Stephen Lendman

Thousands have been illegally captured or killed in America's
war on Islam, also known as the "War on Terrorism". The US
is at war with Muslim countries only: Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Yemen, Iraq, Somalia and Libya.

America's dirty war, in fact, targets Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, political activists, and Muslims for their faith, ethnicity, and at times prominence and charity, exploiting them as "war on terror" scapegoats.

On July 9, a Press TV US prison system racket interview highlighted the problem and urgency to address it, accessed through this link.

America's media ignore how unjustly it harms millions of disadvantaged people. Instead, they regurgitate spurious high-profile case accusations, always when Muslims are affected. Most often they're men, occasionally women, bogusly charged with terrorism or conspiracy to commit it, when, in fact, they're guilty only of being targets of choice and/or being in America at the wrong time.

Why Muslims when, in fact, Islam teaches love, not hate; peace, not violence; charity, not selfishness; and tolerance, not terrorism; or that Islam, Christianity and Judaism have common roots.

Who'd know though in today's climate of hate and fear at a time America wages global wars on Islam, including at home.

Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame is America's latest high-profile target, illegally captured, interrogated (and likely tortured) at sea for over two months, based on spurious allegations of Islamic terrorist ties.

Post-9/11, the same pattern repeated ruthlessly against hundreds of innocent victims. Pronounced guilty by accusation, America's media shamelessly regurgitate fabricated hate charges, not legitimate honest accounts, doing what good journalists should - their job.

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Chris Marsden

The ongoing exposure of systematic hacking of thousands of phones and computers by employees of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World lifts the lid on the rampant criminality of the corporate and political elite, in Britain and internationally. At least 7,000 people have had their phones hacked and their privacy invaded. The trawl for personal information has targeted a wide range of victims, from politicians and members of the royal family to the families of murder victims and soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

The scandal is revealing the thorough-going decay of democracy and all of the official institutions in Britain, including the major parties, Parliament, the judiciary and the media. The most powerful media corporation in Britain, which constantly trumpets the need for “law and order,” has presided over serious violations of the law, including hacking on what one MP called “an industrial scale.” It has done so year-on-year with virtual impunity.

Murdoch executives and reporters are notorious as well for threatening and bullying politicians and other notables who criticize the operations of News International or otherwise arouse the ire of the Murdoch family.

Now reports have emerged that a News of the World executive destroyed millions of potentially incriminating emails in order to thwart further investigations.

Both of the major parties, Conservative and Labour, are implicated in these crimes, not only because of their refusal to call to account News International, the parent firm of Murdoch’s British media outlets, but because of their intimate relations with Murdoch’s media empire. They never challenged the Metropolitan Police for accepting the patently absurd claim that these illegal practices were the actions of one rogue reporter and a private investigator, even as it surfaced that police officers had received tens of thousands of pounds in bribes from News of the World.

It was only after numerous civil cases had been taken out against the newspaper by celebrities whose phones were hacked that, in January, the Crown Prosecution Service announced it would review material held by police on phone hacking at News of the World to “assess if a fresh criminal trial is likely.”

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Medea Benjamin

Instead of high-fiving each other for their success in thwarting the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, Israeli officials should be throwing overboard the propaganda hacks who catapulted the flotilla into headline news for weeks and left Israel smelling like rotten fish.

Last year, when the Israeli military killed nine aboard the Turkish ship, the incident made waves around the world. But in previous years, the same international coalition had sent boats to Gaza five times, successfully reaching their destination with a symbolic shipment of humanitarian aid. No blood, no military interception, no story. That’s why the advice of many of Israel’s best buddies, including the lobby group AIPAC, was to just ignore the flotilla.

But no, the Israeli government refused to listen and instead announced with great bravado that it was prepared to stop the flotilla with lethal force—including snipers and attack dogs. Smelling blood, the media frenzy began. Before even leaving home, passengers were besieged with press calls inquiring why we were willing to risk our lives and giving us a chance to talk about the plight of the people of Gaza. Worse yet from the Israeli government perspective, mainstream media began bombarding us with requests to come along. With space for only ten media on our boat, we ended up choosing reps from CNN, CBS, Al Jazeera, AP, The Nation and Democracy Now. Other boats in the flotilla also started scrambling to accommodate more press. Thanks to Israel, we were guaranteed that no matter what happened, the whole world would be watching.

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Gilad Atzmon

It might be argued that the passing week was not very easy on the Palestinian solidarity movement: firstly, an international peaceful flotilla aiming to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza did not manage to leave Greek ports. The Greek government had surrendered submissively to Israeli pressure and American Jewish organisations, and blocked the naval enterprise.

Secondly, an international attempt to fly hundreds of activists from all over the world to the West Bank also partially failed, as the Israeli Government had managed to mount just enough pressure to make sure that the project fell apart before it became airborne.[1]

Though it may seem as if the Palestinian solidarity movement suffered a blow, it is actually Israel that was harshly beaten here, for Israel has managed to expose its level of hysteria: it seems that eight old yachts and a few hundred Easyjet passengers have managed to shake the entire Israeli society. Now try to imagine the potential impact of hundred of thousands of Palestinian refugees marching to their homes in Jaffa, Acre Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Beer Shiva and Al Quds.

I guess that the picture is clearer than ever-- Israel doesn’t stand a chance. Its fate is doomed. It is just a question of time. It is not a matter of ‘if’ but a question of ‘when’. But the truth of the matter goes slightly deeper.

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Khalid Amayreh in occupied East Jerusalem

Numerous Israelis know deep in their hearts that they are living on land that belongs to another people, that they are residing in homes whose real owners were expelled by Israel's terrorist army to the four corners of the globe.

Recent Israeli behavior toward a host of issues and events portrays a state in the throes of an existential anxiety. For example, the clearly hysterical response by the Israeli government to the mobilization of a few ships carrying humanitarian aid to blockaded Gazans caricatured a state that reacts in a phobic manner to dangers and threats that don’t really exist.

After all, the volunteers on board the ships, who include people from different cultures and religions, made it abundantly clear that their mission was to deliver badly-needed humanitarian materials to the people of Gaza Strip, hermetically besieged by Israel for the fifth consecutive year for no convincing reasons.

Another message these courageous men and women, who really represent the real conscience of humanity, is to highlight the utter illegitimacy, illegality and immorality of the criminal siege that is meant to starve and strangulate 1.8 million human beings whose only "crime" is their enduring determination to seek liberty from the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the holocaust.

There is no doubt that Israeli leaders and officials know this fact too well. However, this apparently didn't prevent the dishonest Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu from claiming that the free Gaza flotilla was carrying arms to Hamas, a claim that obviously didn't contain an iota of truth. However, Israel is not a classical neurotic and psychotic case. Israel is perfectly aware of the fact that it is lying to the world and for the world.

The less professional liars among the Israeli government clique claimed that the flotilla amounted to armed armada which was planning to invade Israel, attack the Israeli navy and harm Israeli soldiers. But one would have to send his or her own mind on an extended holiday to believe that a few hundred peace activists, many of them elderly men and women above the age of 70 are planning a blitz against the mighty Israeli army.

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