Andy Worthington

For nine and a half years — almost as long as the “war on terror” has been providing an excuse for paranoia about Muslims in general — the case of US citizen Jose Padilla has demonstrated, to those willing to pay attention, that something has gone horribly wrong in the United States of America.

A former gang member and a convert to Islam, Padilla was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, in connection with an alleged “dirty bomb plot” that never existed, on May 8, 2002, as he returned from Pakistan. Held for a month as a material witness, he was then designated an “enemy combatant” by President George W. Bush, and held in complete isolation in a military brig for the next three and half years — a process that also involved prolonged sensory deprivation. According to the psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty, who spent 22 hours with Padilla in 2006, “What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being’s mind.”

In November 2005, fearing that Padilla might successfully challenge the government’s argument that it had the right to hold a US citizen indefinitely without charge or trial on the US mainland, and subject him to torture, the Bush administration suddenly indicted Padilla on charges of conspiracy “to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas,” and transferred him out of the brig. However, the injustice did not come to an end, as the courts then took over.

The charges against Padilla were based on the Bush administration’s claim that, along with alleged facilitators Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, he was part of a Florida-based plot to aid Islamic extremists in holy wars abroad, and his trial took place in the summer of 2007. However, the judge, Marcia Cooke, refused to allow Padilla or his lawyers to make any mention of what had happened in the three and a half years that he was held in a legal black hole.

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William Blum

In his September 22 address at the United Nations, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mentioned the Nazi Holocaust just twice:

"Some European countries still use the Holocaust, after six decades, as the excuse to pay fines or ransom to the Zionists."

"They threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military action."

That was it.

By the term "questions the Holocaust" the Iranian president has made clear repeatedly over the years what he's referring to. He has commented about the peculiarity and injustice of a tragedy which took place in Europe resulting in a state for the Jews in the Middle East instead of in Europe. Why are the Palestinians paying a price for a German crime? he asks. And he has questioned the figure of six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany, as have many historians and others of all political stripes who think the total was probably less. This has nothing to do with the Holocaust not taking place.

But, as usual, the Western media pretends that it doesn't understand.

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Christoph Dreier

Allocating hundreds of billions more in public funds to cover the potential losses of banks across the euro zone - a coordinated plan to “recapitalize” the banks - this points to a policy of pushing Europe over the edge.

European stock markets fell sharply Tuesday and the euro hit new lows for the year amid reports of an impending default of the Greek economy and fears of a rapidly developing recession and renewed banking crisis on both sides of the Atlantic. Asian markets were also generally lower for the day.

Major European banks with heavy exposure to the debt of ailing euro zone countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal suffered heavy losses. The Franco-Belgian bank Dexia lost 37 percent at one point following rumours of an imminent crash of the bank.

US stock exchanges, sharply lower for most of the day, pivoted in the final hour of trading to close with substantial gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 360 points in the last 30 minutes to end the day with a gain of 153 points. The rally was evidently triggered by an article posted on the Financial Times web site reporting that euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels were moving toward a coordinated plan to “recapitalize,” i.e., bail out, the European banks.

Earlier in the day, one analyst had noted, "Dexia's problems stress the point that for euro zone leaders the Greek crisis is less about Greece and more about the potential for it to spark a much more widespread banking and economic disaster."

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Stephen Lendman

[Class Warfare? Yes, this is class warfare. But it is class warfare by the 1% against the other 99%. Specifically, it is the looting of the country by the top 1% through fraud. As Warren Buffet – one of America’s most successful capitalists and defenders of capitalism – points out: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ZeroHedge]

Imagine winning 106 Pulitzer Prizes awarded for excellence in journalism, more than any other broadsheet, for delivering managed, not real news, information and opinion.

Imagine doing it since 1851. Imagine being called the "newspaper of record," producing "All the News That's Fit to Print."

Imagine an establishment publication representing wealth and power, backing corporate interests, cheerleading imperial wars, ducking uncomfortable issues too sensitive to report, and functioning as an unofficial ministry of information and propaganda.

Imagine relying on it for real information and analysis at a time it's vanishing except online.

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Compiled by Samuel Dowell

Netanyahu, a master of deception, is using every gimmick possible to keep knowledge of Israel’s injustice towards the Palestinians from the American public. He says that Israel would like to be the first to recognize Palestine. He is not being sincere. His "wish" may come true however, and soon. But if not, there will be a Palestinian State at some point anyway, in spite of Netanyahu and people like him.

“I tend to believe things that a son says to his father in private. To this end, we should go back to 2009, to the words revealed by the father, Benzion Netanyahu, regarding the conduct of his son, Benjamin. With the consent of his son, the prime minister, the father gave an interview to Amit Segal on Channel 2 News, and this is what he said about the Bar-Ilan speech advocating the establishment of a Palestinian state: "He [the prime minister] doesn't support it. He supports it under conditions that they [the Arabs] will never accept. That's what I heard from him, not from myself. He proposed the conditions. They will never accept those conditions, not one of them," said Netanyahu Sr.” [One of those conditions was acceptance of a “Jewish” State.] [1]

The Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the State of Israel as part of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Recognition of a Jewish State is a new demand that did not come up during years of negotiations in the 1990s or in peace treaties reached with Egypt and Jordan.

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