David Lindorff
This Can't Be Happening

Libyan rebels celebrating on burned-out Gaddafy military
vehicle may be unknowingly inhaling toxic uranium oxide.

President Obama’s criminal launch of an undeclared and Congressionally unauthorized war against Libya may be compounded by the crime of spreading toxic uranium oxide in populated areas of that country.

This is latest concern of groups like the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons [1], which monitor the military use of so-called depleted-uranium (DU) anti-tank and bunker-penetrating shells.

Images of Libyan civilians and rebels celebrating around the burning hulks of the Libyan army’s tanks and armored personnel carriers, which had been hit by US, French and British aircraft ordnance in the early hours of the US-led assault on the forces of Col. Muammar Gaddafy, could well have been unknowingly inhaling the deadly dust of the uranium weapons favored by Western military forces for anti-tank warfare.

Specifically, the British-built Harrier jets used by British naval air forces and also by US Marine pilots, are often equipped with pod-mounted cannons that fire 20 mm shells--shells that often have uranium projectiles designed to penetrate heavy armor.

So far, the US has not introduced its A-10 Thunderbolts, known also as Warthogs, into the Libyan campaign, probably because these sub-sonic, straight-wing craft, while heavily armored, are vulnerable to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles which Libyan forces are known to possess in large numbers. Once the air-control situation is improved by continued bombardment, however, these specialized ground-attack aircraft will probably be added to the attacking forces. The A-10 has a particularly large automatic cannon which fires an unusually large 30 mm shell. These shells are often fitted with solid uranium projectiles for attacking tanks, APCs or groups of fighters holed up in concrete bunkers.

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Ilan Pappé

Richard Goldstone in the Gaza Strip, June 2009. (UN Photo)

"If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document." Thus opens Judge Richard Goldstone's much-discussed op-ed in the Washington Post. I have a strong feeling that the editor might have tampered with the text and that the original sentence ought to have read something like: "If I had known then that the report would turn me into a self-hating Jew in the eyes of my beloved Israel and my own Jewish community in South Africa, the Goldstone report would never have been written at all." And if that wasn't the original sentence, it is certainly the subtext of Goldstone's article.

This shameful U-turn did not happen this week. It comes after more than a year and a half of a sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassination against the judge, a campaign whose like in the past destroyed mighty people such as US Senator William Fulbright who was shot down politically for his brave attempt to disclose AIPAC's illegal dealings with the State of Israel.

Already In October 2009, Goldstone told CNN, "I've got a great love for Israel" and "I've worked for many Israeli causes and continue to do so" (Video: "Fareed Zakaria GPS," 4 October 2009).

Given the fact that at the time he made this declaration of love he did not have any new evidence, as he claims now, one may wonder how could this love could not be at least weakened by what he discovered when writing, along with other members of the UN commission, his original report.

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Stephen Lendman

In his April 8 article headlined, "The Economic Crisis in Iceland: 'IMF Medicine' is not the Solution," Michael Hudson asked:

"Will Iceland Vote 'No' on April 9, or commit financial suicide," their choice being:

>

Reject debt bondage or "subject their economy to decades of poverty, bankruptcy and emigration of their work force."

In other words, destroying the nation for profit, extorting its wealth, selling off its natural resources and public enterprises, raising taxes on working Icelanders, and transforming the country into a dystopian nightmare, what Merriam-Webster calls "an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives," the opposite of utopia under conditions of deprivation, poverty, disease, violence, oppression, and terror, like in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

In other writing, Hudson called debt bondage "as deadly as outright military" defeat. Loss of livelihoods and assets leave people vulnerable to sickness, despair, and early deaths, much like what happened in post-Soviet Russia under Washington-imposed "shock therapy" when:

● 80% of farmers went bankrupt;
● around 70,000 state factories closed;
● unemployment became epidemic;
● a permanent underclass was created;
● poverty rose from two million in 1989 to 74 million by the mid-1990s, and in half the cases it was desperate;
● alcoholism and drug abuse soared;
● so did HIV/AIDS 20-fold;
● suicides also and violent crime four-fold; and
● the population declined by 700,000 a year; by 2007 it was 10% lower than in 1989 because of sharply reduced life expectancies.

In March 2010, Hudson explained that 93% of Icelanders rejected bailout terms. Otherwise, they faced repayment for billions in banking fraud. In fact, they've already been mercilessly hammered by "a falling GDP, rising unemployment, defaults, foreclosures," and housing prices down 70% from their peak valuation, heading for mortgaging their futures unless freed from perpetual debt bondage.

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Stephen Lendman

A previous article explained his sellout to Republicans last year on extending tax cuts to America's aristocracy, accessed through this link.

It shouldn't surprise that on April 8, he repeated what's become a habit - breaking every major campaign pledge by backing reactionary Republican measures, harming working Americans most, besides governing lawlessly at home and abroad and much more, hurtling the nation dangerously far right, tipping it toward neoserfdom enforced by repressive harshness.

Last December he said, "without a willingness to give on both sides, there's no reason to believe (the current) stalemate won't continue well into next year....I am not willing to let that happen....it would be the wrong thing to do. As a result, we arrived at a framework for a bipartisan agreement," what, in fact, was assured well in advance of his announcement.

Obama's notion of "tough choices" includes:

● permanent wars;
● greater super-rich enrichment;
● temporary social benefit crumbs; as well as
● class warfare through neoliberal austerity for working Americans, mainly middle class ones, targeted for elimination.

Neither Obama or congressional allies explain, or that both parties accelerated it in recent years, most recently on April 8, again betraying loyal constituents who support him, besides America's most needy.

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Stephen Lendman

According to media scholar/critic Robert McChesney, today's corporate journalism is co-opted, corrupted, gutted, and virtually worthless as a source of real news, information and analysis.

As a result, a free and open society is at risk because fiction substitutes for fact. News is carefully managed. Dissent is marginalized, and supporting wealth and power interests replace full disclosure and accurate reporting. No wonder imperial wars are called liberating one. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with lawless governments. America's under both parties certainly qualifies.

Two previous articles explained that for many decades, The Times has been America's closest equivalent to an official ministry of information and propaganda, masquerading as real news, commentary, analysis and opinion.

Its long history reveals a record of suppressing truth, supporting powerful interests, backing corporate predators, and endorsing imperial wars, no matter how much killing, destruction, and human misery they cause, let alone why they're waged.

In Times logic, America's are legitimate, liberating and just when, in fact, they're lawless, brutal, exploitive wealth and power grabs, intolerant of democratic values, including at home.

As a result, an April 7 editorial headlined, "Keeping Ahead of Qaddafi" doesn't surprise, saying:

America should use A-10 Warthogs to attack tanks and armor and AC-130 gunships to escalate killing on the ground, explaining they "can fly slow enough and low enough" to destroy targets better than "highflying supersonic French and British jets." American ones as well still participating.

In fact, AFRICOM's General Carter Ham, commanding the Libyan war, not NATO, said these and other strike aircraft are deployed and available to provide close air-ground support. Recent bad weather and threats from Gaddafi's mobile surface-to-air missiles restricted their use so far, he explained.

Claiming this will avoid civilian casualties, Times reasoning ignores the historic record that democratic and authoritarian governments willfully kill large numbers of civilians strategically to win wars at all cost, especially imperial ones to colonize conquered foes, control their resources, and exploit their people ruthlessly for profit.

During and since WW II alone, America killed millions of mostly civilian Japanese, Germans, Italians, Koreans, Southeast Asians, Central Americans, Africans, Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, and now Libyans.

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