James Tracy

With few exceptions the news that will shape public discourse is subject to a de facto censorial process of powerful government and corporate elites beyond accountability to the public.

It is here that Sigmund Freud’s notion of repression is especially helpful for assessing the decrepit state of media and public discourse in the United States. In Freud’s view, one’s collective life experiences are registered in the subconscious, with those particularly disturbing or socially impermissible experiences being involuntarily suppressed, only later to emerge as neuroses. Whereas suppression is conscious and voluntary, repression takes place apart from individual volition.

With opinion polls indicating at least half of the public distrusting the official account of September 11th, the foremost basis for the “war on terror”, no public event has been more repressed in public consciousness via the mass media than 9/11. The enduring usefulness of Freud’s theory is suggested in repeated manifestations of the repressed episode to haunt the public mind for which a surrogate reality has been crafted.

Peter Dale Scott describes occasions such as the assassination of President John Kennedy and September 11th as “deep events” because of their historical complexity and linkages with the many facets of “deep government”—the country’s military and intelligence communities and their undertakings. The failure to adequately explain and acknowledge deep events and pursue their appropriate preventative remedies leads to continued deceptions where unpleasant experiences are contained and a new “reality” is imposed on the public mind. Together with the notion of repression, the term is also applicable for considering how instances of such historical import are dealt with in mass psychological terms, or, more specifically, by ostensibly independent alternative news media capable of recollecting the real.

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Alex Lantier

Massacre: Seven people, including three children, were gunned
down at a Jewish school in Toulouse. (Photo: Reuters)

Now, as the media pin the blame on Merah, the leading parties have returned to stoking up anti-Muslim racism and promoting attacks on democratic rights under the rubric of anti-terrorist safety measures.

Yesterday evening, an armed standoff continued in Toulouse between Mohamed Merah, the alleged gunman in a spate of shootings in southern France, and elite police units. Officials claim he is responsible for the deaths of seven people in three attacks since March 11—three paratroopers in two shootings in Toulouse and nearby Montauban, and four civilians in an attack Monday on the Jewish Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse.

A RAID (Search, Assistance, Intervention and Deterrence) unit attacked Merah in his apartment shortly after 3AM yesterday. He fired back, reportedly wounding two officers. After a standoff during the day, police again assaulted the apartment around midnight, blasting away a door and blowing a hole in a wall.

Authorities assert that Merah, aged 23, has Al Qaeda sympathies. They insist that he carried out the killings alone. Based on the wildly contradictory reports circulating in the media, however, it is unclear whether any of these statements are true.

Merah bears little physical resemblance to eye-witness descriptions of the perpetrator in the Montauban shooting. Witnesses said the gunman was “corpulent.” They also said they saw a tattoo and scar on his left cheek when the visor of his motorcycle helmet flipped open. However, pictures of Merah released to the media show a slender man with no facial hair or markings.

Nor are reports of Merah’s links to Al Qaeda any more convincing. They rely on conflicting accounts and an alleged confession in a call placed from a public telephone booth to the night editor of France24 television, Ebba Kalondo. French officials claimed to be “98 percent” sure that the caller was Merah. Kalondo’s story was widely reported as fact by French media and TV outlets.

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Peter Symonds

Israeli soldiers watch as a missile is launched from the Iron
Dome defense system. A US war simulation of a possible
scenario where Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against
Iran's nuclear facilities would likely draw America into the
conflict and cost hundreds of lives, a report said on 3/20/12.

Details of a recent Pentagon war game, leaked yesterday in the New York Times, underscore the advanced character and recklessness of the Obama administration’s preparations for war against Iran. Nominally premised on an attack by Israel on Iran, the conclusion from the exercise was that “the strike would lead to a wider regional war which could draw in the United States and leave hundreds of Americans dead.”

The two-week war game was carried out by US Central Command to test communication and coordination between its headquarters in Tampa, Florida and US forces in the Persian Gulf.

“When the exercise had concluded earlier this month, according to the [American] officials, [US Central Command head] General Mattis told aides that an Israeli first-strike would likely have dire consequences across the region and for United States forces there,” the Times stated.

The article ominously noted that a similar “Internal Look” exercise had been used in December 2002, by Central Command head General Tommy Franks, “to test the readiness of his units for the coming invasion of Iraq.” Just three months later, in March 2003, US President George Bush unleashed the illegal US-led war of aggression that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and devastated much of the country.

Likewise, the latest “Internal Look” exercise is far from being purely hypothetical. It took place amid a spate of top-level political and military discussions between the US and Israel over Iran. Both countries have repeatedly threatened military action. Last week President Obama issued another warning to Tehran that “the window for solving this issue diplomatically is shrinking.”

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Stephen Lendman

Twin car bomb attacks on security posts in Syria's second city of
Aleppo [last week] killed at least 28 people and wounded another
235, state television reported, citing the health ministry.

Last weekend's anti-Assad Damascus and Aleppo terrorist violence reflects Washington's violent pursuit of regime change. Peaceful resolution efforts are subverted. Obama's waging undeclared war.

On March 19, Iran's Russian ambassador, Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi, explained US-style democracy, saying:

"There were the first signs that American democracy had come to Damascus (and Aleppo). We saw American puppets’ attempt to establish democracy in Syria by exploding (bombs) in Damascus (and Aleppo)."

Dozens died. Many others were injured. Calling Washington's regional allies "reactionary Arab regimes," he said getting in bed with the devil has a price. Their Western support will backfire when their regimes are targeted.

On Monday morning, heavy Damascus fighting erupted. Witnesses said explosions and machine gun fire were heard in the al-Mezzeh district. It's home for several government security installations. Russia Today reported one resident saying:

"There is fighting near Hamada supermarket and the sound of explosions there and elsewhere in the neighborhood. Security police have blocked several side streets and the street lighting has been cut off."

Free Syrian Army leader Col. Riad al-Asaad refused comment, saying

"(t)his is a sensitive military matter that we cannot comment about."

Days of stepped-up violence reveals Washington's real intentions. Assad's right calling insurgents "terrorists." Syria's Foreign Ministry said Western and regional states are supplying heavy weapons and munitions. It's no secret Saudi Arabia is providing them. So are Qatar and Israel, among others.

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