Ron Paul
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Last week the Taliban opened an office in Doha, Qatar with the US government’s blessing. They raised the Taliban flag at the opening ceremony and referred to Afghanistan as the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”–the name they used when they were in charge before the US attack in 2001.

The US had meant for the Taliban office in Doha to be only a venue for a new round of talks on an end to the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban opening looked very much like a government in exile. The Karzai government was annoyed that the US and the Taliban had scheduled talks without even notifying Kabul. Karzai’s government felt as irrelevant to negotiations on post-war Afghanistan as they soon will be on the ground. It seemed strangely like Paris in 1968, where the US met with North Vietnamese representatives to negotiate a way out of that war, which claimed nearly 60,000 Americans and many times that number of Vietnamese lives.

For years many of us had argued the need to get out of Afghanistan. To end the fighting, the dying, the destruction, the nation-building. To end the foolish fantasy that we were building a Western-style democracy there. We cannot leave, we were told for all those years. If we leave Afghanistan now, the Taliban will come back! Well guess what, after 12 years, trillions of dollars, more than 2,200 Americans killed, and perhaps more than 50,000 dead Afghan civilians and fighters, the Taliban is coming back anyway!

The long US war in Afghanistan never made any sense in the first place. The Taliban did not attack the US on 9/11. The Authorization for the use of force that we passed after the attacks of 9/11 said nothing about a decade-long occupation of Afghanistan. But unfortunately two US presidents have taken it to mean that they could make war anywhere at any time they please. Congress, as usual, did nothing to rein in the president, although several Members tried to repeal the authorization.

Afghanistan brought the Soviet Union to its knees. We learned nothing from it.

We left Iraq after a decade of fighting and the country is in far worse shape than when we attacked in 2003. After trillions of dollars wasted and tens of thousands of lives lost, Iraq is a devastated, desperate, and violent place with a presence of al Qaeda. No one in his right mind speaks of a US victory in Iraq these days. We learned nothing from it.

We are leaving Afghanistan after 12 years with nothing to show for it but trillions of dollars wasted and thousands of lives lost. Afghanistan is a devastated country with a weak, puppet government–and now we negotiate with those very people we fought for those 12 years, who are preparing to return to power! Still we learn nothing.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

Instead of learning from these disasters brought about by the interventionists and their failed foreign policy, the president is now telling us that we have to go into Syria!

US Army Col. Harry Summers told a story about a meeting he had with a North Vietnamese colonel named Tu while he visiting Hanoi in 1975. At the meeting, Col. Summers told Tu, “You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield.” Tu paused for a moment, then replied, “That may be so. But it is also irrelevant.”

Sadly, that is the story of our foreign policy. We have attacked at least five countries since 9/11. We have launched drones against many more. We have deposed several dictators and destroyed several foreign armies. But, looking around at what has been achieved, it is clear: it is all irrelevant.

Former Congressman Ron Paul’s article first appeared at the-free-foundation.org, the temporary home for his weekly column until his personal web page is up and running.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 1:11 pm

Tags: 9/11, drones, foreign affairs, ron paul, war

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Alex Kane
AlterNet
June 24, 2013

A federal lawsuit alleges that Chicago police sodomized a man with a gun until he agreed to become a participant in a drug sting, the Courthouse News Service reports. Plaintiff Angel Perez is suing police officer Jorge Lopez and the city of Chicago for excessive force related to the incident, which, according to the lawsuit, was quite the nightmare.

After Chicago police pulled over and arrested delivery driver Angel Perez in October 2012, police at the station questioned and allegedly assaulted Perez in an attempt to learn intel on robberies and drug dealers, though Perez said he did not know anything about those alleged crimes. Perez repeatedly requested a lawyer, but the police paid him no heed.

Perez says the police released him, but called him the next day and told him that his arrest was a mistake and that he needed to sign papers to prevent his car from being towed. But when Perez arrived, Lopez “slammed” his head on a car and then arrested him again.

Read full article

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 12:40 pm

Tags: police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Stephen Dinan
Washington Times
June 24, 2013

Analysts looking through the new border security deal in the Senate say it includes waivers that would let Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano refuse to build any new fencing or install the new technology the plan lays out in close detail.

The senators who struck the deal late this week said they were trying to take the decision-making away from the Obama administration and ensure that new fencing and technology would be deployed, but the latest version gives Ms. Napolitano or her successors the ability to waive or ignore those requirements.

In the case of the fence, the legislation reads that “nothing in this subsection shall require the secretary to install fencing, or infrastructure that directly results from the installation of such fencing, in a particular location along the southern border, if the secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain effective control over the southern border at such location.”

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 1:25 pm

Tags: domestic news, legislation

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

The UK government has been secretly dispatching police agents into peaceful campaign groups.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A survey carried out by the Irish International Business Network has found that a UK exit from the European Union (EU) would have a negative impact on businesses.

Around 53.1 percent of the companies surveyed in Britain and Ireland think that if the UK were to leave the EU, it would be bad for their businesses.

About 40.6 percent said a UK exit would have no impact at all, while 6.3 percent claim it would be positive for business.

The chief executive of fine art photography business Macsfieldimages, Terence MacSwiney Field, said a UK exit could resort to the reintroduction of custom posts, passport controls, borders and excise duties on products, which would result in soaring prices on imports and exports.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron remains committed to an in/out referendum in 2017, after he was pressured by many backbenchers in his own party.

Britainâ„¢s chief secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander warned last month that economic recovery would be lost if the coalition government continues to suggest willingness to leave the EU.

BGH/MOL/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This article originally appeared on: Stephen Lendman

Britain, U.S. kill innocent civilians through proxies in Syria

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

As of Monday morning June 24, Edward Snowden’s whereabouts were unknown despite an international effort to track him down. His final destination was also uncertain, with reports of Ecuador, Venezuela, or even Cuba being his target to escape prosecution for blowing the whistle on the National Security Agency (NSA).

Following his release of information on the NSA’s surveillance of phone calls and e-mails of citizens and government officials worldwide, Snowden headed for Hong Kong on May 20, where he holed up in an unknown location. When three felony charges were levied against him on June 14 (for theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information, and the willful communication of classified communications intelligence to an unauthorized person), he communicated with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks for assistance.

It is presumed that Assange, living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, recommended that Snowden request asylum in Ecuador. When Hong Kong began to receive pressure from the U.S. government to extradite Snowden, orders came down from Beijing to urge Snowden to leave immediately. He flew to Moscow where he was met by an associate of Assange’s, Sarah Harrison. They scheduled themselves onto Aeroflot flight SU150 (shown) to leave Monday morning but when the flight left, neither Snowden nor Harrison were on it.

In a conference call with reporters on Monday morning, Assange assured observers that Snowden is “healthy and safe” somewhere in Russia while he is waiting for a response to his request for asylum to Ecuador. Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters that Snowden’s request would be considered “in the shortest time possible.” Since his passport has been revoked, Snowden is unable to leave the Sheremetyevo airport so it is further presumed that he is hiding there until his request is granted.

Snowden’s escapades have left behind a long litany of frustration, hypocrisy, and farcical behaviors. For instance, Caitlin Harden, the chief spokeswoman for the National Security Council, said the White House was “disappointed” by Hong Kong’s decision to ignore a request from the U.S. government to detain him and deport him back to the United States. This was especially galling as Attorney General Eric Holder had personally called his counterpart in Hong Kong to demand that he release him. Now, directing her attention to the Russian government, she said,

Given our intensified co-operation after the Boston marathon bombings and our history of working with Russia on law enforcement matters – including returning numerous high level criminals back to Russia at the request of the Russian government – we expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr. Snowden back to the US to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.

This willingness to cooperate with totalitarian regimes was matched by hypocritical comments from Secretary of State John Kerry, who said: “It would be deeply troubling, obviously, if they had adequate notice, and notwithstanding that, they make the decision willfully to ignore that and not live by the standards of the law.” Kerry failed to mention the laws that, thanks to the revelations by Snowden, the NSA is now known to have broken.

But the most farcical behavior was observed by the Guardian: The Aeroflot flight – the one Snowden was scheduled to take with Harrison – left without Snowden and Harrison but was filled with journalists hoping to get an inside story.

If Snowden’s final destination is Ecuador, and he arrives there successfully, he might have a surprise waiting for him. When Assange was granted asylum there in August, 2012, the Ecuadorian Foreign Minister, Ricardo Patino, said:

A lot of people think it’s strange that a government could act on principles. But we act on principles … when we were deciding on the asylum….

What has happened here is that Ecuador has recovered its dignity at an international level … previous governments in Ecuador did what the US or Europe told them to do. Even worse … based on what they imagined the US or Europe wanted….

What happened since 2007, since Rafael Correa has been president … is that we have started thinking with our own head and we walk on our own feet. We have dignity and sovereignty.

Snowden could very well be disappointed if he is counting on such pleasantries and sophistry to save him from the long arm of the NSA. Greg Caton, a permanent resident of Ecuador and the founder of Alpha Omega Labs which operates out of Guayaquil, Ecuador, found out the hard way about political realities under Correa: With enough money and pressure, laws and rules and niceties about sovereignty can be successful ignored.

After serving a sentence in the United States for “defrauding customers” by not following FDA regulations on his natural remedies, Caton and his family moved to Ecuador in the summer of 2007 and applied for permanent residency. In October of that year, an overzealous FDA agent managed to get Caton’s name put on Interpol’s “Red Notice” list – the international police agency’s highest alert level for murderers, rapists, terrorists, international money launderers, and war criminals – by listing his offenses as “drugs related crimes, fraud.” On December 3, 2009, he was arrested at a checkpoint and jailed to await a hearing on December 14. As noted by Mike Adams, the journalist with Natural News who broke the story:

Caton was expected to be set free by the Ecuadorian judge at that hearing based on the facts of the case which indicated Caton’s permanent residency in Ecuador is legal and valid.

Three days before the hearing could take place, Caton was taken from his holding facility and, with the help of U.S. State Department employees, involuntarily placed on an American Airlines plane headed for Miami.

An Ecuadorian judge rushed to the airport in Guayaquil and demanded that Caton be released from the plane, stating that the attempted deportation was illegal, but American Airlines employees reportedly refused to allow Caton to leave the plane, stating that the plane was “U.S. territory” and that Ecuadorian law did not apply there (even though the plane was still on the tarmac in Guayaquil and under the direction of the air traffic control tower there).

No matter where Snowden finally reappears, there is little doubt that he will be faced with huge difficulties in proving his innocence of the charges currently levied against him. As he is about to discover, there are few places on the planet where he will not have to continually be looking over his shoulder or listening at the door for his accusers.

Photo of Aeroflot Airbus A330 that Snowden was scheduled to take out of Moscow: AP Images

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at
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This article originally appeared on: The New American

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on June 24 to hear a case involving the validity of three recess appointments President Obama made to the National Labor Relations Board in January 2012. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in January that the appointments to the NLRB’s board, which normally has five members, were invalid. The court’s decision will be made during the High Court’s next term, which will start in October.

The legal controversy originated when Obama ostensibly employed the recess power granted in Article II, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution to fill three seats on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The Constitution’s language on recess appointments reads: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”

The core of the dispute, however, lies in the fact that the Senate was in a “pro forma” session at the time of the appointments during the 2011-12 winter holiday break. Republican senatorial leaders had arranged for a single Republican lawmaker to arrive at the upper chamber every three days and gavel the Senate to order, then after a short while, gavel it to a close.

A Yakima, Washington, Pepsi bottler named Noel Canning brought a legal challenge against an NRLB ruling concerning the bottler’s dealings with the Teamsters Union on the grounds that Obama lacked the authority to make recess appointments to the NRLB, rendering the appointments invalid and, therefore, the board lacked a quorum to render a decision.

In this case, National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, the D.C. appeals court decided in Canning’s favor on January 25. In so doing, the court also invalidated Obama’ recess appointments.

“Allowing the president to define the scope of his own appointments power would eviscerate the Constitution’s separation of powers,” D.C. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle wrote in the NLRB v Noel Canning decision. “An interpretation of ‘the recess’ that permits the president to decide when the Senate is in recess would demolish the checks and balances inherent in the advice-and-consent requirement, giving the president free rein to appoint his desired nominees at any time he pleases, whether that time be a weekend, lunch, or even when the Senate is in session and he is merely displeased with its inaction. This cannot be the law.”

The D.C. judicial panel also voted 2 to 1 that the phrase “vacancies that may happen” means only those openings that arise during the recess, not those that already exist when the recess occurs.

Following the decision, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a written statement: “The D.C. Circuit Court today reaffirmed that the Constitution is not an inconvenience but the law of the land, agreeing with the owners of a family-owned business who brought the case to the court.”

The U.S. Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., filed a petition to the Supreme Court challenging the Circuit Court’s decision, arguing that such a reading of the recess appointments clause would “drastically curtail the scope of the president’s authority.”

In his petition asking the High Court to review the case, Verrilli said that presidents have made more than 500 appointments during inter-session recesses, including “three cabinet secretaries, five court of appeals judges, 10 district court judges, a Director of Central Intelligence, a Chairman of the Federal Reserve, numerous members of multi-member boards, and holders of a variety of other critical government posts.”

A report on this case from USA Today correctly observed that the underlying power struggle between the executive and legislative branches of the federal government overshadows the immediate issue at hand in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning, which was a classic management vs. labor dispute. In recent years, senators have used a variety of methods to stall or derail presidential appointments and presidents have, in turn, used the recess appointment to perform an end-run around the Senate.

In anticipating how the Supreme Court might rule on this case, the USA Today writer suggested that the deciding factor might be how the justices interpret two words found in the Constitution’s recess appointments clause (“The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.”): “the” and “happen.” 

The report noted that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that the words “the recess” means the singular break between annual sessions of Congress and that “may happen” means only positions that fall vacant during the same recess.

Court watchers will eagerly await the Supreme Court’s decision regarding National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning this fall, as it will be a significant constitutional test of executive branch power.

Related article: Obama Violated Constitution With Recess Appointments, Appeals Court Rules

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Monsanto’s talk of ‘technology’ tries to hide its real objectives of control over seed where genetic engineering is a means to control seed,

“Monsanto is an agricultural company.

We apply innovation and technology to help farmers around the world produce more while conserving more.”

“Producing more, Conserving more, Improving farmers lives.”

These are the promises Monsanto India’s website makes, alongside pictures of smiling, prosperous farmers from the state of Maharashtra. This is a desperate attempt by Monsanto and its PR machinery to delink the epidemic of farmers’ suicides in India from the company’s growing control over cotton seed supply – 95 per cent of India’s cotton seed is now controlled by Monsanto.

Control over seed is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers.

Monsanto’s concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying. This is what connects farmers’ suicides in India to Monsanto vs Percy Schmeiser in Canada, to Monsanto vs Bowman in the US, and to farmers in Brazil suing Monsanto for $2.2 billion for unfair collection of royalty.

Through patents on seed, Monsanto has become the “Life Lord” of our planet, collecting rents for life’s renewal from farmers, the original breeders.

Patents on seed are illegitimate because putting a toxic gene into a plant cell is not “creating” or “inventing” a plant. These are seeds of deception – the deception that Monsanto is the creator of seeds and life; the deception that while Monsanto sues farmers and traps them in debt, it pretends to be working for farmers’ welfare, and the deception that GMOs feed the world. GMOs are failing to control pests and weeds, and have instead led to the emergence of superpests and superweeds.

The entry of Monsanto in the Indian seed sector was made possible with a 1988 Seed Policy imposed by the World Bank, requiring the Government of India to deregulate the seed sector. Five things changed with Monsanto’s entry: First, Indian companies were locked into joint-ventures and licensing arrangements, and concentration over the seed sector increased. Second, seed which had been the farmers’ common resource became the “intellectual property” of Monsanto, for which it started collecting royalties, thus raising the costs of seed. Third, open pollinated cotton seeds were displaced by hybrids, including GMO hybrids. A renewable resource became a non-renewable, patented commodity. Fourth, cotton which had earlier been grown as a mixture with food crops now had to be grown as a monoculture, with higher vulnerability to pests, disease, drought and crop failure. Fifth, Monsanto started to subvert India’s regulatory processes and, in fact, started to use public resources to push its non-renewable hybrids and GMOs through so-called public-private partnerships (PPP).

In 1995, Monsanto introduced its Bt technology in India through a joint-venture with the Indian company Mahyco. In 1997-98, Monsanto started open field trials of its GMO Bt cotton illegally and announced that it would be selling the seeds commercially the following year. India has rules for regulating GMOs since 1989, under the Environment Protection Act. It is mandatory to get approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee under the ministry of environment for GMO trials. The Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology sued Monsanto in the Supreme Court of India and Monsanto could not start the commercial sales of its Bt cotton seeds until 2002.
And, after the damning report of India’s parliamentary committee on Bt crops in August 2012, the panel of technical experts appointed by the Supreme Court recommended a 10-year moratorium on field trials of all GM food and termination of all ongoing trials of transgenic crops.

But it had changed Indian agriculture already.

Monsanto’s seed monopolies, the destruction of alternatives, the collection of superprofits in the form of royalties, and the increasing vulnerability of monocultures has created a context for debt, suicides and agrarian distress which is driving the farmers’ suicide epidemic in India. This systemic control has been intensified with Bt cotton. That is why most suicides are in the cotton belt.

An internal advisory by the agricultural ministry of India in January 2012 had this to say to the cotton-growing states in India – “Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton. The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers.”

The highest acreage of Bt cotton is in Maharashtra and this is also where the highest farmer suicides are. Suicides increased after Bt cotton was introduced – Monsanto’s royalty extraction, and the high costs of seed and chemicals have created a debt trap. According to Government of India data, nearly 75 per cent rural debt is due to purchase inputs. As Monsanto’s profits grow, farmers’ debt grows. It is in this systemic sense that Monsanto’s seeds are seeds of suicide.

The ultimate seeds of suicide is Monsanto’s patented technology to create sterile seeds. (Called “Terminator technology” by the media, sterile seed technology is a type of Gene Use Restriction Technology, GRUT, in which seed produced by a crop will not grow – crops will not produce viable offspring seeds or will produce viable seeds with specific genes switched off.) The Convention on Biological Diversity has banned its use, otherwise Monsanto would be collecting even higher profits from seed.

Monsanto’s talk of “technology” tries to hide its real objectives of ownership and control over seed where genetic engineering is just a means to control seed and the food system through patents and intellectual property rights.

A Monsanto representative admitted that they were “the patient’s diagnostician, and physician all in one” in writing the patents on life-forms, from micro-organisms to plants, in the TRIPS’ agreement of WTO. Stopping farmers from saving seeds and exercising their seed sovereignty was the main objective. Monsanto is now extending its patents to conventionally bred seed, as in the case of broccoli and capsicum, or the low gluten wheat it had pirated from India which we challenged as a biopiracy case in the European Patent office.

That is why we have started Fibres of Freedom in the heart of Monsanto’s Bt cotton/suicide belt in Vidharba. We have created community seed banks with indigenous seeds and helped farmers go organic. No GMO seeds, no debt, no suicides.

Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist.Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals.She was trained as a physicist and received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Western Ontario, Canada. She was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1993. She is the founder of Navdanya http://www.navdanya.org/

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Global Research Editor’s Note

This article originally published by Global Research in 2005 sheds light on the nature of Al Qaeda, an intelligence construct used by Washington to destabilize and destroy sovereign countries, while sustaining the illusion of an outside enemy, which threatens the security of the Western World.

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Shortly before his untimely death, former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the House of Commons that “Al Qaeda” is not really a terrorist group but a database of international mujaheddin and arms smugglers used by the CIA and Saudis to funnel guerrillas, arms, and money into Soviet-occupied Afghanistan. Courtesy of World Affairs, a journal based in New Delhi, WMR can bring you an important excerpt from an Apr.-Jun. 2004 article by Pierre-Henry Bunel, a former agent for French military intelligence.

“I first heard about Al-Qaida while I was attending the Command and Staff course in Jordan. I was a French officer at that time and the French Armed Forces had close contacts and cooperation with Jordan . . .

“Two of my Jordanian colleagues were experts in computers. They were air defense officers. Using computer science slang, they introduced a series of jokes about students’ punishment.

“For example, when one of us was late at the bus stop to leave the Staff College, the two officers used to tell us: ‘You’ll be noted in ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ which meant ‘You’ll be logged in the information database.’ Meaning ‘You will receive a warning . . .’ If the case was more severe, they would used to talk about ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Meaning ‘the decision database.’ It meant ‘you will be punished.’ For the worst cases they used to speak of logging in ‘Al Qaida.’

“In the early 1980s the Islamic Bank for Development, which is located in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, like the Permanent Secretariat of the Islamic Conference Organization, bought a new computerized system to cope with its accounting and communication requirements. At the time the system was more sophisticated than necessary for their actual needs.

“It was decided to use a part of the system’s memory to host the Islamic Conference’s database. It was possible for the countries attending to access the database by telephone: an Intranet, in modern language. The governments of the member-countries as well as some of their embassies in the world were connected to that network.

“[According to a Pakistani major] the database was divided into two parts, the information file where the participants in the meetings could pick up and send information they needed, and the decision file where the decisions made during the previous sessions were recorded and stored. In Arabic, the files were called, ‘Q eidat il-Maaloomaat’ and ‘Q eidat i-Taaleemaat.’ Those two files were kept in one file called in Arabic ‘Q eidat ilmu’ti’aat’ which is the exact translation of the English word database. But the Arabs commonly used the short word Al Qaida which is the Arabic word for “base.” The military air base of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is called ‘q eidat ‘riyadh al ‘askariya.’ Q eida means “a base” and “Al Qaida” means “the base.”

“In the mid-1980s, Al Qaida was a database located in computer and dedicated to the communications of the Islamic Conference’s secretariat.

“In the early 1990s, I was a military intelligence officer in the Headquarters of the French Rapid Action Force. Because of my skills in Arabic my job was also to translate a lot of faxes and letters seized or intercepted by our intelligence services . . . We often got intercepted material sent by Islamic networks operating from the UK or from Belgium.

“These documents contained directions sent to Islamic armed groups in Algeria or in France. The messages quoted the sources of statements to be exploited in the redaction of the tracts or leaflets, or to be introduced in video or tapes to be sent to the media. The most commonly quoted sources were the United Nations, the non-aligned countries, the UNHCR and . . . Al Qaida.

“Al Qaida remained the data base of the Islamic Conference. Not all member countries of the Islamic Conference are ‘rogue states’ and many Islamic groups could pick up information from the databases. It was but natural for Osama Bin Laden to be connected to this network. He is a member of an important family in the banking and business world.

“Because of the presence of ‘rogue states,’ it became easy for terrorist groups to use the email of the database. Hence, the email of Al Qaida was used, with some interface system, providing secrecy, for the families of the mujaheddin to keep links with their children undergoing training in Afghanistan, or in Libya or in the Beqaa valley, Lebanon. Or in action anywhere in the battlefields where the extremists sponsored by all the ‘rogue states’ used to fight. And the ‘rogue states’ included Saudi Arabia. When Osama bin Laden was an American agent in Afghanistan, the Al Qaida Intranet was a good communication system through coded or covert messages.

Meet “Al Qaeda”

“Al Qaida was neither a terrorist group nor Osama bin Laden’s personal property . . . The terrorist actions in Turkey in 2003 were carried out by Turks and the motives were local and not international, unified, or joint. These crimes put the Turkish government in a difficult position vis-a-vis the British and the Israelis. But the attacks certainly intended to ‘punish’ Prime Minister Erdogan for being a ‘toot tepid’ Islamic politician.

” . . . In the Third World the general opinion is that the countries using weapons of mass destruction for economic purposes in the service of imperialism are in fact ‘rogue states,” specially the US and other NATO countries.

” Some Islamic economic lobbies are conducting a war against the ‘liberal” economic lobbies. They use local terrorist groups claiming to act on behalf of Al Qaida. On the other hand, national armies invade independent countries under the aegis of the UN Security Council and carry out pre-emptive wars. And the real sponsors of these wars are not governments but the lobbies concealed behind them.

“The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the ‘devil’ only in order to drive the ‘TV watcher’ to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US and the lobbyists for the US war on terrorism are only interested in making money.”

In yet another example of what happens to those who challenge the system, in December 2001, Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel was convicted by a secret French military court of passing classified documents that identified potential NATO bombing targets in Serbia to a Serbian agent during the Kosovo war in 1998. Bunel’s case was transferred from a civilian court to keep the details of the case classified. Bunel’s character witnesses and psychologists notwithstanding, the system “got him” for telling the truth about Al Qaeda and who has actually been behind the terrorist attacks commonly blamed on that group.

It is noteworthy that that Yugoslav government, the government with whom Bunel was asserted by the French government to have shared information, claimed that Albanian and Bosnian guerrillas in the Balkans were being backed by elements of “Al Qaeda.” We now know that these guerrillas were being backed by money provided by the Bosnian Defense Fund, an entity established as a special fund at Bush-influenced Riggs Bank and directed by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith.

French officer Maj. Pierre-Henri Bunel, who knew the truth about “Al Qaeda” – Another target of the neo-cons.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Author’s Note

In the course of the last three years, there has been a surge in Afghan opium production. The Vienna based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) reveals that poppy cultivation in 2012 extends over an area of more than 154,000 hectares, an increase of 18% over 2011. A UNODC spokesperson has confirmed that opium production is heading towards record levels.

According to the 2012 Afghanistan Opium Survey released in November 2012 by the Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). potential opium production in 2012 was of the order of 3,700 tons, a decline of 18 percent in relation to 2001, according to UNODC data.

There is reason to believe that this figure of 3700 tons is grossly underestimated. Moreover, it contradicts the UNOCD’s own predictions of record harvests over an extended area of cultivation.

While bad weather and damaged crops may have played a role as suggested by the UNODC, based on historical trends, the potential production for an area of cultivation of 154,000 hectares, should be well in excess of 6000 tons. With 80,000 hectares in cultivation in 2003, production was already of the order of 3600 tons.

It is worth noting that UNODC has modified the concepts and figures on opium sales and heroin production, as outlined by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

A change in UN methodology in 2010 resulted in a sharp downward revision of Afghan heroin production estimates for 2004 to 2011. UNODC used to estimate that the entire global opium crop was processed into heroin, and provided global heroin production estimates on that basis. Before 2010, a global conversion rate of about 10 kg of opium to 1 kg of heroin was used to estimate world heroin production (17). For instance, the estimated 4 620 tonnes of opium harvested worldwide in 2005 was thought to make it possible to manufacture 472 tonnes of heroin (UNODC, 2009a). However, UNODC now estimates that a large proportion of the Afghan opium harvest is not processed into heroin or morphine but remains ‘available on the drug market as opium’ (UNODC, 2010a). …EU drug markets report: a strategic analysis, EMCDDA, Lisbon, January 2013 emphasis added

There is no evidence that a large percentage of opium production is no longer processed into heroin as claimed by the UN. This revised UNODC methodology has served, —through the outright manipulation of statistical concepts— to artificially reduce the size of of the global trade in heroin.

According to the UNODC, quoted in the EMCDDA report:

“an estimated 3 400 tonnes of Afghan opium was not transformed into heroin or morphine in 2011. Compared with previous years, this is an exceptionally high proportion of the total crop, representing nearly 60 % of the Afghan opium harvest and close to 50 % of the global harvest in 2011.

What the UNODC, —whose mandate is to support the prevention of organized criminal activity— has done is to obfuscate the size and criminal nature of the Afghan drug trade, intimating —without evidence— that a large part of the opium is no longer channeled towards the illegal heroin market.

In 2012 according to the UNODC, farmgate prices for opium were of the order of 196 per kg.

Each kg. of opium produces 100 grams of pure heroin. The US retail prices for heroin (with a low level of purity) is, according to UNODC of the order of $172 a gram. The price per gram of pure heroin is substantially higher.

The profits are largely reaped at the level of the international wholesale and retail markets of heroin as well as in the process of money laundering in Western banking institutions.

The revenues derived from the global trade in heroin constitute a multibillion dollar bonanza for financial institutions and organized crime.

The following article first published in May 2005 provides a background on the history of the Afghan opium trade which continues to this date to be protected by US-NATO occupation forces on behalf of powerful financial interests.

Michel Chossudovsky, 29 April 2013

by Michel Chossudovsky

Since the US led invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, the Golden Crescent opium trade has soared. According to the US media, this lucrative contraband is protected by Osama, the Taliban, not to mention, of course, the regional warlords, in defiance of the “international community”.

The heroin business is said to be “filling the coffers of the Taliban”. In the words of the US State Department:

“Opium is a source of literally billions of dollars to extremist and criminal groups… [C]utting down the opium supply is central to establishing a secure and stable democracy, as well as winning the global war on terrorism,” (Statement of Assistant Secretary of State Robert Charles. Congressional Hearing, 1 April 2004)

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), opium production in Afghanistan in 2003 is estimated at 3,600 tons, with an estimated area under cultivation of the order of 80,000 hectares. (UNODC at http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html ).An even larger bumper harvest is predicted for 2004.

The State Department suggests that up to 120 000 hectares were under cultivation in 2004. (Congressional Hearing, op cit):

 ”We could be on a path for a significant surge. Some observers indicate perhaps as much as 50 percent to 100 percent growth in the 2004 crop over the already troubling figures from last year.”(Ibid)

“Operation Containment“

In response to the post-Taliban surge in opium production, the Bush administration has boosted its counter terrorism activities, while allocating substantial amounts of public money to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s West Asia initiative, dubbed “Operation Containment.”

The various reports and official statements are, of course, blended in with the usual “balanced” self critique that “the international community is not doing enough”, and that what we need is “transparency”.

The headlines are “Drugs, warlords and insecurity overshadow Afghanistan’s path to democracy”. In chorus, the US media is accusing the defunct “hard-line Islamic regime”, without even acknowledging that the Taliban —in collaboration with the United Nations— had imposed a successful ban on poppy cultivation in 2000. Opium production declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. In fact the surge in opium cultivation production coincided with the onslaught of the US-led military operation and the downfall of the Taliban regime. From October through December 2001, farmers started to replant poppy on an extensive basis.

The success of Afghanistan’s 2000 drug eradication program under the Taliban had been acknowledged at the October 2001 session of the UN General Assembly (which took place barely a few days after the beginning of the 2001 bombing raids). No other UNODC member country was able to implement a comparable program:

“Turning first to drug control, I had expected to concentrate my remarks on the implications of the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation in areas under their control… We now have the results of our annual ground survey of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. This year’s production [2001] is around 185 tons. This is down from the 3300 tons last year [2000], a decrease of over 94 per cent. Compared to the record harvest of 4700 tons two years ago, the decrease is well over 97 per cent.

Any decrease in illicit cultivation is welcomed, especially in cases like this when no displacement, locally or in other countries, took place to weaken the achievement” (Remarks on behalf of UNODC Executive Director at the UN General Assembly, Oct 2001, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/speech_2001-10-12_1.html )

United Nations’ Coverup

In the wake of the US invasion, shift in rhetoric. UNODC is now acting as if the 2000 opium ban had never happened:

“the battle against narcotics cultivation has been fought and won in other countries and it [is] possible to do so here [in Afghanistan], with strong, democratic governance, international assistance and improved security and integrity.” ( Statement of the UNODC Representative in Afghanistan at the :February 2004 International Counter Narcotics Conference, http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_intl_counter_narcotics_conf_2004.pdf , p. 5).

In fact, both Washington and the UNODC now claim that the objective of the Taliban in 2000 was not really “drug eradication” but a devious scheme to trigger “an artificial shortfall in supply”, which would drive up World prices of heroin.

Ironically, this twisted logic, which now forms part of a new “UN consensus”, is refuted by a report of the UNODC office in Pakistan, which confirmed, at the time, that there was no evidence of stockpiling by the Taliban. (Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah. 5 October 2003)

Washington’s Hidden Agenda: Restore the Drug Trade

In the wake of the 2001 US bombing of Afghanistan, the British government of Tony Blair was entrusted by the G-8 Group of leading industrial nations to carry out a drug eradication program, which would, in theory, allow Afghan farmers to switch out of poppy cultivation into alternative crops. The British were working out of Kabul in close liaison with the US DEA’s “Operation Containment”.

The UK sponsored crop eradication program is an obvious smokescreen. Since October 2001, opium poppy cultivation has skyrocketed.  The presence of occupation forces in Afghanistan did not result in the eradication of poppy cultivation. Quite the opposite.

The Taliban prohibition had indeed caused “the beginning of a heroin shortage in Europe by the end of 2001″, as acknowledged by the UNODC.

Heroin is a multibillion dollar business supported by powerful interests, which requires a steady and secure commodity flow. One of the “hidden” objectives of the war was precisely to restore the CIA sponsored drug trade to its historical levels and exert direct control over the drug routes.

Immediately following the October 2001 invasion, opium markets were restored. Opium prices spiraled. By early 2002, the opium price (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.

In 2001, under the Taliban opiate production stood at 185 tons, increasing to 3400 tons in 2002 under the US sponsored puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai.

While highlighting Karzai’s patriotic struggle against the Taliban, the media fails to mention that Karzai collaborated with the Taliban. He had also been on the payroll of a major US oil company, UNOCAL. In fact, since the mid-1990s, Hamid Karzai had acted as a consultant and lobbyist for UNOCAL in negotiations with the Taliban. According to the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan:

“Karzai has been a Central Intelligence Agency covert operator since the 1980s. He collaborated with the CIA in funneling U.S. aid to the Taliban as of 1994 when the Americans had secretly and through the Pakistanis [specifically the ISI] supported the Taliban’s assumption of power.” (quoted in Karen Talbot, U.S. Energy Giant Unocal Appoints Interim Government in Kabul, Global Outlook, No. 1, Spring 2002. p. 70. See also BBC Monitoring Service, 15 December 2001)

History of the Golden Crescent Drug trade

It is worth recalling the history of the Golden Crescent drug trade, which is intimately related to the CIA’s covert operations in the region since the onslaught of the Soviet-Afghan war and its aftermath.

Prior to the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-1989), opium production in Afghanistan and Pakistan was directed to small regional markets. There was no local production of heroin. (Alfred McCoy, Drug Fallout: the CIA’s Forty Year Complicity in the Narcotics Trade. The Progressive, 1 August 1997).

The Afghan narcotics economy was a carefully designed project of the CIA, supported by US foreign policy.

As revealed in the Iran-Contra and Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) scandals, CIA covert operations in support of the Afghan Mujahideen had been funded through the laundering of drug money. “Dirty money” was recycled —through a number of banking institutions (in the Middle East) as well as through anonymous CIA shell companies—, into “covert money,” used to finance various insurgent groups during the Soviet-Afghan war, and its aftermath:

“Because the US wanted to supply the Mujahideen rebels in Afghanistan with stinger missiles and other military hardware it needed the full cooperation of Pakistan. By the mid-1980s, the CIA operation in Islamabad was one of the largest US intelligence stations in the World. `If BCCI is such an embarrassment to the US that forthright investigations are not being pursued it has a lot to do with the blind eye the US turned to the heroin trafficking in Pakistan’, said a US intelligence officer. (“The Dirtiest Bank of All,” Time, July 29, 1991, p. 22.)

Researcher Alfred McCoy’s study confirms that within two years of the onslaught of the CIA’s covert operation in Afghanistan in 1979,

“the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer, supplying 60 per cent of U.S. demand. In Pakistan, the heroin-addict population went from near zero in 1979 to 1.2 million by 1985, a much steeper rise than in any other nation.”

“CIA assets again controlled this heroin trade. As the Mujahideen guerrillas seized territory inside Afghanistan, they ordered peasants to plant opium as a revolutionary tax. Across the border in Pakistan, Afghan leaders and local syndicates under the protection of Pakistan Intelligence operated hundreds of heroin laboratories. During this decade of wide-open drug-dealing, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Islamabad failed to instigate major seizures or arrests.

U.S. officials had refused to investigate charges of heroin dealing by its Afghan allies because U.S. narcotics policy in Afghanistan has been subordinated to the war against Soviet influence there. In 1995, the former CIA director of the Afghan operation, Charles Cogan, admitted the CIA had indeed sacrificed the drug war to fight the Cold War. ‘Our main mission was to do as much damage as possible to the Soviets. We didn’t really have the resources or the time to devote to an investigation of the drug trade,’ I don’t think that we need to apologize for this. Every situation has its fallout. There was fallout in terms of drugs, yes. But the main objective was accomplished. The Soviets left Afghanistan.’”(McCoy, op cit)

The role of the CIA, which is amply documented, is not mentioned in official UNODC publications, which focus on internal social and political factors. Needless to say, the historical roots of the opium trade have been grossly distorted.

(See UNODC http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf

According to the UNODC, Afghanistan’s opium production has increased, more than 15-fold since 1979. In the wake of the Soviet-Afghan war, the growth of the narcotics economy has continued unabated. The Taliban, which were supported by the US, were initially instrumental in the further growth of opiate production until the 2000 opium ban.

(See UNODC http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf

This recycling of drug money was used to finance the post-Cold War insurgencies in Central Asia and the Balkans including Al Qaeda. (For details, see Michel Chossudovsky, War and Globalization, The Truth behind September 11, Global Outlook, 2002, http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/truth911.html )

Narcotics: Second to Oil and the Arms Trade

The revenues generated from the CIA sponsored Afghan drug trade are sizeable. The Afghan trade in opiates constitutes a large share of the worldwide annual turnover of narcotics, which was estimated by the United Nations to be of the order of $400-500 billion. (Douglas Keh, Drug Money in a Changing World, Technical document No. 4, 1998, Vienna UNDCP, p. 4. See also United Nations Drug Control Program, Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 1999, E/INCB/1999/1 United Nations, Vienna 1999, p. 49-51, and Richard Lapper, UN Fears Growth of Heroin Trade, Financial Times, 24 February 2000). At the time these UN figures were first brought out (1994), the (estimated) global trade in drugs was of the same order of magnitude as the global trade in oil.

The IMF estimated global money laundering to be between 590 billion and 1.5 trillion dollars a year, representing 2-5 percent of global GDP. (Asian Banker, 15 August 2003). A large share of global money laundering as estimated by the IMF is linked to the trade in narcotics.

Based on recent figures (2003), drug trafficking constitutes “the third biggest global commodity in cash terms after oil and the arms trade.” (The Independent, 29 February 2004).

Moreover, the above figures including those on money laundering, confirm that the bulk of the revenues associated with the global trade in narcotics are not appropriated by terrorist groups and warlords, as suggested by the UNODC report.

There are powerful business and financial interests behind narcotics. From this standpoint, geopolitical and military control over the drug routes is as strategic as oil and oil pipelines.

However, what distinguishes narcotics from legal commodity trade is that narcotics constitutes a major source of wealth formation not only for organised crime but also for the US intelligence apparatus, which increasingly constitutes a powerful actor in the spheres of finance and banking.

In turn, the CIA, which protects the drug trade, has developed complex business and undercover links to major criminal syndicates involved in the drug trade.

In other words, intelligence agencies and powerful business syndicates allied with organized crime, are competing for the strategic control over the heroin routes. The multi-billion dollar revenues of narcotics are deposited in the Western banking system. Most of the large international banks together with their affiliates in the offshore banking havens launder large amounts of narco-dollars.

This trade can only prosper if the main actors involved in narcotics have “political friends in high places.” Legal and illegal undertakings are increasingly intertwined, the dividing line between “businesspeople” and criminals is blurred. In turn, the relationship among criminals, politicians and members of the intelligence establishment has tainted the structures of the state and the role of its institutions.

Where does the money go? Who benefits from the Afghan opium trade?

This trade is characterized by a complex web of intermediaries. There are various stages of the drug trade, several interlocked markets, from the impoverished poppy farmer in Afghanistan to the wholesale and retail heroin markets in Western countries. In other words, there is a “hierarchy of prices” for opiates.

This hierarchy of prices is acknowledged by the US administration:

“Afghan heroin sells on the international narcotics market for 100 times the price farmers get for their opium right out of the field”.(US State Department quoted by the Voice of America (VOA), 27 February 2004).

According to the UNODC, opium in Afghanistan generated in 2003 “an income of one billion US dollars for farmers and US$ 1.3 billion for traffickers, equivalent to over half of its national income.”

Consistent with these UNODC estimates, the average price for fresh opium was $350 a kg. (2002); the 2002 production was 3400 tons. (http://www.poppies.org/news/104267739031389.shtml ).

The UNDOC estimate, based on local farmgate and wholesale prices constitutes, however, a very small percentage of the total turnover of the multibillion dollar Afghan drug trade. The UNODC, estimates “the total annual turn-over of international trade” in Afghan opiates at US$ 30 billion. An examination of the wholesale and retail prices for heroin in the Western countries suggests, however, that the total revenues generated, including those at the retail level, are substantially higher.

Wholesale Prices of Heroin in Western Countries

It is estimated that one kilo of opium produces approximately 100 grams of (pure) heroin. The US DEA confirms that “SWA [South West Asia meaning Afghanistan] heroin in New York City was selling in the late 1990s for $85,000 to $190,000 per kilogram wholesale with a 75 percent purity ratio (National Drug Intelligence Center, http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs/648/ny_econ.htm ).

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) “the price of SEA [South East Asian] heroin ranges from $70,000 to $100,000 per unit (700 grams) and the purity of SEA heroin ranges from 85 to 90 percent” (ibid). The SEA unit of 700 gr (85-90 % purity) translates into a wholesale price per kg. for pure heroin ranging between $115,000 and $163,000.

The DEA figures quoted above, while reflecting the situation in the 1990s, are broadly consistent with recent British figures. According to a report published in the Guardian (11 August 2002), the wholesale price of (pure) heroin in London (UK) was of the order of 50,000 pounds sterling, approximately $80,000 (2002).

Whereas as there is competition between different sources of heroin supply, it should be emphasized that Afghan heroin represents a rather small percentage of the US heroin market, which is largely supplied out of Colombia.

Retail Prices

US

“The NYPD notes that retail heroin prices are down and purity is relatively high. Heroin previously sold for about $90 per gram but now sells for $65 to $70 per gram or less. Anecdotal information from the NYPD indicates that purity for a bag of heroin commonly ranges from 50 to 80 percent but can be as low as 30 percent. Information as of June 2000 indicates that bundles (10 bags) purchased by Dominican buyers from Dominican sellers in larger quantities (about 150 bundles) sold for as little as $40 each, or $55 each in Central Park. DEA reports that an ounce of heroin usually sells for $2,500 to $5,000, a gram for $70 to $95, a bundle for $80 to $90, and a bag for $10. The DMP reports that the average heroin purity at the street level in 1999 was about 62 percent.” (National Drug Intelligence Center, http://www.usdoj.gov/ndic/pubs/648/ny_econ.htm ).

The NYPD and DEA retail price figures seem consistent. The DEA price of $70-$95, with a purity of 62 percent translates into $112 to $153 per gram of pure heroin. The NYPD figures are roughly similar with perhaps lower estimates for purity.

It should be noted that when heroin is purchased in very small quantities, the retail price tends to be much higher. In the US, purchase is often by “the bag”; the typical bag according to Rocheleau and Boyum contains 25 milligrams of pure heroin.(http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/drugfact/american_users_spend/appc.html )

A $10 dollar bag in NYC (according to the DEA figure quoted above) would convert into a price of $400 per gram, each bag containing 0.025gr. of pure heroin. (op cit). In other words, for very small purchases marketed by street pushers, the retail margin tends to be significantly higher. In the case of the $10 bag purchase, it is roughly 3 to 4 times the corresponding retail price per gram.($112-$153)

UK

In Britain, the retail street price per gram of heroin, according to British Police sources, “has fallen from £74 in 1997 to £61 [in 2004].” [i.e. from approximately $133 to $110, based on the 2004 rate of exchange] (Independent, 3 March 2004). In some cities it was as low as £30-40 per gram with a low level of purity. (AAP News, 3 March 2004). According to Drugscope (http://www.drugscope.org.uk/ ), the average price for a gram of heroin in Britain is between £40 and £90 ($72- $162 per gram) (The report does not mention purity). The street price of heroin was £60 per gram in April 2002 according to the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

(See:http://www.drugscope.org.uk/druginfo/drugsearch/ds_results.asp?file=%5Cwip%5C11%5C1%5C1%5Cheroin_opiates.html )

The Hierarchy of Prices

We are dealing with a hierarchy of prices, from the farmgate price in the producing country, upwards, to the final retail street price. The latter is often 80-100 times the price paid to the farmer.

In other words, the opiate product transits through several markets from the producing country to the transshipment country(ies), to the consuming countries. In the latter, there are wide margins between “the landing price” at the point of entry, demanded by the drug cartels and the wholesale prices and the retail street prices, protected by Western organized crime.

The Global Proceeds of the Afghan Narcotics Trade

In Afghanistan, the reported production of 3600 tons of opium in 2003 would allow for the production of approximately 360,000 kg of pure heroin. Gross revenues accruing to Afghan farmers are roughly estimated by the UNODC to be of the order of $1 billion, with 1.3 billion accruing to local traffickers.

When sold in Western markets at a heroin wholesale price of the order of $100,000 a kg (with a 70 percent purity ratio), the global wholesale proceeds (corresponding to 3600 tons of Afghan opium) would be of the order of 51.4 billion dollars. The latter constitutes a conservative estimate based on the various figures for wholesale prices in the previous section.

The total proceeds of the Afghan narcotics trade (in terms of total value added) is estimated using the final heroin retail price. In other words, the retail value of the trade is ultimately the criterion for measuring the importance of the drug trade in terms of revenue generation and wealth formation.

A meaningful estimate of the retail value, however, is almost impossible to ascertain due to the fact that retail prices vary considerably within urban areas, from one city to another and between consuming countries, not to mention variations in purity and quality (see above).

The evidence on retail margins, namely the difference between wholesale and retail values in the consuming countries, nonetheless, suggests that a large share of the total (money) proceeds of the drug trade are generated at the retail level.

In other words, a significant portion of the proceeds of the drug trade accrues to criminal and business syndicates in Western countries involved in the local wholesale and retail narcotics markets. And the various criminal gangs involved in retail trade are invariably protected by the “corporate” crime syndicates.

90 percent of heroin consumed in the UK is from Afghanistan. Using the British retail price figure from UK police sources of $110 a gram (with an assumed 50 percent purity level), the total retail value of the Afghan narcotics trade in 2003 (3600 tons of opium) would be the order of 79.2 billion dollars. The latter should be considered as a simulation rather than an estimate.

Under this assumption (simulation), a billion dollars gross revenue to the farmers in Afghanistan (2003) would generate global narcotics earnings, —accruing at various stages and in various markets— of the order of 79.2 billion dollars. These global proceeds accrue to business syndicates, intelligence agencies, organized crime, financial institutions, wholesalers, retailers, etc. involved directly or indirectly in the drug trade.

In turn, the proceeds of this lucrative trade are deposited in Western banks, which constitute an essential mechanism in the laundering of dirty money.

A very small percentage accrues to farmers and traders in the producing country. Bear in mind that the net income accruing to Afghan farmers is but a fraction of the estimated 1 billion dollar amount. The latter does not include payments of farm inputs, interest on loans to money lenders, political protection, etc. (See also UNODC, The Opium Economy in Afghanistan, http://www.unodc.org/pdf/publications/afg_opium_economy_www.pdf , Vienna, 2003, p. 7-8)

The Share of the Afghan Heroin in the Global Drug Market

Afghanistan produces over 70 percent of the global supply of heroin and heroin represents a sizeable fraction of the global narcotics market, estimated by the UN to be of the order of $400-500 billion.

There are no reliable estimates on the distribution of the global narcotics trade between the main categories: Cocaine, Opium/Heroin, Cannabis, Amphetamine Type Stimulants (ATS), Other Drugs.

The Laundering of Drug Money

The proceeds of the drug trade are deposited in the banking system. Drug money is laundered in the numerous offshore banking havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and some 50 other locations around the globe. It is here that the criminal syndicates involved in the drug trade and the representatives of the world’s largest commercial banks interact. Dirty money is deposited in these offshore havens, which are controlled by the major Western commercial banks. The latter have a vested interest in maintaining and sustaining the drug trade. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, The Crimes of Business and the Business of Crimes, Covert Action Quarterly, Fall 1996)

Once the money has been laundered, it can be recycled into bona fide investments not only in real estate, hotels, etc, but also in other areas such as the services economy and manufacturing. Dirty and covert money is also funneled into various financial instruments including the trade in derivatives, primary commodities, stocks, and government bonds.

Concluding Remarks: Criminalization of US Foreign Policy

US foreign policy supports the workings of a thriving criminal economy in which the demarcation between organized capital and organized crime has become increasingly blurred.

The heroin business is not “filling the coffers of the Taliban” as claimed by US government and the international community: quite the opposite! The proceeds of this illegal trade are the source of wealth formation, largely reaped by powerful business/criminal interests within the Western countries. These interests are sustained by US foreign policy.

Decision-making in the US State Department, the CIA and the Pentagon is instrumental in supporting this highly profitable multibillion dollar trade, third in commodity value after oil and the arms trade.

The Afghan drug economy is “protected”.

The heroin trade was part of the war agenda. What this war has achieved is to restore a compliant narco-State, headed by a US appointed puppet.

The powerful financial interests behind narcotics are supported by the militarisation of the world’s major drug triangles (and transshipment routes), including the Golden Crescent and the Andean region of South America (under the so-called Andean Initiative).

Table 1

Opium Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan

Year                        Cultivation in hectares              Production (tons)

1994                                71,470                                   3,400

1995                                53,759                                   2,300

1996                                56,824                                   2,200

1997                                58,416                                   2,800

1998                                63,674                                   2,700

1999                                90,983                                   4,600

2000                                82,172                                   3,300

2001                                  7,606                                      185

2002                                74 000                                   3400

2003                                80 000                                   3600

Source: UNDCP, Afghanistan, Opium Poppy Survey, 2001, UNOCD, Opium Poppy Survey, 2002. http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afg_opium_survey_2002.pdf

See also Press Release: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/press_release_2004-03-31_1.html , and 2003 Survey: http://www.unodc.org/pdf/afg/afghanistan_opium_survey_2003.pdf

Notice the dip in 2001

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Egyptians carry the coffin of a Shia Muslim who was killed by a mob near Cairo.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Britain, U.S. kill innocent civilians through proxies in Syria

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iranian president-elect Hassan Rohani says his administration will try to improve relations with world countries through understanding, confidence-building and mutual respect.

In response to a congratulatory message by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Rohani said on Monday that his administration would bring Å“peace and friendship for all world nations.”

He emphasized that as the next president of Iran, he would spare no effort to achieve this goal by relying on deep-rooted Iranian civilization and rich Islamic culture.

Rohani expressed hope that Iran and Russia would bolster historical ties and cooperate in all fields.

On June 16, Putin congratulated Iranâ„¢s president-elect on his victory in the country’s presidential election, announcing readiness to expand bilateral relations with Tehran.

“Putin expressed confidence that Hassan Rohani’s work on this high post will promote the flourishing of (Russiaâ„¢s) friend Iran and further strengthen Russian-Iranian relations,” a Kremlin message to Iranâ„¢s president-elect said.

Rohani emerged victorious in Iranâ„¢s 11th presidential election of June 14, which was marked by a high voter turnout, winning 50.7 percent of a total of 36,704,156 ballots counted. The voter turnout in the election was 72.7 percent, according to Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry.

In response to a congratulatory message by Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan, Rohani said his administration would expand ties with Armenia in all fields based on understanding, trust and mutual respect.

The Iranian president-elect also responded to Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic and said the two countries would enjoy sustainable relations in the future.

Rohani added that his administration would place emphasis on further strengthening of mutual ties.

SF/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

When the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first bragged about a red line regarding Iran’s nuclear program, the international observers assumed that the flames of an imminent war between Israel and Iran will be ignited soon and Israel will act unilaterally to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities in contravention of the UN Charter. We already know that it’s far from reality to expect Israel to play the role of a committed and righteous member of the international community. Since its inception in 1948, Israel has been at odds with all of its neighbors and the countries that have challenged its legitimacy. Now, Israel feels that Iran is threatening its shaky foundations and that is why it’s using Iran’s nuclear program as an excuse to form an international union against Tehran. It has put immense pressure on Washington to convince the White House and Pentagon leaders that attacking Iran is necessary. However, it has failed to realize this inauspicious goal so far.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s fall from grace has manifested itself in Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Taksim Square now resembles Egypt’s Tahrir Square. What is interesting to note is that the timing of the massive protests comes a month after Turkey paid its debts off to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Taksim Gezi Park (or simply Gezi Park) was once part of Istanbul’s Armenian cemetery. Today, it is essentially the last green space inside Istanbul. The park is situated within Taksim Square, which itself is considered the heart of Istanbul, Turkey’s business centre and largest, most populous city.

As a gathering place, Taksim is the equivalent of London’s Trafalgar Square, the Place de la Bastille in Paris, Kiev’s Nezalezhnosti (Independence) Square, Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, and Cairo’s Tahrir Square. It serves a similar function as London’s Hyde Park and New York City’s Central Park for the residents of Istanbul. Aside from its ecological value and aesthetics, it has historically been an important and indispensable spot for political and social rallies and protests of all stripes and colours. Traditionally, Turkey’s largest May Day rallies take place in Taksim and it is an important gathering place for Turkish trade unionists and activists.

There should be little wonder as to why the plans to cut all the trees down in Gezi Park and build a brand new shopping mall for tourists–complete with an Ottoman theme–in its place have been bitterly opposed by many of the inhabitants of Istanbul. One of the last open spaces for public assembly and demonstrations in the city would be taken away with the destruction of Gezi Park. Angry residents of the city have actually been protesting the commercial gentrification and re-development of Istanbul for some time before the protests in Gezi Park erupted. One large protest was against the demolition of the Emek Cinema, a cultural heritage landmark with a mixed baroque and rococo design.

The cinema was finally destroyed in 2013 to build another shopping mall. Other protests have been against the destruction of the city’s disappearing green spaces. These events have led to the development of an eclectic urbanite movement united under what can be conceptualized and described as the banner of Henri Lefebvre’s “the right to the city.” Istanbul’s Right to the City Movement is actually part of a global phenomenon where urban dwellers are demanding the right to democratically and collectively control the development and resources in their cities. Yet, there is much more to the protests in Taksim. The demonstrations are no longer about the trees and development contracts, but about Prime Minister Erdogan and the AKP.

Re-development plans have ignored the opinions of local residents in favour of the business interests that the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) protects. Over the years there have been many evictions of people in poor and working areas. The residents of the working class and lower income neighbourhoods of Istanbul have actually been increasingly marginalized and put under pressure by urban projects.

It should come as no surprise that this type of development is increasingly a site of political contestation in Turkey and around the world. It is worth digressing to refer to the work of the Urban Studies Research Cluster at the University of California in Santa Cruz to put this into context. The Urban Studies Research Cluster points out that “social divisions are experienced increasingly in spatial terms–through gentrified housing markets and polarized job markets; unequal access to green space and unequal exposure to environmental risk; new modes of segregation and policing public space.”

 “Saving Gezi Park” turns into “Saving Turkey from Erdogan”

Occupy Gezi, the protest in Gezi Park, is the spark that ignited a fire across Istanbul and Turkey that has exposed Turkish society’s internal divisions and the growing discontent with Prime Minister Erdogan and his AKP government. It all started with the activists that began camping in Gezi Park to prevent its destruction. The Turkish police tried to use heavy handed methods to disperse the activists. Tear gas canisters were used to disperse the crowd and the situation began to escalate. The methods of the Turkish police, fully supported by Erdogan and Turkey’s AKP government, backfired and unleashed a political tremor.

More people began arriving to Gezi Park. Two Turkish Members of Parliament (MPs) also joined the ranks of the activists: Sırrı Süreyya Önder from the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party and Gülseren Onanç from the Republican People’s Party. The Turkish Communist Party and other groups would throw their weight behind Occupy Gezi. Even though Erdogan’s AKP government enforced a media blackout and tried to prevent journalist from going to Gezi Park, word about the police siege against the activists began to spread as residents became increasingly upset by the liberal use of tear gas. The police would even resort to burning the tents of the protesters and attacking the activists with tear gas while they were sleeping. Water cannons would later be brought to Gezi Park and other protest sites in Turkey, including Ankara. Ahmet Sık, a Turkish journalist and author, would be hurt and rushed to the hospital with injuries.

As the police became more brutal, the protest attracted more and more people and began to take on a new set of meanings. This transformed Occupy Gezi into a demonstration against Erdogan’s arrogance, authoritarianism, and abuse of Turkish democracy in favour of crony capitalism. Soon more than a dozen other Turkish cities, from Ankara and Adana to Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and Trabzon, were ablaze with protests against the AKP government.

Occupy Wall Street activists would stage a rally in New York City in support of Occupy Gezi and demonstrations would appear in front of Turkish embassies across the world. The Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions (DISK), one of Turkey’s four major unions, would put its support behind the protests. Another major Turkish union, the Confederation of Public Workers Unions (KESK) would follow suit with strikes. Eventually DISK, KESK, the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects (TMMOB), and the Turkish Dentists Union (TDHB) would all hold strikes.

The Turkish police have systematically fired tear gas canisters at the heads of demonstrators. This has led to many injuries including fractured skulls and the loss of eyes. The Turkish Medical Association TTB), which has condemned Prime Minister Erdogan for the violence, has said that thousands of Turkish citizens have been injured by the police. The president of the TTB, Dr. Ozbemir Aktan, has also complained that five doctors and three nurses had gone missing because they treated injured protesters.

Two young Turks, Mehmet AyvalıtaÅŸ and Abdullah Cömert, would be killed in the early days of the protest. AyvalıtaÅŸ, a member of the Socialist Solidarity Platform (SODAP), was run down by a car while he was demonstrating in Istanbul. The group Redhack has implied that his death was the “intentional work of a fascist” supporting the AKP government. In Antakya, which is located near the Syrian border, Abdullah Cömert would die next. Most of the Turkish media reported that Cömert died of injuries sustained after being shot by “unidentified” gunmen, though many protesters used social media to deny the claim by blaming the police for his death. An autopsy of Cömert, a member of the youth branch of the opposition Republican People’s Party, revealed that he died when a police tear gas canister hit him. By the start of the summer at least four demonstrators were killed and thousands of more people injured across Turkey. The Turkish police would eventually use rubber bullets at different protest sites and even begin to run out of pepper spray.

In Erdogan’s own words, “there are two Turkeys.” As the police became more brutal in their treatment of protesters, Turkey’s entire political spectrum, from left to right and from liberal to conservative, have condemned Erdogan and the AKP. Turkey’s second largest political party and main opposition party by way of parliamentary standing, the Republican People’s Party, has used the opportunity to denounce the AKP, rally its supporters, and to capitalize politically. The Republican People’s Party has used Occupy Gezi to portray the protests as a clash of cultural values, and its supporters have linked the protests to the issue of secularism and the AKP’s fresh restrictions on alcohol sales–which foreign media have picked up on–but this is not the real basis for the divisions in Turkey. The Nationalist Movement Party, Turkey’s third largest political party, has condemned the AKP government. The National Movement’s leader would go as far to say that the AKP was using such large quantities of tear gas–courtesy of the same American crowd-control industry that has been helping dictators around the world–that the AKP had “established gas chambers similar to the Nazis.” The Peace and Democracy Party, Turkish Labour Party, Turkish Communist Party, and Felicity Party all also denounced Erdogan for his reckless policies and autocratic behaviour.

Initially, Prime Minister Erdogan spoke in conspiratorial terms and called the protesters unruly extremists working to create sedition in Turkey. He promised that the project to build the shopping mall would not halt for “some old trees” and even tried to glorify the project by saying it was a tribute to Turkey’s imperial past during the Ottoman era. In thuggish language, the AKP mayor of Ankara on the other hand threatened that the AKP could crush demonstrators. The AKP and Prime Minister Erdogan, however, were forced to back down as the many misgivings of Turkey’s people undeniably surfaced. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc was forced to make an apology for the violent police treatment of the protesters and the AKP government began backpedalling while Erdogan went on a tour of North Africa. The Turkish protesters have rejected the AKP government’s apology for using brute force as another insincere gesture by a dishonest government. Moreover, they have refused the appeal by Erdogan’s government to end the demonstrations.

Prime Minister Erdogan is now being equated with a fascist by the demonstrators. Referring to the deaths of two young protesters, one of the main Turkish unions turned Erdogan’s own words–which he used against Bashar Al-Assad–against the Turkish leader, asking him to resign: “A leader who kills his own people has lost his legitimacy.” In Istanbul angry crowds of five thousand people surrounded Erdgoan’s Istanbul office and hurled stones at it. The crowds have demanded that he promptly resign, chanting “Tayyip resign” and “shoulder to shoulder against fascism.” In Taksim Square over 100,000 people have gathered to demand Erdogan resign. A showdown between the demonstrators and Turkish security forces began, after Erdogan returned from North Africa. He began to call the demonstrators “terrorists” and in a threatening tone promised that they would all be individually targeted as police began to make house arrests throughout Turkey.

A Turkish Democratic Model for the Arabs?!

The tables have turned on Prime Minister Erdogan. The irony of the situation is that he is acting like an autocrat, which is exactly what he portrayed himself as opposing during the Arab Spring. Erdogan himself now resembles President Husni Mubarak, Egypt’s former dictator. He has even insisted that the protests are part of a foreign agenda and include foreign “mercenaries.” None of this has been lost on the Syrians either who have taken the opportunity to give Erdogan a taste of his own medicine. The Syrian government has issued several statements about the domestic situation in Turkey and the Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi has demanded that Erdogan resign, accusing him of “terrorizing” the Turkish people.

The Iraqi government has also taken the opportunity to make statements about the volatile situation in Turkey. Erdogan and the Turkish government have been officially accused by Baghdad of interfering in Iraqi internal affairs and seeking the division of Iraq, ethnically between Arabs and Kurds, and denominationally between Muslims. Under Erdogan the AKP has been busy trying to carve a sphere of influence in Iraqi Kurdistan and has even played with the internal legal status of Iraq’s Kirkuk by lobbying the local Turkoman population in the disputed city not to oppose the Kurdistan Regional Government’s jurisdiction claims. Refusing to recognize the Iraqi federal government’s sovereignty in Iraqi Kurdistan when it comes to foreign trade agreements and diplomatic relations, Erdogan even made a secretive deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government on oil and gas exports. It is in this context that the Iraqi government has taken the opportunity to tell Erdogan to show restraint against his own citizens. In reality, this is diplomatic tit for tat or payback for Erdogan’s confrontational public cries that have undermined the authority of the Iraqi government and essentially encouraged its toppling.

The flawed state of democracy that exists in Turkey has now come into view too. There have been attempts to enforce a media blackout in Turkey and the internet has been cut off in certain places. The Turkish mainstream media, which is tied to large business interests that support the AKP, has been embarrassingly caught collaborating with the AKP government in this regard. House arrests are being made and thousands of activists have been rounded up. Several people in the city of Izmir, a political stronghold of the Republican People’s Party, were arrested by Turkish police for the tweets they wrote on Twitter about the protests. In his anger Erdogan has condemned Twitter and all social media in general, stating: “To me, social media is the worst menace to society.”

The violations of civil liberties and media freedoms in Turkey have actually been ongoing. Turkish anti-war protesters that have been opposing Erdogan’s belligerent Syrian policy and Turkish involvement with NATO’s projects have been harassed and detained in large numbers. In 2012, the AKP moved forward with legislation restricting media freedoms. Turkey is actually the country with the most journalists imprisoned in the world according to the Committee to Protect Journalist. Journalists that have questioned official government narratives have been accused of treason and arrested. Artists that have created political art critical of Turkish officials have been arrested and charged with “insulting the dignity of a state official.” This was the “democratic model” that was being pushed on Arab societies after the so-called Arab Spring began.

Like their phony public gestures of support for the Palestinians, Erdogan and the AKP have never been interested in Arab democracy. They merely supported the toppling of Arab dictators to promote Turkish strategic and economic interests–essentially to fill their own pockets under the system of crony capitalism that dominates Turkey. It is precisely on the basis of these business interests that Erdogan and the AKP have kept silent about the democracy movements and protests against the Saudi and Bahraini regimes, which are close Turkish allies and partners.

An Economic Conspiracy Against Turkey?

Internationally, it ominously seems that a lot of Erdogan’s traditional supporters are turning their back on him, just as they did with Mubarak. The European Union and the US government have criticized Erdogan. The mainstream media in the US and Western Europe have not been reporting in favour of the AKP. Erdogan has slammed the foreign media of showing a distorted picture of Turkey and criticized the governments of some of Turkey’s allies for having double standards when it comes to Turkey.

The protests started after Turkey made its last loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in May 2013. There could be a link between the Turkish protests. Some may even accuse speculators of getting ready to siphon Turkey’s wealth, while others may suggest that soft regime change is being attempted with the intention of replacing the AKP possibly with a government by the equally corrupt Republican People’s Party. The Turkish government itself has mentioned that international banks are involved and Erdogan himself has said that the protests were tied to the planning of foreign circles that served the “interest rate lobby.”

Despite the fact that Erdogan has been praised for turning Turkey into an “economic miracle” and bringing the purchasing power of the average consumer up in Turkey, many families in Turkish society are heavily indebted. Under him crony profiteering has thrived with neoliberal economic policies that have supported corporations. Despite the fact that Turkey no longer has IMF debts, it has extremely high private sector debt, which is headed in an unsustainable direction if things do not change. Critics have accused Erdogan of hiding Turkey’s national debt by transferring it onto the shoulders of the average Turkish citizen. After the US economy, the Turkish one has one of the largest current account deficits. This says a lot, because a current account deficit happens when a country’s total imports of goods, services, and transfers is greater than its total export of goods, services, and transfers. This situation makes Turkey a net debtor.

The above factors and the anti-government protests in Turkey could have disastrous consequences for the Turkish economy. Already the demonstrations have now paralyzed large areas of Istanbul, Ankara, and other major Turkish cities. Erdogan has threatened to bring out the military. Tourism has been crippled and the Turkish economy has taken a dive. Turkish stocks and bonds have depreciated in value. In addition, the exchange rate of the Turkish Lira has dropped.

The country’s economy had already been starting to stagger before the protests due to the economic crisis in the European Union and the crisis in Syria that Erdogan has helped fuel with the US, UK, France, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. The Turkish-supported NATO war in Libya also hurt Turkish trade with Libya. Aside from the bad relations with Armenia, Prime Minister Erdogan has managed to alienate Turkey and hurt trade with its three most important neighbours. Trade and ties with Syria, Iraq, and Iran have been affected negatively by his neo-Ottomanism.

The Turkish People Reject AKP Crony Capitalism and Neo-Ottomanism

The recent events in Turkey epitomize everything that Prime Minister Erdogan stands for. The battle over the future of Gezi Park exposes Erdogan’s championing of commercial interests and crony capitalism, which has always come at the expense of the interests of Turkish society. Even Turkey’s “Zero Problems with Neighbours” foreign policy was about supporting crony capitalism by promoting Turkish business and trade regionally.

The fact that a replica Ottoman barrack was going to be incorporated with the shopping mall project in Taksim Square represents the failed neo-Ottoman policy of Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu. Erdogan would ridiculously scold the Turkish protesters and say that they knew nothing about the history of the Ottoman Empire; otherwise the demonstrators would support the destruction of Gezi Park and the construction of the shopping mall. The protests in Taksim Square represents a rejection of Erdogan’s stillborn neo-Ottoman regional policy–which at its core serves the crony business interests that Erdogan and the AKP represent–by the Turkish people.

The anti-government demonstrations have yet again shown how much of a hypocrite Prime Minister Erdogan is in his deeds. He has been exposed acting in the same fashion that he took the personal opportunity to blast and vilify Arab leaders with during the Arab Spring. The Turkish leader now faces an Arab Spring of his own–actually a “Turkish Summer.” Yet, the world will still have to wait and see what direction the protest movement in Turkey takes and what its outcome(s) will be and if Erdogan is right about a foreign conspiracy involving the “interest rate lobby.” Whatever happens, the Middle East is need of a healthy and interactive Turkey that will have good relations with all its neighbours.

Global Research Associate Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya was in Istanbul in mid-June 2013 and is currently reporting out of Lebanon.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Julia La Roche
Business Insider
June 24, 2013

Once again, we have some more embarrassing conversations between bankers…

The Irish Independent, a Dublin-based newspaper, has uncovered tapes of an internal phone conversation from September 2008 between two executives at Anglo Irish Bank during its bailout deal and they sound pretty scandalous. The Irish Independent points out that the recordings show they misled the Central Bank.

The executives from the recording have been identified as John Bowe (head of the bank’s capital markets) and Peter Fitzgerald (director of retail banking).

However, Bowe “categorically denied” that he misled the Central Bank and Fitzgerald, who wasn’t involved in discussions with regulators, said he was unaware of any intention to mislead, the report said.

WARNING: Graphic language!

Either way, the newly revealed recordings are still embarrassing.

Here are some partial excerpts (via the Irish Independent):

The two bankers begin their conversation jokingly comparing themselves to being able to walk on water and drink beer out of both hands.

John Bowe: “Hello”

Receptionist: “John I have Peter Fitz for you.”

Bowe: “Oh yeah, OK.”

Bowe: “As me granny used to say, you must be therapeutic…”

Peter Fitzgerald: “What does that mean? Can I work the computer is it? (Both laugh)

Bowe: “Therapeutic. Therapeutic…I was just ringing you.”

Fitzgerald: “I’m ambidextrous as well. It means I can walk on land and water.” (More laughter)

Bowe: “You can drink, you can drink beer out of both hands…” (laughter)

Then they get down to business.  Bowe tells Fitzgerald that they met with the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority (IFSRA) the previous day about getting â‚¬7 billion.  They laugh how they will never be able to pay it back.

Bowe:  “So we went down … and we basically said. In Central, yeah. And I mean, to cut a long story short we sort of said. ‘Look, what we need is seven billion euros…and we’re going to give you and we’re going to give you, what we’re going to give you is our loan collateral so we’re not giving you ECB, we’re giving you the loan clause.

“We gave him a term sheet and we put a pro not facility together and we said that’s what we need. And that kind of sobered up everybody pretty quickly, you know.”

Fitzgerald: “Yeah.”

Fitzgerald: “And is that â‚¬7 billion a term?”

Bowe: “This is â‚¬7 billion bridging.”

Fitzgerald: “Yeah.”

Bowe: “So … so it is bridged until we can pay you back … which is never.” (Both laugh)

Then they joke how the regulators would need to change their underpants after hearing the terms of that deal.

Bowe: “So under the terms that say repayment, we say; ‘No …'” (laughter)

Fitzgerald: (Laughing) “None…just none. Not applicable. OK and what did he say? ‘I need a change of underwear?’

Fitzgerald: “Jesus that’s a lot of dosh … Jesus f—–g hell and God … well do you know the Central Bank only has â‚¬14 billion of total investments so that would be going up 20 … Gee..that would be seen.

Bowe: (Laughing) “There was a bit of that … there was a bit of that.  ‘And how would we do that? We would need to give you … we need to … ‘Jesus you’re kind of asking us to play ducks and drakes with the regulations.’ And we said: ‘Yeah.’ We said: ‘Look what we are telling you is if we get into difficulties, we have 100,000 plus lump sum depositors in Ireland all of whom would be very vocal.'”

Fitzgerald asks Bowe how he came up with the 7 billion figure.  Bowe responds that like then-CEO David Drumm, he picked it out of his “arse.”

Fitzgerald: “Ah we are, yeah, yeah and, em, what, how did you arrive at the seven?

Bowe: “Just, as Drummer would say, ‘picked it out of my arse’, you know. Em … I mean, look, what we did was we basically said: ‘What is the amount we can securitize over the next six months?’ And basically say to them: ‘Look our problem is time, it’s not our ability to create the liquidity, the enemy is time here.'”

Fitzgerald: “Yeah.”

Bowe: “So we can rebuild, in other words, we can rebuild the liquidity off our loan book, but what we can’t do, we can’t do it now and the balance sheet’s leaking now.”

Bowe tells Fitzgerald that they actually need more money than the 7 billion figure.

Bowe: Yeah and that number is seven, but the reality is that actually we need more than that. But the strategy here is you pull them in, you get them to write a big [check] and they have to keep, they have to support their money, you know.”

Fitzgerald: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They’ve got skin in the game and that’s the key.”

Bowe: “They have and they have invested a lot. If they saw, if they saw, the enormity of it up front, they might decide, they might decide they have a choice. You know what I mean? They might say the cost to the taxpayer is too high. But … em … if it doesn’t look too big at the outset…if it looks big, big enough to be important, but not too big that it kind of spoils everything,

Fitzgerald: “Yeah, Yeah.”

Ever since the crisis of 2008 Americans have been asking ‘when will we finally get back to normal?’

We now have a target date.

Forget the green shoots of 2009, or the real estate recovery of 2010, the resurgence of minimum wage jobs in 2011, or the stock market records of 2012 and 2013.

None of those really made a difference for Americans on the ground.

2014. That’s the new target date.

CNN reports that’s when things are going to get better according to a growing consensus of well respected economists.

But next year, economists foresee a convergence of several factors that could finally kick this recovery into high gear.

First on the list is the federal budget. After epic fights this year over the “fiscal cliff,” the “sequester,” and a bunch of other wonky stuff, lawmakers have finally managed to cobble together enough tax hikes and spending cuts to at least stabilize the country’s credit rating.

Rising home prices are helping, too. Fewer Americans are trapped in underwater mortgages that leave them owing more on their home than the house is worth. Rising prices also boost the net worth of homeowners, adding to consumer confidence.

Businesses have been complaining for years about “uncertainty” in the public policy area. Next year, some of those unknowns will finally be resolved.

Companies have held off on hiring because they’re waiting to see how they’ll be affected by health care and finance reform laws, according to John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo. The implementation details of both of those laws will become clearer over the next year.

“Dodd-Frank and Obamacare need to be worked out, then employment takes off,” Silvia said.

He believes 2014 “could be a very good year.”

…

Just how good? Steve Blitz, chief economist at ITG Investment Research, thinks GDP growth in the 3.5% to 4% range is possible for 2014, if the global economy doesn’t deteriorate. Monthly job growth could peak in the 300,000 range, he believes.

Blitz anticipates a large numbers of Millennials entering the car-and-home-buying stage of life, giving an added boost to the economy. Plus, the drop in defense spending associated with the draw-down of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan should be largely behind us.

“All of these should add up to a better economy in 2014,” Blitz said.

So, next year is the year folks!

Finally.

Next year the tax hikes and spending cuts (what?) are going to stabilize our credit rating, because that rating has nothing to do with the trillions of dollars of funny money we’ve been printing at the Fed.

Next year businesses will finally start hiring, once Obamacare is in effect, because those extra thousands of dollars in premiums or fines that small business owners will be forced to pay are a boon for the jobs market.

Next year, after we pull our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, there will be a drop in defense spending… except we’re now mobilizing for a war in Syria, and possibly Iran.

And, of course, next year the Millennials will be buying cars and homes to add to their iPhone and Xbox collections. And since there are going to be so many high paying retail and restaurant jobs flowing into the economy, that’s going to drive growth to almost 4% per year, as opposed to the sub 2% we’ve managed to attain through inflationary machinations.

Another driver, as CNN also reports, is that 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, with one in five of our fellow countrymen having less than $100 in savings to deal with emergencies.

Moreover, with just $202 trillion in national commitments to pay off, the future looks bright for generations to come.

If that’s not economic stability, we don’t know what is.

By all expert economic assessment we’re back!

It’s time to book those vacations, max out those credit cards and fire up the barbecue grills.

Crisis averted.

All together shout it now
there’s no one
who can doubt it now
so let`s tell the world about it now
happy days are here again

Your cares and troubles are gone
there’ll be no more from now on
from now on

Shout it from the roof tops:

This article originally appeared on: SHTF Plan

Legislation that gives the Canadian state draconian and arbitrary powers to suppress protests became law last week after approval from the Conservative Party-dominated federal parliament.

Bill C-309–the Preventing Persons from Concealing Their Identities during Riots and Unlawful Assemblies Act–makes it a crime punishable by a ten-year prison term to incite a riot while wearing a mask or any face covering, including face paint.

Someone who merely participates in a riot or in an “unlawful” assembly with their face covered can, under the new law, be deemed to have committed an indictable criminal offense and jailed for up to five years.

These new offenses are in addition to the existing Criminal Code offenses of participating in a riot and participating in an unlawful assembly. Persons convicted of the former can be jailed for a maximum of two years, while the latter is considered to be among the lowest tier of criminal offenses known as “summary offenses,” which carry a maximum six-month jail term.

Under Canadian law, police and other authorities have very broad powers to illegalize protests by declaring them “unlawful assemblies.” The Criminal Code describes an “unlawful assembly” as a gathering that causes people “to fear on reasonable grounds” that it “will disturb the peace tumultuously” or provoke others to do so.

During last year’s six month-long Quebec student strike, police declared numerous protests “unlawful assemblies,” then violently set about dispersing the crowd with tear gas, baton-charges and mass arrests. In response to the tear gas, many demonstrators covered their faces with handkerchiefs. Had the new law been in force, they could potentially have been charged with concealing their identities and targeted for punitive jail terms of up to five years.

Critics of the new law have rightly condemned it as a flagrant attack on the right to free speech. Masks and face paint have been used for centuries to make political points, and there are many reasons, including fear of victimization by employers, that can cause protesters to choose to conceal their faces. Police, it need be added, have subjected political protests to blanket surveillance for years, systematically photographing and videotaping demonstrators.

Moreover, there is a long history of police instigating violence at demonstrations–through provocative crowd-control tactics and the use of agent provocateurs–so as to justify their suppression. In 2007, undercover Quebec Provincial Police officers were caught trying to incite people protesting at a trilateral US-Canada-Mexico heads of government meeting in Montebello, Quebec to attack the police. (See: “Canada: Police agent-provocateurs unmasked at Montebello summit protests”)

Bill C-309 began as a private member’s bill. Only rarely do such bills become law, but the Conservative government chose to make it a legislative priority. As the result of an amendment proposed by Robert Goguen, the parliamentary secretary to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson, and passed by the Conservative-dominated Justice Committee, the maximum penalty for the crime of inciting a riot while wearing some form of face-covering was increased from five to ten years.

In arguing for the legislation, the Conservatives said they wanted to give police an “additional tool” to deal with rioters.

In fact the most serious violence at political protests, to say nothing of the gravest attacks on democratic riots, have been committed by Canadian authorities. During the 2010 G-20 summit in Toronto–in a wholesale suppression of democratic rights that was abetted and supported by all three levels of government–police kicked, bludgeoned, tear-gassed, and shot rubber bullets at protesters, as well as numerous passersby. Journalists covering these unprecedented events were themselves arrested and assaulted.

In what the Ontario Ombudsman called the “most massive compromise of civil liberties in Canadian history,” 1,100 people were arrested. Those apprehended in this dragnet were hauled into primitive detention cages, strip-searched and denied legal counsel. Subsequently, charges were dropped against the vast majority, with only a small fraction ever convicted of anything.

In Canada, as around the world, a ruling elite whose wealth and incomes have soared as a result of the a class war offensive on job, wages, and public services, has responded to growing opposition by moving to criminalize dissent.

In the past two years, the Conservative government has repeatedly illegalized strikes and impending strikes by Canada Post, Air Canada and CP Rail workers. Now Quebec’s Parti Quebecois government is threatening to criminalize a week-old strike of 175,000 construction workers.

In May 2012, the then Quebec Liberal government adopted an emergency law that effectively outlawed the Quebec student strike and placed sweeping restrictions on the right to strike over any issue in the province. On taking office the following September, the PQ made a show of repealing Bill 78, but it has endorsed repressive bylaws adopted during the student strike by Montreal, Quebec City, and many other Quebec municipalities. These bylaws make it illegal to demonstrate without the police’s express authorization of the protest route. In many cases, they also make it illegal to wear a mask, face covering or face paint at a protest even if the protest is legal. Police have already used the presence of masked demonstrators at protests to declare them “unlawful assemblies,” making all those participating liable to arrest and fines.

As a result of the new federal law, Montreal Police could potentially invoke the municipal bylaw against face-covered protestors so as to declare a protest illegal, then charge those who are face-covered with participating in an unlawful assembly while concealing their identities, making them liable to punitive jail terms

The criminalization of dissent goes hand in hand with the build-up of a secret state-within-the state. Under a series of ministerial directives, whose existence let alone content has been kept unknown to Canadians, Liberal and Conservative governments have authorized the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC)–a close partner of the U.S. National Security Agency–to mine the metadata of Canadians’ telephone, computer, and other electronic communications since at least 2005.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Tristin Hopper
National Post
June 24, 2013

In a ruling that could carry implications for comedy clubs across Canada, the Supreme Court of British Columbia has upheld the right of a bar patron to receive five-figures in damages from a comedian whose performance she alleges gave her post-traumatic stress disorder.

In 2011, Toronto comedian Guy Earle was ordered by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal to pay $15,000 to Lorna Pardy, a homosexual woman who said she suffered “lasting physical and psychological effect” after Mr. Earle directed a string of lesbian slurs at her during a 2007 Vancouver open mic night.

On Wednesday, B.C. highest court ruled against Mr. Earle’s assertion that comedy clubs should remain special places devoted to the “fearless pursuit of free speech” and that the Tribunal’s decision would have a “chilling effect on performances and artists in British Columbia.”

Read more

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 12:15 pm

Tags: foreign affairs

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

On this Sunday morning’s NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host David Gregory made it clear that he believes journalist Glenn Greenwald should be charged with a crime for working with whistleblower Edward Snowden.

“To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” he asked.

“I think it’s pretty extraordinary that anybody who would call themselves a journalist would publicly muse about whether or not other journalists should be charged with felonies,” Greenwald said. “The assumptions in your question, David, is completely without evidence, the idea I’ve aided and abetted him in any way. The scandal that arose in Washington before our stories began was about the fact that the Obama administration is trying to criminalize investigative journalism by going through the e-mails and records of AP reporters, accusing a Fox News journalist of the theory you just embraced, being co-conspirator in felonies for working with sources.”

“If you want to embrace that theory,” Greenwald continued, “it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information, is a criminal. It’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States. It’s why the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer said investigative reporting has come to a standstill, as a result of the questions you just mentioned.”

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Journalist Michael Hastings sent an e-mail to his friends and colleagues just hours before he died last week in which he said his “close friends and associates” were being interviewed by the FBI and that Hastings needed to “go off the radar for a bit.”

KTLA-TV in Los Angeles reported Saturday that Hastings said in the email he was “onto a big story.” Hastings sent the email around 1 p.m. Monday June 17, 15 hours before he died in an early Tuesday morning car crash in Hollywood.

Staff Sgt. Joseph Biggs, who had known Hastings since 2008 when the journalist was embedded in his unit in Afghanistan, told KTLA that he received the email from Hastings on Monday:

“On Monday morning, I woke up and I got an email, and it’s very panicked,” Biggs said.

He was blind-copied on the email, which was sent to Hastings’ colleagues.

In part, it said that the feds were interviewing his close friends and associates, and that he was onto a big story and needed to get off the radar.

The FBI has denied that Hastings was ever under investigation.

“It alarmed me very much,” Biggs said. “I just said it doesn’t seem like him. I don’t know, I just had this gut feeling and it just really bothered me,” he said.

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The South American country of Ecuador, where NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has reportedly made request for political asylum, says it considers the matter as one of “freedom of expression” and will consider the application on strict merits.

Ecuador’s Foreign Mister Ricardo Patino speaks to reporters at a hotel during his visit to Vietnam Monday, June 24, 2013. Patino said that his government is analyzing an asylum request from Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor wanted for revealing classified secrets. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh) “We are analyzing [the request] with a lot of responsibility,” Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters through a translator at a hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam on Monday.

The request, he continued, “has to do with freedom of expression and the security of citizens around the world.”

Asked if he was concerned about what offering Snowden asylum might do to his country’s relationship with the United States, Patino said, “There are some governments that act more upon their own interests, but not us. We act upon our principles.”

“We take care of human rights of the people,” he added.

Ecuador and its president Rafael Correa have generated a reputation for protecting embattled journalists and whistleblowers since it granted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asylum and has allowed him to remain under its protection for over a year inside its London embassy.

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Students demonstrate in favor of Affirmative Action(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)The Supreme Court voted 7-1 on Monday to send the highly anticipated decision in Fisher v. University of Texas–which could determine key aspects of the nation’s affirmative action policies–back to a federal appeals court for review. 

<a target=_blank href="http://

Glad #SCOTUS decision in Fisher acknowledges importance of diversity on college campuses. We are confident UT admissions plan will be upheld

— ACLU National (@ACLU) June 24, 2013

” target=”_blank”>Their decision means that affirmative action will remain in place, with the added stipulation that institutions must demonstrate that there are “no workable race-neutral alternatives” to affirmative action when constructing diversity in higher ed classrooms. Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy explained, “the University must prove that the means chosen by the University to attain diversity are narrowly tailored to that goal.”

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the majority opinion, explaining that the Court should have upheld the decision. She explained, “I have several times explained why government actors, including state universities, need not be blind to the lingering effects of ‘an overtly discriminatory past,’ the legacy of ‘centuries of law-sanctioned inequality.'”

Many civil liberties groups were happy with the decision, including the ACLU who tweeted the following statement:

“Today’s near-unanimous decision leaves intact the important principle that universities have a compelling interest in a diverse student body, and that race can be one factor among many that universities consider in a carefully crafted admissions program,” said Dennis Parker, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, in a statement. “We believe that the University of Texas has made a strong showing that its admissions plan was necessary to achieve meaningful diversity, and that it can and should be upheld under the standard that the Supreme Court announced today.”

National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neil highlighted the importance of this decision in a press release, but was cautious, noting that “some justices are more resistant than supportive of achieving diversity in higher education.”

In an opinion piece published earlier this month, leader for Racial Equity programing for the Kellogg Foundation Dr. Gail Christopher commented on the significance of this case, noting that it “represents a much-needed incentive to give some serious thought to this nation’s unique legacy of racism and its continuing effects – yes, even in the 21st century.”

Fisher v. University of Texas was brought in 2008 by college-applicant Abigail Fisher who alleged she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin because she was white, and that applications of student’s of color with lesser credentials were privileged over hers.

This is not the Supreme Court’s last word on affirmative action. The court will review a case next term about whether voters can decide at the polls to ban the policy in their respective states.

Lucia Brown is a summer editorial intern at Common Dreams.

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Women’s health advocates occupy the Texas state capitol (Photo: NARAL Pro-Choice Texas)Defying hundreds of pro-choice advocates who occupied the Texas state capitol building through Sunday night, the Texas House Monday morning brought the state one step closer to passing Senate Bill 5, which, if implemented, will impose the most severe restrictions on abortion the U.S. has ever seen.

“Shame them for what they’ve done!” chanted hundreds of protesters still occupying the capitol at the four in the morning announcement of the bill’s passage.

SB 5 would make it near impossible to get an abortion in the state of Texas. The sweeping measure–a cocktail of several previous abortion bills–would ban the procedure after 20 weeks, impose prohibitive restrictions on abortion providers, and require that abortions only be provided at surgical centers. Pro-choice advocates explain that the bill would shutter 37 of the state’s 42 abortion clinics.

“All of these restrictions represent an extreme burden on women, particularly the most vulnerable in our state. This is a callous disregard for the health and safety of women, setting up the kind of restrictive environment that leads women to seek desperate measures,” declared Heather Busby, director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas.

Governor Rick Perry imposed a 30-day ‘special session’ to advance the bill that temporarily suspends normal legislative rules, making it easier steamroll blocks from within the government and across Texas.

The special session was imposed after the bill failed in regular session, and SB 5 supporters are rushing to push it through before the session expires.

After passing the House, the bill will next go to the Senate. The governor is expected to enthusiastically sign the sweeping bill into law if it makes it through the Senate to his desk.

“The bills Perry hopes to pass through the special session were too extreme to pass during the regular session,” declared Busby. “It is a shame that our state leadership prioritizes the regulation of women’s bodies over the pressing needs of Texans.”

The bill advances despite mass opposition from Texas residents who deride it as an unbridled attack on women.

More than 700 Texas women’s health advocates participated in a ‘People’s Filibuster’ at the capitol Thursday, testifying against the passage of SB 5 for a stunning 12 hours and temporarily blocking its advance through the House.

When the debate resumed, pro-choice advocates rushed to the capitol to make their voices heard. Sunday’s overnight protests and occupation filled the building, as protesters wore orange and red to signal their opposition and waved banners, including one that showed ovaries, followed by the words ‘Don’t Tread on Me.’ Protesters chanted within earshot of the House as it debated the piece of legislation.

NBC reports on protesters’ outrage at the bill’s content:

“It’s absolutely insane we are still having this debate in this day and age,” said Alyssa Potasznik of Dallas.

Despite the widespread outcry, in the early hours of the morning, Republicans blocked the debate and forced a vote.

Women’s heath advocates vow that the fight is not over. Think Progress reports:

“Women are not going to tolerate the constant chipping away of their rights, we are not going to be bullied,” Rep. Senfronia Thompson (D) said on Sunday night in reference to the legislature’s attempt to push through last-minute abortion restrictions. “We are soldiers in the army of women’s rights, and while today we may be outnumbered and out gunned, our cause is just and we shall prevail.”

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Activists locked to an excavator to thwart construction work. (Photo: Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance)Nine people with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance (GPTSR) have been arrested on Monday after succeeding in temporarily shutting down construction of a Keystone XL pump station.

The action in Seminole, Okla. was part of a series of coordinated, nationwide #FearlessSummer actions starting this week that aim to fight “extreme energy,” which “continues to escalate its attack of life on earth.”

For GPTSR, the direct action was a necessary step to confront the fossil fuel industries that “profit off of continued ecological devastation and the poisoning of countless communities.”

“As a part of a direct action coalition working and living in an area that has been historically sacrificed for the benefit of petroleum infrastructure and industry, we believe that building a movement that can resist all infrastructure expansion at the point of construction is a necessity,” Eric Whelan, spokesperson for the group, said in a statement.

“We’re through with appealing to a broken political system that has consistently sacrificed human and nonhuman communities for the benefit of industry and capital,” added Whelan

While Monday’s action targeted TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, the group emphasized that “tar sands infrastructure is toxic regardless of the corporation or pipeline,” and pointed to spills in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and in Mayflower, Arkansas.

“We are opposed not only to the Keystone XL, but all tar sands infrastructure that threatens the land and her progeny,” stated Fitzgerald Scott, who took part in Monday’s action.

So the group’s message to Enbridge, another heavyweight in the rapacious industry, is this: expect resistance.

“While KXL opponents wait with baited breath for Obama’s final decision regarding this particular pipeline, other corporations, including Enbridge, will be laying several tar sands pipelines across the continent. The Enbridge pipelines will carry the same volumes of the same noxious substance; therefore, Enbridge should get ready for the same resistance.”

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A spokesman for the Taliban movement in Pakistan on Monday publicly claimed the group’s responsibility for the killing of nine foreign hikers in the Himalayas over the weekend, saying that the massacre was a direct result of a US drone strike last month along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

The body of one of the 9 foreign tourists killed near the Nanga Parbat peak. (Photo: Reuters/Sohail Shahzad) “We did it and we claim responsibility for this attack,” said Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in a phone call to Agence France-Presse.

“One of our factions, Junood ul-Hifsa, did it. It is to avenge the killing of Maulvi Wali ur-Rehman,” he said.

Ehsan was explicit about the motivation for the killings by adding, “We want to convey to the world that this is our reply to US drone attacks.”

As Al-Jazeera reports, ur-Rheman “died on May 29 in a US drone attack on a house in North Waziristan, the most notorious Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan on the Afghan border.”

Foreign policy experts have argued extensively and repeatedly in recent years that the use of unmanned drones to bomb civilian populations–even as they purport to target specific military targets–would inevitably increase the prospects for violent blowback from those who feel victimized by such attacks.

Additionally troubling was the announcement by the Pakistan Taliban was that a specialized unit was created in order to carry out the attack which has left many jittery in Pakistan that tourists and other foreign nationals may now be the focus of an ongoing campaign of retaliatory violence.

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(Photo: Justin Norman/cc/flickr)“The administration is getting ever more angry and doing everything they can to break our hunger strike. Honestly, I wish I was dead.” –Guantánamo prisoner Shaker Aamer

Aamer, among the over 100 inmates at the prison on hunger strike, detailed the escalating brutality officials at the prison are meting out in a effort to break the months-long hunger strike.

The Observer reported:

Techniques include making cells “freezing cold” to accentuate the discomfort of those on hunger strike and the introduction of “metal-tipped” feeding tubes, which Aamer said were forced into inmates’ stomachs twice a day and caused detainees to vomit over themselves.

The 46-year-old from London tells of one detainee who was admitted to hospital 10 days ago after a nurse had pushed the tube into his lungs rather than his stomach, causing him later to cough up blood. Aamer also alleges that some nurses at Guantánamo Bay are refusing to wear their name tags in order to prevent detainees registering abuse complaints against staff.

The British resident, who has been cleared for release by both the Bush and Obama administrations, has spent over 11 years at the prison without trial.

Aamer’s testimony was given to the Observer by Clive Stafford Smith, his U.S. attorney and the director of the UK-based Reprieve, who said, “These gruesome new details show just how bad things are in Guantánamo. The whole thing is at breaking point. Clearly the US military is under enormous pressure and doing everything it can to hurt the men and break the hunger strike.”

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The “Friends of Syria” meeting in Qatar on June 22 ended with a communiqué announcing that Washington and its allies will “take all necessary practical measures” to arm the right-wing Sunni-based opposition forces, which have served as their proxies in a two-year civil war to overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The announcement opens up a new stage in the war, and heightens the dangers of a regional sectarian conflagration.

The communiqué of the “Friends of Syria”–the Orwellian name given to the coalition of the US, its NATO allies, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Turkey, and the Sunni states of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar–can only be described as a criminal and reckless document. It proposes to supply sufficient weapons and supplies to the anti-Assad opposition to enable it to counter the Syrian military ahead of “peace talks” in Geneva. The document also hints at US and NATO military operations along Syria’s borders to prevent Shiite fighters from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran assisting the pro-government forces–even as imperialist aid pours in for the so-called “rebels.”

Once again, the imperialist instigators of the civil war assert that Assad and his close supporters have “no role” in Syria’s future. This is a transparent attempt to foment dissent among pro-Assad forces and trigger the collapse of the government.

Plumbing the depths of hypocrisy, the communiqué expresses “strong concern” over “increasing presence and growing radicalism in the conflict” and “terrorist elements in Syria”. The “terrorists” are Sunni extremist groups, linked to Al Qaeda, that have played the leading role in the fighting against the Assad regime and have been one of the beneficiaries of the weapons sent to Syria by US allies in the region. The stepped-up flow of arms now underway will further aid their sectarian attacks on Syria’s Alawite Shiite minority.

US Secretary of State John Kerry played the leading role in Qatar in pressuring participants to agree to the communiqué. It was adopted in defiance of sharp warnings by Russian President Vladimir Putin against the further arming of the Sunni extremists. Germany and several other countries reportedly raised concerns that the provision of arms would only further fuel sectarian Shiite-Sunni tensions across the Middle East. The US-led proxy war in Syria has already led to an escalation in fighting between rival Shiite and Sunni factions in both Lebanon and Iraq. The German government nevertheless signed off on the document.

The communiqué follows a June 14 declaration by the Obama administration that its unproven and highly dubious assertion that the Assad regime had used chemical weapons justified Washington’s provision of military aid to anti-Assad forces. In fact, as a Los Angeles Times report on June 21 indicated, US intelligence and military officers have been on the ground in Jordan and Turkey since late 2012, training rebel fighters.

Representatives of the opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) boasted last week that the US announcement had already resulted in the delivery of sophisticated arms, including armour piercing anti-tank weapons and anti-aircraft missile launchers. FSA spokesman Louay Muqdad told Agence France Presse that the supplies, “will change the course of the battle on the ground.”

Khalid Saleh, a representative of the Syrian Opposition Coalition, told the Washington Post that the US action had sent “a very strong signal to the other countries” to step up their arming of the rebel fighters. Weapons shipments, paid for by the Gulf state monarchies, are allegedly coming in from Libyan arms dealers and include Russian-made Konkurs anti-tank missiles. Fighting has reportedly increased around the northern city of Aleppo as the opposition makes use of the new hardware to launch counter-attacks on Syrian military positions.

The Qatar meeting has been greeted in US strategic and political circles as an important step, but one that must be followed by more direct American military involvement in the Syrian war.

The Washington Post editorial on June 21 called for a Kosovo-style intervention against Syria, implying that an air war should be waged to support the anti-Assad opposition and that a “peace-keeping force”–including American troops–should be sent into the country once the regime fell.

In the USA Today yesterday, Brookings Institution strategic analysts Michael Doran and Michael O’Hanlon likewise called for open intervention to ensure Assad’s overthrow. “We can provide not only light arms, but also heavier weaponry and even air support if necessary,” they wrote.

Spelling out the logic of the regime-change operation, Doran and O’Hanlon asserted: “The calculus of Assad and his Iranian patrons will not change until Aleppo and Damascus are squarely and permanently under rebel control. These are the near-term strategic goals that the US must set for the opposition, and the United States must work to give the rebels the support necessary to achieve them. We cannot expect Assad and his inner-circle elite to accept exile until they are certain that the two major cities of Syria are beyond their control.”

What is being proposed is a bloodbath. The seizure of Aleppo and Damascus would require the bombardment of the two most densely populated urban areas in Syria and the bloody slaughter of the pro-government forces that have, until now, resisted the Sunni forces that Washington is seeking to install in power. Given the sectarian crimes already carried out by Sunni extremist militias, it would also lead to pogroms, particularly against Shiite Alawites.

The determination of the US ruling elite to realise its predatory ambitions to place the entire Middle East under its political and military dominance has produced atrocity after atrocity, above all the massive death and destruction inflicted in Iraq. In Syria, an estimated 90,000 people have already lost their lives. The stepped-up drive now taking place to reduce Syria to a US client-state portends yet more war crimes.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

(Photo: Justin Norman/cc/flickr)“The administration is getting ever more angry and doing everything they can to break our hunger strike. Honestly, I wish I was dead.” –Guantánamo prisoner Shaker Aamer

Aamer, among the over 100 inmates at the prison on hunger strike, detailed the escalating brutality officials at the prison are meting out in a effort to break the months-long hunger strike.

The Observer reported:

Techniques include making cells “freezing cold” to accentuate the discomfort of those on hunger strike and the introduction of “metal-tipped” feeding tubes, which Aamer said were forced into inmates’ stomachs twice a day and caused detainees to vomit over themselves.

The 46-year-old from London tells of one detainee who was admitted to hospital 10 days ago after a nurse had pushed the tube into his lungs rather than his stomach, causing him later to cough up blood. Aamer also alleges that some nurses at Guantánamo Bay are refusing to wear their name tags in order to prevent detainees registering abuse complaints against staff.

The British resident, who has been cleared for release by both the Bush and Obama administrations, has spent over 11 years at the prison without trial.

Aamer’s testimony was given to the Observer by Clive Stafford Smith, his U.S. attorney and the director of the UK-based Reprieve, who said, “These gruesome new details show just how bad things are in Guantánamo. The whole thing is at breaking point. Clearly the US military is under enormous pressure and doing everything it can to hurt the men and break the hunger strike.”

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Introduction

In an electoral system, run by and for a corporate oligarchy, deception and demagoguery are essential elements — entertaining the people while working for the wealthy.

Every US President has engaged, in one fashion or another, in ‘play acting’ to secure popular approval, neutralize hostility and distract voters from the reactionary substance of their foreign and domestic policies.

Every substantive policy is accompanied by a ‘down home’ folksy message to win public approval. This happened with President ‘Jimmy’ Carter’s revival of large-scale proxy wars in Afghanistan in the post-Viet Nam War period; Ronald Reagan’s genocidal wars in Central America, George Bush Sr.’s savaging of Iraq in the First Gulf War; ‘Bill’ Clinton’s decimation of social welfare in the US while bombing civilians in Yugoslavia and deregulating Wall Street; George Bush Jr.’s invasion and partition of Iraq and Afghanistan, the attempted coup in Venezuela and massive tax cuts for the rich; and Barack Obama’s staggering bailout of the biggest Wall Street speculators, unprecedented launching of five consecutive wars, and arrest and deportation of millions of immigrant workers. Each President has elaborated a style in order to ingratiate himself with the public while pursuing his reactionary agenda.

In rhetoric, appearance and in public persona, it is ‘de rigueur’ for US Presidents to present themselves as an ‘everyman’ while committing political actions — including war crimes worthy of prosecution.

Each President, in his ‘play acting’, develops a style suitable to the times. They constantly strive to overcome the public’s suspicion and potential hostility to their overt and covert policies designed to build empire as domestic conditions deteriorate. However, not all play acting is the same: each President’s ‘populist’ style in defense of oligarchic interests has its characteristic nuances.

 The Carter Feint: ‘Human Rights’ Wars in the Post-Viet Nam War Era

‘Jimmy’ Carter was elected President at a time of the greatest mass anti-war upheaval in US history. His campaign projected a soft-spoken, conciliatory President from humble roots reaching out to the anti-war electorate and solemnly pledging to uphold human rights against domestic militarists and their overseas despotic allies. To that end, he appointed a liberal human rights advocate Pat Derian to the State Department and a veteran Cold Warrior, Zbigniew (Zbig) Brzezinski, as National Security Advisor and foreign policy strategist.

Duplicity reared its head immediately: Carter openly criticized the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua — while privately telling the dictator to ignore the public criticisms and assuring him of continuing US support.[1] As the Sandinista revolution advanced toward victory, Carter convoked a meeting of Latin American leaders urging them to join in a joint military intervention with the US to ‘save lives’ and to prevent the popular Nicaraguan revolution from taking power and dismantling the dictator’s army. It soon became clear to the leaders of Latin America that Carter’s mission was a thinly- veiled ‘humanitarian’ version of ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and they declined. When Carter realized that, without the fig leaf of Latin American participation, a US-led invasion would arouse universal opposition, he abandoned the project. The political climate would not support a unilateral US invasion so soon after the end of the war in Indochina .

However, Carter soon re-launched the Cold War, reviving military spending and pouring billions of dollars into funding, arming and training tens of thousands of fundamentalist Jihadists from around the world to invade Afghanistan and overthrow its leftist, secular government.

Carter’s policy of re-militarization and launching of large-scale and long-term secret CIA operations in alliance with the most brutal dictators and monarchs of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan was accompanied by sanctimonious speeches about human rights and token appeals to protect ‘civilians’. In this regard, Carter became our founding father of the double discourse: a con man that publically condemned the jailing and torture by Pinochet of political opponents in Chile while orchestrating what would become a decade-long blood bath in Afghanistan with millions of victims.

 Reagan: Geniality with Genocide

Up until the ascendancy of Barack Obama, the avuncular President, Ronald Reagan, was acknowledged as the ‘master con-man’, by virtue of his Hollywood acting experience. Reagan was and remained a disciplined and hardened backer of policies designed to concentrate wealth while smashing unions, even as he entertained the flag-waving hard hat construction workers with his jokes about ‘limousine liberals’ and Cadillac welfare queens. The knowing wink and clever two-liners were matched by an adaptation of morality tales from his cowboy films. Reagan, in his role as ‘the righteous sheriff’, backed the mercenary contras as they invaded Nicaragua and destroyed schools and clinics and the genocidal military dictators in El Salvador and Guatemala who murdered hundreds of thousands of Indians and peasants.

Uncle Reagan’s friendly chats would describe how he had stopped the communist ‘outlaws’ (peasants, workers and Indians) of Central America from flooding across the Rio Grande and invading California and Texas. His tales resonated with mass audiences familiar with the racist Hollywood cowboy film version of unshaven Mexican bandits crossing the ‘ US ’ border. The clean-shaven, straight-talking, ‘stand-up for America’ President Ronald Reagan was elected and re-elected by a resounding majority in the midst of CIA-backed mujahedeen victories over the government and secular civil structure of Afghanistan, Pentagon- supported Israeli slaughter of Palestinian refugees in their camps in Lebanon and the mass genocide of scores of thousands of indigenous villagers in Guatemala.

When news reports seeped out about the mass graves of poor villagers in Guatemala , Reagan resorted to colloquial language right out of a Hollywood film to defend General Rios Mont : “He’s getting a bum rap”. In defending the brutal dictator of Guatemala , Reagan replaced Carter’s sanctimonious phrasing in favor of down-to-earth macho talk of a no-nonsense sheriff.

In substance, both Carter and Reagan were rebuilding the US war machine after the debacle of Viet Nam ; they were setting up a global network of client dictators, Muslim fundamentalists and hypocritical Anglo-American humanitarians interventionists.

Bush Senior: Uni-Polarity and the Ticket to Uncontested Imperial Conquests

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, the US and Western Europe re-conquered, pillaged and neo-colonized Eastern Europe . West Germany annexed East Germany . And a predator-gangster oligarchy in Russia seized over a trillion dollars of public assets, impoverishing millions and laundered the illicit funds via elaborate banking operations on Wall Street and in London and Tel Aviv.

President George Bush Sr. embraced the doctrine of a unipolar world — free from rival super-power constraints and independent Third World resistance. ‘Poppy’ Bush believed the US could impose its will by force anywhere and at any time without fear of retaliation. He believed he was heir to a new imperial order of free markets, free elections and unrestrained plunder. The first war he would launch would be in the Middle East — the invasion, massive bombing and destruction of Iraq . It was followed by an unprecedented expansion of NATO bases in the countries of Eastern Europe . The spread of neo-liberalism led to the naked pillage of public assets throughout Latin American and Eastern Europe . The Empire ruled the Muslim world through an arc of client dictators from Tunisia , Egypt , and Saudi Arabia to Pakistan .

Bush adopted the persona of the ‘happy warrior’ — the invincible American President who had triumphed over the Evil Empire. Meanwhile, the domestic economy deteriorated under the enormous costs of the massive military build-up and gave rise to a crisis that hurt the electorate. Bush’s personal rigidity and lack of theatricality prevented him from playing the con-man — unlike his predecessor, the actor Reagan. Even as he extolled the prowess of the US military, his career as an ‘insider’ corporate operative and CIA director did not provide him with the demagogic skills necessary for a successful re-election.

While Bush celebrated his overseas victories, he failed to attract a popular following: His pinched face and wooden upper-crust smile was no match for ‘Cowboy’ Reagan’s street corner geniality or even ‘Jimmy’ Carter’s pious intonations of human rights and Christian values … Deception and demagoguery are crucial elements in a re-election campaign — and so Bush, Sr. gave way for the next Presidential con-man-in-chief, Bill Clinton.

The Clinton-Con: Black Churches , Welfare Cuts and the Wall Street Warrior

Bill Clinton, like Ronald Reagan, turned out to be a Wall Street populist .With his folksy Arkansas intonations he preached messages of hope in black churches while diligently applying the free-market lessons he had learned from his Wall Street mentors. Tooting the saxophone and oozing compassion, Clinton told the poor that he could ‘feel their pain’, while inflicting misery on single mothers forced to leave their children and take minimum-wage jobs in order to retain any public assistance. He joined hands with labor union bosses at Labor Day festivities, while fast-tracking job-killing free-trade treaties (like NAFTA) that devastated the American working class. Bill Clinton enthusiastically sent bombers over Belgrade and other Yugoslav cities for several weeks, destroying its factories, hospitals, schools, power plants, radio and TV stations and bridges, as well as the Chinese Embassy, in support of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army and its separatist war against Belgrade . Clinton bombed civilians and their vital infrastructure, a war crime in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention’, to the ecstatic cheers of many Western liberals, progressives, social democrats and not a few Marxists as well as many Jihadists. On the home front, this self-proclaimed ‘people’s candidate’ ripped to shreds all restraints on banking speculation by repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, New Deal legislation enacted to protect against massive banking swindles. This opened the floodgates to massive financial manipulation, which destroyed the pensions of many millions of workers.[2]

Clinton’s policies laid the groundwork for the information technology and Stock Market crash of 2000-01. His appointee, Alan Greenspan, created the conditions leading to speculative financial frenzy and subsequent economic crash of 2008. Bill Clinton’s stand-up comic performances in black churches, his back slapping encounters with labor bureaucrats and his embrace of feminists and others just raised the rhetorical bar for future aspiring Wall Street warlords in the White House. It would take eight years and the election of Barack Hussein Obama to finally surpass Bill Clinton as Con-Man-In Chief.

Bush Junior: A Yale Man with a Texas Drawl

President George Bush, Junior’s regime launched two major wars and backed two Israeli assaults on Palestinian civilians trapped in Gaza — the world’s largest open-air prison. He virtually eliminated taxes on billionaires while overseeing the geometrical growth of the domestic police state apparatus; and he unleashed the biggest speculative bubble and crash since the Great Depression. He lowered the living standards for all Americans except the top 10% of the population — and despite these disasters and despite his lack-luster performance as a con-man, he was re-elected.

His handlers and backers did their best to market their boy: his Ivy League credentials and New England background was replaced by a transparently phony Texas accent; tinny, whiney sound bites, reminiscent of his father’s, were replaced by a Texas ‘ranchers’ homely drawl. His ‘just-folks’ grammatical mistakes may have been mocked by the liberals but they resonated deeply with fundamentalist Christians — who would never have recognized the Phillips Exeter Academy-Yale Skull and Bones boy in their Commander-in Chief.

President Bush, Jr. was decked out in the uniform of a ‘Top Gun’ fighter pilot to polish his military credentials tarnished by revelations that the millionaire-playboy had gone AWOL during his service in the National Guard. His silly ‘Mission Accomplished’ claim that the Iraq war had been won in the first months after the invasion was rudely corrected by the huge outbreak of Iraqi resistance against the occupier. Bush handed over foreign policymaking, especially pertaining to the Middle East , to a small army of Jewish Zionists, aided and abetted by notorious militarists, like Cheney and Rumsfeld. Most major political events were handled by his Cabinet thugs — Secretary of State Colin Powell shamelessly fabricated the ‘evidence’ of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in his performance before the United Nations. Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz invented Afghanistan ’s ties to the planners of 9/11.

Cheney and his Zionist troika of Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and ‘Scooter’ Libby trumpeted the ‘global war on terror’ while Michael Chertoff, Michael Mukasey and Stuart Levey conducted a domestic war against the Bill of Rights and US Constitutional freedoms, defending torture, jailing thousands of Muslims, punishing businesses trading with Iran and labeling US opponents of Israel’s war crimes as ‘security threats’. Bush, Jr. just nodded his approval, letting the “big fellas have a piece of the action”. With Junior, there was no peace demagoguery just plain talk to plain folks and- “Let the bombs fall and the Capital flow”. Bush did not have to go preaching to black churches (he had a black Secretary of State and National Security Adviser to do his dirty work without the cant); Bush never claimed that Israel got the ‘bum rap’ when it was charged with genocidal crimes. Under Bush, Jr., war criminals did not have to ‘sugar-coat’ their crimes. While occupying the White House, Bush signed off on the multi-trillion-dollar bailout for Wall Street and then just went off to tend his cows and chop wood at the Texas ranch.

Bush’s ‘style’ was a combination of ‘laid back’ and ‘straight forward’: he simply committed war crimes, protected Wall Street swindles and expanded the police state, without claiming otherwise. As the endless wars dragged on, as the stock market flopped under its own fraud and manipulation and the increasingly repressive legislation provoked debate, Bush just shrugged his shoulders and finished out his term in office without flourish or fanfare: “Y’all can’t win ‘em all. Let the next guy try his hand”.

Barack Obama: The Master of Deceit

From the beginning of his Presidential campaign, Obama demonstrated his proficiency as the master of all cons. He spoke passionately against torture while consulting with the torturers; he condemned Wall Street speculators while appointing key Street operatives as economic advisers. He promised a new deal in the Middle East , especially for Palestinians and then appointed a dual citizen, Israeli-US, Rahm Emmanuel (son of an Israeli Irgun terrorist) to be his most intimate Presidential advisor. Honolulu born and bred, Barack modulated his voice according to the audience, adopting a Baptist minister’s cadence for the black audiences while assuming the professorial tone of an Ivy League lawyer for his Wall Street contributors.

He hob-knobbed with Hollywood celebrities and Silicon billionaires, who bankrolled the fairy tale of his ‘historic breakthrough’ — the First Afro-American President who would speak for all Americans — nay for the entire world! Millions of giddy camp followers, white, black, old and young, the trade unionists and community activists alike were willingly deceived. They had chosen to disregard the fact that Barack Obama’s key advisers were rabid militarists, big bankers, corporate CEO’s, die-hard Zionists and Wall Street manipulators.

Indeed Obama’s supporters were enchanted by the phony rhetoric, the demagogy, the ‘populist style’, and the fake ‘authenticities’. Here was the man who promised to end the wars, close the torture concentration camp in Guantanamo , bring Wall Street to heel, repeal the Patriot Act and restore the Bill of Rights. And he was ‘their guy’ — shooting hoops in an urban playground — something Bush had never done! In truth, Barack Hussein Obama did a lot that Bush never dared to do — he surpassed Bush by far in committing war crimes against humanity — pushing for more military adventures abroad and police state repression at home. He exceeded by far any President in US history in assuming dictatorial police powers, in waging multiple wars while directing the massive transfer of state revenues to Wall Street bankers. President Obama, hands down, will be regarded as the greatest con-man President in American history. The Carters, Reagans and Clintons all pale in comparison: the enormous gap between style and substance, promise and performance, peace and war, capital and labor has never been greater.

It is President Obama’s hollow eloquence that raised the hopes of millions at home and abroad only to condemn them to an inferno of endless wars. It is the perversity of his rhetoric which attracts the Latino vote with promises of immigrant citizenship while his policy has been fill detention centers with hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families. His soaring rhetoric promising justice for Muslims in Cairo was followed by the bloody bombing of Tripoli, the torture and slaughter of the Libyan patriot President Gadhafi; the broken promises to the Palestinians contrasts with the embrace of the bloody Israeli warlords.

Obama far out-paced President Bush’s drone attacks in Pakistan , Yemen and Afghanistan , bombings which targeted farmers, whole families and famished orphans in their schools. Soaring moral and ethical pronouncements accompany Obama’s arming and praising the 40,000 Muslim fundamentalist mercenaries sent to degrade and shatter the secular Syrian state. The pretexts for mass killing fall from his lips like maggots on a rotten corpse: his blatant lies about the use of poison gas in Syria as the government in Damascus confronts a foreign mercenary invasion; the lurid tales of fabricated massacres in Benghazi ( Libya ) and the false claims of stolen elections in Venezuela . Obama’s rhetoric converts executioners into victims and victims into executioners.

President Barack Obama promised a comprehensive health care overhaul for America and then presented the electorate with a confusing series of obligatory payments for plans designed by for-profit private health insurance companies. Obama ‘defended social security’ by raising the age of retirement, ensuring that hundreds of thousands of workers in hazardous occupations would die before ever receiving any benefits after a lifetime of obligatory contributions. Obama solemnly promised to defend Medicare and then proposed to reduce its budget by a trillion dollars over a decade.

Obama claims a presidential prerogative of ‘defending American interests’ by ordering the assassination of whomever his million-member secret police state apparatus designates as a security threat — including American citizens — without trial, without recourse to habeas corpus.

In the White House Rose Garden President Barack Obama strolls arm-in-arm with his wife and children, a family man, true to his promises… While in Aleppo a young teen, a street vendor, is beheaded before his parents and neighbors by fanatical ‘freedom-fighters’ praised and supported by the President. The boy’s alleged crime was blasphemy. The murdered teen has joined the scores of thousands of Syrians killed and the hundreds of thousands who will join them, as Obama has decided to openly arm the mercenaries.

Casual, open collar, President Obama jokes as he walks and talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the sumptuous estate of a California billionaire, offering friendship and peace — shaking hands for the cameras with a scorpion in his palm. The smiling Obama has ceaselessly dispatched his envoys to Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa to incite claims and conflicts against Beijing . Obama believes that his own ‘personal magic’ will blind the Chinese to the fact that China is being encircled by US air and maritime bases. He seems to believe that the Chinese will ignore his efforts to forge US-centered trade pacts which specifically exclude China .

The master ‘confidence-man’ sincerely believes in his power to move and mystify the public, pick the pockets of his adversaries and make his victims believe they have been in the presence of a world-class statesman. In fact, Obama has been playing the role of a street hustler living off the earnings and lives of his people while handing them over to his corporate bosses and pimps for Israel .

Obama fills internment camps with hundreds of thousands of Latino immigrant workers while promising a ‘roadmap to citizenship’ to the cheers of Mexican-American Democratic Party vote hustlers!

Obama received 95% of the Afro-American votes, while the income gap between blacks and whites widens and unemployment and poverty figures soar. Obama, the first ‘Afro-American President’, has bombed and intervened in more African countries, backing mercenary armies in Libya and Somalia and establishing more military bases throughout the black continent than the last five ‘white’ Presidents … So much for the self-proclaimed “historic breakthrough of a Black President ending centuries of racism”.

It’s enough for Obama to appoint other black police state thugs and foreign interventionists, like Eric Holder and Susan Rice, to win the cheers of liberals even as their own security files grow in the data warehouses of the world’s biggest spying agencies.

One cynic, commenting on the long-standing love affair between Obama and white liberals, observed that ‘the more he screws them the better they like him … Even as he marches them off to jail, they would take care to note on his behalf, that the barred windows have curtains — something Bush would never have allowed.’

Conclusion

For sheer span of broken promises, of systematic lies in pursuit of wars and financial manipulation in the name of peace and social justice , of consistent and bold aggrandizement of executive power over the life and death of US citizens in the name of security, Obama has set the standard of political deception and demagogy far beyond past and probable future US Presidents.

The political context of his ascent to power and his deep links to the military-financial-Zionist networks insured his success as a premier confidence man.

President George Bush, Jr., the cringing, fading war-monger engaged in prolonged, costly wars and facing the collapse of the entire banking and financial sector, provided Candidate Obama with an easy target. Obama exploited the mass revulsion of the American people, longing for change. His soaring rhetoric and vacuous promise of ‘change’ attracted millions of young activists … The problem is that in their enthusiasm and blind adherence to ‘identity politics’ with its claims that all ‘blacks’ and ‘women’ are oppressed and therefore guaranteed to promote peace and justice – facilitated Obama’s con-game and political hustle.

Obama, once in office, not only deepened and widened the scope of President Bush, Jr’s wars, massive spy apparatus and corporate profiteering; he bamboozled the vast majority of his liberal-labor supporters in the Democratic Party! Barack Obama conned the Democratic Party Congressional liberals and they, in turn, conned their constituents into supporting this fraud.

The costs of President Obama’s two-faced policies are enormous: democracy has given way to a police state openly defended by the President and Congressional leaders; Wall Street’s recovery and corporate profiteering is fast destroying public health and social security. Barack Obama’s multiple endless wars and interventions are destroying vast cities, infrastructure, entire cultures while and killing and impoverishing millions of people from Libya to Palestine , from Syria to Iran . The economic sanctions against Iran , the provocative encirclement and isolation of China , and the campaign to destabilize Venezuela are the centerpieces of Obama’s ‘pivot to empire’. These policies portend even greater world-shattering catastrophes.

Unmasking the con-man is a first step requiring that we expose the tricks of the con-game. The politics of deception and demagogy thrives by directing popular attention to style and rhetoric, not substance. The solemn and pious cant of ‘Jimmy’ Carter distracted from his launch of the rabid Jihadists against the secular administration of Afghanistan . Uncle Ronald Reagan’s geniality and populist TV patter covered-up his blood baths in Central America and mass firing of the unionized air controllers and jailing of union leaders. ‘Bill’ Clinton’s show of empathy for the poor and embrace of ‘feel-good’ politics neutralized opposition as he bombed Yugoslavia into a pre-industrial age while his domestic policies kicked vulnerable single mothers from welfare programs. They all paled before the grand con-master Obama, billed as the ‘first black’ President, a community organizer (who disowned his sponsor into the black communities of Chicago, Rev. Wright, for his anti-war, anti-imperial stand) has capitalized on his racial credentials to garner the vote of guilty-ridden, soft-headed liberals and marginalized blacks in order to serve the interests of Wall Street and Israel.

Disarming these con-men and women requires exposing the nature of their demagogic populist styles and focusing on substantive politics. The decisive criteria need to be class politics that are defined by fundamental class alignments, between capital and labor regarding budgets, income, taxes, social spending, financing and property rights. ‘Shooting hoops’ in ghetto playgrounds is a con-man’s distraction while his budget cuts close hospitals and schools in black and poor neighborhoods.

The extravaganzas, featuring sports and entertainment celebrities to promote imperial wars, are the ‘con’ to undermine international solidarity for war victims and the unemployed. President Obama, the confidence man, is still performing while sowing destruction.

It’s time for the deceived, the disillusioned and the deprived to stand-up and shout! “We are deceived no more. Its time you were put on trial for Crimes against Humanity!”

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Damasco, (SANA) — O presidente Bashar al-Assad concedeu a seguinte entrevista ao jornal alemão Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ): 

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, como vê a situação no seu país? O exército sírio perdeu o controle de grandes partes da Síria, ou seja, ficaram fora do controle do governo central. Qual é a sua opinião sobre a situação? 

Assad: A sua pergunta obriga-nos a colocar as coisas no contexto: esta não é uma guerra convencional, com dois exércitos lutando pelo controle ou libertação de zonas ou partes do território. Do que realmente estamos tratando é de uma espécie de guerra de guerrilha.

E quanto ao exército sírio, não houve nenhum caso em que as nossas Forças Armadas tenham planeado entrar em algum lugar particular e não fossem bem sucedidas. Dito isto, o Exército não está presente — e não deve estar presente — em todas os cantos da Síria. O que é mais importante do que o controle de áreas no terreno são os ataques terroristas. Estamos confiantes de que podemos lutar com sucesso contra o terrorismo na Síria, mas o maior problema é o dano resultante e o custo. A crise teve um preço muito alto, mas os nossos maiores desafios virão uma vez que a crise acabe.

Os elementos estrangeiros visam prolongar a crise política e militar 

FAZ: Na sua recente entrevista à Al-Manar parecia querer preparar o público Sírio para uma luta prolongada. Foi essa a sua intenção? 

Assad: Não, isso não foi específico para a Al-Manar. Desde os primeiros dias da crise, cada vez que me perguntavam, eu disse que é provável que essa crise se prolongue devido à interferência estrangeira. Qualquer crise interna pode seguir de duas maneiras: ou é resolvida ou se intensifica em guerra civil. Nenhuma delas tem sido o caso da Síria; devido à componente externa, que procura estender a duração da crise política militarmente, eu acho que é justo dizer que as minhas previsões estavam correctas.

A genuína reconstrução reconstrói mentalidades, ideologias e concepções 

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, como espera superar a destruição em larga escala que foi infligida à Síria? 

Assad: Da mesma forma que a Alemanha ultrapassou a devastação da Segunda Guerra Mundial, e da mesma forma que muitas outras nações têm progredido e se reconstruído após as suas guerras. Espero que a Síria seguirá o mesmo caminho. Com as pessoas residentes, podemos reconstruir o país. Nós fizemos isso antes e podemos fazê-lo de novo, aprender com tudo o que passámos.

Em termos de financiamento, temos sido um país auto-suficiente desde há muito tempo. É claro que temos de ser mais produtivos do que antes por causa da situação. Países amigos que nos ajudaram no passado continuarão a oferecer o seu apoio, talvez sob a forma de empréstimos no futuro. Pode levar muito tempo, mas com a nossa determinação, nossa força e nossa solidariedade, podemos reconstruir o país.

No entanto, o desafio mais difícil é reconstruir, social e psicologicamente, aqueles que foram afectados pela crise. Não vai ser fácil eliminar os efeitos sociais da crise, especialmente as ideologias extremistas. A reconstrução real é sobre o desenvolvimento das mentes, ideologias e valores. A infra-estrutura é importante, mas não tanto quanto os seres humanos. A reconstrução é perpetuar ambos.

O mapa redesenhado da região será o das guerras Médio no Oriente 

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, durante a crise algumas zonas do país tornaram-se mais independentes ou mais dependentes da ajuda externa. Acha que isso poderia levar à redefinição das fronteiras? 

Assad: Você quer dizer, na Síria ou na região em geral?

FAZ: Na região — cem anos depois do Acordo Sykes-Picot. 

Assad: Cem anos depois de Sykes-Picot, quando falamos de redesenhar as fronteiras da nossa região, podemos usar uma analogia da arquitectura. Síria é como a pedra angular dos antigos arcos arquitectónicos. Eliminando ou alterando a pedra angular, o arco desmorona-se. Aplicando isto para a região, para o mundo, qualquer alteração dos limites da região levará a redesenhar os mapas de regiões adjacentes, já que isso vai ter um efeito de cascata que se pode descontrolar. Qualquer das grandes potências pode ser capaz de iniciar o processo, mas ninguém — incluindo a superpotência, será capaz de o parar, especialmente uma vez que existem novas fronteiras sociais hoje no Oriente Médio, que não existiam no Sykes-Picot. Essas novas fronteiras sectárias, étnicas e políticas tornam a situação muito mais complicada. Ninguém pode saber o que o Oriente Médio vai ser se houver uma tentativa de redesenhar o mapa da região. No entanto, o mais provável é que o mapa vá ser uma das muitas guerras que transcendem o Médio Oriente, que vão do Atlântico até ao Pacífico, e que ninguém pode parar.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, na sua opinião como será a região no futuro? 

Assad: Se afastarmos o cenário destrutivo da divisão na sua última pergunta, posso imaginar um futuro completamente diferente e mais positivo, mas vai depender de como agirmos como nações e sociedades. Este cenário envolve uma série de desafios, o primeiro dos quais é o restabelecimento da segurança e da estabilidade; o nosso segundo desafio é o processo de reconstrução. No entanto, o nosso maior e mais importante desafio é em relação ao extremismo.

Tornou-se muito claro que houve uma mudança nas sociedades da nossa região longe da moderação, especialmente religiosa. A questão é: podemos restaurar estas sociedades na sua ordem natural? Podem as nossas diversas sociedades continuar a viver juntas como um todo natural? Neste ponto, eu gostaria de esclarecer alguns termos. As palavras de tolerância e convivência são frequentemente usadas para definir as nossas sociedades. No entanto, a definição mais precisa e adequada de como as nossas sociedades costumavam ser — e como devem ser, é harmoniosa. Contrariamente à percepção, a questão não é nem a tolerância — já que chegará um dia em que não se é mais tolerante, nem é a questão sobre a coexistência — já que coexistimos com os adversários, mas é o harmonia. O que já nos caracterizou na região foi a harmonia. Ninguém pode dizer que a sua mão coexistirá com, ou tolerará o pé, porque há uma complementaridade de ambos, são parte de um todo harmonioso.

Outro desafio é a reforma política e a questão de saber que sistema político manteria a nossa sociedade coerente: presidencial, semi-presidencial ou parlamentar, assim como decidir qual a legislação mais adequada para governar os partidos políticos. Na Alemanha, por exemplo, têm o Partido Democrata Cristão. Na Síria, não poderíamos fazer os feriados religiosos, nem cristãos, nem muçulmanos, porque para nós a religião é para a pregação e não para a prática política. Há muitos outros detalhes, mas a essência está em aceitar os outros. Se não podemos aceitar o outro não podemos ser democráticos, mesmo com a melhor das constituições ou as melhores leis.

Somos um Estado laico que trata essencialmente os seus cidadãos por igual 

FAZ: O Sr. Presidente, onde situa o secularismo no meio do crescente poder islâmico na região? 

Assad: Esta é uma pergunta muito importante, muitas pessoas na região não entendem essa relação. O Oriente Médio é um centro de diferentes ideologias. A sociedade árabe está baseada principalmente em dois pilares: o Pan-arabismo e o Islão. Há outras ideologias, como o comunismo, o liberalismo, o nacionalismo sírio, mas estes não são tão populares. Muitas pessoas entendem o secularismo como sinónimo de comunismo no passado, porque é contra a religião. Na verdade, o oposto é que é verdadeiro; para nós, na Síria, o secularismo é que trata da liberdade de confissão incluindo o cristianismo, o islamismo e o judaísmo, e as várias seitas dentro dessas religiões. O laicismo é crucial para a nossa unidade e sentido de pertença nacional. Portanto, não temos escolha a não ser fortalecer o secularismo, porque a religião já é forte na nossa região, e devo salientar aqui que isso é muito saudável. O que não é saudável é o extremismo, já que, em ultima instância, leva ao terrorismo. Nem todos os extremistas são terroristas, mas todo o terrorista é, definitivamente, um extremista.

Assim, em resposta à sua pergunta, nós somos um Estado laico que trata, essencialmente, os seus cidadãos igualmente, independentemente da religião, seita ou grupo étnico. Todos os cidadãos gozam de igualdade de oportunidades, independentemente das crenças religiosas.

A Síria está passando por situações difíceis, definitivamente não é uma estância turística 

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, como é que vê os dois anos e meio desde a chamada Primavera Árabe? 

Assad: Isso é um erro. A Primavera não inclui o derramamento de sangue, o assassinato, o extremismo, a destruição de escolas ou evitar que as crianças vão à escola, ou impedir as mulheres de escolher o que vestir e o que é bom para elas. A primavera é a estação mais bonita, mas nós avançamos através das circunstâncias mais terríveis; definitivamente isso não é primavera. A Primavera é compatível com o que está acontecendo na Síria — a matança, o sacrifício, a decapitação, o canibalismo? Deixo isso ao seu critério.

FAZ: Quais são as questões que a chamada “Primavera Árabe” supostamente deverá resolver? 

Assad: A solução não está na “primavera” ou qualquer outra coisa, a solução está em nós. Nós somos os únicos que devemos oferecer soluções, ser pró-activos ao invés de reactivos. Quando nos aproximamos dos nossos problemas de forma pró-activa garantimos que temos as soluções certas. Soluções impostas pela ‘primavera’ só podem levar a resultados distorcidos.

Como muitos países do Oriente Médio, temos muitos problemas de que estamos cientes e vemos objectivamente. Esta é a forma como esses problemas devem ser resolvidos, uma vez que as soluções são fabricadas internamente e não externamente, pois isso pode produzir uma solução distorcida ou morta. É por esta razão que chamamos ao diálogo e ás soluções, que devem ser cultivadas por nós, a fim de garantir que nos levam á Síria que aspiramos.

O que está acontecendo no Iraque, no Líbano, são consequências da situação na Síria 

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, o senhor rejeitou qualquer forma de intervenção estrangeira e alertou para que isso iria prolongar a batalha para áreas mais amplas. Isso já aconteceu? 

Assad: Vamos ser claros sobre isso; existem dois tipos de intervenção estrangeira: indirectamente através de intermediários ou agentes, e intervenção directa por meio de uma guerra convencional. Estamos vivendo a primeira. No início da crise, eu avisei que a intervenção na Síria — mesmo que indirectamente, é semelhante à manipulação de uma linha de falha, o que criaria ondas de choque em toda a região. Naquela época, muitas pessoas — especialmente nos meios de comunicação, entendia isto como o presidente Assad ameaçar espalhar a crise além das fronteiras da Síria. Claramente eles não entenderam o que quis dizer no momento, mas é exactamente isso que está acontecendo agora.

Se olharmos para a realidade à nossa frente, podemos ver claramente que o que está acontecendo no Iraque, no Líbano, são repercussões da situação na Síria, e isso vai-se espalhar mais e mais. Vemos essas ramificações e a intervenção ainda é indirecta, agora imagine as consequências de uma intervenção militar. A situação, claro, ficaria muito pior e, em seguida, o efeito dominó do extremismo generalizado, o caos e fragmentação.

As relações de cooperação com a Rússia e o Irão estão garantidas pelo direito internacional 

FAZ: Você critica países, como a Arábia Saudita, Qatar, Turquia e Reino Unido pelo seu envolvimento na crise Síria, mas não é verdade que a Rússia e o Irão também estão envolvidos? 

Assad: Há uma diferença significativa entre a cooperação de Estados contra a desestabilização de um país e a ingerência em seus assuntos internos. A cooperação entre países é concebida no conceito de vontade mútua, de uma forma que preserva a soberania, a independência, estabilidade e auto-determinação. Nosso relacionamento com a Rússia, o Irão e outros países que apoiam a Síria são relações de cooperação certificadas no âmbito do direito internacional.

Os países que você mencionou, adoptaram políticas que se intrometem nos assuntos internos da Síria, o que constitui uma violação flagrante do direito internacional e da soberania nacional. A diferença, portanto, é que a cooperação entre países tem por objectivo preservar a estabilidade e perpetuar a prosperidade das nações, enquanto a interferência estrangeira é destinada a desestabilizar o país, a disseminação do caos e a perpetuar a ignorância.

FAZ: O senhor falou sobre o impacto da crise da Síria no Iraque e Líbano, cujas sociedades são baseadas no que poderíamos chamar um sistema sectário. Acha que um sistema deste tipo com pilares sunitas e xiitas poderia ser estabelecido na Síria? 

Assad: Não há dúvida que os sistemas sectários em países vizinhos, os distúrbios sectários e guerras civis — como no Líbano há 30 anos, afectariam inevitavelmente a Síria. É por isso que a Síria interveio no Líbano em 1976 — para se proteger e proteger o Líbano. É por esta razão que estamos acompanhando de perto o desenrolar dos acontecimentos no Iraque — que nos irão afectar directamente. É também por esta razão que nos opomos fortemente á guerra no Iraque, apesar das tentações americanas e das ameaças ao longo do tempo. Rejeitamos perder a estabilidade a troco de apaziguar os americanos. Os sistemas sectários são perigosos e é por isso que insistimos no modelo secular no qual todos os cidadãos são iguais, independentemente da religião.

Jabhat al-Nusra é um ramo da al-Qaeda e tem a mesma ideologia 

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, está a lutar contra a “Al-Nusra Jabhat”. Pode dizer-nos o que é essa organização, quem os apoia, e lhes dá o dinheiro e as armas? 

Assad: Jabhat Al-Nusra é um grupo filiado na Al-Qaeda, com uma ideologia semelhante e cujos membros vivem na Síria, Iraque, Líbano e Jordânia e outros países árabes e muçulmanos, que estão bem financiados e têm um monte de armas. É difícil rastrear as suas origens devido ao facto de que o seu apoio está a ser feito secretamente através de indivíduos ricos e organizações que adoptam a mesma ideologia.

O seu principal objectivo é estabelecer um Estado islâmico de acordo com a sua interpretação do Islão. A ideia central do seu pensamento político é a doutrina Wahhabi — comparável a Al-Qaeda no Afeganistão. Essa ideologia está sendo sempre ministrada especialmente às mulheres. Eles alegam a aplicação da lei islâmica e da religião islâmica, mas, na realidade, as suas acções são uma completa distorção da verdadeira religião do Islão. Vimos exemplos da sua brutalidade nos nossos canais de satélite tiradas a partir de imagens que publicam sobre o assunto no You Tube para espalhar a sua ideologia; um exemplo recente foi a decapitação de um homem inocente, que foi transmitida pela televisão belga.

FAZ: Qual é a motivação da Arábia Saudita e Qatar para ajudar e armar terroristas contra si, o que eles estão tentando alcançar? 

Assad: Primeiro de tudo, eu acho que esta é uma pergunta a que eles deveriam responder. Vou responder levantando algumas questões. Eles apoiam os grupos armados por causa de sua crença apaixonada pela liberdade e democracia, como eles dizem nos seus meios de comunicação? Existe alguma forma de democracia nos seus próprios países, que permita apoiar adequadamente a democracia na Síria? Têm parlamentos eleitos ou constituições votadas pelo seu povo? A sua população decidiu em algum momento, durante as décadas anteriores, que sistema de governo quer? Seja monárquica, presidencial, principado, ou qualquer outra forma? Então, as coisas são claras: eles devem primeiro prestar atenção às suas próprias nações e, em seguida, responder à sua pergunta.

França e Grã-Bretanha procuram fantoches para levar a cabo os seus interesses 

FAZ: Nessa confusão, por que a Grã-Bretanha e a liderança da França, Arábia Saudita e Qatar? O que esperam alcançar? 

Assad: Não posso responder em nome da Grã-Bretanha ou França, mas posso dar a impressão geral aqui. Eu acho que a França e a Grã-Bretanha têm um problema com o papel ‘chato’ da Síria na região — como eles o vêem. Esses países, como os Estados Unidos, estão em busca de fantoches para cumprir as suas ordens e servir os seus interesses, sem dúvida. Nós sempre rejeitámos isso e vamos sempre ser independentes e livres. Parece que a França e a Grã-Bretanha não se esqueceram ainda da sua história colonial e persistem em tentar manipular a região ainda que através de “procuradores”. Na verdade, a Grã-Bretanha e a França podem dirigir a Arábia Saudita e Qatar sobre o que fazer, mas não podemos esquecer que as políticas e as economias da França e da Grã-Bretanha também dependem dos petrodólares.

O que aconteceu na Síria foi uma oportunidade para esses países se livrarem da Síria — esse estado insubordinado, e substituir o presidente por um “yes man”. Isso nunca vai acontecer, nem agora nem no futuro.

FAZ: A União Europeia não renovou o embargo de armas à Síria, mas ainda não aprovou armar a oposição. Qual é a sua avaliação desta fase? 

Assad: É claro que há uma divisão no seio da União Europeia sobre esta questão. Eu não posso dizer que a UE apoia o governo sírio, há países, especialmente Grã-Bretanha e França, que são especialmente hostis à Síria. Por outro lado, há países — a Alemanha, em particular, que estão fazendo perguntas lógicas sobre as consequências futuras de armar os terroristas. Bem, antes de tudo, isso iria perpetuar a destruição na Síria, forçando o povo sírio a pagar um preço ainda mais alto. Em segundo lugar, através do fornecimento de armas aos terroristas, e os europeus estão bem informados que se trata de grupos terroristas. Alguns estão repetindo a retórica americana de “bons e maus”, como fizeram há alguns anos atrás com o “bom e mau Taliban, a Al-Qaeda boa e a Al-Qaeda má”. Hoje há um novo discurso que está promovendo “bons terroristas e maus terroristas”. Isto tem lógica?

Se o terrorismo prevalece, ele vai-se espalhar até à Europa 

Eles estão cientes de que as armas enviadas para a região vão acabar nas mãos de terroristas, o que terá duas consequências. Primeiro, o quintal traseiro da Europa vai-se tornar um centro de terrorismo e caos, o que leva à privação e à pobreza. A Europa vai pagar o preço e perder um mercado importante. Em segundo lugar, o terrorismo não vai parar por aqui — se estenderá aos seus países. será exportado através da imigração ilegal ou através dos mesmos terroristas que retornaram aos seus países de origem depois de terem sido doutrinados e treinados fortemente. Estas questões prementes na minha opinião estão criando uma grande divisão ou discórdia no seio da União Europeia, embora não lhes agrade, mas não têm outra opção senão colaborar com o governo sírio, mesmo se não concordam com ele.

FAZ: Vossa Excelência afirmou que, se os países europeus enviam armas para a Síria, seriam efectivamente aos terroristas armados. Considera que todos os militantes armados são terroristas? 

Assad: Como cidadão europeu ou alemão eu vou-lhe fazer a mesma pergunta: no seu país permitem a alguém portar armas, intimidar ou matar pessoas inocentes, destruir e saquear? Qualquer indivíduo ou grupo, excluindo o exército e a polícia, que porta armas, mata pessoas, ameaça e intimida a segurança pública é terrorista por definição, é um padrão em todos os países. Independentemente de sua origem, se são extremistas, criminosos, ladrões ou delinquentes condenados, aqueles que carregam armas na Síria estão cometendo este tipo de actos essencialmente. Portanto, são terroristas. Nós diferenciamos terroristas de grupos de oposição convencionais, já que estes últimos são uma entidade política e têm uma agenda política. A matança e o sacrifício são terrorismo e mergulham o país em regressão anos para trás.

FAZ: Então, Sr. Presidente, o senhor vê o futuro como uma luta contra o terrorismo? 

Assad: Essa é a conclusão lógica, mas na Europa há muitos políticos ilógicos, irrealistas e irresponsáveis, que estão usando os seus sentimentos negativos em vez da razão. A política não deve ser alimentada pelo amor ou pelo ódio, mas por interesses. Como cidadão alemão, você deve questionar-se sobre o que podem ganhar com o que está acontecendo na nossa região? Basicamente, o que está acontecendo agora é contra os seus interesses nacionais, o seu verdadeiro interesse reside na luta contra o terrorismo.

FAZ: Alguns consideram o Hezbollah como uma organização terrorista, sabemos que lutou ao lado das tropas sírias em al-Quseir. Também ouvimos dizer que há combatentes da Guarda Revolucionária Iraniana consigo. Você precisa realmente dessas forças? 

Assad: A Comunicação Social está tentando retratar o Hezbollah como a principal força de combate e o exército sírio como fraco e incapaz de alcançar a vitória. Na verdade, nos últimos meses temos conseguido importantes vitórias em diferentes partes da Síria, e em todas estas vitórias — algumas mais importante do que a de al-Quseir — o exército sírio lutou sozinho. Nada disto é destaque na Comunicação Social. Uma das razões dessas vitórias são as Forças de Defesa Nacional — cidadãos locais a lutar ao lado do exército para defender suas comunidades e regiões. Al-Quseir tem recebido mais atenção internacional devido a declarações de autoridades ocidentais que a projectam como uma cidade estratégica, na medida em que alguns funcionários até mesmo alguns dos Estados da Nação afirmam compreender a situação de al-Quseir! Havia muito exagero mas havia também um grande número de armas e militantes. Esses terroristas começaram a atacar as cidades fronteiriças leais ao Hezbollah, o que justifica a sua intervenção junto ao exército sírio, a fim de restaurar a estabilidade.

O exército sírio é um grande exército capaz de cumprir a sua missão através da Síria, com o apoio das comunidades locais. Se estivéssemos com necessidade de tal assistência, por que não usar essas forças nos campos de Damasco, perto da capital? Damasco é certamente mais importante do que a al-Quseir, como é Aleppo e todas as outras grandes cidades, pelo que isso não faz qualquer sentido. Mas, como eu disse anteriormente, o objectivo desse frenesi é reflectir uma imagem do Hezbollah como a principal força para provocar confrontos e pôr a opinião pública ocidental e internacional contra o Hezbollah.

FAZ: Que força e dimensão têm as brigadas Hezbollah actualmente na Síria? 

Assad: Não há brigadas. Eles mandaram os combatentes que ajudaram o exército sírio na limpeza de áreas de fronteira libanesas que foram infiltradas por terroristas. Eles não mobilizaram forças na Síria. Como vocês sabem, as forças do Hezbollah estão posicionadas em direcção a Israel e não podem afastar-se do sul do Líbano. Além disso, se o Hezbollah queria enviar combatentes para a Síria, quantos poderia enviar? Apenas algumas centenas. O exército sírio dispõe de centenas de milhares de soldados em todo o país. Várias centenas faziam diferença numa área, mas não seria concebível que fossem o suficiente para fazer pender a balança em toda a Síria.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, a Grã-Bretanha e a França dizem ter provas de que foram usadas armas químicas. A Casa Branca afirmou que tem informações de que se provocou a morte de 100-150 pessoas num ano, para além de se ter negado o acesso a investigadores da ONU para áreas na Síria, à excepção de Aleppo. Como se explica essa situação?

Assad: Vamos começar com o comunicado da Casa Branca sobre as 150 vítimas. Militarmente falando, é um conceito bem conhecido que durante as guerras, as armas convencionais podem causar este número de mortes, ou até mais, em um único dia, não num ano. Armas de destruição em massa geralmente matam milhares de pessoas em um determinado momento. Este elevado número de mortos é o principal motivo para a sua utilização. É contra a lógica usar armas químicas para provocar um número de mortes que poderia ser alcançado com o uso de armas convencionais.

Estados Unidos, França, Grã-Bretanha e alguns funcionários europeus disseram que se utilizaram armas químicas em uma série de áreas. Apesar de tais armas existirem ou não, nunca confirmamos ou negamos a posse destas armas.

Se tivessem obtido uma única ponta de evidências de que armas químicas foram utilizadas, não acha que teriam publicado e teriam feito uma música e dançado sobre elas em todo o mundo? Onde está a prova que os levou a um tal resultado?

Estas acusações são ridículas. Os grupos terroristas usaram armas químicas em Aleppo, e então nós enviamos uma carta oficial à ONU pedindo uma investigação oficial sobre o incidente. Grã-Bretanha e França bloquearam esta investigação porque teria mostrado que os ataques químicos foram levados a cabo por grupos terroristas e, portanto, isso fornecia provas conclusivas de que eles (a Grã-Bretanha e França) estavam mentindo. Convidamos a vir à Síria para investigar o incidente, mas em vez disso, queriam que os inspectores tivessem acesso incondicional a todos os locais na Síria, em paralelo com o que fizeram os inspectores no Iraque. Somos um Estado soberano, temos um exército e todos os assuntos considerados classificados nunca serão acessíveis nem á ONU, nem à Grã-Bretanha nem à França. Só permitiremos o acesso para investigar o incidente ocorrido em Aleppo.

Portanto, todos os pedidos relacionados com o uso de armas químicas são uma extensão da fabricação contínua dos EUA e ocidental da situação actual na Síria. A sua única finalidade é justificar as suas políticas para a sua opinião pública e o uso da reclamação como um pretexto para a intervenção militar e mais derramamento de sangue na Síria.

FAZ: Os protestos começaram na Síria pacificamente antes de se tornar uma luta armada. Os seus críticos dizem que poderia ter lidado com os protestos através de reformas políticas, o que o torna, em parte, responsável pela destruição na Síria. Qual é a sua opinião sobre isso? 

Assad: Nós começamos as reformas nos primeiros dias da crise e, talvez mesmo, para sua surpresa, direi que se iniciaram anos antes da crise. Emitimos uma série de novas leis, levantou-se o estado de emergência e até se mudou a Constituição através de um referendo. Este é um facto bem conhecido no Ocidente, mas o que Ocidente se recusa a ver é que, desde as primeiras semanas de protestos que tínhamos polícias mortos. Assim, como poderiam estes protestos têm sido pacíficos? Como poderiam aqueles que dizem que os protestos foram pacíficos explicar a morte desses oficiais na primeira semana? Poderiam os cantos dos manifestantes, na verdade, matar um policia? Não.

Desde o início da crise, temos sempre reiterado que militantes armados se infiltraram entre os manifestantes e dispararam contra a polícia. Em outras ocasiões, estes militantes armados estavam em áreas próximas aos protestos e dispararam contra manifestantes e forças policiais para levar a crer que foram mortos pelo outro lado. Isso foi demonstrado por meio de investigações e confissões, que foram anunciadas em larga escala nos meios de comunicação sírios.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, é relatado que o exército sírio bombardeou algumas áreas. Não havia outra opção? 

Assad: Estamos perseguindo terroristas que se infiltram repetidamente em áreas povoadas. Tomando o exemplo de Al-Qseir, houve um frenesi da média ocidental afirmando que havia 50.000 civis, o que, na verdade, é mais do que a população original da cidade. Na verdade, quando os terroristas entraram na área, os habitantes fugiram, portanto, quando entrámos não encontrámos civis. Normalmente onde os terroristas se infiltram, os civis fogem e as batalhas ocorrem mais tarde. As evidências mostram claramente que a maioria das vítimas na Síria são parte das forças armadas. A maioria dos civis morre em atentados suicidas. Eles também morrem quando os terroristas entram em uma área, para realizar execuções e usá-los como escudos humanos. Os restantes casos são terroristas sírios ou estrangeiros.

FAZ: Depois do impulso alcançado em Al-Qseir, sente que é hora de estender a mão à oposição e considerar a reconciliação? 

Assad: Desde o primeiro dia que estendemos a mão a todos os que acreditam no diálogo, esta posição não mudou. No início da crise, tivemos uma conferência de diálogo nacional, lutando ao mesmo tempo contra os terroristas. Mas quando falamos da oposição, é preciso não colocá-los todos no mesmo cesto, é essencial distinguir entre terroristas e políticos. Na Alemanha, há uma oposição, mas não armada. A oposição é um acto político, e assim, quando nos referimos à oposição, referimo-nos aos políticos, com quem estamos sempre comprometidos para o diálogo, independentemente do que aconteceu em Al-Qseir.

Quanto à reconciliação nacional, penso que não se pode aplicar com precisão á Síria um cenário de guerra civil, como foi o caso no Líbano, ou do conflito entre negros e brancos na África do Sul. No nosso caso, trata-se de um diálogo nacional para determinar um caminho para sair da crise e para os terroristas deporem as armas. Em qualquer caso, estamos esperando a conferência de Genebra, que visa essencialmente a mesma solução política. No entanto, existem impedimentos externos, Turquia, Qatar, Arábia Saudita, França e Grã-Bretanha, que continuam a fazer todos os esforços para sabotar o diálogo, a fim de prolongar a crise síria e evitar uma resolução política.

FAZ: Como definiria a oposição política legítima? 

Assad: Essencialmente, qualquer partido da oposição que não apoia o terrorismo, não usa armas, e tem uma agenda política clara. Mas os grupos de oposição também estão vinculados a eleições; sua influência vai depender do que eles obtenham nas eleições autárquicas e, mais importante, nas eleições parlamentares. Enfrentamos muitos grupos que se auto-denominam de oposição, o seu sucesso será determinado por duas questões importantes: qual é a sua base popular? E qual é o seu manifesto político? Então se agirá em conformidade.

FAZ: Segmentos da oposição afirmam que não tomou medidas para formar uma frente unida com eles contra a intervenção estrangeira. Isto é verdade, Sr. Presidente? 

Assad: Pelo contrário, na conferência de diálogo nacional, em 2011, houve um convite aberto a todos aqueles que se consideravam na oposição. Alguns optaram por participar, enquanto outros optaram por boicotar e nos culpar por não tomar medidas para uma solução. Mas devemos perguntar: o que querem dizer? O que deveríamos estar oferecendo? Cargos ministeriais no governo? A oposição ao actual governo ganhou assentos muito disputados no parlamento. Quando uma oposição, formada por centenas, não tem nenhum assento no parlamento como se pode determinar quem merece fazer parte do governo? Precisamos de critérios claros que não devem ser negligenciados.

Dito de outra forma, o governo não é de propriedade do presidente para ele dar presentes aos outros na forma de ministérios. Exige-se um diálogo nacional e um processo político através do qual os eleitores possam escolher, entre outras coisas, o governo e a Constituição.

FAZ: Quais são os critérios para o diálogo entre governo e oposição? Poderiam incluir a oposição que vive no exterior? 

Assad: Nós não temos problemas com os grupos autónomos de oposição que servem uma agenda nacional. Quanto à oposição sediada no exterior, temos de ser muito claros, os seus membros vivem no estrangeiro e informam as chancelarias ocidentais e agências de inteligência. Eles estão baseados no exterior e são, em essência, manipulados pelos estados que fornecem o seu financiamento. A verdadeira oposição síria significa que representa o povo sírio e não países estrangeiros, o que significa ter a sede na Síria e compartilhar os fardos e preocupações do povo sírio. Essa oposição, inevitavelmente, será parte de qualquer processo político.

FAZ: Lutar contra o terrorismo tornou-se agora a prioridade. Na sua recente entrevista à Al-Manar TV, você disse que se se vai iniciar um diálogo, que melhor o faria com o senhor de que com os escravos. Até que ponto você está preparado para o diálogo com estas entidades, no futuro, uma vez que lutaram eficazmente contra o terrorismo? 

Assad: É precisamente por esta razão que vamos assistir à conferência de Genebra. Eu usei a noção do senhor e do escravo para explicar o que nós sabemos que vai acontecer na realidade. Negociar com aqueles que não têm autonomia sobre suas próprias decisões significa essencialmente fazer, de facto, a negociação com os decisores políticos que ditam como agir, o que aceitar e o que rejeitar. Viu-se recentemente na televisão as imagens do embaixador francês na Síria a dar ordens à oposição externa e insultar, ou o embaixador dos EUA na Síria, gritando e insultando-os. Portanto, na realidade, estamos negociando com os Estados Unidos, Grã-Bretanha, França e os seus instrumentos regionais, Turquia, Qatar e Arábia Saudita. Esses grupos que se intitulam oposição externa são apenas simples funcionários, por isso temos os amos e os escravos.

Esperamos que a conferência de Genebra sirva para impulsionar o processo de diálogo na Síria 

FAZ: Quais são as suas expectativas para a conferência? Será um progresso ou a estagnação? 

Assad: Esperamos que a conferência de Genebra promoverá o processo de diálogo na Síria, especialmente desde que, no início deste ano, apresentámos uma visão de uma solução política com base no comunicado I de Genebra. No entanto, mesmo indo participar na conferência com esta compreensão, temos de ser claros sobre os factos. Em primeiro lugar, os mesmos países que eu mencionei acima que estão apoiando os terroristas na Síria têm todo o interesse em que as negociações falhem. A pergunta lógica é: qual é a relação entre a Conferência de Genebra e o terrorismo no terreno? Simplesmente, se a Conferência de Genebra tiver êxito, como é a nossa esperança, para impedir o contrabando de armas e terroristas — há mais de 29 nacionalidades diferentes documentados na Síria — então isso seria um catalisador para a resolução da crise síria.

Mas se o contrabando de armas e terroristas continua, qualquer solução política não tem nenhum valor. Esperamos que a conferência de Genebra fará deste ponto o elemento mais importante nas negociações, que em última instância determinam o sucesso ou fracasso.

FAZ: Se Genebra II falhar, quais são as consequências? 

Assad: Os países que eu mencionei acima continuarão a apoiar os terroristas. Um fracasso em resolver a crise síria fará que se espalhe para outros países, e as coisas só pioram. Logicamente portanto, todas as partes têm interesse no seu sucesso. Quanto à oposição externa, se Genebra II for bem sucedida, eles vão perder o seu financiamento, e se você não tem dinheiro e não tem apoio popular, acabará sem nada.

FAZ: Poderia Genebra II propor um governo de diferentes entidades políticas? 

Assad: Isto é o que temos proposto na nossa iniciativa política. Propusemos a formação de um governo alargado de várias entidades políticas para preparar as eleições parlamentares, os vencedores destas eleições poderiam ter um papel no futuro. Esta é uma abordagem a que temos estado abertos desde o início.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, alguns críticos argumentam que muito sangue foi derramado na Síria, mas culpam a direcção e vêem-no como um obstáculo que se interpõe no caminho do futuro da Síria. Consideraria renunciar, a fim de formar uma nova Síria? 

Assad: O presidente tem um mandato nos termos da Constituição; o meu mandato expira em 2014. Quando o país está em crise, espera-se que o presidente deverá assumir o peso da responsabilidade e resolver a situação, e não deixe seu cargo e vá embora. Costumo usar a analogia do capitão de um navio fustigado por uma tempestade; imagine-se o capitão abandonar o navio e fugir num bote! Se eu decidisse sair agora estaria cometendo traição. Agora se, por outro lado, o público decidisse que eu deveria renunciar, isso seria outra questão. E isso só pode ser determinado através de eleições ou de um referendo. A título de exemplo, no referendo constitucional anterior, houve uma participação de 58% — o que é muito bom, em tais circunstâncias, e a Constituição foi aprovada por 89,4%.

A questão nunca foi sobre o presidente, no entanto, trataram de apresentá-la como tal, a fim de forçar o presidente a vender-se aos países que apoiam a oposição, e instalar um presidente fantoche.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, o senhor vive com sua família em Damasco. Qual é o apoio público que você e sua família desfrutam? 

Assad: Quando numerosos vizinhos e países da região e do Ocidente se estão opondo a si, você não poderia continuar sem o apoio popular. O povo sírio estão muito consciente do que está acontecendo e tem entendido a dinâmica da crise desde o início, por isso o seu apoio ao seu governo e exército nunca foram tão grandes.

FAZ: No próximo ano haverá eleições presidenciais; como vê estas eleições? 

Assad: Serão realizadas de acordo com a nova Constituição, ou seja, as eleições com vários candidatos. Será uma experiência nova, que não podemos prever neste momento.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, qual é a sua visão para a Síria nos próximos cinco anos? 

Assad: Reitero que o nosso maior desafio é o extremismo. Se pudermos lutar contra ele, com uma melhor educação, novas ideias e a cultura, então podemos avançar para um estado democrático saudável. A democracia, como a vemos na Síria não é um objectivo em si mesmo, mas um meio para um fim — a estabilidade e prosperidade. As leis e as constituições também são apenas ferramentas, ferramentas para o desenvolvimento e o progresso das sociedades. Porém, para a democracia florescer, deve tornar-se um modo de vida — uma parte da nossa cultura, e isso não pode acontecer quando há tantos tabus sociais impostos pelas ideologias extremistas.

Além disso, há, naturalmente, o processo de reconstrução, um novo impulso às nossas indústrias nacionais e a restauração e a abertura da nossa economia. Vamos continuar a ser abertos na Síria, ainda estamos aprendendo e vamos tirar as lições desta crise. Uma dessas lições é que a ignorância é o pior inimigo da sociedade e é a base para o extremismo, e esperamos que a Europa tenha aprendido com essas lições.

FAZ: Sr. Presidente, muito obrigado. Fiquei muito impressionado pela sua personalidade e sua visão, espero que a Europa e o Ocidente beneficiem desta entrevista e possam vê-lo a si e ao seu país de forma diferente. 

Assad: Obrigado e seja bem-vindo de novo à Síria.

Ver também:

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to seven years in prison over a sex scandal and abuse of power.

On Monday, an Italian court in Milan handed Berlusconi the prison term and a lifetime ban from holding public positions, after convicting him of inappropriate relations with an under-age girl and then using his influence in an attempt to cover it up.

Å“The judges even went beyond the prosecutors’ request (for a six-year prison sentence),” said Niccolo Ghedini, one of the lawyers representing Berlusconi.

However, according to Italian law, the 76-year-old media tycoonâ„¢s sentence would become final only after two levels of court appeals, which could take many years until fruition.

Berlusconiâ„¢s lawyers announced that they would start an appeal against a verdict that they said was Å“beyond reality” and “completely illogical.”

The three-time former prime was found guilty of engaging in illegal relations with Karima El Mahroug, known as Å“Ruby,” while she was underage, during parties at his villa at Arcore near Milan, in 2010.

Berlusconi was also found guilty of abusing power while in office to release El Mahroug from police custody where she was being held on theft charges.

The former Italian premier has been tried some 30 times and convicted three times in a court of law for unrelated incidents.

Last October, a lower court convicted Berlusconi of artificially inflating prices of film distribution rights bought by Mediaset to avoid taxes.

Berlusconiâ„¢s previous charges included Mafia collusion, false accounting, tax fraud, corruption and bribing police officers and judges.

Berlusconi, who served as the country’s prime minister from 1994 to 2011, resigned last November after coming under immense pressure to step down for mishandling the Italian economy.

GMA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At least 27 people have been killed in seven terrorist bomb attacks that rocked the Iraqi capital city of Baghdad, officials say.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Gabriella Morrongiell
Washington Examiner
June 24, 2013

According to Sen. John McCain, a member of the Senate’s Gang of Eight, criminals will not be legalized under the proposed bipartisan immigration bill.

“Anyone who has committed crimes in this country is going to be deported,” the Arizona Republican declared on the Senate floor last week.

However, as Washington Examiner columnist Byron York recently reported, “the bottom line is an immigrant could have more than three misdemeanor convictions in his background check and still qualify for legalization.”

Read More

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:55 am

Tags: constitution, legislation

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Milhões de pessoas por todo o Brasil aderiram a um dos maiores movimentos de protesto da história do país. Ironicamente, o levantamento social dirige-se contra as políticas económicas de uma auto-proclamada alternativa “socialista” ao neoliberalismo conduzido pelo governo do Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) da presidente Dilma Rousseff.

O “remédio económico forte” do FMI, incluindo medidas de austeridade e a privatização de programas sociais, foi implementado sob a bandeira “progressista” e “populista” do PT, em acordo com elites económicas poderosas do Brasil e em estreita ligação com o Banco Mundial, o FMI e a Wall Street.

Apesar de o governo PT apresentar-se como “uma alternativa” ao neoliberalismo, comprometido com o alívio da pobreza e a redistribuição de riqueza, sua política monetária e fiscal está nas mãos dos seus credores da Wall Street.

Ironicamente, o governo PT de Dilma Rousseff e do seu antecessor Luís Ignaio da Silva foi louvado pelo FMI devido a:

“uma notável transformação social no Brasil com base na estabilidade macroeconómica e na ascensão de padrões de vida”. 

As realidades sociais subjacentes são outras. As “estatísticas” do Banco Mundial sobre pobreza são grosseiramente manipuladas. Só 11% da população, segundo o Banco Mundial , estão abaixo da linha de pobreza. E 2,2% da população estão a viver em pobreza extrema.

O padrão de vida no Brasil entrou em colapso desde que o Partido dos Trabalhadores chegou ao poder em 2003. Milhões de pessoas foram marginalizadas e empobrecidas, incluindo uma parte significativa da classe média urbana.

Apesar de o PT apresentar uma imagem “progressista” orientada para o povo, oficialmente oposta à “globalização corporativa”, a agenda macroeconómica foi reforçada. O governo PT sistematicamente manipulou as suas bases, tendo em vista impor o que o “Consenso de Washington” descreve como “uma estrutura política forte”.

Os investimentos estruturais de muitos milhares de milhões de dólares orientados pelo lucro para a Copa Mundial em 2014 e os Jogos Olímpicos em 2016, forjados pela corrupção corporativa, contribuíram para um aumento significativo da dívida externa do Brasil, a qual por sua vez reforçou o controle da política económica pelos seus credores da Wall Street.

O movimento de protesto é em grande parte composto por pessoas que votaram pelo Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT).

O apoio das bases do governo PT foi rompido. A base do Partido dos Trabalhadores voltou-se contra o governo.

História: a traição do Partido dos Trabalhadores 

O Partido dos Trabalhadores está no poder há mais de dez anos.

A crise social em curso no Brasil é a consequência da agenda macroeconómica lançada no início do acesso de Luís Ignácio da Silva à presidência, em 2003.

A eleição de Lula em 2003 corporificou a esperança de uma nação inteira. Representou uma votação esmagadora contra a globalização e o modelo neoliberal, o qual por toda a América Latina resultou na pobreza em massa e no desemprego.

A eleição de Lula no fim de 2002 por entendida como um importante ponto de ruptura, um meio de rejeitar a estrutura política do seu antecessor Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Enquanto era abraçado em coro pelos movimentos progressistas de todo o mundo, a administração Lula também estava a ser aplaudida pelo principal protagonista do modelo neoliberal. Na palavras do Director Administrativo do FMI, Horst Kohler:

“Sou entusiasta [da administração Lula]; mas é melhor dizer que estou profundamente impressionado pelo presidente Lula … o FMI ouve o presidente Lula e a equipe económica, esta é a nossa filosofia”.

Não é de admirar que o FMI seja “entusiasta”. As principais instituições da administração económica e financeira foram oferecidas numa bandeja de prata à Wall Street e a Washington.

O FMI e o Banco Mundial têm louvado o governo do Partido dos Trabalhadores pelo seu compromisso com “fortes fundamentos macroeconómicos”. Tanto quanto o FMI está preocupado, o Brasil “está na trilha” em conformidade com as balizas do FMI. O Banco Mundial elogiou tanto os governos Lula como Dilma: “O Brasil está a buscar um programa social arrojado com responsabilidade fiscal”.

De acordo com o Professor James Petras:

A maior parte dos responsáveis políticos da Wall Street e de Washington, surpreendidos pela selecção de uma equipe económica ortodoxa liberal, ficou perfeitamente extasiada quando ele começou a promover vigorosamente uma agenda neoliberal radical, incluindo privatização da segurança social, rebaixamento substancial de pensões para empregados de sectores públicos e redução do custo e facilitação das exigências para capitalistas despedirem trabalhadores. ( Global Research, 2003 )

Segundo Marcos Arruda, do PACS, um centro de investigação não governamental no Rio de Janeiro:

“A equipe económica de Lula ao prosseguir políticas impostas pelo FMI está estripando pagamentos sociais não só para os aposentados como também para os deficientes e as famílias mais pobres”. O prosseguimento de políticas económicas ortodoxas também empurrou o desemprego oficial para 12%, ao passo que as taxas de juro internas posicionam-se nos 26,5%, entre as mais altas taxas do mundo. Em São Paulo, a maior cidade do Brasil, o desemprego atingiu os 20%. (Ver Roger Burbach, Global Research, June 2003 )

O Brasil sob o governo PT não endossou apenas o neoliberalismo “com um rosto humano”, ele também apoiou a militarização da América Latina e do Caribe conduzida pelos EUA.

Lula estabeleceu um relacionamento pessoal com George W. Bush. Se bem que fosse um crítico firme da guerra iraquiana conduzida pelos EUA e um apoiante de Hugo Chavez, ele tacitamente também apoiava interesses estratégicos dos EUA na América Latina.

No rastro do golpe de Estado no Haiti patrocinado pelos EUA-França-Canadá, em Fevereiro de 2004, contra o governo eleito devidamente de Jean Bertrand Aristide, o presidente Luís Ignacio da Silva endossou a ocupação militar do Haiti e despachou tropas brasileiras para Port au Prince, sob os auspícios da Missão de Estabilização das Nações Unidas (MINUSTAH).

O artigo publicado por Global Research e resistir.info em Abril de 2003 , no início do governo PT de Luís Ignacio da Silva, descreve como, desde o início a liderança do Partido dos Trabalhadores traiu toda uma nação.

Não pode resultar qualquer mudança significativa de um debate sobre “uma alternativa ao neoliberalismo”, o qual na superfície parece ser “progressista” mas que tacitamente aceita como legítimo o direito de os “globalizadores” dominarem e pilharem o mundo em desenvolvimento.

O movimento de protesto social que tem varrido o Brasil é o resultado de 10 anos da repressão económica de “livre mercado” sob o disfarce de uma “agenda progressista”.

21/Junho/2013

O original encontra-se em www.globalresearch.ca/…

Este artigo em português encontra-se em http://resistir.info/ 

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

A TV screen shows a news report of Edward Snowden in Hong Kong, as he was leaving by plane for Ecuador via Russia. (File photo)

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Rarely has any American provoked such fury in Washington’s high places. So far, Edward Snowden has outsmarted the smartest guys in the echo chamber – and he has proceeded with the kind of moral clarity that U.S. officials seem to find unfathomable.

Bipartisan condemnations of Snowden are escalating from Capitol Hill and the Obama administration. More of the NSA’s massive surveillance program is now visible in the light of day – which is exactly what it can’t stand.

The central issue is our dire shortage of democracy. How can we have real consent of the governed when the government is entrenched with extreme secrecy, surveillance and contempt for privacy?

 The same government that continues to expand its invasive dragnet of surveillance, all over the United States and the rest of the world, is now asserting its prerogative to drag Snowden back to the USA from anywhere on the planet. It’s not only about punishing him and discouraging other potential whistleblowers. Top U.S. officials are also determined to – quite literally – silence Snowden’s voice, as Bradley Manning’s voice has been nearly silenced behind prison walls.

The sunshine of information, the beacon of principled risk-takers, the illumination of government actions that can’t stand the light of day – these correctives are anathema to U.S. authorities who insist that really informative whistleblowers belong in solitary confinement. A big problem for those authorities is that so many people crave the sunny beacons of illumination.

 On Sunday night, more than 15,000 Americans took action to send a clear message to the White House. The subject line said “Mr. President, hands off Edward Snowden,” and the email message read: “I urge you in the strongest terms to do nothing to interfere with the travels or political asylum process of Edward Snowden. The U.S. government must not engage in abduction or any other form of foul play against Mr. Snowden.”

As the Obama White House weighs its options, the limits are practical and political. Surveillance and military capacities are inseparable, and they’re certainly huge, but constraints may cause major frustration. Sunday on CNN, anchor Don Lemon cited the fabled Navy Seals and said such commandos ought to be able to capture Snowden, pronto.

The state of surveillance and perpetual war are one and the same. The U.S. government’s rationale for pervasive snooping is the “war on terror,” the warfare state under whatever name.

Too rarely mentioned is the combination of nonviolence and idealism that has been integral to the courageous whistleblowing by Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning. Right now, one is on a perilous journey across the globe in search of political asylum, while the other is locked up in a prison and confined to a military trial excluding the human dimensions of the case. At a time of Big Brother and endless war, Snowden and Manning have bravely insisted that a truly better world is possible.

Meanwhile, top policymakers in Washington seem bent on running as much of the world as possible. Their pursuit of Edward Snowden has evolved into a frenzied rage.

Those at the top of the U.S. government insist that Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning have betrayed it. But that’s backward. Putting its money on vast secrecy and military violence instead of democracy, the government has betrayed Snowden and Manning and the rest of us.

Trying to put a stop to all that secrecy and violence, we have no assurance of success. But continuing to try is a prerequisite for realistic hope.

A few months before the invasion of Iraq, looking out at Baghdad from an upper story of a hotel, I thought of something Albert Camus once wrote.

“And henceforth, the only honorable course will be to stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words are more powerful than munitions.”

Edward Snowden’s honorable course has led him to this historic moment. The U.S. government is eager to pay him back with retribution and solitary. But many people in the United States and around the world are responding with love and solidarity.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.”

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

An armed supporter of Takfiri Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, runs across the street during clashes with Lebanese army personnel on June 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Donna Anderson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Stephen King’s “Under the Dome,” a blockbuster novel that’s been turned into a TV series, premiers on CBS tonight at 10 p.m. Labeled as “science fiction” because of the mechanics of the dome itself, it should also be filed on the “Political Science” shelves because it magnifies the government corruption and societal malaise taking place all across America today.

Unlike many of today’s popular TV shows, “Under the Dome” has no sparkling vampires, hunky werewolves or sexy witches. There’s no magic, no sorcery and no “game.” You can’t turn off the show at the end of the hour and say to yourself, “Whew! That was scary. Thank goodness it’s not real!” because this monster IS real and it’s under every bed in every city and every town across America.

The story opens on the sleepy town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, an average little community much like tens of thousands of other communities all over the nation, probably very similar to the town you live in. There’s a grocery store, a post office, a popular diner and bar, even a privately-owned small-town newspaper, and like most small towns, everybody believes that “the government” has everything under control.

Suddenly, on a bright, beautiful October day, Chester’s Mill is blanketed by a huge impenetrable dome that drops from the sky. There is no entry — or exit — by land, water or air. No one gets in, no one gets out, and the people are on their own.

“Under the Dome” asks the question: What would happen in an average, idyllic little town if it were suddenly cut off from the world? What would happen to families? What would happen to trade? What would happen to society as a whole, and how would it affect individuals? And most important, what would happen to the monster under the bed if there were no outside forces available to keep it at bay?

The monster under the bed of course is the government. In this case, it’s “Big Jim” Rennie, a used car salesman and Chester’s Mill’s Second Selectman. Rennie is the most influential person in town and he chooses to be Second Selectman — instead of Mayor — because the position provides him the cover of “plausible deniability.”

You see, Big Jim has his finger in many pies. He’s put together a gang of greedy, corrupt local businessmen and they’re running the biggest meth lab in the country, socking away millions of dollars in offshore accounts. Included in the group are the local pharmacist, local business owners, and the local law enforcement officials.

Big Jim quietly controls who gets a bank loan, who gets arrested, who gets drugs, what local government agencies get new equipment, who gets screwed, and who gets run out of town on a rail. But in all of his nefarious activities he’s safe from prosecution because of his position of plausible deniability. He’s not the one in charge and he can always, always pass the buck.

Sound familiar? Only to those Americans who’ve been paying attention. To most, “Under the Dome” will just be another thrilling Stephen King novel transformed for television. But to informed Americans it’s a mirror image of what’s happening in America and in most towns across the nation.

Although he makes no mention of it specifically in any of his interviews, Big Jim Rennie and President Barack Obama are one and the same. Both greedy, power-hungry, master-manipulators on a mission to control everyone and everything within their sphere of influence. They both answer only to the people with the money and they charge a hefty fee for their compliance. The only difference is — Obama’s sphere is much, much larger than Chester’s Mill, Maine. Obama’s sphere encompasses the entire world.

When the dome drops, the citizens of Chester’s Mill don’t really panic at all. It’s an inconvenience, to be sure, but they believe that if everyone just remains calm and let’s Big Jim Rennie handle it, everything will turn out fine in the end. After all, they elected him because he’s the guy who always “gets things done.”

Only three people understand the full ramifications of being cut off from the world with Jim Rennie in charge.

The first is another of the town’s Selectman. Big Jim Rennie uses the local pharmacist to keep her stoned on pain-killers, turning her into a mindless zombie who can no longer function coherently to sway public opinion. She goes along with whatever Rennie says because he controls her drugs and the drugs control her. Intellectually, she knows Rennie is evil and corrupt but if she tries to step in he’ll cut off her drugs.

The second is the owner of the town’s only newspaper. So far, she’s left Rennie alone, too, even though she knows he’s just a power-hungry tyrant, up to no good. Life is good, why make waves? And so far, Big Jim’s left her alone because she’s “the press.” While destroying her and her newspaper is one of his key goals, the timing’s not right. The people of Chester’s Mill still believe Big Jim represents safety, security, and the American Dream and that’s just the way he wants to keep it.

The third person who immediately understands that the people of Chester’s Mill are encased in a dome with an egotistical, maniacal tyrant is Dale Barbie, a former Army lieutenant, back from Iraq with a few problems of his own. Rennie doesn’t like him because he knows Barbie can see right through him and he already gave Barbie his walking papers. But, on his way out of town Barbie gets trapped inside the dome with the rest of the citizens of Chester’s Mill, the only real threat to Big Jim Rennie.

Once the dome drops, making Rennie the king of his realm, his delusions of grandeur kick into overdrive. He builds a stockpile of propane and keeps it hidden away from the citizens. He closes the local grocery store and stages a riot so the citizens can see that even though these are fearful times, Big Jim Rennie has the situation under control.

Big Jim also criminalizes and sets out to destroy his detractors, his whistleblowers, namely Dale Barbie, the drugged-up Selectman and the owner of the town’s only newspaper. While doing so he frequently twists Scripture to rationalize his actions and the people of Chester’s Mill, being average, God-fearing folks, buy into it hook, line and sinker.

Watch “Under the Dome” closely and you’ll see mirror images of what’s happening in America today. Look at Eric Snowden and Michael Hastings and you’ll see we have Obama criminalizing — and destroying — members of the media who dare to speak out against him, his administration, and his tactics. And most of America is willing to accept it because Obama is the President and he’s just doing what any good president would do, guarding our safety, security, and the American Dream.

Look at Obamacare and Big Pharma and you’ll see we’re a nation that’s become addicted to drugs and professional medical assistance. We’re willing to accept the demands of the Affordable Healthcare Act if it means we can keep getting our pain killers, our anti-biotics, our flu shots and vaccines, and immediate attention from a medical professional who’s willing to keep on writing those prescriptions.

We’re elated when Obama tells the Federal Reserve to print more money because it means there’s going to be more money in circulation. But it’s eaten up by increased taxes for things like Obamacare and the Immigration Reform bill, and it’s syphoned off to the Big Businesses and Big Banks who don’t have to pay taxes because they’re sheltering their income in offshore accounts.

Once reality sets in, the people of Chester’s Mill begin to grow anxious. What’s going to happen if the food or propane runs out? What if they can’t get the drugs they need?

In order to control the town and keep rebellion at bay, Big Jim increases the size of the police force, arming teenage bullies who like nothing better than bashing in the heads of anybody who tries to make a stand. Now, take a look at what Obama has done with our own “police force,” the National Security Agency.

In the name of “National Security” Obama has done everything Big Jim Rennie does in “Under the Dome”, only on a much larger scale. TSA agents accost us at airports and bus terminals with nude body scanners and offensive pat-downs. Homeland Security agents can legally break down our doors any time, day or night, with no probable cause or suspicion. Journalists and reporters are harassed, criminalized and killed because they dare to speak out. Terrorist events are created out of thin air, shootings are blamed on the guns instead of the shooters, our phones are tapped, our privacy violated, and Obama even controls our food supply.

But don’t for a second believe it’s only happening on a national scale so it doesn’t affect you, because it’s happening on the state and local levels, too. Local officials who buy into Obama’s mind control program have no problem criminalizing kids who make guns out of Pop-Tarts or wear T-shirts supporting the NRA. They have no problem putting fluoride in your water or forcing you to place a smart meter on your home. They legislate what you can drink, what you can eat, where you can walk and what you can wear while you’re walking.

If you think “Under the Dome” is scary then you’re not paying attention to the real world around you. If your friends say, “Man! I’m glad that’s not happening here!” then you need to tell them to wake up because it IS happening here, right now, in every city and town in America.

Anyone who disagrees with the government is criminalized and labeled an extremist.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:32 am

Tags: big brother, domestic news, police state, technology

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

“These things go far beyond what most are even aware of”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Daniel Somers. Image: Facebook

Iraq war veteran Daniel Somers committed suicide following an arduous battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that was caused by his role in committing “crimes against humanity,” according to the soldier’s suicide note.

Somers was assigned to a Tactical Human-Intelligence Team (THT) in Baghdad which saw him involved in more than 400 combat missions as a machine gunner in the turret of a Humvee, in addition to his role in conducting interrogations.

Somers’ suicide note is a powerful indictment of the invasion of Iraq and how it ruined the lives of both countless millions of Iraqis as well as innumerable US troops sent in to do the dirty work of the military-industrial complex.

“The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity,” wrote Somers. “Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.”

Somers also complains about how he was forced to “participate in the ensuing coverup” of such crimes.

Somers’ death serves to refocus attention on the fact that military veterans are committing suicide in droves after being afflicted with PTSD as a direct result of committing atrocities while in combat.

As Somers highlights in his note, 22 military veterans commit suicide every single day. Amongst active-duty soldiers, more than one a day commit suicide, a figure that surpassed the number of US troops killed in combat in Afghanistan.

“And according to some experts, the military may be undercounting the problem because of the way it calculates its suicide rate,” reports the New York Times, adding that experts cannot understand “the root causes of why military suicide is rising so fast.”

However, the root causes are laid bare in Somers’ suicide note. US troops are being ordered to commit atrocities so vile that the only way many of them can cope with the horror of what they have done is by killing themselves.

Examples of atrocities aided directly or indirectly by US troops in Iraq include;

– Orders to slaughter “all military age men” during some operations;

– Torturing detainees — many of whom had never engaged in combat and were totally innocent – at grisly prison camps across the country;

– Raping and torturing children at the infamous Abu Ghraib detention facility while they shrieked in terror. Women forced to watch later begged to be killed.

– Sodomizing detainees with chemical lights and broom sticks;

– Indiscriminately firing upon and killing journalists and children from the air;

– Massacring entire groups of unarmed Iraqis, including children and the elderly in Hadith.

“This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing,” wrote Somers, adding that him living “any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand.”

Read Somers’ full suicide note below, published with his family’s permission.

–––––––––––––––––––—

I am sorry that it has come to this.

The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out into the long term.

You will perhaps be sad for a time, but over time you will forget and begin to carry on. Far better that than to inflict my growing misery upon you for years and decades to come, dragging you down with me. It is because I love you that I can not do this to you. You will come to see that it is a far better thing as one day after another passes during which you do not have to worry about me or even give me a second thought. You will find that your world is better without me in it.

I really have been trying to hang on, for more than a decade now. Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I cared, suffering unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so that you could feel as though I was still here for you. In truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so that my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time.

My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are nearly impossible for me. I can not laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house. I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most merciful thing.

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA. Any blame rests with them.

Beyond that, there are the host of physical illnesses that have struck me down again and again, for which they also offer no help. There might be some progress by now if they had not spent nearly twenty years denying the illness that I and so many others were exposed to. Further complicating matters is the repeated and severe brain injuries to which I was subjected, which they also seem to be expending no effort into understanding. What is known is that each of these should have been cause enough for immediate medical attention, which was not rendered.

Lastly, the DEA enters the picture again as they have now managed to create such a culture of fear in the medical community that doctors are too scared to even take the necessary steps to control the symptoms. All under the guise of a completely manufactured “overprescribing epidemic,” which stands in stark relief to all of the legitimate research, which shows the opposite to be true. Perhaps, with the right medication at the right doses, I could have bought a couple of decent years, but even that is too much to ask from a regime built upon the idea that suffering is noble and relief is just for the weak.

However, when the challenges facing a person are already so great that all but the weakest would give up, these extra factors are enough to push a person over the edge.

Is it any wonder then that the latest figures show 22 veterans killing themselves each day? That is more veterans than children killed at Sandy Hook, every single day. Where are the huge policy initiatives? Why isn’t the president standing with those families at the state of the union? Perhaps because we were not killed by a single lunatic, but rather by his own system of dehumanization, neglect, and indifference.

It leaves us to where all we have to look forward to is constant pain, misery, poverty, and dishonor. I assure you that, when the numbers do finally drop, it will merely be because those who were pushed the farthest are all already dead.

And for what? Bush’s religious lunacy? Cheney’s ever growing fortune and that of his corporate friends? Is this what we destroy lives for

Since then, I have tried everything to fill the void. I tried to move into a position of greater power and influence to try and right some of the wrongs. I deployed again, where I put a huge emphasis on saving lives. The fact of the matter, though, is that any new lives saved do not replace those who were murdered. It is an exercise in futility.

Then, I pursued replacing destruction with creation. For a time this provided a distraction, but it could not last. The fact is that any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand. How can I possibly go around like everyone else while the widows and orphans I created continue to struggle? If they could see me sitting here in suburbia, in my comfortable home working on some music project they would be outraged, and rightfully so.

I thought perhaps I could make some headway with this film project, maybe even directly appealing to those I had wronged and exposing a greater truth, but that is also now being taken away from me. I fear that, just as with everything else that requires the involvement of people who can not understand by virtue of never having been there, it is going to fall apart as careers get in the way.

The last thought that has occurred to me is one of some kind of final mission. It is true that I have found that I am capable of finding some kind of reprieve by doing things that are worthwhile on the scale of life and death. While it is a nice thought to consider doing some good with my skills, experience, and killer instinct, the truth is that it isn’t realistic. First, there are the logistics of financing and equipping my own operation, then there is the near certainty of a grisly death, international incidents, and being branded a terrorist in the media that would follow. What is really stopping me, though, is that I simply am too sick to be effective in the field anymore. That, too, has been taken from me.

Thus, I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, too damaged to be at war. Abandoned by those who would take the easy route, and a liability to those who stick it out–and thus deserve better. So you see, not only am I better off dead, but the world is better without me in it

This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing. I know how to kill, and I know how to do it so that there is no pain whatsoever. It was quick, and I did not suffer. And above all, now I am free. I feel no more pain. I have no more nightmares or flashbacks or hallucinations. I am no longer constantly depressed or afraid or worried

I am free.

I ask that you be happy for me for that. It is perhaps the best break I could have hoped for. Please accept this and be glad for me.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:46 am

Tags: war

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Sayer Ji
Activist Post
June 24, 2013

When GM pollen blows into a non-GM farmer’s fields and irreversibly contaminates his crop with ‘biopollution,’ who does the law side with? Historically, Monsanto. Also, it’s not called ‘economic sabotage’ but rather ‘copyright infringement,’ and the victim not the aggressor is threatened with economic ruin.

When Monsanto’s unapproved and therefore illegal GM wheat is found years after open field trials growing freely in an Oregon wheat field, the entire state crop’s export fate is held in limbo, jeopardizing the present and future living of thousands of farmers and their dependents, with Monsanto receiving little more than a reprimand, followed by rapid USDA assurance that despite a lack of approval their GM wheat is “safe.”

Given the unfair rules of the game, no wonder some folks in Oregon, having been treated much like feudal peasants, are taking things into their own pitchfork-bearing hands.

Read More

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:33 am

Tags: environment, eugenics, gmo, natural health

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

WND
June 24, 2013

The Obama administration should “seriously consider” a surgical strike to prevent North Korea from developing long-range missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, argued former CIA director James Woolsey.

In a radio interview Sunday night, Woolsey warned the U.S. is currently wide open and virtually defenseless against a missile coming from a southerly direction, and that both Iran and North Korea made advances toward firing missiles in that direction.

Woolsey further warned of the catastrophic effects of a North Korean missile launch or a satellite that could explode a nuclear warhead over the U.S. as part of an electromagnetic pulse attack.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:41 am

Tags: foreign affairs, terrorism, war

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

June 24, 2013
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Two weeks into the hullaballoo surrounding whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, one thing is clear: they did not just reveal potentially serious crimes perpetrated by the government – including possible perjury,unlawful spying and unconstitutional surveillance. They also laid bare in historic fashion the powerful double standards that now define most U.S. media coverage of the American government – the kind that portray those who challenge power as criminals, and those who worship it as heroes deserving legal immunity. Indeed, after “Meet the Press” host David Gregory’s instantly notorious performance yesterday, it is clear Snowden’s revelations so brazenly exposed these double standards that it will be difficult for the Washington press corps to ever successfully hide them again.

The best way to see these double standards is to ponder 10 simple questions.

1. During that “Meet the Press” discussion yesterday of Greenwald publishing stories about Snowden’s disclosures, Gregory asked Greenwald, “Why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Beyond the odiousness of a supposed journalist like Gregory seeming to endorse criminal charges against journalists for the alleged crime of committing journalism, there’s an even more poignant question suggested by Mother Jones’ David Corn: Why hasn’t David Gregory asked reporters at the Washington Post, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News the same question, considering their publication of similar leaks? Is it because Greenwald is seen as representing a form of journalism too adversarial toward the government, while those establishment outlets are still held in Good Standing by Washington?

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Unless You Know About This Spying Method, You Might Say Something Which Could Get You In Hot Water

Given that the NSA is tapping into your phone calls and spying on your Internet activities, you might have switched to a search engine which is more privacy-conscious.

You might have started using encrypted communications. After all, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the leading electronic privacy group — the Electronic Frontier Foundation — say that encryption helps to protect privacy.  On the other hand, Tech Dirt points out that the NSA might consider you suspicious if you encrypt information, and so hold onto your data until they can decrypt it.

The above are all issues about which you are at least somewhat aware.

But there is a giant type of snooping which you probably don’t even know about. Specifically, ABC News reported in 2006:

Cell phone users, beware. The FBI can listen to everything you say, even when the cell phone is turned off. A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a “roving bug.”

Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the cell phone battery.

“The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them,” James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. “Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone’s location to within just a few feet,” he added.

***

According to the recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, “The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be.” 

***

“The courts have given law enforcement a blank check for surveillance,” Richard Rehbock, attorney for defendant John Ardito, told ABC News.

***

“Big Brother is upon us…1984 happened a long time ago,” he said, referring to the George Orwell futuristic novel “1984,” which described a society whose members were closely watched by those in power and was published in 1949.

Fox News covered the story as well:

CNET noted the same year:

The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warns that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.” An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can “remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner’s knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call.”

***

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone—all without the owner knowing it happened.

***

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. “A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug,” the article said, “enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down.”

Given that the American and British intelligence agencies are trying tap every single communication, some rogue agency or contractor might be tapping your phone … even when it’s off.

Indeed, even private hackers might be listening in. Specifically, private parties without security clearance may be activating your microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Indeed, commercially-available, off-the-shelf software allows people to spy on you:

Your iPhone, or other brand of smartphone is spying on virtually everything you do (ProPublica notes: “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker“) … and sending the information to private companies.

And CNET pointed out 7 years ago:

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer’s video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

So the single most important step to protect yourself from government — or private — spying is to remember that your conservations might not be private when your cellphone is nearby … even if it is turned off.

Note: If you have a microphone in your car, that might also open you up to snoopers. As CNET points out:

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

And Fox news notes that the government is insisting that “black boxes” be installed in cars to track your location.

And see this.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Donna Anderson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Stephen King’s “Under the Dome,” a blockbuster novel that’s been turned into a TV series, premiers on CBS tonight at 10 p.m. Labeled as “science fiction” because of the mechanics of the dome itself, it should also be filed on the “Political Science” shelves because it magnifies the government corruption and societal malaise taking place all across America today.

Unlike many of today’s popular TV shows, “Under the Dome” has no sparkling vampires, hunky werewolves or sexy witches. There’s no magic, no sorcery and no “game.” You can’t turn off the show at the end of the hour and say to yourself, “Whew! That was scary. Thank goodness it’s not real!” because this monster IS real and it’s under every bed in every city and every town across America.

The story opens on the sleepy town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, an average little community much like tens of thousands of other communities all over the nation, probably very similar to the town you live in. There’s a grocery store, a post office, a popular diner and bar, even a privately-owned small-town newspaper, and like most small towns, everybody believes that “the government” has everything under control.

Suddenly, on a bright, beautiful October day, Chester’s Mill is blanketed by a huge impenetrable dome that drops from the sky. There is no entry — or exit — by land, water or air. No one gets in, no one gets out, and the people are on their own.

“Under the Dome” asks the question: What would happen in an average, idyllic little town if it were suddenly cut off from the world? What would happen to families? What would happen to trade? What would happen to society as a whole, and how would it affect individuals? And most important, what would happen to the monster under the bed if there were no outside forces available to keep it at bay?

The monster under the bed of course is the government. In this case, it’s “Big Jim” Rennie, a used car salesman and Chester’s Mill’s Second Selectman. Rennie is the most influential person in town and he chooses to be Second Selectman — instead of Mayor — because the position provides him the cover of “plausible deniability.”

You see, Big Jim has his finger in many pies. He’s put together a gang of greedy, corrupt local businessmen and they’re running the biggest meth lab in the country, socking away millions of dollars in offshore accounts. Included in the group are the local pharmacist, local business owners, and the local law enforcement officials.

Big Jim quietly controls who gets a bank loan, who gets arrested, who gets drugs, what local government agencies get new equipment, who gets screwed, and who gets run out of town on a rail. But in all of his nefarious activities he’s safe from prosecution because of his position of plausible deniability. He’s not the one in charge and he can always, always pass the buck.

Sound familiar? Only to those Americans who’ve been paying attention. To most, “Under the Dome” will just be another thrilling Stephen King novel transformed for television. But to informed Americans it’s a mirror image of what’s happening in America and in most towns across the nation.

Although he makes no mention of it specifically in any of his interviews, Big Jim Rennie and President Barack Obama are one and the same. Both greedy, power-hungry, master-manipulators on a mission to control everyone and everything within their sphere of influence. They both answer only to the people with the money and they charge a hefty fee for their compliance. The only difference is — Obama’s sphere is much, much larger than Chester’s Mill, Maine. Obama’s sphere encompasses the entire world.

When the dome drops, the citizens of Chester’s Mill don’t really panic at all. It’s an inconvenience, to be sure, but they believe that if everyone just remains calm and let’s Big Jim Rennie handle it, everything will turn out fine in the end. After all, they elected him because he’s the guy who always “gets things done.”

Only three people understand the full ramifications of being cut off from the world with Jim Rennie in charge.

The first is another of the town’s Selectman. Big Jim Rennie uses the local pharmacist to keep her stoned on pain-killers, turning her into a mindless zombie who can no longer function coherently to sway public opinion. She goes along with whatever Rennie says because he controls her drugs and the drugs control her. Intellectually, she knows Rennie is evil and corrupt but if she tries to step in he’ll cut off her drugs.

The second is the owner of the town’s only newspaper. So far, she’s left Rennie alone, too, even though she knows he’s just a power-hungry tyrant, up to no good. Life is good, why make waves? And so far, Big Jim’s left her alone because she’s “the press.” While destroying her and her newspaper is one of his key goals, the timing’s not right. The people of Chester’s Mill still believe Big Jim represents safety, security, and the American Dream and that’s just the way he wants to keep it.

The third person who immediately understands that the people of Chester’s Mill are encased in a dome with an egotistical, maniacal tyrant is Dale Barbie, a former Army lieutenant, back from Iraq with a few problems of his own. Rennie doesn’t like him because he knows Barbie can see right through him and he already gave Barbie his walking papers. But, on his way out of town Barbie gets trapped inside the dome with the rest of the citizens of Chester’s Mill, the only real threat to Big Jim Rennie.

Once the dome drops, making Rennie the king of his realm, his delusions of grandeur kick into overdrive. He builds a stockpile of propane and keeps it hidden away from the citizens. He closes the local grocery store and stages a riot so the citizens can see that even though these are fearful times, Big Jim Rennie has the situation under control.

Big Jim also criminalizes and sets out to destroy his detractors, his whistleblowers, namely Dale Barbie, the drugged-up Selectman and the owner of the town’s only newspaper. While doing so he frequently twists Scripture to rationalize his actions and the people of Chester’s Mill, being average, God-fearing folks, buy into it hook, line and sinker.

Watch “Under the Dome” closely and you’ll see mirror images of what’s happening in America today. Look at Eric Snowden and Michael Hastings and you’ll see we have Obama criminalizing — and destroying — members of the media who dare to speak out against him, his administration, and his tactics. And most of America is willing to accept it because Obama is the President and he’s just doing what any good president would do, guarding our safety, security, and the American Dream.

Look at Obamacare and Big Pharma and you’ll see we’re a nation that’s become addicted to drugs and professional medical assistance. We’re willing to accept the demands of the Affordable Healthcare Act if it means we can keep getting our pain killers, our anti-biotics, our flu shots and vaccines, and immediate attention from a medical professional who’s willing to keep on writing those prescriptions.

We’re elated when Obama tells the Federal Reserve to print more money because it means there’s going to be more money in circulation. But it’s eaten up by increased taxes for things like Obamacare and the Immigration Reform bill, and it’s syphoned off to the Big Businesses and Big Banks who don’t have to pay taxes because they’re sheltering their income in offshore accounts.

Once reality sets in, the people of Chester’s Mill begin to grow anxious. What’s going to happen if the food or propane runs out? What if they can’t get the drugs they need?

In order to control the town and keep rebellion at bay, Big Jim increases the size of the police force, arming teenage bullies who like nothing better than bashing in the heads of anybody who tries to make a stand. Now, take a look at what Obama has done with our own “police force,” the National Security Agency.

In the name of “National Security” Obama has done everything Big Jim Rennie does in “Under the Dome”, only on a much larger scale. TSA agents accost us at airports and bus terminals with nude body scanners and offensive pat-downs. Homeland Security agents can legally break down our doors any time, day or night, with no probable cause or suspicion. Journalists and reporters are harassed, criminalized and killed because they dare to speak out. Terrorist events are created out of thin air, shootings are blamed on the guns instead of the shooters, our phones are tapped, our privacy violated, and Obama even controls our food supply.

But don’t for a second believe it’s only happening on a national scale so it doesn’t affect you, because it’s happening on the state and local levels, too. Local officials who buy into Obama’s mind control program have no problem criminalizing kids who make guns out of Pop-Tarts or wear T-shirts supporting the NRA. They have no problem putting fluoride in your water or forcing you to place a smart meter on your home. They legislate what you can drink, what you can eat, where you can walk and what you can wear while you’re walking.

If you think “Under the Dome” is scary then you’re not paying attention to the real world around you. If your friends say, “Man! I’m glad that’s not happening here!” then you need to tell them to wake up because it IS happening here, right now, in every city and town in America.

Anyone who disagrees with the government is criminalized and labeled an extremist.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:32 am

Tags: big brother, domestic news, police state, technology

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

“These things go far beyond what most are even aware of”

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Daniel Somers. Image: Facebook

Iraq war veteran Daniel Somers committed suicide following an arduous battle with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that was caused by his role in committing “crimes against humanity,” according to the soldier’s suicide note.

Somers was assigned to a Tactical Human-Intelligence Team (THT) in Baghdad which saw him involved in more than 400 combat missions as a machine gunner in the turret of a Humvee, in addition to his role in conducting interrogations.

Somers’ suicide note is a powerful indictment of the invasion of Iraq and how it ruined the lives of both countless millions of Iraqis as well as innumerable US troops sent in to do the dirty work of the military-industrial complex.

“The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity,” wrote Somers. “Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.”

Somers also complains about how he was forced to “participate in the ensuing coverup” of such crimes.

Somers’ death serves to refocus attention on the fact that military veterans are committing suicide in droves after being afflicted with PTSD as a direct result of committing atrocities while in combat.

As Somers highlights in his note, 22 military veterans commit suicide every single day. Amongst active-duty soldiers, more than one a day commit suicide, a figure that surpassed the number of US troops killed in combat in Afghanistan.

“And according to some experts, the military may be undercounting the problem because of the way it calculates its suicide rate,” reports the New York Times, adding that experts cannot understand “the root causes of why military suicide is rising so fast.”

However, the root causes are laid bare in Somers’ suicide note. US troops are being ordered to commit atrocities so vile that the only way many of them can cope with the horror of what they have done is by killing themselves.

Examples of atrocities aided directly or indirectly by US troops in Iraq include;

– Orders to slaughter “all military age men” during some operations;

– Torturing detainees — many of whom had never engaged in combat and were totally innocent – at grisly prison camps across the country;

– Raping and torturing children at the infamous Abu Ghraib detention facility while they shrieked in terror. Women forced to watch later begged to be killed.

– Sodomizing detainees with chemical lights and broom sticks;

– Indiscriminately firing upon and killing journalists and children from the air;

– Massacring entire groups of unarmed Iraqis, including children and the elderly in Hadith.

“This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing,” wrote Somers, adding that him living “any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand.”

Read Somers’ full suicide note below, published with his family’s permission.

–––––––––––––––––––—

I am sorry that it has come to this.

The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out into the long term.

You will perhaps be sad for a time, but over time you will forget and begin to carry on. Far better that than to inflict my growing misery upon you for years and decades to come, dragging you down with me. It is because I love you that I can not do this to you. You will come to see that it is a far better thing as one day after another passes during which you do not have to worry about me or even give me a second thought. You will find that your world is better without me in it.

I really have been trying to hang on, for more than a decade now. Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I cared, suffering unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so that you could feel as though I was still here for you. In truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so that my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time.

My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are nearly impossible for me. I can not laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house. I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most merciful thing.

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA. Any blame rests with them.

Beyond that, there are the host of physical illnesses that have struck me down again and again, for which they also offer no help. There might be some progress by now if they had not spent nearly twenty years denying the illness that I and so many others were exposed to. Further complicating matters is the repeated and severe brain injuries to which I was subjected, which they also seem to be expending no effort into understanding. What is known is that each of these should have been cause enough for immediate medical attention, which was not rendered.

Lastly, the DEA enters the picture again as they have now managed to create such a culture of fear in the medical community that doctors are too scared to even take the necessary steps to control the symptoms. All under the guise of a completely manufactured “overprescribing epidemic,” which stands in stark relief to all of the legitimate research, which shows the opposite to be true. Perhaps, with the right medication at the right doses, I could have bought a couple of decent years, but even that is too much to ask from a regime built upon the idea that suffering is noble and relief is just for the weak.

However, when the challenges facing a person are already so great that all but the weakest would give up, these extra factors are enough to push a person over the edge.

Is it any wonder then that the latest figures show 22 veterans killing themselves each day? That is more veterans than children killed at Sandy Hook, every single day. Where are the huge policy initiatives? Why isn’t the president standing with those families at the state of the union? Perhaps because we were not killed by a single lunatic, but rather by his own system of dehumanization, neglect, and indifference.

It leaves us to where all we have to look forward to is constant pain, misery, poverty, and dishonor. I assure you that, when the numbers do finally drop, it will merely be because those who were pushed the farthest are all already dead.

And for what? Bush’s religious lunacy? Cheney’s ever growing fortune and that of his corporate friends? Is this what we destroy lives for

Since then, I have tried everything to fill the void. I tried to move into a position of greater power and influence to try and right some of the wrongs. I deployed again, where I put a huge emphasis on saving lives. The fact of the matter, though, is that any new lives saved do not replace those who were murdered. It is an exercise in futility.

Then, I pursued replacing destruction with creation. For a time this provided a distraction, but it could not last. The fact is that any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand. How can I possibly go around like everyone else while the widows and orphans I created continue to struggle? If they could see me sitting here in suburbia, in my comfortable home working on some music project they would be outraged, and rightfully so.

I thought perhaps I could make some headway with this film project, maybe even directly appealing to those I had wronged and exposing a greater truth, but that is also now being taken away from me. I fear that, just as with everything else that requires the involvement of people who can not understand by virtue of never having been there, it is going to fall apart as careers get in the way.

The last thought that has occurred to me is one of some kind of final mission. It is true that I have found that I am capable of finding some kind of reprieve by doing things that are worthwhile on the scale of life and death. While it is a nice thought to consider doing some good with my skills, experience, and killer instinct, the truth is that it isn’t realistic. First, there are the logistics of financing and equipping my own operation, then there is the near certainty of a grisly death, international incidents, and being branded a terrorist in the media that would follow. What is really stopping me, though, is that I simply am too sick to be effective in the field anymore. That, too, has been taken from me.

Thus, I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, too damaged to be at war. Abandoned by those who would take the easy route, and a liability to those who stick it out–and thus deserve better. So you see, not only am I better off dead, but the world is better without me in it

This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing. I know how to kill, and I know how to do it so that there is no pain whatsoever. It was quick, and I did not suffer. And above all, now I am free. I feel no more pain. I have no more nightmares or flashbacks or hallucinations. I am no longer constantly depressed or afraid or worried

I am free.

I ask that you be happy for me for that. It is perhaps the best break I could have hoped for. Please accept this and be glad for me.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:46 am

Tags: war

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Sayer Ji
Activist Post
June 24, 2013

When GM pollen blows into a non-GM farmer’s fields and irreversibly contaminates his crop with ‘biopollution,’ who does the law side with? Historically, Monsanto. Also, it’s not called ‘economic sabotage’ but rather ‘copyright infringement,’ and the victim not the aggressor is threatened with economic ruin.

When Monsanto’s unapproved and therefore illegal GM wheat is found years after open field trials growing freely in an Oregon wheat field, the entire state crop’s export fate is held in limbo, jeopardizing the present and future living of thousands of farmers and their dependents, with Monsanto receiving little more than a reprimand, followed by rapid USDA assurance that despite a lack of approval their GM wheat is “safe.”

Given the unfair rules of the game, no wonder some folks in Oregon, having been treated much like feudal peasants, are taking things into their own pitchfork-bearing hands.

Read More

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:33 am

Tags: environment, eugenics, gmo, natural health

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

WND
June 24, 2013

The Obama administration should “seriously consider” a surgical strike to prevent North Korea from developing long-range missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, argued former CIA director James Woolsey.

In a radio interview Sunday night, Woolsey warned the U.S. is currently wide open and virtually defenseless against a missile coming from a southerly direction, and that both Iran and North Korea made advances toward firing missiles in that direction.

Woolsey further warned of the catastrophic effects of a North Korean missile launch or a satellite that could explode a nuclear warhead over the U.S. as part of an electromagnetic pulse attack.

Read More

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:41 am

Tags: foreign affairs, terrorism, war

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

June 24, 2013
 |

Two weeks into the hullaballoo surrounding whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, one thing is clear: they did not just reveal potentially serious crimes perpetrated by the government – including possible perjury,unlawful spying and unconstitutional surveillance. They also laid bare in historic fashion the powerful double standards that now define most U.S. media coverage of the American government – the kind that portray those who challenge power as criminals, and those who worship it as heroes deserving legal immunity. Indeed, after “Meet the Press” host David Gregory’s instantly notorious performance yesterday, it is clear Snowden’s revelations so brazenly exposed these double standards that it will be difficult for the Washington press corps to ever successfully hide them again.

The best way to see these double standards is to ponder 10 simple questions.

1. During that “Meet the Press” discussion yesterday of Greenwald publishing stories about Snowden’s disclosures, Gregory asked Greenwald, “Why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Beyond the odiousness of a supposed journalist like Gregory seeming to endorse criminal charges against journalists for the alleged crime of committing journalism, there’s an even more poignant question suggested by Mother Jones’ David Corn: Why hasn’t David Gregory asked reporters at the Washington Post, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News the same question, considering their publication of similar leaks? Is it because Greenwald is seen as representing a form of journalism too adversarial toward the government, while those establishment outlets are still held in Good Standing by Washington?

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

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read more

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Unless You Know About This Spying Method, You Might Say Something Which Could Get You In Hot Water

Given that the NSA is tapping into your phone calls and spying on your Internet activities, you might have switched to a search engine which is more privacy-conscious.

You might have started using encrypted communications. After all, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the leading electronic privacy group — the Electronic Frontier Foundation — say that encryption helps to protect privacy.  On the other hand, Tech Dirt points out that the NSA might consider you suspicious if you encrypt information, and so hold onto your data until they can decrypt it.

The above are all issues about which you are at least somewhat aware.

But there is a giant type of snooping which you probably don’t even know about. Specifically, ABC News reported in 2006:

Cell phone users, beware. The FBI can listen to everything you say, even when the cell phone is turned off. A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a “roving bug.”

Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the cell phone battery.

“The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them,” James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. “Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone’s location to within just a few feet,” he added.

***

According to the recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, “The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be.” 

***

“The courts have given law enforcement a blank check for surveillance,” Richard Rehbock, attorney for defendant John Ardito, told ABC News.

***

“Big Brother is upon us…1984 happened a long time ago,” he said, referring to the George Orwell futuristic novel “1984,” which described a society whose members were closely watched by those in power and was published in 1949.

Fox News covered the story as well:

CNET noted the same year:

The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warns that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.” An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can “remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner’s knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call.”

***

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone—all without the owner knowing it happened.

***

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. “A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug,” the article said, “enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down.”

Given that the American and British intelligence agencies are trying tap every single communication, some rogue agency or contractor might be tapping your phone … even when it’s off.

Indeed, even private hackers might be listening in. Specifically, private parties without security clearance may be activating your microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Indeed, commercially-available, off-the-shelf software allows people to spy on you:

Your iPhone, or other brand of smartphone is spying on virtually everything you do (ProPublica notes: “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker“) … and sending the information to private companies.

And CNET pointed out 7 years ago:

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer’s video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

So the single most important step to protect yourself from government — or private — spying is to remember that your conservations might not be private when your cellphone is nearby … even if it is turned off.

Note: If you have a microphone in your car, that might also open you up to snoopers. As CNET points out:

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

And Fox news notes that the government is insisting that “black boxes” be installed in cars to track your location.

And see this.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

After Chicago police pulled over and arrested delivery driver Angel Perez in October 2012, police at the station questioned and allegedly assaulted Perez in an attempt to learn intel on robberies and drug dealers, though Perez said he did not know anything about those alleged crimes. Perez repeatedly requested a lawyer, but the police paid him no heed.

Perez says the police released him, but called him the next day and told him that his arrest was a mistake and that he needed to sign papers to prevent his car from being towed. But when Perez arrived, Lopez “slammed” his head on a car and then arrested him again.

At the police station, Lopez was placed in ankle shackles and handcuffed to a bar. While Lopez was languishing in a room at the station, a total of six officers entered the room and allegedly threatened to send him to jail to be raped by gang members. They also threatened to plant evidence on him if he did not cooperate with the police.

The Chicago police were particularly interested in a man named “Dwayne,” whose number was in Lopez’s phone. According to the suit, the Chicago PD wanted to set up a drug purchase with Dwayne, but Lopez refused. Then, the police then began to “pull” and “contort” Lopez’s body. The lawsuit states that a sergeant “sat on the plaintiff’s chest and placed his palms on the plaintiff’s eye sockets and pushed hard against them, causing plaintiff severe pain. The Sergeant also drove his elbows into plaintiff’s back and head causing severe pain.” A few hours later, Officer Lopez and the sergeant pulled Lopez’s pants down. Lopez allegedly said: “I hear that a big black nigger dick feels like a gun up your ass.”

Then, the two officers allegedly sodomized Lopez with a gun–all while laughing hysterically. Not able to withstand the anguish of being sodomized, Perez agreed to cooperate. He called Dwayne and said he wanted to purchase heroin. Perez bought the heroin and brought along a GPS and recording device.

Even after he cooperated, the police wanted him to do more, but Perez refused. Officer Lopez allegedly continued to call him until he contacted the Independent Police Review Authority.

Perez and his lawyers are now seeking punitive damages for “excessive force, failure to intervene and emotional distress,” the Courthouse News Service reports. Perez was never charged with a crime.

The Chicago Police Department has historically engaged in brutality and abuse. For instance, Jon Burge, a former police commander, was sentenced to four decades in jail for obstruction of justice and perjury after he denied the routine use of torture on inmates in court. A federal appeals court in April noted that Burge and his detectives inflicted torture on prisoners. Inmates were “suffocated with plastic bags, electrocuted until they lost consciousness, held down against radiators, and had loaded guns pointed at their heads during rounds of Russian roulette,” the judges wrote.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

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Students demonstrate in favor of Affirmative Action(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)The Supreme Court voted 7-1 on Monday to send the highly anticipated decision in Fisher v. University of Texas —which would determine the fate of affirmative action— back to a federal appeals court for review.

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Activists locked to an excavator to thwart construction work. (Photo: Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance)Nine people with Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance (GPTSR) have been arrested on Monday after succeeding in temporarily shutting down construction of a Keystone XL pump station.

The action in Seminole, Okla. was part of a series of coordinated, nationwide #FearlessSummer actions starting this week that aim to fight “extreme energy,” which “continues to escalate its attack of life on earth.”

For GPTSR, the direct action was a necessary step to confront the fossil fuel industries that “profit off of continued ecological devastation and the poisoning of countless communities.”

“As a part of a direct action coalition working and living in an area that has been historically sacrificed for the benefit of petroleum infrastructure and industry, we believe that building a movement that can resist all infrastructure expansion at the point of construction is a necessity,” Eric Whelan, spokesperson for the group, said in a statement.

“We’re through with appealing to a broken political system that has consistently sacrificed human and nonhuman communities for the benefit of industry and capital,” added Whelan

While Monday’s action targeted TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, the group emphasized that “tar sands infrastructure is toxic regardless of the corporation or pipeline,” and pointed to spills in the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and in Mayflower, Arkansas.

“We are opposed not only to the Keystone XL, but all tar sands infrastructure that threatens the land and her progeny,” stated Fitzgerald Scott, who took part in Monday’s action.

So the group’s message to Enbridge, another heavyweight in the rapacious industry, is this: expect resistance.

“While KXL opponents wait with baited breath for Obama’s final decision regarding this particular pipeline, other corporations, including Enbridge, will be laying several tar sands pipelines across the continent. The Enbridge pipelines will carry the same volumes of the same noxious substance; therefore, Enbridge should get ready for the same resistance.”

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

A spokesman for the Taliban movement in Pakistan on Monday publicly claimed the group’s responsibility for the killing of nine foreign hikers in the Himalayas over the weekend, saying that the massacre was a direct result of a US drone strike last month along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.

The body of one of the 9 foreign tourists killed near the Nanga Parbat peak. (Photo: Reuters/Sohail Shahzad) “We did it and we claim responsibility for this attack,” said Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan in a phone call to Agence France-Presse.

“One of our factions, Junood ul-Hifsa, did it. It is to avenge the killing of Maulvi Wali ur-Rehman,” he said.

Ehsan was explicit about the motivation for the killings by adding, “We want to convey to the world that this is our reply to US drone attacks.”

As Al-Jazeera reports, ur-Rheman “died on May 29 in a US drone attack on a house in North Waziristan, the most notorious Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold in Pakistan on the Afghan border.”

Foreign policy experts have argued extensively and repeatedly in recent years that the use of unmanned drones to bomb civilian populations–even as they purport to target specific military targets–would inevitably increase the prospects for violent blowback from those who feel victimized by such attacks.

Additionally troubling was the announcement by the Pakistan Taliban was that a specialized unit was created in order to carry out the attack which has left many jittery in Pakistan that tourists and other foreign nationals may now be the focus of an ongoing campaign of retaliatory violence.

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This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Despite a stream of mendacious twaddle from President Obama, congressional grifters and spook agency mouthpieces like Office of the Director of National Intelligence head James Clapper, FBI Director Robert Mueller and NSA chief General Keith Alexander, it turns out our guardians are listening in to America’s, and most of the world’s, telephone conversations after all.

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, former FBI counter-terrorism agent Tim Clemente was asked by CNN whether there’s a way that investigators “can get the phone companies” to cough up audio of a particular conversation.

Clemente responded: “No, there is a way. We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation. It’s not necessarily something that the FBI is going to want to present in court, but it may help lead the investigation and/or lead to questioning of her [the alleged bomber’s wife]. We certainly can find that out.”

CNN’s incredulous reply: “So they can actually get that? People are saying, look, that is incredible.”

Clemente: “No, welcome to America. All of that stuff is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.”

When questioned the next day whether he would confirm his previous statements, Clemente told CNN, “I’m talking about all digital communications are—there’s a way to look at digital communications in the past. I can’t go into detail of how that’s done or what’s done. But I can tell you that no digital communication is secure. So these communications will be found out. The conversation will be known.”

While there was scant media follow-up to Clemente’s assertions, recent revelations of NSA dragnet spying have confirmed what analysts, researchers and whistleblowers have been saying for years: the secret state has the technological wherewithal to digitally record the content of all electronic communications, including telephone calls, and store them in massive cloud computing server farms in the event they’re needed for future “reference.”

And as it turns out, according to Internet Archive founder, computer engineer Brewster Kahle, who has wide experience storing large amounts of data, the cost of doing so is incredibly cheap.

A spreadsheet created by Kahle estimates it would cost the government a mere $27 million to “store all phonecalls made in a year in the ‘cloud’.” To do so would require less than 5,000 square feet of space and $2 million in electricity costs to store the estimated 272 petabytes of data generated annually in the United States!

A Giant Blackmail Machine

Recent disclosures by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden have done much to dispel remaining myths (government spying is “focused,” “legal,” etc.) surrounding the secret state’s privacy-killing surveillance programs.

It now seems likely that NSA is hoovering up far more than the “telephony metadata” revealed by The Guardian’s publication of the secret FISA Court Order to Verizon Business Services.

Following-up on PRISM program reporting, The Washington Post disclosed June 15 that the Bush administration’s “warrantless wiretapping” program STELLAR WIND “was succeeded by four major lines of intelligence collection in the territorial United States, together capable of spanning the full range of modern telecommunications, according to the interviews and documents.”

“Two of the four collection programs, one each for telephony and the Internet,” Barton Gellman reported, “process trillions of ‘metadata’ records for storage and analysis in systems called MAINWAY and MARINA, respectively.”

According to the Post, “Metadata includes highly revealing information about the times, places, devices and participants in electronic communication, but not its contents. The bulk collection of telephone call records from Verizon Business Services, disclosed this month by the British newspaper the Guardian, is one source of raw intelligence for MAINWAY.”

Dropping a bombshell, although withholding supporting documents, Gellman reports that the “other two types of collection, which operate on a much smaller scale, are aimed at content. One of them intercepts telephone calls and routes the spoken words to a system called ­NUCLEON.”

“MARINA and the collection tools that feed it are probably the least known of the NSA’s domestic operations,” the Post averred. “Yet they probably capture information about more American citizens than any other, because the volume of e-mail, chats and other Internet communications far exceeds the volume of standard telephone calls.”

“The NSA calls Internet metadata ‘digital network information.’ Sophisticated analysis of those records can reveal unknown associates of known terrorism suspects. Depending on the methods applied, it can also expose medical conditions, political or religious affiliations, confidential business negotiations and extramarital affairs.”

In other words, it seems likely that harvested data gleaned from phone calls, emails, video chats and credit card records are being used in ways that are as old as the spy game itself: political and economic blackmail.

Indeed, NSA whistleblower Russ Tice, the principal source for The New York Times exposé of illegal Bush administration spy programs, told Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post podcast that the secret state has ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including antiwar activists, high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats.

According to Tice:

“Okay. They went after—and I know this because I had my hands literally on the paperwork for these sort of things—they went after high-ranking military officers; they went after members of Congress, both Senate and the House, especially on the intelligence committees and on the armed services committees and some of the—and judicial. But they went after other ones, too. They went after lawyers and law firms. All kinds of—heaps of lawyers and law firms. They went after judges. One of the judges is now sitting on the Supreme Court that I had his wiretap information in my hand. Two are former FISA court judges. They went after State Department officials. They went after people in the executive service that were part of the White House—their own people. They went after antiwar groups. They went after US international—US companies that that do international business, you know, business around the world. They went after US banking firms and financial firms that do international business. They went after NGOs that—like the Red Cross, people like that that go overseas and do humanitarian work. They went after a few antiwar and civil rights groups. So, you know, don’t tell me that there’s no abuse, because I’ve had this stuff in my hand and looked at it.”

“Here’s the big one,” Tice told hosts Sibel Edmonds and Peter B. Collins, “this was in summer of 2004, one of the papers that I held in my hand was to wiretap a bunch of numbers associated with a 40-something-year-old wannabe senator for Illinois. You wouldn’t happen to know where that guy lives right now would you? It’s a big white house in Washington, D.C. That’s who they went after, and that’s the president of the United States now.”

Other political targets revealed by Tice included all nine Supreme Court justices, Senate Intelligence Committee head Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and ousted CIA director General David Petraeus, who allegedly resigned over a sex scandal.

Is it any wonder then, that House and Senate leaders driving the “oversight” clown car are the ones now braying loudest for Ed Snowden’s head!

Like ECHELON, Only on Steroids

A new series of disclosures published by The Guardian, based on the Snowden files but, like the Post, without public disclosure of the actual documents, we learned that Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) “has secretly gained access to the network of cables which carry the world’s phone calls and internet traffic and has started to process vast streams of sensitive personal information which it is sharing with its American partner, the National Security Agency (NSA).”

“The sheer scale of the agency’s ambition is reflected in the titles of its two principal components: Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation, aimed at scooping up as much online and telephone traffic as possible,” The Guardian reported.

Britain’s “Mastering the Internet” scheme was first reported by The Register and The Sunday Times back in 2009; Antifascist Calling published an analysis of NSA’s key role in the GCHQ program; a few months later, citing documents posted by WikiLeaks, AFC commented on the cozy relations amongst private intelligence contractors, the European Union and the secret state.

The architecture of these highly intrusive, illegal programs was created decades ago however, in intelligence-sharing arrangements in the English speaking world under the rubric of NSA’s global surveillance network known as ECHELON.

As one of the “Five Eyes” partner agencies of the Cold War-era UKUSA Security Agreement (US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) exposed by journalists Duncan Campbell and Nicky Hager in their ECHELON investigations, GCHQ, through a contemporary operation code named TEMPORA, has tapped into and stored vast quantities of data gleaned from fiber optic cables passing through the UK.

“This includes recordings of phone calls, the content of email messages, entries on Facebook and the history of any internet user’s access to websites—all of which is deemed legal, even though the warrant system was supposed to limit interception to a specified range of targets,” The Guardian reported.

But as we know from Campbell and Hager’s reporting, while intelligence and law enforcement officials in Britain and the United States are required to obtain an individualized warrant to target a suspect’s communications in their own nation, no such restrictions apply should one of the five “partner agencies” spy on another country’s citizens. One must assume this arrangement continues today.

“The documents reveal that by last year GCHQ was handling 600m ‘telephone events’ each day,” The Guardian disclosed, and “had tapped more than 200 fibre-optic cables and was able to process data from at least 46 of them at a time.”

That GCHQ did so on the basis of “secret agreements with commercial companies, described in one document as ‘intercept partners’,” should come as now surprise to readers of this blog.

According to Snowden documents “seen” but not published by The Guardian, “some companies have been paid for the cost of their co-operation and GCHQ went to great lengths to keep their names secret. They were assigned ‘sensitive relationship teams’ and staff were urged in one internal guidance paper to disguise the origin of ‘special source’ material in their reports for fear that the role of the companies as intercept partners would cause ‘high-level political fallout’.”

“It’s not just a US problem. The UK has a huge dog in this fight,” Snowden told The Guardian. “They [GCHQ] are worse than the US.”

The latest revelations have certainly raised eyebrows in Hong Kong and China, long accused by US political hacks of waging “aggressive cyberwarfare” against US defense and financial networks.

On Sunday, the South China Morning Post disclosed that “US spies are hacking into Chinese mobile phone companies to steal text messages and attacking the servers at Tsinghua University,” according to documents provided to the Post by Edward Snowden.

The Post revealed that the US is “hacking” computers “at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, which owns one of the most extensive submarine cable networks in the region.”

“Pacnet,” the Hong Kong newspaper explained, “recently signed major deals with the mainland’s top mobile phone companies, owns more than 46,000 kilometres of fibre-optic cables. The cables connect its regional data centres across the Asia-Pacific region, including Hong Kong, the mainland, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. It also has offices in the US.”

Talk about the (US) pot calling the (Chinese) kettle black!

NSA Data Fed to Main Core Security Index?

As sinister as these programs are, is there another component which taps “into data from an ad-hoc collection of so-called ‘black programs’ whose existence is undisclosed,” as alluded to by The Wall Street Journal five years ago?

In a recent interview with the conservative web site, The Daily Caller, former NSA technical director and whistleblower William Binney said while he doesn’t think “they’re recording all of it,” what they do however, “is take their target list, which is somewhere on the order of 500,000 to a million people. They look through these phone numbers and they target those and that’s what they record.”

“500,000 to a million people”? Who are they? Foreign citizens, Americans? If the latter, is Binney’s statement confirmation of reporting by journalists Christopher Ketchum and Tim Shorrock about the existence of a secret “Continuity of Government” database of “suspect” Americans known as Main Core?

“One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect,” Ketchum reported. “In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

As we now know, US government intelligence agencies including the CIA, DHS, the FBI, military outfits such as US Northern Command and the 70-odd “public-private” fusion centers scattered across the country have spied on antiwar activists, Ron Paul supporters, anarchists, socialists, gun rights’ proponents and, as revealed by journalist Beau Hodai in his troubling report, Dissent or Terror, Occupy Wall Street.

Did all the data secretly scooped up on law-abiding Americans exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech wind up in the government’s ultra-secret Main Core security index?

“Another well-informed source—a former military operative regularly briefed by members of the intelligence community” told Ketchum: “‘The more data you have on a particular target, the better [the software] can predict what the target will do, where the target will go, who it will turn to for help,’ he says. ‘Main Core is the table of contents for all the illegal information that the U.S. government has [compiled] on specific targets.’ An intelligence expert who has been briefed by high-level contacts in the Department of Homeland Security confirms that a database of this sort exists, but adds that ‘it is less a mega-database than a way to search numerous other agency databases at the same time’.”

A few months after Ketchum’s report appeared, Shorrock informed us that during an interview with financial consultant Norman Bailey, who headed “a special unit within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence focused on financial intelligence on Cuba and Venezuela—the NSA has been using its vast powers with signals intelligence to track financial transactions around the world since the early 1980s.”

“After 9/11,” Bailey told Shorrock, NSA signals intelligence intercept capabilities were “instantly seen within the US government as a critical tool in the war on terror—and apparently was deployed by the Bush administration inside the United States.”

“In September 2001,” Shorrock disclosed, “a contemporary version of the [Reagan era] Continuity of Government program was put into play in the hours after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when Vice President Cheney and senior members of Congress were dispersed to ‘undisclosed locations’ to maintain government functions.”

“It was during this emergency period,” Shorrock wrote, “that President Bush may have authorized the NSA to begin actively using the Main Core database for domestic surveillance.”

“If Main Core does exist, says Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism officer and an outspoken critic of the agency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is its likely home,” Ketchum averred.

“‘If a master list is being compiled, it would have to be in a place where there are no legal issues’—the CIA and FBI would be restricted by oversight and accountability laws—’so I suspect it is at DHS, which as far as I know operates with no such restraints’.”

“Giraldi notes that DHS already maintains a central list of suspected terrorists and has been freely adding people who pose no reasonable threat to domestic security. ‘It’s clear that DHS has the mandate for controlling and owning master lists. The process is not transparent, and the criteria for getting on the list are not clear.’ Giraldi continues, ‘I am certain that the content of such a master list [as Main Core] would not be carefully vetted, and there would be many names on it for many reasons—quite likely, including the two of us’.”

While we don’t know whether Binney is referring to the NSA component of Main Core, or some other highly illegal, hitherto unknown program, his statements seem to confirm Gellman’s reporting in The Washington Post that “spoken words” are routed “to a system called ­NUCLEON.” Again, without publishing supporting documentation supplied by Edward Snowden, the picture is far from clear.

Recent revelations however, building on scandals surrounding the interception of the sensitive communications of Associated Press and Fox News reporters, along with President Obama’s Nixonian obsession with stopping “leaks” as part of the administration’s war on whistleblowers, it should be clear by now that the police state Rubicon has already been crossed.

In 1976, during Senate hearings into earlier government lawbreaking, Senator Frank Church warned: “The National Security Agency’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the NSA could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back.”

“I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge,” Senator Church cautioned. “I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

What should also be clear, is that the bipartisan consensus that seeks to criminalize the leak and not the illegality of the programs exposed, reflects the profound fear in elite Washington circles of the American people. As opposition to endless war and austerity continues to percolate below the surface, it is only a matter of time before the breaking point is reached.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Though not nearly as high profile, the annual World Food Prize award is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize” for agriculture, and this year’s winners — scientists with key roles in developing genetically engineered crops — may bring unwanted attention.

On Wednesday, the winners of the World Food Prize were announced at the US State Department, with Secretary of State John Kerry in attendance. This year’s award will be shared among three scientists: Marc Van Montagu, Mary-Dell Chilton and Robert Fraley, all pioneers in agricultural biotechnology.

Fraley is currently the chief technology officer at biotech giant Monsanto, while Mary-Dell Chilton is the founder of Syngenta Biotechnology, another prominent biotech company. In awarding the prize, which comes along with a $250,000 cash award, the Iowa-based World Food Prize Foundation reasons that genetically modified crops offer higher yields, and are more resilient to pestilence and adverse weather.

“These three scientists are being recognized for their independent, individual breakthrough achievements in founding, developing and applying modern agricultural biotechnology,” said Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation.

Though genetically modified foods are generally accepted within the US, as evidenced by the GMO varieties of soybeans and corn popular among US farmers, they are not approved for cultivation in Europe, and their introduction into other markets, such as India and China, has been limited. Countries in Europe such as Hungary have gone as far as destroying entire shipments of seed found to be genetically modified.

Likewise, there is a vibrant number of consumer groups in the US that strongly advocate against the introduction of other GMO crops such as wheat for direct human consumption (as opposed to use in animal feed) and also advocate for GMO food labeling.

Van Montagu, founder of the Institute of Plant Technology Outreach at Ghent University in Belgium, has said he hoped “that this recognition will pave the way for Europe to embrace the benefits of this technology, an essential condition for global acceptance of transgenic plants.”

A woman holds up a poster during a protest against U.S.-based Monsanto Co. and genetically modified organisms (GMO), in New York May 25, 2013. (Reuters / Eduardo Munoz)

The World Food Prize Foundation, a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1986 at the behest of Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug, honored for his role in the “green revolution,” has been criticized in the past for its close ties to agribusiness.

If nothing else, a look back at the past winners of the prize seems to indicate the organization’s emphasis on technology, and the potential to alleviate mass hunger and increase crop yields.

Last year’s winner of the World Food Prize was Daniel Hillel, who pioneered food production in the Middle East with a radically new method of delivering water to crops in arid regions known as “micro-irrigation.” In the previous two years, the organization honored NGOs and political leaders that worked to alleviate hunger.

Regardless, this year’s inclusion of scientists with deep roots in the biotech field is sure not to sit well with opponents of GMO crops. Though genetically modified seeds are hailed as a solution to alleviate hunger and increase crop yields, critics worry about the legal repercussions of corporate control over food sources, as well as the loss of biodiversity and potential impact on the environment.

More controversial is whether GMO foods may produce adverse health effects by human consumption. Critics of genetically modified plants point to the possibility of transferring antibiotic resistance, or the creation of allergens that might impact both humans and animals.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Amid the swirl of mysteries surrounding the alleged Boston bombers, one fact, barely touched upon in the mainstream U.S. media, stands out: There is a strong possibility that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers, was a double agent, perhaps recruited by the FBI.

If Tsarnaev was a double agent, he would be just one of thousands of young people coerced by the FBI, as the price for settling a minor legal problem, into a dangerous career as an informant.

That he was so coerced is the easiest explanation for two seemingly incompatible incidents in his life:

The first is that he returned to Russia in 2012, ostensibly to renew his Russian passport so he could file an application for US citizenship.

The second is that Tsarnaev then jeopardized his citizenship application with conspicuous, provocative – almost theatrical – behavior that seemed more caricature than characteristic of a Muslim extremist.

False Notes

While walking around in flashy western clothes in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, he visited his cousin, Magomed Kartashov, a prominent Islamist leader, already on the Russians’ radar. The two reportedly spent hours discussing Tsarnaev’s wish to join a terrorist cell there in the Caucasus. Later, Russian authorities asked Kartashov if he had tried to incite Tsarnaev with “extremist” views. Kartashov said it was the other way around: he had tried to convince Tsarnaev that “violent methods are not right.”

Experts agree that Tsarnaev could not have expected such provocative activity to escape the notice of the vigilant Russian authorities.

Back in America, Tsarnaev again called attention to himself as a radical Muslim. Just one month after he returned from his trip, a YouTube page that appeared to belong to him featured multiple jihadist videos that he had purportedly endorsed.

And in January 2013, he got himself thrown out of a mosque in Cambridge for shouting at a speaker who compared the Prophet Mohammed to Martin Luther King Jr. Tsarnaev rarely attended this mosque, but he must have known it was moderate. (He had done something similar the previous November at the same mosque.) Typically, jihadists are trained to blend in, to be as inconspicuous as possible. Did Tsarnaev go to this mosque with the express intent of smoking out possible radicals?

The key to Tsarnaev’s puzzling behavior may lie in the answer to another question: when exactly did Tsarnaev first come to the attention of the FBI? The timeline offered by the agency, and duly reported in the mainstream media, has been inconsistent. One story line focused on the FBI’s response to an alert from Russian authorities.

Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times, wrote, on April 24, 2013,

The first Russian request came in March 2011 through the F.B.I.’s office in the United States Embassy in Moscow. The one-page request said Mr. Tsarnaev  ”had changed drastically since 2010” and was preparing to travel to a part of Russia “to join unspecified underground groups.”

The Russian request was reportedly based on intercepted phone calls between Tsarnaev’s mother and an unidentified person (The Guardian [London], April 21, 2013). According to another source, several calls were intercepted, including one between Tsarnaev and his mother.

So was it the Russian alert in March 2011 that first prompted the FBI to investigate Tsarnaev? This conclusion seems undermined by another report in the Times–written four days earlier by the same two reporters plus a third— that dated the agency’s first contact with Tamerlan and family members at least two months earlier, in January 2011.

If the FBI interviewed Tsarnaev before the Russians asked them to, then what prompted the agency’s interest in him? Were his contacts here as well as in Russia considered useful to American counterintelligence?

The Canadian Connection

Although it’s not known why the Russians were intercepting phone calls involving the Tsarnaevs, one reason might have been Tamerlan’s connection, direct or indirect, with a Canadian terrorist named William Plotnikov. According to USA Today, a Russian security official told the AP that

Plotnikov had been detained in Dagestan in December 2010 on suspicion of having ties to the militants and during his interrogation was forced to hand over a list of social networking friends from the United States and Canada who like him had once lived in Russia, Novaya Gazeta reported. The newspaper said Tsarnaev’s name was on that list, bringing him for the first time to the attention of Russia’s secret services.

According to a slightly different version, Plotnikov, “while under interrogation in the militant hotbed of Dagestan, named Tsarnaev as a fellow extremist.”

The similar backgrounds of Plotnikov and Tsarnaev make it likely that they had indeed been in contact. Both were recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Both had successful boxing careers in North America, and both surprised their friends by converting to Islamist extremism.

Plotnikov was a member of the Caucasus Emirate, an al-Qaeda ally, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been searching for him since 2010. By 2011 the United States had joined the Russians in targeting this terrorist group as an al-Qaeda ally, and had offered $5 million for information leading to the capture of the group’s leader Dokka Umarov. (Moscow Times, May 27, 2011)

Plotnikov was killed in July 2012 in a shootout between militants and police in Dagestan. Tsarnaev left Dagestan for America two days after Plotnikov was killed.

US and Russia Share Concerns

Tsarnaev’s hopes for a Russian passport would have been put at risk by his openly provocative behavior in Dagestan —unless he was acting as an informant. But for which government, the U.S. or Russia?

The United States and Russia have two shared concerns in the “arc of crisis” stretching from Afghanistan to the Caucasus — terrorism and drugs. The two problems are interrelated, because drugs, especially in the Caucasus, help finance terror operations. This vitally affects Russia, both because it has one of the highest heroin death rates in the world, and even more because some of its member republics, like Dagestan, are up to 80 percent Muslim. This shared concern has led to a successful joint US-Russia anti-drug operation in Afghanistan.

Was Tamerlan Tsarnaev caught up in a similar counter-intelligence operation?

The FBI’s Dysfunctional Informant Program

One of the more controversial features of the FBI’s informant program is the frequency with which FBI agents coerce young people into the dangerous role of informant, as a price for settling a minor legal problem. Tsarnaev fits the mold.  His successful career as a boxer was interrupted and his application for U.S. citizenship was held up (and perhaps denied) because “a 2009 domestic violence complaint was standing in his way.” This alone would mark him as a candidate for recruitment.

Thousands of vulnerable young people avoid our overcrowded prisons by agreeing to become snitches, sometimes wearing a wire. In this way a person whose only crime may have been selling marijuana to a friend can end up risking his career and even his life. And for what?

According to Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker,

The snitch-based system has proved notoriously unreliable, fuelling wrongful convictions. In 2000, more than twenty innocent African-American men in Hearne, Texas, were arrested on cocaine charges, based on the false accusations of an informant seeking to escape a burglary charge. This incident, and a number of others like it, prompted calls for national legislation to regulate informant use.

After 9/11, the coercive techniques of the FBI drug war, along with half of the agents using them, were redirected to surveillance of Muslims. The emphasis was no longer on investigation of specific crimes, but the recruitment of spies to report on all Muslim communities.

In 2005 the FBI’s Office of the Inspector General found that a high percentage of cases involving informants contained violations of the FBI’s own guidelines. Its report noted that since 2001 the rules had been loosened to reflect the new emphasis on intelligence gathering and. by extension, the bureau’s urgent need for informants.

According to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, … nearly every major post-9/11 terrorism-related prosecution has involved a sting operation, at the center of which is a government informant. In these cases, the informants–who work for money or are seeking leniency on criminal charges of their own–have crossed the line from merely observing potential criminal behavior to encouraging and assisting people to participate in plots that are largely scripted by the FBI itself. Under the FBI’s guiding hand, the informants provide the weapons, suggest the targets and even initiate the inflammatory political rhetoric that later elevates the charges to the level of terrorism.

A writer for Mother Jones, Trevor Aaronson, also investigated the FBI’s informant-led terrorism cases for over a year; he too found that in a number of cases, “the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity.”

Refuse the FBI and See What Happens

And what happens to Muslims who refuse to become spies? The case of Ahmadullah Niazi is not atypical. Niazi was one of several members of a California mosque who sought a restraining court order against another member—actually an FBI informant—who was flagrantly advocating violence in their midst. When Niazi was subsequently asked to become an informant himself and refused, he was arrested on charges of lying to immigration officials about alleged family connections to a member of Al Qaeda. The charges were ultimately withdrawn, but by then both Niazi and his wife had lost their jobs.

Another Muslim, Khalifa al-Akili, when pressured to become an informant, complained to the Guardian newspaper in London that “he believed he was the target of an FBI ‘entrapment’ sting.” One day after the Guardian contacted al-Akili, the FBI arrested him on a felony charge for illegal gun possession, based on the fact that two years earlier he had used a friend’s rifle (at a firing range), something he was prohibited from doing since he already had a drug conviction on his record. Al-Akili was held without bail as a potential threat to the public, and ultimately convicted.

These recruitments were taking please in a climate of fear. In addition to the tens of thousands of Muslims in America who were interviewed or investigated after 9/11, there were also by 2003 (according to an American imam’s compilation of US Government figures), 6,483 detained or arrested, 3,208 deported, 13,434 in process of deportation, and 144,513 interviewed and then registered under a Special Registration program of the Justice Department.

It is instructive to study how the FBI handled drone victim Anwar al-Awlaki. Right after 9/11, Awlaki was the “go-to” imam for the U.S media, because of his willingness to denounce the atrocity as anti-Islamic. But a few years earlier, while a Muslim cleric in San Diego, he had been twice arrested and convicted for soliciting prostitutes. According to Awlaki, he had been set up both times, because the U.S. government had been trying to recruit him as a spy:

In 1996 while waiting at a traffic light in my minivan a middle aged woman knocked on the window of the passenger seat. By the time I rolled down the window and before even myself or the woman uttering a word I was surrounded by police officers who had me come out of my vehicle only to be handcuffed. I was accused of soliciting a prostitute and then released. They made it a point to make me know in no uncertain terms that the woman was an undercover cop. I didn’t know what to make of the incident. However a few days later came the answer. I was visited by two men who introduced themselves as officials with the US government … and that they are interested in my cooperation with them. When I asked what cooperation did they expect, they responded by saying that they are interested in having me liaise with them concerning the Muslim community of San Diego. I was greatly irritated by such an offer and made it clear to them that they should never expect such cooperation from myself. I never heard back from them again until in 1998 when I was approached by a woman, this time from my window and again I was surrounded by police officers who this time had go to court. This time I was told that this is a sting operation and you would not be able to get out of it.

Awlaki’s allegations may have been at least partly true. In 2002, when he came under suspicion in Operation Green Quest, an investigation of Muslim nonprofit organizations, the FBI reportedly did try to flip him, using prostitution charges.

According to U.S. News,

FBI agents hoped al-Awlaki might cooperate with the 9/11 probe if they could nab him on similar charges in Virginia. FBI sources say agents observed the imam allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia and contemplated using a federal statute usually reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines.

Were the FBI’s recruitment efforts successful? Another Muslim “person of interest,” Ali al-Timimi, tells a strange tale about al-Awlaki’s unnaturally provocative behavior:

When Awlaki came to his home, Timimi said, he started talking about recruiting Western jihadists. “Ali had never, in his whole life, even talked to the guy or met him,” Timimi’s lawyer, Edward MacMahon, told me. “Awlaki just showed up at his house and asked him if he could assist him in finding young men to join the jihad.” MacMahon said that Timimi was suspicious of Awlaki showing up “completely out of the blue” (Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars, 71).

Timimi’s attorneys argued that Awlaki was wearing a wire at the time, and asked that the US Government produce the tapes, which would show Timimi’s rejection of Awlaki’s terrorist request. The Government refused, on the grounds that “We are aware of no authority for this request.” Timimi, a promising research scientist, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Another glaring indication that Awlaki had been flipped is the ease with which he was able to return to the US from studies in Yemen in 2002, even though there was outstanding warrant for his arrest.

On October 9, 2002, the U.S. Attorney’s office in Colorado “abruptly filed a motion to have the warrant for Awlaki’s arrest vacated and dismissed.”

On October 10, Awlaki and his family arrived at JFK airport on a flight from Saudi Arabia. After a brief period of confusion, Customs officials released them and recorded later that the FBI had told them “the warrant had been removed on 10/9.” In fact, documents show the warrant was still active, and was only vacated later that day.

Asked to comment on these anomalies, former FBI agents indicated there were only two likely explanations: either the bureau let the cleric into the country to track him for intelligence, or the bureau wanted to work with him as a friendly contact.

Does a similar analysis apply to the FBI’s curious “relationship” with Tamerlan Tsarnaev?

Despite Tsarnaev’s inflammatory behavior, as reported by the Russians and also in this country, a senior law enforcement official told the New York Times  that intelligence agencies never followed up on Tsarnaev once he returned to the U.S., because their investigation “did not turn up anything and it did not have the legal authority to keep tabs on him”

This claim sounds strange in the light of recent revelations about widespread surveillance of telephone and Internet traffic of ordinary Americans and the ease with which law enforcement officials obtain warrants to probe more deeply into the activities of anyone suspected of ties to “terrorists.”

The case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, like that of Anwar al-Awlaki, leaves many unanswered questions. But one thing seems clear: the FBI’s informant program, especially when dealing with the War on Terror, has proliferated wildly out of control.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

This article originally appeared on: RT

Iranian president-elect Hassan Rohani expresses hope that the prudence of regional countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia can help return peace and stability to the Middle East.

Å“A foreign policy priority for Iran has always been paying attention to the region and neighboring countries and [this issue] will have special importance in the new administration,” Rohani said Monday.

He made the remarks in response to a congratulatory message by Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz on his election victory.

Rohani emerged victorious in Iranâ„¢s 11th presidential election of June 14, which was marked by a high voter turnout, winning 50.7 percent of a total of 36,704,156 ballots counted. The voter turnout in the election was 72.7 percent, according to Iranâ„¢s Interior Ministry.

In response to a congratulatory message by Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the newly-elected Iranian president said the expansion of Å“brotherly and amicable” ties between Tehran and Beirut has always been among priorities of the Islamic Republicâ„¢s foreign policy.

Rohani added that his administration would place great emphasis on further enhancing relations with Lebanon.

In a message on June 16, Berri extended his congratulations and that of Lebanese lawmakers to Rohani on his landslide victory in the presidential election and wished him success in carrying out his duties to further boost national development and growth and consolidate unity among world Muslims.

The Iranian president-elect also responded to President of Maldives Mohammed Waheed Hassanâ„¢s congratulatory message and called for bolstering bilateral ties and strengthening relations among Muslim countries.

Rohani currently represents Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei in the Supreme National Security Council, and is a member of the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. He is also president of the Expediency Council’s Center for Strategic Research.

SF/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Lloyd Burrell
Natural News
June 24, 2013

Could exposure to radiation from cell phone towers really responsible for over 7,000 cancer deaths? According to research findings from Brazil, the facts speak for themselves. The study established a direct link between cancer deaths in Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s third largest city, with the cell phone network.

What does this direct link stem from?

Over 80 percent of those who succumbed to certain types of cancer resided approximately a third of a mile away from one of the hundreds of cell phone antennae that populate the city.

These cancers, primarily found in the prostate, breasts, lungs, kidneys, liver, are the ones associated with exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs).

This is a real concern for cell phone users and even non- cell phone users. Those who shun mobile phone technology still suffer the consequences of cell phone tower radiation.

Is the Brazilian study an isolated study?

Cell phone tower studies which examined the relationship between radiation exposure and cancer rates were conducted in the city of San Francisco in addition to cities in Austria, Germany, and Israel, dating as far back as the 1970s. All the studies shared similar findings: living within a certain proximity to a cell phone tower increased the risk of cancer anywhere from two to 121 times depending on what type of cancer was detected.

Adilza Condessa Dode, PhD, one of the engineering researchers as well as the coordinator of the Brazilian study, addresses those who are concerned about cell phone tower radiation and explains the Brazil study does not stand alone. Dode elaborates, “these levels (EMFs), are already high and dangerous to human health. The closer you live to an antenna, the greater the contact with the electromagnetic field.”

The Brazilian study covers just one city in Brazil. Residents of the United States are vulnerable too as America is home to hundreds of thousands of these radiation emitting towers. In the U.S., with the proliferation of cell phones and the growing needs of cell phone users in recent years, there has been an explosion in cell towers.

Overwhelming evidence

A growing number of organizations and many more studies support the conclusions of the Brazilian study. The International Association for Research on Cancer (IARC), based upon findings from research conducted by an international think tank, came to the conclusion that radio frequency radiation, including the radiation spewing from cell towers, is a possible carcinogen.

The BioInitiative 2012 Report written by a group of leading independent international scientists has put out an unequivocal health warning against exposure to EMFs. This includes exposures from cell phone towers.

Why are cell phone towers particularly dangerous?

The threat comes from the constant nature of the activity of the towers; they emit pulsed radio frequency radiation. This radiation has been shown in thousands of studies to cause biological damage to the body and to be a precursor to disease.

What are some of the dangers (besides cancer), which result from this damage and are associated with EMFs and cell phone antennae?

– Genetic mutations
– Memory disruptions
– Hindered learning
– ADD
– Insomnia
– Brain disorders
– Hormonal imbalances
– Infertility
– Dementia
– Heart complications

These dangers clearly make it imperative to take action.

Cell towers are here to stay but their implantation needs effective regulation in terms of location and radiation levels. The 1996 Telecommunications Act (TCA), does not qualify the public’s right to protest cell tower locations based on health hazards. Cell towers should be located away from residential areas and far away from schools and day care centers.

Sources:

http://www.getmefacts.info/

http://www.hellkom.co.za

http://www.cell-out.org/

http://whyfry.org

http://cdn.bizcommunity.com

http://www.magdahavas.com

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:20 am

Tags: environment, health, science

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Afghan protesters burn a US flag during an anti-US demonstration in Jalalabad, April 15, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

This article originally appeared on: RT

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was booed and interrupted by a group of liberal activists after defending the NSA’s electronic surveillance program at a conference in Silicon Valley on Saturday.

Pelosi condemned National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden for exposing the agency’s controversial data-gathering practices, noting that what he did was illegal.

“He did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents,” Pelosi told attendees of the annual Netroots National conference of liberal Internet activists. “We have to have a balance between security and privacy.”

She also said it was unfair to compare the president’s office to President George W. Bush’s “fourth term”, and argued that Obama’s administration increased oversight of the NSA by giving the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (FISA) courts a role in approving the agency’s programs.

“People on the far right are saying oh, this is the fourth term of President Bush,” Pelosi said. “Absolutely, positively not so.”

Pelosi’s comments provoked the crowd, prompting conference attendees to boo and interrupt the lawmaker they previously looked up to. Security guards escorted one activist out of the conference room because he stood up and questioned Pelosi too loudly.

“It’s not a balance. It’s not constitutional!” shouted 57-year-old Marc Perkel from Gilroy, Calif., before being escorted out. “No secret laws!”

Several other activists walked out in support of the man, angry at the California Democrat’s remarks. Others shouted comments in support of Perkel, and expressed their opposition to the NSA surveillance program, with some calling the US a police state.

“Leave him alone! Secrets and lies! No secret courts! Protect the First Amendment,” the audience members shouted, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

“You suck!” one man yelled at Pelosi. Conference moderator Zerlina Maxwell tried to calm the crowd, telling the activists that they should submit questions via Twitter rather than yelling them out, but Pelosi said she welcomed the shouted questions. After being booed and interrupted, the House Minority Leader continued to discuss the NSA scandal, noting that the problem is the outsourcing of government programs to contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton, which is where Snowden worked.

Outside the hall, Perkel told the San Jose Mercury News that he believes Pelosi has good intentions, but simply does not fully understand the NSA’s data collection programs. The lawmaker received positive reactions on many of the other issues she discussed, including gay and lesbian workplace rights and bringing more women into positions of power. But regarding the NSA, the liberal activists were largely disappointed in their leader.

“We’re listening our progressive leaders who are supposed to be on our side of the team saying it’s OK for us to get targeted for online surveillance,” Jana Thrift of Eugene, Ore., told the San Jose Mercury News. “It’s crazy. I don’t know who Nancy Pelosi really is.”

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: ‘You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say’ – http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html

This article originally appeared on: RT

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses deputies of his ruling Justice and Development Party in Ankara on June 18, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s “progressive” fan base at the Netroots Nation conference shouted her down on Saturday after she defended the NSA’s blatant violation of the Constitution and she called whistleblower Edward Snowden a criminal.

Disregarding Benjamin Franklin’s admonition that those who surrender liberty for security deserve neither, Pelosi insisted the nation needs to sideline the Fourth Amendment in a trade-off — she called it “balance” — between national security and privacy.

“As far as Snowden: he did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents,” she said.

As she uttered her treasonous absurdity about the Bill of Rights, Mark Perkel, an activist from California, started shouting at Pelosi. “It’s not a balance. It’s not constitutional!” he insisted. “No secret laws!”

According to Politico, Perkel was “escorted” out of the room by security. “Leave him alone!” other attendees at the conference demanded. “That’s what a police state looks like right there!”

“You suck!” another person yelled at Pelosi.

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

CBS News
June 24, 2013

Ecuador’s foreign minister said Monday his country would act not on its interests but on its principles as it considers an asylum request from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, wanted for revealing classified U.S. secrets.

Speaking to reporters in Hanoi, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said he could not comment on Snowden’s location after the U.S. fugitive appeared not to have boarded a flight from Moscow to Cuba on which he was booked.

“I cannot give information with respect to that … we cannot offer specific information about the specific situation of Mr. Snowden at this moment,” he said.

Read more

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 11:06 am

Tags: big brother, domestic news, domestic spying, foreign affairs

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

RT
June 24, 2013

The US Environmental Protection Agency has dropped its plans to further investigate whether or not fracking led to the contamination of a Wyoming aquifer, and the agency no longer plans to write a report on the matter.

The EPA in 2011 released a draft report, which revealed that hydraulic fracturing fluids used at a shale gas drilling site had likely contaminated groundwater in Pavillion, Wyoming. Oil and gas companies have long argued that fracking poses no water contamination risks, but the EPA’s results demonstrated otherwise.

Critics of the findings, including Wyoming state officials and drilling advocates, argued that the EPA conducted a poor and inaccurate study, which could ultimately harm the industry. Despite the initial wave of criticism in 2011, EPA officials planned to resume the study and continue making assessments regarding the influence of fracking on groundwater. But the EPA on Thursday abandoned those plans, announcing that state officials will instead take over the investigation into Pavillion’s water pollution and draw up a conclusion in 2014.

“We think this is the most pragmatic, quickest way to help the residents of Pavillion. We’re going to work hand in hand with the state to make sure this investigation moves forward,” EPA spokesman Tom Reynolds announced in Washington, D.C.

Wyoming will receive a $1.5 million grant from Encana Corp.’s US oil and gas subsidiary, which owns the Pavillion gas field in question. The state plans to issue a final report about its findings in late 2014. Industry officials and drilling proponents have praised the decision to hand over responsibility of the study to Wyoming state officials.

“EPA has to do a better job, because another fatally flawed water study could have a big impact on how the nation develops its massive energy resources,” Erik Milito, from the Washington, D.C.-based American Petroleum Institute, said in a news release.

“The EPA has been on a witch hunt to shut down hydraulic fracturing,” Sen. David Vitter, the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, told Reuters.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said in a news release that letting state officials run the investigation is “in everyone’s best interest”, since it would lead to “an unbiased, scientifically supportable conclusion.”

But Mead, a known advocate of drilling, has made no attempt to hide his own biases. Last September, Mead asked the Interior Department to abandon fracking rules, claiming that it was unnecessary to request companies to disclose the chemicals they inject down well bores. He has long opposed having any federal fracking rules, and urges lawmakers to let states make their own decisions.

And the Native Americans who live around the fracking site may not even take part in the study, despite the fact that contaminated groundwater has the greatest impact on their tribe. The Northern Arapaho Tribe, which lives on a reservation surrounding Pavillion, has long sought to maintain a role in the investigation. But a tribal official told AP that the EPA has stopped consulting with the community.

“They have a legal duty to consult with the tribe and that didn’t happen as part of their dialogue with the governor,” Ronald Oldman, co-chairman of the tribe’s business council, said in a statement.

It is unclear why the EPA abandoned the study, but with state officials — many of which are fracking proponents — leading the investigation, the results could look very different from the 2011 draft report that linked fracking chemicals to groundwater contamination.

June 24, 2013
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Edward Snowden, who is said to have flown from Hong Kong to Moscow yesterday, potentially en route to Ecaduar by way of Cuba, was not on a flight Monday from Russia to Havana, despite having a ticket.

It also raised the possibility that the Russian government had detained him, either to consider the demands by the Obama administration to intercept him and return him to the United States or perhaps to question him for Russia’s own purposes.

Mr. Snowden has not been seen publicly or photographed since his reported arrival in Moscow on Sunday afternoon from Hong Kong, and passengers on that flight interviewed at the airport could not confirm that he was on board.

Despite the lack of certainty (or, to be less euphemistic, despite the fact that nobody seems to have a clue what’s really going on), lawmakers were quick to condemn Russia and the assorted other nations on Snowden’s potential and/or alleged itinerary.

The apparent cooperation of the Russian government in Snowden’s attempt to avoid extradition to the United States outraged some members of Congress.

“What’s infuriating here is [President Vladimir] Putin of Russia aiding and abetting Snowden’s escape,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” […] Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) agreed that Sunday’s events call “into question what kind of relationship we ever have had with China and Russia. We pretend that everything is hunky-dory when it is not. It isn’t with China. It isn’t with Russia. It certainly isn’t with Cuba, with Venezuela nor with Ecuador.”

I suspect the reality is that nobody really knows everything that’s going on and the people that know the most are saying the least. In the meantime, the debate will rage on about the countries through which Snowden may or may not pass–are they friend or foe, ally or enemy? And so to will the debate about Snowden himself: Hero or traitor, et cetera and so forth.

The good news is that the government–at least according to rumor–will be keeping a fairly comprehensive archive of that debate. For posterity.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Lebanese troops have arrested 60 followers of the hard-line Takfiri cleric, Ahmad al-Assir, after heavy clashes in southern port city of Sidon.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem has categorically denied claims about Iranâ„¢s military presence in Damascus, saying Tehran always seeks a political solution to the crisis in Syria.

Speaking to reporters in Damascus on Monday, Moallem said claims by certain countries supporting terrorism that Iran has military forces in Syria are just a rumor.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is an important country in the Middle East which has always sought a political solution and dialogue to end war in Syria since the outset of the crisis in the Arab state, the minister was quoted as saying.

He praised the Iranian and Russian position on the crisis in Syria, particularly the two countriesâ„¢ opposition to interference of the US and Western countries in Syriaâ„¢s internal affairs.

Unrest has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

Reports show the chaos in the country is being orchestrated from outside and that a very large number of militants are foreign nationals.

The Syrian foreign minister further stressed the importance of Iranâ„¢s presence in the upcoming international Geneva conference on Syria, stressing that the Islamic Republic is an influential country in the Middle East region.

On May 7, Russia and the United States agreed in Moscow to convene an international conference on Syria, which will serve as a follow-up to an earlier Geneva meeting held in June 2012.

Iranâ„¢s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday expressed Tehranâ„¢s preparedness to participate in the Geneva conference if invited.

Iran has repeatedly expressed its opposition to any foreign intervention in Syria’s internal affairs, stressing that inclusive dialog and national reconciliation as well as free elections are the keys to resolving the unrest in the Arab country.

SF/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The interpreter warned us about getting into East Berlin. “They’ll probably hold you an hour,” he predicted. “Normally, it would be a half hour but they’re in a bad mood because of Brezhnev.”

The Soviet leader had died two days before and bleak predictions circulated about how the shock, along with West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt’s fall from power earlier in the year, would affect East-West relations. None of this changed our minds. A peace meeting would be starting at an obscure church on the other side of the Berlin Wall in a little more than an hour. We didn’t have the exact address and knew only a few German phrases. But the journey was worth the risk.

Harro, the lanky blonde interpreter who was squiring us around, gently discouraged the idea. The East Germans would scalp us each for 25 marks, force us to exchange them at par for Eastern marks worth only a quarter as much. Once we returned the money would be worthless. And if we didn’t make it back across the border by midnight, we could be thrown in jail.

Quite a way to spend our second night in in the country.

An East German journalist had brought up the meeting earlier that day. “You can only see the peace movement when people assemble,” he explained. The meeting was one of about 2,000 being held during a ten-day period called the annual “Peace Decade.” All the events were being held in churches, institutions that had become the motor for a new movement.

In response to a renewed militarization of daily life, thousands of East Germans were gathering. Some had signed the Berliner Appeal, a letter calling for an end to military training and a peace curriculum in the schools. Others wore pacifist armbands – even after they were banned by the state and replaced with government-circulated anti-NATO emblems.

The East German government showed open disdain for the pacifist drift of the activities, according to the journalist who gave us the tip. “In the GDR,” he said, “the official meaning of peace is ‘peace must be armed’.” Yet after the 1979 NATO decision to deploy more than 100 Pershing missiles in West Germany, both East and West Germans saw the threat.

“People felt that war was a real possibility,” explained the writer. And so, reaction in the East grew within the only autonomous organizations in the country — churches.

With the border minutes away I reviewed what I’d heard over the last 24 hours. West Berliners were worried about the “tough words from the White House,” Alex Langolios said. Alex was deputy speaker of the Berlin Parliament and a Social Democrat. “We’re nervous when we hear about winning a nuclear war.”

He talked up East-West cooperation, a guarded interdependence in relation to trade, and the need to fight fear on both sides of the Wall. This Social Democrat sounded very much like an American Democrat. Echoing their warnings about the Reagan agenda, he suggested that relations could deteriorate further with the Christian Democrats taking the reins.

In West Berlin, the Christian Democratic Party had been in control since the recent local elections. Here and elsewhere, the attraction of Social Democratic liberalism had faded with the failure of Germany’s “economic miracle.” The economy had stopped growing, national unemployment was over two million, and the government was resorting to debt financing. In Berlin, unemployment was over 8 percent, and up to 15 percent among the young. There were over 10,000 vacant apartments in the city, a result of both speculation and years of neglect. Yet 50,000 people were looking for homes.

In recent years, the city’s population had dropped by about 300,000 to 1.9 million, despite aggressive attempts to lure new industry, subsidies from the national government, and even a legal loophole that allowed young people to defer military service as long as they lived in West Berlin. On the other hand, what had grown was the number of squatters and Turkish guest workers, the latter exacerbating the unemployment situation.

“Berliners think this city is the center of the world,” Langolios confided. Still, he had to admit that social stress was bringing the viability of the center into question.

The story was similar across the country. After 15 years with Social Democrats in charge, the consensus had cracked. Economic stagnation, combined with the cumulative strain of being a front line state in the struggle between East and West, became too much for Chancellor Schmidt. In late September, his coalition partners, the Free Democrats, had called for severe budget cutting. Before the issue was resolved, the small party – representing less than ten percent of the national vote, with support mainly from entrepreneurs and professionals — deserted the Social Democrats and joined with the Christian Democrats to topple the government.

 The center split and the fate of the nation was up for grabs.

Getting through customs turned out to be no problem. The East Berlin officials barely glanced at our passports before issuing temporary visas and collecting a five mark entry fee. Minutes later we were on a windy street looking for directions to Auferstehung Kirchengemeinde, the Church of the Resurrection, where one of the peace meetings was already underway. About 55 similar gatherings had already taken place during the last week in East Berlin alone.

Flags were at half-mast in honor of Brezhnev. Otherwise it felt like a “normal” night as we hailed a cab. For five marks the driver took us out of the neon-lit central district, past a 20-foot portrait of Lenin, to a dark street, and pointed to a barely visible building across the wide road.

 ”Speak English,” someone yelled.

When we explained that we couldn’t follow the discussion, a young man volunteered to translate. Ret was a garrulous, worldly rebel, a self-described “anarchist not a terrorist,” and admirer of the guru Rajneesh. His main complaint about life under socialism was the inability to obtain books about his favorite topics.

After chiding the speakers for talking too long, members of the audience addressed the need to incorporate an ecological perspective in the peace movement and break down “ideological blocks.” One voice urged a “revolution of Christians, without weapons, a non-aggressive approach to break the circle.”

The churchman at the head table offered support. “There are many ways to the goal,” he said. “We must try to see every possibility. There are many faces of pacifism in this city.” But the Party spokesman objected that “the situation is too dangerous. We must work together, for there will be no weeping after a nuclear war.”

 The dialogue expanded, gradually revealing frustration with official resistance to the peace movement. Most people were in their twenties and thirties, sober-looking men and women dressed in work clothes. Sitting directly across from us, however, was a young woman who looked as if she had been airlifted in from downtown West Berlin. Chains and safety-pins adorned her blue jeans, going well with her orange hairdo. Her jacket featured a handmade version of the banned symbol of the pacifist peace movement, a man hammering a sword into a plowshare.

She and her boyfriend, wearing denim and a collection of Western buttons, were reminders of the influence of Western media on the East. Their wardrobes were statements of revolt that could easily provoke police persecution. There was no youth culture on this side of the Wall to provide cover for such defiance.

The group in the church wasn’t anti-socialist, but there were serious complaints about the government’s approach to peace. “We want one peace movement in all the world,” said one man, “but we want it to be creative.” Another challenged the party spokesman to explain, “Why are there lessons for war and not for peace?” This was a reference to the military curriculum in schools and the military camps youngsters had to attend during holidays.

The party man tried to steer discussion back to what he called “objective” issues, urging mutual respect and obedience to the law. It just isn’t possible for anyone to simply make a placard and parade in the streets, he advised. This increased the anger growing in the audience. In response, the church spokesman urged that his institution become “a forum for the whole society to discuss these issues.”

Sensing that things were careening out of control, the moderator called for a ten-minute recess.

As we headed for the hall, a silent observer at the back of the chapel handed me a calling card. It read: Lynn J. Turk, Second Secretary and Vice Consul, American Embassy. He was a diplomat, he said, assigned to study the East German peace movement, and offered to fill us in before providing an escort us back across the border.

At a comfortable apartment, with his South Korean wife listening, Turk traced the emergence of the East German peace movement to the 1979 NATO “double track” decision. The two “tracks” were a) negotiations for nuclear arms reductions, and b) deployment of Cruise and Pershing missiles if those negotiations fell through. After the announcement, the churches had geared up to protest.

But the movement hadn’t blossomed until 1981, when about 6,000 people met across the street from a bombed out church ruin in Dresden on the anniversary of the devastating 1945 US attack on that city. West German television recorded the ‘81 event, beaming it back east. At about the same time Pastor Rainer Eppelmann initiated what became known as the Berliner Appeal.

The Appeal called for the prohibiting of military toy sales, the outlawing of military training, peace information in the schools – including study of peaceful solutions to conflict, ecology and psychology, no retaliation against those who refused military service, and no more military demonstrations at festivals or national holidays.

According to Turk, the Appeal campaign was being eroded by government repression. The plowshares symbol had been banned and replaced by the state, and non-Christian activists were being pressured into exile or silence. But the crackdown still stopped at the doors of the church. The reason for this tolerance, he theorized, was that “repression here would damage the West German peace movement, confirming the West’s view of the East.”

Though claiming he opposed first strike weapons, Turk viewed the East as a serious military threat and East Germany as a totalitarian society whose rulers only allowed peaceniks to meet for the most cynical of reasons. He meanwhile claimed that the Soviets had stationed tactical nuclear weapons in East Germany, a piece of likely disinformation I was unable to confirm in any with any government official or activist.

Minutes before midnight we arrived at Checkpoint Charlie. From Turk’s car I could see the eight-foot corrugated fence, and beyond it the cement-covered no man’s land known as the Wall. To make certain no one escaped, rumor had it, the East Germans even checked under the cars with mirrors.

Turk urged us to ask East German officials why the Wall was still up. “They’ll say it’s an anti-fascist wall,” he predicted, implying that the real reason was that most people would race across the border if given the chance. When I finally did question an East German bureaucrat about this, he said the wall had been erected — and was maintained — to prevent black market destabilization of the economy, along with an exodus of East German professionals lured by higher pay on the other side.

After 15 minutes the border guard returned our passports, but chided us for not returning by the same route we’d used to enter. On the other hand, he barely looked inside the vehicle before lifting the metal gate to let us pass and I could see no evidence of mirrors on the ground.

A New Political Culture

When an old West Berlin factory complex in Kreuzberg was slated for demolition in 1979, squatters moved into the empty front apartments to save it and an alternative community was born. Over the next few years the Kerngehause squatters held a consortium of speculators at bay and launched a variety of collective projects. By 1982, groups living and working out of the address were running food and taxi coops, a metal shop, language and alternative energy groups, a self-help health project, as well as a theater and a rock group.

The squatters, who paid rent into an escrow account used for renovations, were part of a citywide alternative culture. Kerngehause was one of many attempts to deal with unemployment and emotional alienation by developing a dual economic and social structure. Although not all squatter houses were as evolved, most shared a tradition of open revolt against conventional lifestyles and exploitative relations.

Berlin’s alternative movement developed in the ’70s as many college-educated young people realized that “over industrialized” Germany provided too few jobs while restricting personal choice. They formed collectives, started an alternative daily newspaper, set up their own bank, and gradually entered electoral politics. The squatters, about 2,000 clustered at more than 130 locations, dramatically illustrated the style of the movement. While police squads swooped down on some houses, groups liberated new locations, remodeling and improving their dwellings. When electricity was cut off, they surreptitiously tied into cables. 

The links between groups were informal, yet an attitude of solidarity brought them together for demonstrations, cultural happenings and mutual aid. They were part of a broad alliance of peace, anti-nuclear, women’s and cultural groups.

The movement’s center was Kreuzberg, a crumbling neighborhood that still showed scars of wartime bombing. It had since become a haven for the young and many of the city’s 120,000 Turkish guest workers, as well as a stronghold for the Alternative Liste, a new political movement with representation in the local parliament.

An enormous chasm separated the values of the Alternatives from the lifestyles of mainstream Berlin. The collectivist ethics, the desire to reintegrate life and work, the dedication to a no-growth, small scale economy were foreign to most Berliners. In some respects, in fact, West Berlin was more American than some US cities, a neon wonderland, a pumped-up conspicuous consumption society, and a high-tech haven where conservative feathers were ruffled mainly by the sex shops along the main drags.

 The Alternatives had nevertheless made a dent, here and elsewhere in Germany. Expressing its agenda mainly through the Green Party, the movement had effectively raised a variety of environmental issues, winning representation in a half dozen regions. It had begun with massive protests against nuclear power plants and unnecessary demolitions, mushrooming into a nationwide political alliance which aimed at halting nuclear weapons deployment and unlimited economic growth.

I’d seen some of the most visible signs – painted buildings in squatter zones. Before leaving the city I wanted to get behind the walls. A theater production at Kerngehause provided the opportunity; the Ratibor Theater was presenting “Banal,” a punk-rock collection of satirical skits about the foibles of middle class life.

 A youthful four-person cast played the instruments, performed pantomime, used high-tech toys as props, and displayed various symbols of mass society to demonstrate their apparent contempt for consumerism and the sexual games of the straight world. The music sounded a bit like Elvis Costello. After two hours the performance ended with a dreamy swimming sequence, possibly symbolizing a freer lifestyle. The actors glided in slow motion as the audience waved an enormous plastic canopy overhead.

A few days and hundreds of miles later, in the industrial city of Dortmund, a Green Party member put the alternative movement into perspective. “We’re trying to develop a new political culture,” said Lucas Lucasik. “Some of us say we can do something inside the existing system; others speak for fundamental opposition.”

Lucas said that neither the peace movement nor the Green Party had yet developed clear solutions to the economic and foreign policy problems confronting the country. But he reminded me that the party itself, only three years old at the time, was being forced to deal with issues that were often beyond the resources and expertise of such a young movement.

 ”We have problems explaining what we want to voters,” he admitted candidly, “especially when Christian Democrats say we aren’t democratic, that we don’t want to take responsibility, and would make the country ungovernable. We’re not running to make a coalition with any party, we are developing our own strong positions. We would lose our supporters if we changed. We don’t want to rule. We want to change the whole society.”

From Sachsenhausen to Bonn

On a cloudy day we bussed into East Germany for a tour arranged by the Communist government’s US Friendship Committee. At Sachsenhausen, a World War II concentration camp about 30 miles outside Berlin, we were greeted by former inmate Werner Handler, a news editor who recounted the horrors of Hitler fascism.

The camp’s grounds were crowded with German tourists, but not to take in the museum’s memorabilia. They had come instead for army induction ceremonies. Russian troops stood at attention beside German recruits in an open park where the barracks once stood. Handler explained how he had managed, at age 18, to get out of the camp alive, reach Britain, and join the Communist Party.

After the war he was expelled from West Germany for his political leanings and, taking a job at the Voice of the GDR radion station, became a true believer in socialism. When I pressed him about the government crackdown on peace activists and the banning of the Plowshares emblem, he evaded the issue but offered a ride back to town. In his private car, Handler admitted that the government may have been too heavy-handed. 
 

Pacifists are naive, he argued, but argument is preferable to police action.

After an exhausting day we piled onto an overnight train bound for the West. By morning we were in Dortmund, a cross between Detroit and Pittsburgh in the industrial heartland. At a nuclear power plant, public relations men treated us to meals, generous portions of statistics, and bureaucratese about the safety of the technology.

“We have plenty of salt caverns for the waste,” one expert said.

“Will you take ours then?”

 ”Sure.”

Later, I talked with Greens about the need for nukes and other baseload power sources. The answer wasn’t reassuring. “Too much energy is on the market,” said Siggie Kock, a chimney sweep. As he saw it, the real problem was the production of too many unnecessary items. Not the type of response geared to inspiring confidence among industrial workers.

Asking the radicals about economics was almost as frustrating as discussing pacifism with the East German authorities. With strong convictions but little more, most Greens argued simply that “neither the capitalist nor the socialist way will work.” They were searching for a “third way.” What was it? They weren’t quite sure yet.

In Koln, after a church/Communist Party peace rally held in front of the cathedral, I pursued the issue with some of the organizers. One of them, a Communist named Christine, offered a thumbnail critique of the Greens. “In ten years they may not exist,” she predicted. “They don’t relate to the workers. The women’s and other movements are strong, but you can’t change anything without the workers.”

Christine’s vision was that the peace movement would continue to transcend party lines, bringing on a “new moment in history.” But she also feared that the rightward drift of the nation might be too much to overcome.

Other Germans expressed doubts about the Greens. “They’re very green,” Werner Handler joked. “They’re very conservative,” said a PR man at the power plant. Maybe the critics were correct. Still, they’d managed to build significant local bases of power, define a fresh and revolutionary ecological perspective, and catalyze the nation. Blacklisting was clearly part of the reason that the Communist Party had been marginalized, despite its union ties. The Greens were different; their decentralized, holistic approach was both radical and conservative.

They wanted a fundamental change from a “profit-oriented to a life-oriented order,” explained Roland Vogt, a Party co-chair. Using electoral means, fusing the theories of E.F. Schumacher and Ivan Illich with the nonviolence of Gandhi, their goal was to influence the existing system while simultaneously swaying people with their ideas.

During a meeting at the Party’s Bonn headquarters, Vogt outlined the strategy: “Our main purpose is to get out of the vicious cycle of nuclear energy and prevent the deployment of Pershing 2 missiles. Representation in the Bundestag would help, but we wouldn’t form a coalition. As the weaker partner, I wouldn’t propose marriage.”

 But would the party compromise?

“The base on which you make compromises is when something can be divided. But growth is no longer divisible. It’s an all or nothing thing.”

The time had come to hear from the other side. At the Konrad Adenauer House, home of the Christian Democratic Party, Deputy Speaker Walter Bruckmann was ready to oblige. The Social Democrats had failed, he said, because their state-oriented solutions were too socialistic. His party was ready to let the market work and free people to solve their own problems.

It sounded very Reagan-esque. “The best social security against a Soviet invasion is a strong military,” he said. Willing to pay lip service to the overall good intentions of peace activists at first, he was soon criticizing their “illusions” and pointing out some subversive tendencies – pacifism and communism —that undermined national security.

He ultimately defended the blacklisting of radicals. “We have to protect democracy against our enemies,” he explained.

A generation gap was clearly haunting the country. There wasn’t much room for dialogue between eco-radicals and Christian conservatives. Not even the peace movement transcended the barrier between older Germans, trapped in a fortress mentality, and a younger generation for whom power was part of the problem.

After listening to Bruckmann I could see the fractures growing, along with more demonstrations, civil disobedience, and perhaps even violence. Millions were coming to grips with the possibility that the birthplace of the last war also could be the flashpoint for the next.

In East Germany Werner Handler had warned, “Unimaginable things can happen.” The same realization was making the peace movement more than a single issue campaign. For many people it was becoming a matter of survival.

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post
June 24, 2013

President Obama will announce Tuesday in a speech at Georgetown University that he plans to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants, according to individuals who have been briefed on the plan but asked not to be identified.

In a statement Saturday afternoon sent via the White House Twitter feed, Obama said that he plans to fulfill the pledge he made in his second inaugural address to “respond to the growing threat of climate change for the sake of our children and future generations.”

“This Tuesday, I’ll lay out my vision for where I believe we need to go – a national plan to reduce carbon pollution, prepare our country for the impacts of climate change, and lead global efforts to fight it,” the president said. “This is a serious challenge – but it’s one uniquely suited to America’s strengths.”

For months, environmentalists have been pressing the White House to regulate utilities powered by coal and natural gas, which account for a third of the nation’s greenhouse-gas emissions and 40 percent of its carbon output. Last year the Environmental Protection Agency proposed regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from new power plants, but it has delayed finalizing that rule.

According to individuals familiar with the White House plan, who asked not to be identified since the president has yet to deliver his speech, Obama will couch the effort not only in terms of the nation’s domestic priorities, but as a way to meet the administration’s international pledge to reduce the country’s greenhouse-gas emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels. According to an independent analysis by the World Resources Institute, the United States will need to regulate existing power plants and take other steps as well to meet that goal.

In Saturday’s statement, Obama emphasized the economic opportunities that could come from tackling carbon emissions.

“We’ll need scientists to design new fuels, and farmers to grow them,” he said. “We’ll need engineers to devise new sources of energy, and businesses to make and sell them.”

Stephen Green
PJ Media
June 24, 2013

Once again, Sacramento proves that to go really over-the-top, you’ve got to go to Democrat California:

The California Senate this week approved a collection of bills, including one (SB 53) that would require background checks, permits, and fees for the purchase of ammunition.

All ammunition sales would have to be face-to-face, happening only in the presence of a store clerk; and vendors selling the bullets would have to submit sales records to the California Department of Justice. Those vendors also would need a permit to sell ammunition.

Kira Davis notes that SB 53 also “requires background checks and a $50 ammo purchase fee.”

It wasn’t that long ago that I saw Dick Durbin on one of the Sunday shows, with the stuff-eating grin on his face, joked about taxing bullets until they cost a hundred or a thousand dollars apiece. Which I could find that video, but no one seems to have grabbed it.

So if you think something like this can happen only in California – think again.

Kristal Roberts
ABC Action News
June 24, 2013

A burglary suspect sped away from a Manatee house in a hurry after the 84-year-old owner confronted him with a pistol.

The owner, Anthony Disanto, arrived home Sunday and found a newer model VW parked in the driveway of his home on the 2800th block of 26th Ave. Dr. W.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 10:32 am

Tags: domestic news, gun rights

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Italy’s former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been sentenced to seven years in prison over sex scandal and abuse of power.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/boehners_house_implodes_20130624/

Posted on Jun 24, 2013

This article originally appeared on: TruthDig

Two weeks into the hullaballoo surrounding whistleblower Edward Snowden and Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, one thing is clear: they did not just reveal potentially serious crimes perpetrated by the government – including possible perjury,unlawful spying and unconstitutional surveillance. They also laid bare in historic fashion the powerful double standards that now define most U.S. media coverage of the American government – the kind that portray those who challenge power as criminals, and those who worship it as heroes deserving legal immunity. Indeed, after “Meet the Press” host David Gregory’s instantly notorious performance yesterday, it is clear Snowden’s revelations so brazenly exposed these double standards that it will be difficult for the Washington press corps to ever successfully hide them again.

The best way to see these double standards is to ponder 10 simple questions.

1. During that “Meet the Press” discussion yesterday of Greenwald publishing stories about Snowden’s disclosures, Gregory asked Greenwald, “Why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Beyond the odiousness of a supposed journalist like Gregory seeming to endorse criminal charges against journalists for the alleged crime of committing journalism, there’s an even more poignant question suggested by Mother Jones’ David Corn: Why hasn’t David Gregory asked reporters at the Washington Post, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News the same question, considering their publication of similar leaks? Is it because Greenwald is seen as representing a form of journalism too adversarial toward the government, while those establishment outlets are still held in Good Standing by Washington?

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Egyptian prosecutors say the government law enforcement agencies have detained at least 15 suspects in connection with the recent killing of Shia Muslims in the North African country.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Russia has stated that it is studying an extradition request by the United States for intelligence whistle-blower, Edward Snowden, a report says.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Matt Maguire
GamePlanet.co.nz
June 24, 2013

Microsoft’s Kinect technology might be in violation of proposed legislation from a pair of US politicians.

Massachusetts Democrat congressman Mike Capuano and North Carolina Republican congressman Walter Jones hope that their bill — titled “We Are Watching You” — will result in companies being forced to notify technology users whenever they are being recorded.

According to their application, the bill is a response to reports that national telecommunications companies are exploring technology for digital video recorders that will record the personal activities of consumers as they watch television from the privacy of their own homes.

It will not prohibit companies from developing such technology, but instead “lets consumers make their own decisions about whether or not it belongs in their homes”, it reads.

Should the bill pass, the operator of any such data-gathering technology will have to provide specific details on how collected information will be used, and who will have access to the data.

The bill will also compel those companies to display the words “we are watching you” on screen in capital letters that are “large enough to be readable from a distance” any time recording is taking place.

Further, if consumers opt out of the technology, companies are required to offer a video service that does not collect this information but is otherwise identical in all respects.

“This may sound preposterous but it is neither a joke nor an exaggeration,” said congressman Capuano.

“These DVRs would essentially observe consumers as they watch television as a way to super-target ads. It is an incredible invasion of privacy.”

Capuano urged people to think about how they would feel sharing information about what they do in the privacy of their own homes with their cable company, advertisers, and government.

“Given what we have recently learned about the access that the government has to the phone numbers we call, the emails we send, and the websites we visit, it is important for consumers to decide for themselves whether they want this technology,” he said.

“When the government has an unfortunate history of secretly collecting private citizens’ information from technology providers, we must ensure that safeguards are in place to protect Americans’ rights.”

A new Kinect — sensitive enough to detect heartbeats — must be attached to Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox One for the console to function, but Microsoft has been evasive about whether it needs to be switched on or not.

Earlier this month the company said the Kinect’s “always listening” function could be switched off and the device itself “paused” while the Xbox One was on.

“When Xbox One is on and you’re simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded,” it said.

Terence P. Jeffrey
CNS News
June 24, 2013

The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to “unauthorized” alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA).

That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically used by thousands of “unauthorized” alien workers receiving millions in federal tax refunds in 2011. In fact, according to a TIGTA audit report published last year, four of the top ten addresses to which the IRS sent thousands of tax refunds to “unauthorized” aliens were in Atlanta.

The IRS sent 11,284 refunds worth a combined $2,164,976 to unauthorized alien workers at a second Atlanta address; 3,608 worth $2,691,448 to a third; and 2,386 worth $1,232,943 to a fourth.

Other locations on the IG’s Top Ten list for singular addresses that were theoretically used simultaneously by thousands of unauthorized alien workers, included an address in Oxnard, Calif, where the IRS sent 2,507 refunds worth $10,395,874; an address in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the IRS sent 2,408 refunds worth $7,284,212; an address in Phoenix, Ariz., where the IRS sent 2,047 refunds worth $5,558,608; an address in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where the IRS sent 1,972 refunds worth $2,256,302; an address in San Jose, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,942 refunds worth $5,091,027; and an address in Arvin, Calif., where the IRS sent 1,846 refunds worth $3,298,877.

Since 1996, the IRS has issued what it calls Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to two classes of persons: 1) non-resident aliens who have a tax liability in the United States, and 2) aliens living in the United States who are “not authorized to work in the United States.”

The IRS has long known it was giving these numbers to illegal aliens, and thus facilitating their ability to work illegally in the United States. For example, the Treasury Inspector General’s Semiannual Report to Congress published on Oct. 29, 1999–nearly fourteen years ago–specifically drew attention to this problem.

“The IRS issues Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs) to undocumented aliens to improve nonresident alien compliance with tax laws. This IRS practice seems counter-productive to the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s (INS) mission to identify undocumented aliens and prevent unlawful alien entry,” TIGTA warned in that long-ago report.

The inspector general’s 2012 audit report on the IRS’s handling of ITINs was spurred by two IRS employees who went to members of Congress “alleging that IRS management was requiring employees to assign Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITIN) even when the applications were fraudulent.”

In an August 2012 press release accompanying the audit report, TIGTA said the report “validated” the complaints of the IRS employees.

“TIGTA’s audit found that IRS management has not established adequate internal controls to detect and prevent the assignment of an ITIN to individuals submitting questionable applications,” said Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration J. Russell George. “Even more troubling, TIGTA found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications.”

In addition to the 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 that the IRS sent to a single address in Atlanta, the IG also discovered that the IRS had assigned 15,796 ITINs to unauthorized aliens who presumably used a single Atlanta address.

The IRS, according to TIGTA, also assigned ITINs to 15,028 unauthorized aliens presumably using a single address in Dallas, Texas, and 10,356 to unauthorized aliens presumably living at a single address in Atlantic City, N.J.

Perhaps the most remarkable act of the IRS was this: It assigned 6,411 ITINs to unauthorized aliens presumably using a single address in Morganton, North Carolina. According to the 2010 Census, there were only 16,681 people in Morganton. So, for the IRS to have been correct in issuing 6,411 ITINS to unauthorized aliens at a single address in Morganton it would have meant that 38 percent of the town’s total population were unauthorized alien workers using a single address.

TIGTA said there were 154 addresses around the country that appeared on 1,000 or more ITIN applications made to the IRS.

Reuters
June 24, 2013

Gold fell 1 percent on Monday, extending last week’s 7 percent decline, hurt by a stronger dollar amid worries over an early end to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s stimulus programme.

The metal fell closer to a three-year low on investor pessimism following the sharp sell-off last week, triggered when the Fed said it would cut back its monetary easing by mid-2014.

Spot gold lost 1 percent to $1,284.26 an ounce by 0959 GMT after its worst weekly performance last week since September 2011 pushed the price as low as $1,268.89. It is down 24 percent so far this year.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 10:11 am

Tags: domestic news, economics, precious metals

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Bobby Bland was, in his prime, the most powerful blues shouter of all time, though capable as well of a caressing tenderness. “Turn On Your Lovelight” is what the rock world knows, I guess, but the man’s legacy is also in “Ain’t Nothing You Can Do,” “Farther Up the Road,” “I’ll Take Care of You,” “I Pity the Fool,” “Cry Cry Cry,” “If You Could Read My Mind,” to my ear the finest “St. James Infirmary” of them all, the entire Two Steps from the Blues album (which is, without any doubt in my mind, the best Southern soul album, even including Otis’s; it has the impeccable and beautiful and scary “Lead Me On,” for many (including me) the greatest performance of his career. The list goes all the way up to his Malaco sides, particularly “Ain’t No Love In the Heart of the City.” It is not true that Bobby Bland never made a bad record; it is true that his ratio of great to mediocre is as high as any other singer you can name, in any genre you care to cull.

To call him Bobby “Blue” Bland always seems so redundant to me—like, as if he could be heard for so much as eight bars and you wouldn’t know that this was his core, his essence and, one way or another, a heap of your own.  But you can make too much of this essentialism—finally, you know Bobby Bland’s name and music less well because he was like his audience: He was a key voice of the black Southern working class from the ’50s onward. His role was to play the shouter from the anonymous ranks, the totally heart broken man among an all-but-totally heart broken folk. (And of course, once in a while, shouting with exuberance all the greater because of that every day heartbreak.)

He was completely non-intellectual about the whole enterprise, as far as I can tell. Told Peter Guralnick that his ambition was to be able to sing each song the exact same way, every time he sang it. A strange kind of perfectionism, I guess. But his command of tone and phrasing was so great that  for me, he held the place that Frank Sinatra held for a lot of other people. “Lead Me On” in particular has never not brought me to tears, not once, though I sometimes listened to it many, many, many times in a row—when I was by myself, the way that particular act of allegiance is best performed. And you know what? He sings it the same way every time.

Perfection is what he knew a lot about. And I, especially the I who found him on the radio and held him very close to the center of my being for the better part of half a century, will never be able to thank him enough. Or often enough. Or even express what I’m thanking him for altogether adequately.

I will tell you the real truth: He was, for me, probably the greatest blues singer of any kind, and the reason I can say this know instead of at the beginning is quite simple: I started listening to Two Steps from the Blues. 

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Prominent Egyptian Shia cleric, Sheikh Hassan Shehata, and four of his devotees have been killed in a brutal attack carried out by Takfiri extremists in Giza Province near Cairo.

The attack was carried out on Sunday when a crowd of several hundred assailants attacked Sheikh Shehataâ„¢s home and then set it on fire at the village of Abu Mussalam.

Brutal scenes of the crime were posted on the internet late Sunday, showing men dragging Sheikh Shehataâ„¢s bloody body on the street and beating him as the Sheikh chanted Å“Allahu Akbar [God is Great].”

Dozens of other devotees who were at Sheikh Shehataâ„¢s house for commemorating a Shia holy day were also injured.

Dr. Khaled Hamza, General Manager of Hawamdia Hospital in Giza, where the Sheikh was taken after the incident, said, Å“Initial medical reports reveal that when Sheikh Hassan Shehata arrived to the hospital, he appeared to be slaughtered from his neck, in addition to several injuries around his body,” adding that Å“the rest of the bodies had several injuries as well as skull fractures.”

Egyptâ„¢s security forces have been sent to the village to disperse the crowds and contain the situation.

The Egyptian Prime Minister Hesham Kandil has denounced the incident, saying he was closely following the investigation into the attack and promised that the culprits will be punished.

The incident comes a week after Takfiri clerics insulted Shia Muslims during a rally attended by the Egyptian president.

Shias, who form just one percent of Egyptâ„¢s population, are often under attack by extremist groups in the North African country.

DB/HSN/PG/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Indian police stand near the bodies of two Indian army soldiers lying inside a police vehicle near the scene of an attack by militants in the outskirts of Srinagar on June 24, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

As a result of that decision, I have been able to work in relative safety from a US espionage investigation.

But today, Edward Snowden’s ordeal is just beginning.

Two dangerous runaway processes have taken root in the last decade, with fatal consequences for democracy.

Government secrecy has been expanding on a terrific scale.

Simultaneously, human privacy has been secretly eradicated.

A few weeks ago, Edward Snowden blew the whistle on an ongoing program – involving the Obama administration, the intelligence community and the internet services giants – to spy on everyone in the world.

As if by clockwork, he has been charged with espionage by the Obama administration.

The US government is spying on each and every one of us, but it is Edward Snowden who is charged with espionage for tipping us off.

It is getting to the point where the mark of international distinction and service to humanity is no longer the Nobel Peace Prize, but an espionage indictment from the US Department of Justice.

Edward Snowden is the eighth leaker to be charged with espionage under this president.

Bradley Manning’s show trial enters its fourth week on Monday.

After a litany of wrongs done to him, the US government is trying to convict him of “aiding the enemy.”

The word “traitor” has been thrown around a lot in recent days.

But who is really the traitor here?

Who was it who promised a generation “hope” and “change,” only to betray those promises with dismal misery and stagnation?

Who took an oath to defend the US constitution, only to feed the invisible beast of secret law devouring it alive from the inside out?

Who is it that promised to preside over The Most Transparent Administration in history, only to crush whistleblower after whistleblower with the bootheel of espionage charges?

Who combined in his executive the powers of judge, jury and executioner, and claimed the jurisdiction of the entire earth on which to exercise those powers?

Who arrogates the power to spy on the entire earth – every single one of us – and when he is caught red handed, explains to us that “we’re going to have to make a choice.”

Who is that person?

Let’s be very careful about who we call “traitor”.

Edward Snowden is one of us.

Bradley Manning is one of us.

They are young, technically minded people from the generation that Barack Obama betrayed.

They are the generation that grew up on the internet, and were shaped by it.

The US government is always going to need intelligence analysts and systems administrators, and they are going to have to hire them from this generation and the ones that follow it.

One day, their generation will run the NSA, the CIA and the FBI.

This isn’t a phenomenon that is going away.

This is inevitable.

And by trying to crush these young whistleblowers with espionage charges, the US government is taking on a generation, and that is a battle it is going to lose.

This isn’t how to fix things.

The only way to fix things is this:

Change the policies.

Stop spying on the world.

Eradicate secret law.

Cease indefinite detention without trial.

Stop assassinating people.

Stop invading other countries and sending young Americans off to kill and be killed.

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

BBC
June 24, 2013

Chinese stock markets have fallen sharply as the country’s central bank indicated its credit tightening policy would continue.

The Shanghai Composite SSE index fell 5.3% to 1,963.24 points, over 1,540 points below its 52-week high.

Traders reacted negatively to the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) saying liquidity in the country was still “reasonable” and that the era of cheap cash was over.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 9:49 am

Tags: economics, foreign affairs

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Tommy Paine
Daily Paul
June 24, 2013

Let’s take another trip down the rabbit hole, shall we?

Lost in the Edward Snowden debate is a critical look at his former employer, the company doing the spying on Americans in the first place: Booz Allen Hamilton.

Booz Allen Hamilton is a government contractor, with 99% of its revenue coming from the US government. Not only does it receive money from the NSA, but also the US Army, US Navy, US Air Force, US Marine Corps, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and … the IRS. In addition, Booz Allen is heavily connected to the CIA.

Among the individuals involved in running the company, we have:

James Clapper — current Director of National Intelligence (DNI), head of NSA, the man who lied to Congress about the fact that NSA is actively spying on Americans, is a former executive

Mike McConnell — a current executive of the company, had Clapper’s job (DNI) during George W. Bush’s administration (keep it in the family, eh?) – he worked for Booz Allen before Bush, then worked for Bush, then back to Booz Allen after Bush

James Woolsey — former CIA Director, current executive (see Jan Helfeld’s interview of Mr. Woolsey where it becomes clear that Woolsey has no interest in discussing principles, only war)

Melissa Hathaway — former executive, also worked for McConnell during the Bush administration

Ian Brzezinski — former executive, son of Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller, central figure in the NWO crowd, and mastermind of Operation Cyclone

Dov Zakheim — this character is … unbelievable:

1993 — His company, System Planning Corporation, had a subsidiary called Tridata Corporation, which was the company that “oversaw” the investigation of the 1993 WTC bombing

2000 — Part of the neocon Project for a New American Century, he is co-author of “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” in which he is credited with the infamous line, “… some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

2001 — He is appointed Comptroller of the Pentagon, in which $2.3 trillion promptly goes “missing”

2001 — Attack on 9/11 occurs; some people are suspicious of his connections, since his company, SPC, in involved in flight systems capable of remote controlling aircraft, and because he was the guy who leased 32 Boeing 767 aircraft to McDill Air Force Base (2 of the 9/11 aircraft were 767′s), and McDill is close to Elgin AFB, which was the location that was to be used if Operation Northwoods had gone live

2004 — Goes to work for Booz Allen Hamilton.

2012 — Advisor on Middle East policy for Mitt Romney campaign (gee … ya think Romney would have gone to war in the Middle East???)

Booz Allen Hamilton is owned by the Carlyle Group.

One of the big investors in the Carlyle Group was the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia. Yeah … THAT Bin Laden family. And instrumental in being the “go between” for Carlyle/Bin Laden was a guy by the name of George H. W. Bush. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

The CEO of the Carlyle Group (remember, they OWN Booz Allen Hamilton) is Frank Carlucci. Mr. Carlucci has quite a resume:

Nixon Administration — Director of the Office for Economic Opportunity (the “War on Poverty” – and a great place to decide who gets government contracts)

Carter Administration — Deputy Director of the CIA

Reagan Administration — National Security Advisor and Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld is Carlucci’s protoge)

He is or has been with the Project for a New American Century and a member of the Board of Trustees for the RAND Corporation, a CIA front that develops policies that the Military Industrial Complex then carries out.

You want a NWO guy? Carlucci is your man. And CEO of Carlyle Group, owner of Booz Allen Hamilton, spying on YOU.

At RAND, his specialty was Middle East policy. What do you know? That was also the specialty of Graham Fuller, CIA guy who was the father-in-law of Ruslan Tsarni, uncle of Tamarlan Tsarnev, suspected Boston bomber.

Speaking of the Boston bombing and Tamarlan Tsarnev, he had a couple of trips to Russia that made the news. But what did not make the news (in America, but it did in Russia) is that he went there for “training” that was funded by the Jamestown Foundation. And what do you know? The Jamestown Foundation (CIA front) has among its past board members none other than Dick Cheney and Marcia Carlucci, wife of Frank Carlucci.

See my post here about the CIA connections to the Boston bombing:

http://www.dailypaul.com/290098/boston-bombing-was-a-cia-fal…

Given all their connections and government contracts, here’s an interesting question: Booz Allen Hamilton has not only been involved in spying via the NSA, but they have also received no-bid contracts from the IRS. What do they know about the American people via the IRS?

Now, one of the things you will start to see if you look around at some of the big corporations these days is that many of them are involved in what they call “corporate citizenship” or something similar. What this means at the surface level is they are being “good citizens” by donating to charity. But when you go beyond the surface, you will see something else going on.

Booz Allen Hamilton donates money to the Clinton Global Initiative. The CGI is a part of the Clinton Foundation (yeah, THAT Clinton).

The Clinton Foundation has been implicated in bribery on an international level. Clinton gave himself a special little privilege while president wherein he exempted the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation from the normal rules of disclosure regarding publicly listing who its contributors were. It’s a secret foundation. And it has over $200 million in assets now. And is alleged to be used as a way to funnel black money from corrupt governments around the world for behind-the-scenes deals like special oil contracts, arms dealing, US government foreign aid deals, whatever.

So folks, what you are not being told in the media about Edward Snowden’s former company is that it is not only spying on you, but it is probably checking out your tax returns, too, and also receiving some of your tax money in government contracts, which it then funnels to CIA-connected/Military Industrial Complex-connected/NWO-connected individuals and organizations.

Something like this: Your tax money (taken from you by force) -> IRS -> Booz Allen Hamilton -> Clinton Foundation -> foreign bribes -> more contracts for the Military Industrial Complex -> more spending by foreign governments -> more foreign aid from the US government -> more US government spending -> more taxes needed -> more taxes from YOU.

Oh … and they are spying on you, too.

But Edward Snowden … yeah HE is the bad guy here. Uh huh … move along … nothing to see here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booz_Allen_Hamilton

http://www.boozallen.com/

http://www.pehub.com/2010/06/21/booz-allen-ipo-lots-of-reven…

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3029352/posts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Brzezinski

http://www.muckety.com/Booz-Allen-Hamilton/5000259.muckety

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=2875

http://www.whale.to/b/zakheim_h.html

http://alexansary.tv/2012/11/romneys-top-adviser-dov-zakheim…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlyle_Group

http://www.wanttoknow.info/010927wallstreetjournal

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Carlucci

http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Jamestown_Foundation

http://www.law360.com/articles/446161/irs-wrongly-refused-to…

http://www.boozallen.com/insights/ideas/clinton-global-initi…

http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/aboutus/

http://www.clintonfoundation.org/

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011559.php

http://planet.infowars.com/uncategorized/israel-pays-500000-…

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/its-not-about-reelect…

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Voutenay sur Cure, France.

In some of Shakespeare’s plays there was ambivalence about spying on people, but in one instance there has been an obvious follow-on to modern times, when in Hamlet he has Polonius demand of his servant Reynaldo that he should act as a spy and

Inquire me first what Danes are in Paris;

And how, and who, what means, and where they keep

What company, at what expense.

Which was a bit like the Brits’ comically amateur efforts at spying on foreign missions before and during the G20 International Summit in London in 2009, after which the intercept spooks boasted in a bizarre Power Point Presentation about

What are our Recent Successes?

Blackberry at G20

Delivered messages to analysts at the G20 in near real-time

Provided timely information to UK ministers

Enabled discovery of 20 new e-mail selectors

Gee Golly Gosh. Oh what fun, you must have had, you pointy-headed tummy-rubbing finger-lickin’ techno-dweebs, listening to all the foreign delegates’ Blackberry transmissions, and, as your Power Point had it, “reading people’s email before/as they do.”  What were your orders? No doubt something like

Inquire me first, what Foreigners are in London;

And how, and who, what means, and where they keep,

What company, at what expense.

The orders, barely believably, came from the British government, and it’s sad to realize that it ordered spying on its allies, because Turkey – a main target of British G20 spookery – is, after all, a longtime fellow member of Nato, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But that sort of association is meaningless when the Brits want, as the orders went : “to establish Turkey’s position on agreements from the April London summit” by spying on this faithful military partner which has a thousand troops in Afghanistan.

Britain, and all the other G20 members boast that their Group is “the premier forum for our international economic development that promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability.” But how on earth can you have “open discussion” when you can’t trust the host country of the gathering? How could you be “constructive” with Britain when you know its spooks are bugging your BlackBerry? And what else are they finding out from your conversations that will be most useful to other spooks?

There is no loyalty and no allegiance among allies in the Brave New World of BlackBerry buggers. The old-fashioned ideas of having honorable union to join in defending freedom is ditched in the interests of knowing what an ally might think or plan – in order that these thoughts and plans can be destroyed by the friend who spies on an ally.

Britain and Turkey signed the Nato Treaty which says, with optimistic ingenuousness, that

The Parties to this Treaty reaffirm their faith in the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations . . .
They are determined to safeguard the freedom, common heritage and civilization of their peoples, founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law.

But the principles of democracy, rule of law, and all that sort of starry-eyed stuff are thrown out of the window when it’s considered necessary by the Brits to find out what is being done by Turkey. And by who else, one wonders? If you can spy on one Nato ally, you are probably spying on others. Or all of them?

And you wonder about the people who do all this stuff. What can they be like, deep down, these operatives who have cast aside all moral scruples? What do they look like, these programmed robots who consider themselves above the laws of nations and immune to the ideals of humanity and decency? Do they ever think, as Shakespeare had Polonius say to his son, that

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.

And speaking of being false, it seems to have been forgotten that a British Cabinet Minister stated on February 26, 2004, that her country was spying on the UN Secretary General. This barely believable admission of criminality was only a five-minute wonder, of course, but it’s no less serious for that. The Minister, Clare Short, was being questioned by a BBC interviewer about the squalid deception leading up to the war on Iraq by America and Britain. In the course of discussion she was asked if US and UK pressure was being brought to bear on nations and individuals to fall in with their war plans, and part of her reply was that  “The UK in this time was also getting spies on Kofi Annan’s office and getting reports from him about what was going on . . .  These things are done and in the case of Kofi’s office, it was being done for some time . . . Well, I know – I’ve seen transcripts of Kofi Annan’s conversations.”

Then she was asked  “So in other words British spies – let’s be very clear about this in case I’m misunderstanding you – British spies have been instructed to carry out operations inside the United Nations on people like Kofi Annan?” She answered  “Yes, absolutely.”

So Britain, which signed the United Nations Charter almost 70 years ago “to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person,” chose to show its concern for fundamental human rights by planting listening devices in the office of the UN Secretary General.  And Washington was in all this,  right up to its earphones.

The interview with Clare Short came after dismissal of a criminal charge against a British government employee who informed the public in 2003 that a US National Security Agency official had asked British Intelligence to tap the telephones of UN Security Council delegates during the lead-up to the war on Iraq.

The person whose conscience would not permit her to accept a national policy of criminality was Katherine Gun, and she was charged with disclosing information contrary to national security. To be sure, she wasn’t treated as brutally and despicably as the pitiable Bradley Manning, against whom the mighty United States has brought all its power to crush. She wasn’t menaced by gigantic intimidating prison guards, or kept in solitary confinement, or subjected to a regime of endless menace that would have excited the admiration of any Nazi interrogator seeking to destroy the mind and body of a Jew or a Gypsy.  No :  she couldn’t be thrown in jail while awaiting trial, because Britain still has some citizens, thank God, who have a robust sense of decency and fair play – as well as a few most energetic newspapers. The slavering hyenas who rip at the body and mind of the vulnerable and wretched Manning wouldn’t get away with such persecution in Britain – not yet, anyway.

So after many months of waiting, Katherine Gun was brought to trial – and the case against her was dropped and she walked free. The charges were not publicly heard, examined and judged upon, as they should be in a democracy.  Of course not – because that would have drawn the government and its pathetic little techno-dupes from the murky shadows into the light of truth and decency and open justice.   And the really funny thing – the only funny thing, in fact, about the whole farcical shambles – was the statement by the prosecution (in Britain called ‘The Crown’), about its reason for refusing to go any further. The little puppet prosecutor told the judge that  “You will understand that consideration had been given to what is appropriate for the Crown to say. It is not appropriate to give further reasons. I am reluctant to go further than that unless the court requires I do.” And the judge caved in. The Regime of secrecy and deception had won yet again, and justice suffered another blow.

After Clare Short’s disclosure that Britain spies on the UN Secretary General the then prime minister of Britain, the devious liar Tony Blair,  pronounced that  “I really do regard what Clare Short has said this morning as totally irresponsible.” And he justified his stance by declaring  “she must know, and I think everyone knows, you can’t have a situation where people start making allegations like this about our security services.”

His message was clear, and remains clear from the recent statements by James, the Happy Clapper, the director of US national intelligence who lied to the Senate about spying on American citizens and then told the world that he gave the “least untruthful” answer to Senate questions because, of course, the end justifies the means. He knows that the intelligence industry will never be held accountable for breaking the law and spying on allies and fellow citizens – because the intelligence industry gets its orders from government.

As an anti-Obama placard had it in Berlin the other day : “Democracy: Citizens watch government.  Tyranny: Government watches citizens.”  We now realize that tyranny is approaching, in Britain and America.  So be afraid; Be very afraid – because many of the people in power in our very own democracries intend that their fellow citizens should believe, in the words of Orwell, that  “War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.” And they’re getting there.

Brian Cloughley’s website is www.beecluff.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

This file photo shows installations at Lavan Oil Refinery.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Alex discusses the death of Michael Hastings, as well as the deliberate targeting and intimidation of the press.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 8:29 am

Tags: police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

WSBTV
June 24, 2013

Channel 2 Action News has obtained an email sent to Atlanta police that says traffic ticket money will fund future pay raises.

An Atlanta police source told Channel 2’s Amy Napier Viteri there are concerns that linking pay raises to tickets creates an indirect quota system, but the Mayor’s Office and the author of the email insist there’s no push to write more tickets.

The email from police union President Ken Allen explains future police pay raises will be funded through traffic tickets and court revenue. It comes on the heels of the passage of the city’s budget.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 9:32 am

Tags: domestic news, government corruption, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

On June 19, 2013, US President Obama, hoping to raise himself above the developing National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandals, sought to associate himself with two iconic speeches made at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

Fifty years ago, President John F. Kennedy pledged: “Ich bin ein Berliner”. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan challenged: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

Obama’s speech was delivered to a relatively small, specially selected audience of invitees. Even so, Obama spoke from behind bullet proof glass.

Obama’s speech will go down in history as the most hypocritical of all time. Little wonder that the audience was there by invitation only. A real audience would have hooted Obama out of Berlin.

Perhaps the most hypocritical of all of Obama’s statements was his proposal that the US and Russia reduce their nuclear weapons by one-third. The entire world, and certainly the Russians, saw through this ploy. The US is currently surrounding Russia with anti-ballistic missiles on Russia’s borders and hopes to leverage this advantage by talking Russia into reducing its weapons, thereby making it easier for Washington to target them. Obama’s proposal is clearly intended to weaken Russia’s nuclear deterrent and ability to resist US hegemony.

Obama spoke lofty words of peace, while beating the drums of war in Syria and Iran. Witness Obama’s aggressive policies of surrounding Russia with missile bases and establishing new military bases in the Pacific Ocean with which to confront China.

This is the same Obama who promised to close the Guantanamo Torture Prison, but did not; the same Obama who promised to tell us the purpose for Washington’s decade-long war in Afghanistan, but did not; the same Obama who promised to end the wars, but started new ones; the same Obama who said he stood for the US Constitution, but shredded it; the same Obama who refused to hold the Bush regime accountable for its crimes against law and humanity; the same Obama who unleashed drones against civilian populations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen; the same Obama who claimed and exercised power to murder US citizens without due process and who continues the Bush regime’s unconstitutional practice of violating habeas corpus and detaining US citizens indefinitely; the same Obama who promised transparency but runs the most secretive government in US history.

The tyrant’s speech of spectacular hypocrisy elicited from the invited audience applause on 36 occasions. Like so many others, Germans proved themselves willing to be used for Washington’s propaganda purposes.

Here was Obama, who consistently lies, speaking of “eternal truth.”

Here was Obama, who enabled Wall Street to rob the American and European peoples and who destroyed Americans’ civil liberties and the lives of vast numbers of Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, Libyans, Pakistanis, Syrians, and others, speaking of “the yearnings of justice.” Obama equates demands for justice with “terrorism.”

Here was Obama, who has constructed an international spy network and a domestic police state, speaking of “the yearnings for freedom.”

Here was Obama, president of a country that has initiated wars or military action against six countries since 2001 and has three more Muslim countries—Syria, Lebanon, and Iran—in its crosshairs and perhaps several more in Africa, speaking of “the yearnings of peace that burns in the human heart,” but clearly not in Obama’s heart.

Obama has turned America into a surveillance state that has far more in common with Stasi East Germany than with the America of the Kennedy and Reagan eras. Strange, isn’t it, that freedom was gained in East Germany and lost in America.

At the Brandenburg Gate, Obama invoked the pledge of nations to “a Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” but Obama continues to violate human rights both at home and abroad.

Obama has taken hypocrisy to new heights. He has destroyed US civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution. In place of a government accountable to law, he has turned law into a weapon in the hands of the government. He has intimidated a free press and prosecutes whistleblowers who reveal his government’s crimes. He makes no objection when American police brutalize peacefully protesting citizens. His government intercepts and stores in National Security Agency computers every communication of every American and also the private communications of Europeans and Canadians, including the communications of the members of the governments, the better to blackmail those with secrets. Obama sends in drones or assassins to murder people in countries with which the US is not at war, and his victims on most occasions turn out to be women, children, farmers, and village elders. Obama kept Bradley Manning in solitary confinement for nearly a year assaulting his human dignity in an effort to break him and obtain a false confession. In defiance of the US Constitution, Obama denied Manning a trial for three years. On Obama’s instructions, London denies Julian Assange free passage to his political asylum in Ecuador. Assange has become a modern-day Cardinal Mindszenty. [Jozsef Mindszenty was the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church who sought refuge from Soviet oppression in the US Embassy in Budapest. Denied free passage by the Soviets, the Cardinal lived in the US Embassy for 15 years as a symbol of Soviet oppression.]

This is the Obama who asked at the orchestrated event at the Brandenburg Gate: “Will we live free or in chains? Under governments that uphold our universal rights, or regimes that suppress them? In open societies that respect the sanctity of the individual and our free will, or in closed societies that suffocate the soul?”

When the Berlin Wall came down, the Stasi Spy State that suffocates the soul moved to Washington. The Stasi is alive and well in the Obama regime.

Paul Craig Roberts is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. His latest book The Failure of Laissez-Faire Capitalism. Roberts’ How the Economy Was Lost is now available from CounterPunch in electronic format.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, a slowly awakening realization that the contemporary political-social order, even allowing for specific national differences of history, structure, and population composition, has not been responsive to peoples’ needs and inmost aspirations (which no amount of repression can entirely quell). Yet, America obviously lags far behind, its own people manifestly incapable of empathizing with others’ social struggle–except for phony talk at the presidential level about freedom and oneness, as in the Cairo speech, and now, Berlin–and instead, clinging to propagandistic verities presently gathered up under the heading of counterterrorism, succumb to the toxic formula of patriotism-consumerism-xenophobia, the last-named because radical, immigrant, terrorist, rolled together, becomes the Other to which law is suspended and anything goes. That the Occupy Movement tied itself in knots with its anti-elitist rituals (even to the extent of regarding programmatic demands, since not all would agree, as to be avoided), and, despite mammoth problems at home, allowed itself to drift, and ultimately fizzle, only goes to show the depth of America’s slumber. Not even political theater, however superficial, can find purchase.

Brazil today should make us all shame, except that US ruling groups remain in their comfort zone, fast in the knowledge in spite of gross provocations (the rise in fares in public transportation in Brazil hardly compares with the increasing destruction of the public sphere itself in America, and the current assault on the social safety net) , that the American people have not risen, or perhaps cannot rise, to the dignity of self-assertion, self-determination, self-awareness, in response to the policies and conditions brought about by what can only and necessarily be described as a unified upper stratum of wealth and power, fast coalescing around its financial and military elites. In this context, surveillance now appears wholly adventitious, i.e., unnecessary, gratuitous, because the people are and have been already cowed, so that government measures become merely taunting examples and flaunting gestures to serve as reminders of where power lies. We see an unconscious servitude to the presumed goodness and virtue (in the old days, “Exceptionalism” would do) of capitalism per se, and, the lesson being driven home, capitalism in its structural evolution into an advanced-mature form, eviscerating the political state in favor of privatization in all things (thereby leaving the social safety net in limbo), imbricated with a colossal military underpinning to create hoped-for permanent stability and expansion.

One is struck by just how much the government now takes for granted, beginning perhaps with the nation’s habituation to secrecy and, with it, war, intervention, regime change, targeted assassination, Espionage Act prosecution, a deteriorating environment, un- and underemployment, a ramshackle state of affairs if this were a democratic polity, but par for the course when upper groups pursue their own interests (in the name of the nation and the people), letting all else, including societal privations, go by the board. Obama is the perfect embodiment of these trends, himself, not a causal factor, but happy to preside over the main contours of US historical development pointing toward the advent of a monopoly capitalism founded on the ethos and practice of, yes, privatization, affecting consciousness itself (as in the affirmation of greed and profits at-any-price) and wealth-inequality of a lopsided social structure, and, hand-in-hand, militarization of the factors promoting dynamism and growth in the system, such as trade, investment, ideological penetration, and, of course, the degree of global hegemony essential to prescribing the terms for their success–military supervision on a world scale.

Whether anything comes of the stirrings of unrest abroad, for Brazil, eruption for the moment is more like it, America reveals its inner dormancy with regard to political democratization of its social structure, economic framework, legal practices and juridical principles, and, more germane than ever, national-security assumptions and policies (for these too are fit subjects of democratization, for hegemonic aims, purposes, and actions do not conduce to the equal treatment, or respect for the dignity and welfare, of other peoples). Soon, it appears, political democratization will be perceived as a species of terrorism in its own right, the test being: what undermines the foundations of American institutions. For we do to ourselves what no terrorist can accomplish, the denigration of once-thought (if even then never fully honored) imperishable truths of freedom of conscience and social justice. The past, it seems, is coming back with a vengeance, this despite all the marvels of technology and so-called progress; for America is continually on the war path–the Open Door at the mouth of the cannon, the promiscuous intervention into the lives and thoughts of its citizens (think Alien & Sedition Acts, Palmer Raids, McCarthyism, HUAC in the past), brought forward in the terrifying reach of the National Security Agency and its data mining on a hitherto unattainable scale, and, not least, the government of, by, and for the wealthy, perhaps a constant from administration to administration, with possibly one interlude, the New Deal.

Even pessimism is passé. Instead, numbness, indifference, a sinking back into a shrunken self, titillated by bread and circuses for relief, but constructive action for social change–look elsewhere, if at all. I know these are not comforting thoughts (in my own case, and that of CP contributors and readers, the more so because we’ve lived a lifetime of political action, and, hopefully, refuse to stop now), yet while the world’s peoples begin to awaken or re-awaken to their exploitation, America is a backwater of reaction. This means senescence pure and simple, the danger being that the US in a destructive fury will want to bring the world down to its level (of societal nihilism and/or jadedness) through the one thing it knows, and prepared the most for, best: military power and aggression. I pray Brazil is able to sustain its momentum, which, at least in the short run, may destroy America’s lethargy and allow its people–all of us–to see how our leadership has betrayed our interest. In the eyes of Obama, and the senators and representatives of both major parties, that would make us all terrorists.

Norman Pollack is the author of “The Populist Response to Industrial America” (Harvard) and “The Just Polity” (Illinois), Guggenheim Fellow, and professor of history emeritus, Michigan State University. His new book, Eichmann on the Potomac, will be published by CounterPunch/AK Press in the fall of 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Durban.

Over the last fortnight, Brazil’s two million street protesters in 80 cities supporting the Free Fare Movement have declared how fed up they are with making multiple sacrifices to Brazilian neoliberalism as revitalized by one Sepp Blatter, the Swiss emperor of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa). While right-wing opportunists have been involved in some of the recent protests, the core grievances are apparently those of the left and of the disaffected youth.

Writing from South Africa, my compatriots and I should not merely offer Brazilians our admiration, since a “Grand Pact” is apparently now being crafted by President Dilma Rousseff. Having failed to repress the rebellion with brute police force, she now appears ready to make large-scale concessions. As she put it on Friday, “We need to oxygenate our political system, to find ways to return to our institutions to be more transparent, more resistant to bad practices and more open to the influence of society.”

We should also take the opportunity to prod our own three-year-old memories here. After the giddy month of June-July 2010, our own World Cup hangover still requires maxi-strength aspirins for the crushing pain so many South Africans suffer, underfoot Blatter’s white elephant stadiums and elites-only infrastructure.

The memory may have faded, but there were also thousands of South Africans rioting in the streets in the period just before the World Cup began, in a manner so threatening that the Pretoria regime of Jacob Zuma appeared ready to implement the corporate-Swiss version of fascist rule.

Today, our main cities’ municipal budgets are still bleeding red accountant blood, with millions of dollars annually diverted to subsidise stadium operating costs, for which Fifa Local Operating Committee Danny Jordaan humbly apologised last year. In the Fifa tradition of endless crony-corruption, the big construction cartels illegally colluded to massively overprice those near-empty sports monuments, it was revealed a few months ago.

And although Johannesburg’s $2.5 billion elite fast-train built for the World Cup — conspicuously disconnected from working-class transport — was meant to break even with 110,000 riders a day, it still needs an $80 million annual subsidy because its Fifa-dazed planners overestimated ridership by two-thirds. Durban’s unnecessary new $1 billion King Shaka Airport is a mostly desolate “aerotropolis” fantasyland, as none of the anticipated international hub traffic materialized.

After egging us on to build hedonistic palaces, bullet-trains and airports while the vast majority here suffer so much, Blatter’s crimes against SA society and economy continue unpunished. His mafia took more than $3 billion in revenues back to Zurich without paying taxes or heeding exchange controls, and meanwhile the SA foreign debt soared from $70 billion just before the World Cup to $135 billion today.

Brazil is already suffering an identical hangover and the pain is reportedly unbearable. Most observers of the lauded emerging markets — including superficially-strong Turkey — were surprised by the recent upsurge of popular fury. When Dilma visited Durban three months ago for the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) leadership summit, her confidence and political momentum were evident.

After all, she and predecessor Lula da Silva — a popular former metalworker — had treated her society and environment far better than the other four, it appeared. Unique amongst the BRICS, inequality had dropped substantially thanks to the doubling of the minimum wage and a family grant. And in contrast to her much filthier summit partners, Brazil was rated in 2012 by the Yale-Columbia Environmental Performance Index as improving on many fronts — which allowed Dilma to victoriously host last year’s Rio+20 United Nations Earth Summit.

With her Workers Party having largely defanged the CUT union movement as well as a large chunk of the left intelligentsia and NGOs, Brazil likewise provided grounds for South African progressives’ misimpressions, as we desperately search for (at minimum) social-democratic, green and gender-civilized examples to emulate.

Last September, in the wake of the Marikana Massacre, Congress of SA Trade Union pragmatists argued passionately that we need a “Lula Moment” so as to apply similar policies here. I doubt we’ll hear that untenable phrase again.

In Brasilia, hubris soon set in. You could just hear that elite back-slapping, what with hosting this month’s Fifa Confederations Cup soccer, the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games, and the victorious campaigns by Brazilians to lead the World Trade Organisation and UN Food and Agricultural Organisation. Looking outward at great expense, Dilma and her Workers Pary put their society through a slow-motion wringer, which I witnessed during a month’s stay in Rio a year ago, culminating in a march of 80,000 against Rio+20’s pro-corporate “Green Economy” spin.

That demo featured hundreds of huge cardboard cut-outs of a sinister-looking Dilma bearing a chainsaw, clearing the Amazon for the country’s largest corporations, Vale and Petrobras, helped by the gigantic BNDES national development bank. Conflict last month arose again after Vale and BNDES wrecked indigenous people’s habitat with the Belo Monte mega-dam’s construction. Next door to us in Mozambique, similar anger at Vale’s coal land-grabbing is also now motivating protests by thousands of peasants.

Then came Blatter, with his preposterous demands and, last week, his arrogant red-flag remark to the Brazilian street-bulls: “they should not use football to make their demands heard.”

Eish, we know that ruffian far too well: his reign here provided so many justifications for similar revolt. In the run-up to June 2010, there were several dozen protests each day, most over service-delivery shortcomings as government diverted funding from basic needs to pleasing the Swiss. Many protests were aimed explicitly at the way the World Cup was being implemented, including 1500 community and labour activists in Durban on June 16 demanding a “World Cup for All” (not just for profiteers and the country’s wealthier spectators).

In the east of the country, more than a thousand pupils demonstrated against Nelspruit’s Mbombela stadium, when schools displaced by construction were not rebuilt. That little city was littered with Fifa-fingerprinted corpses thanks to corruption-related hit jobs on whistle-blowing politicians and factional rivals.

Other Fifa-related protests were held by informal traders in Durban and Cape Town who were iced out of World Cup commercial opportunities; against Johannesburg officials by Soccer City’s neighbours in impoverished Riverlea township; against construction companies by workers; against the stadium’s wheelchair access design by disabled people; and against national bureaucrats by four towns’ activists attempting to relocate provincial borders so as to shift their municipalities to a wealthier province.

Labour movement strikes were threatened, raging or had just been settled over national electricity price increases, Eskom and transport sector wages and municipal worker grievances. Using their power to keep hundreds of ships out of Durban’s harbor — some of which transported the 2.3 million “Zakumi” mascot leopard dolls sewn in Shanghai by workers earning just $3/day — the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union won a wage increase double the inflation rate.

During the games, however, Blatter insisted on a protest-free zone, with regular police bannings of attempted marches — such as an innocuous “education-for-all” rally in Pretoria, even though Fifa had co-sponsored the group (One Goal) requesting permission to march — until sufficient resistance emerged to overcome the harassment. The two national tv networks self-censored the movie “Fahrenheit 2010” about Fifa exploitation.

With this sort of official paranoia at a record high, not only were the SA National Defense Force’s troops and air defense system mobilized against terror attacks. More trivially, two other activists and I were arrested at Durban’s Beach FanFest for simply handing out anti-xenophobia fliers at half-time during the Ghana-Uruguay quarter-final match: the charge was “ambush marketing”. Fifa’s copyright mania even prevented use of the phrase “World Cup 2010” when township artisans produced small crafts.

Nevertheless, a few other victories were recorded along the way — not just the right to blow the awful vuvuzelas to the point of hearing loss. Thousands of stadium construction workers had fought for higher wages and often won. And AIDS educators who were initially prevented from distributing condoms at stadiums objected and reversed Fifa’s puritanical streak.

On the evening of June 13 in Durban, several hundred security workers at the new stadium revolted after the Germany-Australia game, demanding payment of a promised bonus. They had received $20 for 12 hours’ work, as outsourcing and superexploitation soured employee relations in the often dangerous security sector. Police tear-gassed and stun-grenaded 300 to break up the protest.

In four other stadiums, workers downed tools against the security-sector labour brokers, leading to mass firings and compelling more expensive national police to come to Fifa’s aid as internal security.

In addition to labour’s upsurge, some of the most impressive mobilisations were on the hardest front: pop culture. To illustrate the challenge, Somali-born musician K’naan had used his hit, “Wavin’ Flags”, to advance the notion that a young boy on a dusty soccer field could simply drink a Coca Cola and become a world-class player, as a ubiquitous video insisted. K’naan’s remixed tune for Fifa self-censored all his earlier version’s harder, anti-war lyrics.

So from Cape Town’s naughty Playing Fields Collective culture jammers came delightful new lyrics by the name of “Wavering Flag”:

ʉ۬When they are older

Our children might wonder

Why we sold out

In the name of the Fifa flag…

When I get sober

From all the soccer

There will go Fifa, and

guess who’ll be making cash?

They don’t put back?

They never put back?

They don’t put back? Nooo

Yet more ripping protest music was released by Nomadic Wax, Dj Magee and Dj Nio; by the Chomsky AllStars (“Beautiful Gain”); and by a network of artists who came together to publicise Khulumani Support Group, the anti-apartheid victims’ network which is suing corporations in the United States courts for taking away profits and interest when they should have been observing sanctions. Durban’s Iain Robinson (Ewok) contributed the excellent “Shame on the Beautiful Game,” which soon joined a whole CD of hip-hop protest tunes produced by Defboyz. They gathered musicians from “all over the world and in a variety of languages to put one message across: that the powers that be must be held accountable for their actions!”

Also in defense of popular culture, perhaps the most successful protest explicitly against Fifa’s influence was by hundreds of Durban informal traders facing displacement from the century-old Early Morning Market. Were it not for sustained resistance over a year-long period, including a pitched battle with police in mid-2009, they would have been displaced by the then City Manager Mike Sutcliffe so that ANC cronies could build a shopping mall with no space for affordable fruit and vegetables — but the small traders prevailed and remain at Warwick Junction today.

Low-income black fisherfolk who for generations plied Durban’s famous beachfront piers were banned by the highly class-conscious Sutcliffe just before the games began, and still have not yet regained that right.

The same battle to save public space against increasing crony-privatisation is what motivates hundreds of thousands of protesters to defend Istanbul’s Taksim Square against the Erdogan regime’s shopping mall builders.

Likewise in Brazil, according to political scientist Ana Garcia, “The movement for free transport is an old part of the students’ movement. They’ve started the street protests in Sao Paulo against the tariff increase, and this quickly became a spontaneous protest against the privatization of public services, against the huge amount of public money given to private consortia for the World Cup, against extremely bad quality public health, schools and public urban transport.”

Brazil’s Movement of Landless Workers is one of the world’s greatest social movements, and its national secretariat explained the public’s exasperation: “Protests are a consequence of the grave structural urban crises, caused by speculative financial capital, resulting in rising rents, massive car sales financed by the banks and chaotic traffic without public transport, where people spend two hours to go to work and school.”

What Blatter does not want is to see more protest this week directed against his warm-up soccer games, the Confederations Cup, whose posters are being torn down in most cities. Even worse for him is when the society connects-the-dots between their grievances and his greed.

And if Blatter fibs about his time three years ago — “The World Cup in South Africa was a huge, huge financial success for Africa, for South Africa and for FIFA” — Brazilians should remember that this hutzpah is possible because our society failed to link up all those genuine grievances back in 2010.

Having not learned much since then, our most discontented citizens continue to engage in localistic, fragmented “popcorn protests” at amongst the highest per capita rates in the world — yet without the capacity to unite across communities, partly because the main trade unions remain stymied by their alliance to the ruling party, as is Brazil’s.

If in coming days, Dilma cannot keep the lid on the boiling pot and if protests against anti-poor mega-events set a new global trend, then the ratio of bread to circuses in all our societies will have to increase. For the Brazilian people will have won a different World Cup competition — for serious social progress.

Patrick Bond directs the UKZN Centre for Civil Society and — with Ashwin Desai and Brij Maharaj — co-edited Zuma’s Own Goal, which reviewed the 2010 World Cup.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

President Obama’s disputed pronouncement that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons and thus crossed his “red line” is significant in several respects, not least because what follows in Syria and the wider Middle East will determine how the Obama presidency is ultimately judged. The first heavy weapons are reported to have reached rebels on the front line of Aleppo. Obama’s decision undermines the United Nations and his much-heralded idea of multilateral diplomacy. It has set back chances of success in Geneva, after President Putin’s dogged determination at the G8 summit not to capitulate to Western demands that President Bashar al-Assad must go as part of any solution to the Syrian conflict.

It is the second time in recent months that diplomacy has suffered a serious blow by a well-timed announcement from Washington. Last August, American media revealed quoting unnamed officials that Obama had signed a secret order to supply weapons, including shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, to anti-Assad forces. It prompted the immediate resignation of the special envoy Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, who was leading tentative peace efforts to end the Syrian conflict. I wrote at the time that the first casualty of Obama’s secret order was diplomacy and the sudden departure of Kofi Annan. Lakhdar Brahimi, a respected Algerian diplomat, succeeded Annan. Now Obama has done it again. His pronouncement surely kills what little prospects there were for peace in Syria.

A few words are in order here about Russia’s S-300 missiles to President Assad’s armed forces. Until a few months ago, opposition forces made up of Syrian and foreign fighters, including the dreaded Nusra Front, were in the ascendancy, and shooting down Syrian aircraft with increasing impunity. Those successes were likely due to American missiles supplied via Turkey, part of the armament financed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Iran’s help and the entry of Hezbollah to fight alongside Syrian government forces have been instrumental in reversing the balance on the ground. Russian supplies to boost Syria’s air-defense system mean greater protection for Assad’s air force.

During harsh exchanges, President Putin told the G8 host, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, “One does not really need to support people who not only kill their enemies, but open up their bodies, eat their intestines in front of the public and cameras … This probably has little relation to the humanitarian values preached in Europe for hundreds of years.”

Syria and Iran remain surrounded by a powerful alliance of Arab states, contrary to the overwhelming impression in both Western and regional media that portray Damascus and Tehran as monstrous regimes. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf states, Turkey, the European Union, the United States and Canada have all lined up against Assad. His government was excluded by the Sunni bloc in the Arab League in 2011, yet remains a member of the United Nations. President Putin, justifying Russia’s military assistance to the Syrian government, asserted that the Kremlin was sending these supplies to a legitimate government under contracts signed over many years.

There is complete stalemate in diplomacy as whole-scale butchery continues in the battle for Syria. In Britain, Prime Minister Cameron and Foreign Secretary William Hague have shown extraordinary persistence for arming the rebels, possibly a Libya-style intervention by Western air power and special forces on the ground. However, there is little appetite in the British public for another intervention after a series of botched adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, the lawless outcome of the Libyan operation in which Gaddafi was overthrown and brutally murdered, and continuous fallout of more than a decade of “war on terror” under George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

The art of political spin and deceit is not new, but it has reached new heights in the Obama administration. With his ethical base invoking Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in tatters, its true nature is there to see. The American president had travelled to Europe, primarily for the G8 summit, with his administration’s credibility further wounded by Edward Snowden’s disclosures that the U.S. National Security Agency operated a global surveillance network to spy on governments and citizens, foes as well as friends, with the help of the British intelligence center GCHQ.

The atmosphere was distinctly cool during Obama’s European visit this time. In his own country, he had told his fellow citizens that they did not have to worry about surveillance of their mail and telephone calls — that surveillance was directed at others in America’s war against terrorism. The effect was only to increase the anger elsewhere.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel bluntly reminded him that people in her country were comparing U.S. espionage to that of the Gestapo under Hitler and the Stasi in East Germany under Communism. Uncomfortable questions were raised in private talks with Obama, and Merkel said that more in-depth questions would be asked of the Americans. Even then, President Obama, rather discourteously, monopolized the joint press conference with the German chancellor, and gave a lengthy explanation for America’s global surveillance.

The private fury of President Putin could only be imagined as he arrived at the G8 summit, and, in a way, explained his uncompromising mood. For not only he might have suspected that he was being spied on, his predecessor and the Kremlin’s number two man, Dmitry Medvedev, almost certainly was a victim of surveillance, along with other foreign leaders invited to the G20 conferences in London in 2009, as revealed by the Guardian. The newspaper also disclosed that the British intelligence agency GCHQ was intercepting and storing as many as 600 million emails, telephone calls and internet entries every day by secretly accessing worldwide telecommunications network. German ministers are furious, describing GCHQ activities as “catastrophe.”

In the wake of Snowden’s expose¢ and recriminations over Syria at the G8 summit, President Obama and his British and French allies badly needed a public relations triumph. So, coinciding with the end of the G8, the administration in Washington announced direct talks with the Taliban of Afghanistan in Qatar. Security analysts sympathetic to Washington promptly went on television channels to explain the virtues of talks in the Qatari capital Doha, where the Taliban had been allowed to open an Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Bureau (diplomatic office), flying the white flag when the Taliban ruled prior to their overthrow in late 2001.

Washington’s announcement came as an unpleasant surprise to President Hamid Karzai, the man originally hand-picked by the Americans to be the president of Afghanistan. The U.S. decision to hold direct talks with the Taliban had all but frozen out the constitutional head of state. Karzai was angry and broke off talks with Washington on keeping military bases after the withdrawal of most American troops at the end of 2014.

In announcing direct negotiations, the Obama administration also might have hoped that the Taliban would ease their attacks on foreign troops as the withdrawal from Afghanistan accelerated. Within hours, however, Bagram airport near Kabul was targeted by Taliban rockets, killing four American soldiers. Further attacks continued.

Barack Obama cuts a sorry figure today compared to the young idealistic senator who won the 2008 race for the White House promising to end America’s wars abroad and restore civil liberties at home. His administration has come to be associated with warmongering, legal maneuverings designed to flout the constitution and freedoms enshrined therein, and international law. And the presidency which began with the audacity of hope appears to be heading toward a legacy of spin, deceit and a culture of prurience. His America can kill people anywhere in the world. It cannot inspire.

Deepak Tripathi is a British historian of the Cold War, the Middle East and the United States in the post-Soviet world. His latest books Imperial Designs: War, Humiliation and the Making of History (Potomac Books, imprint of the University of Nebraska Press) and A Journey Through Turbulence (Dignity University Press), have just been published. His works can be found at: http://deepaktripathi.wordpress.com and he can be reached at: deepak.tripathi.writer@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

June 24, 2013
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The fast-food Mexican restaurant Chipotle has become the first chain establishment to label all GMO-derived ingredients on their online menu.

NaturalSociety.com’s Anthony Gucciardi notes that Chipotle has also announced that they are trying to eliminate all GMO ingredients, though that may be a long-term project.

“Our goal is to eliminate GMOs from Chipotle’s ingredients, and we’re working hard to meet this challenge,” the restaraunt states on their website. “For example, we recently switched our fryers from soybean oil to sunflower oil. Soybean oil is almost always made from genetically modified soybeans, while there is no commercially available GMO sunflower oil. Where our food contains currently unavoidable GM ingredients, it is only in the form of corn or soy.”

Chipotle’s online menu states that 12 of their ingredients come from genetically-modified corn or soybean oil.

The move is a response to the growing movement against GMOs in this country. Critics of GMOs say that their use has been linked to health and environmental problems.

This isn’t the first time Chipotle has waded into the GMO debate. The company supported Proposition 37, the California ballot measure that would have required labeling GMOs. The initiative narrowly lost last year.

“We want our customers to know exactly what they are eating. For us, this is real transparency–because knowing more about where our food comes from is always better than knowing less,” the company wrote on their website. “In light of this, and our vision of Food With Integrity, we wholeheartedly support the cause of Prop 37, having endorsed the measure as soon as we heard it was on the ballot.”

This article originally appeared on: AlterNet

 Yuisa Gimeno

 Crenshaw, an overwhelmingly Black and Latino high school in South Los Angeles, is on the front line in the national battle to preserve public education. The school was born out of the 1960s Civil Rights movement, when the community fought to get a public school in the neighborhood. Crenshaw is home to some of L.A.’s top academic awardees and athletes, as well as the first student-created cell phone app. Yet the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) calls the school a failure and is trying to destroy its community-based nature.

 The District’s divide-and-conquer tactics have separated many teachers and staff from the African American and Latina women who have defended Crenshaw for years. Principled collaboration between union workers and the community is desperately needed to save this vital community resource.

 Killing a school to save it. Crenshaw has been starved of resources for years and rocked by constant upheaval – 33 administrator changes in seven years. Naturally, this neglect has caused graduation rates and test scores to drop. Despite this, the school began to claw its way back up, largely through collaboration between an innovative principal, teachers and the Crenshaw Cougar Coalition (CCC). The CCC is a grassroots group led mostly by women of color parents, and includes some staff, teachers and community organizations. Among the innovations were the Extended Learning Cultural Model and Social Justice Academy programs, which engaged students through culturally relevant, community-based education. Crenshaw won the 2012 Hoodie Award for Best High School, a national competition among urban schools.

 Suddenly last October, LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy announced plans to “reconstitute” the school into three arbitrarily selected magnet programs. Under reconstitution, existing staff and teachers are forced to reapply for their jobs, and many are displaced.

In December, the district held a meeting on the reconstitution. An outraged crowd of parents condemned the plan because it would further destabilize the school, remove popular teachers and eliminate successful programs like the popular gifted magnet. Students warned that the reconstitution process has not bettered academic achievement at other schools and has worsened conditions. Parents got no answers about the fate of special education and English language learner students.

 Parents launch a fight. The CCC had stopped district assaults on the school before, like the threatened loss of accreditation and attempted forced transfer of a popular teacher. The newly revived coalition invited RW, FSP, and other groups to join, and met over the winter break and weekly during the school year to strategize.

Their demands included: resources for the Extended Learning Cultural Model; not forcing staff and teachers to reapply for their jobs; providing money for social services, college counseling, positive behavior support, and parent engagement; and ensuring access, retention, and equity at the new magnets for current and future students.

 They raised the demands at press conferences, picket lines outside LAUSD headquarters and the district’s January board meeting. But despite compelling testimony against the plan from members of Crenshaw’s first graduating class of ’69, students, parents, teachers and groups like Radical Women and the Community Rights Campaign, the Board voted to reconstitute the school.

Fostering divisions. CCC-led protests had the potential to unite teachers, staff and parents. So the district worked to blunt their impact by announcing “Coffee with the Principal” meetings, promoted as opportunities to collaborate with the newly renamed “transformation.” LAUSD invited participation in teacher selection interview panels. This drew people into their game plan without power to change the outcome.

 To make matters worse, the teachers union, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), scheduled and then cancelled a protest over the reconstitution. Intimidated teachers stopped attending CCC meetings. The district tossed out a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) representative called by staff who were being told they had to reapply for their jobs. The cops were called on a parent who tried to attend the same meeting.

 The district had orchestrated a split between the teachers and parents and left the community divided among themselves. Public protest disappeared, replaced by indoor meetings where community concerns were sidelined. Some CCC members insisted the interview panels were mere window dressing, some grudgingly remained on them.

The Coalition was fragmented into three camps. Radicals and some parents wanted to fight publicly. Other parents, fearful of reprisals against their children, opted to “give the process a chance.” Some influential Black leaders advocated participating in the panels because this fight was “about the students, not teachers.” But the two are closely interconnected!

This truth was proved in April, when the district announced the results of the panels. Almost half the teachers were displaced. Of 33 teachers rejected, 27 were teachers of color, 21 of them African American. They averaged over 12 years of experience at the school. The Special Education Department, Extended Learning Cultural Model and Social Justice Academy were dismantled. LAUSD disregarded demands to re-open the library, hire a nurse, lower class sizes and provide therapists and more counselors.

 Several CCC members and displaced teachers expressed outrage at the following “Coffee with the Principal.” Parent leader Angie Parker declared, “LAUSD is committing educational homicide.” But the coalition was split over whether to protest further.

 Now what? Crenshaw’s situation is precarious. To get the fight back on track and boost morale, the Cougar Coalition needs to resume its demands and public protests and reunite with students and staff. It needs to take on destructive high-stakes testing used as an excuse to starve schools of resources, and demand taxing the rich and corporations to fully fund quality multi-cultural public education.

UTLA and SEIU members need to pressure their unions to defend their members and the school. If the coalition reclaims its proud history, it can still win positive changes. Nothing else can.

 Yuisa Gimeno is a long-time South L.A. resident and represents Radical Women in the CCC. Send her feedback at yuisa5379@yahoo.com.

 This article in Spanish / Este artículo en español

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

Following the controversial selection of an all-female jury, opening statements begin Monday, June 24, in the high-profile murder trial of former neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman (shown), who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in what he argues was self-defense. National media have been following the case closely, but major controversies surrounding the entire prosecution have largely taken a back seat in press coverage to manufactured hysteria over gun laws and race – then-17-year-old Martin was black and Zimmerman is Hispanic.

Questions about whether the defendant can even get a fair trial at this point still abound. Widespread criticism of the prosecution by heavy-weight legal experts, for example, has cast a cloud of doubt over prosecutors’ bid to get Zimmerman convicted. A months-long media circus surrounding the case featuring deeply deceptive reporting added to the unease, not to mention the race-baiting by professional agitators like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Of course, President Obama’s comments – “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon” – did not help, with analysts saying such inappropriate remarks could bias jurors.

Finally, controversial decisions by the judge as to what Zimmerman’s defense team will be allowed to introduce as evidence have also raised concerns that the defendant may not be allowed to properly defend himself. Among other measures that have drawn public scrutiny, Circuit Judge Debra Nelson ruled, at prosecutors’ request, that Martin’s prior history of drug use, fighting, and school suspensions not be allowed. On the other side, the court sided with the defense in refusing to allow evidence from a novel technology that can supposedly tell who was screaming during a phone call. 

If convicted, Zimmerman could face up to life in prison for second-degree murder, defined as the unlawful killing of a person without pre-meditation. In Florida, however, state law allows a potential victim to use deadly force if he or she has reasonable cause to fear loss of life of serious bodily harm, including in public areas. Zimmerman is pleading not guilty to the charges, but it was not immediately clear whether or not he would testify at the trial.    

Defense attorneys plan to argue that Zimmerman, who was patrolling his gated complex last February following multiple break-ins in the community, killed Martin in a straightforward case of self-defense. Indeed, prosecutors did not even charge Zimmerman with a crime for a month and a half after the shooting. Not until alleged racism was injected into the case through nationwide protests stirred up by race profiteers and wildly dishonest media reports did a special prosecutor for the state of Florida bring charges.

“We’re trying so hard in this case not to make it what everybody outside the courthouse wants it to be,” defense attorney Mark O’Mara was quoted as saying in media reports. “What I do think we have, and I’m very happy with this, is six jurors who have told us that they’ll be fair and impartial…. This case will fall on the fact that the state will not be able to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt with their evidence that a crime was committed by my client.”

Among other evidence to support the self-defense assertion, Zimmerman’s lawyers almost certainly plan to show jurors pictures of the serious injuries he sustained during an altercation with Martin that night. One of the most important photographs, taken minutes after the killing, reveals bloody wounds to the back of Zimmerman’s head consistent with his story that Martin was pummeling him on the ground. Police and medical reports confirmed that Zimmerman’s nose was bleeding and severely injured as well.

When the photographs emerged publicly, legal analysts said they offered compelling evidence to support Zimmerman’s assertions. Some experts even blasted the prosecution for concealing the information and bringing chargers in the first place. Harvard Law School Professor Alan Dershowitz, for example, who had already criticized the prosecution before the pictures came out, even accused prosecutors of perpetrating a “grave ethical violation” for not including the crucial evidence in the original affidavit.

“An affidavit that willfully misstates undisputed evidence known to the prosecution is not only unethical but borders on perjury because an affiant swears to tell not only the truth, but the whole truth, and suppressing an important part of the whole truth is a lie,” Prof. Dershowitz explained at the time. “I’m not taking sides, but I’m insisting that both sides play by the rules, and so far the prosecution is not playing by the rules.”           

Prosecutors, meanwhile, plan to argue that Zimmerman, 29, profiled Martin and then murdered him after being told by authorities that he did not need to follow Martin. Citing Zimmerman’s call to the police in which he indicated that a “suspicious” person who “looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something” was walking through the gated community, the prosecution hopes to paint a picture of Zimmerman as a vigilante type trying to take the law into his own hands.

To succeed, however, the state will have to convince jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that the killing was actually a murder rather than self-defense. At this point, legal experts appear divided about whether or not the state has a decent case against Zimmerman.

Attorney Benjamin Crump, who is representing Martin’s family, was quoted in media reports claiming that the facts would be enough to convict Zimmerman in the case. “The evidence is overwhelming that George Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin,” the lawyer claimed over the weekend, one of a series of statements over the past year expressing confidence in the prosecution’s ability to secure a conviction. “Unfortunately, Trayvon Martin isn’t here to tell us his version.”

The trial – and indeed, the entire case – have polarized the nation, polls show, with some Americans believing that Zimmerman committed murder and others confident that he killed Martin in justifiable self-defense. The six-member jury, selected from a pool of some 500, was narrowed down by prosecutors and defense attorneys by reportedly seeking out individuals who had not formed an opinion on the case yet.

However, the fact that all six of the jurors are women has raised some concerns among experts. The New York Times cited legal authorities with varying opinions, with one side saying that the all-female jury would be harmful to Zimmerman’s case. “Women as a group might be less receptive to Zimmerman’s behavior than men,” Professor Jules Epstein at Widener University School of Law was quoted as saying. Another expert, a defense attorney from Orlando, said women might be more sympathetic to losing a child.

Separately, concerns are also being raised about the racial make-up of the jury. Five out of the six jurors are white, which – despite the fact that it is statistically proper given the demographics of Seminole County – race-mongers claim could create the appearance of bias. There are no blacks on the jury. If Zimmerman were to be found not guilty, analysts are already speculating that race profiteers could seize on that to claim that the jurors were motivated by the fact that Martin was black. Already, white and black racist groups have threatened a “race war” over the case.

Both sides have expressed confidence in their positions. However, no matter what happens, the drama surrounding the case is likely to go on far longer than the trial. A not guilty verdict, for instance, could spark unrest among those who believe Zimmerman committed murder, with some analysts already mentioning the Rodney King trial and its aftermath as an example of what could happen. A guilty verdict, meanwhile, would almost certainly be appealed. The trial is expected to last between two and four weeks, according to legal experts.

Photo of George Zimmerman: AP Images

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, politics, and more. He can be reached at
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Related articles:

Judge in Trayvon Martin Case Rules Some Evidence Off Limits

First Anniversary of Florida Shooting Still Raises Questions

Zimmerman Injury Photo Raises Questions About Prosecution, Media

Racists Prepare for “Race War” Over Florida Shooting

Experts Weigh in After Four Witnesses in Trayvon Martin Case Change Story

Medical Report Shows Martin Attacked Zimmerman

Dershowitz: Prosecutor Should Drop Charges Against Zimmerman

Democrat Anti-Self-Defense “Trayvon Amendment” on Hold, For Now

“Stand Your Ground” and Self Defense

Florida “Stand Your Ground” Task Force Meets, Democrat Wants Changes

Anti-Gun Zealots Exploit Florida Tragedy

UN “Human Rights” Boss Questions Fla. Law, Demands Justice for Trayvon

Prosecutors In Zimmerman Case Release Affidavit, But Face Trouble Getting Conviction

Zimmerman Charged With Second-Degree Murder

This article originally appeared on: The New American

Ankara, Turkey.

How it changes. When I was in Istanbul last April the mood was sombre. Even the most ebullient of friends were downcast. The latent hostility to the regime was always present, but the AKP’s hegemony, I was told many times, went deep. ErdoÄŸan was a reptile, cynical but clever and not averse to quoting the odd verse from Nâzım Hikmet, the much-loved communist poet imprisoned by Atatürk. The poet had escaped in a boat and been rescued by a Soviet tanker. ‘Can you prove you’re Hikmet,’ the captain asked him. He laughed and pointed to a poster in the captain’s cabin which had his photograph on it. He died in Moscow in 1963. His remains are still in exile.

Talk now was of food (the exquisite wafer-thin pizzas from the Syrian border) or the delights of children produced in middle age. Complaints were varied. An old cinema on Ä°stiklal was about to be dynamited. It would be replaced by yet more characterless shops that have already disfigured this historic street with its arcades and Belle Epoque apartments (where, once upon a time, many wealthy Armenian merchant families lived). There had been a few mild demonstrations against the execution of the movie house, but symbolic in character. The newspapers were talking of the regime’s latest PR triumph: sixty ‘wise men’ who would be consulted from time to time. There were photographs of their first assembly in the Dolmabahçe Palace, a suitably kitsch setting for a kitsch gathering. An old acquaintance, Murat Belge, was among their number.

Encouraged by the indifference, ErdoÄŸan proceeded with other plans: A shopping mall in Gezi Park, a new bridge over the Bosphorus and a new grand mosque to steal the landscape from Sinân’s delicate creations. The citizens of Istanbul were never asked for their views. It was this lack of any consultation that angered the citizens and triggered the occupation of the tiny green space in the heart of the city. As we all now know, the spirit of conciliation is not the Turkish prime minister’s strong point. Nor is generosity of heart or mind. He loathes secular intellectuals, refers to the founders of the republic as drunkards or alcoholics (as if those were their defining characteristics rather than outwitting Lord Curzon and the British Empire to create a republic) and talks constantly of the danger from left-wing ‘terrorists’. When angry, which is often, ErdoÄŸan takes on the character of a village bully, sometimes embarrassing his colleagues.

Socially conservative, politically unscrupulous, economically beholden to the building industry and militarily/politically Nato’s favourite Islamists, the party in power ignored the voices on the street. They were meant to be the model for other Muslim countries. ErdoÄŸan’s arrogance in using violence — baton charges, water cannon and tear gas, against mainly young people — has wrecked the model. Hence the note of exasperation from the White House, and the familiar request that ‘both sides should show restraint.’

The police assault on unarmed and peaceful occupiers backfired badly. Within 48 hours every city, bar four, had experienced solidarity demonstrations and occupations of public places. The tiny protest had grown into a national uprising against the sultan of the building trades, large and small. When I arrived in Ankara on the evening of 15 June, the tell-tale signs were visible. Water-tanks and scorpions (police command cars) were stationed on the main streets, ready to go into action.

It’s the first time I’ve experienced protests that begin at night. People come home from work, change, eat, discard their ties and get ready. Water bottles and handkerchief, soaked to protect against tear gas. At 10 or 11 p.m. they come out, usually in small groups, crossing streets like shadows till they reach KuÄŸulu Park and smile as thousands are already there, chanting slogans, singing songs, taunting ErdoÄŸan. The police attack. Barricades hurriedly go up using advertising boards, the odd car and anything to hand. Water cannon try to disperse them. They fail. Then the tear gas (imported from Brazil). It keeps coming. The demonstrators disperse, assemble again and so it goes on till 3 a.m. or later. Action will be resumed the following night.

While this is happening on the streets, in apartment windows the mothers and grandmothers of the demonstrators bang pots and pans in solidarity — and as a warning to ErdoÄŸan, for this is a very old Turkish protest pioneered by Janissary corps to warn the Ottoman sultan that enough was enough. In Istanbul, when ErdoÄŸan asked parents to take their kids home, thousands of mothers joined the occupation, bringing pots, spoons and pans with them.

ErdoÄŸan denounced the protestors as çapulcu: ‘looters’. As in Paris in May 1968, the young Turks chanted: ‘We are all çapulcu.’ When I visited KuÄŸulu Park there was a slogan on the wall: ‘Welcome to the çapulcu fest.’ Passionate arguments were taking place, free libraries in every corner, free food brought by parents, and hope written on young faces. Steve Bell’s cartoon of ErdoÄŸan as a water tank dousing the people is on all their phones. I asked a young woman about the word. She laughed: ‘Yes. Our response was immediate. The semiotics of this uprising are certainly very interesting. But more importantly, what next? Our demobilisation would be a big tragedy.’ A young man interrupted: ‘We can’t hold on to the squares for ever. We need something more.’

How the new opposition regroups is difficult to say, but if a new democratically structured political movement is formed (like, for instance, Syriza in Greece) it could give a permanent voice to the people from below. A monthly public assembly in Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bodrum, Antakya and other cities to discuss the situation at home and abroad and report on the building of a new movement would create something permanent and make the clearing and reclearing of the squares a bit meaningless. This is my hope. Some agreed, but a young student piped up: ‘I’m a neoliberal capitalist and I’m here.’ Others laughed. I asked him why he was there.

‘Because of the police violence.’

‘But the police violence is being used to defend neoliberal values.’

‘No. Neoliberalism promotes liberal values.’

‘Where?’

‘In the United States.’

I said what had to be said.

A woman doctor told me she had to leave for a doctor’s assembly. The government is demanding that doctors who have been treating thousands of wounded demonstrators must hand over their names. The assembly is unanimous. No.

Turkey has suddenly changed. The new generation is on the parapets. To demonstrate that he still has mass support, Erdogan had to ship and bus his supporters from all over the country. Few were impressed. The battle lines for the next elections have been laid. The builder’s friend can’t be the prime minister again. He was hoping to amend the constitution and make it presidential or failing that, to become president à la Putin. It will be more difficult now. He should read Aziz Nesin’s popular short story, ‘The New Prime Minister’, in which the sultan, tiring of a politician who is getting all his ideas from a mule, appoints the animal in his stead.

Tariq Ali is the author of The Obama Syndrome (Verso).

This article originally ran in the London Review of Books.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

The foreign minister of Ecuador says his country is considering a request for asylum from the National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden who is being persecuted by the United States.

Ricardo Patino also questioned on Monday the concept of treason charges against NSA leaker Edward Snowden, adding that the alleged US surveillance program is a rights abuse against the entire world.

Å“We will consider the position of the US government and we will take a decision in due time in line with the (Ecuadorean) constitution, the laws, international politics and sovereignty,” the foreign minister added.

Patino highlighted the importance of human rights principles as the most important consideration, noting that Ecuadorian officials are also considering Å“the consequences of our decisions.”

Å“Ecuador’s government has maintained respectful contact with the Russian government and has said that it is considering the asylum request,” Patino said.

On Sunday, Snowden arrived in Moscow after he left Hong Kong to avoid US extradition.

Meanwhile, Washington has reportedly revoked Snowdenâ„¢s passport, with State Department spokesperson, Jen Psaki, saying the fugitive Å“should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the US.”

Snowden leaked two top secret US government spying programs under which the NSA and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are eavesdropping on millions of American and European phone records and the Internet data from major Internet companies such as Facebook, Yahoo, Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Several US government officials including President Obama and FBI director Robert Mueller have defended the secret spying programs claiming that they are essential to the fight against terrorism.

GMA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Events are fast-moving. On June 23, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s (HKSAR) press releasesaid:

“Mr Edward Snowden left Hong Kong today (June 23) on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel.”

“The US Government earlier on made a request to the HKSAR Government for the issue of a provisional warrant of arrest against Mr Snowden.”

“Since the documents provided by the US Government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law, the HKSAR Government has requested the US Government to provide additional information so that the Department of Justice could consider whether the US Government’s request can meet the relevant legal conditions.”

“As the HKSAR Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr. Snowden from leaving Hong Kong.”

“The HKSAR Government has already informed the US Government of Mr. Snowden’s departure.”

“Meanwhile, the HKSAR Government has formally written to the US Government requesting clarification on earlier reports about the hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by US government agencies.”

“The HKSAR Government will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong.”

“A Moscow-based reservations agent at Aeroflot, Russia’s national airline, said that Mr. Snowden was aboard flight SU213 to Moscow, with a scheduled arrival there a little after 5 p.m. Moscow time. The reservations agent said that Mr. Snowden was traveling on a one-way ticket to Moscow.”

“He left Hong Kong on his own will.” He arrived at 5:15PM local time. It’s not his final destination. He’ll continue to an unnamed country.

WikiLeaks helped Snowden secure political asylum in a “democratic country.” It arranged travel papers and “safe exit from Hong Kong.”

WikiLeaks legal advisors accompanied him. A Moscow-based reservations agent said he traveled with someone identified only as Harrison.

Russia’s Beijing embassy neither confirmed or denied his departure heading for Moscow. Vladimir Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he doesn’t know his plans.

If he seeks asylum, he added, “(t)here is a procedure, and it will be applied. If there is an application it is going to be considered. If there is no application, we will do what is prescribed by law.”

“The Chinese don’t want to spoil their relationship with the United States. Russia is sometimes embracing conflict with the US.”

“Russia is turning into a haven — virtually, intellectually and physically — for those who have an ax to grind with the West, who are whistle-blowers or have problems with Western authorities,” he added.

“It’s the only country in the world that at this point can afford it, or thinks it can afford it.”

If Snowden continues to another country, Russia will be centrally involved in aiding his flight from prosecution.

“The minute Aeroflot got the information that a certain person by the name of Snowden is about to buy a ticket, this information would be immediately transferred to the quote-unquote competent authorities,” said Trenin.

“It would be a political decision to give him a ticket or deny him a ticket.” Russia’s very supportive. Whether he stays or leaves remains to be seen.

On arrival at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, Ecuadorian embassy staff met him. So did its Russian ambassador Patricio Chavez. Russia Today said a doctor embassy officials dispatched examined him.

Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino confirmed via twitter that Snowden applied for asylum.

Julian Assange told Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald he’d be met by “diplomats from the country that will be his ultimate destination.” They’ll accompany him to his journey’s end.

Ecuador granted Assange asylum. It did so last August. It’s short of freedom to leave Britain unarrested. He’s been holed up in its London embassy.

It’s likely Ecuador would treat Snowden like Assange. Ahead of granting him asylum last summer, President Raphael Correa twittered “No one is going to terrorize us” to do otherwise.

He said Washington’s “stealing millions of text messages.” He has evidence proving it.

“Text messaging is the most preferred communication tool in mainland China, used widely by ordinary people and government officials from formal work exchanges to small chats.”

“Government data show that the Chinese exchanged almost 900 billion text messages in 2012.”

China Mobile’s the world’s largest cell network operator. Through May it had 735 million subscribers. Number two China Unicom has 258 million users. China Telecom is third largest. It has 172 million customers.

Fang Binxing is the Principle of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. He’s called the father of China’s “Great Firewall.”

Last October, he called foreign equipment a serious national security threat, saying:

“China should set up a national information security review commission as soon as possible.”

At issue is known US spying. Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) operates the same way. It’s secret Tempora program accesses fiber optic cables.

They carry vast amounts of Internet and communications data. GCHQ’s “Mastering the Internet” initiative spies online. It does so intensively. The agency works closely with NSA. Information learned is jointly shared.

American, other Western, and Israeli technology companies work cooperatively with Washington. Chinese telecom companies began replacing foreign equipment. Changes are proceeding quietly.

It’s China’s “top education and research institute.” NSA targets it intensively. In one day last January, “at least 63 computers and servers” were hacked.

Snowden provided evidence of “external and internal internet protocol addresses. (They) could only have been obtained by hacking or with physical access to the computers.”

“The university is home to one of the mainland’s six major backbone networks, the China Education and Research Network (CERNET) from where internet data from millions of Chinese citizens could be mined.”

“The network was the country’s first internet backbone network and has evolved into the world’s largest national research hub.”

“It is one of the mainland’s non-commercial networks, owned by the Ministry of Education, but operated and maintained by the university and other colleges.”

Snowden said NSA focuses on so-called “network backbones.” Vast amounts of data pass through them.

Following his revelations, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs “set up an office to deal with diplomatic activities involving cybersecurity.”

It’s the first of its kind on the mainland. A Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Beijing will discuss cybersecurity issues with Washington. They’ll occur during July’s Sino-US strategic and security dialogue.

Xinhua is China’s official press agency. It called new and previous allegations “clearly troubling signs.”

“They demonstrate that the United States, which has long been trying to play innocent as a victim of cyberattacks, has turned out to be the biggest villain in our age.”

Before Washington accuses other countries, it “should come clean about its record first.”

“It owes too an explanation to China and other countries it has allegedly spied on. It has to share with the world the range, extent and intent of its clandestine hacking programmes.”

“The ball is now in Washington’s court. The US government had better move to allay the concerns of other countries.”

A Final Comment

Snowden’s targeted for doing the right thing. He exposed US wrongdoing. He did so responsibly, legally, and at great risk. He sacrificed financial security and potential freedom. He deserves praise, not prosecution.

Charging him with Espionage Act violations reflects rogue state governance writ large. The law’s long ago outdated. It’s grossly misused.

It’s unrelated to Snowden’s revelations. It pertains to aiding America’s enemies. It concerns interfering with military operations during a time of war. It was enacted during WW I.

It’s about disclosing classified secrets “with intent or reason to believe that the information is to be used to the injury of the United States, or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”

Snowden didn’t harm national security. He didn’t commit espionage. He exposed it. Global US spying/hacking revelations reflect massive, intrusive lawlessness.

Americans are unconstitutionally spied on. Foreign government statutes are violated. Snowden provided a vital service. He revealed what everyone needs to know.

It’s the only chance to stop it. Snowden risked everything to try. He’s arguably the most important whistleblower of our time. Perhaps ever.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour 

http://www.dailycensored.com/edward-snowden-charged-under-the-espionage-act/

http://www.dailycensored.com/washington-v-edward-snowden-update/

This article originally appeared on: Global Research

By trying to crush these young whistleblowers with espionage charges, the U.S. government is taking on a generation, and that is a battle it is going to lose.

— Julian Assange, quoted in New York Times, Jun 23, 2013

There is no mores striking anger than that which comes from impotence. This is well illustrated by the bullying line being taken by Washington regarding countries granting passage to Edward Snowden as he veers his way to Ecuador. Cooperate with us, or else. Precisely — and what of it?

The case of Snowden is becoming a cornucopia of diplomatic ferment and dazzling excitement. A senior Obama official, as recorded in The Guardian (Jun 22), threatened that, “If Hong Kong doesn’t act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong’s commitment to the rule of law.” This is the obscenity of the absurd: When we spy on you through secret mass surveillance, the law is served. It isn’t if the public is told about it.

Despite the U.S. request formally requesting Hong Kong authorities to proceed with the extradition process, the whistleblower could still get on a commercial flight on Sunday (hardly anything covert about it) and head to Moscow. It was brazen, but it was still fabulously ordinary for being so open. This also came as Hong Kong legislators such as the democratic political activist Leung Kwok-hung urged residents to “take to the streets to protect Snowden.” The final call rested with Beijing, and Chinese authorities were in no mood to comply with the U.S. request.

The key in combating any clandestine culture is to treat matters as normal, open and ordinary. It is the double bluff — to deceive the deceivers by disregarding their worth, their strength, their ploys. The prosaic nature of a secret world mocks it to death. Then gather allies, mutual interests and antagonisms. Journalists getting off the plane in Moscow were thrilled to bits at the adventure, showing passengers happy snaps of Snowden.

No sooner had Snowden touched down in Moscow, he disappeared. He apparently had the Ecuadorean ambassador, Patricio Chávez, in tow. The suggestions here are that Snowden will be heading for Quito via Havana. If this takes place without a hitch, it will be a brilliant coup, one orchestrated by those outside standard government channels. It will also have the finger prints of Julian Assange over it.

WikiLeaks has provided assistance of a logistical kind to Snowden, delivering special documentation enabling him to travel in the absence of his revoked passport. WikiLeaks British activist Sarah Harrison was also accompanying Snowden in his flight. “He is bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from WikiLeaks.”

The statement released from the organisation on Sunday further explained that Snowden had “requested that WikiLeaks use its legal expertise and experience to secure his safety. Once Mr Snowden arrives in Ecuador his request will be formally processed.”

And what of Washington’s incandescent fury? A good deal of egg found its way to the faces of its officials when it came to light that the National Security Agency had hacked Chinese mobile phone companies in an effort to access millions of private messages. Only some days prior, Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping had spoken about the need to cultivate ties of “mutual trust”.

Snowden has not merely been devastating in his revelations; he has been wise in divvying the detailed muck. Richly deserved mistrust has been sown. The South China Morning Post (Jun 23) was the grateful recipient of Snowden’s disclosures on that occasion.  The paper’s editorial (Jun 24) went so far as to regard his “choice of Hong Kong to hole up while he revealed who America was spying on and how its surveillance operations were conducted” as “genius”.

There was also more. NSA’s cyber snooping had involved attacks on the networks of Tsinghua University and computers at the Hong Kong headquarters of Pacnet, owner of one of the most extensive fibre optic submarine cable systems in the region. Pacnet’s cables amount to 46,000 kilometres in length linking data centres through mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Tag one, and you tag them all.

Little wonder then that Beijing is hardly in any mood to cooperate on this score, nor was Hong Kong. The latter authorities contended that the U.S. arrest warrant was defective at law. Restraining Snowden, to throw the comment back at the Obama administration, would have been contrary to law. State media went so far as to label Washington the “villain” of the peace.

Over the weekend, from the detained abode he is residing in London, Assange called for a global effort to assist the likes of Snowden. He is the near perfect genotype of exposure and revelation, indispensable to combating the cocksure goons of secrecy who perforate privacy and undermine personal dignity. Something stirring is afoot, and the alarums are getting louder by the day.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem says Damascus is ready to participate in a peace conference in Geneva without any pre-conditions to help bring the bloodshed in the country to an end.

Speaking at a press conference in Damascus on Monday, Muallem said his country is ready to discuss the formation of a national unity government during the conference.

“We will head to Geneva not to hand over power to the other side…. We will go to Geneva in order to set up a real partnership and a broad national unity government,” he added.

Muallem also slammed a decision by the so-called ËœFriends of Syriaâ„¢ group of Arab and Western governments to arm the militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad, saying it would only prolong the conflict in the county.

“Two days ago a conference (of the Friends of Syria group) was held in Doha. They emerged with a clear decision to arm the opposition…. This will only prolong the crisis,” Muallem noted.

The meeting came after the US said it would provide the foreign-backed militants with “direct military aid.”

Muallem warned that any arms provided to the opposition would end up in the hands of Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group that has openly proclaimed its allegiance to Al-Qaeda and is on Washington’s terror blacklist.

“I only want to say that what was decided in Doha is dangerous because it aims at prolonging the violence, and it encourages terrorism,” he said.

Syriaâ„¢s top diplomat accused Washington of spreading lies about the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian military, adding that conspirators against Syria donâ„¢t want to end the Syria conflict as it is in the interest of Israel.

Unrest has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

PG/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Now that Edward Snowden is safely away out of the clutches of the US police state, at least for now, let’s take a moment to contemplate how this one brave man’s principled confrontation with the Orwellian US government has damaged our national security state.

Firstly, there are the four computers loaded with National Security Agency secrets, which have already exposed the details of how our government is monitoring our entire national communications grid, prying into the details of the telephonic and internet activity of every American citizen. We’ve only begun to learn about the ugly totalitarian activities of our government, and now that Snowden is safe from arrest, we will no doubt learn much more.

Second, the US has been humiliated by both China and Russia, which have demonstrated dramatically that they cannot be intimidated by the world’s dominant superpower, which stands revealed as less super and less powerful than it has been claiming. China, according to local experts on Hong Kong/China relations like Chinese University of Hong Kong professor Willie Lam, intervened in the legal process to tell Hong Kong authorities not to honor the US government’s arrest warrant on espionage and theft of official secrets charges, and to allow him to leave the territory. Russia, meanwhile, whose President Vladimir Putin had already volunteered to grant Snowden amnesty, provided the world’s most celebrated whistleblower a seat on an Aeroflot flight from Hong Kong to Moscow, where he just landed safely today.

The US was left to bluster impotently that Hong Kong’s unwillingness to arrest and hold Snowden in response to the US indictment and extradition request was a sign that the Hong Kong Special Administration Region, which is supposed, under Chinese Law, to have autonomy from Beijing, and to be able to follow its own laws, including an extradition treaty with the US which was signed a year before the territory was handed over from British to Chinese control in 1996, was actually not so autonomous. As an unidentified “senior official” of the Obama administration was reported saying to the Washington Post, “”If Hong Kong doesn’t act soon, it will complicate our bilateral relations and raise questions about Hong Kong’s commitment to the rule of law.”

That line must be evoking gales of laughter around the world, and could also be a laugh line for local comics here in the US, where the rule of law died years ago with the illegal invasion of Iraq, the illegal secret rendition, detainment and torture of hundreds of suspects in the Bush/Obama “War” on Terror, the continued operation of the internationally illegal Guantanamo Bay detention and torture center, the three-year detainment without trial and torture of Army whistleblower Bradley Manning, the extra-legal killing of Americans by drone-launched missile attacks, and the NSA spying on all Americans, begun as early as 2007.           Meanwhile, the high-minded sounding US talk about respecting the “rule of law” has also been exposed as a fraud by the latest execution slaying of Ibragim Todashev, shot six times, including an execution shot to the back of the head, by an FBI agent at the end of a three-hour middle-of-the-night interrogation in Todashev’s Orlando, Florida apartment. Todashev, an acquaintance of slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, had been being interrogated by three FBI agents, along with several Massachusetts State Troopers, when all but one agent inexplicably left the room, leaving him alone with one agent. The agent claims Todashev attacked him, initially claiming that all manner of weapons were involved, but later admitted the suspect was unarmed. Nonetheless, the agent emptied his revolver into the man. It subsequently came out that in 150 cases of FBI agents shooting a suspect since 1993 (including 70 fatalities), investigations by the FBI had concluded that “all were justified.” (Even the LAPD and the NYPD don’t make that kind of an absurd claim.)           Snowden’s revelations also exposed the US as a hypocrite in accusing China of criminally hacking into US corporate and government computers. It turns out that the US itself is the biggest official hacker, with a massive campaign, run out of the NSA, of hacking into Chinese, Hong Kong, Iranian and other countries’ computer systems, and of actually engaging in a kind of undeclared computer warfare against rival states against which this country is not, officially, at war.

All in all, Snowden, acting on his own at great personal risk, has done a remarkable amount of damage to the US national security state. He has not, as the fascist apologists in Congress, in the Obama administration and in the media are howling, damaged US security, or put American lives in jeopardy. On the contrary, he has damaged those in power who are undermining Americans’ freedom and what is left of our democracy. Most Americans seem to get this, even in the face of several weeks of an orchestrated government and corporate media campaign to smear him and label him a traitor, with even poorly worded polls showing that 54 percent of Americans think Snowden should be prosecuted for what he did, but 49% say the release of classified government information “serves rather than harms” the public interest. As well, 63 percent say their privacy would be violated if information has been collected by the NSA about their communications.

Here’s hoping Snowden finds a safe place to settle down – whether it’s Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador or wherever (my advice would be Uruguay) – and that he manages to obtain protection against criminal US efforts to terminate him or to rendition him to Guantanamo or to a US holding cell. From there, he can judiciously release more of his trove of data, further exposing and undermining the workings of the US security state. One thing is certain: The US government’s offing or locking away of Snowden would do nothing at this point to stop the flow of information about the workings of the NSA’s domestic and international spying operation. His data is now, almost certainly, also in the hands of Russian, and possibly Chinese authorities, as well as journalists and the Wikileaks organization, which, according to founder Julian Assange, was instrumental in helping Snowden arrange for asylum from the US torture/prosecution machine, including helping him obtain travel documents after the US, on Saturday, revoked his US passport, effectively making him a “stateless” person (so much for that US citizenship we all assume is our birthright).

DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBeHappening!, an online newspaper collective, and is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Pakistani forces cordon off the site of a blast in the southern port city of Karachi.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Ex-CIA intelligence analyst absent on flight to Cuba

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has gone missing after he failed to board a flight from Moscow to Cuba, prompting questions as to the whereabouts of the former CIA analyst who is wanted on charges of espionage.

Ed Snowden was missing on a planned flight to Cuba.

After Snowden left Hong Kong yesterday for Moscow, he was expected to board an Aeroflot plane scheduled to fly to Havana — the next stop on his journey to planned political asylum in Ecuador.

However, journalists who boarded the same plane immediately noted that Snowden’s seat was empty and that he had not made the flight. “Snowden had never actually been sighted in Moscow, and there was actually no real evidence that he had ever been in Russia at all,” reports the Guardian.

Snowden had been checked in for the SU150 flight and Wikileaks announced that its advisors were accompanying him to Havana. According to Interfax, Snowden has already left Russia but his destination is not known.

Washington had urged Russia to expel Snowden and send him back to the US before he could escape to Cuba, but Kremlin officials refused to comment on the situation, saying only that they had no idea where Snowden was located.

Earlier today, Ecuadoran foreign minister Ricardo Patino Arocam said he didn’t know the whereabouts of Snowden, adding that his request for political asylum was still under consideration. Wikileaks’ Julian Assange has been protected by the Ecuadoran Embassy in London for over a year.

Snowden’s disappearance is likely to be part of a bait and switch so as to hide his precise movements. As Mike Adams documented earlier today, the United States has proven that it does not respect the laws of other countries when seeking to kidnap individuals extrajudicially.

US lawmakers have demanded Snowden return to America to face charges. “I want to get him caught and brought back for trial. I think the chase is on and we’ll see what happens,” Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein said.

Both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Senator Charles Schumer have warned Russia and China that they face “consequences” for failing to respond to requests to aid in the extradition of Snowden.

*********************

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

An increase in number of Iranian businesses recently opened in Georgia has infuriated Washington as delegations from US Treasury have recently visited Tbilisi to discuss the importance of combating such activities, Press TV reports.

An American professor of Iranian origin, Henry Safavi, strongly believes that the US unilateral sanctions against Iran over its nuclear energy program have been politically-motivated, saying he can hardly believe that Iran could have used Georgia for evading sanctions or money laundering.

Å“The banking system in Georgia is very rudimentary; small banks, private banks. Money laundering is normally done not by little banks in Georgia but as we have seen by the giants like Standard Chartered [Bank] or HSBC,” Safavi told Press TV.

Although, the government of Georgia froze about 150 bank accounts of Iranian individuals and legal entities, they still believe that attractive business conditions in the country have grabbed the attention of Iranian enterprises.

Å“The assessment whether any enterprise operating in Georgia is or is not in breach of international legal framework applicable in relation to the sanctions regime is a matter of individual assessment,” a Georgian Justice Ministry official Temur Antelava said.

Å“Therefore the very fact of operation of certain businesses and enterprises in Georgia does not automatically and per se imply the violation of this framework,” Antelava added.

The country’s officials have promised to examine all “suspicious” deals, but said they will be surprised if any evasion cases are confirmed.

Georgia has visa free travel rules and friendly relations with Iran.

The United States, the Israeli regime and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

The US and the European Union have imposed a series of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over these false allegations in order to obstruct the progress of Tehranâ„¢s nuclear energy program.

However, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano said on June 17 that the sanctions have not had Å“any impact” on Iran’s nuclear energy program, which, he added, is making Å“steady progress.”

Iran strongly rejects the allegation over its nuclear energy activities, maintaining that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

SF/HGH

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Lebanese army forces monitor a street in Abra, on the outskirts of the southern Lebanese city of Sidon on June 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Kuala Lumpur city skyline is seen shrouded by haze on June 23, 2013.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

A court in Italy is set to hand down its verdict in the trial of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who is accused of underage sex charges and abuse of power.

A panel of three female judges is expected to announce its verdict in a Milan court on Monday afternoon, wrapping up one of the biggest trials for the three-time former prime minister who has already been tried some 30 times and convicted three times in a court of law.

Prosecutors asked for a six-year prison sentence and a lifetime ban from public office for the former prime minister.

Berlusconi is accused of illegal relations with Karima El Mahroug, known as Å“Ruby,” while she was underage, during parties at his villa at Arcore near Milan, in 2010.

The former Italian premier is also charged with abusing power while in office to release El Mahroug from police custody where she was being held on theft charges.

The 76-year-old media billionaire denied all charges, saying the chief prosecutor is telling “lies inspired by prejudice and hatred.” El Mahroug has also denied the accusations.

Last October, a lower court convicted Berlusconi of artificially inflating prices of film distribution rights bought by Mediaset to avoid taxes.

Berlusconiâ„¢s previous charges included mafia collusion, false accounting, tax fraud, corruption and bribing police officers and judges.

Berlusconi, who served as the country’s prime minister from 1994 to 2011, resigned last November after coming under immense pressure to step down for mishandling the Italian economy.

GMA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At least three soldiers have been killed and seven others injured in an attack in the Indian-administered Kashmir region, ahead of a visit by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The foreign minister of Ecuador says his country is considering a request for asylum from the National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden who is being persecuted by the United States.

Ricardo Patino questioned on Monday the concept of treason charges against NSA leaker Edward Snowden, adding that the alleged US surveillance program is a rights abuse against the entire world.

GMA/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Russia warns the United States, the European Union and their regional allies against supplying more weapons to insurgents fighting against Syrian government.

In a statement on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed serious concern over the consequences of sending further arms to militant groups fighting against the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

The statement said the move will hamper efforts aimed at finding a swift political solution to the crisis that has gripped the Arab country for more than two years.

The statement was issued after the weekend meeting of the so-called ”Friends of Syria” in Doha, Qatar in which the participants agreed to provide urgent military support to insurgents in Syria.

“Such statements from Doha cannot but provoke serious concerns,” Moscow said, adding that arms could end up in the hands of “terrorists” and “encourage the opposition towards a destructive military solution for Syria.”

The meeting came as the US said it would provide the foreign-backed militants with “direct military aid.”

On Friday, the militants announced that they had received new weapons that could lead to “changes” in war against the Syrian government.

Unrest has gripped Syria since March 2011, and many people, including large numbers of Syrian security forces, have been killed in the unrest.

The Syrian government maintains that the chaos in the country is being orchestrated from outside and there are reports that a very large number of the militants are foreign nationals.

PG/SS

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

On Sunday, NBC Meet the Press anchor David Gregory said investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald “aided and abetted” former National Security Agency analyst Edward Snowden and asked why he shouldn’t be charged with a crime.

“To the extent that you have aided and abetted Snowden, even in his current movements, why shouldn’t you, Mr. Greenwald, be charged with a crime?” Gregory asked.

“If you want to embrace that theory, it means that every investigative journalist in the United States who works with their sources, who receives classified information is a criminal, and it’s precisely those theories and precisely that climate that has become so menacing in the United States,” said Greenwald, a former constitutional attorney.

He sent out a tweet after the interview. “Who needs the government to try to criminalize journalism when you have David Gregory to do it?” He then underscored Gregory’s service to the state by writing: “Has David Gregory ever publicly wondered if powerful DC officials should be prosecuted for things like illegal spying & lying to Congress?”

Gregory’s assertion is the latest effort by the establishment to demonize investigative journalism. Prior to his suspicious death, Rolling Stone and Buzzfeed journalist Michael Hastings accused the Obama administration of engaging in a war against the press.

“The Obama administration has clearly declared war on the press,” he told Current TV. “It has declared war on investigative journalism, our sources… I think our only resource to this kind of behavior by the government is to say back to the government we declare war on you and from this point forward we should no longer as the media cooperate in any manner with the government in terms of national security stories. We should withdraw all our cooperation and we should publish everything we know because it is a free press and not a ‘free when the government tells me to do it’ press. We have been way too easy going with these guys, let them get away with this for years. We’ve let them tell us what to print and not print. I say be done with it and we should get together and fire back because no one else is going to defend the press.”

Gregory’s accusation further draws the line between a corporate press acting as an official propaganda tool for the ruling elite and alternative investigative press reporting on aspects of the national security state until recently closely guarded.

Obama’s war on the First Amendment has claimed its first victim with Michael Hastings. Gregory has signaled that the government may soon move against other journalists as well as it moves to keep its massive and unconstitutional surveillance grid hidden from the victims and punish journalists who dare report on it.

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

The South American country of Ecuador, where NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has reportedly made request for political asylum, says it considers the matter as one of “freedom of expression” and will consider the application on strict merits.

Ecuador’s Foreign Mister Ricardo Patino speaks to reporters at a hotel during his visit to Vietnam Monday, June 24, 2013. Patino said that his government is analyzing an asylum request from Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor wanted for revealing classified secrets. (AP Photo/Tran Van Minh) “We are analyzing [the request] with a lot of responsibility,” Ecuador’s Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino told reporters through a translator at a hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam on Monday.

The request, he continued, “has to do with freedom of expression and the security of citizens around the world.”

Asked if he was concerned about what offering Snowden asylum might do to his country’s relationship with the United States, Patino said, “There are some governments that act more upon their own interests, but not us. We act upon our principles.”

“We take care of human rights of the people,” he added.

Ecuador and its president Rafael Correa have generated a reputation for protecting embattled journalists and whistleblowers since it granted Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asylum and has allowed him to remain under its protection for over a year inside its London embassy.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

Syrian government forces run along a street strewn with debris in Aleppo (file photo).

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]At least 52 people have been killed in heavy clashes between Lebanese army and Salafist supporters of Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir in the southern city of Sidon.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Lebanon army has pledged to ‘finish with’ Sunni Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir after 15 soldiers were killed in clashes with supporters of the radical cleric.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Senator warns whistleblower not to cozy up to Russia, China

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
June 24, 2013

Senator Rand Paul told CNN yesterday that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will be historically viewed as a truth teller whereas Obama national security director James Clapper will be judged as a liar for telling Congress that the NSA was not spying on Americans.

“I would say that Mr. Snowden hasn’t lied to anyone,” Paul told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “He did break his oath of office, but part of his oath of office is to the Constitution, and he believes that, when James Clapper came in March, our national director of intelligence came and lied, that he [Snowden] was simply coming forward and telling the truth that your government was lying. This is a big concern of mine, because it makes me doubt the administration and their word to us when they talk to us, because they have now admitted they will lie to us if they think it is in the name of national security.”

Paul is referring to Clapper’s March testimony in front of the Senate intelligence committee, during which he claimed that the National Security Agency did “not wittingly” collect data on Americans’ communications.

Following Snowden’s revelations about the PRISM program, Clapper tried to clarify his remarks by stating, “I responded in what I thought was the most truthful, or least untruthful, manner by saying ‘no.’”

“Mr Clapper lied in Congress in defiance of the law in the name of security — Mr. Snowden told the truth in the name of privacy, so I think there will be a judgment because both of them broke the law and history will have to determine,” added Paul.

The Kentucky Senator also warned Snowden against cozying up to the Russian or Chinese governments, noting that such a move would only serve to discredit the whistleblower.

“I do think, for Mr. Snowden, if he cozies up to the Russian government, it will be nothing but bad for his name in history,” said Paul. “If he goes to an independent third country like Iceland and if he refuses to talk to any sort of formal government about this, I think there’s a chance that he’ll be seen as an advocate of privacy. If he cozies up to either the Russian government, the Chinese government, or any of these governments that are perceived still as enemies of ours, I think that will be a real problem for him in history.”

Responding to Senator Charles Schumer’s assertion that Snowden is no hero in comparison with someone like Martin Luther King, Paul pointed out that King was never threatened with life in prison.

Snowden flew from Hong Kong to Russia on Sunday, but expectations that he would then fly on to Havana were dashed when it was revealed this morning that Snowden was not on the flight to Cuba. “Snowden had never actually been sighted in Moscow, and there was actually no real evidence that he had ever been in Russia at all,” reports the Guardian.

This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Journalists from the world’s largest media outlets hoping to book a trans-Atlantic flight alongside NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden were disappointed out of Moscow early Monday morning after discovering that the thirty-year old US citizen was not seated on the plane headed to Havana, Cuba.

An empty passenger seat believed to be reserved by former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden is seen on a plane to Cuba in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, June 24, 2013. The questions remain: Where is he? And can he make it safely to a country willing to honor his request for political asylum. (Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov) The Associated Press‘ Max Seddon, along with other reporters, boarded the scheduled flight but found no sign of Snowden. Seddon tweeted:

And Agence France-Presse followed up:

And Paul Owen from The Guardian, who continues to liveblog about Snowden’s whereabouts as well as the context of his attempt to achieve safe passage to an asylum country, reports:

My colleague Miriam Elder didn’t manage to get on that plane to Cuba — but she’s very glad, since it seems Edward Snowden never got on it either. I just spoke to her.

She said Aeroflot officials had told her “with a little smirk” that they had been expecting Snowden too.

But Miriam pointed out that Snowden had never actually been sighted in Moscow, and there was actually no real evidence that he had ever been in Russia at all.

Meanwhile, the US government has ratcheted up pressure on foreign nations to help it capture and return Snowden to his native country.

As the BBC reports, US Secretary of State John Kerry, traveling overseas and recently arrived in India, has called Snowden a “traitor to his country” and urged countries to hand him over.

Presuming Snowden is inside Russia, Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council said, “We expect the Russian government to look at all options available to expel Mr Snowden back to the U.S. to face justice for the crimes with which he is charged.”

Detailing the events surrounding Snowden’s suspected flight to Cuba, Reuters added:

Since leaving Hong Kong, where he feared arrest and extradition, Snowden has been searching for a country which can guarantee his security.

Ecuador said it had received an asylum request and Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, on a trip to Vietnam, said it would be analyzed with a “lot of responsibility”. He was expected to hold a news conference around 7.00 p.m. (8 a.m. EDT) in Hanoi.

A source at Russian airline Aeroflot said Snowden was booked on a flight due to depart for Havana on Monday at 2:05 p.m. (6.05 a.m. EDT). The gate for the Cuba flight was blocked and security was tightened.

A State Department official said Washington had told countries in the Western Hemisphere that Snowden “should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States”.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

This article originally appeared on: Common Dreams

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers. Five Filters recommends: ‘You Say What You Like, Because They Like What You Say’ – http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/alerts-2013/731-you-say-what-you-like-because-they-like-what-you-say.html

This article originally appeared on: RT

A recent article says the “international nuclear mafia” has engineered the sanctions against Iran because of Tehranâ„¢s attempt to break their monopoly over the atomic industry by seeking Å“energy and technological independence.”

In an article published on the Global Research website, Patrick Henningsen, founder of the 21st Century Wire news website and an associate editor of infowars.com, added that the international atomic mafia determines Å“Anglo-Franco-American foreign policy regarding anything to do with the nuclear industry.”

Henningsen compared the nuclear industry to an international mafia that has three main players Å“who divide the trade amongst themselves exclusively.”

Å“Production material is handled by France. Production systems are handled by the United States. Reprocessing is done by the British. There are some minor exceptions to these, but overall, thatâ„¢s how it has worked over the years.”

The United States, the Israeli regime and some of their allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

The US and the European Union have imposed a series of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republic over these false allegations in order to obstruct the progress of Tehranâ„¢s nuclear energy program.

However, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano said on Monday that the sanctions have not had Å“any impact” on Iran’s nuclear energy program, which, he added, is making Å“steady progress.”

Henningsen added that the UK, France and the US wield great influence over the UN and the IAEA, manipulating these agencies in order to Å“frame the conversation only in terms of the threat of nuclear weapons in the future, and completely divorced from the real economic battles taking place.”

Iran has repeatedly criticized the IAEA for mishandling and politicizing the issue over the countryâ„¢s nuclear energy program as well as the organizationâ„¢s partiality and double standards.

Å“In addition, the UN has a built-in blind spot for Israel who is somehow exempt from any jurisdiction regarding nuclear weapons,” Henningsen said.

The Israeli regime is widely believed to be the only possessor of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The regime reportedly maintains between 200 and 400 atomic warheads, but under its policy of so-called nuclear ambiguity, it has never denied nor confirmed its possession of the weapons of mass destruction.

Furthermore, the Israeli regime has never allowed any international inspection of its nuclear facilities and has refused to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). It has also refused to join the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which limits members to civilian uses of the nuclear technology.

MYA/NN/HMV

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Recent revelations about the Government Communications Headquarters show Britain, just like the United States, keeps its citizensâ„¢ presence in the virtual world under the close surveillance of its spying agencies.

The Guardian revealed on Friday that the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) has been secretly accessing the network of cables, which carry the worldâ„¢s phone calls and internet traffic and is sharing the data with its American counterpart the National Security Agency (NSA).

The paper revealed that GCHQ has been running Operation Tempora since 18 months ago that includes two programs, Mastering the Internet and Global Telecoms Exploitation.

The paper said GCHQ is tapping 200 internet links in total, each with a data rate of 10Gbps, with the agency having the technical capacity to concurrently analyze 46 of these 200 streams of data at a time.

That means a capacity to potentially spy on 600 million Å“telephone events” on a daily basis that makes GCHQ an intelligence superpower and the elder among the Five Eyes electronic eavesdropping alliance, comprising the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

The GCHQ is officially in charge of providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the British government and armed forces and is a subsidiary of the Foreign Office.

It operates under the 2000 Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) that requires the tapping of defined targets to get signed authorizations from either the Home Secretary or the Foreign Secretary.

The agency is now legally spying on the British public and the world by a clause in the act that allows its top boss, the Foreign Secretary, to authorize the interception of almost any material as long as at least one end of the targeted communication is not in Britain.

The ambiguous clause effectively gives Britain a legal justification to look into any communications carried out using non-British service providers, including many popular internet websites such as Facebook and Google.

However, GCHQâ„¢s record shows it is rather interested in foreign authorities than ordinary people.

The Cheltenham-based agency, originally formed during the First World War as Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) and renamed as GCHQ in June 1946, was almost unknown to the public until 1983 when it got the eyes of media during the trial of Geoffrey Prime, a Soviet spy in the agency.

It has been involved in at least two other headline-grabbing scandals ever since.

Back in 2003 and early 2004, a sacked GCHQ translator revealed to British media top-secret information that showed the agency and the United Statesâ„¢ National Security Agency (NSA) were involved in the confidential wire-tapping of United Nationsâ„¢ delegates in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war, which was later revealed to have been staged on evidence fabricated by the then British PM Tony Blair and US president George W. Bush.

GCHQ, which is under the scrutiny of the Parliamentâ„¢s Intelligence and Security Committee, also grabbed the headlines last week after former NSA worker Edward Snowden revealed the two agencies spied on foreign leaders during the G20 summit in London in 2009, including the then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

AMR/HE

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Liberty GB
June 24, 2013

Paul Weston is a British politician and leader of the Liberty GB Party in the U.K who dearly loves his country and wants the culture to remain as it has been for a long time. But he sees that changing now and because of his outspoken passion on this, he’s been labeled a ‘racist’ by everyone, he says.

So Weston has taken to video to accept the judgment of the people and admit he’s a ‘racist’.

And an Islamophobe.

This is a MUST WATCH. And if you think it’s a little slow, just keep watching because it only gets better to the end.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 4:48 am

Tags: foreign affairs, terrorism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Gawker
June 24, 2013

Daniel Somers was a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He was part of Task Force Lightning, an intelligence unit. In 2004-2005, he was mainly assigned to a Tactical Human-Intelligence Team (THT) in Baghdad, Iraq, where he ran more than 400 combat missions as a machine gunner in the turret of a Humvee, interviewed countless Iraqis ranging from concerned citizens to community leaders and and government officials, and interrogated dozens of insurgents and terrorist suspects. In 2006-2007, Daniel worked with Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) through his former unit in Mosul where he ran the Northern Iraq Intelligence Center. His official role was as a senior analyst for the Levant (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, and part of Turkey). Daniel suffered greatly from PTSD and had been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and several other war-related conditions. On June 10, 2013, Daniel wrote the following letter to his family before taking his life. Daniel was 30 years old. His wife and family have given permission to publish it.

I am sorry that it has come to this.

The fact is, for as long as I can remember my motivation for getting up every day has been so that you would not have to bury me. As things have continued to get worse, it has become clear that this alone is not a sufficient reason to carry on. The fact is, I am not getting better, I am not going to get better, and I will most certainly deteriorate further as time goes on. From a logical standpoint, it is better to simply end things quickly and let any repercussions from that play out in the short term than to drag things out into the long term.

You will perhaps be sad for a time, but over time you will forget and begin to carry on. Far better that than to inflict my growing misery upon you for years and decades to come, dragging you down with me. It is because I love you that I can not do this to you. You will come to see that it is a far better thing as one day after another passes during which you do not have to worry about me or even give me a second thought. You will find that your world is better without me in it.

I really have been trying to hang on, for more than a decade now. Each day has been a testament to the extent to which I cared, suffering unspeakable horror as quietly as possible so that you could feel as though I was still here for you. In truth, I was nothing more than a prop, filling space so that my absence would not be noted. In truth, I have already been absent for a long, long time.

My body has become nothing but a cage, a source of pain and constant problems. The illness I have has caused me pain that not even the strongest medicines could dull, and there is no cure. All day, every day a screaming agony in every nerve ending in my body. It is nothing short of torture. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. Simple things that everyone else takes for granted are nearly impossible for me. I can not laugh or cry. I can barely leave the house. I derive no pleasure from any activity. Everything simply comes down to passing time until I can sleep again. Now, to sleep forever seems to be the most merciful thing.

You must not blame yourself. The simple truth is this: During my first deployment, I was made to participate in things, the enormity of which is hard to describe. War crimes, crimes against humanity. Though I did not participate willingly, and made what I thought was my best effort to stop these events, there are some things that a person simply can not come back from. I take some pride in that, actually, as to move on in life after being part of such a thing would be the mark of a sociopath in my mind. These things go far beyond what most are even aware of.

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

To force me to do these things and then participate in the ensuing coverup is more than any government has the right to demand. Then, the same government has turned around and abandoned me. They offer no help, and actively block the pursuit of gaining outside help via their corrupt agents at the DEA. Any blame rests with them.

Beyond that, there are the host of physical illnesses that have struck me down again and again, for which they also offer no help. There might be some progress by now if they had not spent nearly twenty years denying the illness that I and so many others were exposed to. Further complicating matters is the repeated and severe brain injuries to which I was subjected, which they also seem to be expending no effort into understanding. What is known is that each of these should have been cause enough for immediate medical attention, which was not rendered.

Lastly, the DEA enters the picture again as they have now managed to create such a culture of fear in the medical community that doctors are too scared to even take the necessary steps to control the symptoms. All under the guise of a completely manufactured “overprescribing epidemic,” which stands in stark relief to all of the legitimate research, which shows the opposite to be true. Perhaps, with the right medication at the right doses, I could have bought a couple of decent years, but even that is too much to ask from a regime built upon the idea that suffering is noble and relief is just for the weak.

However, when the challenges facing a person are already so great that all but the weakest would give up, these extra factors are enough to push a person over the edge.

Is it any wonder then that the latest figures show 22 veterans killing themselves each day? That is more veterans than children killed at Sandy Hook, every single day. Where are the huge policy initiatives? Why isn’t the president standing with those families at the state of the union? Perhaps because we were not killed by a single lunatic, but rather by his own system of dehumanization, neglect, and indifference.

It leaves us to where all we have to look forward to is constant pain, misery, poverty, and dishonor. I assure you that, when the numbers do finally drop, it will merely be because those who were pushed the farthest are all already dead.

And for what? Bush’s religious lunacy? Cheney’s ever growing fortune and that of his corporate friends? Is this what we destroy lives for

Since then, I have tried everything to fill the void. I tried to move into a position of greater power and influence to try and right some of the wrongs. I deployed again, where I put a huge emphasis on saving lives. The fact of the matter, though, is that any new lives saved do not replace those who were murdered. It is an exercise in futility.

Then, I pursued replacing destruction with creation. For a time this provided a distraction, but it could not last. The fact is that any kind of ordinary life is an insult to those who died at my hand. How can I possibly go around like everyone else while the widows and orphans I created continue to struggle? If they could see me sitting here in suburbia, in my comfortable home working on some music project they would be outraged, and rightfully so.

I thought perhaps I could make some headway with this film project, maybe even directly appealing to those I had wronged and exposing a greater truth, but that is also now being taken away from me. I fear that, just as with everything else that requires the involvement of people who can not understand by virtue of never having been there, it is going to fall apart as careers get in the way.

The last thought that has occurred to me is one of some kind of final mission. It is true that I have found that I am capable of finding some kind of reprieve by doing things that are worthwhile on the scale of life and death. While it is a nice thought to consider doing some good with my skills, experience, and killer instinct, the truth is that it isn’t realistic. First, there are the logistics of financing and equipping my own operation, then there is the near certainty of a grisly death, international incidents, and being branded a terrorist in the media that would follow. What is really stopping me, though, is that I simply am too sick to be effective in the field anymore. That, too, has been taken from me.

Thus, I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, too damaged to be at war. Abandoned by those who would take the easy route, and a liability to those who stick it out–and thus deserve better. So you see, not only am I better off dead, but the world is better without me in it

This is what brought me to my actual final mission. Not suicide, but a mercy killing. I know how to kill, and I know how to do it so that there is no pain whatsoever. It was quick, and I did not suffer. And above all, now I am free. I feel no more pain. I have no more nightmares or flashbacks or hallucinations. I am no longer constantly depressed or afraid or worried

I am free.

I ask that you be happy for me for that. It is perhaps the best break I could have hoped for. Please accept this and be glad for me.

Daniel Somers

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 4:49 am

Tags: foreign affairs, government corruption, police state, terrorism, war

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Washington’s Blog
June 24, 2013

Given that the NSA is tapping into your phone calls and spying on your Internet activities, you might have switched to a search engine which is more privacy-conscious.

You might have started using encrypted communications. After all, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowdenand the leading electronic privacy group — the Electronic Frontier Foundation — say that encryption helps to protect privacy.  On the other hand, Tech Dirt points out that the NSA might consider you suspicious if you encrypt information, and so hold onto your data until they can decrypt it.

The above are all issues about which you are at least somewhat aware.

But there is a giant type of snooping which you probably don’t even know about. Specifically, ABC Newsreported in 2006:

Cell phone users, beware. The FBI can listen to everything you say, even when the cell phone is turned off. A recent court ruling in a case against the Genovese crime family revealed that the FBI has the ability from a remote location to activate a cell phone and turn its microphone into a listening device that transmits to an FBI listening post, a method known as a “roving bug.”

Experts say the only way to defeat it is to remove the cell phone battery.

“The FBI can access cell phones and modify them remotely without ever having to physically handle them,” James Atkinson, a counterintelligence security consultant, told ABC News. “Any recently manufactured cell phone has a built-in tracking device, which can allow eavesdroppers to pinpoint someone’s location to within just a few feet,” he added.

***

According to the recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, “The device functioned whether the phone was powered on or off, intercepting conversations within its range wherever it happened to be.” 

***

“The courts have given law enforcement a blank check for surveillance,” Richard Rehbock, attorney for defendant John Ardito, told ABC News.

***

“Big Brother is upon us…1984 happened a long time ago,” he said, referring to the George Orwell futuristic novel “1984,” which described a society whose members were closely watched by those in power and was published in 1949.

CNET noted the same year:

The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warns that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.” An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can “remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner’s knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call.”

***

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone—all without the owner knowing it happened.

***

A BBC article from 2004 reported that intelligence agencies routinely employ the remote-activiation method. “A mobile sitting on the desk of a politician or businessman can act as a powerful, undetectable bug,” the article said, “enabling them to be activated at a later date to pick up sounds even when the receiver is down.”

Given that the American and British intelligence agencies are trying tap every single communication, some rogue agency or contractor might be tapping your phone … even when it’s off.

Indeed, even private hackers might be listening in. Specifically, private parties without security clearance may be activating your microphone or camera without your knowledge.

Indeed, commercially-available, off-the-shelf software allows people to spy on you:

Your iPhone, or other brand of smartphone is spying on virtually everything you do (ProPublica notes: “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker“) … and sending the information to private companies.

And CNET pointed out 7 years ago:

Malicious hackers have followed suit. A report last year said Spanish authorities had detained a man who write a Trojan horse that secretly activated a computer’s video camera and forwarded him the recordings.

So the single most important step to protect yourself from government — or private — spying is to remember that your conservations might not be private when your cellphone is nearby … even if it is turned off.

Note: If you have a microphone in your car, that might also open you up to snoopers. As CNET points out:

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored.

And Fox news notes that the government is insisting that “black boxes” be installed in cars to track your location.

And see this.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 4:51 am

Tags: domestic news, domestic spying, government corruption, police state

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

RT
June 24, 2013

Ex-CIA contractor, Edward Snowden’s plane to Cuba will pass through US airspace, an Interfax source reports. Washington has an extradition notice against Snowden on charges of espionage and could intervene if the plane enters US jurisdiction.

Aeroflot flight SU150, leaves Moscow at 14:04 local time (11:04 GMT) and will fly through US airspace a couple of kilometers from the coast of New York on its way to Havana, reported Russian news agency Interfax, citing a source in Sheremetevo airport air traffic control. Snowden is checked into the flight to Havana in seat number 17A, reports the Associated Press, citing Aeroflot.

The source added that US air traffic control can legally ground the plane and take Snowden into custody on charges of espionage, theft and conversion of government property. However, the pilot may change the course of the flight so as not to pass through American airspace.

“The pilot of the plane is within his rights to change the course of the flight and there should be enough fuel to do so,” said the source to Interfax.

The Ecuadorian government has confirmed that Snowden filed for asylum and is processing the request.
WikiLeaks has actively assisted Snowden in eluding the US extradition order, has confirmed the fugitive’s final destination will be Ecuador.

Mr Snowden is “bound for the Republic of Ecuador via a safe route for the purposes of asylum, and is being escorted by diplomats and legal advisers from Wikileaks.”

The news that former CIA contractor Edward Snowden had left Hong Kong emerged on Sunday. The city’s authorities published a statement saying that Snowden had legally and voluntarily left Hong Kong on Sunday on a flight to a “third country” with a stopover in Moscow. The statement also said that the documents for Snowden’s extradition submitted to the Hong Kong authorities by Washington were not sufficient to be able to “process the request.”

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

The White House said it was “disappointed” with Hong Kong’s move to let Snowden go and has urged Russia to consider every option to expel the fugitive.

“The US is advising these governments that Snowden is wanted on felony charges, and as such should not be allowed to proceed in any further international travel, other than is necessary to return him to the United States,” a state department official said.

Washington has stressed they will seek cooperation from whichever country Snowden arrives in.

Snowden initially fled to Hong Kong after leaking troves of classified data to UK newspaper the Guardian, including information of the US spy program Prism.

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This article was posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 at 4:50 am

Tags: activism, domestic spying, foreign affairs, government corruption, police state, technology, terrorism

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This article originally appeared on: Infowars

Salafist militants have killed at least 15 Lebanese soldiers in persisting clashes in the southern city of Sidon between the supporters of the radical group and Lebanonâ„¢s army.

Fighting between the two sides continued into Monday morning as Lebanese security forces attempted to encircle supporters of radical Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Assir after they waged a deadly attack against a Lebanese army checkpoint in the port city on Sunday.

The armed clashes have also left dozens of people injured.

According to witness accounts cited in local media reports, machine gun and rocket fire shook Sidon, about 40 kilometers (28 miles) south of Beirut, generating panic among residents.

The Lebanese army, meanwhile, blamed the deadly violence on the militants loyal to the hard-line cleric, who has fervently supported the foreign-backed Takfiri militants in Syria while expressing outrage over Hezbollahâ„¢s supportive role on the side of the Syrian government.

Latest clashes reportedly broke out Sunday following the arrest of one of Assirâ„¢s followers by the Lebanese police at a checkpoint.

Other followers of the Salafist cleric then retaliated by waging an armed attack against security forces while urging their supporters across Lebanon to take to the streets.

Unconfirmed reports further estimated that up to 40 more Lebanese soldiers have been wounded during the clashes.

Å“The army was attacked in cold blood in an attempt to light the fuse in Sidon,” said a statement by the Lebanese army.

Another cleric in Sidon, Imam Maher Hamoud, has insisted that Assir had earlier vowed retaliation over the Syrian armyâ„¢s recent victory in the strategic town of Qusayr, near the Lebanese border. The Syrian army was backed by Lebanonâ„¢s resistance movement Hezbollah.

Following Sundayâ„¢s violence in the port city, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman called in all ministers and security chiefs for a meeting on Monday.

Sleiman also declared that the army has full liberty to counter the aggressors and stop the perpetrators to maintain calm.

The military checkpoint where the attack took place is located on the main road to Abra, near Bilal bin Rabah.

On June 18, clashes initiated by the Salafists in Sidon left at least one civilian dead, and many others wounded.

Foreign-backed militants fighting in Syria have been blamed for a number of rocket attacks on areas along the Lebanese border.

Although Lebanonâ„¢s government has officially adopted a position of neutrality over the situation in neighboring Syria, Salafists, who support al-Qaeda-linked extremists in Syria, continue to attack people across the border.

MFB/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Iran’s national currency, the rial, has strengthened against the greenback since Dr. Hassan Rohani emerged victorious as Iranâ„¢s president-elect in the June 14 polls, Press TV reports.

According to media and dealers, Iranian currency was trading at around 30,000 for one dollar on Sunday morning compared to 35,000 a week ago.

People that had come to the market to sell their dollars said they expected the price of all goods to decrease as foreign currency depreciates against the rial and Iranian money gains strength.

Å“As we are speaking, there are 29,900 rials to the dollar. The price has come down because people are selling their dollars, the dollars that they have bought for investment before,” economic expert Hamed Afzali told Press TV.

Å“We expect that the dollar will drop to 10,000 rials, but the government should make sure that the price of other goods decreases with the dollar,” a currency dealer said.

Another dealer said, Å“The price of the dollar should decrease a lot more, it is not 30,000 rials. I believe each dollar should be around 12,000 to 15,000 rials. If the price of the dollar decreases and stabilizes, the market would be stable and would be a lot better for businesses.”

Å“I think the price of the dollar would decrease even more if President-elect Rohani strengthens ties with the West and some of the sanctions are removed,” he added.

Rohani emerged victorious in the presidential election of June 14, which was marked by a high voter turnout, winning 50.7 percent of a total of 36,704,156 ballots counted.

During his first press conference on June 17, Rohani said Iran would seek to have the sanctions against it eased and build better relations with the world.

The United States, the Israeli regime and their European allies have repeatedly accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Over the false allegation, Washington and the European Union have imposed a series of illegal unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Republicâ„¢s oil and financial sectors.

Iran rejects the allegation over its nuclear energy program and argues that as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

YH/NN/HMV

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan has arrived in Kabul to hold talks with Afghan officials, amid recent tensions over the opening of a Taliban political office in Qatar.

James Dobbins will hold talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other senior officials on Monday.

Å“He (Dobbins) is going to come and meet the president today,” an Afghan presidential palace official in Kabul said.

Before arriving in Kabul, Dobbins was in the Qatari capital with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The tension between Washington and Kabul broke out on June 18, when the Taliban militant group opened its new political office in Doha under the name of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

The Afghan government has reacted angrily to the opening of the office, which is backed by the United States.

Kabul has also suspended talks with Washington on a proposed security agreement.

Afghanistan says it wants to lead any talks with militants and that the opening of Talibanâ„¢s office in Qatar contradicts earlier US security guarantees.

The Afghan government on Sunday demanded a full explanation as to how the US and Qatar allowed the Taliban to raise its flag over its office in Doha.

Å“The manner in which the office was established was in clear breach of the principles and terms of references agreed with us by the US government,” said Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Janan Mosazai.

Senior Afghan officials in Kabul say the Taliban militants will be able to use the office to raise funds for their campaign in Afghanistan.

The Taliban was removed from power in Afghanistan following the invasion of the country by the United States and its allies in 2001, which was carried out as part of Washingtonâ„¢s so-called war on terror.

DB/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

I was dismayed to see a spat over Angelina Jolie’s surgery quickly degenerate into an idiotic war, with the International Socialist Organization (ISO) issuing an open letter warning the world about the degenerates running CounterPunch as if they had done something serious, like cover up a rape allegation, a crime that elicited only a lukewarm protest from the ISO as it ripped the SWP apart.

Rather than privilege-bait the ISO’s leadership as Jeffrey St. Clair did or meander aimlessly over the irrelevant as Louis Proyect did in his “Inside the International Socialist Organization,” I thought I’d inject a bit of substantive criticism of the group’s inner workings based on my seven years as an ISO member. Like everyone else, I thought Proyect was going to bring some misdeeds to the light of day given the title of his piece. What follows is an excerpt from a lengthier critique of the ISO’s practices and methods.

On paper, the ISO seems to be democratic. The highest decision-making body is its yearly convention, made up of elected delegates from local branches. Any member can submit a resolution or a position paper for consideration. The Steering Committee is elected by the convention to lead and run the organization between conventions.

What these democratic forms amount to in practice is a different story.

There are no horizontal channels of communication between branches and the general membership; information and political arguments at the rank and file level therefore move in only one direction — vertically, upwards, through branch leadership committees, citywide leadership committees, the national committee (an advisory body to the Steering Committee elected by the convention), and the Steering Committee. Someone with an idea or proposal has to either fight for their view through these successive administrative layers either on their own as an individual or wait until the yearly pre-convention discussion period to propose it before the organization, but they cannot form a faction to fight for their viewpoint at convention because ISO members do not have a constitutionally guaranteed right to form factions. The most they can do is caucus.

This is a major reason why change in the ISO comes from above, not below.

Dissidents and deviationists face not an uphill battle but a veritable cliff to break through hardened groupthink just to gain a hearing; often an idea or proposal that is generally dismissed or derided when it comes from a rank-and-file member will be readily and eagerly adopted when that same idea or proposal comes from the Steering Committee or other leading personnel.

The organization’s conformist political culture is both a blessing and a curse, allowing it to persist and grow in the Reagan-Obama era while preventing it from fully prospering now that objective conditions are favorable for a mass-based radical left. Given the current political climate, there is no reason the ISO shouldn’t be growing exponentially and qualitatively to become a hegemonic force not only over the far left but the broad left. Thriving not surviving is the order of the day.

The ISO continues to use the British SWP’s closed slate system to elect its leadership, meaning the previous year’s Steering Committee submits the coming year’s Steering Committee to the convention as a single bloc for an up-or-down vote by a show of hands rather than a secret ballot. This makes it impossible for the membership to hold even one Steering Committee member accountable unless they can assemble 12 or more additional names for an entirely new slate. This practice is winner-take-all run amok, and the result is not a one-party state but a one-slate party; as far as anyone knows, the ISO has never had a competitive election for its Steering Committee since it was founded in 1977. Conventions are exercises in unanimity rather than a place where substantive differences are aired and ironed out in a vigorous and above-board manner.

The easiest way to understand any institution or organization in capitalist society is to do just one thing — follow the money. Doing so reveals how power and status is really distributed and how organizations actually function.

What is remarkable about the ISO in this regard is its lack of transparency. Dues are paid, money is raised, merchandise (books, magazines, and newspapers) is sold, but rare is the ISO member who knows that the organization’s 501(c)(3) — the Center for Economic Research and Social Change (CERSC) — bought and sold thousands of dollars in Caterpillar stock in 2010 in spite of the ISO’s support for the Palestinian boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign’s targeting of Caterpillar for selling Israel the bulldozers it uses to demolish Palestinian homes and kill activist Rachel Corrie.

Whether or not buying and selling Caterpillar stock in defiance of the BDS campaign is right or wrong is not my place to decide, it is for the ISO’s membership to decide, and they cannot do so when they have no clue what the organization’s assets or liabilities consist of and are denied any formal control over CERSC. They cannot discuss and decide how best to spend CERSC’s $1.5 million in yearly revenue on organizing projects when these matters are handled internally as a state secret and questions about them from members are viewed as a sign of disloyalty to socialism rather than what they actually are — a principled commitment to the basic democratic norms working-class people are entitled to in their organizations.

Unions run in this manner are criticized by the left for disempowering the rank and file thereby undermining labor’s ability to fight capital, but how does wrong become right when the same methods are employed by a self-styled revolutionary organization aiming not just to fight capital but to end it?

Pham Binh is co-founder of The North Star. His writings on the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, and socialism can be found at PlanetAnarchy.net.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Franceâ„¢s minister of industrial renewal has blamed the European Union (EU) for fuelling the far-right National Front party by putting too much pressure on elected governments.

Arnaud Montebourg made the remark on Sunday and accused European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and other EU officials of having created an institution that is against the people of Europe.

Å“I think the main cause of the rise of the Front National is related to the way in which the EU today exerts considerable pressure on democratically elected governments,” Montebourg stated.

He continued by saying, Å“The European Union is paralyzed. It does not respond to any of peopleâ„¢s aspirations in the industrial, economic or budgetary fields and in the end it provides a cause to all the anti-European parties.”

On June 18, the European Commission president described states such as France as Å“culturally extremely reactionary.” Barroso made the comment on the day when talks between the 27 EU trade ministers were held to determine the terms of negotiating an EU-US free trade deal.

France insisted on excluding audiovisual sector from the negotiations to protect Europeâ„¢s film and cultural industries.

Montebourg also commented on Barossoâ„¢s accusation by saying, Å“You have the president of the European Commission who says Ëœall those who are anti-globalization, theyâ„¢re reactionariesâ„¢. These are the same people who have today turned the European Union into an institution that is anti the people of Europe.”

Negotiations on EU-US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) began on June 17 during the recent G8 meeting. If a deal is made it would create the worldâ„¢s largest Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

The European Union says an FTA would add some 119 billion euros every year to the EU economy, and 95 billion euros to the US economy.

CAH/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Pakistanâ„¢s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has called on the countryâ„¢s judicial officials to try former military ruler Pervez Musharraf on the charge of treason.

Talking to Pakistanâ„¢s attorney general, Sharif said on Monday that his government will file a high treason case at the Supreme Court against Musharraf for abrogating the Pakistani constitution when he imposed emergency rule in 2007.

Sharif added that Musharraf, who is currently under house arrest, should face trial and Å“answer his guilt” before the court because, his actions came under the Å“purview of high treason.”

According to the Pakistanâ„¢s constitution, the state can only initiate a treason trial.

Å“We will follow the process of law and all political forces will be taken into confidence,” Sharif said.

Å“Musharraf violated the constitution twice. He overthrew an elected government in 1999 and put everything into jeopardy. He sacked judges and imprisoned them,” the Pakistani premier added.

In 2009, Musharraf led a coup that overthrew the administration of Nawaz Sharif.

Musharraf is currently under house arrest at his home in the capital, Islamabad, in connection with several cases against him, including the Benazir Bhutto case.

Pakistanâ„¢s former Prime Minister Bhutto was killed in a gun-and-bomb attack on December 27, 2007 as she was leaving an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi.

Musharraf has been accused of failing to provide enough security for Bhutto after she returned from exile on October 18, 2007.

He is also facing charges of illegally putting judges under house arrest, after he sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, declared a state of emergency, and suspended the constitution, during a crackdown on the judiciary in 2007.

In addition, Musharraf is accused of violating the constitution for giving the order to arrest the judges.

The former army general, who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, stepped down as president in August 2008, about six months after his allies lost parliamentary elections in February 2008 and the new government threatened to impeach him. A year later, he left the country.

In March 2013, Musharraf returned to Pakistan after nearly four years of self-imposed exile in London and Dubai to run in the May 11 parliamentary elections.

DB/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

If you are like me you probably have encountered a few people that do not believe global warming exists, or if they do, they are not always convinced that humans are contributing to the problem. There are usually a range of issues these skeptics raise in an attempt to cast doubt on climate change evidence. Below are a few responses to some of the more frequent statements these deniers toss our way.

The Skeptics: There is simply no evidence that humans are contributing to climate change, if the earth is even warming.

Answer: As carbon dioxide (CO2) is pumped into the air through human activities, heat becomes trapped in the atmosphere. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the “greenhouse effect.” If the earth’s global temperatures rise a mere 3 degrees, there will be catastrophic results all over the world.

The Skeptics: CO2 can’t possibly be to blame for any so-called climate change as emissions only stay in our atmosphere for up to 10 years. Our oceans and terrestrial carbon sinks absorb this CO2 anyway. In fact, the oceans are so big that they could absorb over 50 times more CO2 than humans contribute now. As such, we can’t possibly be to blame for any change in global temperatures today.

Answer: Actually the ocean’s ability to store CO2 is not very long. Only 50% of CO2 is absorbed by areas of the ocean that are not very deep. In these areas, CO2 is released back into the atmosphere. Recent studies have shown that only 30% of CO2 is stored in the deep ocean. The rest, some 20%, stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

The Skeptics: The evidence that CO2 emissions are linked to any rise in global temperatures is casual at best. Global CO2 emissions do not match Arctic temperatures, which are often used as the best gauge for how to measure the earth’s climate.

Answer: While the Arctic may serve as a great resource for measuring climate change, looking at one small area of the planet is not the best way to assess the situation. During the 1930s, for example, warming occurred in the Arctic, but the cause is not exactly known and did not take place all over the planet.

The Skeptics: It’s actually been much hotter than it is today during recorded human history. During medieval times, for example, warm temperatures plagued much of Europe. This happened long before humans started burning fossil fuels, which is hard proof that we aren’t causing global warming today.

Answer: The warming that happened during 800-1300 AD is considered to be a local warming event, which is quite different than the changes in the global climate we are experiencing today. Ice samples have shown that temperatures around the world varied during that time.

The Skeptics: But ice core sampling is simply not a reliable way to measure changes to our climate because it is an imperfect science. Records come from measuring gas that is trapped in tiny air bubbles. But this air isn’t saved in stone, it can seep out over time.

Answer: Specific ice samples may not be completely reliable, this is true. However, in order to reduce error many samples are taken all over the world, which gives us a much better record of the earth’s historic climate trends. When used in conjunction with other resources, like tree rings, these records are undeniably accurate and reliable.

The Skeptics: Scientists fix the data all the time. One ice sampling in the Arctic at Siple has shown us that CO2 levels were around 328 parts per million all the way back in 1890. However, global warming believers insist that this level wasn’t met until the early 1970s. In order to make their point, graphs have been altered to fix this data in order to have us believe that CO2 emissions, from humans, were to blame for the rise in global temperatures.

Answer: When new evidence is found scientist alter their theories and data. No additional samplings taken anywhere in the world confirm that CO2 levels were above 290 parts per million in the last half of a million years. The Siple ice core samples in the Arctic cannot be used to counter this overwhelming consensus. Perhaps temperatures in the Siple area were elevated for a month or a year, but not consistently and not anywhere else on the planet at the same time. Since new data has come to light to address these findings, scientists have adjusted their graphs.

The Skeptics: Our environment has a great ability to adjust for inflation in CO2 emissions. When an increase occurs, our carbon sinks pick up the slack over a period of decades. So all the hype about global warming is nothing more than hot air.

Answer: Past warming cycles are not the result of greenhouse gas emissions. These warming trends were the result of the earth’s rotation around the sun. When the earth heated up in the past, more CO2 was released from our carbon sinks, which created a greenhouse effect. So when humans release CO2 today we are not allowing the earth to go through its natural cycle. Our oceans haven’t even started heating up yet. But if they do, and we do not cut CO2 in the atmosphere over the next twenty years, catastrophic effects will ensue.

(Thanks to RealClimate.org for background resources.)

Joshua Frank, Managing Editor of CounterPunch, is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, and along with Jeffrey St. Clair, the editor of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, and of Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, published by AK Press. Hopeless is now available in Kindle format. He can be reached at brickburner@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch

Israel in no place to make any move against Iran: Navy cmdr.

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

Qatari ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani reportedly plans to meet with the kingdomâ„¢s royal family and advisors in a bid to set the stage for a power transfer to his son.

The US-backed ruler is expected to meet with the royals and close aides on Monday to discuss passing over his crown to his 33-year-old son Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad, press reports said Sunday.

Sheikh Tamim is reportedly the second son of the Qatari ruler and his second wife, Sheikha Mozah.

Tamim is currently the joint commander of Qatari armed forces and also heads the kingdomâ„¢s Olympic committee.

Sources, meanwhile, state that the Qatari emir further plans a major cabinet reshuffle in an effort to bring in a considerable number of younger ministers following the father-to-son power shift.

The kingdomâ„¢s powerful Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, these sources say, may lose his job, or at least his second, concurrent position as foreign affairs minister.

The 61-year-old ruler in the oil-rich Persian Gulf state took over power in a 1995 coup against his own father.

The tiny Arab state has been struggling with tensions within the ruling family as well as other powerful clans over the emirâ„¢s close ties with the United States, widely considered as an instrument of US foreign policy objectives in the strategic Persian Gulf and greater Middle East region.

Qatarâ„¢s international standing has been greatly undermined, particularly across the Muslim world, by its deep involvement in promoting and supporting the foreign-backed militancy against the Syrian government.

Qatar also took part in the US-led military intervention in Libya in efforts to remove the once Western-backed dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, following a popular revolution in the oil-rich African country.

MFB/HSN

This article originally appeared on: Press TV

The squabble over how to define rural diverts us from the real problem: Support for vital rural development programs has been decimated. Maybe it’s time for a new take on an old idea.

The emerging fight in Washington over how to define “rural” for some federal programs is distracting us from the real issue: Federal support of our rural communities is inadequate,
ineffective and needs to change

I have spent nearly 30 years working on rural and frontier definitions, responding to Federal Register rule-making, executive and congressional initiatives. I’ve worked at all levels
professionally to personally — from the White House to my extremely under-resourced home community of 300 in frontier New Mexico.

Government keeps us so tied up in the busy work of defining who’s in and out of rural programs there is never time to get to the heart of definition madness. It’s time to demand to know why we
are spending our time defining rural, and why we are doing it now.

The economic collapse and so-called “austerity” have left rural America reeling. Everybody and his brother have conducted studies and reported the tragic, intentional, immoral rural poverty data ad nauseum.

Everyone needs help, including urban and exurban America. The whole country is being neglected and destroyed by “austerity” cuts. But, since my expertise is the 85% of the country’s land area that is not urban, I am going to stick to what I know.

Each federal definition has programmatic impacts. Over the years, I have even helped add definitions as programs were created or reauthorized, trying to make sure that the funds would ultimately reach the communities and regions in need. Most definition madness is related to “categorical” funding, grants that must go to specific programs or projects and are much harder to allocate for local needs. We never get to address the fact that categorical funding rarely aggregates into enough support to create a thriving community.

The central problem is that the federal government is not stepping in to help as it did in the 1960’s and 70’s, when rural poverty was considered a national shame. Although the economic opportunity programs created to improve rural communities never completely succeeded, even crumbs were better than nothing. We seem to be at a new point where rural decline is expanding beyond the persistent poverty areas that have historically fared poorly.

It is not an accident that rural poverty maps stay the same decade after decade. They stay the same because policies and funding decisions keep the same places poor. It is not an accident that declines in life expectancy are highest among rural women of all races; it takes policies to steal the very life from rural communities.

Despite USDA cuts to rural development of 30% and staff reductions of 18% (the loss of more than 1,000 people), USDA Secretary Vilsak reacted mildly to the President’s 2014 budget proposal. Since 2010 the USDA operating budget dropped by $3 billion, or 12 percent. Nevertheless, USDA stated in a report that “discretionary savings are achieved through ongoing efforts to streamline operations, reduce costs, and close offices, and these savings are redirected into critical activities in recognition of tighter budget constraints.”

Closed offices and lack of staff are actually a big deal in communities that are located far from the nearest USDA office and have no public transportation and limited access to the Internet. Where there used to be county offices and people knowledgeable about local conditions, there are now distant regional offices with fewer staff trying to handle more work.

With all of this shrinkage going on, no wonder rural people are concerned about the effects of changing the definitions of rural. It is already hard enough to compete for scarce funds.

Revenue Sharing: Has Its Time Come Again?
A number of years ago, I was feeling hopeless about increasing rural poverty rates. During a one-on-one meeting at USDA with Calvin Beale, the longtime rural scholar and sorely-missed rural policy guru, I asked if there was any program he could point to in his 60-plus years as a federal employee that actually worked. Without a moment’s hesitation he said, yes, revenue sharing.

That comment from Calvin sent me to the archives to learn about the federal revenue sharing program. It convinced me it is time for us in the rural policy arena to discuss bringing back
revenue sharing. We know the good points as well as the bad points and can fight to see that Revenue Sharing 2.0 is even better than the original.

Revenue sharing was a Republican program that became well liked across the partisan divides. It emerged at a time when the federal government gave more funding control to state, local and tribal governments. Revenue sharing was a Nixon proposal passed in 1972 and it lasted for 15 years.

President Ford reconfirmed the benefits of revenue sharing in his 1976 State of the Union, stating: “This program has been effective with decision making transferred from the Federal government to locally elected officials. Congress must act this year or state and local government will have to drop programs or raise local taxes.”

Congress listened to Ford, and the success of revenue sharing grew until was giving general purpose funds to 38,000 cities, towns, counties, townships, tribes and Alaska native villages.
Despite its popularity and cost effectiveness, the pendulum swung and at the peak of its success in 1987, revenue sharing was repealed.

The current rural development system is not working. Maybe we need a combination of revenue sharing with categorical grant, loan and loan guarantee programs. But let’s put revenue sharing
back on the table as we try to improve the lives of rural people and create stronger rural communities.

Carol Miller is a community organizer from Ojo Sarco, New Mexico (population 300) and an advocate for “geographic democracy,” the belief that the United States must guarantee equal
rights and opportunities to participate in the national life, no matter where someone lives.

This article originally appeared on: Counterpunch