Stephen Lendman

For over a century, The Times played America's lead role disseminating state/corporate propaganda duplicitously.

Its daily diet features managed, not real, news, information and analysis. Readers don't get what they pay for. They're cheated on what matters most.

What it reports, other major media scoundrels regurgitate. Readers and viewers are left misinformed and uninformed in the dark.

Wealth and power support defines its agenda, especially when America goes to war or plans to. In the lead, The Times cheerleads supportively.

Last year, it backed NATO's killing machine in Libya. It sanitized mass killing, destruction, and human misery. Now it's waging war on Syria and Iran. It vilifies regimes Washington opposes. It defends sabotage and targeted assassinations.

It blames both countries for defending their sovereign rights. It turns victims into villains. It ignores lawless Western intervention. It brazenly justifies the unjustifiable. It backs the worst of imperial lawlessness. It cheerleads war, the more the better. It denigrates leaders supporting diplomatic solutions.

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Anna Baltzer

Dear friends,

A Palestinian man named Khader Adnan is now on his 65th day of a hunger strike since December 18th, 2011. He could die at any moment--he is in "immediate danger of death." Yesterday, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association published this update . Here is one exerpt:

Israel's High Court of Justice has today scheduled a petitions hearing regarding the case of Khader Adnan to take place Thursday, 23 February 2012 at 11:30am. The petition was filed by Khader Adnan's lawyers on 15 February. The High Court of Justice was provided with a detailed medical report prepared on 14 February by an Israeli-accredited doctor on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel). Despite the elaborate medical report, which confirmed that Khader Adnan "is in immediate danger of death," and that "a fast in excess of 70 days does not permit survival," the Israeli High Court appointed the petition session for 23 February with no guarantees that a decision will be made on the same day. By then, Khader Adnan—if alive—will have reached the 69th day of his ongoing hunger strike.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The US government does not represent americans.

In 2010 the FBI invaded the homes of peace activists in several states and seized personal possessions in what the FBI–the lead orchestrator of fake “terrorist plots”–called an investigation of “activities concerning the material support of terrorism.”

Subpoenas were issued to compel antiwar protestors to testify before grand juries as prosecutors set about building their case that opposing Washington’s wars of aggression constitutes giving aid and comfort to terrorists. The purpose of the raids and grand jury subpoenas was to chill the anti-war movement into inaction.

Last week in one fell swoop the last two remaining critics of Washington/Tel Aviv imperialism were removed from the mainstream media. Judge Napolitano’s popular program, Freedom Watch, was cancelled by Fox TV, and Pat Buchanan was fired by MSNBC. Both pundits had wide followings and were appreciated for speaking frankly.

Many suspect that the Israel Lobby used its clout with TV advertisers to silence critics of the Israeli government’s efforts to lead Washington to war with Iran. Regardless, the point before us is that the voice of the mainstream media is now uniform. Americans hear one voice, one message, and the message is propaganda. Dissent is tolerated only on such issues as to whether employer-paid health benefits should pay for contraceptive devices. Constitutional rights have been replaced with rights to free condoms.

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John Pilger

It is this refusal to give up that rotten power fears, above all, knowing it is the seed beneath the snow.

Lisette Talate died the other day. I remember a wiry, fiercely intelligent woman who masked her grief with a determination that was a presence. She was the embodiment of people's resistance to the war on democracy. I first glimpsed her in a 1950s Colonial Office film about the Chagos islanders, a tiny creole nation living midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean. The camera panned across thriving villages, a church, a school, a hospital, set in a phenomenon of natural beauty and peace. Lisette remembers the producer saying to her and her teenage friends, "Keep smiling girls!"

Sitting in her kitchen in Mauritius many years later, she said, "I didn't have to be told to smile. I was a happy child, because my roots were deep in the islands, my paradise. My great-grandmother was born there; I made six children there. That's why they couldn't legally throw us out of our own homes; they had to terrify us into leaving or force us out. At first, they tried to starve us. The food ships stopped arriving [then] they spread rumours we would be bombed, then they turned on our dogs."

In the early 1960s, the Labour government of Harold Wilson secretly agreed to a demand from Washington that the Chagos archipelago, a British colony, be "swept" and "sanitised" of its 2,500 inhabitants so that a military base could be built on the principal island, Diego Garcia. "They knew we were inseparable from our pets," said Lizette, "When the American soldiers arrived to build the base, they backed their big trucks against the brick shed where we prepared the coconuts; hundreds of our dogs had been rounded up and imprisoned there. Then they gassed them through tubes from the trucks' exhausts. You could hear them crying."

Lisette and her family and hundreds of islanders were forced on to a rusting steamer bound for Mauritius, a distance of 2,500 miles. They were made to sleep in the hold on a cargo of fertiliser: bird shit. The weather was rough; everyone was ill; two women miscarried. Dumped on the docks at Port Louis, Lizette's youngest children, Jollice, and Regis, died within a week of each other. "They died of sadness," she said. "They had heard all the talk and seen the horror of what had happened to the dogs. They knew they were leaving their home forever. The doctor in Mauritius said he could not treat sadness."

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Khalid Amayreh

An Israeli police officer fires tear gas at Palestinian pro-
testers (not seen) during clashes in the East Jerusalem
neighborhood of Issawiya. (AP/Sebastian Scheiner)

The results of the Likud leadership elections and continuing provocation at the Haram Al-Sharif signal growing extremism in Israel, writes Khalid Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem.

Moshe Feiglin is not a typical Likudnik in the style of other past and present Likud leaders, such as Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon and Binyamin Netanyahu.

Those who know him say he is an incarnation of Meir Kahana, the racist-minded American rabbi who in the early 1970s founded the Kach organisation calling for the expulsion of non-Jews from Israel-Palestine, as well as the application of draconian Talmudic laws to replace Israel's quasi-secular system.

A few years ago, Feiglin decided to join the ranks of Likud, calculating that only by taking over a central and powerful party from within could he hope to transform Israel from a semi-secular state into a Jewish theocracy ruled by Halacha or the so-called Talmudic religious law.

So far, he has achieved only limited success, with less than 25 per cent of Likud registered members voting for him in the recent party leadership elections, in which the overwhelming majority voted for incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

However, the fact that Feiglin has been able to secure one fourth of Likud behind him does not bode well for either Israel's democracy or the future of Likud itself.

Ideologically, Feiglin is at the extreme right of the Israeli political map, believing that Israel should annex the West Bank, reoccupy the Gaza Strip, deport all Palestinians and demolish Muslim and Christian holy places in Jerusalem.

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Stephen Lendman

In November 2006, Washington Post writer Juliet Eilperin headlined, "World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn," saying:

International ecologists and economists believe "the world will run out of seafood by 2048" if current fishing rates continue.

A journal Science study "conclude(d) that overfishing, pollution and other environmental factors are wiping out important species" globally. They're also impeding world oceans' ability to produce seafood, filter nutrients, and resist disease.

Marine biologist Boris Worm warned:

"We really see the end of the line now. It's within our lifetime. Our children will see a world without seafood if we don't change things."

Researchers studied fish populations, catch records, and ocean ecosystems for four years. By 2003, 29% of all species collapsed. It means they're at least "90% below their historic maximum catch levels."

In recent years, collapse rates accelerated. In 1980, 13.5% of 1,736 fish species collapsed. Today, 7,784 species are harvested.

According to Worm, "It's like hitting the gas pedal and holding it down at a constant level. The rate accelerates over time."

Oregon State University marine biologist Jane Lubchenco said the study shows fish stocks are in trouble. "I think people don't get it," she said. "If there is a problem with the oceans, how come the case in my grocery store is so full? There is a disconnect."

National Environmental Trust vice president Gerald Leape said "This should be a wake-up call to our leaders, both internationally and domestically, that they need to protect our fish stocks. Otherwise they will go away."

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Gilad Atzmon

2nd part of two – In this part I explore the misleading role of Jewish politics (both Zionist and anti Zionist) within the 'anti racist' campaign. To read the 1st part click here.

Racism is a big word with some very bad connotations. Being accused of racism is one of the most hurtful and potentially damaging labels around. And yet, how many ‘racists’ really think in ‘biological determinist’ terms? How many ‘racists’ out there really think in terms of ‘genes,’ or even ‘skin colour’? I guess not that many.

While acknowledging that racism had a significant cultural, and politically lethal impact between the late 19th century and the middle of the last century, in today’s politics, the word ‘racism’ is often misused, mistakenly used, or in some cases, consciously used to mislead and even to silence.

Though discrimination against minority groups is unfortunately common and totally unacceptable, it is not necessarily always motivated by crude racism. Islamophobia, for instance, is commonly regarded as a contemporary manifestation of racism but I would challenge such an understanding. Islamophobia, I contend, is not driven by racism, but rather, it is actually a crude symptom of intolerance -- xenophobia manifested as hatred, bigotry and discrimination. My English Muslim convert friends are often subjected to abuse by Jewish campaigners (both Zionist and ‘anti’-Zionists) and the English Defence League -- but not because of their ‘genes’, ‘biology’ or the colour of their skin, but rather because they are ‘different’; because they challenge Western value system and because they oppose Israel and its lobbies. Clearly, they are perceived by some as a 'public enemy' but that reaction cannot always be understood solely as ‘racism’ per se.

Similarly, it is beyond doubt that it is not easy to be black in ‘multi cultural’ Britain. Being a jazz musician I see first hand how my black friends are often treated in this country and I see plenty of evidence of institutional anti-black bigotry. I read about black youngsters being stopped and searched by police between one to four times a day. This is unacceptable and clear evidence of discrimination.

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Stephen Lendman

Banner in Arabic, top, reads: "The prisoners were and
still are a symbol of steadfastness and tenderness, let
us stand by their side.". (M. Ballas/AP/SeattlePI)

■ Murdering Khader Adnan
■ Khader Adnan: Day 60 and Counting
■ Khader Adnan's Heroic Struggle for Justice
■ Khader Adnan: Israeli Prisoner of Conscience
■ Israeli Political Prisoner Khader Adnan Near Death
■ Israeli Hanging Judge Sentences Khader Adnan to Death

Day 62 and counting. Adnan's hunger strike continues. On February 15, Israel let his wife Randa see him for the second time.

She said "(h)is health has drastically deteriorated from the last time I saw him" a week ago. "I expect the worst. He insists on continuing with the hunger strike." He wants to live but will die for justice.

PLO official Saeb Erekat said Abbas pressed Russia, China, Britain, and EU authorities to help during meetings with acting EU representative to Palestine John Gatt-Rutter, UK Consul-General Vincent Fean, Russian representative Alexander Rudakov, and Chinese PA ambassador Yang Wei Guo.

He also contacted Washington, EU Secretary-General Thorbjørn Jagland, and France. Nothing so far materialized. Western leaders provide one-sided support for Israel. Expect nothing from them for Adnan.

He's held administratively without charge. He committed no crimes yet faces imminent death. He lost over a third of his weight. His life force is slowly ebbing. His muscles, heart, stomach, and immune system are dying.

His entire system could stop functioning any time. Israel wants him dead. So far, pleas on his behalf are ignored. The Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO) called for emergency action to save him. So did Samidoun, the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. It demanded his immediate release before it's too late.

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Gilad Atzmon

1st part of two – In this paper and the one to follow, I expose the misleading aspect that is, unfortunately, inherent to some 'anti' racist ideologies. I will elaborate on the role of anti racism in maintaing both Zionism and the Left discourse. To read the 2nd part click here.

“We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.” ― Anaïs Nin

It doesn’t take a genius to see that people who are identified as Zionist and Jews are, somehow, over represented in many blunders in today’s world affairs. The pro-war, Neocon think-tanks were overwhelmingly saturated with Zionist Jews, and the ‘moral interventionist’ advocates within the media are also largely Zionist Jews. The ‘brains’ behind the so-called Bush doctrine i.e. The ‘War Against Terror’, were Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby, and if that were not enough, at the heart of the financial turmoil we also find Jewish persons, and financial institutions that are clearly recognizable as Jewish – such as the Lehman Brother, Goldman Sachs, Alan Greenspan, Bernie Madoff, and many others.

Here one must ask an obvious question – why should any Jew anywhere in the world be concerned in any way with these facts? Why should any Jewish person be concerned with actions or ideas that he or she probably has nothing to do with? Why should my Jewish neighbour, also subject to the financial turmoil and with no connection whatsoever with Madoff, Wolfowitz, David Aaronovitch or Lord ‘cash point’ Levy, be at all concerned with current financial or imperial blunders for which he has no responsibility? Why should my Jewish musician friends who have no ties to Israel, AIPAC, CFI, CST, Nick Cohen or Alan Greenspan feel guilty for crimes or actions taken by others just because they also happen to be Jewish? Would a Frenchman or an Irishman in America feel threatened or potentially discriminated against because of revelations that a few of their expatriates had been involved in a major colossal scandal?

So, the question I raise here is a simple one: why should any Jew feel guilty for crimes that are committed by other people – people he or she does not know and is not affiliated with? And the answer is equally simple – Jewish individuals have no reason to assume responsibility for actions committed by other Jews. But the truth of the matter is, that many Jews are extremely concerned about the current blunders: some feel guilty, and many – potentially at least – feel threatened. I would say that such a reaction merits our attention.

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Stephen Lendman

"Bad Ideas Are Like Viruses:They Spread Quickly
to Make Matters Worse" - Joseph E. Stiglitz

Money power rules. Across Europe and America, governments follow banker diktats. They demand economies and people suffer to assure they're paid.

Money power in private hands and democracy can't co-exist. It buys what it wants at the expense of government of, by and for the people. It never was and isn't now.

Wall Street and major European banks usurped unprecedented money making power. With complicit politicians, they make it the old fashioned way. They steal it.

As a result, ordinary people are harmed. They've lost jobs, homes, savings, and futures to let privileged elites get richer and more powerful at their expense.

At issue is banking giants controlling money, credit and debt for private enrichment. Used lawlessly, they bribe politicians to pass business friendly laws and turn a blind eye to massive fraud, abuse, and grand theft.

Greece is the epicenter of Europe's crisis. It's being strip-mined of all material wealth. Its life force is being drained to pay bankers. Its citizens face destitution and neoserfdom with no rights. Democracy's just a figure of speech. In its birthplace, it no longer exists.

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Stephen Lendman

"Will [the bankers] sign our country's death warrant?"

Greece is banker occupied. Ordinary people have no say. Parliamentarians get orders and obey. Despite multiple painful austerity rounds, Troika power demands more - the IMF, EU and European Central Bank (ECB).

Money power dictates bankers get paid first. People needs are sacrificed for them. Bankers also want implementation guarantees for enacted policies and more coming. For starters, they demand cutting another 325 million euros.

European Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said more had to be done no matter the human harm and economic ruin. Ordinary Greeks face impoverishment and neoserfdom. Since 2007, Greece's economy shrunk almost 20% en route to total collapse.

Its real debt burden approaches $650 billion, around double the reported amount. The latest bailout deal's for about $170 billion. Current debt exceeds what Greece can repay. Increasing it elevates crisis conditions. Forced austerity assures harder than ever hard times.

Rising unemployment exceeds 20%. Youth unemployment approaches 50%. Only a third without work get unemployment benefits. They're being slashed another 20%. Plans are for laying off another 150,000 state workers by 2015.

Private sector wage cuts exceeded 20%, public sector ones around 50%. Poverty affects millions. GDP's collapsing. So are pensions, Greece's life force, and the ability of most people to survive.

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Adnan Al-Daini

The mantra of growth as a cure to the economic malaise that is engulfing Europe and the US is repeated ad nauseam by economists and political pundits.  My training is in engineering science, not economics, so let us not be encumbered by economic dogma or theory. Let us go back to first principles to examine some of the prevailing economic axioms.

If we insist that western economies must continue to grow year after year for poor people even to have the basics for life, and since we know that only little of the wealth created trickles down, then before too long we will end up devouring the whole planet.  Of course, well before we reach that point, we will have degraded our environment to the point where life becomes unsustainable for all of us, rich and poor, and certainly for future generations.

How can this growth be achieved anyway? If most of the wealth created finds its way to the top 10 % (UK figures: the top 1% own 21% of wealth, and the top 10% own 53%), where is the demand going to come from?  I hope no one is suggesting we fuel it by unsustainable debt and usury, which is what brought us to this crisis in the first place.  Those at the top already have more money than they know what to do with; there is a limit to how much an individual can consume. How many cars and gadgets does an individual need? 

Yet in America 47 million people live in poverty, 50 million with no health insurance, and 1.5 million children are homeless. In the UK, 13.5 million people live in poverty (22% of the population, 29% of all children), 65,000 households are classified as homeless. We have to substantially change wealth distribution in our societies for the economic system to be sustainable.

As rich western societies, don’t we have a moral duty to do something more imaginative than simply trying to create a bigger cake in the hope that the share for the poor will increase by a sliver more?  Wouldn’t it be fairer and more effective to divide the existing cake, which is big enough, more equitably? 

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Pepe Escobar

What was the parade of European poodles thinking - that Tehran would just roll over and absorb the European Union's oil embargo, scheduled to start on July 1?

No wonder Brussels was caught as a Gucci deer in the headlights when the news started to flow that Tehran would pre-empt the move and immediately slap its own embargo of crude oil exports to six European Union countries - deeply in crisis Club Med members Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain plus recession-hit France and the Netherlands.

It took virtually no time for Iran's Oil Ministry and then the Foreign Ministry to deny it; such a decision, technically, would have to be officially announced by the Supreme National Security Council, which also deals with the nuclear negotiations.

But only the deaf, dumb and blind wouldn't understand the message; blowback for the ridiculously counter-productive European sanctions/oil embargo package will only plunge vast swathes of Europe further into deep economic pain.

Iran supplies 500,000 barrels of oil a day to the EU. The mere threat of an Iranian embargo has already provoked an oil price spike.

Assuming Club Med countries would be able to get oil from other sources - and that's not a given; Saudi Arabia wants high oil prices with a vengeance - they would have to reconfigure their refineries to process it. Inevitably there would be shortages of gasoline; the average Italian, for instance, is already furious with the skyrocketing price of gas at the pump.

Perhaps those tens of thousands of useless Brussels bureaucrats carrying their multicolored files up and down should do something meaningful and send a letter to Washington officially congratulating the Americans for further impoverishing tens of millions of EU citizens.

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Bill Van Auken

The “tide of war is receding” is a phrase President Barack Obama has employed ad nauseam—once in his State of the Union address, twice in the course of remarks last month at the unveiling of the Pentagon's new military strategy document, once again during his speech at the United Nations, also in his announcement of troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, and in a Veteran's Day address.

The constant repetition of this hackneyed metaphor is aimed at obscuring the obvious—that US militarism has escalated dramatically under the Democratic president and its tide threatens to engulf the entire planet.

Among the latest indications is a behind-the-scenes campaign by the chief of the US military's Special Operations Command (SOCOM) for greater autonomy in dispatching elite killer squads to every corner of the globe.

Adm. William McRaven, who heads SOCOM, is, according to the New York Times, seeking “more autonomy to position his forces and their war-fighting equipment where intelligence and global events indicate they are most needed.”

The admiral's proposal, the Times notes, “would also allow the Special Operations forces to expand their presence in regions where they have not operated in large numbers for the past decade, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America.”

McRaven argues that “[t]hickening the Special Operations deployments in these other regions would allow the United States to be ready to respond more rapidly to a broader range of threats.”

SOCOM includes as its key sub unit the Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, which is made up of such outfits as the Navy Seals and the Army's Green Berets, which carry out armed missions abroad. It is one area of the US military that is being spared even the minimal cuts that are being imposed on the Pentagon budget.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Farzana, 8 months, is held by her grandmother in a crowded
refugee camp on February 10, 2009 in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Having lost part of her arm during a recent US attack in
Helmand, Farzana and her family now live at the refugee
camp, displaced by the violence in Afghanistan.

Is Obama a hypocrite or merely insouciant? Or is he an idiot?

According to news reports Obama’s White House meeting on Valentine’s day with China’s Vice President, Xi Jinping, provided an opportunity for Obama to raise “a sensitive human rights issue with the Chinese leader-in-waiting.” The brave and forthright Obama didn’t let etiquette or decorum get in his way. Afterwards, Obama declared that Washington would “continue to emphasize what we believe is the importance of realizing the aspirations and rights of all people.”

Think about that for a minute. Washington is now in the second decade of murdering Muslim men, women, and children in six countries. Washington is so concerned with human rights that it drops bombs on schools, hospitals, weddings and funerals, all in order to uphold the human rights of Muslim people. You see, bombing liberates Muslim women from having to wear the burka and from male domination. One hundred thousand, or one million, dead Iraqis, four million displaced Iraqis, a country with destroyed infrastructure, and entire cities, such as Fallujah, bombed and burnt with white phosphorus into cinders is the proper way to show concern for human rights. Ditto for Afghanistan. And Libya.

In Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia Washington’s drones bring human rights to the people.

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