Stephen Lendman

Throughout its history, Israel had belligerent, racist prime ministers, none worse than Netanyahu. He talks peace but mocks and spurns it.

His extremism heads Israel toward the brink. His worst ever government enrages global millions. Eventually, Israel may end up isolated and universally vilified as a pariah state.

Already, it's a regional menace. Lawlessly occupied for 44 years, Palestinians know it best. Gaza remains suffocating under siege. Militantly, Netanyahu wants harsher conditions.

On October 30, Haaretz headlined, "Netanyahu to Gaza militants: Israel's policy is kill or be killed," saying:

Netanyahu threatened attacks against "every attempt to fire against Israel and anyone who fires anyway."

He told ministers at a special cabinet session that Israel's defense policy stresses two principles: "Kill or be killed," and "He who harms you should bear the blood on his head."

So-called "militants" are freedom fighters. Hamas and other resistance groups respond only in self-defense. International law affirms it.

In December 2008, Israel waged preemptive war on Gaza. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other groups observed months of unilateral ceasefire, despite repeated Israeli violations. On November 4, it ended after the IDF invaded without cause, killing six Hamas members, allegedly to close tunnels.

Hamas wanted peace. Israel spurned it. Cast Lead followed, destroying and killing everything but the will to resist. To this day, Gazans suffer horrifically, including from repeated Israeli air, land and sea attacks.

Gaza is one of history's terror bombing victims. Netanyahu inverts truth, blaming Palestinians for Israeli crimes.

"I suggest Hamas, Jihad, and other organizations not test our determination to actualize the two principles I have described here," he said.

"We will harm every attempt to fire against Israel and anyone who fires anyway. We are not tempestuous, and we do not want things to deteriorate, but we will defend Israel's citizens determinedly, aggressively and effectively."

Netanyahu is a lawless bully, a rogue leader unfit to rule, a menace to Palestinians and Israelis alike, enduring destructive, imperial authority.

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Khalid Amayreh

It seems that the tight Jewish stranglehold on the American government is not only preventing the Obama administration from pursuing a fair, rational and honest approach to the enduring Palestinian crisis, but is also inhibiting the formulation in Washington of an accurate and objective understanding of basic facts in and about the Middle East.

An example of this willful and unnecessary ignorance was a statement made recently by the US Ambassador for Middle East Peace David Hale. According to Hale,

[the Arab Spring could] "sweep Hamas from power." "The Palestinians are no more immune to currents of change and demand for democratization, reform and freedom than any other people in the region," [he was quoted as saying.] "I think you will see those same forces affect Hamas because clearly their leadership is not characterized by any of those words."

Hale's words exude a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding of the facts and realities in the region.

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Adnan Al-Daini

The greed, excess and selfishness that brought liberal democracy and capitalism to the edge of the abyss have been demonstrated once again by the latest research from Income Data Services (IDS).  It shows that the pay of directors of the UK’s top businesses (FTSE 100) rose by 49% over the past year, bringing their average pay package to about £2.7 million. This is at a time when average pay nationally for private sector workers rose by 2.6%, a cut in real wages when inflation is running at 5.2%.  The march of income inequality is gathering pace, with total disregard to the effect such injustice and unfairness have on society. 

There is ample evidence to demonstrate that this is not related to the performance of these companies, but based on complicated formulae, with pay panels comprising like-minded people that recommend rises regardless of how the company performs.  In any case, the performance of a company surely does not depend entirely on the performance of a few people at the top, but on the entire workforce.  If the company is successful, rewarding the bosses only is insulting to everybody else who has contributed to that success. It is divisive and unjust.

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Stephen Lendman

Like occupied people everywhere, Palestinians understand oppression better than experts. Ask them. They'll explain.

In Gaza, it means living under siege and Israeli air, land and sea attacks. West Bank communities face day and night incursions.

In the week ending October 27, 58 were conducted, nearly 10 a day. Israel arrests Palestinians while releasing others. Every Palestinian wonders when their loved ones may be taken in middle of the night raids, including children young as ten.

International law doesn't restrain Israeli persecution. Peaceful protesters taste tear gas, rubber bullets, stun grenades, beatings and other abusive tactics to disperse them.

On October 27, Israel bombed three Khan Younis locations in southern Gaza. No deaths or injuries were reported. Central Gaza's Deir al-Balah was also struck, again with no casualties.

Israel claims provocations each time. Gazans mostly respond in self-defense as international law allows. Israel calls it terrorism. It intercepted two Gazan fishermen, opened fire, detained them and impounded their boats.

Attacks against other fishermen escalated. Boats were confiscated. Fishermen were detained. Tools and equipment were damaged or destroyed.

Gazans are prevented from fishing in their own waters. Violent assaults can come any time. On October 27, Israeli warplanes destroyed a container used for fishing equipment and tools. Nets and a water tank were burnt.

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Desiree Smith

The Patriot Act is not about terrorism. It is about control of
United States citizens. - It's about dictatorship & tyranny.

“The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either”.

These are some of the wisest words ever spoken in history. For without freedom people are subject to slavery. Naturally the first thing that came to mind when I read up on this subject was the President George W. Bush’s Patriot Act first signed in 2001. Supposedly this act was signed so the government would have a better ability to detect terrorists in America after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the twin towers.

There has been a lot of controversy about the lack of proper oversight over certain provisions that seem to infringe upon the civil liberties of Americans. One of these provisions is section 215 in the USAPA, which allows the government access to records and other items under the foreign intelligence surveillance act. The House of Representatives had passed this act with no judicial oversight on the provision that allows the government to search library records.

Because of 9/11 our whole country was in a state of fear and in my opinion, as well as the opinions of many other Americans, the representatives for the Patriot act used this catastrophe as a scare tactic in the mainstream media. They made the impression that our country was in a delicate condition needing protection from anyone that possibly posed a threat to the government and our nation. This tactic was obviously used to try to convince the House and the American people that the Patriot Act was the only solution to finding possible terrorist threats that might endanger our country.

In the meantime they were completely dismissing the fact that this act infringes upon several of the rights granted to the American people by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. The people of the United States of America were given these rights by our founding fathers, who fought and died in a war to ensure that the freedoms that they had risked their lives for would remain intact.

Americans should not have to give up their privacy and liberties that were granted to them over 200 years ago so the government can keep us safe from our own citizens who may be considered terrorists or involved with a terrorist group. The terrorist profile was designed by the Secretary of State, who was given this power by the makers of the Patriot Act, and has a ridiculous list of what attributes makes a domestic terrorist or terrorist group.

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Stephen Lendman

Isn't it high political Washington acted responsibly? One day perhaps if America's corrupted duopoly is replaced by officials representing popular, not imperial and corporate, interests. It can't happen a moment too soon.

ADL's audacity gives chutzpah new meaning. Whether it's latest scheme works isn't known. However, early indications express displeasure. More on that below.

Along with the American Jewish Committee (AJC), ADL's web site calls for a "National Pledge for Unity on Israel," saying:

America supported Israel since its 1948 founding. Its friendship transcends politics. It's never been just a party platform plank. It's "a core American policy that serves our nation's most fundamental national interests." For the past six decades, American presidents and congressional leaders "championed the shared values and outlook that bind the two nations." "This broad bipartisan backing has been vital to America's interests and to Israel's security throughout decades of war and a constant struggle for survival."

Fact check

For decades, Washington's been Israel's paymaster/partner. Together they waged aggressive wars and state terror against nonbelligerent countries, organizations and individuals.

Both are unrivaled global menaces. They're scourges on humanity. Annually, Washington grants Israel billions of taxpayer dollars, low or no-interest loans (some never repaid), the latest weapons and technologies, and other benefits afforded no other nation.

Israel, in fact, gets more US aid than all other countries combined. In return, they partner in crimes of war and against humanity. Neither respects democratic values, human and civil rights, or rule of law principles. Both are unprincipled rogue states.

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Bill Van Auken

Occupy Oakland protesters carry Scott Olsen away after
he was hit in the head on Tuesday night. Photo: Kimihiro
Hoshino/AFP/Getty

Tuesday’s near-fatal attack by Oakland, California police on a young veteran during an anti-Wall Street protest is part of a wave of repression that has provoked nationwide anger over the growing assault on democratic rights.

Demonstrators poured into the streets of Oakland, New York City and other US cities to denounce the vicious attack on Scott Olsen, 24, who survived two tours of duty in Iraq, only to be cut down by the police.

Olsen was felled by a supposedly non-lethal police projectile, fired directly at his head. The attack came in the midst of what amounted to a police riot staged in response to a Tuesday night protest over the police eviction and mass arrest of Occupy Oakland demonstrators at their encampment in the city’s Frank Ogawa Plaza. When other demonstrators went to his aid, they too were attacked with tear gas.

Olsen was admitted to Oakland’s Highland Hospital in critical condition, suffering a fractured skull and reportedly in a coma, breathing only with the aid of a respirator. On Thursday, his condition was upgraded to fair. His roommate, Keith Shannon, told the World Socialist Web Site that Scott had been taken off the respirator but was still under sedation. His parents, who flew in from Wisconsin, were with him.

Shannon, who was in Iraq with Olsen, reported that Olsen had been working at a San Francisco software company during the day and joining the anti-Wall Street protests at night, sleeping in the encampments in San Francisco and Oakland, California.

“He’d leave work, head there, sleep there and go to work the next day,” Shannon told the WSWS. “Scott was participating in Occupy San Francisco because he doesn’t agree with how none of the banks and corporations were held accountable for their role in the economic downturn. Instead, the politicians work hand-in-hand with them to provide more laws that benefit the rich rather than helping the thousands upon thousands of people who have lost their jobs and their health insurance and really need it.”

Shannon said that Scott’s attitude toward the Occupy Wall Street movement developed in line with his views on the war in Iraq. Having joined the Marines in 2006, he turned against the war after his deployments twice to the country. “He just felt that we shouldn’t be there,” he said. “He thought it wasn’t good for the Iraqi people and it wasn’t good for the American people. The only ones it was good for were the businessmen.

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Wayne Madsen

Ibn Saud ruled until his death in 1953.
He was followed by Saud bin Abdul-
Aziz, his eldest son (1953-64).

What will surprise those who may already be surprised about the Dönmeh connection to Turkey, is the Dönmeh connection to the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia.

[PART I] - An Iraqi Mukhabarat (General Military Intelligence Directorate) Top Secret report, “The Emergence of Wahhabism and its Historical Roots,” dated September 2002 and released on March 13, 2008, by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in translated English form, points to the Dönmeh roots of the founder of the Saudi Wahhabi sect of Islam, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab. Much of the information is gleaned from the memoirs of a “Mr. Humfer,” (as spelled in the DIA report, “Mr. Hempher” as spelled the historical record) a British spy who used the name “Mohammad,” claimed to be an Azeri who spoke Turkish, Persian, and Arabic and who made contact with Wahhab in the mid-18th century with a view of creating a sect of Islam that would eventually bring about an Arab revolt against the Ottomans and pave the way for the introduction of a Jewish state in Palestine. Humfer’s memoirs are recounted by the Ottoman writer and admiral Ayyub Sabri Pasha in his 1888 work, “The Beginning and Spreading of Wahhabism.”

In his book, The Dönmeh Jews, D. Mustafa Turan writes that Wahhab’s grandfather, Tjen Sulayman, was actually Tjen Shulman, a member of the Jewish community of Basra, Iraq. The Iraqi intelligence report also states that in his book, The Dönmeh Jews and the Origin of the Saudi Wahhabis, Rifat Salim Kabar reveals that Shulman eventually settled in the Hejaz, in the village of al-Ayniyah what is now Saudi Arabia, where his grandson founded the Wahhabi sect of Islam. The Iraqi intelligence report states that Shulman had been banished from Damascus, Cairo, and Mecca for his “quackery.” In the village, Shulman sired Abdul Wahhab. Abdel Wahhab’s son, Muhammad, founded modern Wahhabism.

The Iraqi report also makes some astounding claims about the Saud family. It cites Abdul Wahhab Ibrahim al-Shammari’s book, The Wahhabi Movement: The Truth and Roots, which states that King Abdul Aziz Ibn Saud, the first Kingdom of Saudi Arabia monarch, was descended from Mordechai bin Ibrahim bin Moishe, a Jewish merchant also from Basra. In Nejd, Moishe joined the Aniza tribe and changed his name to Markhan bin Ibrahim bin Musa. Eventually, Mordechai married off his son, Jack Dan, who became Al-Qarn, to a woman from the Anzah tribe of the Nejd. From this union, the future Saud family was born.

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Stephen Lendman

Today's nightmare may be expanded beyond remediation, at least in our lifetimes unless public rage stops it. Corrupt politicians won't do it.

Hydraulic fracking involves using pressurized fluids to fracture rock layers to release oil, gas, coal seam gas, or other substances.

Earthworks says the process provides easier access to deposits and lets oil or gas "travel more easily from the rock pores," where it's trapped, "to the production well." Fractures are created by pumping mixtures of water, proppants (sand or ceramic beads) and chemicals into rock or coal formations. Acidizing involves pumping acid (usually hydrochloric acid) into the formation. It dissolves rock so pores open for easier flows. Fracking and acidizing are often done together.

Studies show from 20 - 40% of fracking fluids remain underground. Fracking fluids contain hazardous toxic chemicals, known to cause cancer and other diseases. They include diesel fuel, containing benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, xylene, naphthalene and other chemicals. They also include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, methanol, formaldehyde, ethylene glycol, glycol ethers, hydrochloric acid, and sodium hydroxide.

Small amounts of benzene alone can contaminate millions of gallons of groundwater used for human consumption. According to the EPA, 10 of 11 US coalbed methane (CBM) basins are located at least partially in areas of underground sources of drinking water (USDW).

EPA also determined that nine or more harmful to human health fracking chemicals are used in normal operations. "These chemicals may be injected (in) concentrations anywhere from 4 to almost 13,000 times" above acceptable amounts. According to hydrodynamics expert John Bredehoeft:

"At greatest risk of contamination are the coalbed aquifers currently used as sources of drinking water." "(C)ontamination associated with hydrofracturing (can) threaten the usefulness of aquifers for future use."

At issue also is obtaining information on specific fracking chemicals used. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), oil and gas companies won't release what they call "proprietary information."

Current regulations exempt oil and gas drilling from major environmental laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Air Act, and Clean Water Act.

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Stephen Lendman

Sirte all but flattened. Thousands killed. - What's so humanitarian
about that? Wasn't the UN Resolution 1973 (2011) about "the
protection of civilians" and the Security Council's "strong commit-
ment to the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and
national unity of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya"? Did the UN do
anything whatever to stop the vicious US-NATO attack on Libya?

His faults aside, Libyans supported Gaddafi overwhelmingly. They still do. His spirit drives their revolutionary struggle for freedom. They won't quit until it's achieved.

Obama's March 28, 2011 address at the National Defense University was true to form. It reeked of duplicity, hypocrisy, and ball-faced lies, saying:

"For generations, the United States of America has played a unique role as an anchor of global security and as an advocate for human freedom." "....(W)e are reluctant to use force to solve the world's many challenges." "But when our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act. That's what happened in Libya...." For decades, Libya was "ruled by a tyrant....He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized people around the world - including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents."

Substitute Washington for Libya and he got it right. America is a rogue terror state, a menacing plague on humanity.

Democratic values, human and civil rights, and rule of law principles are non-starters.

Only corporate and imperial interests matter, not equity, justice, peace on earth, and government of, by and for the people while respecting the sovereign rights of other nations.

NATO's war on Libya was planned many months in advance like all wars. Why is most important, or put another way - cui bono?

Official accounts and media scoundrels never explain. Dozens of previous articles discussed relevant issues and answers, including one summarizing what's most important. More on that below.

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Wayne Madsen

Kemal Pasha (Atatürk = Father of Turks) was a crypto-
Jewish Dönmeh / Sabbatian. Dönmeh / Sabbatians
destroyed the Ottoman Empire (as they did with the Ger-
man Reich and the Russian Empire) from the inside, to
create Israel on Palestinian territory. [Like many men who
had a great influence on world history, Kemal Atatürk
was an instrument of the so-called "hidden hand." - Ed.]

“Sabbateanism is the matrix of every significant movement to have emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth entury, from Hasidism, to Reform Judaism, to the earliest Masonic circles and revolutionary idealism. The Sabbatean "believers" felt that they were champions of a new world which was to be established by overthrowing the values of all positive religions.” ~ Gershom Scholem

[PART II] There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe. It is a factor that is generally only whispered about at diplomatic receptions, news conferences, and think tank sessions due to the explosiveness and controversial nature of the subject. And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran…

Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.

The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the Messiah but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan.

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Charles E. Carlson

Pastor John Hagee at the 'Night to Honor Israel'

Zionists from three or more religious groups converged at John Hagee's Night To Honor Israel in Arvada Colorado, Sunday October 16, 2011. We say "from" because, when one becomes a Zionist, he leaves behind whatever God-driven faith he may have had before. At Faith Bible Chapel, Colorado, we met many "Christian" and "Jewish" Zionists; one man claimed to be a Muslim for Israel and against Palestine. We even met a few Christ followers, whom we tried to convince did not belong there.

This Vigil for Peace With Justice was by far our most broadly supported vigil in over eight years at over 70 American churches. We are grateful for the co-sponsorship of other pro-peace and pro-Palestinian organizations, as well as the continuing support of our friends from past vigils.

This was our second outing at Faith Bible Chapel, a true mega-church in Arvada, Colorado.[1] As always the vigil was quiet and safe, but highly exciting in its conflicts. The churches usually employ private, off-duty police officers, who they can count on to protect Zionist's interests. We make sure there is a city police presence for our protection. We protested for 2 1/2 hours at the open house that preceded the nighttime pep rally for Israel, conducted by John Hagee and a Rabbi from South Africa. We left at dark.

"Angry Evangelicals," as WHTT’s Tom Compton has dubbed churchgoers who become Zionists, were never more hostile. Hostile, we think, because Project Strait Gate correctly labels them a cult. It challenges the scriptural core of their belief system, which has been corrupted by their leaders. We tell them when we have a chance, they are every bit as much a cult as the Jonestown cult, many of whose misled members died in 1978.

The many self-identified Jews in attendance were even more vociferous in their outrage. Perhaps they recognize that we are exposing the unchristian nature of their warmaking for Israel. Where at our previous Hagee vigils, they ignored us, or treated us with confident contempt, this time a number stopped on the way in or out of the Hagee open house to argue, proclaiming how uninformed we were.

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Gilad Atzmon

Examining Alan Dershowitz's and Abe Foxman's arguments against The Wandering Who?

Earlier this week I learned from the Jerusalem Post how desperate notorious Zionists Alan Dershowitz and ADL’s Abe Foxman are to stop my new book ‘The The Wandering Who?’. It seems that Foxman, Dershowitz and their allies amongst the Jewish ‘anti’-Zionists (aka ‘anti-Zionist Zionists’ or AZZ) are in a state of total hysteria. So far, the book has been endorsed by some of the most distinguished academics, writers and humanists in contemporary discourse. It has been praised on every dissident outlet around the world.

But it’s also obvious to every person who reads me that there is not a drop of racism, bigotry or anti Semitism in any of my writing. In my entire writing career I have never criticized Jews as people, ethnicity or race. Nor do I criticise Judaism. What I do is to scrutinize Jewish ideology and culture and I argue that if Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish State’ and drops bombs on civilians from airplanes decorated with Jewish symbols, then surely it is our moral duty to question what this ‘Jewishness’ is all about.

In fact my biggest contribution to the discourse is my attempt to offer a critical argument against Jewish identity politics that is both ethically grounded and based on universal thought.

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Stephen Lendman

'Juan Gómez' is an encampment built by Haitians who
crossed into the Dominican Republic in Search of work.

Except briefly after their successful 1804 revolution and under Aristide, Haitians suffered over 500 years of persecution and human misery.

It's ongoing today under America's imperial boot, UN paramilitary occupation, and stealth Duvalierist Michel ("Sweet Micky") Martelly's illegitimate April 2011 election.

With longstanding ties to Haitian elites, militarists, reactionary Duvalierists, and his thuggish Tonton Macoute assassins, Haitians are stuck with him for five years.

He serves Washington and predatory neoliberal interests, not them. As a result, expect hard times getting harder ahead.

On October 17, Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) Research Associate Courtney Franz headlined, "Leta Restavek: The Suppression of Democracy in Haiti," saying:

UN Blue Helmet MINUSTAH occupiers "suppressed both electoral democracy and free speech in Haiti by organizing fraudulent elections and shutting down peaceful protests, which helped to exclude Haiti's poor majority from participating in the electoral process."

Moreover, Washington's iron fist got Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas and 14 other parties banned to install its favorites. The entire electoral process was unfair, unconstitutional, undemocratic and laughable under standards stretched to look legitimate.

Even despots hold more respectable elections to rubber-stamp their unchallenged rule. Haiti's didn't pass the smell test.

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Stephen Lendman

NATO's sole new millennium accomplishment consists of endless unwinnable wars. Coalition partners eventually tire and pull out.

America may end up isolated against raging street anger to end imperial wars and address vital neglected homeland needs. It's already happening.

The battle for Iraq continues. Afghanistan's war was lost years ago. Libya's also though political Washington, coalition partners, media scoundrels, and NATO won't admit it.

At its October 24 press briefing, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said:

"....(W)e all have seen the celebrations in Benghazi and across Libya as the National Transitional Council declared the full liberation of Libya. A momentous day for Libyans and for the whole region."

Fact check

Fighting rages in Benghazi, Bani Walid, Sirte, Tripoli and other cities across Libya. Jamahiriya loyalists control most territory though portions shift back and forth. Terror bombings continue daily.

Tribal leaders swear revenge for Gaddafi's assassination. Lungescu's rhetoric belies the spirit of millions of Libyans to resist until free. Alleged celebrations were staged. Official accounts of conditions are surreal, bearing no relation to reality.

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Tony Cartalucci

Think-tank designs for Iran leave only Israeli attack & coaxed provocation for total war on table.

October 22, 2011 - For ten months the Obama administration has presided over the "Arab Spring," a geopolitical gambit years in the making, and executed simultaneously in multiple nations throughout the Middle East and North Africa in the beginning of 2011. The regional conflagration was stoked by a steady stream of first, denial, even feigned surprise, with covert support for US-backed opposition groups, then more overt support, and finally NATO airstrikes, weapons, training, and special operations forces lent to the rebellion in Libya and weapons and support sent to Syria's militants. These collective efforts stretching from Tunisia and leading up to Iran's doorstep serve a singular agenda -that is, to contain and ultimately overturn the reemergence of Russia as well as containing the rise of China.

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Stephen Lendman

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi (Sword of Islam) Gaddafi embodies the
hopes of a new future for Libya and the Middle East.

October 20 events didn't liberate Libya. It's the beginning, not end, of protracted struggle perhaps for years.

Muammar Gaddafi was bigger than life. His spirit inspires Libyans and others wanting freedom - not terror bombing, occupation, colonization, pillaging, exploitation, and misery.

NATO's war on Libya is one of history's great crimes. Democratic values and truth never had a chance. Responsibility to protect duplicity terrorized and massacred civilians like crazed assassins.

Terror bombing continues daily. So do unspeakable rebel rat atrocities and ravaging Libya's landscape.

NATO is a rogue killing machine. Coalition partners are complicit in mass murder. Obama, Clinton and those around them are war criminals multiple times over.

Gratuitous slaughter, mass destruction, barbarism, lawlessness, and pillaging define their agenda. Libya was raped for profit and regional dominance. No one anywhere should tolerate imperial lawlessness on a scale beyond measure.

Jamahiriya freedom fighters won't quit until their mother of all struggles is won. With or without Gaddafi, they'll go on or die trying. Libya belongs to them, not NATO. Exorcising NATO's killing machine is job one.

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David Rieff

Libyans may be celebrating the killing of Muammar al-Qaddafi, but you'd better believe that Western governments are breathing a sigh of relief themselves.

Whether the NATO countries -- who had only a few years ago welcomed Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi back into the international fold in exchange for his renouncing his chemical and nuclear weapons programs and allowing U.S. and British experts to come and help dismantle them -- played any role in what certainly appeared in first reports from the scene to have been the summary execution of the Libyan dictator will probably never be known. What the video evidence does prove is that the Libyan revolutionary forces did not find him already dead or killed by a NATO airstrike; nor does the initial claim that he was killed in "crossfire" between insurgent forces and diehard regime loyalists stand up to even the most minimal scrutiny.

NATO does acknowledge that its planes bombarded the convoy in which Qaddafi was fleeing the city of Sirte shortly before it was intercepted on the ground by the insurgents, but it has denied it even knew he was there. If that is true, and the French, British, and Americans did not try to make their own luck, then they certainly were very lucky indeed.

Qaddafi was, quite simply, a man who knew too much. Taken alive, he would have almost certainly have been handed over to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which had indicted him -- along with his son, Saif al-Islam, and brother-in-law and military intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi (whereabouts unknown) -- for crimes against humanity in late June. Imagine the stir he would have made in The Hague. There, along with any number of fantasies and false accusations, he would almost certainly have revealed the extent of his intimate relations with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, the details of his government's collaboration with Western intelligence services in counterterrorism, with the European Union in limiting migration from Libyan shores, and in the granting of major contracts to big Western oil and construction firms.

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Stephen Lendman

Global Depression grips world economies. Destructive polices fueled today's crisis. Conditions are fast coming to a head.

Throwing good money after bad delays decision day at the price of far greater trouble on arrival. D-Day will shake world economies. It may, in fact, be months away, perhaps in 2012.

No one knows for sure, but things that can't go on forever won't, and when they end, watch out. Ordinary people will be hurt most, much more than already.

Perhaps Greece is the canary in the coal mine. The country's bankrupt. Only its obituary isn't written. Its citizens are being impoverished. Anger rages in Athens. Revolutionary sentiment may explode any time, sending shock waves across Europe.

Trends analyst Gerald Celente says when people lose everything and have nothing else to lose, they lose it.

Greek citizens are close to losing it. Others in troubled countries aren't far behind, including in America where growing thousands rage against a system destroying their livelihoods and futures.

Fixing it demands direct action. Focusing on core issues is key, and knowing bottom-up change only is possible, never the other way. Entrenched corporate and political interests don't yield.

Sustained pressure is crucial. Today's struggle is the mother of them all. Change won't come easily or quickly. Minimally it will take years to remake what's too corrupted and broken to fix.

Ripping it down and starting over is essential. American and Eurozone workers are on their own to do it. They're in for the fight of their lives. Odds are greatly stacked against them, but the stakes are too important to back down.

Money power in private hands must change. People must get back what's rightfully theirs. America's Constitution mandates it. Enforcing it is crucial. Doing so makes everything else possible. Without it, expect failure.

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Stephen Lendman

No one is safe under occupation. Middle-of-the-night arrests and detention threaten everyone. Children especially are affected. Many never recover from their ordeal. Pay less attention to what Israel says and focus on what it does daily. Palestinians call it brutalizing state terror.

In mid-October, Netanyahu's cabinet agreed to free 1,027 Palestinian political prisoners in two waves (including 27 women and nearly 300 children) in return for Hamas releasing Gilad Shalit after over five years in captivity.

Wave one is completed, freeing 477 Palestinians. In two months, phase two will release another 550. According to terms, 203 will be deported, 40 exiled overseas, and 163 expelled to Gaza.

Currently, Israel still holds over 5,000 detainees. As a result of torture, medical neglect, or assassinations, over 200 died martyrs in captivity. Another 302 are called "veteran detainees," serving 17 years or longer.

Another 136 serving 20 years or more are called "Deans of Detainees." "Generals of Patience" is a term applied to prisoners incarcerated over 25 years. As of October, they number 41.

On October 18, Ma'an News reported Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouq saying Israel agreed to lift Gaza's siege in return for releasing Shalit.

He "told Palestine TV that Israel had used Shalit as a pretext to blockade Gaza but there (were) 'unofficial agreements' to end it during talks with a German mediator."

According to Abu Marzouq, "This was confirmed in the last negotiations."

For years it's been known that security wasn't why Israel imposed it, despite disingenuous public statements. Israel blockaded Gaza in mid-2006, then hardened its siege a year later.

Despite assurances of ending it now, Israel may renege by reinterpreting terms. Many times it says one thing and does another. Its promises are hollow and disingenuous.

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