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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