Paul Craig Roberts

Will the US collapse in economic chaos before it rules the world?

If Washington’s plans succeed, Libya will become another American puppet state. Most of the cities, towns, and infrastructure have been destroyed by air strikes by the air forces of the US and Washington’s NATO puppets. US and European firms will now get juicy contracts, financed by US taxpayers, to rebuild Libya. The new real estate will be carefully allocated to lubricate a new ruling class picked by Washington. This will put Libya firmly under Washington’s thumb.

With Libya conquered, AFRICOM will start on the other African countries where China has energy and mineral investments. Obama has already sent US troops to Central Africa under the guise of defeating the Lord’s Resistance Army, a small insurgency against the ruling dictator-for-life. The Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, welcomed the prospect of yet another war by declaring that sending US troops into Central Africa “furthers US national security interests and foreign policy.” Republican Senator James Inhofe added a gallon of moral verbiage about saving “Ugandan children,” a concern the senator did not have for Libya’s children or Palestine’s, Iraq’s, Afghanistan’s and Pakistan’s.

Washington has revived the Great Power Game and is vying with China. Whereas China brings Africa investment and gifts of infrastructure, Washington sends troops, bombs and military bases. Sooner or later Washington’s aggressiveness toward China and Russia is going to explode in our faces.

Where is the money going to come from to finance Washington’s African Empire? Not from Libya’s oil. Big chunks of that have been promised to the French and British for providing cover for Washington’s latest war of naked aggression. Not from tax revenues from a collapsing US economy where unemployment, if measured correctly, is 23 percent.

With Washington’s annual budget deficit as huge as it is, the money can only come from the printing press.

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Stephen Lendman

On December 31, 1993, (New Year's eve) Skinner's live-in girlfriend Twila and her two adult sons were stabbed to death in Pampa, TX. On March 18, 1995, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

On November 9, he'll be executed, despite convincing evidence he's innocent. Justice will be denied. As America's death penalty capital, Texas rarely grants it.

Since presidential aspirant Rick Perry took office in December 2000, 234 executions occurred, more than under any other modern governor. At the same time, he refuses to admit erroneously putting anyone innocent to death, despite over 130 exonerated inmates nationwide since 1973.

In fact, 12 were in Texas, besides known and unknown others unjustly facing execution. Unless Skinner's spared at the 11th hour, he'll be number 13.

Capital punishment is barbaric and cruel. Amnesty International (AI) call it "the ultimate denial of human rights. It is premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state. This cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment is done in the name of justice."

There's nothing just about state-sponsored murder, especially against wrongfully convicted victims. In America, they're mostly poor Blacks and Latinos, denied due process and judicial fairness. The system is rigged to convict known innocent defendants.

Georgia's September 21 cold-blooded murder of Troy Anthony Davis symbolizes a longstanding rogue practice.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia abolished it. Federal law should have stopped it long ago, ending a system with no regard for human life.

It disproportionately affects society's least advantaged unjustly. On November 9, Henry W. (Hank) Skinner will be its next victim without 11th hour help to save him.

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William Bowles

Who will break up Shell or Goldman Sachs? Who will smash the military-industrial-media complex?

Four years ago in a Ministry of Defence Review, the Whitehall Mandarins, more astutely than any so-called Lefty, determined the following:

“The Middle Class Proletariat — The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.” — ‘UK Ministry of Defence report, The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036’ (Third Edition) p.96, March 2007

Yeah, I know, I’m always using this quote (I first used it four years ago) but it illustrates the great intellectual divide between the political class and the citizens they rule, including our Left, now made so apparent by what the pundits are now calling the ‘Occupy The World’ (OTW) movement. It seems that only our very own ruling class foresaw OTW.

Dig a little deeper into OTW and we find that with a few exceptions, there are no challenges to capitalism, mostly it’s a ‘clean up your act’ kinda thing. Throw a few billionaires in jail, add some regulation and things will eventually turn out just fine. Dream on…

But we’ve been here before. This is what attempts at ‘reforming’ capitalism in the past have looked like. We lived under such a system from 1945 until the late 1970s, before the Empire reasserted itself, proving once again, that concepts like ‘democracy’ under capitalism, are at best, mere conveniences and so vague a concept that it can be made to resemble almost anything.

And once the so-called Good Life that capitalism allegedly had offered us started to wear thin and capitalism once more plunged us into war and poverty, so too the ‘Good Life’ had to be dumped. Belt-tightening time again.

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Ismail Salami

What seemed at first to be a simplistic effort by the US to corner Iran into political isolation has begun to branch out into ramifications of Kafkaesque proportions.

Despite its evidently make-believe facade, the cooked-up story of the Saudi envoy assassination plot does not seem to be something which can be easily banished from the minds of the American powers that be.

The heat over Iran in the US government is growing rapidly. Some Republican congressmen have expressed their interest in waging an all-out war against Iran, a threat they keep refreshing every time they have an excuse. They have clearly stated that Washington should not dismiss the idea of resorting to military force against Iran, an idea which is being strengthened in Congress.

“I don't think you should take it off the table,” Michigan Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has said.

It is quite natural that he was vehemently supported by the former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senator John McCain, who have always maintained an antagonistic approach towards Iran.

Hawkish Gingrich said on CNN, “Our goal should be the replacement of the Iranian dictatorship, and we have done nothing of consequence to systematically undermine the regime.”

The US government keeps preaching at others and talking of dismantling this or that regime which they term as 'dictatorial' or 'sponsor of terrorism'. Now that the lot has fallen to the US government itself, they are at a loss and appear despondently desperate. The implosive voice that is eroding the American system from within cannot be easily smothered or contained.

Therefore, the US has to find a way to divert international attention from what is going on in the country and zoom in on Iran. This can be one simple reason but it is very plausible. However, a bigger scenario is at work in collaboration with the Mossad and other intelligence services.

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Stephen Lendman

Terror weapons have been used, including depleted uranium (DU), thermobaric fuel-air bombs and white phosphorous able to burn flesh to the bone.

Obama is an unindicted war criminal. So is Clinton. More on her staged photo-op theater below.

On October 18, NATO deputy spokesperson Carmen Romero said:

"We are very close to (ending the Libya operation), but there are still threats to the civilian population and as long as these threats persist we will continue the campaign."

Fact check

Libya's only threat is NATO's presence with its army of paid mercenaries. The country was mostly calm and peaceful until terror bombing began on March 19. It's been ongoing daily for seven months.

Widespread areas have been ravaged. Tens of thousands have been killed, many more injured and displaced.

About 100,000 residents once called Sirte home. Under intense daily bombardment and shelling, it's in ruins. Remaining inhabitants are now homeless refugees.

Imagine turning Libya's showpiece of urban development into a ghost town. Nonetheless, loyalists defend it courageously, besting air and ground attacks. They control most of the city.

Nonetheless, NATO military spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie claimed

"(m)ost of Sirte in now under (TNC) control and fighting is limited to a very small area where a few remaining Gaddafi fighters are vainly trying to hold their positions."

He lied about Sirte and Bani Walid, claiming

"significant (rebel) advances....As of this morning, it appears that Gaddafi fighters are unable to sustain significant offensive capability."

False. They control most of Sirte, Bani Walid, Tripoli, Benghazi and most other cities and towns across Libya. NATO's desperation is palpable. Without victories, they're manufactured out of whole cloth.

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Rodrigue Tremblay

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs." ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd U.S. President.

Presently, one has the net impression that today's governments, both in Europe and in the United States, have their fingers plugging the holes in the financial dike, but fear that that the entire dam could collapse in the not too distant future with dire economic consequences.

Let's see if we can make sense of it all.

Let's say to begin that most financial crises are the direct result of unsustainable debt levels relative to income that need to be wrung out of the economic system. It has happened in the past (notably in 1873, in 1907 and in 1931, for example), and numerous times in developing countries, and it will undoubtedly happen again in the future. The process is more often than not always the same: some large banks, corporations, consumers or governments take on too much risky debt that becomes unsustainable when economic conditions change, thus launching the entire economy into a devastating process of debt deflation. Sometimes, it may take decades to overcome such a debt deflation and it usually creates an environment of economic stagnation when aggregate demand collapses.

What makes the current financial crisis so troublesome is not only that debt levels are historically high for some countries, but also because the usual instruments and procedures to reduce the debt burden, while doing the least damage to the real economy, have been rendered inoperative, due to a large extent, to the poisonous so-called financial “innovations” that have taken place since 1999 in the general climate of wholesale financial deregulation. As a consequence, financial debt in many countries creates a sort of financial black hole that siphons off money income and prevents it from being re-circulated back into the economy. This creates a serious deficiency of demand (when consumers spend less, when corporations postpone investments and when governments adopt austerity programs) that translates into low output growth, economic stagnation and high unemployment.

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Stephen Lendman

Candidate Obama promised peace. As president, he double downed Bush and then some, waging multiple direct and proxy wars.

The business of America is war. Washington has a permanent war policy. Republicans and Democrats perpetuate it.

Obama's latest mission adds another to dozens of similar ones ongoing globally. On October 14, New York Times writers Thom Shanker and Rick Gladstone headlined, "Armed US Advisors to Help Fight African Renegade Group," saying:

Obama ordered "100 armed military advisers to central Africa to help regional forces combat the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a notorious renegade group that has terrorized villagers in at least four countries with marauding bands that kill, rape, maim and kidnap with impunity."

Independent journalist, war correspondent, African expert, and human rights investigator Keith Harmon Snow challenges major media distortions and lies.

He calls the LRA "a Ugandan guerrilla force....wag(ing) a low-intensity war against" Uganda's Museveni regime since 1987. Ugandan factions back LRA resistance. It's also "clandestinely supported by unnamed factions in Congo, Europe and Washington."

Some believe it's "a tool of the Museveni government used to manipulate public opinion, create chaos across the region, gain international sympathy from foreign donors, (and serve as a) perfect ruse to facilitate permanent foreign military intervention."

In 2001, the State Department named it a terrorist organization. Since 2008, it's been called a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group.

US intervention also targets China's growing African influence to feed its insatiable resource needs, especially oil and gas. WikiLeaks disclosed a February 17, 2010 US cable, saying:

"China's economic ties to Uganda continue to accelerate on all fronts making it one of the country's top foreign investors."

It's also true in other African countries, including resource rich Congo.

"Greater Chinese investment and assistance in Uganda has generated some resentment due to local perceptions that Chinese investments favor their own businesses."

China, in fact, prefers partnership arrangements benefitting both sides in contrast to Washington's one-way deals.

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Stephen Lendman

"How many times was Khamis (Gaddafi) killed?" Still believed to be alive, he's now a legend. "Killed by NATO five times, and resurrected," he symbolizes loyalist resistance.

Whenever major media Libya reports appear, truth is distorted, manipulated and falsified. For seven months, despite daily terror bombing and ground attacks, courageous loyalists bested the ferocity of NATO and its rebel army.

As a result, they control most of Tripoli, Benghazi and other cities across the country. Fighting, however, still rages. Loyalists are holding their own. They're determined to liberate Libya, live free and rebuild.

NATO ravaged widespread areas, willfully targeting civilians and sites unrelated to military necessity. They include hospitals, schools, residential neighborhoods, and at times anything that moves.

Loyalist victories are called NATO ones. On October 17, bogus reports again said Bani Walid fell. New York Times writer Rick Gladstone headlined, "Pro-Qaddafi Enclave in Desert Is Said to Fall After a Battle," saying:

"Libyan forces (read cutthroat mercenaries) fighting the vestiges of (Gaddadi's) toppled government said Monday that (they) were in control of Bani Walid," south of Tripoli.

Claiming it and Sirte are "the last holdouts of pro-Qaddafi resistance," completely ignores reality as loyalists control most of Libya.

Despite years of more credible reporting, Al Jazeera now functions mainly as Qatar's propaganda arm. On October 18, it headlined, "Libyan fighters claim capture of Bani Walid," saying,

"NTC military commanders....said they captured about 95 per cent of" the city."

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley is a notorious liar, saying:

"We are very much in the center of Bani Walid. (Rebels) came through here just over an hour ago and they are saying this is an almost complete liberation of the town." "The gunfire of celebration is ringing out and they are going completely crazy here because they know this (will) send a very clear message to those pro-Gaddafi elements who are still holding out in Sirte. Basically, there is nowhere left to go."

At least Times reporter Gladstone explained that other claimed TNC victories "proved overly optimistic." In fact, they were willfully falsified. Media scoundrels, including The Times and Al Jazeera, reported them like gospel.

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Colorado AIM / Republic of Lakotah

“Now we put our minds together to see what kind of world we can create for the seventh generation yet to come." ~ John Mohawk (1944-2006), Seneca Nation

As indigenous peoples, we welcome the awakening of those who are relatively new to our homeland. We are thankful, and rejoice, for the emergence of a movement that is mindful of its place in the environment, that seeks economic and social justice, that strives for an end to oppression in all its forms, that demands an adequate standard of food, employment, shelter and health care for all, and that calls for envisioning a new, respectful and honorable society. We have been waiting for 519 years for such a movement, ever since that fateful day in October, 1492 when a different worldview arrived – one of greed, hierarchy, destruction and genocide.

In observing the “Occupy Together” expansion, we are reminded that the territories of our indigenous nations have been “under occupation” for decades, if not centuries. We remind the occupants of this encampment in Denver that they are on the territories of the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute peoples. In the U.S., indigenous nations were the first targets of corporate/government oppression. The landmark case of Johnson v. McIntosh (1823), which institutionalized the “doctrine of discovery” in U.S. law, and which justified the theft of 2 billion acres of indigenous territory, established a framework of corrupt political/legal/corporate collusion that continues throughout indigenous America, to the present.

If this movement is serious about confronting the foundational assumptions of the current U.S. system, then it must begin by addressing the original crimes of the U.S. colonizing system against indigenous nations. Without addressing justice for indigenous peoples, there can never be a genuine movement for justice and equality in the United States. Toward that end, we challenge Occupy Denver to take the lead, and to be the first “Occupy” city to integrate into its philosophy, a set of values that respects the rights of indigenous peoples, and that recognizes the importance of employing indigenous visions and models in restoring environmental, social, cultural, economic and political health to our homeland.

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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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Stephen Lendman

Nothing less than liberation is tolerable after 63 years of persecution and denial.

Since Hamas captured Gilad Shalit on June 25, 2006, there have been on and off talks to negotiate his release. Hamas took him captive, responding to repeated Israeli attacks, including a widely reported beach shelling. It killed eight Palestinians, injuring 32 others, including 13 children. Israel denied responsibility, falsely blaming a Hamas mine despite forensic evidence proving otherwise.

In retaliation, Hamas struck an Israeli military post near Kerem Shalom crossing, southeast of Rafah. Two Israeli soldiers were killed. Several others were injured, and Shalit was captured. He's been held ever since because Israel refused to negotiate responsibly to free him. It preferred using his captivity to vilify Hamas until now.

On October 12, Haaretz headlined, "Israel cabinet approves Gilad Shalit prisoner swap,” saying, "Voting early Wednesday morning, Netanyahu's cabinet agreed to free over 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners in two waves in return for Hamas releasing him after over five years in captivity."

According to newly released figures, Palestinian Central Bureau Statistics said over 750,000 Palestinians were arrested and detained since June 1967, including those affected several times. They include about 12,000 women and "tens of thousands of children." Throughout Occupied Palestine and Israel, prisons, detention camps and interrogation centers were established to incarcerate, torture, abuse and humiliate them.

Currently, Israel holds about 6,000 detainees, including 35 women and 285 children. Others as young as 10 (and occasionally younger) remain until adulthood, losing out entirely on their formative childhood years.

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Tony Cartalucci

Unelected corporate-funded policy makers constitute the greatest threat to US national security.

October 16, 2011 - While US politicians grapple over the credibility of using the US DEA's bomb plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador as a pretext to escalate tensions with Iran, America's unelected, corporate-funded policy makers have already announced their long, foregone conclusion. The DEA's entrapment case is decidedly to be used as a pretext for war with Iran.

The Foreign Policy Institute (FPI), just one such unelected, corporate-funded think tank, has released two statements calling on President Obama to use force against Iran. FPI director William Kristol states:

"It’s long since been time for the United States to speak to this regime in the language it understands—force. And now we have an engraved invitation to do so. The plot to kill the Saudi ambassador was a lemon. Statesmanship involves turning lemons into lemonade. So we can stop talking. Instead, we can follow the rat lines in Iraq and Afghanistan back to their sources, and destroy them. We can strike at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and weaken them. And we can hit the regime’s nuclear weapons program, and set it back."

Likewise, FPI's executive director Jamie Fly claims, in tandem with Kristol's unqualified, corporate-funded opinion, "It is time to take military action against the Iranian government elements that support terrorism and its nuclear program. More diplomacy is not an adequate response."

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