Stephen Lendman

Adnan Moussa holds a picture of his son Khader Adnan,
a senior member of Islamic Jihad jailed in Israel and who
has been on hunger strike for nearly two months, during
a protest in the West Bank city of Jenin on 13 February,
2012 in solidarity with his action and to demand the re-
lease of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

■ Murdering Khader Adnan
■ 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

Israeli state terror matches the world's worst. With Washington and Britain, they're axis of evil partners. Torturing Adnan to death shows it. His martyrdom won't go unnoticed.

On February 15, Palestinian faction leaders began supportive hunger strikes. Gazans erected a sit-in tent near ICRC's Gaza City offices.

Islamic Jihad leaders Sheikh Nafth Azzam, Ahmad Al-Mudallal, Dawood Shihab and Khader Habit joined with others and civil society organization members.

Al-Mudallal said striking "support(s) the battle of dignity of Sheikh Khader Adnan. This is the least we can do (for) this legendary symbol."

Palestinian Authority civil affairs minister Hussein al-Sheikh said PA officials were trying to free him and hold Israel responsible for his well-being.

Palestinian prisoner affairs minister Issa Qaraqa called for demonstrations, protest marches, and solidarity fasts throughout the Territories.

Hundreds of Palestinians began supportive hunger strikes. Many rallied in Gaza and West Bank towns. Ofer Prison detainees joined them. Israeli security forces attacked protesters with tear gas and rubber bullets. Palestinian National Initiative head Mustafa Barghouti was wounded in his foot.

Adnan's a political prisoner, detained since mid-December but not charged. On his 60th day without food, a mass call for action urged support to help free him. He symbolizes Israeli brutality, injustice and lawlessness. He inspired others saying:

"For every gram you lose from your weight, we gain a thousand grams in our dignity."

Many support him globally and responded. He hasn't yet slipped into coma, but remains perilously close to death.

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Andy Worthington

Last month was the 10th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo, and as this year progresses it is appropriate to remember that there will be other grim 10-year anniversaries to note.

This week, one of those 10-year anniversaries passed almost unnoticed. On February 7, 2002, as Andrew Cohen noted in the Atlantic, in the only article marking the anniversary,

President George W. Bush signed a brief memorandum titled “Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees” (PDF). The caption was a cruel irony, an Orwellian bit of business, because what the memo authorized and directed was the formal abandonment of America’s commitment to key provisions of the Geneva Convention. This was the day, a milestone on the road to Abu Ghraib: that marked our descent into torture — the day, many would still say, that we lost part of our soul.

That is no exaggeration. Depriving prisoners seized in wartime of the protections of the Geneva Conventions was a huge and unprecedented step, and thoroughly alarming. And yet, despite criticism from Secretary of State Colin Powell (PDF), the administration pushed forward remorselessly towards the creation of an America that practiced arbitrary detention and torture.

Powell had been included in the paper trail that led to Bush’s memorandum of February 7, 2002, and he was particularly upset by a memo on January 25, 2002 (PDF), signed by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, but written by Vice President Dick Cheney’s legal counsel, David Addington, which claimed that the “new paradigm” that the “war on terror” presented “renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

In his memorandum, just two weeks later, Bush declared that “none of the provisions of Geneva apply to our conflict with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere through the world, because, among other reasons, al-Qaeda is not a High Contracting Party to Geneva.” He added, “I determine that the Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants and, therefore, do not qualify as prisoners of war under Article 4 of Geneva. I note that, because Geneva does not apply to our conflict with al-Qaeda, al-Qaeda detainees also do not qualify as prisoners of war.”

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Paul Craig Roberts

Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money.

The United States government and its NATO puppets have been killing Muslim men, women and children for a decade in the name of bringing them democracy. But is the West itself a democracy?

Skeptics point out that President George W. Bush was put in office by the Supreme Court and that a number of other elections have been decided by electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail. Others note that elected officials represent the special interests that fund their campaigns and not the voters. The bailout of the banks arranged by Bush’s Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs chairman, Henry Paulson, and Washington’s failure to indict any banksters for the fraud that contributed to the financial crisis, are evidence in support of the view that the US government represents money and not the voters.

Recent events in Greece and Italy have created more skepticism of the West’s claim to be democratic. Two elected European prime ministers, George Papandreou of Greece and Silvio Berlusconi of Italy, were forced to resign over the sovereign debt issue. Not even Berlusconi, a billionaire who continues to lead the largest Italian political party, could stand up to the pressure brought by private bankers and unelected European Union officials.

Papandreou lasted only 10 days after announcing on October 31, 2011, that he would let the Greek voters decide in a referendum whether or not to accept the austerity being imposed on the Greek people from the outside. Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people.

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Stephen Lendman

Indian policemen watch security and forensic officials
examine a car belonging to the Israel Embassy after an
explosion in New Delhi on Monday. (Mustafa Quraishi)

Last October, Iran was falsely charged with a fake terror plot that didn't pass the smell test. At best, it resembled a bad film script too implausible to believe.

Tehran was bogusly blamed for plotting to kill Saudi Arabia's US ambassador. According to spurious accusations, an Iranian/American used car salesman and Mexican drug cartel hired assassin were involved.

You can't make this stuff up, but major media scoundrels headlined it for days. They regurgitated a scheme too implausible to believe.

Official lies substituted for proof. They're repeated to incite fear and justify retaliatory measures with public support. They include belligerence if ordered.

Unasked always is cui bono. Clearly, Iran is only harmed by alleged terrorist attacks against America, NATO partners, Israel, or their allies. In contrast, Washington and Tel Aviv benefit greatly. As a result, new charges follow old ones.

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Stephen Lendman

■ Murdering Khader Adnan
■ Khader Adnan's Heroic Struggle for Justice
■ Khader Adnan: Israeli Prisoner of Conscience
■ Israeli Political Prisoner Khader Adnan Near Death

On Monday, military Judge Moshe Tirosh rejected Adnan's appeal as expected. Israel wants him dead. In his 59th day without food, his life hangs by a thread.

Tirosh called his decision "balanced." He claimed secret evidence justified him. He also called him an Islamic Jihad party political leader. Doing so effectively designated him a terrorist unjustly.

He ignored legal arguments, including no evidence warranting detention.

At one demonstration, Israeli security forces viciously attacked protesters, injuring 23 and making arrests. It's standard official thuggishness against Palestinians expressing their views nonviolently.

Following Tirosh's decision, 600 Gilboa Prison detainees hunger struck in solidarity. Other West Bank demonstrations were held. Israeli forces confronted them violently. Islamic Jihad promises "painful revenge" if Adnan dies.

The Addameer prisoner support group calls administrative detention use arbitrary. It also affirmed everyone's free expression, assembly and association rights, regardless of political affiliation.

Tirosh downplayed accusations about Adnan's torture, inhuman and degrading treatment. He said they're inflated and magnified. He accused Adnan of exaggerating what happened. He called his life-threatening condition his own fault. His deteriorating health didn't influence his ruling. He got orders and followed them.

Tirosh showed appalling contempt for human life. He decision condemned Adnan to death.

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Patrick Martin

The budget for fiscal year 2013 proposed by the Obama White House Monday is a thoroughly cynical exercise. It calls for hundreds of billions of dollars in social spending cuts, further devastating public services and the living standards of working people.

This is combined with populist demagogy about taxing the rich, although the administration knows full well that no such measures will pass either the Republican-controlled House of Representatives or the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The budget incorporates $1 trillion over ten years in cuts to domestic social spending already agreed on with congressional Republicans in last year’s negotiations over raising the federal debt ceiling. To these cuts will be added a total of $638 billion in social spending cuts.

Relatively few details leaked out over the weekend, and a preview document issued by the White House Friday listed only the programs that would receive spending increases, not those being slashed, for which only vague generalities were available.

The largest cutback will be $360 billion over ten years from Medicare and Medicaid, mainly through reducing payments to health care providers, which will have the effect of further reducing the number of hospitals and doctors willing to treat patients on either government program. This cut is particularly pernicious because the Obama healthcare reform program calls for extending Medicaid to tens of millions of additional people in 2014, which will require more and not less funding to cover the cost.

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Chris Floyd

["Fascism dies tonight..."]

If you want to know what is happening in Greece -- and what the powers that be have in mind for your country as well -- see this remarkable story by Mike Whitney at Counterpunch.

What are seeing in Greece is not an" economic" program; it is -- most openly and brazenly -- a political program: a savagely destructive extremist ideology being imposed on ordinary people by force. In its all-pervasive brutality and tyrannical control of every aspect of life, it makes the "Shariah law" bogeyman of right-wing nightmares look like an anarchists' picnic.

And make no mistake: the extremist doctrine being forced on Greece is, in every particular, the ruling ideology of the United States, Great Britain, and all the "great democracies" of the West. The aim of the doctrine is the "final solution" of the "problem" of democracy: i.e., the fact that the rabble keep seeking a decent life for themselves and trying to order their own affairs instead of staying in harness to enrich an all-powerful elite.

There is black irony in the fact that these elites are literally strangling Western democracy in its cradle. But it is also apt; for as Whitney points out, one of the specific points of the new bailout "agreement" for Greece is, incredibly, "lifting constraints [i.e., safety regulations] on restricted product categories such as baby food." As Whitney puts it:

That’s right; according to the authors of this fuliginous memo, the only way Greece is going to be able to lift itself out of the doldrums is by poisoning its kids with banned baby food.

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Stephen Lendman

Greece's working class faces neoserfdom. They have a simple choice - leave or rebel.

On February 12, Greece's banker controlled parliament passed sweeping austerity measures on top of multiple previous rounds. New ones include:

• sacking 15,000 public workers in 2012 and 150,000 by 2015;
• slashing private sector wages by 20%;
• lowering monthly minimum wages from 750 to 600 euros;
• cutting fast disappearing monthly unemployment benefits from 460 to 360 euros; and
• reducing pensions many Greeks need to survive by 15%.

At issue is securing another 130 billion euro bailout. The more financial aid Greece gets, the greater its debt, the harder it is to repay, the more future aid's needed, and deeper the country's economic abyss heading for total collapse.

No matter. Troika power kleptocrats demanded deep cuts - the IMF, EU and European Central Bank (ECB). Money power dictates bankers get paid first. People needs are sacrificed to assure it.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Ruthless Arab dictators have terrified the people around them to the point of total sycophancy, where praise and subservience to the “dear” leader are the only words the despot hears; this renders them incapable of objectively and logically examining a problem. Their delusions of grandeur have fossilised their brains, making them incapable of shifting their political gear to match the changing environment.  Up until the start of the Arab spring, fear woven into the fabric of Arab societies through secret police, torture and violence, was the emotion that kept the masses docile and silent. No more. The revolutionary young of the Arab world have changed societies in the region. They have shown that their desire for dignity, human rights and freedom is stronger than the fear of torture and death that has imprisoned the masses for so long.

The Syrian people started their uprising peacefully, demanding reform of a tyrannical rule to allow people a voice in the way they are governed; they were not initially calling for Bashar al-Assad to go.  The regime’s security apparatus responded in March 2011 with the “torture of children painting anti-regime slogans on a wall in Deraa in the south”.  Patrick Cockburn, in the Independent on Sunday (12 February 2012), describes the sheer stupidity of the response thus:

"The state disastrously misjudged its moment and an atrocity, intended to intimidate would-be protesters into silence, instead provoked them to revolt. Hatred of a despotic regime and fury at repeated massacres still impels great numbers of Syrians to go into the streets to demonstrate despite the dangers.”

The reaction of the regime was similar to that of the other despot Muammar Gaddafi, although Bashar al-Assad was clever enough to have a different rhetoric from that of Gaddafi, but the actions and violence are the same.

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William Blum

With the US war in Iraq supposedly having reached a good conclusion (or halfway decent ... or better than nothing ... or let's get the hell out of here while some of us are still in one piece and there are some Iraqis we haven't yet killed), the best and the brightest in our government and media turn their thoughts to what to do about Afghanistan. It appears that no one seems to remember, if they ever knew, that Afghanistan was not really about 9-11 or fighting terrorists (except the many the US has created by its invasion and occupation), but was about pipelines.

President Obama declared in August 2009: "But we must never forget this is not a war of choice. This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans." [1]

Never mind that out of the tens of thousands of people the United States and its NATO front have killed in Afghanistan not one has been identified as having had anything to do with the events of September 11, 2001.

Never mind that the "plotting to attack America" in 2001 was devised in Germany and Spain and the United States more than in Afghanistan. Why hasn't the United States bombed those countries?

Indeed, what actually was needed to plot to buy airline tickets and take flying lessons in the United States? A room with some chairs? What does "an even larger safe haven" mean? A larger room with more chairs? Perhaps a blackboard? Terrorists intent upon attacking the United States can meet almost anywhere, with Afghanistan probably being one of the worst places for them, given the American occupation.

The only "necessity" that drew the United States to Afghanistan was the desire to establish a military presence in this land that is next door to the Caspian Sea region of Central Asia — which reportedly contains the second largest proven reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world — and build oil and gas pipelines from that region running through Afghanistan.

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Stephen Lendman

Big Brother Eye in the Sky: The spy drone manufacturers
are planning to market their product to all state and local
police departments across the United States. A drone may
fit in the trunk of a car and is controlled remotely by a
tablet computer.

Money power runs America. So do lobbies representing all corporate and other interests.

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) represents dozens of influential companies.

They include Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Bell Hellicopter Textron, Sikorsky Aircraft, Goodrich, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Booz Allen Hamilton, Hill & Knowlton, and many more promoting unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) drone technology.

Against targeted countries, it's America's newest sport. From distant command centers, operators kill by remote control. They use computer keyboards and multiple monitors. UAVs stand ready round-the-clock for missions.

Predator drones perform sanitized killing on the cheap compared to manned aircraft. Independent experts believe militants are hit about 2% of the time. All others are noncombatants, despite official disclaimers.

In 1995, Predator drones were used for the first time in Bosnia. In 2001, the Global Hawk drone was used in Afghanistan. Throughout the Afghan and Iraq wars, the Pentagon used various type drones for combat and spying missions.

In Libya, Obama authorized Predator drones. They operated throughout the war. They're also used in Yemen, Somalia, and wherever Washington designates targets to kill.

US citizen Anwar al-Aulaqi was assassinated this way. So can anyone anywhere on America's hit list, including perhaps domestically before long.

Washington plans escalated drone killing, as well domestic spying on Americans. Currently, around one in three US warplanes are drones. One day perhaps they'll all be unmanned.

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Stephen Lendman

■ Murdering Khader Adnan
■ Khader Adnan: Israeli Prisoner of Conscience
■ Israeli Political Prisoner Khader Adnan Near Death

Saturday marked his 56th hunger striking day. "My dignity is more precious than food," he said. He's willing to die courageously defending it.

He's protesting his lawless detention and treatment by repressive Israeli prison authorities. They're committing willful, malicious slow-motion murder.

He's uncharged because he's innocent. Yet Israel illegally detains him under horrific conditions. Without food for eight weeks, his life hangs by a thread. He could die before this article's published.

On February 9, a special Military Court appeal on his behalf was held at Safad's Zif medical center where he's held shackled to his bed near death.

For the hearing, he was moved to a separate room still shackled except for his hands. Despite his condition and gross injustice, Judge Moshe Tirosh won't rule until next week. By then it may not matter, and that's the whole idea.

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Nick Beams

The economic breakdown of the 1930s saw the sweeping away of all forms of democratic government on the European continent and the imposition of military and fascist dictatorships. This process is now underway again.

The Greek parliament has voted to approve a far-reaching austerity package that will push the country deeper into recession and bring further social misery.

With the parliament ringed by an estimated 4,000 police as some 80,000 people protested outside, the vote was taken after a special 10-hour session on Sunday, which ended at midnight.

Amid clashes between riot police and youth, Greece’s unelected Prime Minister Lucas Papademos declared: “Vandalism, violence and destruction have no place in a democratic country and won’t be tolerated.”

In fact, these social evils are at the very heart of the austerity program—based on spending cuts of around €3.3 billion—now agreed to by the Greek parliament in return for a €130 billion bailout of the financial system. The extraordinary session had been convened after European finance ministers declared they were not satisfied with commitments given last week and sent Greek government representatives with an order to do more—an additional €325 million in cuts.

The parliamentary vote came after a sustained propaganda barrage warning there was no alternative but to accept the dictates of the “troika”—the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund. Papademos threatened economic breakdown and social chaos, saying a default on Greece’s loans would condemn the country to a “disastrous ordeal.”

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Stephen Lendman

On February 11, the London Independent headlined, "BBC to issue global apology for documentaries that broke rules," saying:

"....(P)rograms were made by third-party in pay of governments and firms."

In other words, they were propaganda, not legitimate news and information. More on the scandal below.

Throughout its history, BBC's been an imperial tool. It replicates the worst of America's major media, its NPR/PBS managed news operations, and Qatar controlled Al Jazeera on major world and national issues.

Reliability's not its mandate. Owned, operated and controlled by Britain, government officials appoint its management. Nothing fundamentally changed from the 1922 inception to today. Only technology's different, not BBC's state controlled message.

It's pro-government, pro-imperial, pro-war, pro-Israel, pro-corporate, and anti-populist. Deception triumphs over truth. Step over the line and get fired.

In 2003, correspondent Andrew Gilligan, Chairman Gavyn Davies, and Director-General Greg Dyke got the boot because Gilligan reported government officials "sexed up" WMD documents, knowing they were false.

In other words, fake information, in league with Washington, promoted war on Iraq. Exposing it got Gilligan and top management axed. New bosses replaced former ones. Seamlessly it was back to business as usual, producing propaganda instead of truth and full disclosure.

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Paul Craig Roberts

El Baradei: “I wasn’t invited to the dress rehearsal.”
IAF general (handing an invitation): “Come to the
premiere.” (Amos Biderman / Haaretz)

Washington has made tremendous preparations for a military assault on Iran. There is speculation that Washington has called off its two longest running wars–Iraq and Afghanistan–in order to deploy forces against Iran. Two of Washington’s fleets have been assigned to the Persian Gulf along with NATO warships. Missiles have been spread amongst Washington’s Oil Emirate and Middle Eastern puppet states. US troops have been deployed in Israel and Kuwait.

Washington has presented Israel a gift from the hard-pressed american taxpayers of an expensive missile defense system, money spent for Israel when millions of unassisted americans have lost their homes. As no one expects Iran to attack Israel, except in retaliation for an Israeli attack on Iran, the purpose of the missile defense system is to protect Israel from an Iranian response to Israeli aggression against Iran.

Juan Cole has posted on his blog a map showing 44 US military bases surrounding Iran.

In addition to the massive military preparations, there is the propaganda war against Iran that has been ongoing since 1979 when Washington’s puppet, the Shah of Iran, was overthrown by the Iranian revolution. Iran is surrounded, but Washington and Israeli propaganda portray Iran as a threatening aggressor nation. In fact, the aggressors are the Washington and Tel Aviv governments which constantly threaten Iran with military attack.

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