Stephen Lendman

Manning, of course, is the courageous Army intelligence analyst allegedly turned whistleblower, who allegedly admitted leaking:

● "260,000 classified United States diplomatic cables and video of a (US) airstrike in Afghanistan that killed 97 civilians last year," and
● an "explosive (39 minute) video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the Reuters news agency" - "collateral murder" he felt obligated to expose.

It got him in trouble. On June 7, the military in Iraq arrested him, saying:

"The Department of Defense takes the management of classified information very seriously because it affects our national security, the lives of our soldiers, and our operations abroad."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the leak "potentially dramatic and grievously harmful....The battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that part of the world. Intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures, will become known to our adversaries."

Unmentioned was the following:

● our attack, invasion and occupation are illegal under US and international law;
● war crimes, including murder, torture, and targeted assassinations happen daily;
● civilian men, women, and children are willfully targeted;
● since October 2001, millions of Afghans have been killed, injured or displaced, their country perhaps the most hellish anyway, devastated by decades of war, deep poverty, depravation, and unimaginable human suffering, mostly caused by America;
● the same holds for Iraq, Pakistan, and nations where Washington wages proxy wars; and
● our presence and imperial aims cause harm, not Manning or WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, exposing truths the public has a right and need to know.

They deserve praise, not prosecutions, compliments, not condemnation, and accolades, not accusations. They're heros, risking personal harm to disclose disturbing truths, what government and media reports suppress, sanitize and distort, letting warlords plunder lawlessly so war profiteers can cash in, Americans the worse off for it.

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John Pilger

"Instead of remorse, Blair has demonstrated a voracious and secretive greed."

Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes. Blair’s will appear next month and earn him £4.6 million. Now consider Britain’s Proceeds of Crime Act. Blair consired in and executed an unprovoked war of aggression against a defenceless country, which the Nuremberg judges in 1946 described as the “paramount war crime”. This has caused, according to scholarly studies, the deaths of more than a million people, a figure that exceeds the Fordham University estimate of deaths in the Rwandan genocide.

In addition, four million Iraqis have been forced to flee their homes and a majority of children have descended into malnutrition and trauma. Cancer rates near the cities of Fallujah, Najaf and Basra (the latter “liberated” by the British) are now revealed as higher than those at Hiroshima. “UK forces used about 1.9 metric tons of depleted uranium ammunition in the Iraq war in 2003,” the Defence Secretary Liam Fox told parliament on 22 July. A range of toxic “anti-personnel” weapons, such as cluster bombs, was employed by British and American forces.

Such carnage was justified with lies that have been repeatedly exposed. On 29 January 2003, Blair told parliament, “We do know of links between al-Qaida and Iraq …”. Last month, the former head of the intelligence service, MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, told the Chilcot inquiry, “There is no credible intelligence to suggest that connection … [it was the invasion] that gave Osama bin Laden his Iraqi jihad”. Asked to what extent the invasion exacerbated the threat to Britain from terrorism, she replied, “Substantially”. The bombings in London on 7 July 2005 were a direct consequence of Blair’s actions.

Documents released by the High Court show that Blair allowed British citizens to be abducted and tortured. The then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, decided in January 2002 that Guantanamo was the “best way” to ensure UK nationals were “securely held”.

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Nil Nikandrov

The US is Synchronously Preparing to Launch Aggressions Against Iran and Venezuela

The Colombian government voiced a new round of allegations that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is secretly supporting the FARC and ELN guerrilla movements in Colombia and giving shelter to their leaders. Venezuela reacted harshly – Chavez severed the diplomatic ties with Colombia, and the Organization of American States had to hold an urgent meeting on July 22 on Colombia's request. This was the third time this year that the administration of Alvaro Uribe leveled such charges at Caracas and claimed to possess solid evidence that leftist groups are operating from the territory of Venezuela.

Venezuela rejects the allegations that it supplies weapons and money to FARC and ELN, trains their guerrillas, or allows them to use its territory. The border between Venezuela and Colombia is 2,000 km long and lies in the area which abounds with mountains and rainforests. It is also crossed by countless rivers. As a result, the border is practically impossible to seal off and – long before the advent of Chavez – the terrain became homeland to various smugglers, drug dealers, seekers of gold and diamonds, and all brands of adventurous people. Secretary General of the Organization of American States Jose Miguel Insulza agreed that Colombia's charges are groundless, citing the fact that the terrain where the guerrillas come and go is too difficult to be controlled by any single country. He noted that while Uribe is lambasting Venezuela for not arresting the guerrillas Colombia is just as unable to get a hold of them.

Insulza praised Chavez for calling FARC to put down arms as this is the precondition for the resolution of the crisis and a political settlement between Venezuela and Colombia.

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Richard C. Cook

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) was an Austrian philosopher and esotericist and founder of one of the key modern spiritual movements in the West. He is best known for his books and lectures before and after World War I, when he founded the Anthroposophical Society with its present-day headquarters in Dornach, Switzerland. After World War I, Steiner and his work were criticized viciously by right-wing nationalists in Germany, which caused him to give up his residence in Berlin. Among the critics was Adolf Hitler, who attacked him in print as a traitor to Germany for his efforts to promote peace.

The work of prophetic thinkers like Rudolf Steiner makes clear that the history of humanity proceeds through the evolution of consciousness, where changes take place in the psyche of people well in advance of their outward manifestations. Thus an understanding of what is happening before our eyes is never simple, nor can it be taken at face value. Discernment requires a level of knowledge that can only be achieved through study and insight.

But only an approach that penetrates deeply into human nature allows us to see the real inner causes of events. Such causes can be positive or negative, constructive or destructive. It is the genius and dilemma of man that we can choose which influences we serve. As Steiner prophesied almost a century ago, we appear today to be at a pivotal point where how we make such choices can determine the fate of the world.

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