Chris Floyd

Afghan men gather around bodies of villagers killed in a US NATO attack
in the eastern province of Laghman, Afghanistan, on December 8, 2009.
[There's a news blackout as regards photos from the ongoing massacres,
so we have posted a photo from an earlier US war crime.]

A fresh dispatch from the imperial satrapy of Bactria brings word that the Pentagon has ended the eyeblink-brief "suspension" of one of its super-duper missile systems following the "unfortunate" slaughter of 12 civilians, including five children, in the opening hours of the all-out media blitz -- sorry, the "largest military operation of the Afghan war" -- now being inflicted on the city of Marja.

As you'll recall, after this initial child sacrifice to waft the pleasing smell of innocent blood to great Ares, that he might smile upon the bold Achaeans in their martial endeavor, mighty Agamemnon himself -- now robed in the flesh of General Stanley "Black Ops" McChrystal -- stepped forth before the cameras, and with great show of crocodilian regret, declared that the "errant" missile system would be withdrawn from battle forthwith, until such time as it could be determined why it killed all those civilians and, worst of all, gummed up the glowing press which the Pentagon had painstakingly cultivated during the run-up to the attack.

But as the ever-astute Jason Ditz at Antiwar.com notes, the Pentagon concluded its in-depth investigation of the incident in a matter of hours. What's more, the brass found that not only was there no error whatsoever in the hi-tech death-hurling technology, but also that the whole incident was actually the result of the heroic efforts of a clean-limbed young Leatherneck to save the cowering civilians in his tender care.

Yes, that's right. The Pentagon's story now is that it killed 12 civilians in order to save civilians.

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Marc Sheppard

Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard lets the mainstream media have it for completely ignoring this weekend’s game-changing revelations from Climategate conspirator Phil Jones while jumping all over the ejection of director Kevin Smith from a Southwest Airlines plane for being too fat.

For those who may have taken the three-day weekend off from the blogosphere (and Fox News) -- the BBC released a Q&A and corresponding interview with the embattled erstwhile CRU chief on Friday. In each, the discredited Climategate conspirator revealed a number of surprising insights into his true climate beliefs, the most shocking of which was that 20th-century global warming may not have been unprecedented. As I pointed out in Sunday’s article, Climategate's Phil Jones Confesses to Climate Fraud, as the entire anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory is predicated on correlation with rising CO2 levels, this first-such confession from an IPCC senior scientist is nothing short of earth-shattering.

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Stuart Littlewood

Stuart Littlewood considers the hypocrisy of Britain’s Liberal Democratic Party whose leadership, for the second time running, showed contempt for their own loftily-worded principles by sacking one of the party’s few principled politicians in order to appease the Zionist lobby.

In another blow to British free speech the parliamentarian Baroness Jenny Tonge, a good friend to Palestinians for many years, has been betrayed by her party colleagues and sacked.

Jenny Tonge dared to comment on allegations circulating in the media about Israel harvesting human organs during the emergency rescue operations in Haiti. To prevent these allegations going any further, she said, "the IDF [Israel Defence Force] and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.”

The allegations included reports that the former head of Israel’s forensic institute admitted Israeli pathologists harvested organs from dead Palestinians and others without permission but this nauseating practice had ended in the 1990s. Yet Jenny Tonge’s remarks brought a storm of protest from her own colleagues as well as the Zionist lobby. One of them said: "She is misguided to call for any investigation. On this basis, there could be calls for an investigation to discover the ‘truth’ in the the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

"You have to ask yourself why the IDF, notorious for inflicting wholesale death and destruction on impoverished people who can't defend themselves … would suddenly be interested is saving life in Haiti – praiseworthy though such a humanitarian conversion would be."

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Chris Floyd

The photo is from a previous US massacre. More here.

Another day, another mass slaughter of civilians in Afghanistan. This time the cull of "collateral damage" came not from the world-historical agon at Marja, where Anglo-American sahibs are leading a contingent of colonial troops in a heavily hyped, made-for-media operation that blew a household of civilians, including five children, to smithereens in its opening salvos.

No, the new bloodbath occurred many miles away, in Kandahar, after a NATO patrol evidently saw some Afghan civilians going about their own business in their own country. Naturally, this shocking state of affairs was thought to pose a dire threat to the uninvited invaders who have been rampaging around the country for more than eight years -- so, naturally, an airstrike was called in. Five human beings going about their own business in their own country were then blown to bits, and two more were wounded.

The double whammy of bad PR following these unrelated rub-outs has prompted some of the leading lions of Great Britain's armed forces -- worthy heirs to their world-spanning forbears, upon whose military glories the sun, it was said, never set -- to offer some words of wisdom to those to whom they have now passed the White Man's oh-so-heavy, oh-so-unwanted burden of global domination.

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Stephen Lendman

MK-ULTRA was the code name for a secret CIA mind control program, begun in 1953, under Director Allen Dulles. Its purpose was multifold, including to perfect a truth drug for interrogating suspected Soviet spies during the Cold War. It followed earlier WW II hypnosis, primitive drugs research, and the US Navy's Project Chatter, explained by its Bureau of Medicine and Surgery in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request as follows:

It began "in the fall of 1947 focusing on the identification and testing of drugs (LSD and others) in interrogations and the recruitment of agents. The research included laboratory experiments on both animal and human subjects. The program ended shortly after the Korean War in 1953."

It was run under the direction of Dr. Charles Savage of the Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda, MD from 1947 - 1953, after which CIA's Office of Scientific Intelligence continued it under the name Project Bluebird, its first mind control program to:

● learn how to condition subjects to withstand information from being extracted from them by known means;
● develop interrogation methods to exert control;
● develop memory enhancement techniques; and
● establish ways to prevent hostile control of Agency personnel.

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John V. Walsh

Nobel laureates sign on to "harsher" Iran sanctions – and more

Is there nothing that is safe from debasement by the propaganda machine of the U.S. and Israel? A full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times of Feb. 7 provides the answer. Sponsored by Elie Wiesel’s modestly named Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and signed by 44 Nobel laureates, 35 of them in the physical sciences, it urges brutal and lethal actions against Iran.

Before getting to the cruel prescriptions that Wiesel and his recruits offer for Iran, let us consider their reasoning, such as it is. In a single brief topic sentence they assert their central claim that the Iranian government "whose irresponsible and senseless nuclear ambitions threaten the entire world continues to wage a shameless war against its own people." Two charges are fired off in this brief sentence, and it is all too easy to conflate them. So let us take them one at a time, as is the habit in science when one wishes for clarification.

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Henry Porter

The Independent's article sanctioning torture is built on logical flaws, grotesque views and a contempt for democracy

The columnist Bruce Anderson runs up the flag for torture in today's Independent with a column that does no credit to the paper.

Anderson makes much of the ticking bomb dilemma – the idea that it is morally preferable to torture someone who can tell you where and when a dirty bomb might go off rather than allowing thousands of innocent people to be killed. He recalls that before 9/11, he debated the issue in front of some lawyers and argued that the government would not only have a right to use torture: it would have a duty to use it.

The liberal lawyer Sydney Kentridge got up and challenged Anderson with this: "Let's take your hypothesis a bit further. We have captured a terrorist, but he is a hardened character. We cannot be certain that he will crack in time. We have also captured his wife and children."

Anderson happily admits that he could not think his way round this. "I have come to the conclusion that there is only one answer to Sydney's question. Torture the wife and children. It is a disgusting idea. It is almost a tragedy that we even have to discuss it, let alone think of acting upon it." -So Anderson appears to recommends torturing innocent women and children to make a man talk.

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Abel Bult-Ito

Disturbing photos of children

Iraqi and visiting doctors, and a number of news reports, have reported that birth defects and cancers in Iraqi children have increased five- to 10-fold since the 1991 Gulf War and continue to increase sharply, to over 30-fold in some areas in southern Iraq. Currently, more than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium.

The Pentagon has been using radiooactive weapons for at least a decade and a half with full complicity of at least three White House administrations and Republican and Democratic congressional legislators. Conservatively, at least 300 tons and 1,700 tons of depleted uranium were used in the Gulf War and the current Iraq War, resectively. This is about 70 grams of depleted uranium per Iraqi citizen, and if inhaled or ingested, it is enough to kill them all.

Is this not radioactive genocide, especially when our troops used and continue to use most of the depleted uranium munitions in densely populated areas such as Baghdad and Fallujah? Depleted uranium has a half-life of billions of years. Consequently, Iraq will be a wasteland forever and essentially uninhabitable for anyone.

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Cindy Sheehan

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” Jacques Ellul

On Super Bowl Sunday, the reason that I wrote my new book: Myth America: 20 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution, literally hit home.

Since it was the Holy Day of Obligation for our national religion of Football, I headed for my health club because I have always been a heretic. I arrived there a little before kick off, so the club was still occupied, but after kick-off it was deserted.

After my water workout and swim in the pool that I had all to myself, I headed to the hot tub which was occupied by another spa patron—an older gentleman named Bill whom seems to come to the club just to sit in the hot tub and chat. I get the feeling he is very lonely, and this following exchange may be why:

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Stephen Lendman

Olivia Cruises to Match and Provide Cruise Tickets for
Haiti Donations...

In December 1984, Canada's conservative prime minister, Brian Mulroney, told the New York Economic Club that "Canada is open for business," meaning US companies were welcome, the two countries would work for greater economic integration, America's sovereignty took precedence of his own, and corporate interests from both countries could operate freely at the expense of most Canadians.

That's always been Haiti's curse, now more than ever. Under American militarized control, Haiti is occupied for profit, its pseudo government largely invisible, and predators aim to cash in to the fullest. On January 21, in his article titled, "Securing disaster in Haiti," Peter Hallward explained, saying:

"....the US-led relief operation has conformed to the three fundamental tendencies that have shaped the more general course of the island's recent history. It has adopted military priorities and strategies. It has sidelined Haiti's own leaders and government, and ignored the needs of the majority of its people. And it has proceeded in ways that reinforce the already harrowing gap between rich and poor. All three tendencies aren't just connected, they are mutually reinforcing. (They'll also) govern the imminent reconstruction effort as well, unless determined political action is taken to counteract them."

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Johann Hari

While Obama concentrates on closing Guantanamo, rights activists say the US-
run prison at Bagram continues to operate 'in the shadows' [EPA]

He was elected in part to drag us out of this trap. Instead, he's dragging us further in.

Osama bin Laden's favourite son, Omar, recently abandoned his father's cave in favour of spending his time dancing and drooling in the nightclubs of Damascus. The tang of freedom almost always trumps Islamist fanaticism in the end: three million people abandoned the Puritan hell of Taliban Afghanistan for freer countries, while only a few thousand faith-addled fanatics ever travelled the other way. Osama's vision can't even inspire his own kids. But Omar bin Laden says his father is banking on one thing to shore up his flailing, failing cause - and we are giving it to him.

The day George W Bush was elected, Omar says, "my father was so happy. This is the kind of president he needs - one who will attack and spend money and break [his own] country". Osama wanted the US and Europe to make his story about the world ring true in every mosque and every mountain-top and every souq. He said our countries were bent on looting Muslim countries of their resources, and any talk of civil liberties or democracy was a hypocritical facade. The jihadis I have interviewed - from London to Gaza to Syria - said their ranks swelled with each new whiff of Bushism as more and more were persuaded. It was like trying to extinguish fire with a blowtorch.

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Chris Floyd

I.
The current Nobel Peace laureate is continuing his noble and inspiring work of war this week in the latest PR blitz in Afghanistan: "Operation Moshtarak," the much-ballyhooed, extravagantly telegraphed "attack" on the city of Marja. Is it even worth discussing this monstrous sham? The perpetrators of the attack know full well that there will be no "battle." Even the American commanders cannot be so sealed in their arrogant ignorance that they do not know their insurgent opponents will do what every guerrilla army does when facing concentrations of conventional military force: disperse into the countryside, and into the urban populace, biding their time until the occupiers draw down their forces -- and in the meantime launching small ambushes with sniper fire and roadside bombs aimed at the sitting-duck cannon fodder placed in harm's way by their publicity-driven commanders.

And yet, the Western media has fully bought into the hackneyed, transparently false narrative of "the largest military operation of its kind since the American-backed war began eight years ago," with a plucky band of Marines and their faithful Afghan allies facing down "hundreds" of hardened fighters in the "largest Taliban sanctuary inside Afghanistan." The embedded media tracked the countdown to the attack as if they were hunkered down in the landing craft on their way to Omaha Beach. Except, of course, when one is genuinely planning an actual major attack on a strong, entrenched enemy -- as at Omaha Beach -- one does not normally advertise it around the clock for weeks on end beforehand.

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Rachelle Marshall

The al-Kurd family, whose house was taken over by Jewish
settlers (standing in doorway), sits in the courtyard of their home
in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Arab East Jerusalem, Dec. 2,
2009. AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLI

Our posture with Israel has weakened, our hope to strengthen the Palestinians has fallen back, and our credibility in the Arab world has been damaged. We are the victims of events rather than masters of events. —Robert Malley, Clinton administration peace negotiator, The New York Times, Nov. 6, 2009.

What we are doing here is evil. —Rachel Corrie in a letter from Gaza to her mother shortly before she was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003.

What Rachel Corrie referred to as “evil” was America’s support for Israel despite its crimes against the Palestinians, crimes she was witnessing at first hand in Gaza. The “special relationship” with Israel that guarantees such support has been a constant of U.S. foreign policy since 1967 and is a relationship in which Israel is the sole beneficiary and often the stronger partner. Watching to make sure this policy remains in place is a powerful pro-Israel lobby that most elected officials dare not oppose. President Barack Obama’s pre-election vow to abide by the “special relationship” virtually assured Israeli leaders they could rely on Washington’s full diplomatic, military, and financial support even if they openly defy its wishes.

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Jeb Sharp

Former Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad
Mossadegh steps off a plane, in August 1953.

The US and Iran Part I - The 1953 Coup

In 1979 the political scientist Mark Gasiorowski was a young graduate student. He was transfixed by the revolution in Iran. And he was blown away by its anti-American flavor.

Gasiorowski: "I was really drawn to this phenomenon and wondered why did the Iranians hate us so much. What is it that we've done that created this tremendous animosity?"

Gasiorowski discovered that the 1953 coup was at the heart of Iranian attitudes toward America. He's been studying it ever since. The story has never been that well known in this country. Gasiorowski says at the time it happened, the coup was unprecedented in US foreign policy.

Gasiorowski: "It was really a milestone. It was the first major covert operation by the CIA. It was regarded as a great success. And it was replicated repeatedly subsequently."

To understand how the 1953 coup came about, you have to consider Iran's history. And picture the country on a map. The crucial Persian Gulf lies on its southern border. The former Soviet Union looms to the north. Iran has a strong Persian identity, and a majority Shia Muslim population. Its history has always distinguished it from the countries around it. New York Times reporter Stephen Kinzer discovered that when he first went to Iran.

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S. Fred Singer

Almost daily, we learn about new problems with the formerly respected UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): In their 2001 report, they claimed that the 20th century was "unusual" and blamed it on human-released greenhouse gases. Their infamous temperature graph shown there, shaped like a hockey stick, did away with the well-established Medieval Warm Period (around 1000AD, when Vikings were able to settle in Southern Greenland and grow crops there) and the following Little Ice Age (around 1400 to 1800AD). Two Canadians exposed the bad data used by the IPCC and the statistical errors in their analysis.

The most recent IPCC report of 2007 predicted the disappearance of the Himalayan glaciers within 25 years; the imminent death of nearly half the Amazon rain forest; and major damage from stronger hurricanes -- all in contradiction to expert opinions offered by its appointed reviewers, but ignored by IPCC editors for mostly ideological reasons. More scandalous even, the IPCC based their lurid predictions on anecdotal, non-peer-reviewed sources -- not at all in accord with its solemnly announced principles and scientific standards.

These events showed not only a general sloppiness of IPCC procedures but also an extreme bias -- quite inappropriate to a supposedly impartial scientific survey. By themselves, they do not invalidate the basic IPCC conclusion -- that a warming in the latter half of the 20th century was human-caused, presumably by the rise of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. Yet all of these missteps pale in comparison to ClimateGate, which calls into question the very temperature data used by the IPCC's main policy result.

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