Julie Hyland
WSWS

Britain’s ruling elite are sharpening their neo-colonial claws once again in the guise of “humanitarian intervention”, this time utilising the suffering of people in Libya.

In the last days, the UK has led the way in demanding Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi “must go”, insisting “all options” in achieving a desired “regime change” are on the table.

The capture of numerous British military and intelligence operatives—six SAS men and an MI5 agent—by rebel forces in Benghazi made clear that the powers that be are already hard at work to this end. It has since been revealed by the Daily Mail that ministers have approved “a presence on the ground” of the SAS and MI6, who “will link up with Special Forces already in Libya to provide protection and give informal military advice to the Libyan opposition.”

The UK frigate Westminster and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Argus have been sent to the area, British aircraft in Malta are primed and 600 Black Watch soldiers are on 24-hour standby “to fly in and avert a humanitarian catastrophe”, the Mail continued.

A government spokesman said that President Barack Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron had agreed to “press forward with planning” the next course of action should Gaddafi defy demands that he step down.

Answering questions in parliament Wednesday, Cameron would not “guarantee” that taking action would be contingent on the approval of the United Nations Security Council. He was keeping options open should the motion drafted by Britain and France for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya be vetoed. A no-fly zone would constitute an act of war, since it could be policed only by shooting down any Libyan planes breaking the ban and attacking the country’s airbases.

Read more »

Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

Dr. Fredrick Töben is a unique man. You can find a certain tranquility and serenity in his words and actions which make him an unparalleled academician, author and political analyst. While talking to him, you can make sure that you enjoy a fruitful, comprehensive and informative conversation. He always speaks as if he is in a university classroom and wants to teach something to his students. This is the prominent aspect of his personality. He wants to teach and to learn, as well. He loves sharing new experiences with you, and this is another feature of his personality. He has scientifically denied Holocaust and paid the cost: five times in prison in five countries.

He was born on 2 June 1944, Jaderberg, north Germany, into a farming family, which immigrated to Australia in 1954. His father and mother farmed in Australia. His father died in 2003 and his mother passed away in 2008 while he was serving a three-month prison term for 'contempt of court'. His parents were married for 63 years.

Töben received his tertiary education in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Rhodesia-Zimbabwe and he taught secondary and tertiary level German, English, sociology and philosophy in all these countries and Nigeria, as well.

He had a major policy difference with the Victorian Education Department in Melbourne, Australia, which dismissed him from his teaching post on grounds if incompetence and disobedience, and for almost ten years he fought the case and had his dismissal declared invalid.

In 1994, Fredrick Töben founded the Adelaide Institute and became its director. The aim was to research matters relating to 'Holocaust-Shoah' and other related 'taboo topics' that mainstream research institutes did not dare investigate for fear of financial and social sanction. In 1998 Adelaide Institute held the first-ever Revisionist Symposium in Australia. In 1997 and 1999 he went on a world revisionist fact-finding tour that took him to Eastern Europe in particular to Auschwitz where allegedly millions of Jews were gassed. He found that the technicality of the gassing assertion could not be sustained.

Since 1999, Töben made visits to Iran on a regular basis to attend scientific congresses and news conferences on various social and political issues.

Fredrick Töben joined me in an exclusive interview and talked to me about his viewpoints regarding Iran, the Persian culture, the Islamic solidarity, the impacts of Iran's Islamic Revolution on the global order and the current position of Iran in the international community.

Read more »

Stephen Lendman

Ralph Nader calls Washington corporate-occupied territory -

"every department agency controlled by the overwhelming presence of corporate lobbyists, corporate executives in high government positions, turning the government against its own people."

Nader also said corporations don't just control government, they are the government. "The corporation IS the government!" They bought and own it at the federal, state and local levels, running it like their private fiefdom at the expense of working Americans, systematically stripping them of hard-won rights.

They have 10,000 Political Action Committees and 35,000 full-time lobbyists. "Just imagine," says Nader, "even the Labor Department is not controlled by trade unions - it's (owned and) controlled by corporations."

In 1938, Franklin Roosevelt defined the problem, saying:

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling private power."

Today it's more virulent and pervasive than anything Roosevelt could have imagined, using corrupted politicians to smash worker rights.

It's more evidence of America's fake democracy and the criminal class running it. Politicians are bought like toothpaste. Mock elections pretend to be real. Behind the scenes power players control everything, supported by brazen media misreporting, whether about war and peace, the rule of law, or other vital issues, including worker rights.

Overnight on March 9, fascist Republicans erased them in five minutes, in violation of Wisconsin's open meetings law, requiring "24 hours prior to the commencement of (special sessions) unless for good cause such notice is impossible or impractical."

The measure had nothing to do with budget-balancing. It's corporate ordered union busting. Wisconsin is a microcosm of America, ground zero, now breached as well as Ohio. Expect other states to follow. Public and private sector workers nationwide are losing out - betrayed by brazen politicians and corrupted union bosses, selling out rank and file members for self-enrichment and privilege.

Read more »

David Lindorff
This Can't Be Happening

"The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared not just on the hands of Obama and the generals, and the soldiers who pull the triggers and push the buttons that unleash death, but on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms that cover up their crimes."

The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting “Death to America.”

Americans are still blissfully unaware that their “heroes” in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ovine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the “mistake” to “NATO” helicopters.

The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not “NATO” helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack “suspected Taliban forces.”

So why can’t the Pentagon say that? And if they won’t say that, why won’t American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?

Read more »