Stephen Lendman

Noted journalist HL Menchen described "The most dangerous man to any government (as someone) who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, and intolerable," yet resisting, he faces recrimination - political imprisonment for his beliefs and activism, officials tolerating no opposition to their authority, no matter how extreme or lawless.

In his book "Race to Incarcerate," Marc Mauer focuses on America's obsession with imprisonment, punishment, and the commodification of prisoners to fill beds - harming society's most vulnerable, targeted for supporting ethnic justice, racial emancipation, and political, economic and social equality across gender and color lines, locked away in the "Land of the Free." In submitting a new report to the UN, National conference of Black Lawyers activist/attorney Stan Willis said:

"The United States is very, very concerned when its citizens begin to raise questions in these international forums, because (America) still prefers to posture itself, including the Obama administration, as the leader of the free world and that they don't have any human rights violations, and they certainly don't have any political prisoners, and we have to dispel that notion in the international community."

American officials don't

"want to have these issues reach the world's people. How do you go into Iraq (and) Afghanistan telling people about their democracy when (you've got innocent people) locked down in prison for 30 - 40 years as political prisoners....(activists) against social injustice, colonialism, and/or imperialism, (incarcerated for) their political commitments."

Others are victimized by judicial unfairness, get tough on crime policies, a guilty unless proved innocent mentality, three strikes and you're out, and what the Innocence Project calls "McJustice - the crisis of indigent defense."

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Stephen Lendman

Demonstrators on their way to protest Israel's apartheid wall - they pass
posters commemorating Bassem Abu Rahme killed by IOF in April 2009.

The 1907 Hague Convention's Article 43 and Fourth Geneva's Article 64 require that occupied territory penal laws stay in force, applicable to both occupier and occupied. However, since 1967, Israel issued over 2,500 Military Orders, controlling daily life solely for Palestinians, not settlers, the military commander having final authority over institutionalized discrimination, suppressing democratic freedoms, including free expression and right to gather peacefully to protest.

Under Israel's 1967 Military Order No. 101 ("Order Regarding Prohibition of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda Actions" as amended), gatherings of more than 10 Palestinians are prohibited without advance IDF notice, including names of participants, those in violation subject to 10 years imprisonment, a heavy fine, or both. The order implies that Palestinians have no legal right to demonstrate, express views freely, or engage in nonviolent peaceful protests.

Even Jews aren't exempt when supporting Arabs, Haaretz writer Nir Hasson (on July 10) headlining "Unprecedented police brutality at East Jerusalem protest" saying:

"Some 300 left-wing activists clashed with police July 9 during the weekly" Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood protests." Every weekend, Israelis join Arabs for a just Jerusalem, demonstrating against settler activity, decrying their takeover of area homes.

Over 40 public figures, including jurists, academics, intellectuals, and writers co-signed a letter, accusing the district police of "illegal and inequitable" conduct, demanding Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein investigate unequal treatment "based on political leanings."

Among the signatories are former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair, retired Judge Boaz Okun, former Education and Justice Minister Amnon Rubinstein, legal scholar Mordechai Kremnitzer, and former head of the Israel Bar Association, Shlomo Cohen, among others, over 40 in all defending peaceful Sheikh Jarrah demonstrations, begun months ago, resulting in over 120 arrests and dozens of indictments.

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Uri Avnery

RE Map: Why does Israel continue to build settlements on the west bank and continue its expansionist policies? The ultimate goal is to capture all of ‘Eretz Israel’. The ‘Promised Land’ extends from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates. It includes parts of Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, a bit of Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Yasser Arafat always used to keep an Israeli coin in his pocket showing Israel with the ‘Eretz Israel’ borders, to remind people that they shouldn’t be fooled by the Zionists, as they have no defined borders and continue to expand their land.

A well-groomed gentleman appeared on TV. He was identified as the chief of an association called Re’uth (“Sight”), whose aim is to monitor the groups which deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

What they have uncovered is indeed frightful. The enemies of Israel, we were told, no longer believe that they can destroy Israel by force of arms. Instead, they have adopted a new strategy: to bring about the collapse of Israel by denying its very legitimacy.

The initiatives of small local groups in various countries are not what they appear to be. Far from it! They are part of a world-wide, organized and coordinated conspiracy, which uses every means to achieve their nefarious aim. Unlike the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, the forged document that was produced a hundred years ago, this is a genuine plot, something like the “Protocols of the Elders of Anti-Zion”.

Only one detail was missing in the disclosure: where is the secret headquarters of this international conspiracy?

Happily, I am in a position to provide the missing information. Shocking as it may sound, the headquarters of the Elders of Anti-Zion is located in Jerusalem.

THE RE’UTH organization is a group of amateurs and only deals with superficial symptoms. Unlike them, I have undertaken to conduct an in-depth investigation.

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Wayne Madsen

CIA Deputy Director Stephen Kappes, President Barack Obama and CIA
Director Leon Panetta outside CIA headquarters in April. (AFP/Getty)

[Wayne Madsen Report / OpinonMaker] WMR previously reported on President Obama’s more than one year employment by a CIA front operation, Business International Corporation, Inc. (BIC) of New York after his graduation from Columbia University in 1983.

However, the State Department’s recent revelation in response to a Freedom of Information Act request that the pre-1965 passport files of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham Soetoro, were destroyed in the 1980s, has re-ignited suspicions that Obama’s mother worked for the CIA under non-official cover (NOC) cover in Indonesia while married to Lolo Soetoro Mangunharjo, a retired colonel in General Suharto’s CIA-backed ranks. Soetoro and Dunham married in 1965 after meeting at the University of Hawaii. That same year, the CIA-backed Suharto launched an anti-Communist coup that saw leftist President Sukarno eventually ousted from power and up to one million suspected Communists, including many ethnic Chinese Indonesians, massacred by government troops. Obama recently lifted a ban on U.S. military support for the Indonesian Red Beret KOPASSUS special operations forces imposed after the unit committed human rights abuses in East Timor in the late 1990s. The 12-year ban, imposed by the Clinton administration, was maintained by the Bush administration.

In 1967, Dunham moved with six-year old Barack Obama to Jakarta. In 1966, as Suharto consolidated his power, Colonel Soetoro was battling Communist rebels in the country. Dunham moved back to Hawaii in 1972, a year after Obama left Indonesia to attend school in Hawaii, and she divorced Soetoro in 1980. Soetoro was hired by Mobil to be a liaison officer with Suharto’s dictatorship. Soetoro died in 1987 at the age of 52. Ann Dunham died in 1995, also at the age of 52. Obama, Sr. died in an automobile accident in Kenya in 1982 at the age of 46. Obama, Sr. attended the University of Hawaii courtesy of a scholarship arranged by Kenyan nationalist leader Tom Mboya. Obama and Dunham married in 1961, however, Obama, at the time, had a wife back in Kenya. Obama and Dunham officially divorced in 1964, the same year Dunham married Soetoro.

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Jamal Abdi

A game plan to draw the United States into a third war in the Middle East
may be quietly unfolding before our eyes.

A game plan to draw the United States into a third war in the Middle East may be quietly unfolding before our eyes.

Late last week, Republicans in the House or Representatives unveiled H.Res.1553 [.pdf], a resolution providing explicit support for an Israeli bombing campaign against Iran. The measure, introduced by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert and forty-six of his colleagues, endorses Israel's use of "all means necessary" against Iran "including the use of military force".

"We have got to act," Gohmert has said in regard to the measure. "We've got to get this done. We need to show our support for Israel. We need to quit playing games with this critical ally in such a difficult area."

But Gohmert's resolution may be an unprecedented development -- Congress has never endorsed pre-emptive military strikes by a foreign country. What's more, this is the minority party signaling to Israel that they can count on Republican support should the President object to Israeli strikes on Iran -- as did George W. Bush in 2008. The resolution also explicitly endorses "any means necessary", a carte blanche for the use of nuclear bunker-busting bombs.

The measure may be overtly political, coming just one week before the Congressional recess in which Members of Congress will return home to their districts to campaign and raise money for the upcoming midterm elections. Democrats and Republicans are in a foot race to demonstrate who can be toughest on Iran. But while Democrats continue to tout newly imposed "crippling" sanctions as evidence of their commitment to pressure, Republicans appear to be moving on to the next phase and are openly endorsing an Israeli strike. Gohmert even argued that instead of sanctions, Congress should have passed his resolution green-lighting military strikes on Iran.

But by encouraging such an attack, supporters of war are effectively working to circumvent the President and his military leadership, who have warned in dire terms against military action in Iran, and instead goading a third country into launching the first strike. Once the bombing campaign has commenced, the authors of this resolution may believe, the US would have few choices but be dragged into war.

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