Andy Worthington

[Photo: U.S. “enemy combatant” Jose Padilla’s losing his mind in a U.S. military brig during his ordeal of solitary confinement and torture.]

“Some issues,” the New York Times declared in an editorial on June 25, “require an unwavering stand. Preserving the role of law enforcement agencies in stopping and punishing terrorists is one of them. This country is not and should never be a place where the military dispenses justice, other than to its own.”

Fine words, indeed, although the Times itself has, over the last ten years, in common with most, if not all of the American establishment, failed to thoroughly and repeatedly condemn efforts, first by George W. Bush, and then by the Obama administration, to hold military trials for the mixed bag of soldiers and terrorist suspects held at Guantánamo.

This is where the rot set in, for which everyone in a position of authority, whether in politics or the media, bears responsibility. However, the failure to stem the poison flowing from this wound to the established order — in which terrorists are criminals and soldiers are not terrorists — has led to an outrageous situation in which lawmakers (both Republicans and Democrats) have decided that the aberrations introduced by the Bush administration, which should, by now, have been thoroughly discredited, were, instead, just the first steps in the creation of an all-encompassing military state.

In this dystopian future, coming to America within months, if lawmakers are successful, anyone regarded as a terrorist must be held in military detention, where, it is planned, they may be subjected to abuse with impunity, and, if required, held forever without a trial and without any rights.

This was the aberration initially dreamt up by Bush and his close advisors for their “war on terror” and implemented at Guantánamo, throughout the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, and around the world in a network of secret prisons. Although it should have died as an enduring concept when President Obama took office, it took less than a year for supporters of military detention for terror suspects to start proposing its continuation and expansion, suggesting that no foreign terror suspect should ever receive a federal court trial.

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Medea Benjamin

("ΛΕΦΤΑ" means MONEY)

The people of Greece are fed up with this wasteful military spending.

When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Greece, she praised the Greek government’s austerity measures to reduce deficits and cut spending. The U.S. and Greece face a common challenge of dealing with soaring deficits, but they also face something else in common: a refusal to deal with out-of-control military spending. And given that the United States is a major arms seller to Greece, Hillary Clinton will encourage the Greeks to slash workers’ wages and pensions, but not its enormous military appetite.

With a population of just 11 million, Greece is the largest importer of conventional weapons in Europe—and ranks fifth in the world behind China, India, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea. Greece spends a whooping 3 percent of its gross domestic product on military hardware, compared to an average 1.7% in the other European NATO countries, including nations involved in international conflicts such as Britain, France and Germany.

The justification has been the ongoing disputes with Turkey over Cyprus and disagreement over the sovereignty of certain islets of the Aegean. But for years now there has been no military conflict over these decades-old disputes, and relations with Turkey have been steadily improving.

I recently spent time with Greek activists who have been camping out in Athens’ Syntagma Square to protest the austerity program. They are not happy with Clinton’s visit, or her thumbs up for a financial package that slashes wages, reduces pensions, increases joblessness and privatizes government services. And they noted that the very nations in the European Union and the United States that have been pushing the Greek government to squeeze Greek workers are the same ones that have been, for the last decade, pushing Greece to purchase massive amounts of worthless weapons.

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Stephen Lendman

In July 2011, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a new report titled, "Education Denied: Israel's Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children's Right to Education," even though it's a fundamental human right.

It involves progressively developing children as individuals and responsible citizens. It's key in helping them "raise their standard of living, and (be able to further their) economic, social and cultural development and growth of society."

PCHR's report addresses Israeli policies that affect primary education achievement for all Palestinians by 2015.

International law recognizes the right to education for everyone, including Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) stating:

"The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to education....(It) shall enable all persons to participate effectively in a free society, promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations and all racial, ethnic or religious groups," as well as advance activities for peace.

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Robert Stevens and Chris Marsden

Parliament and its parties are nothing more than the hirelings of an obscenely wealthy oligarchy that has complete liberty to pursue their self-enrichment and impose their counterrevolutionary social agenda by whatever means they see fit.

The two select committees are nothing more than a cover for the refusal to conduct a serious investigation of the News International scandal that would bring the guilty to book.

The appearance of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corporation, and his son James Murdoch, its deputy chief operating officer, before the British Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee was a piece of well-choreographed political theatre.

As with Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, News Corp’s UK arm, who was questioned afterwards, the Murdochs knew beforehand that there was no danger of them being asked probing questions, let alone suffering any legal consequences from their testimony.

Far from the much vaunted reassertion of the authority of Parliament and the bringing of Murdoch to account, the event took on the character of a PR exercise for News Corp.

One would never have known by the committee’s deference that the three News Corp luminaries were appearing to answer questions relating not only to the News of the World’s phone hacking, but to bribery, corruption and blackmail of police officers, public officials and leading politicians by Murdoch’s media empire.

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Patrick Martin

An elderly man walks past The National Debt Clock, which displays the current United States gross national debt and each American family's share, on a wall in midtown Manhattan, in New York July 13, 2011. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan, launched new military onslaughts in Libya, Yemen and Somalia, continued the Bush administration’s attacks on democratic rights, and now seeks to outdo the Republicans in imposing austerity policies at home.

Official Washington and American media attention will be focused for the next two weeks on the August 2 deadline for raising the federal debt ceiling. Without congressional action to increase the debt limit by that date, according to the Treasury Department, the US government will be unable to borrow money to cover payments, including Social Security checks being sent out to 50 million recipients on August 3, and interest payments on US government bonds due later in the month.

In order to understand the significance of the debt ceiling crisis, and the measures being proposed to resolve it, it is necessary to cut through the lies and distortions of the Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington, reinforced by the commentaries in the corporate-controlled media, both liberal and conservative.

Why is the demand for “deficit reduction” now being voiced so unanimously in every quarter of official American politics? What are the fundamental class issues that underlie this campaign?

The American ruling elite is engaged in the greatest robbery of working people in US history. In the bank bailout of 2008-2009, the financial aristocracy effectively transferred to the federal government its bad debts and losses from a decade of reckless speculation. Now the working class is being compelled to pay the price for Wall Street’s looting of the Treasury through the destruction of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs in education, the environment, transportation and housing.

When they hear Barack Obama, John Boehner and other political and media representatives of big business declare that “there is no money” to sustain vital programs on which tens of millions of working people depend for their survival, workers should think back to the financial crisis that erupted less than three years ago. There was no suggestion then that “there is no money” to save the banks from collapse. On the contrary, staggering and essentially unlimited sums—as much as $23.7 trillion in combined cash, loans and guarantees from the Treasury, Federal Reserve and other institutions—were made available to defend the capitalist system and the financial interests of the super-rich.

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