Mike Head

"Australian authorities, acting on the instructions of the Gillard government, are heavily involved in the conspiracy against Assange."

Internal emails obtained from the US private intelligence firm Stratfor indicate that the Obama administration has had a secret indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for more than 12 months. The emails, published by WikiLeaks this week, also point to the close involvement of the Australian Labor government and intelligence agencies in the operation against Assange, an Australian citizen.

The emails were sent by Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice-president for counterterrorism and corporate security. Burton is a former Deputy Chief of the US Department of State’s counterterrorism division for the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). The DSS is playing a leading investigative role in the ongoing operation to extradite Assange to the US, where he would be tried under the Espionage Act of 1917 and could face the death penalty.

In January 2011, Burton revealed in Stratfor correspondence that a secret Grand Jury had issued an indictment: “Not for Pub—We have a sealed indictment on Assange. Pls protect.” According to Burton: “Assange is going to make a nice bride in prison. Screw the terrorist. He’ll be eating cat food forever.”

A few weeks earlier, following Assange’s release from a London jail, where he had been remanded as a result of a Swedish prosecutor’s arrest warrant, Burton told SkyNews: “extradition [to the US is] more and more likely.”

Burton’s emails indicate that the US government is employing the same “counter-terrorism” methods against WikiLeaks as against Al Qaeda, “Take down the money. Go after his infrastructure. The tools we are using to nail and de-construct Wiki are the same tools used to dismantle and track aQ [Al Qaeda],” he wrote.

Later Burton pointed to a relentless dirty tricks and destabilisation operation. “Ferreting out [Assange’s] confederates is also key. Find out what other disgruntled rogues inside the tent or outside [sic]. Pile on. Move him from country to country to face various charges for the next 25 years. But, seize everything he and his family own, to include every person linked to Wiki.”

More »

Stephen Lendman

The vultures: Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International
Monetary Fund and Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany.

Greece is being systematically raped, pillaged and destroyed. Bankers demand it. What they want, they get, no matter the human toll and economic ruin. Standing armies pale by comparison. Financial oligarchs wage war by other means and take no prisoners. Greece is Exhibit A. More on it below.

Last July, Christine Lagarde became IMF managing director. She replaced Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Spurious attempted rape allegations forced him out. In fact, he was targeted for supporting more responsible IMF policies. Bankers wanted his head and got it.

Lagarde's mandate is making IMF policy meaner and tougher. Straightaway, she backed harsh austerity measures banks demand. They include debt peonage and forcing nations to place money master interests above sovereign ones.

Last November, Mario Draghi replaced Jean-Claude Trichet as ECB president. Like Largarde, his mandate also entails raping and pillaging nations to pay bankers.

In late February, he told Wall Street Journal interviewers that forced austerity is firm policy. Enforcing it he claims will return troubled economies to long-term prosperity. In other words, starving people fills bellies. Withholding treatment cures patients, and destroying villages save them. Journal interviewers never asked him to explain:

• what right have bankers to prioritize their demands over sovereign state needs;
• how can ritual sacrifice increase demand; and
• how can 17 dissimilar economies coexist under straightjacket Eurozone rules.

Instead, they unquestioningly accepted his assertions about needed austerity and ending Europe's "obsolete" social contract. "There is no feasible trade-off" between social and labor related structural changes and fiscal belt-tightening, he claimed. Only banker demands matter. Draghi and Lagarge enforce them. Corrupt politicians go along.

More »

Nil Nikandrov

Chavez took the first round of hammering over alleged antisemitism at the early phase of his presidency in 1999 for his association with Argentinian political scientist and Peronist Norberto Rafael Ceresole who, in the early 1990ies, introduced the future Venezuelan leader to his Caudillo, Ejército, Pueblo (Leader, Army, Nation) doctrine of ascension to power. Ceresole used to be a vehement critic of Israel's policy in Palestine, denied Holocaust, and upheld a plan for a Venezuelan strategic intelligence service which he evidently expected to personally chair. It used to be an open secret that Mossad operatives kept the Venezuelan intelligence community on a short leash in the pre-Chavez epoch. Even though they had to pack and go when the populist regime took over, deeply entrenched supporters of Israel in Venezuela's state machine put up strong opposition to Ceresole's presence in the country and representatives of the Jewish community of Venezuela showered its secret police DISIP with complaints that Ceresole, “a present-day Nazi”, presented a permanent problem. At the time, Chavez was preoccupied with concentrating power and preparing Venezuela's new constitution, and Ceresole's deportation came as a foregone decision. DISIP agents saw Ceresole off to the airport, and he later told journalists that Zionists coerced him into leaving by murder threats.

Zionist forces took an active part in the 2002 anti-Chavez coup. Mass rallies and middle-class protests against the regime were orchestrated by the media which, with the exception of the state-run Channel 8, were uniformly Jewish-controlled. The distorted media coverage fanned unrest and left much of the population under an impression that Chavez and his inner circle were about to resort to armed force with the aim of retaining power. In the settings, the shootout perpetrated by unidentified gunmen at the Llaguno Bridge, which led to fatalities among both Chavez's supporters and opponents, was seen by a part of the population as the regime's attempt to regain control at the cost of violence. It is still unclear who the gunmen were, though, according to a fairly realistic hypothesis, they could be agents of the municipal police whose command sided with the opposition. An alternative hypothesis is that the gunmen were skilled snipers who came from abroad, which indeed used to be a recurrent scenario throughout the 1990ies era of “anti-terrorist” wars.

More »

Stephen Lendman

On February 25, international and supportive Israelis joined 500 Palestinians protesting in Hebron's Old City.

Youths Against Settlements organized it. They're "a national Palestinian non-partisan group" against colonization, including settlements, "through nonviolent popular struggle and civil disobedience." They demanded Shuhada Street be reopened. More on its closure below.

As they approached the street, soldiers attacked them violently with tear gas, sound bombs, and rubber bullets. Ten were arrested, including a Palestinian journalist and Quran. In the process, he was assaulted, beaten, and detained for allegedly pushing an Israeli soldier.

In fact, his offense was peacefully protesting Israeli policy with others. In response, soldiers attacked him with pepper spray, smashed his face against a jeep metal bar, and arrested him with other nonviolent participants.

They were protesting closure of Hebron's Shuhada Street. It's a main thoroughfare Palestinians have been forbidden to use for many years. It links north and south city areas. It also passes by major markets, the Old City, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and Israeli settlements.

In 1994, restrictions began. Access was alternately allowed, then denied. Since October 2000, Palestinians were entirely prohibited from walking or driving on Shuhada and adjacent streets.

Doing so caused center city economic collapse. Over 300 shops and other commercial facilities closed. Israel turned Hebron's central bus station into an army base. Area properties, including homes, were closed by army order. Many residents left. A ghost town remained.

Settlers can use the street freely. They also harass Palestinians with impunity. Closing Shuhada Street reflects longstanding Israeli policy to make life so unbearable residents will give up and leave Occupied Palestine.

Some do, but most resist courageously and won't quit. It's their country, their land, and they're struggling to regain it and end decades of abusive occupation.

More »