Jacob G. Hornberger

President Obama’s reaction to the alleged Iranian assassination plot reflects, once again, the dictatorial powers that the president of the United States now wields in foreign affairs.

As many commentators are noting, the whole scheme appears to be as bogus as a 3-dollar bill, but that isn’t really the point. The point is that we now live in a country in which the ruler wields the omnipotent power to send the entire nation into war for whatever reason he wants, bogus or not.

That’s not the way things were supposed to be. The Framers didn’t devise a system where the president had that omnipotent power. When they called the federal government into existence with the Constitution, they delegated the power to declare war to Congress and the power to wage war to the president.

Thus, under the Constitution Obama is required to come to Congress with a request to declare war on Iran (or even to impose sanctions on the country). Presumably Congress would say, “Show us the evidence on which you’re relying for your request for us to declare war on Iran.”

At that point, it would be “put up or shut up” time for Obama and his FBI, Justice Department, CIA, and Pentagon. They would have to submit their evidence to rigorous scrutiny from Congress, just as they’re going to have to do in a criminal trial of the alleged assassination plotter, Manssor Arbabsiar. (That’s assuming, of course, that they don’t send Arbabsiar down the “enemy combatant” route by removing him from the jurisdiction of America’s constitutional judicial system and delivering him into the clutches of the U.S. military.)

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Stephen Lendman

At an October 11 press briefing, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu claimed Operation Unified Protector (NATO's aggression on Libya)

"has been a great success. We're pretty close to the end, but we're not there yet." "We did the right thing. We saved countless lives. We did it the right way, fast, with flexibility, involving Partners from the start, and we did it for the right reasons; to fully implement the mandate of the United Nations Security Council." "Now we will make sure the end of the operation will come when the time is right. We will not leave the job half done." "Our mission, as you know, is to prevent attacks and threats against civilians, so we will terminate the mission once we assess that there is no longer a systematic and significant threat...."

NATO military spokesperson Col. Roland Lavoie followed Lungescu with similar comments, claiming "we have witnessed a significant evolution of the situation in Libya." He added that "NATO is exercising air power only when necessary and always with caution, discernment and precision."

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Charles E. Carlson

Israel's Pending Attack on Iran to Spur War Based Economy, Wikileak Exposes Mexico Farce

I have listened to many commentaries and interviews by reasonable writers who just do not buy the conspiracy story from Eric Holder and the White House. I agree with most, from Iran's point of view, a plot to murder the Saudi Arabian envoy to Washington makes no sense. Some compare the scheme to a "B" movie.

But even a “B” movie develops a plausible reason why the killer did it. If Iran would not benefit from this scheme, who would? Is there a motive for a U.S. secret service, say the FBI, to hatch this plot and blame Iran? It is easy to see this could have been done, but I have yet to hear others hit one the plausible argument why the US leadership might invent this illogical scheme. The U.S.'s motive is so simple it is easy to overlook, and it is almost too horrible to contemplate so the obvious is ignored.

We American have been living in a war-based economy for decades and those who steer our leaders know they need a newer and bigger war to keep it going. About 100 years ago, Calvin Coolidge said "the business of America is business." Today his statement must be modified to "The business of America is ‘Warbusiness’.” We are officially coining this new noun for the special kind of business that began with World War I, when for the first time, the cost of war was no longer an obstacle. Why, because the world warmakers had just installed the Federal Reserve System over the US dollar.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down. Warbusiness can only sell one to us gullible consumers for so long, and these two of America's longest running wars. And you Warmakers know the US economy can not be stimulated fast enough by finance infrastructure, like roads and bridges. However, money can be deployed in a hurry to destroy things, which is why war works best to stimulate a crumbing economy. Ask yourself, which can be done quicker, break a clock or build one?

The logical reason for the lie is the economic need for another war, larger and more draining. This is the simple theory of war spending, and it is the simple and untold reason why Ben Bernanke's bosses, the state of Israel, and our behind the curtain political leaders want war with Iran right now. It is a big enough goal for them to take great risk, and they are.

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Allison McCracken

We are part of the growing Occupy movement sweeping the country, and we are becoming much stronger than the sum of our parts.

"Assault? Who- or what- did I assault??" I asked the police officer incredulously as I sat in his office at the police station, handcuffed to the wall. "Well, looks like it was Leon Panetta himself," the officer responded as he flipped through a pile of paperwork.

Me? A 22-year-old mild-mannered peace activist, assaulted the Secretary of Defense? I had simply tried to tell him how I felt about the wars. On the morning of October 13th about 25 activists who are occupying Washington DC, as part of the nationwide occupations, went on a field trip to Congress. We wanted to attend the House Armed Services Committee hearing where Leon Panetta, the Secretary of Defense, and Martin Dempsy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were testifying about “lessons learned by the Department of Defense over the preceding decade” and “how those lessons might be applied in the future in light of anticipated reductions in defense spending.” After all, these hearings are open to the public. And shouldn’t we have a say in where our money is being spent?

As a peace activist with the group CODEPINK for the past 10 months, I have done my fair share of sending letters and emails and delivering petitions to our government representatives, asking them to stop pouring trillions of our taxpayer dollars into the endless cycle of death, destruction and reconstruction halfway across the world. There are so many critical things that we could spend that money on here in America, such as education, healthcare, helping the homeless, the elderly, the disabled, the veterans.

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