The Economist: The wolf returns, Call of the Wild!

In August 2011, Desiree Versteeg, a Dutch mortuarist, was driving home in the suburbs of Arnhem in the eastern Netherlands, when she saw an animal in the road. "At first I thought it was a dog. Then I thought it was a fox. Then, I couldn't believe my eyes, I saw it was a wolf." She got out of the car to take a picture. "I was seven or eight meters away from him. He couldn't get away, because a fence was blocking his path. He turned and stared at me. That was a frightening moment." Both she and the wolf fled. From Ms Versteeg's photographs, and from the carcass of a deer found nearby, its throat torn out in classic wolf fashion, scientists verified that she was the first person to have seen a wolf in the Netherland's since 1897. Having talked to the experts, she now understands that the wolf was probably more frightened than she was, "But all you know at the time is: It's a wolf, it's a predator, and I'm in it's way." Ms Versteeg's experience illustrates a dramatic reversal that has taken place in the West over the past couple of decades. Economic change has led to a fundamental shift in humanity's attitude to wolves. For the first time since man first sharpened a spear, he has stopped trying to exterminate them and taken to protecting them instead. The effort has been so successful that wolves are recolonizing areas from which they disappeared as much as a century ago. As they do so, they are forging revealing divisions over whether mankind can live side by side with the species it replaced as the Western world's top predator. Most man-made extinctions have been accidental, the result of over hunting, or importing predators or diseases. Wolves are different. Through most of human history, killing them has been regarded as a public good. As soon as anything that looked like a state developed, it set about exterminating wolves. In England King Edgar imposed an annual tribute of 300 wolf skins on Idwal, king of Wales. In 960, monarchs made land grants on condition that the beneficiaries carried out wolf hunts. King Edward I employed a wolf hunter in chief, to clear central and western England of wolves. 

Stephen Lendman: Four More Years of War!

Expect Obama to prioritize advancing America's imperium. He did aggressive in term one. New wars are planned. Current ones won't end. Proxy ones continue. So does increasing America's global military footprint. Fiscal cliff hype is about greater force fed austerity to free up more funds for America's war machine. Waging them isn't cheap. Profiteers depend on wasteful spending to boost bottom line performance. It pays to have friends in high places. They assure all the billions wanted. Social America is being sacrificed to provide them. Over the next decade, trillions of dollars will shift from people needs to war making, generous corporate handouts, tax breaks for the rich, and hardened homeland repression against nonbelievers. At the same time, deficits will keep rising exponentially. Hype about urgently cutting them is fake. Post 9/11 has been the worst of times. Expect more of the same on steroids ahead. Conditions today are the most perilous in world history. Global war is possible. The threat is real and ominous. Open discussion is suppressed. Media scoundrels won't touch it, nor do they explain Project Censored top Censored 2013 story: "Signs of an Emerging Police State." It began pre 9/11, accelerated under Bush, then Obama exceeded his extremism. Tyranny in America is a hair's breadth from full blown. For those affected,it arrived long ago. Project Censored's number 4 story is: "FBI Agents Responsible for Majority of Terrorist Plots in the United States." Innocent people are wrongly imprisoned. Media scoundrels convict them in the court of public opinion. Other top censored stories include criminalizing nonviolent protests, corporate predators running the global economy, Federal Reserve money printing madness, enriching Wall Street, Washington joining forces with Al Qaeda, prison slavery, wrecking public education by privatizing it, and NATO war crimes in Libya, but it's much the same wherever this killing machine shows up. Media scoundrel managed news suppresses these and other vital truths people most need to know. Instead, they get The New York Times running cover for Obama's foreign policy by praising what it should condemn.

Ismail Salami: The Good Terrorists versus the Bad

Washington's Dilemma: The Good Terrorists versus the Bad Terrorists: Terrorism is terrorism, and it cannot be defined otherwise unless the interests of one party tilt the scale in disfavor of another, and the dichoto-mization of the terrorists in Syria into good and bad by the West casts doubts on its claims on democracy. In a somber political tone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out as absolutely unacceptable the West's support for the terrorists in Syria, in his exclusive interview with Russia Today. Lavrov said the West has divided the terrorists into bad and acceptable, throwing its support behind the latter. It's absolutely unacceptable, and if we follow this logic it might lead us to a very dangerous situation, not only in the Middle East, but in other parts of the world, if our partners in the West would begin to qualify terrorists as bad terrorists and acceptable terrorists, the Russian foreign minister said. The "dichotomization" of such a grave issue by the West is almost nothing new. The de listing of MKO, a long considered terrorist group by Washington is in line with this process of redefining well established concepts and terms by the West. Paradoxically, the MKO has been supported by Washington, even when it was on the terrorist list. They even received their training at the hands of the Bush administration. In an enlightened article, Seymour Hersh showed that US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) trained members of the Iranian Mujahideen e Khalq (MKO) at a secretive site in Nevada from 2005 to at least 2007. According to Hersh, MKO members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Obama took office. In a separate interview, a retired four star general said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of MKO members in Nevada by an American involved in the program. He said that they got the standard training in commo, crypto, small unit tactics, and weaponry that went on for six months. They were kept in little pods. He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administrations global war on terror.   

Dr. Ismail Salami: Good Terrorists Versus Bad Terrorists in Syria!

Terrorism is terrorism, and it cannot be defined otherwise, unless the interests of one party tilt the scale in disfavor of another, and the dichotomization of the terrorists in Syria into good and bad by the West, casts doubt on its claim on democracy. In a somber political tone, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out as "absolutely unacceptable"the West's support for the terrorists in Syria, in his exclusive interview with Russia Today. Lavrov said the West has divided the terrorists into "bad" and "acceptable," throwing its support behind the latter. "It's absolutely unacceptable, and if we follow this logic, it might lead us to a very dangerous situation, not only in the Middle East, but in other parts of the world, if our partners in the West would begin to qualify terrorists as bad terrorists and acceptable terrorists," the Russian foreign minister said. The dichotomization of such a grave issue by the West is almost nothing new. The delisting of MKO, a long considered terrorist group by Washington, is in line with this process of re-defining well established concepts and terms by the West. Paradoxically, the MKO has been supported by Washington even when it was on the terrorist list. They even received their training at the hands of the Bush administration. In an enlightening article, Seymour Hersh showed that US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) trained members of the Iranian Mujahideen e Khalq (MKO) at a secretive site in Nevada from 2005 to at least 2007. According to Hersh, MKO members were trained in intercepting communications, cryptography, weaponry and small unit tactics at the Nevada site up until President Obama took office." In a separate interview, a retired four star general said that he had been privately briefed in 2005 about the training of MKO members in Nevada by an American involved in the program. He said that they got "the standard training program in communication, cryptography, small unit tactics and weaponry. That went on for six months. They were kept in little pods." He also was told, he said, that the men doing the training were from JSOC, which, by 2005, had become a major instrument in the Bush Administration's global war on terror.            

Michel Chossudovsky: The Destabilization of Pakistan!

This article first published five years ago in December 2007, focuses on the historical process of collapse of Pakistan as a nation state, following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Washington's intent goes beyond the narrow objective of "regime change". The thrust of US foreign policy consists of weakening the central government and fracturing the country. The ongoing US drone attacks under the banner of the "Global War on Terrorism" are part of that process. Washington's intent goes beyond the narrow objective of "regime change". The thrust of US foreign policy consists of weakening the central government and fracturing the country. The ongoing US drone attacks under the banner of the "Global War on Terrorism" are part of that process. Washington had already envisaged a scenario of disintegration and civil war. According to a 2005 report by the US Intelligence Council and the CIA, Pakistan is slated to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". What is not mentioned in this report, is that the destabilization process, including the drone attacks, is part of a longstanding US led intelligence operation. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto has created conditions which contribute to the ongoing destabilization and fragmentation of Pakistan as a Nation. The process of US sponsored "regime change", which normally consists in the re formation of a fresh proxy government under new leaders has been broken. Discredited in the eyes of Pakistani public opinion, General Pervez Musharaf cannot remain in the seat of political power, but at the same time, the fake elections supported by the "international community" scheduled for January 2008, even if they were carried out, would not be accepted as legitimate, thereby creating a political impasse. There are indications that the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was anticipated by US officials:"It has been known for months, that the Bush Cheney administration and its allies have been maneuvering to strengthen their political control of Pakistan, paving the way for the expansion and deepening of the war on terrorism across the region. Various American destabilization plans, known for months by officials and analysts proposed the toppling of Pakistan's military. The assassination of Bhutto appears to have been anticipated. There were even reports of chatter among US officials about the possible assassinations of either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto, well before the actual attempts took place!   

Dirk Adriaensens: CIA Interrogations in Iraq.

Torture and Rape of Detained Women. Kitabat reports on 18 December. The chairman of the Iraqi List, Hamid al Mutlaq, said in a press conference in Baghdad on 18 December: "Iraqi prosecutors have submitted today a report to the Chairman of the Iraqi judiciary, Medhat al Mahmoud, that confirms the occurrence of torture and violations and rape of women detained in Iraqi prisons. The report is based on confidential testimonies of female prisoners in Iraqi jails." Mutlaq said that "the report confirms what has been recently stated by some parliamentary committees and human rights organizations, that there is a systematic violation, torture and rape of female prisoners in Iraqi prisons," The Chairperson of the Committee on Women presented a report on the situation of women prisoners. This report confirms that prisoners are routinely subjected to torture and rape. The presentation led to a heated argument between the deputies of the Iraqi List and the Coalition of State of Law, evolving into a serious affray. Mutlaq demanded that the Iraqi government and the judiciary system would "do their legal duties by issuing a death sentence against those who commit such crimes against Iraqi women, and take the necessary measures to prevent these abuses. He also asked to protect the confidential informant, and to implement Article IV of the Anti terrorism Act. The announcement of the Public Prosecutor to the Iraqi Judicial Council coincides with the statement of the Governor of Nineveh, Ethel Nujaifi, on Tuesday, about an officer in the Second Division of the Iraqi army, who raped a 17 year old minor, after forcing her into the Headquarters of his Regiment in the Nimrod's District. On 12 December, the Sadrist movement submitted a request to the Public Prosecutor, to issue an arrest warrant against the Minister of Justice Hassan Shammari and other officials in the ministry, for preventing the Iraqi MP's from visiting prisons, after they received information about the existence of torture and rape of some of the inmates.          

Richard Eskow: For Wall Street It's "Peace On Earth"

Goodwill Toward Remington. Despite an epic of gun deaths, the river of gun cash never stops flowing. If you follow that river upstream you'll see that the source lies very close to Wall Street, and the river's mouth speaks with the voice of politicians, whose campaign fundraising is undoubtedly taking place even on this supposedly holy day for most of them. "Tis the season to be lobbied. "More than 50 firearms related companies have given at least $14.8 million to the National Rifle Association, Bloomberg News reports, and that's just the money we know about. The NRA spent nearly $25 million in the last election cycle alone. True to form, the NRA's chief said this week that we need more guns in the schools to end the killing of our children. That's like spreading a flu virus to stop an epidemic, but Wayne La Pierre did his job. Everyone is talking about how crazy he is. Noone is talking about how crazy we are for tolerating this situation, or how immoral our corporate class is for financing it. Wall Street's investments extend beyond the manufacturers themselves, to the NRA, and to all the other groups supporting the NRA's nihilistic objective, the total elimination of any and all controls on even the deadliest weapons. That includes ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which foments the "Stand Your Ground" reign of terror, that so effectively distracts millions of Americans from the true source of their anxiety and hardship. It's working. As we reported after another gun tragedy this year, "Firearms and ammunition sales rose 45 percent between 2009 and 2010 alone." The tragedy of Newton has been great for business all around the country. Just look at a sampling of headlines we've seen in the last week: "Tucson Gun Sales Surge After Newtown" (Arizona Daily Star). "New Hampshire sets record on background checks for gun sales after Newtown shootings" (Nashua Telegraph). "Local gun dealers see sales increase after Newtown tragedy" Indianapolis local television). Somebody's making money from these tragedies. But who?