Ray McGovern

Exclusive: By obsessing over Iran gaining a nuclear weapon “capability” – even with no actual bomb – while ignoring Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal, the U.S. news media proves the point of its own bias. There’s also the usual hostility toward dissenting voices, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

When CNN interviews a U.S. Army corporal preparing for his third deployment to Afghanistan, should TV viewers be permitted to hear him out on a front-burner issue like Iran’s alleged threat to Israel? For those who might think so, watch what happens when 28-year-old Cpl. Jesse Thorsen touches a neuralgic nerve by suggesting that Israel can take care of itself.

It’s impossible to say exactly what happened to the remote feed that suddenly got lost in transmission back to CNN Central, but the minute-long video is truly worth a thousand words.

The interview, which dates back to Jan. 3 when the Iowa caucuses were the evening’s big news, is at least symbolic of how our Fawning Corporate Media treats dissident voices that clash with the prevailing pro-war-on-Iran bias. I missed the segment when it aired, but I think it still merits comment today as war clouds thicken, again.

In the aborted one-minute segment, Cpl. Thorsen is interviewed by CNN’s Dana Bash, who presumably picked him out for the live interview because he had a large tattoo on his neck about never forgetting 9/11. The tattoo – plus two tours in Afghanistan behind him (and yet another in front of him) – may have suggested to Bash and her CNN producers that Thorsen was unlikely to say anything to muddle or muffle the new drumbeat for war.

Based on Thorsen’s military appearance alone, the typical CNN viewer could almost settle back in an easy chair and anticipate some stirring patriotic bathos about America standing tall – and the interview ending with the obligatory “thank you for your service,” which any right-thinking journalist utters to show that he or she is part of Team America.

But Bash got more than she bargained for when Thorsen turned out to be a well-informed and articulate young man who began endorsing Ron Paul’s non-interventionist views on U.S. foreign policy, i.e. that the United States should go to war only when absolutely necessary to defend its vital national interests and shouldn’t be picking a fight with Iran on behalf of Israel.

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Bill Van Auken

"The ultimate aim of the “drug war” is not to stop the entry of drugs into the US—a multi-billion-dollar enterprise that yields significant profits for US banks and which, over the course of more than half a century, has served as a funding source for US covert operations internationally, from Indochina to Central America and Afghanistan."

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano signaled this week that Washington is prepared to utilize the same bloody counterinsurgency methods in Mexico and Central America that it has employed in the so-called “war on terror”.

Napolitano is conducting a three-day, five-nation tour through Mexico and Central America with the key purpose of pushing for an escalation of the so-called “war on drugs”— through which Washington seeks to defend its hegemony in the region and tighten links between the Pentagon and local security forces.

At a press conference in Mexico City Monday, Napolitano and her Mexican counterpart, Interior Minister Alejandro Poire, announced the signing of a series of agreements on border security. Poire stressed that the two had discussed means of strengthening collaboration to keep “international terrorism” out of Mexico.

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Stephen Lendman

Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and now Syria had peace and calm until Washington intervened belligerently.

Strategies and tactics vary. Objectives are consistent. They involve replacing independent regimes with pro-Western ones by any means, including war.

Three unwinnable ones rage. Nonetheless, Obama plans more. Syria's target one. For the past year, US-instigated violence ravaged parts of the country. Thousands have been killed, many others injured.

Syria's gripped by fear. Heavily armed killer gangs rage out of control, and direct foreign intervention looms. More on that below.

Assad's wrongly blamed. The blame game targets victims, not villains. As a result, ongoing conflict continues.

February 26 was potentially historic. Syrians overwhelmingly approved constitutional reform. Only the fullness of time will tell if promised change, in fact, happens. Western intervention may prevent it.

After 90% of Syrians supported draft constitutional changes, Assad issued decree No. 94 officially approving it, effective February 27.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said referendum results show Syrians support him. Moscow called on all sides to concur, stop violence, and engage in dialogue with no preconditions.

On February 27, in an article titled "Russia and the Changing World," Vladimir Putin noted similarities between Syria and Libya. He warned against foreign intervention.

He called Arab Spring changes replacement of one force for another. In other words, everything changed by stayed the same, and in countries like Egypt, got worse. He said "Moscow won't allow anyone to repeat the Libyan scenario in Syria."

Washington is hell bent on initiating it. Obama asked international leaders to protect Syrians from "abhorrent" (US instigated) violence. Calling for regime change, he said Assad('s rule) must come to an end."

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Medea Benjamin

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful lobby organizations in the country. On March 4-6, AIPAC will be holding its annual policy conference in Washington DC. The speakers include Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Barack Obama, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Republican candidate Newt Gingrich and a host of other powerful politicians.

AIPAC has tremendous clout but its influence has been disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. democracy. Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.

1. AIPAC is lobbying Congress to promote a military confrontation with Iran. AIPAC - like the Israeli government - is demanding that the U.S. attack Iran militarily to prevent Iran from having the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, even though U.S. officials say Iran isn't trying to build a weapon (and even though Israel has hundreds of undeclared nuclear weapons). AIPAC has successfully lobbied the U.S. government to adopt crippling economic sanctions on Iran, including trying to cut off Iran's oil exports, despite the fact that these sanctions raise the price of gas and threaten the U.S. economy.

2. AIPAC promotes Israeli policies that are in direct opposition to international law. These include the establishment of colonies (settlements) in the Occupied West Bank and the confiscation of Palestinian land in its construction of the 26-foot high concrete “separation barrier” running through the West Bank. The support of these illegal practices makes to impossible to achieve a solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

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