Stephen Lendman

Main Street Europe and America face protracted Depression conditions. As a result, millions lost jobs, homes, incomes, and futures.

Human misery is growing. So is public anger. Rage across America and Europe reflect it. Gerald Celente explains the stakes, saying:

"When people lose everything and have nothing else to lose, they lose it."

Draconian police state provisions were enacted to contain them. Hundreds of secret Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) camps may hold them. Martial law may authorize it, claiming "catastrophic emergency" conditions. Senators blew their cover calling America a "battleground."

During WW II, loyal Japanese Americans were lawlessly detained. Today, social justice protesters and others wanting change are at risk. Political Washington's targeting them to assure business as usual continues. Obama's fully on board.

On December 14, the House passed the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). On December 15, the Senate followed suit - ironically on Bill of Rights Day.

Obama will sign it into law. The measure ends constitutional protections for everyone, including US citizens. Specifically it targets due process and law enforcement powers.

With or without evidence, on issues of alleged terrorist connections posing national security threats, the Pentagon now supplants civilian authorities. It's well beyond its mandate.

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Bill Van Auken

Camp Bucca, once by far the largest American internment
camp in Iraq, has closed. New ones will be built in the US.

The US Senate’s approval Thursday of legislation allowing the indefinite military detention of US citizens without charges or trials marks a new stage in a decade of uninterrupted assault on the most fundamental democratic and constitutional rights.

The Senate’s 86-to-13 vote in favor of the legislation followed its approval in the House of Representatives Wednesday. It also came after the announcement by the White House that President Barack Obama would not exercise his power to veto the measure, which is included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a $662 billion package to fund Washington’s war machine.

The bill mandates that anyone accused of being a terrorist be “detained without trial until the end of hostilities” in a military prison. While it requires such treatment for non-citizens, it authorizes it for citizens arrested on US soil, if the president decides they merit this extra-constitutional punishment.

This piece of legislation enshrines in law the worst of the crimes carried out under the Bush administration and provides legal sanction for an American military-police state. The sweeping bipartisan support it received in both houses of Congress has provided definitive proof that there exists no constituency for the defense of democratic rights within the American political establishment and its two big business parties.

For that matter, the passage of a law that shreds the founding principles of the American republic has raised barely a murmur of concern from the corporate-controlled mass media. They have no intention of making this a matter of public debate. For millions of American working people, however, the action is of the gravest importance.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama's treason is a tragedy for the American people.
The Constitution & Bill of Rights now are history and
literally anyone may diappear in the American Gulag.
No exceptions for Americans. The media's blackout of
the "Indefinite Detention" Bill is an absolute disgrace.

Obama supports draconian FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provisions. Justification given is national security and war on terror hokum.

Henceforth, anyone anywhere, including US citizens, may be indefinitely held without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, spurious allegations or none at all.

No reasonable proof is needed, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Henceforth, indefinite detentions can follow mere membership (past or present) or support for suspect organizations.

Presidents now have unchecked dictatorial powers to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat.

Constitutional, statute and international laws won't apply. Martial law will replace them if so ordered.

As a result, US military personnel anywhere in the world may arrest US citizens and others, throw them in military dungeons, and hold them indefinitely outside constitutionally mandated civil protections, including habeas rights, due process, and other judicial procedures.

In other words, presidents may order anyone arrested and imprisoned for life without charge or trial. Tyranny arrived in America. Abuse of power replaced rule of law protections.

Even someone erroneously arrested and cleared of wrongdoing could be held indefinitely without charge, given non-civil trials, none at all, or, for foreign nationals, sent abroad to torture prison hellholes.

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Philip Giraldi

Iran–Iraq War (1980–88). Death Toll: 500,000 +

One might regard the pledges made to Israel and its friends in the United States by aspiring presidential candidates as pro forma and vaguely amusing, but that would be a mistake. Policy commitments, even if they are lightly entered into, are a serious matter with real-world consequences. At the moment, the obligation to Israel goes far beyond the willingness to give Tel Aviv billions of dollars in aid and unlimited political cover each year. Every Republican candidate but one has affirmed that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of a “Jewish state,” the precise formula demanded by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and each has affirmed his or her eagerness to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which would end forever any chance of actual peace talks with the Palestinians and would also invite a violent reaction against Americans in many parts of the Muslim world. Michele Bachmann has even found a private “donor” willing to pay for the move. Newt Gingrich, who would shift the embassy to Jerusalem within his first two hours as president and who has also promised to name John Bolton as his secretary of state, has meanwhile [claimed] that the Palestinian people do not actually exist, which certainly solves the problem of the two-state solution or any solution at all. They were invented by hostile Arabs and are out to destroy Israel.

Mitt Romney and Gingrich might well take the prize for lack of any connection with reality with their demand that U.S. Ambassador Howard Gutman, who is Jewish, be fired for suggesting that some anti-Semitism might be the result of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. Romney has also criticized President Barack Obama for “insulting” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, surely one of the most interesting inversions of truth and fiction ever to occur. Not to be outdone, Rick Perry has promised to increase assistance to Israel, calling it “strategic defensive aid” that benefits the United States.

While this kind of ignorant crackpottery is unfortunately what one expects, there might be worse to come. As part of the pro-Israel package, the same presidential hopefuls have made clear their willingness to go to war with Iran on behalf of Israel even if Israel is the initiator of the conflict, while the media and the Republican Party have together conspired to keep any contrary opinions on that issue marginalized and nearly invisible.

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Ismail Salami

In what seems to be nothing but US-style barefaced arrogance, President Barack Obama has demanded the return of a spy drone which violated the airspace of the Islamic Republic but which was to the humiliation of the US officials downed by the Iranian army.

The top-secret RQ-170 Sentinel drone, which was used by Washington as part of the covert operations the US officials have already vowed to conduct inside Iran, was hunted down by an electronic ambush and landed with a minimal degree of damage over the city of Kashmar about 140 miles inside Iran.

Consciously blind to the realities of Washington's abysmal policies, the Western media treated the report with a predilection for suspicion and disbelief and used the somewhat innocuous-sounding term 'reconnaissance drone'. However, when Pentagon later acknowledged the “mysterious loss of a surveillance drone”, they had no choice but to face the truth.

What strikes as bizarrely ridiculous is the fact that Washington has demanded the return of the drone which they have confessed was sent on a secret mission for gathering information.

''We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond,'' Mr. Obama has said.

Nonetheless, Iran says that it has no intention of returning the drone and that Washington should compensate Tehran for violating the country's airspace.

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Joseph Kishore

The entire “debate” within the political establishment over the NDAA testifies to the collapse of any commitment to democratic rights within the American ruling class.

The Obama administration declared Wednesday afternoon that it was abandoning its nominal threat to veto a military authorization bill that explicitly authorizes the indefinite military detention of anyone the federal government declares to be a terrorist or supporter, including US citizens.

The final passage of the bill is now virtually assured by the end of the week. It marks a new stage in the collapse of the most basic democratic rights in the United States and the erection of the framework of a military-police state.

From the beginning, the administration has supported all fundamental components of the bill, while criticizing it largely from the standpoint of defending executive power. In a statement, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that a few cosmetic changes this week ensured that it “does not challenge the president’s ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate terrorists and protect the American people.”

A few hours later, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly in favor of the legislation, 286-136, with support from both big business parties. Democrats split 93-93 on the bill, while Republicans voted for it by a margin of 193-43.

The Senate is expected to vote on it Thursday, before it arrives at the president’s desk. Both houses of Congress had already passed earlier versions of the same legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

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Scott Lazarowitz

Within days after my article on due process and presumption of innocence, the U.S. Senate voted to empower the U.S. military to apprehend and detain indefinitely anyone in America, based on the whim of the soldier or military commander, and it will probably eventually include any armed agent of government including local police. As Jacob Hornberger noted, this new provision will codify the U.S. as just another one of many dictatorships throughout world history.

But, even though al Qaeda is virtually non-existent, the Washington imbeciles want to expand and extend the "War on Terror" anyway and include the entire U.S. territory as a "battlefield." How can we explain this? As Justin Raimondo speculated, the real reason for this new dictatorial power may be because these senators know that America is headed for economic collapse and civil unrest. But as I pointed out in my article on martial law, whether there are terrorists or not, or whether there is a prosperous or collapsing economy, all human beings have inalienable rights, among them the right to presumption of innocence and due process. Any government violations of those rights are crimes against the people, pure and simple.

Sen. Lindsey Graham commented that, "If you’re an American citizen and you betray your country, you’re not going to be given a lawyer," in his un-American opposition to due process and his approval of apprehending and detaining innocent civilians indefinitely. But, as I asked in my earlier article: Who will determine whether or not one has "betrayed one’s country"? Graham and the other pro-dictatorship government bureaucrats do not seem able to distinguish between someone who actually has acted (or been found guilty of acting) against one’s fellow Americans and someone who is accused of doing so. Graham wants to empower all military personnel (and probably any armed government official) to detain indefinitely those who are merely accused of doing something, without evidence brought forward, without having a lawyer, without access to their families, no due process whatsoever. This is a banana republic dictatorship, and it is thoroughly un-American, thoroughly anti-liberty.

Additionally, Graham hinted at curtailing political expression as protected by the First Amendment, and thus, given past examples of government censorship since 9/11, Americans who criticize the U.S. government’s "war on terror" could be declared as "enemy combatants," and apprehended and detained without charges or trial. If these senators have their way, merely questioning the government’s actions and questioning the legitimacy of these wars would be considered "terrorism."

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Bill Van Auken

The lying and glorification of the Iraq war—which gave the world the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the siege of Fallujah, the massacre in Haditha and countless other war crimes—is not just a matter of electoral calculations.

President Barack Obama used his speech to US troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina Wednesday to embrace the nine-year war in Iraq that he had ostensibly opposed and to declare the destruction of the country a “success.”

Obama exploited a captive audience of 3,000 soldiers assembled at the largest US Army base in the world as part of a cynical attempt to use the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, which is to be completed by the end of this month, to promote his own reelection campaign.

The speech appeared to have been written by someone who threw out Abraham Lincoln’s famous adage and adopted the view that you can “fool all of the people all of the time.”

The Democratic president presented the complete withdrawal of American forces as an “extraordinary achievement” for his administration, while telling the troops that it was necessary to “remember everything that you did to make it possible.”

The reality is that the withdrawal of America’s armed forces from Iraq is not the deliberate outcome of US policy, but rather the unavoidable result of Washington’s failure to negotiate a new Status of Forces agreement to permit the administration’s favored plan, which was to leave behind as many as 20,000 troops.

That failure was based on the refusal of the Iraqi government, and indeed all of the major political forces in the country, to accede to Washington’s demand for blanket immunity for US troops from Iraqi law. Mass popular opposition, based on the bitter experiences of the Iraqi people over nearly nine years of US occupation, with all of its death and brutality, made any such agreement impossible.

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Stephen Lendman

Crumbling like the Tower of Babel...

Fundamental change is possible. The mother of all struggles lies ahead. Sustained resistance gets results. Given the alternative, is anything less than social justice acceptable?

Europe's underpinnings can only hold so long. Years of entrapment under euro straightjacket rules means eventual dissolution and collapse.

Throwing more money at out-of-control debt problems buys delay only. Instead of swallowing painful solutions, EU leaders keep repeating the same mistakes, heading dire conditions to catastrophic ones.

In fact, reactions to last week's summit were decidedly negative. On December 14, the Financial Times (FT) headlined, "Doubts about eurozone fiscal deal grow," saying:

The euro selloff against the dollar "showed the strain of efforts to force through austerity policies and impose tough new spending rules."

Moreover, concerns emerged among at least four non-euro countries over whether legal considerations would force them to join Britain and opt out.

Czech Republic Prime Minister called the Brussels deal little

"more than a blank sheet of paper....I think that it would be politically short-sighted to come out with strong statements that we should sign that piece of paper."

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny said a referendum at this stage would fail. An unnamed Brussels diplomat wants "some clarity on what this treaty might include. There are so many unanswered questions," he added.

In fact, there's lots more troubling than he explained. Moreover, nothing from Brussels augurs well for working households across Europe. More on that below.

Nonetheless, other countries also expressed concerns, including Hungary and Sweden, saying they won't relinquish control of their corporate tax policy. What about their people policy? Only harder than ever hard times are planned.

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Stephen Lendman

On December 1, an ACLU of Northern California press release headlined, "FOIA Documents Show FBI Illegally Collecting Intelligence Under Guise of Community Outreach," saying:

"The trust that community outreach efforts aim to create is undermined when the FBI exploits these programs to gather intelligence on the very members of the religious and community organizations agents are meeting with."

"The FBI should be honest with community organizations about what information is being collected during meetings and purge any improperly collected information."

Instead, FBI agents illegally collected names, ID information, opinions of community event attendees, as well as sponsoring groups, including their goals, activities, names and positions of leaders, and their racial, ethnic, and national origin.

The FBI Directorate of Intelligence Domain Management program maintains the information to "assess threats, vulnerabilities, gaps and new opportunities for intelligence collection."

In fact, community outreach programs are a way to establish communications, mutual understanding and trust between government agencies and public groups. Using them for covert intelligence gathering shows authorities operate lawlessly for their own purposes.

In fact, FBI documents reveal Privacy Act violations in gathering information about individuals' First Amendment activities.

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John Pilger

US soldiers terrorizing an Iraqi family. (© Sean Smith)

On 22 May 2007, the Guardian's front page announced: "Iran's secret plan for summer offensive to force US out of Iraq." The writer, Simon Tisdall, claimed that Iran had secret plans to defeat American troops in Iraq, which included "forging ties with al-Qaida elements". The coming "showdown" was an Iranian plot to influence a vote in the US Congress. Based entirely on briefings by anonymous US officials, Tisdall's "exclusive" rippled with lurid tales of Iran's "murder cells" and "daily acts of war against US and British forces". His 1,200 words included just 20 for Iran's flat denial.

It was a load of rubbish: in effect a Pentagon press release presented as journalism and reminiscent of the notorious fiction that justified the bloody invasion of Iraq in 2003. Among Tisdall's sources were "senior advisers" to General David Petraeus, the US military commander who in 2006 described his strategy of waging a "war of perceptions... conducted continuously through the news media".

The media war against Iran began in 1979 when the west's placeman Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, a tyrant, was overthrown in a popular Islamic revolution. The "loss" of Iran, which under the shah was regarded as the "fourth pillar" of western control of the Middle East, has never been forgiven in Washington and London.

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Stephen Lendman

On December 9, al-Nabi Saleh village residents protested peacefully against settlers stealing their land. At point blank range, an Israeli soldier fired a tear-gas canister directly at Mustafa Tamimi's head, killing him.

On December 10, thousands of Palestinians protested against his cold-blooded murder. Tamimi was the 20th Palestinian killed this way in the past eight years, besides many more by other means, especially in Gaza.

On December 12, a Haaretz editorial headlined, "In Israel, the life of a Palestinian is cheap," saying:

"The pictures from....Nabi Saleh are hard to swallow: An Israel Defense Forces soldier opens the back door of an armored military jeep and, from a distance of just a few meters, fires a tear-gas canister directly at a young man who is throwing stones. After the canister is fired, the jeep continues on its way without stopping."

Al-Nabi Saleh residents, like other West Bank ones, hold weekly nonviolent anti-land theft/Separation Wall demonstrations. It's their country and property. Under international law, they have every right to defend it. Not according to Israel.

Since 1967, under Military Order No 101: "Order Regarding Prohibition of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda Action," It's "forbidden to conduct a protest or march or meeting (involving 10 or more participants for political reasons) without permission of the Military Commander."

The same order forbids distributing political articles, pictures, or other materials.

In other words, an illegal occupier prohibits Palestinians from exercising their free expression and assembly rights on their own land, in their own country, under threat of intimidation, attacks, arrests, imprisonments, torture, and at times death.

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Kristoffer Larsson

In 2009 the UN Human Rights Council appointed the South African Judge Richard Goldstone to head the fact-finding mission investigating possible Israeli war crimes committed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead. Aside from being a well-respected judge, Richard Goldstone could not easily be dismissed as anti-Semitic given his Jewish origin.

Goldstone probably had no idea what awaited him. After the Mission published its findings and conclusions, the judge quickly became the victim of a vicious slander campaign. Israel’s Information Minister said that the Goldstone Report was “anti-Semitic.” Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz informed the listeners of Israel Army Radio that Goldstone was “an evil, evil man” and “an absolute traitor,” a “man who uses his language and words against the Jewish people.” Dershowitz later apologised for calling Goldstone a traitor, saying he thought the term moser (Hebrew for informer, delator) meant “monster” (as if that was any less harsh).

“I wrote to the broadcaster, retracting my word ‘traitor,’” Dershowitz told the Forward. “But if you’re asking me deep in my heart and soul do I believe that the word fairly characterizes him, in light of the way he’s used his Jewishness, both as a shield and a sword? You know, if the shoe fits.”

In the end, it all became too much for the South African judge. He’s tried to retract parts of the report he co-authored, along with publicly defending Israel against ‘the Apartheid Slander’. And if the truth be told it seems that has never disengaged himself from Zionism. However, the damage has already been done and the greater part of the Jewish community simply has no trust in him anymore.

I came to think of Goldstone’s destiny as I was reading Beyond Tribal Loyalties: Personal Stories of Jewish Peace Activists. The book is an anthology with contributions from 25 Jewish activists living in different parts of the world who have come to see the conflict from the Palestinian point of view. For most Jews, criticising Israel comes at a price – relatives and Jewish friends regard it as treason, they are accused of being self-hating, and in some cases even of paving the way for another Holocaust. But these stories are not mainly about the price they have to pay for their activism; it’s about their personal journeys that led them from being (in many cases) completely uncritical supporters of Israel and Zionism into defenders of Palestinian rights.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama won't prosecute CIA torturers, Wall Street crooks, other corporate criminals, lawless war profiteers, or other venal high-level civilian or government officials.

Instead, expect him to sign into law (or at least tacitly approve) indefinite military detentions of US citizens allegedly associated with terrorist groups, with or without corroborating evidence.

Post-9/11, US freedoms and other democratic values dramatically eroded. Enactment of police state provisions in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act comes closer to ending them entirely.

On December 5, the ACLU headlined, "Indefinite Detention, Endless Worldwide War and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)," saying:

Enactment of this measure will authorize "the military to pick up and imprison people, including US citizens, without charging them or putting them on trial."

Secretly with no hearings, both Houses are rushing to complete a "joint version" before leaving for Christmas break. "Fundamental American values and freedoms are on the line." Given the stakes, they're perilously hanging by a thread.

On December 13, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) urged Obama to veto NDAA in its present form. Otherwise, he'll "be responsible for signing into law one of the greatest expansions of executive power in our nation's history, allowing the government to lock up citizens and non-citizens without the right to fair trials."

Indefinite detentions violate core democratic freedoms, including fundamental Bill of Rights ones already gravely eroded.

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Kenny's Sideshow

US Government bagman & Zionist shill: Eric Holder

The whole political system is a crime scene.

Like a little kid who just got caught stealing and begs his mama not to spank him, Eric Holder stated in the House Judicial Hearing that "the tactics used during operation Fast and Furious would never be used again by the Justice Department" and that on the distinction between lying and misleading Congress, Holder said it was a matter of a person's "state of mind."

That's reassuring.

Holder earned his stripes as a cover up agent in the Clinton administration working under Janet Reno to stifle the truth about the Oklahoma City bombing and the related murder of Kenneth Trentadue. Holder's role in Clinton's pardon of Mossad asset billionaire criminal Marc Rich shows how eagerly he will bow to Israeli lobbying and bribery.

Holder was one of many to be interviewed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and as Attorney General continues the coverup of that event to this day. Commentary from this video:

Eric Holder was chosen because they planned to rape justice and Eric is the right kind of criminal. The person in charge of the Justice system in America is the same person that runs {aids} Al-CIAeda planning to attack Americans on Christmas in Portland or Detroit. The reason you will never see justice for the real crimes being committed against Americans is because Eric represents another form of "justice." Obama runs Al-CIAeda, and Eric Holder is Al-CIAeda's lawyer. Eric Holder protected the Mumbai mastermind with a fake trial in Chicago. Eric Holder staged a fake spy swap for the media, using the justice system as a game for a show. Eric Holder was part of the Lockerbie bombers legal paperwork "release." Eric Holder is a top "inside job" suspect, for 9/11, The USS Cole, and the Bombings at the US Embassy's in Africa, front and center starring in the whole Bin Laden show.

What is pathetic about the house 'furious' hearing is that some are using it as an agenda for more gun regulations against honest Americans in the name of stemming the flow of weapons to Mexico. Although Holder said he will pursue prosecutions of those under his watch if laws were broken, the administration's ultimate policy is to disarm citizens out of fear that one day they may feel the need to take a stand against the police state's disregard of the constitution and Bill of Rights and overall government criminality.

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