Stephen Lendman

FBI Uses Fake Muslim Convert, Craig Monteilh
as Informant. (The Islamic Workplace)

Post-9/11, American Muslims became fair game, targeting them for their faith, ethnicity, and at times prominence and charity. As a result, they've been ruthlessly vilified and exploited as "war on terror" scapegoats for political advantage.

Entrapment is commonly used. Guilt or innocence doesn't matter, just the illusion that America is safer when, in fact, every victim assures greater insecurity and fear. Many are left wondering who's next.

Entrapment occurs when law enforcement officials or agents induce, influence, or provoke crimes that otherwise wouldn't be committed. However, it doesn't apply in cases of willingness to act lawlessly, government merely aiding, abetting, or facilitating a chance to do so. It involves the following:

● government officials or agents initiate the idea;
● individuals are persuaded to act; and
● they had no previous intent or willingness to do so.

Prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that subjects weren't entrapped. Otherwise, due process convictions are prohibited. However, in today's climate, judicial fairness is lost in cases involving anyone for political reasons.

Muslims are especially affected, America's target of choice. They've been hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence, convicted on bogus charges, given long sentences, then incarcerated as political prisoners.

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Medea Benjamin

Mohammed Hafiz holds a picture of his late 10-year-old son, Ali Mohammed, who was killed when guards employed by security company Blackwater, now known as Xe, opened fire at Nisoor Square in 2007, in Baghdad, Iraq. Seeking justice for 17 people shot dead at the Baghdad intersection relatives and loved ones responded with bitterness and outrage Friday, Jan. 1, 2010, at a U.S. judge's decision to throw out a case against Blackwater security guards accused in the killings. Seven years after the US under Bush first bombed Iraq into submission and then occupied the country, Iraq is still occupied by the US, now under Obama, in 2010. (Photo taken October 4, 2007: AP/Khalid Mohammed)(The WE!)

This week marks the beginning of what is supposed to be the final 100 days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But if U.S. troops are to leave Iraq at the end of this year as promised – repeatedly – it will take grassroots pressure to counter the growing “occupy-Iraq-forever” chorus in Washington.

Despite the fact that there is a Bush-era agreement with the Iraqi government to leave, despite the fact that the majority of Iraqis and Americans don’t support a continued U.S. presence, and despite the fact that Congress is supposedly in an all-out austerity mode, strong forces – including generals, war profiteers and hawks in both parties – are pushing President Obama to violate the agreement negotiated by his predecessor and keep a significant number of troops in Iraq past the December 31, 2011 deadline.

It’s true there has already been a major withdrawal of U.S. troops, from a high of 170,000 in 2007 to about 45,000 troops today (with most of the troops being sent over to occupy Afghanistan instead). That number, however, doesn’t tell the whole picture. As the New York Times notes, “Even as the military reduces its troop strength in Iraq, the C.I.A. will continue to have a major presence in the country, as will security contractors working for the State Department,” the latter to defend a U.S. embassy that's bigger than the Vatican.

Back in 2007, candidate Obama pledged that the first thing he’d do as president would be to withdraw our troops from Iraq. “I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank,” the future president declared. So far, the only thing many Americans can take to the bank, however, is evidence their home was fraudulently foreclosed upon.

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Bill Van Auken

Refugees from the Libyan coastal city of Sirte report that thousands have died as a result of relentless NATO bombardment and shelling by the the Western-backed “rebels.”

The two-week-old NATO siege of Sirte has left the city without adequate food, drinkable water, medicine and other basic necessities of life, creating hellish condition for its population of 100,000.

While the Benghazi-based National Transitional Council (NTC) has repeatedly issued announcements that the so-called rebels had advanced toward the city center under NATO air cover, they have again and again been forced to retreat under heavy fire from forces loyal to Col. Muammar Gaddafi, as well as what have been described as citizen volunteers.

In their frustration, the anti-Gaddafi militias have pounded the coastal city with artillery and mortar rounds, tank shells and Grad rockets, wreaking horrific destruction.

Thousands of refugees have tried to flee the city, forced to pass through checkpoints set up by the NATO-backed forces, where many have been taken prisoner, accused of being Gaddafi supporters.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Politicians and opinion-formers, please stop listening to the “moneymen”. Go back to first principles and start using some common sense.

I do not know about you but I am finding myself baffled, irritated and confused by the World Bank, the European Central Bank (ECB), the IMF and a few other acronyms that seem to dominate the news.  I did not vote for any of these organisations, so why do they have such an influence on my life, the lives of the rest of the British public and the lives of tens of millions across the globe. They seem to be running the world. The news is dominated by the “market”. On our television screens we see people staring at screens and pressing buttons. With a few strokes on a keyboard these people hold the lives of millions at their mercy.  How did it come to this?  What sort of a system have we created that gives so much power to these people?  How is it that these people, who are entrusted with the money made by working people, end up gobbling up the money for which people have laboured so hard?  How were they ever allowed to have such a stranglehold on the lives of millions?

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Stephen Lendman

Economic meltdown comes in stages. Recognition takes longer. Tout TV pundits stay in denial longest, calling crisis conditions a normal correction.

Reality suggests otherwise with US unemployment approaching 23%, home foreclosures multiplying, and poverty levels double or more official distorted numbers that artificially hold them down.

Longtime market expert and regular Progressive Radio News Hour guest Bob Chapman says Eurozone countries are collapsing.

They're "in a state of contagion with six of its sovereign members in serious financial trouble....The creators of the EU, euro zone, and ECB have a failing monstrosity on their hands," an out-of-control debt bomb.

"There is absolutely no way a financial crisis can be avoided," and it's already been unfolding since 2008. No combination of countries can bail out others in crisis "without destroying themselves. Can 21 nations find $4 to $6 trillion to bail out six?"

Impossible! "Fragile" isn't the word for it. Neither is contagion. The operative word is "abject failure," heading for collapse.

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Stephen Lendman

A previous article explained, accessed through this link.

Palestinians petitioned the UN for sovereign recognition and full UN membership. Four extremist MKs responded, calling for West Bank settlements annexed. MK Deputy Speaker Danny Danon wants more.

On September 27, the JTA Global News Service of the Jewish People headlined, "Knesset to vote on annexing the West Bank," saying:

On September 27, Danon said the Knesset will "take up the bill, which he authored, at the end of October."

It includes rescinding Israeli/PA financial obligations established by prior agreements. According to Danon:

"If the Palestinian Authority wishes to proceed on this reckless path and bring further instability to the region, Israel cannot continue to pour funds into this sinking ship of failed leadership."

"The funding agreements with the PA were reached with the hope that their leaders would work to create an environment of lasting peace and security with Israel. Given that it is clear that the Palestinians have no such desire, Israel must no longer be required to stand by these arrangements."

Palestinians, of course, want and deserve what Israel denied them for 63 years after stealing their homeland violently. Using long ago discredited arguments, Danon and others like him think Israel has a divine right to their land. Growing millions globally disagree, including Israeli Jews and others everywhere able to distinguished between right and wrong.

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Jonathan Cook

A Thought Police for the Internet Age

There could be no better proof of the revolution – care of the internet – occurring in the accessibility of information and informed commentary than the reaction of our mainstream, corporate media.

For the first time, Western publics – or at least those who can afford a computer – have a way to bypass the gatekeepers of our democracies. Data our leaders once kept tightly under wraps can now be easily searched for, as can the analyses of those not paid to turn a blind eye to the constant and compelling evidence of Western hypocrisy. Wikileaks, in particular, has rapidly eroded the traditional hierarchical systems of information dissemination.

The media – at least the supposedly leftwing component of it – should be cheering on this revolution, if not directly enabling it. And yet, mostly they are trying to co-opt, tame or subvert it. Indeed, progressive broadcasters and writers increasingly use their platforms in the mainstream to discredit and ridicule the harbingers of the new age.

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Republic of Lakotah

Russell Means says he has chosen to not undergo chemotherapy or radiation to fight his battle against cancer. Instead, Means will rely on traditional indigenous forms of medicine and healing. "People think that death is horrible," he said. "Death is a change of world."

Hello everyone:

I want to thank you for your heartfelt love and for your extreme concern about my health. I never expected within my lifetime, I would experience such a world wide outpour of pure love. Believe me it goes a long way toward defeating this cancer.

Robby Romero and co- producer camera man, Dave Schweitzer are doing a documentary retrospective of my life and this fight to defeat this cancer. Thanks to this documentary and their interviewing of my doctors, did I realize out how super serious my condition WAS. The doctor who is in charge of my tomo therapy is the only doctor in the united states of america that can directly program and apply this machine that can pin point and kill the cancer cells without damaging my good cells and other sensitive tissue in my body like the conventional radiation used by all other Oncologists in the united states.

I found out that I was literally days away from the tumor in my throat closing my windpipe and forcing me to have a tracheotomy which would have begun my spiral down to death. The worst part would have been my deteriorating quality of life until I expired.

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Stephen Lendman

The Palestinians deserve their own sovereign state to escape a system as oppressive as how Nazis terrorized Jews. After 63 years, they're entitled to that and more.

Since 1967, Israel has established 121 settlements, recognized by the Interior Ministry as "communities." Another 100 unauthorized outposts have been built.

In addition, 12 annexed Jerusalem neighborhoods are considered settlements under international law. Moreover, settler enclaves exist in Palestinian East Jerusalem areas. They include:

● the Old City's Muslim Quarter;
● Silwan;
● Sheikh Jarrah;
● Mount of Olives;
● Ras al-'Amud;
● Abu Dis; and
● Jabal al-Mukabber.

Overall, Israeli occupied territory, including settlements, exceeds 40% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, its choicest parts.

However, for extremist MKs, it's not enough. They want all Judea and Samaria west of the Jordan River, comprising the West Bank and Jerusalem. For now, however, they'll settle for annexing occupied settlements.

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Stephen Lendman

AIPAC is an unregistered foreign agent representing Israel. Edward Said once called it "the most powerful and feared lobby in Washington."

Calling itself "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," it's represented Israeli interests since founded in 1953. In 1963, it was incorporated as a division of the American Zionist Council (AZC), its precursor.

For decades, it's been very successful subverting opposition to Israel's agenda. Virtually no one in Congress confronts it. Doing so would be a career-ender.

Notably, it's had virtual veto power over war and peace, trade and investment, multi-billion dollar arms sales, enormous handouts to Israel, and all Middle East policies affecting the Jewish state under Democrat and Republican administrations alike.

Deferentially, politicians, presidents, their hangers-on, media scoundrels and others pay it due homage and the government it represents. As a result, everyone pays dearly.

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Richard S Ehrlich

Photo: Typical Thai holding cell. This one is in Jomtien in the Chonburi Province near Pattaya. The cell is 2.0 meters x 1.8. The toilet normally is in view of the public. It is a shared cell. We don't know whether this is a CIA prison or not.

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) appears to have used Bangkok's former Don Muang International Airport as a secret prison to torture a suspected Muslim terrorist, the first time a specific location has ever been described within Thailand, according to statements by the Libyan who was allegedly held there.

It was impossible to immediately confirm Abdel Hakim Belhaj's allegations of being "hung", "injected" and refrigerated with "ice" at the airport, but if true it is the first description of any site in Thailand pinpointed by a prisoner held by the CIA.

Thai officials in this Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian country have consistently denied knowledge of any CIA secret prison.

However, a secret CIA prison's existence - linked to waterboarding of suspects in Thailand two years earlier in 2002 - has been mentioned in US congressional testimony and was first broken by a Washington Post report. The facility is frequently cited in international media reports as one of the CIA's secret rendition sites.

Thailand is one of the US's major non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, a distinction it earned in 2003 through its cooperation with Washington's global "war on terror".

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Paul Craig Roberts

Economic policy in the United States and Europe has failed, and people are suffering.

Economic policy failed for three reasons: (1) policymakers focused on enabling offshoring corporations to move middle class jobs, and the consumer demand, tax base, GDP, and careers associated with the jobs, to foreign countries, such as China and India, where labor is inexpensive; (2) policymakers permitted financial deregulation that unleashed fraud and debt leverage on a scale previously unimaginable; (3) policymakers responded to the resulting financial crisis by imposing austerity on the population and running the printing press in order to bail out banks and prevent any losses to the banks regardless of the cost to national economies and innocent parties.

Jobs offshoring was made possible because the collapse of the Soviet Union resulted in China and India opening their vast excess supplies of labor to Western exploitation. Pressed by Wall Street for higher profits, US corporations relocated their factories abroad. Foreign labor working with Western capital, technology, and business know-how is just as productive as US labor. However, the excess supplies of labor (and lower living standards) mean that Indian and Chinese labor can be hired for less than labor’s contribution to the value of output. The difference flows into profits, resulting in capital gains for shareholders and performance bonuses for executives.

As reported by Manufacturing & Technology News (September 20, 2011) the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages reports that in the last 10 years, the US lost 54,621 factories, and manufacturing employment fell by 5 million employees. Over the decade, the number of larger factories (those employing 1,000 or more employees) declined by 40 percent. US factories employing 500-1,000 workers declined by 44 percent; those employing between 250-500 workers declined by 37 percent, and those employing between 100-250 workers shrunk by 30 percent.

These losses are net of new start-ups. Not all the losses are due to offshoring. Some are the result of business failures.

US politicians, such as Buddy Roemer, blame the collapse of US manufacturing on Chinese competition and “unfair trade practices.” However, it is US corporations that move their factories abroad, thus replacing domestic production with imports. Half of US imports from China consist of the offshored production of US corporations.

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Stephen Lendman

On September 23 in New York, a State Department "Special Briefing" was held. An unnamed "Senior Administration Official" commented on the Quartet's Palestinian statehood proposal, saying:

"As the Palestinians develop(ed) their own ideas of what was necessary in terms of (petitioning the UN), we were intensively engaged with them in providing ideas for an alternative path."

That says it all! It reveals the Washington/Israeli/EU/Ban Ki-moon duplicitous strategy to subvert Palestinian statehood by a combination of diversion, delay and exclusion from debate on what Palestinians most want and deserve.

It includes unconditional sovereignty within 1967 borders (22% of historic Palestine), total control over their own lives, Israel's occupation and Gaza's siege ended, fixed borders, diaspora Palestinians' right of return, settlement construction ended, and East Jerusalem as their capital.

In other words, they want what all independent states enjoy, including fair and open elections to choose their own leaders democratically, free from outside influence.

They also need to know the collaborationist credentials of leaders representing them - namely, Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, conspiring against them while pretending otherwise.

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Stephen Lendman

On September 24, Russia's Vladimir Putin announced he'll run again for president in 2012 after serving eight years as Dmitry Medvedev's Prime Minister.

[Suddenly] America's media have better memories than elephants. In November 2007, they recall Putin on National Unity Day telling military cadets and youth groups that while:

"an overwhelming majority of people in the world," are friendly toward Russia, some "keep saying to this day that our nation should be split. Some believe that we are too lucky to possess so much natural wealth, which they say must be divided."

In a thinly veiled reference to America, he added,

"(t)hese people have lost their mind. (They) would like to build a unipolar world and rule over all mankind. Nothing of this kind has ever occurred in our planet's history, and I don't think it will ever happen."

On August 1, 2011 Reuters headlined, "Putin says US is "parasite" on global economy," saying:

Putin accused America "of living beyond its means 'like a parasite' on the global economy and said dollar dominance was a threat to the financial markets."

If America is in "systemic malfunction," he added, it affects everyone. Indeed so, and Putin is outspoken saying it.

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A Review by Paul Larudee of The Wandering Who? by Gilad Atzmon

The Wandering Who? is brutally honest in its presentation, and if the reader is equally honest in the reading, her thinking will evolve in unexpected ways.
 
In the late 1970s, The Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, a book by Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes, gained minor celebrity for its original but controversial views concerning the evolution of the human brain/mind relationship. To this day, I don’t know how much of the thesis I accept, but it gave me a perspective that has now become a part of how I look at my fellow human beings on a daily basis.

Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who? has had something of the same effect.  It is very original in its thinking, and even iconoclastic.  Even though there are very few readers who will agree entirely with everything Atzmon has to say, the effect is to question one’s assumptions and to recognize a new perspective. 

In fact, to say that Atzmon is an iconoclast is something of an understatement; as soon as one chapter forces you to build new assumptions, the next one compels you to tear them down again. True, he provides you with new building blocks of interpretation and understanding. However, I found myself unsure of the new structure. Doubtless, many readers will have to digest these ideas and test them before they feel confident about accepting or rejecting them.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Photo: Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, head of the Haqqani Network in Northwest Pakistan and Afghanistan, in 2001. (Getty Images). [Pakistan's] Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Haqqani network was established by United States, adding that CIA also has relations with many terrorist groups. She said that the US should avoid testing temperament of Pakistan, adding that Pakistan has the right to use options if US would continue blaming Pakistan and the doors of dialogue would be closed due the controversial statements of US leaders. (AwamiWeb)

Have you ever before heard of the Haqqanis? I didn’t think so. Like Al Qaeda, about which no one had ever heard prior to 9/11, the “Haqqani Network” has popped up in time of need to justify America’s next war—Pakistan.

President Obama’s claim that he had Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden exterminated deflated the threat from that long-serving bogyman. A terror organization that left its leader, unarmed and undefended, a sitting duck for assassination no longer seemed formidable. Time for a new, more threatening, bogyman, the pursuit of which will keep the “war on terror” going.

Now America’s “worst enemy” is the Haqqanis. Moreover, unlike Al Qaeda, which was never tied to a country, the Haqqani Network, according to Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a “veritable arm” of the Pakistani government’s intelligence service, ISI. Washington claims that the ISI ordered its Haqqani Network to attack the US Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on September 13 along with the US military base in Wadak province.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Armed Services committee and one of the main Republican warmongers, declared that “all options are on the table” and gave the Pentagon his assurance that in Congress there was broad bipartisan support for a US military attack on Pakistan.

As Washington has been killing large numbers of Pakistani civilians with drones and has forced the Pakistani army to hunt for Al Qaeda throughout most of Pakistan, producing tens of thousands or more of dislocated Pakistanis in the process, Sen. Graham must have something larger in mind.

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Stephen M. Walt

Image: Ex-Israeli concentration camp guard Jeffrey Goldberg has launched a typical Hasbara smear & intimidation campaign against Gilad Atzmon and John Mearsheimer (R).

Ever since John Mearsheimer and I began writing about the Israel lobby, some of our critics have leveled various personal charges against us. These attacks rarely addressed the substance of what we wrote -- a tacit concession that both facts and logic were on our side -- but instead accused us of being anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists. They used these false charges to try to discredit and/or marginalize us, and to distract people from the important issues of U.S. Middle East policy that we had raised.

The latest example of this tactic is a recent blog post from Jeffrey Goldberg, where he accused my co-author of endorsing a book by an alleged Holocaust denier and Nazi sympathizer. Goldberg has well-established record of making things up about us, and this latest episode is consistent with his usual approach. I asked Professor Mearsheimer if he wanted to respond to Goldberg's sally, and he sent the following reply.

John Mearsheimer writes:

In a certain sense, it is hard not to be impressed by the energy and imagination that Jeffrey Goldberg devotes to smearing Steve Walt and me. Although he clearly disagrees with our views about U.S.-Israel relations and the role of the Israel lobby, he does not bother to engage what we actually wrote in any meaningful way. Indeed, given what he writes about us, I am not even sure he has read our book or related articles. Instead of challenging the arguments and evidence that we presented, his modus operandi is to misrepresent and distort our views, in a transparent attempt to portray us as rabid anti-Semites.

His latest effort along these lines comes in a recent blog post, where he seizes on a dust jacket blurb I wrote for a new book by Gilad Atzmon titled The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics.

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John Pilger

Photo: Shoppers during the opening day of the Westfield Stratford mall. (Richard Baker/In Pictures/Corbis)

Looking for a bookshop that was no longer there, I walked instead into a labyrinth designed as a trap. Leaving became an illusion, rather like Alice once she had stepped through the Looking Glass. Walls of glass curved into concentric circles as one "store" merged into another: Armani Exchange with Dinki Di Pies. Exits led to gauntlets of more "offers" and "exciting options". Seeking a guide, I bought a lousy pair of sunglasses: anything to get out. It was a vision of hell. It was a Westfield mega mall.

This happened in Sydney - where the Westfield empire began - in a "mall" not half as mega as the one that opened in Stratford, east London on 13 September. "Everything" is here, reported the architectural critic Jonathan Glancey: from Apple to Primark, McDonalds's to KFC and Krispy Kreme. There is a cinema with 17 screens and "luxurious VIP seats", and a mega "luxury" bowling alley. Tracey Emin and Mary Portas lead the Westfield "cultural team". The biggest casino in the land will overlook a "24-hour lifestyle street" called The Arcade. This will be the only way into the 2012 Olympic Games for 10m people attending the athletics. The simple, grotesque message of "buy me, buy me" will be London's welcome to the world.

"If you've seen the Disney film Wall-E," wrote Glancey in 2008, "you'll certainly recognise Westfield and malls like it. In the film, humans who long ago abandoned the Earth they messed up through greed, live a supremely sedentary life shopping and eating. They are very tubby and have lost the use of their legs. Is this how we'll end up? Or will we plunge into the depths of some mammoth recession... with nothing and nowhere to spend?" In the less apocalyptic short term, Westfield is "a step towards our collective desire to undermine the life and culture of the traditional city, along with its architecture, and to shop and shop some more."

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Compiled by Samuel Dowell

Blacks in Libya Still Targeted by anti-Gaddafi Forces: killings, beatings, abuse

One quarter of indigenous Libyans are black Africans. In addition to that, there were over 1 million workers from Sub-Saharan African countries, including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ghana, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria, in Libya at the start of the uprising. On September 13th, Amnesty International reported that:

“'Widespread, but largely unfounded reports that Gaddafi forces were relying on Sub-Saharan African mercenaries to fight the opposition put them at heightened risk in areas that fell under the control of the NTC. Racist and xenophobic rhetoric, already frequent before the unrest, increased as a result of the breakdown of law and order.” (p.80)(Link)

“The allegations about the use of mercenaries proved to be largely unfounded. Many captured al-Gaddafi fighters, including those interviewed by Amnesty International in Benghazi and Misratah, were in fact Libyan nationals, including individuals from places such as Sabha in the south-west of Libya and from the Tawargha region east of Misratah. Due to their black skin and Sub-Saharan African features, they were mistaken for foreign mercenaries. However, NTC officials did little to correct the false assumption and instead fed the flames of hatred and resentment.(p.83)

“NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil claimed in media interviews that Colonel al-Gaddafi was using ‘African mercenaries’ against his own people. Such claims were especially irresponsible in the climate of insecurity and fed existing racism and xenophobia in Libya and signaled that abuses against foreign nationals would be tolerated by the NTC. (p.83) Further, “NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdel Jalil promised to ‘close the borders in front of these Africans’. (Statement by Mustafa Abdel Jalil: عبد الجليل ـ سنعمل على إغلاق الحدود في وجه المرتزقة)(p.89)

“When al-Bayda, Benghazi, Derna, Misratah and other cities first fell under the control of the opposition in the third week of February, house raids, killings, lynching and other violent attacks were perpetrated by supporters of the “17 February Revolution” against individuals believed to be foreign mercenaries on account of their skin color.p.82)

Throughout the 6-month conflict, Sub-Saharan African nationals were attacked on what have proved to be largely unfounded suspicions that they were foreign “mercenaries” hired by Colonel al-Gaddafi, and it hasn’t stopped.

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Charles E. Carlson

Photo: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas gestures before the start of a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during the 66th session of the General Assembly at United Nations headquarters Monday, Sept. 19, 2011. (AP / Seth Wenig)

Mahmoud Abbas received continuous and general applause as he started his speech to the UN General Assembly, while a dozen or more men and women were seen walking out of the hall in protest. He proceeded with a rambling 45 minute read speech, which received more applause during and at the end. If one can judge by the response, most attendees are sympathetic with statehood. But President Obama has promised to veto its statehood. What are we not told about Abbas and the UN that we need to know?

Don't be surprised if the USA does not veto "Palestinian Statehood" in the United Nations. And if so, it would not mean President Obama has suddenly changed his mind and heart, only his political tactics. My guess is he will support a resolution that calls for statehood, but one that again ties the Palestinians to negotiation of boundaries and details. He and Israel would both accomplish a public relations ploy that would, in fact, maintain the status quo. It would not mean the Philistines will get fair play after 44 years (or more) of occupation. A sudden shift to US support for a watered down, "agree to agree'" statehood would be just another clever way of controlling the Philistines' government, much as the USA controls the governments of Iraq, Afghanistan and probably Pakistan.

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Adnan Al-Daini

An elderly woman in a care home. The Government
may introduce a 'national care service'. (Alamy)

Fair taxes are good for society as a whole, and those who can afford to pay the higher rates should be proud that they are contributing more for a pleasanter environment for all of us to live in.

Salaries above a certain threshold earned by the super rich are used as a status symbol, part of the “because you are worth it” culture that now permeates our society.  It is a way of massaging the massive egos of those people.  It is a competitive weapon in their battle with other like minded bosses that shouts, “I am at least as important as you if not more important”.  Look at my salary.

The proposal of Vince Cable, UK’s Business Secretary, to give shareholders and workers greater say in the salaries of their CEOs and directors at the top of an organisation, is to be welcomed as a first step.  However, it is not enough.  Here is a suggestion for Mr. Cable and the Chancellor to consider, which is progressive, fair and serves the interests of the ordinary citizens. Decide what multiple of the average pay of a UK employee is a fair wage for those “Masters of the Universe”, -say 10 times.  

Any pay above that, tax at a punitive rate rising in very steep steps to a level of, say 80%.  If this does not moderate the pay, it will have the effect of returning money to the government to help those most in need.  Taxation of the very rich, in itself, should not dent their super egos as they could continue to brag about their mega remuneration packages.  It may even give them another instrument to enhance their self-worth, with remarks like, “The taxes I pay are enough to keep [x] numbers of old people warm in winter”, or, “The taxes I pay are enough to lift [x] number of children out of poverty”.

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G. Mason

Photo: Air propaganda and communications: A Lockheed EC-130E Commando Solo II makes a pass over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The specially equipped EC-130E aircraft is used for psychological operations and is flown by the 193rd Special Operations Wing, Pennsylvania Air National Guard.

"You may not be interested in psychological warfare, but psychological warfare is interested in you."
— Xu Hezhen

As the U.S. has increased its use of Psychological Operations (PSYOP), the acknowledged effectiveness of its methods has led to global use of PSYOPS tactics by both U.S. allies and enemies. Recent reports indicate that U.S. PSYOP has even extended to target U.S. citizens — which constitutes a violation of law.

According to the U.S. Army website, "the role of Psychological Operations [PSYOP] is to alter the behavior of foreign populations in a manner consistent with United States diplomatic, national security and foreign policy objectives." Upon assessing a target, a team of PSYOP specialists will "deliver the right message at the right time and place" to induce the desired psychological effect and behavior. PSYOP is often used during warfare to provoke dissension among the ranks of opposition forces and their supporters, and to otherwise disrupt and undermine an enemy's ability to mobilize. It may be either overt or secret, and its methods range from the dissemination of objective information to tactics of deception.

Its first extensive use is said to have occurred during World War II, when U.S. radio engineers aimed to mislead and demoralize German troops by broadcasting the sound effects of large numbers of Allied military units on the battlefield. PSYOP has also allegedly been used against U.S. allies and neutral countries. Reportedly, during the 1980s, the U.S. and Britain deployed military vessels into Swedish waters, convincing the Swedish population that the ships were of Soviet origin. As intended, this persuaded Swedes of the supposed Soviet threat, and in the process turned many of them against the Soviet Union.

The 2003 toppling of a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad was (contrary to popular belief) staged by a U.S. Army PSYOP team. According to cables released by Wikileaks, U.S. PSYOP units during the war in Iraq have organized "poetry readings, concerts and Koranic recitations," while also employing local television outlets to turn the public against Al Qaeda. Kabul embassy cables show that the U.S. has encouraged the use of PSYOP in Afghanistan's Public Protection Program, to generate "local support and responsibility for security."

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Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

President Obama's speech at the United Nation's General Assembly was probably what you would have expected from an opportunistic politician who sacrifices honesty, morality, and basic ethics for the sake of making some momentary profit here or there. But it was by all means inappropriate, to say the least, for a statesman, let alone the President of the strongest nation on earth.

Obama's excessive praise of Israel caricatured an insecure president that fears telling the truth, a leader that shakes at the very thought of uttering the "wrong words" even when these wrong words happen to represent the heart, soul and essence of the truth.

In his speech, Obama never uttered a single word about the ever expanding Jewish settlements in occupied Palestine, the main reason for what has become the near impossibility of reaching any reasonable settlement of the enduring conflict.

He readily reiterated Israeli propaganda lies about Arabs and Muslims seeking Israel's destructions but carefully avoided Israel's consistent policy of aggression, occupation and lebensraum.

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Julie Hyland

[More images here] The resort to scapegoating Roma, other travellers and Muslims for declining living standards bears more than a passing resemblance to the Nazi period in Germany.

The High Court in London is to rule on Friday whether Irish traveller families on a site in Essex can be evicted by Basildon Council.

Dale Farm, near Basildon in southeast England, is the largest illegal Irish travellers’ site in the UK. It has been settled for 10 years on a six-acre site owned by the travellers, but only half the site has planning permission.

In the last months, Basildon Council set out to evict 80 families living on the 51 unauthorised pitches in one of the largest mass evictions ever carried out in England. Many of the residents have refused to leave. They have been forced to pitch illegally, they argue, because planning departments and councils systematically discriminate against travellers.

If Council threats to cut off electricity and send in bailiffs to forcibly eject residents and remove their caravans are acted upon, it will gravely affect the health and welfare of the community.

Children on the site will lose their schooling, and families will lose access to health and social facilities. There are a number of seriously ill people, including cancer patients and one woman, Mary Flynn, who relies on a nebuliser (used to administer medication in the form of a mist inhaled into the lungs).

Hundreds of campaigners—including many students—have turned out to support the travellers, helping to build barricades around the farm. Young people have padlocked their necks to doors, to prevent bailiffs gaining access.

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Gilad Atzmon

Some Palestinian solidarity campaigners are excited this morning about Rabbi Eric Yoffie's pearls of wisdom. The outgoing President of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote in a recent blog post:

“I care about humankind, but I love my own group a bit more. I am more comfortable with them. I care more about them, just as I care more about my family than other families.”

People who understand the full extent of Jewish tribalism shouldn’t be taken by surprise. Rabbi Yoffie is genuine and coherent. Consequently, his support of The Two State solution is consistent with his Jewish belief system.

“Without a two-state solution.” Says Rabbi Yoffie,

“Israel will not longer be a state for my group; it will be a bi-national state without a clear Jewish identity. That is not the kind of place where I, or most Israeli Jews, will want to live.”

As a supporter of the One State Solution I myself explored this exact issue at the Stuttgart One Democratic State Conference last year. Needless to say, that the five German ‘progressive’ Jews who attended the conference insisted on my removal from the Conference’s protocol.

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Charles E. Carlson

How Israeli Propagandists Transform Dead Soldiers Into Civilians

On August 18, high noon, Arabs operating from Egyptian territory attacked, killed and wounded an unknown number of Israeli soldiers on a bus that the world was made to believe carried only civilians.

The highway from the Red Sea port city of Eilat, Israel, north to Beer Sheva and on to Tel Aviv goes through some of the most desolate and deserted landscape this bus rider has ever seen, deserted except for camps of Arab Bedouins who live in the wadis. I rode this same Egged bus on this very route near the end of March 2002 on my way to Gaza.

Egged is owned by the state of Israel and is dirt cheap to ride. About a third of the passengers on my bus were Israeli soldiers, male and female. All were dressed in field gear; many carried slung carbines with banana clip magazines in their belts. At times on this long route, there were so many soldiers onboard that some had to stand in the aisles.

Before my bus left Eilat station, I had the answer to one of the questions that had brought me to Gaza ... why do Palestinian human bombs so often pick "public buses" as targets? Not one news report I had ever read told the simple truth: every Israeli bus is a military transport; therefore, for any Palestinian who considers himself to be at war with the IDF, every Israeli bus is a legitimate military target.

I was to suffered a somewhat amusing minor injury from Israeli militarism on that Egged bus. A female IDF soldier, getting off the bus in Tel Aviv, bent 90 degrees at the hip to pick up her travel bag, and in so doing, she clumsily swung her downward slung carbine barrel up behind her, hitting me in the face with her sight blade as I was stooping in the crowd to look for my own bag. She inflicted a welt on my forehead, and she knew it, but she made no apology and was totally indifferent to me once she saw I was still alive and standing.

I consider my minor injury a symbolic scar in the war for Palestinian rights, and I wish I could have kept the Israeli-inflicted wound long enough to show it off back home!

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Gilad Atzmon

Obama made a grave personal mistake yesterday. But it is Americans, Israelis and Palestinians that will pay the price.

Ynet’s Washington reporter, Yitzhak Ben-Horin, produced last night a clear and succinct reading of Obama’s recent UN General Assembly address:

● “Likudnik in the White House."
● “Netanyahu could not have written it better.”
● “Obama at this point, is in line with the Likud party.”
● “Obama is a pro-Israel president …Since January 2009, he provided Israel with all its needs both in diplomacy and in terms of security.”

Obama is not performing too well in the polls. He clearly needs the Jewish Lobby on his side. The American president ‘provided’ yesterday and the lobby was quick to react- “Israel has no better friend in the world today," wrote the president of the National Council of Jewish Democrats, David Harris.

According to Ynet, Hours before his UN General Assembly Address Obama sought to ensure that prospective Jewish voters pay close attention to his speech.

“Three of Obama's aides held a conference call with the president's Jewish supporters and community leaders. The advisers, all Jewish themselves, asked the supporters to "spread the word" that Obama will give a pro-Israel speech which reflects his own genuine positions and implored them to pay close attention to the president's UN address.”

The three Jewish advisers

“stressed that the Republicans intentionally distort Obama's statements to portray him as an anti-Israel president, when in fact their arguments are baseless.”

If anyone was foolish enough to believe that America could ever be a broker for peace in the Middle East, the truth is now unavoidable. American political world is clearly hijacked by a foreign lobby that represents foreign interests. America cannot rescue itself. What we see in front of our eyes is basically a tragedy.

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Bill Van Auken

President Obama delivered an empty and arrogant sermon to the United Nations Wednesday, laced with platitudes about “peace” that were designed to mask Washington’s predatory policies.

The American president received a tepid response from the assembled heads of state, foreign ministers and UN delegates. Not a single line in his speech evoked applause. The novelty of two years ago, when Obama made his first appearance before the body posing as the champion of multilateral-ism in contrast to Bush, has long since worn off. As the world quickly learned, changing the occupant of the White House did little to shift the direction of American foreign policy or curb the spread of American militarism.

The immediate purpose of Obama’s 47-minute address was to supplement a behind-the-scenes campaign of bullying and intimidation aimed at forcing the Palestinian Authority to drop its plan to seek a UN Security Council vote on recognition of Palestine as a sovereign member state.

Washington has vowed to veto any bid for Palestinian statehood if it comes to the Security Council, a move that would only underscore the real character of US imperialist policy in the Middle East and the hypocrisy of its claims to identify with the revolutionary upheavals of the Arab masses.

The speech and Obama’s defense of the veto threat served to accomplish the same purpose, further diminishing the US president’s popularity in the Arab world. According to a recent poll, his favorable rating in the region has fallen from roughly 50 percent when he took office to barely 10 percent, even lower than George W. Bush in his second term.

Obama rushed from the podium at the General Assembly hall to a meeting and joint appearance with Benyamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister praised Obama’s remarks and made it clear that the two are working on a joint strategy to muscle Palestine Authority head Mahmoud Abbas into dropping the statehood bid. It was reported Thursday that there were efforts to get the Palestinian delegation to make an entirely symbolic plea for recognition, while agreeing to postpone any vote until after the resumption of US-brokered negotiations with Israel.

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Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian

In defence of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom to access information some wants us to believe that:

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Basir Ahang

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Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem

Martyrs of the Freedom Flotilla.

It is crystal clear that Israel, the arrogant, fanatical and belligerent Jewish state is trying hard to undermine Turkey. Israel feels that its hegemony in the Middle East is being challenged by Turkish efforts to reassert the country's national interests by enhancing relations with Islamic neighbors and also by courageously opposing Israeli ethnic cleansing and other manifestly criminal policies against the Palestinians.

In recent days and weeks, Israel has been quite furious about the recent referendum in Turkey which granted the government additional powers to assert real democracy and prevent the recurrence of military coups.

The Turkish republic had witnessed three military coups against democratically-elected governments the last of which took place nearly 30 years ago, when the military introduced draconian constitutional amendments making the anti-Islam military establishment effectively above the people's will.

In the mid 1990s, the Turkish military forced the popular Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan to resign amid suspicions that the conservative premier was trying to re-Islamize Turkey .

The Israeli media has been quite vociferous about "losing Turkey" as if that country of 75 million people were supposed to be a banana republic subservient to Israel. Moreover, Israeli commentators, affiliated with fanatical Zionist circles, have urged the Israeli government to envisage ways and means to "overcome" the "growing Turkish threat"!!!

Israel, a predator state based on religio-ethnic racism, wouldn't settle for having normal, dignified relations with Turkey, e.g. relations based on parity and mutual respect. Israel always seeks dominance. Needless to say, the rationale for this psychotic way of thinking originates in the so-called "chosen people's complex."

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Stephen Lendman

At issue is saving Troy Anthony Davis. On September 21, he'll die by lethal injection, despite clear evidence he's innocent.

On September 20, Georgia's Board of Pardons denied him clemency. Because Georgia's governor can't stay executions, Davis lost his last hope, barring an unexpected 11th hour reprieve.

Georgia State University Law Professor Anne Emanuel reviewed his case. She found no justification for capital punishment. At this stage, however, she said:

"I don't see any avenues to the Supreme Court," no matter how grave the injustice.

In fact, there's nothing just about state-sponsored murder, especially against falsely accused victims.

In America, they're mostly poor Blacks or Latinos denied due process and judicial fairness by a corrupted prosecutorial system rigged to convict even known innocent defendants like Troy Anthony Davis.

Author Michelle Alexander calls America's mass incarceration "The New Jim Crow." Murdering innocent Black victims highlights it.

Colorblind America never existed. Certainly not in Georgia, a state once infamous for chain gangs.

The 1932 film, "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," was based on Robert Elliott Burns' autobiography titled, "I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang."

Their brutality helped turn public opinion against a system that included keeping prisoners in rolling cages to hold them close to work sites. Inmates were also flogged on roadsides, bound head to toe in chains.

New prison repression replaced old Georgia practices. State-sponsored murder existed earlier and today, notably against poor Blacks. Innocence is of no consequence. Only guilt by accusation matters.

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Stephen Lendman

Photo: Ban Ki-moon (L), Foreign Minister of South Korea, shakes hands with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan (R) after a meeting in the General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York. (October 5, 2006)

The UN Charter's Preamble states:

"WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

● to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
● to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
● to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
● to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom...."

The body affirms international support for tolerance, peace and security, and resolve to promote universal economic and social advancement.

However, since its 1945 founding, it's failed on all counts, even though some of its agencies (like UNICEF, WFP, UNHCR and UNESCO) at times provide aid in areas of health, education, food assistance, refugees, social development and more.

It's never enough though, timely, or with resolve to support troubled people adequately in times of need.

Moreover, global wars raged every year post-WW II to the present. The UN's been unable or disinterested in stopping them. One of its fatal flaws is structure, hamstrung by its dominant member, America. It can and does veto measures other member states support, notably when contrary to its imperial interests.

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Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Photo: Abdul Ilah Khatib, UN special envoy for Libya (L) and UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. Mr. Khatib reported to the UN Security Council that a solution 'lies with the Libyan people themselves.' Mr. Ban apparently disagreed...

The United Nations Organization is no more or less than an umbrella for humanitarian intervention after disasters and catastrophes, a forum for discussion of issues pertaining to cultural heritage and a useful tool to channel developmental approaches. As a law-making body, the Libya Question has shown that the Organization has lost all legitimacy.

The people of the world community are not stupid. Those who still believe the biased and controlled media (certainly very few after the Libya Question) may be duped but these days, despite draconian measures and sinister and criminal acts of cyber terrorism, hacking, blocking access to independent media resources and threats, people have the means at their disposal to get themselves informed.

This is not a cause, it is a victory for those of us who have fought for an independent media over the last decade. Like all victories, it must be protected and its legacy cherished and the second we allow freedom of expression to slip, we have lost the battle and reactionary forces will sweep things back to where they used to be. There, is, however, another cause and that is an international justice system whereby the rules of international law apply and are enforced with the same set of weights and measures on all, and this means NATO as well as African countries or Serbia. This means respect for the law, it means respecting the terms of international agreements and conventions and it means accountability for all when such terms are violated.

On September 15, 2011, this is not the case. For those in the world community who accept that laws are made to be broken and accept that the law of the jungle should be applied, where the strongest bullies the rest by force, then do not bother reading on, just scroll down to the note at the end. Others who want a civilised world where criminals are held accountable, please read on.

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Gilad Atzmon

Those who monitor the Hebrew press and understand the Jewish State may be slightly puzzled to find out that while in the Hebrew press there is only just a little and insignificant attention to the current Palestinian leaders' drive for statehood, the Israeli English media outlets are saturated with news about the prospect of a pro-Palestinian resolution in the UN next week.

If you want to understand this clear discrepancy between the Jewish Hebrew press and English outlets, then here it is--we are dealing here with a clear split within the Jewish collective psyche.

I guess that some may be surprised to learn that Israel and most Israelis actually want the Palestinian initiative to go ahead and to succeed. They want a Palestinian State because this is the only solution that would save the ‘Jews only State’ from a demographic meltdown.

Recent polls in Israel prove that the majority of Israelis are very excited about the ‘Two State Solution’. Not only are the Israelis not threatened by the idea of a Palestinian State, they actually love it, for it would settle their reality within a framework of international law. Also, you may want to bear in mind that Kadima party, that won the last two elections in Israel, has been and still is, devoted to ‘disengagement’, a clear separation between the ‘Jews’ and the Palestinians by means of Israeli unilateral withdraw. In other words, a Palestinian statehood achieves the exact same goal; it removes Israelis from any responsibility to territories it once occupied and destroyed. It is obvious that some elements in Israel oppose the Palestinian UN initiative: I guess that Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is not too happy about it. West Bank settlers may also be very angry but for some reason, even they are relatively quiet these days.

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Khalid Amayreh

With Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu recognising, though fairly belatedly, that the Middle East is undergoing a real political earthquake of historic proportions, Israel is showing signs of confusion in face of what the Israeli media is calling "the new strategic situation in the region".

Israel had hoped the "Arab Spring" would be a passing cloud that would leave the basic regional geopolitical order more or less unscathed. However, with the latest crises between Tel Aviv on one side and both Cairo and Ankara on the other, the former is beginning, though slowly and reluctantly, to realise that the arrogance of power is largely inexpedient, unduly provocative and detrimental to Israel's standing and interests.

The storming of the Israeli embassy in Cairo at the weekend and outbreak of a serious "mini-crisis" of relations with the largest Arab country was an ominous development that Israel didn't want to foresee due to a prevailing psyche that discounts even looming dangers and treats adversaries with contempt, including their grievances.

Reacting to the embassy incident in Cairo, however, Netanyahu described the incident as "serious and dangerous". Bemoaning the "severe injury to the fabric of peace" between the two countries, Netanyahu said Israel would undertake the utmost efforts to maintain peace with Egypt.

Nonetheless, the Israeli premier failed to make any connection between the criminal treatment Israel has been meting out to Palestinians and rising anti-Israeli sentiment across the Arab and Muslim world. "We must maintain security and advance our interests," he said.

Israeli leaders, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, have perhaps recognised that Israel, at least for the time being, has to keep a low profile in the hope that this "murky phase would pass with minimum losses for Israel". It is a change, at least in discourse, from last week when Lieberman threatened Turkey with doom and gloom, including arming and training PKK rebels. The sabre rattling drew strong reactions from Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu.

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William A. Cook

Israeli Jews watching with glee as Gaza burns...

Gilad Atzmon’s insight into the organism created by the Zionist movement in his book, The Wandering Who?, is explosive; it tears the veil off of Israel’s apparent civility, its apparent friendship with the United States, and its expressed solicitude for western powers—Britain, Canada, Australia, France and Germany—exposing behind the veil, the assassin ready to slay any and all that interfere with its tribally focused ends.

In February of this year, Atzmon characterized Islam and Judaism as tribally oriented belief systems rooted not in “enlightened individualism,” but rather in “…the survival of the extended family.” These belief systems have nothing to do with personal liberties or personal rights; they have to do with securing the realm of their respective “ways of life.” But unlike tribalism in Islam, tribalism in Judaism “can never live in peace with humanism and universalism”. “Both religions stand as systems that provide thorough answers in terms of spiritual, civil, cultural and day to day matters.” In this regard, “…both Islam and Judaism are more than just religions: they convey an entire ‘way of life,’ and stand as a thorough attempt to answer crucial questions regarding being in the world…”

The Wandering Who? is a personal journey of a man born in Jerusalem, raised in the Jewish ‘way of life,’ infused with the myths of the founding of the Jewish state; “Supremacy was brewed into our soul, we gazed at the world through racist, chauvinistic binoculars. And we felt no shame about it either”. Inducted into the Israeli military during the 1980s he served in Lebanon, and, in his late teens, experienced an epiphany caused in good measure by careful listening to voices beyond the wall that encircled him in the ghetto that is the Israeli state. This epiphany forced a distinction in identity versus identifying, between self-reliance and obedient servant to an ideology, a distinction that recognized Jews as people, Judaism as a religion, and Jewishness, an ideology that determines identity politics and a resulting political discourse.

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Stephen Lendman

"(T)he (UN) General Assembly shall meet every year in regular session commencing on the Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day."

The 66th session began Tuesday, September 13. Access its agenda through this link.

On Friday, September 23, Abbas and Netanyahu will address the body. Obama plans to do it Wednesday, September 21.

According to Middle East expert Jon Alterman:

"The president's actions have gotten him anger on all sides, and accolades on none," with good reason. "I don't know an easy way to get out of this problem."

Put another way: He made his bed. Now he has to sleep in it!

So does The New York Times. Its longstanding editorial policy notoriously turns a blind eye to the most egregious injustices - notably on Israeli/Palestinian issues.

As a result, it virulently opposes Palestinian statehood and full UN membership, no matter how just, right and timely.

Supporting the right thing, in fact, was never The Times' long suit.

It's September 11 editorial is one of many examples. Headlined, "Palestinian Statehood," it calls a UN vote for it "ruinous," adding:

"If a UN vote takes place, Washington and its partners will have to limit the damage...."

On September 18, Times writer Neil MacFarquhar headlined, "Palestinians Turn to UN, Where Partition Began," referring to the 1947 partition plan. More on it below.

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Alex Lantier

From an earlier NATO massacre

NATO bombed cities across Libya over the weekend as fighting continued in Sirte and Bani Walid between troops loyal to Muammar Gaddafi and the NATO-backed forces of the National Transition Council (NTC).

There are mounting reports of casualties due to the NATO bombing. NATO spokesmen said yesterday that on Saturday NATO forces bombed 11 targets in Sirte, 11 in the nearby Al-Jufra oasis, and 3 in the city of Sabha, far to the south.

Moussa Ibrahim, an official of the Gaddafi regime, released a statement yesterday saying that 354 people had been killed and 700 injured when a NATO air strike in Sirte hit the city’s main hotel and a nearby apartment block. He said an additional 89 people were still missing.

“In the past 17 days,” he added, “more than 2,000 residents of the city of Sirte were killed in NATO air strikes.”

NATO spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie summarily dismissed reports of Libyan civilian casualties, saying, “Most often, they are revealed to be unfounded or inconclusive.”

The NATO war’s enormous cost in blood is not even disputed by NTC forces. According to NTC estimates released on September 8, the war in Libya has left 30,000 dead and 50,000 wounded. It has been widely reported that NATO’s massive use of air power against Libyan cities, which necessarily entails civilian casualties, has enabled the NTC to defeat loyalist forces despite NTC units’ lack of discipline and military training.

NATO operations against Bani Walid apparently aim to cut off pro-Gaddafi areas in southern Libya from Sirte, Gaddafi’s birthplace, which divides NTC-held areas around Benghazi in northeast Libya and Tripoli to the northwest. Tripoli fell to NTC forces last month, after electricity and water to the city were cut off and pro-NTC tribes from the Nafusa Mountains attacked the city.

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Sherwood Ross

As America's empire spreads abroad, it becomes ever more the police state at home. The methods used for the suppression of foreigners by military force and violence are eventually mirrored in the "homeland."

In an article last September titled "It Is Official: the US Is A Police State," author Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Treasury Secretary during the Reagan years, wrote,

"'Violent extremism' is one of those undefined police state terms that will mean whatever the government wants it to mean. In this morning's FBI foray into the homes of American citizens of conscience it means antiwar activists, whose activities are equated with 'the material support of terrorism'..."

The FBI raids at home are reminiscent of U.S. military raids overseas. In Iraq, for instance, labor union offices were raided and rifled and labor leaders imprisoned by the Occupation forces. Their "crime" was to oppose sweetheart contract deals with private oil firms.

The vast U.S. prison system, which houses 2.4 million Americans, may be compared with the Gulag the U.S. has built abroad. America today is the World's Jailer. As Allan Uthman reported on AlterNet, in 2006 the Bush regime began building "detention centers" to warehouse inmates for unspecified "new programs" when the Army Corps of Engineers gave Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root nearly $400 million. What we do abroad, we do at home.

Adopting police state tactics on Americans the U.S. Empire first used on subjects abroad has a long history. When Filipinos rebelled against U.S. rule after their country was "liberated" from Spain, captured resistance fighters were subjected to water torture. Twenty years later, imprisoned American pacifists who opposed the Wilson administration's entry into World War One were hung by their hands, and had running hoses shoved in their faces.

In an editorial in July, The Nation magazine denounces America's use of "secret armies, covert operations...offshore torture centers, out-of-control armed corporations, runaway military spending, wars by fleets of robots, wars by assassination---and all the other features of the imperial presidency..."

The magazine has long sought to end these practices. It's still a great idea but now it's a tad late. The Reactionary Elite that runs America is powerful. Congress rubber-stamps President Obama's five wars of aggression abroad and enacts laws at home that scorch individual liberty. The result is the emergent police state.

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Medea Benjamin & Allison McCracken

During August recess this year, 81 members of Congress went on a junket to Israel funded by the Israel lobby group AIPAC (well, funded by the American Israel Education Fund, but they are really one and the same) to "learn first-hand about one of our closest friends and allies.” While the representatives insist they got a balanced view, their itinerary belies that claim: 95% of their time was spent hearing the Israeli government point of view, with only one token meeting with Palestinian reps.

CODEPINK has filed a complaint with the Congressional Ethics Committee stating that these trips—and the upcoming ones scheduled for December--violate the Congressional prohibition on traveling with a lobby group. We feel these Potemkin voyages are part of AIPAC’s grand plan to control and monopolize Congress, which is not just unethical, but dangerous. Their bias reinforces a disastrous U.S. policy of unconditional support for Israel that obstructs peace and runs counter to our national interests.

At a recent Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, entitled "Promoting Peace? Reexamining US Aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA)", we got a glimpse of what happens when Congress views the Middle East through AIPAC-colored glasses. Here are a few of examples of their tunnel vision:

● Asking the wrong questions: Congress is intent on looking into the $600 million a year U.S. taxpayers give to the Palestinian Authority, especially at a time, as a few members brought up, of economic hardship in the United States. But they would not dare hold a hearing about the more important issue: the $3 billion a year we are giving to the Israeli government--which is five times what we give the Palestinian Authority. The question they should be asking, but won’t, is: How can American taxpayers afford to give “military aid” to the wealthy government of Israel, especially when that government uses our funds to drop white phosphorous on civilians in Gaza, kill international humanitarians on boats trying to break the Gaza siege, bulldoze Palestinian homes and orchards, and imprison peaceful protesters?” CODEPINK was in the hearing with signs saying “No More $$ to Israel”, but we were not even allowed to quietly hold them.

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Stephen Lendman

It's time for all America to erupt.

The business of America is war on humanity.

The business of Wall Street is grand theft.

The power of money in private hands defines a morally corrupted nation.

The business of corporate America is exploiting nations, markets and people globally for profit.

In America, a criminal government/business conspiracy permits kleptocracy and gangsterism for personal gain.

Concentrated wealth and power more than ever are disproportionate.

Elections are rigged to keep it that way.

America's democracy is the best money can buy.

Major media scoundrels promote it.

In plain sight in Washington, bipartisan crooks wage war on personal freedoms, democratic values, and general welfare to grab all they can for themselves and corporate partners.

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Stephen Lendman

The illegal and the unelected: Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad will do anything to remain in power and please their Zionist puppeteers.

Five days ahead of Abbas petitioning the UN for Palestinian statehood and full UN membership, it's important to know who's friend or foe.

Abbas and Fayyad never did represent Palestinians and don't now.

Both lack legitimacy. Israel rigged Abbas' January 2005 presidential victory. Moreover, his term expired in January 2009. Nonetheless, he's still in office because Israel and Washington want him there. More on him below.

Fayyad is equally disreputable. In the 2006 legislative elections, his Third Way party won two of 132 seats. Yet he's prime minister illegitimately with no popular mandate.

What Palestinians do or don't get in New York depend on two men representing Israel and Washington.

Smart money wagers they'll accept less than Palestinians deserve, if anything. Bet on it! Spread the word. On September 23, when Abbas petitions the UN, sellout and betrayal will result at a time statehood and full UN membership are within easy grasp if proper procedures are followed. They won't be, assuring defeat!

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William T. Hathaway

A short review of Gilad Atzmon's new book, The Wandering Who?

Gilad Atzmon, Another World Is Possible contributing writer, has just published a study of Jewish identity politics. The Wandering Who? chronicles his journey away from his Jewish identity, and by extension away from all exclusive identities, into an inclusive humanness. It's a painful journey, a brutally honest self exploration of these internalized tribal impulses. He emerges from the struggle deracinated but emancipated, freed of a destructive load of cultural baggage.

As the poet Allen Ginsberg said, "If you want to be a prophet, you have to tell your secrets." By being brave enough to expose himself in writing, Atzmon has become a prophet, and his prophecy, as I see it, is a completion of the Mosaic journey, but this time as a mass exodus from Jewishness and all other ethnic bondings that split humanity. After 40 centuries of wandering in the desert of chosenness and separation, Jews and Gentiles alike can finally enter the full humanness of one world family, a secular promised land free of divisive group identities.

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David Swanson

"Our current unpopular but unending wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Somalia, and our smaller military operations in over 100 other countries are part of what President Eisenhower warned of 50 years ago in speaking of the military industrial complex. No nation has tried anything like this before, and it's not clear we can survive it."

USA 12 August 2011. Two blocks from my house in a nondescript little building on the edge of our residential neighborhood is an office with a small sign reading "DVBIC of Charlottesville" which turns out to mean "Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center."

Now, I'm in favor of caring for people with brain injuries. Heck, I wish we had universal comprehensive health coverage like other countries do. But it disturbs me how difficult it is in this country to get any distance away from the military. It's almost certainly closer to you than your relatives' homes.

What author Nick Turse calls the military industrial technological entertainment academic media corporate matrix is even closer than that. I am typing this on an Apple computer, and Apple is a major Pentagon contractor. But then, so is IBM. And so are most of the parent companies of most of the retail chains around the country. Starbucks is a major military supplier, with a store even in Guantanamo. Not only are traditional weapons manufacturers' offices now found alongside car dealers and burger joints in suburban strip malls, but the car dealers and burger joints are owned by companies taking in huge amounts of Pentagon spending. A $4,311 contract back in 2006 went straight to Charlottesville's Pig Daddy's BBQ.

Almost no neighborhoods lack members of the military and military supporters, Marine Corps flags and Army bumper stickers. If you wanted to get away from it, where would you go? (Please don't shout "Leave the country!" The U.S. military has troops in the majority of the nations on earth.) When one family tried to get away from jet noise in Virginia Beach by moving to a rural farm, the military quickly opened a new base right next to them. There is no escape.

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Ray McGovern

When soldiers die, the politicians who sent them to their deaths typically use euphemisms and circumlocutions — like “lost,” “fallen,” or “ultimate sacrifice.” On one level, the avoidance of blunt language can be seen as a sign of respect, but on another, it is just one more evasion of responsibility for the snuffing out of young lives.

There has been unusually wide (and for the most part supportive) reaction to my article of Aug. 9 (“They Died in Vain; Deal With It“) on the killing of 30 American troops when their helicopter was shot down over Afghanistan [during one night recently]. One website posting the article clocked 181 comments; scanning through them, I found many substantive, helpful ones.

Let me share one telling comment, which seemed to me particularly — if sadly — apt:

“Two lemmings are chatting while standing in the line to the cliff. One says to the other, ‘Of course we have to go over the edge. Anything else would dishonor all the lemmings that have gone before us.’”

And so it goes, thought I, with our lemming in chief (LIC) Barack Obama … and those who lemmingly follow him.

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Gilad Atzmon

Ibrahim (12 year old) and Mohammed (will be 15 in 2 days) are cousins.

They were playing on the street in front of their house an hour before Iftar during the fast of Ramadan on August 19th 2011, as Israel was sporadically bombing Gaza.

An unknown person in a control room kilometers away from them launched a missile from the drone flying over their heads. The result was devastating. Words cannot express the catastrophe and the anguish for the boys and their family. After ten days in al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, they were transferred to an Israeli hospital for a much needed medical treatment which is unavailable in Gaza.

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Chris Floyd

They don’t want a system. They want to keep that turf as a fixed post -- then, whenever the government becomes weak, they want to say, ‘We control here.’

For days, weeks on end, we have been bombarded with earnest disquisitions on the “meaning” of 9/11, its implications for America and the world ten years down the line. Oceans of newsprint and blizzards of pixels have been expended on this question. But in all the solemn piety and savvy punditry surrounding the commemoration of the attacks, almost nothing has been said about the place where the true “legacy of 9/11” can be seen in its stark quintessence: Somalia.

That long-broken land is, in so many ways, a hell of our own creation. Year by year, stage by stage, American policy has helped drive Somalia ever deeper into the pit. Millions of people have been plunged into anguish; countless thousands have lost their lives. It seems unimaginable that the situation could get even worse – and yet that is precisely where we are today: on the precipice of yet another horrific drop into the abyss.

By now it should go without saying that the Nobel Peace Laureate in the White House has continued, entrenched and expanded his predecessor's failed and corrupt policies in Somalia, as he has in so many parts of the degraded American imperium. And it is in Somalia that our serious, savvy bipartisan elite -- and their innumerable enablers on both sides of the political fence -- are building up what may turn out to be the mother of all blowbacks: generations of implacable hatred sprung from unfathomable suffering, inflicted on innocent people by vicious warlords in the pay of the CIA, by America's own death squads ranging through the land, and by the entirely predictable (indeed, predicted) extremist insurgencies that arise in the chaos our elites create in their imperial marauding. Here, if anywhere, is the true legacy of 9/11.

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Boris Dolgov

The Syrian crisis is being actively affected from abroad. Various reports confirm that there is a plan aimed to divide Syria into several parts, with some areas annexed to Turkey, the Golan Heights going to Israel, and probably separate Kurdish and Druze territorial entities…

Anti-government protests in Syria have added more fuel to the fire of the Arab Spring.The unrest broke out in March, 2011, in the city of Daraa on the Israel-Jordan border, and soon spread to other districts, turning into clashes with the army.

On Match 29th tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Aleppo, Latakia, Homs and Hama to express their support to President Bashar Assad. However, the anti-government protests continued, mainly in areas bordering Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and grew even tenser. The bloodiest incidents took place in Jisral-Shughour with the population of 50,000, on the Turkish border: then some 120 police and army officers were killed. Some 10,000 residents of Jisral-Shughour fled their homes toward the Turkish border, fearing bloodshed as troops with tanks approached, under orders to hit back after the government accused armed bands there of killing its security men. Some of the refugees, however, returned home soon afterward.

As a member of the Russian delegation visiting Syria on 20-24 August, I could see the photos of the service men killed in Jisral-Shughour – many of the bodies were quartered and burnt. Witnesses said a group of armed men attacked cars 100 km outside Damascus, pulled out drivers and passengers and started beating them if the cars were decorated with Assad`s portraits or any other symbols of his regime.

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Bill Van Auken

Gen. Carter Ham, Pentagon’s Africa Command:

“The question for us now is how do we sustain that ["dropping bombs and Tomahawks, those kind of things"] so that if we would have to do this again, we’d start at a higher plateau.”

With their surprise visit to Tripoli Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister David Cameron signaled that the scramble by the major powers for control of Libya’s oil wealth is in full swing.

The visit was unannounced and conducted under a massive security blanket. It included a brief visit to a Tripoli hospital and a joint press conference with Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the former Gaddafi justice minister who heads up the NATO-backed National Transitional Council, and Mahmoud Jibril, the US-trained economist and former Gaddafi official designated as the NTC’s “prime minister”.

Afterwards, the Sarkozy, Cameron and the chiefs of the NTC all left the Libyan capital under heavy guard for the eastern city of Benghazi, where the NTC leaders have said they will stay until the fighting with Gaddafi loyalists in several key cities is over.

The hasty departure from Tripoli suggested that neither NATO nor its Libyan clients are confident about security in the capital under conditions in which battles are still raging for control of the coastal city of Sirte and Bani Walid, about 90 miles southeast of the capital.

Undoubtedly even more troubling for Cameron’s and Sarkozy’s security details is growing evidence that the NTC’s control of Tripoli is tenuous at best. Islamist elements leading militias patrolling the capital’s streets have denounced the NTC leadership, calling for its resignation.

In his speech in Tripoli, Cameron stressed that the NATO war on the country would continue. “There are still parts of Libya under Gaddafi’s control, Gaddafi is still at large, and we must make sure this work is completed,” said Cameron. “We must keep up with the NATO mission until civilians are all protected and this work is finished.”

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