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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