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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