught the Western bankers and political leaders by surprise and they "hurried" to embrace the revolution and co-opt it when they realized it was inevitable. This culminated in the IMF's offer of the loan to cover the yawning gap in Egypt's first post-revolution budget, which will double the lowest salaries, improve social services and introduce a progressive income tax. This unusual gesture of generosity by the IMF (a low interest rate and supposedly no strings attached) was really intended to keep Egypt from straying from the orthodox monetary fold, as other countries have done in the past in similar situations. It was enthusiastically supported by Egypt's elite, largely trained at US universities in the arcana of monetary theory. "Otherwise, Egypt was about to be considered in default". Hani Genena, senior economist at Pharos Holding for Investments told Al-Ahram Weekly. This is exactly what countries such as Russia, Argentina and Ecuador have done in the past.

RJ Eskow: Guernica Revisited? A President on the Verge of a Political Breakdown

Guernica, or Guernica Y Luno is a town of Northern Spain in Vizcaya Province, 12 miles northeast of Northern Spain in Vizcaya Province, and 12 miles northeast of Bilbao. It has traditionally been a center of the Basque culture. As a stronghold of the Loyalist forces from 1936 to 1939 during the Spanish Civil War, the town was devastated by German air bombardment in April 1937. The tragedy was captured by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso in his monumental oil painting called "Guernica", which is enshrined in New York's Museum of Modern Art. Now, it seems that history, as it always does, is repeating itself, since NATO is visiting Libya and her people with faster planes and a much greater cargo of lethal ammunition! Pablo Picasso, if there is a hell, must now be crying in his ant and worm infested coffin, wondering tearfully whether there is a GOD? After my flight from our home in Breslau, Germany, and my family's witnessing of the US and British destruction of the beautiful city of Dresden, I fully believe that there is NOT! So we are stuck here in the Devil's playground, playing war games, and torturing our fellow humans. As Obama is my witness, I will never torture another human AGAIN! This isn't the first time the White House has floated the idea of Social Security cuts as part of a 'grand bargain' with Republicans, nor when there has been a ground- swell of opposition, but that opposition has never crystallized so quickly into something deeper and more threatening to the president's political fortunes: Liberal pundits are turning against him and Democrats on the Hill are taking the fight directly to him. With a new poll confirming that Social Security cuts would alienate the other side's base and independents, this "grand bargain" doesn't look like much of a bargain anymore. Senator Bernie Sanders already laid the responsibility for unpopular cuts squarely at the President's feet on a phone call with reporters today: "We thought Social Security was off the table," said Sanders, "but by reopening this issue the White House is not only going to take on these changes, but will open the door to whatever the Republicans want." In other words: If something "bad" happens to Social Security, you own it, Mr. President!

Professor Michel Chossudovsky: The Threat of World War III

Mahatma Gandhi said: "Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and tyrants, and while it may momentarily seem that they have the upper hand, they have always fallen." The US and its NATO allies are now preparing to launch a nuclear war directed against both Iran and North Korea with devastating consequences. This "military adventure" threatens the future of humanity. While one can conceptualize the loss of life and destruction resulting resulting from present-day wars, including Iraq and Afghanistan, it is impossible to fully comprehend the devastation which might result from a Third World War, using "new technologies" and advanced weapons, until it occurs and becomes a reality. The international community has endorsed nuclear war, in the name of "world peace". "Making the world safer" is the justification for launching a military operation which could result in a nuclear holocaust, but these "holocausts" are not front page news! In the words of Mordechai:"The Israeli government is preparing to use nuclear weapons in its next war with the Islamic world. Here, where I live, people always talk of the Holocaust, but each and every nuclear bomb is a Holocaust in itself. It can kill, devastate cities, and destroy entire people and their nations!" Realities are turned upside down. In a twisted logic, a "humanitarian war", using tactical nuclear weapons, which according to "expert scientific opinion" are "harmless to the surrounding civilian population" is upheld as a means to protect the Western World from a nuclear attack. The global killing machine is also sustained by an imbedded cult of of killing and destruction, which pervades Hollywood movies, not to mention the prime-time war and crime TV series on network television. This cult of killing is endorsed by the CIA and the Pentagon, which also support Hollywood productions as an instrument of war propaganda: "Ex-CIA agent Bob Baer told us, "There is a symbiosis between the CIA and Hollywood" and revealed that former CIA director George Tenet is currently "out in Hollywood, talking to studios".

Andrew Kennis: Why is our US Government Giving Military Rifles to Mexican Drug Cartels?

The men in our Phoenix field office of our Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms want to know. "Are you prepared to attend the funeral of a federal officer killed with one of our guns, an ATF agent shouted to one of his superiors?" As it turned out, one of our US agents was killed in December 2010. Anonymous testimonies offered to CBS past February provided detailed revelations and a flurry of controversy. The agents were dissenting against the continuance of the previously classified "gun-walking" program, named "Fast and Furious", which permits gun sales to suspected "straw purchasers", meaning buyer conduits to drug cartels, for the sole purpose of tracking the weapons in the hope of prosecuting prominent drug cartel members when they use those guns to commit crimes, or when guns are seized by authorities. The program was first started in October 2009 and accelerated in September 2010. In effect, a US federal law enforce -ment organization charged with regulating guns was deliberately permitting the sales of high -powered weaponry, which included AK-47's and military-grade .50 caliber rifles, to flow directly into the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

James P. Tucker Jr: Can Anyone Stop Bilderberg's Lust For War?

Barack Obama says the US role in invading Libya is not a "war" because it is limited to air strikes. By the same logic, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec.7, 1941 was not "war" because Japan had no boots on the ground. Patriots know that President Franklin D. Roosevelt baited the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor to get the US into World War II. By going to war, the Great Depression could be ended as 12 million men got jobs carrying guns, and millions more would be employed making tanks, jeeps, planes, bombs, bullets, bayonets, and other war material. This also benefits the Bilderberg and similar groups, which are heavily invested in manufacturing goods to kill people. "Americans buy war like children gobble candy," laughed Henry Kissinger, a longtime Bilderberg luminary. "Of course, President Obama has to be publicly reluctant to go to war, but we can depend on him."The so-called Bilderbergers are frankly worried that their campaign to expand the Libyan invasion into a bloodbath in the Middle East may face difficult obstacles. House Speaker John Boehner threatened to withhold funds for the war, suggesting that Congress could take action at any moment: "We have drone attacks under way, we're spending $10 million a day, and we are part of the effort to drop bombs on Qadaffi's compound. It doesn't pass the straight-face test." Senator Jim Webb (D-Va.), a decorated combat veteran and member of the Armed Services Committee, scoffed at the "not at war" claim. "Spending a billion dollars and dropping bombs on people sounds like hostilities to me," he told the Associated Press!

James