Gilad Atzmon

If Obama is sincere, if ‘never again’ isn’t just an ‘empty slogan’ as he says, he better goes out of his way to restrain Israel’s genocidal inclinations and its belligerent pro-war Lobbies around the world.

The United States must resolve that ‘never again’ is not just an ‘empty slogan’, said U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday, in a statement marking Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yet, I am left bewildered, what does president Obama refers to? Is ‘never again’ a universal message pointing at genocides in general or did he refer to Jewish suffering only? With 1,455,590 dead Iraqis due to an Anglo American criminal war, it seems as if the USA is actually complicit in an actual genocide.

Obama's comments followed Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Holocaust Memorial Day address at Yad Vashem where he stated that Israel's "enemies tried to bury the Jewish future but our future was born again in the land of our forefathers, here we built a base, and a new beginning of freedom, and hope and action.”

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Paul Craig Roberts

Americans, the British, and Western Europeans are accustomed to thinking of themselves as the representatives of freedom, democracy, and morality in the world. The West passes judgment on the rest of the world as if the West is God and the rest of the world are barbarians in need of chastisement, invasion, and occupation. As readers know, from time to time I raise questions about the validity of the West’s extreme hubris. (See for example, the following articles: Washington’s Insouciance Has No Rival and Is Western Democracy Real or a Facade? )

China is often a country about which Washington’s moralists get on their high horse. However, China’s “authoritarian” government is actually more responsive to its people than America’s “elected democratic” government. Moreover, however incomplete on paper the civil liberties of China’s people, the Chinese government has not declared that it can violate with impunity whatever rights Chinese citizens have. And it is not China that is running torture prisons all over the globe.

For some time I have had in mind a realistic comparison of the two countries instead of the standard propagandistic comparison, but Ron Unz has beat me to the task (see, China’s Rise, America’s Fall and Chinese Melamine and American Vioxx: A Comparison ). Unz provides a chance for an education. Don’t miss it.

Unz has done an excellent job. Moreover, he cleverly understates the case for China and overstates the case for America so as not to unduly arouse the flag-wavers. Nevertheless, the conclusion is clear: The Chinese are less threatened by their “extractive elites” than Americans are by their counterparts.

Moreover, it is America’s, not China’s, extractive elites who are bombing, occupying, and droning other countries. As the bumper sticker says, “Be nice to America or we will bring democracy to your country.”

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Philip Giraldi

A Hezbollah supporter carries a poster of Hezbollah leader
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during a rally marking Resistance
and Liberation Day in Beirut. (Jamal Saidi/Reuters)

Night is here but the barbarians have not come.
And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were some kind of solution.
– Constantine Cavafy

It hardly makes sense to have a global war on terror if there are not that many terrorists threatening to blow themselves up in Peoria. Terrorism can hardly be considered a growth industry, particularly if one assesses it based on the congressionally mandated State Department annual report on the subject. According to the report, every year terrorists become fewer and less capable. And one would be hard-pressed to find too many instances in the document of terrorists killing Americans or even trying to kill Americans, which may be attributable to fewer Americans being found these days in places like Iraq. It is becoming even more difficult to find groups and individuals scattered overseas that have the resources, the motivation, and the skills necessary to travel to the heart of the Great Satan and, once here, acquire explosives, evade the police, make their way to Penn Station, and blow themselves up.

Lacking any real terrorists and recognizing that the war on terror must go on for reasons best known to bureaucrats and defense contractors, it has perhaps become an acceptable option to make some up. One of the most persistent allegations about the next-generation terrorism threat relates to Hezbollah. It is often noted among the punditry that Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any other terrorist group except al-Qaeda. Surprisingly, the bald assertion is actually true even if one might reasonably argue that Hezbollah does not really fit the definition of a terrorist group at all. Hezbollah did indeed carry out the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing 17 Americans and nearly wiping out the CIA station, which was meeting in a conference room. A subsequent bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut killed 242 more Americans. Some other kidnappings and killings of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s were also attributed to Hezbollah. The bombings, killings, and abductions occurred at a time when the U.S. was using military force to restore order in Lebanon, an intervention that was pretty much directed against Hezbollah with the intention of dismantling the group as a political entity.

Hezbollah has not killed any Americans since those acts of what some might consider self-defense, and there is no evidence whatsoever that the group has any interest in targeting the U.S. It is very much focused on furthering its own interests in Lebanon, where it is now a party of government, and in opposing Israeli military actions and U.S. covert operations designed to destroy it.

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David Walsh

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times published horrific photographs of American troops in Afghanistan posing with dead and dismembered insurgents.

US soldiers and Afghan policemen posing with the mangled
remains of a suspected suicide bomber in Afghanistan. The
Los Angeles Times building is seen in the background.

The grisly images expose Washington’s claim that the occupation of the country is aimed at liberating the Afghan people. They reflect the savage reality of the US-led operation, intended to crush popular opposition to foreign rule and establish Afghanistan as a base from which the US ruling elite can pursue its efforts to dominate the geo-strategically critical region.

The Los Angeles Times photos, recently supplied to the newspaper by an unnamed US soldier, were apparently taken on two separate occasions in 2010. Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were first dispatched to a police station in Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan in February 2010 to examine the remains of a suicide bomber for identification purposes. As the newspaper describes it: “The paratroopers posed for photos next to Afghan police, grinning while some held—and others squatted beside—the corpse’s severed legs.”

A few months later, in April 2010, the same platoon was sent to a morgue in Qalat, Zabul’s capital, to investigate the remains of three insurgents who had blown themselves up. The soldiers again posed with the body parts, “grinning and mugging for photographs.”

Describing this set of photos, the Times wrote: “Two soldiers posed holding a dead man’s hand with the middle finger raised. A soldier leaned over the bearded corpse while clutching the man’s hand. Someone placed an unofficial platoon patch reading ‘Zombie Hunter’ next to other remains and took a picture.”

The images are an indictment of the American political and military establishment, which has unleashed untold humiliation, death and destruction on the Afghan people for more than a decade. The soldiers involved deserve to be prosecuted, but the principal criminals are to be found in the White House, the Pentagon and the US Congress.

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Stephen Lendman

On April 17, Palestinian Prisoners Day, Khader gained freedom. At issue is for how long? As announced, Israel released him as scheduled. He endured 66 hunger striking days to be free.

So was Hana Shalabi last October when released with other Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit. Held two and a half years without charge, she wasn't free long.

On February 16, she was again arrested and detained uncharged. After 44 hunger striking days, she was lawlessly exiled to Gaza where she's recuperating from her ordeal. Weeks after he resumed eating, Khader also perhaps still struggles to regain full health.

On April 18, Maan News quoted him saying:

"The happiness I saw on my peoples’ faces made me forget all the suffering I experienced when I was on hunger strike."

On arrival in Jenin, he went to an Arraba village sit-in tent to meet Jaafar Izz Addin's parents. Imprisoned, he's now hunger striking for justice. So are hundreds of other other Palestinian prisoners.

On April 17, they began an open-ended strike against abusive prison conditions and practices. Children young as 10 are affected. So are women.

Khader, Hana, and others inspired them. They're doing it en masse for justice. Hundreds more may join them. Israel holds thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. Three al-Aridha brothers are among them - Amjad, serving 20 years, Mahmoud for life, and Raddad indefinitely without charge.

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Ellen Brown

The Goldman Sachs coup that failed in America has nearly succeeded in Europe—a permanent, irrevocable, unchallengeable bailout for the banks underwritten by the taxpayers.

In September 2008, Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, managed to extort a $700 billion bank bailout from Congress. But to pull it off, he had to fall on his knees and threaten the collapse of the entire global financial system and the imposition of martial law; and the bailout was a one-time affair. Paulson’s plea for a permanent bailout fund —the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP—was opposed by Congress and ultimately rejected.

By December 2011, European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, former vice president of Goldman Sachs Europe, was able to approve a 500 billion Euro bailout for European banks without asking anyone’s permission. And in January 2012, a permanent rescue funding program called the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) was passed in the dead of night with barely even a mention in the press. The ESM imposes an open-ended debt on EU member governments, putting taxpayers on the hook for whatever the ESM’s Eurocrat overseers demand.

The bankers’ coup has triumphed in Europe seemingly without a fight. The ESM is cheered by Eurozone governments, their creditors, and “the market” alike, because it means investors will keep buying sovereign debt. All is sacrificed to the demands of the creditors, because where else can the money be had to float the crippling debts of the Eurozone governments?

There is another alternative to debt slavery to the banks. But first, a closer look at the nefarious underbelly of the ESM and Goldman’s silent takeover of the ECB . . .

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Khalid Amayreh

As a student of the collective Israeli mindset and long-time observer of Israeli behavioral patterns, I wasn't surprised a bit by Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner's behaviors with Danish peace activist Andreas Ias.

The Israeli propaganda machine would want us to believe that the incident was an aberration, a kind of anomaly that in no way represents the true ethos of the Israeli army. But this is untrue.

In fact, from my observation of Israeli behavior for decades I can solemnly testify that Eisner's behavior represents the norm rather than the exception.

Israeli barbarity, savagery, brutality and incivility, especially toward Palestinians, are too banal and too routine to even warrant raising an eyebrow.

The footage of the ugly incident near Jericho shows Eisner walking up to a man taking part in a bicycle ride in the Jordan valley, and without warning, hitting him in the face with his M-16 automatic rifle.

The Danish activist collapsed and was carried off by fellow protesters.

The attack was "condemned" by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Peres and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.

However, it is highly likely that these denunciations are disingenuous and only meant to mislead and deceive European public opinion. Needless to say, when it comes to deceitfulness and mendaciousness, the Israelis are masters in their own right.

In their commentaries on the "public relations disaster", most Israeli pundits and commentators condemned Eisner for his stupidity and tactlessness, not brutality and savagery.

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David Michael Green

So.

It looks now like the regressive majority on the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, his health care bill.

That is so fitting.

More than that, it is also a reminder of just how sick this country truly is. Imagine that the lab returned the results from your battery of blood work tests, and all the indicators were screaming out “Danger!” and “Broken!”. That’s us, baby. Get this patient to the ER!

What a total disaster.

The first indicator of how unhealthy we are as a country – literally and figuratively – is the fact that we still don’t have universal health care here in the wealthiest place on Earth. It’s been more than century since the welfare state – a system in which the national government assumes responsibility, as an agent of the national will, for guaranteeing certain benefits and protections to its citizenry – was invented, and, unlike every other developed country in the world, the richest one still doesn’t come close to having universal care for our public, including millions of children. It’s a crime – there’s no other word for it – of astonishing proportions . But it gets worse. We pay more than half-again per capita above the cost of the next most expensive system in the world, and still one-sixth of our population remains completely uninsured, with many more poorly insured. Nice.

By the way, it’s worth noting that the guy who originally launched the welfare state was none other than the regressive and aggressive old Prussian chancellor himself, Otto von Bismarck. Golly, I don’t mean to be critical or anything, but you know you’re hurting when your country’s politics are to the right of the “blood and iron” father of the German Empire. Just saying...

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Stephen Lendman

In bed with the Irvings and the Israel lobby: Allan Rock.

On June 3, 2008, former Canadian politician/UN ambassador/pro-Israeli flack Allan Rock became U of O president.

His administration's marked by secrecy, political censorship, abuse of students and faculty, and repudiation of fundamental university values.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association reprimanded him for banning an Israeli Apartheid Week poster. He then pressured a student union president into distancing the organization from the student-run Ontario Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG). It opposes repressive Israeli practices as do growing millions.

In September 2008, Rock got the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors (EBOG) to suspend tenured Professor Denis Rancourt. In December, he recommended dismissing him and barring him from campus. In March 2009, he fired him for his principled stand on Israel/Palestine, but blamed it on his creative teaching methods.

Rancourt is a distinguished physics professor, a recognized expert in his field, and a "phenomenal teacher" according to members of the Environmental Studies Student Association.

Its members said he provided an "extremely enriching individualized.... empower(ing and) positive learning environment where inspired students gained confidence and courage."

Yet Rock twisted his innovate pedagogical approach and grading methods as pretext to fire him. He then ordered campus police to ban and remove him from campus, assigned his graduate students to other faculty members, fired his post doctoral research fellow, and summarily dismissed him without cause.

That's how despots operate. Under Rock, U of O is more police state than university. As a result, education and learning suffer.

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Stephen Lendman

LCpl. Joshua M. Bernard bleeding to death somewhere in Afghanistan.

America's Afghan war is lost and illegal. The Bush administration got no Security Council authorization or congressional declaration of war.

International law expert Francis Boyle said Congress passed a War Powers Resolution Authorization. Doing so gave Bush "blank check" power "to use military force against any individual, organization, or state" at his discretion.

International and constitutional law be damned. Waging war on Afghanistan "is clearly illegal. It constitutes armed aggression. It is creating a humanitarian catastrophe for the people of Afghanistan."

It's also a lost cause. Pentagon commanders know it. So does Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis. In an unclassified report and more detailed classified one, he explained ongoing disastrous conditions.

From his own firsthand observations and what others told him, he concluded that America's war failed. It can't be won. Official statements conceal hard truths. He witnessed "the absence of success on virtually every level."

Every area he observed firsthand "all over Afghanistan....the tactical situation was bad to abysmal."

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Jordan Shilton

Evidence continues to mount of Breivik’s links with right-wing groups throughout Europe, contradicting the official presentation of him as a “lone wolf”.

On day two of his trial, Anders Breivik gave an hour-long defence of his slaughter of 77 people—mainly members of the Norwegian Labour Party youth section—in Oslo and the island of Utøya last July 22 and said that he would do it again.

Calling his massacre “the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack” in Europe since the Second World War, Breivik described himself as commander in an anti-communist, anti-Islamic “resistance” movement, at war against immigrants, Muslims and what he called a “Marxist dictatorship” in Norway.

Despite Breivik’s own insistence on the political nature of his crime, the preceding investigation and the trial itself are largely focused on the question of the killer’s sanity. Just days before the trial opened, a second report by court-appointed psychiatrists declared that Breivik should not be considered criminally insane, contradicting a previous assessment in November 2011.

The latest report was compiled over several months by two psychiatrists who conducted interviews with Breivik and observed his activity over long periods of time. But it by no means settles the question of Breivik’s sanity in the eyes of the court.

With two conflicting reports now having been presented, the court could yet conclude that the level of doubt about Breivik’s mental state is sufficient to declare him criminally insane. This would result in his serving his detention in a mental health institution rather than in prison.

The debate has served to obscure numerous questions over the role of the state and security forces in failing to prevent Breivik’s attacks. In January, it emerged that Breivik had warned Norwegian police in March 2011 that he was preparing a massacre of Labour Party youth members. This information was supposedly not communicated to the relevant authorities until after July 22.

This came on top of revelations about the failure of the intelligence services to detect Breivik’s purchase of large quantities of fertiliser from Poland, as well as their failure to investigate a farm which he rented on the outskirts of Oslo, where he prepared his attacks. The head of Norway’s intelligence service was compelled to resign as a result.

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Stephen Lendman

Washington needs enemies. When none exist, they're created. North Korea and Iran are prime targets. Neither poses threats. Yet they faced decades of false accusations. Like other nations, both reject domination. They want their sovereignty respected. They seek normalized relations with regional neighbors and the West. America's imperial ambitions block them. Threats follow.

Besides longstanding plans to replace independent regimes with client ones, Washington needs enemies as punching bags.

At issue is keeping fear heightened to wage imperial wars on humanity. One country after another is ravaged. Syria's next, then Iran. Another to be named later awaits. America never runs out of targets. It needs them to wage permanent wars. It's longstanding official policy.

America's been at war with North Korea since June 1950. Truman's war never ended. An uneasy unresolved armistice exists. It's unprecedented in length. Nothing in sight suggests an end game. Maybe another hot war's coming.

Provocations may precede one if Washington has that in mind once other priorities are settled. For its part, North Korea wants confrontation avoided at all costs, short of surrendering its sovereignty in the process.

In the meantime, beating up on Pyongyang continues. In his 2002 State of the Union address, George Bush combined North Korea with Iran and Iraq in his "axis of evil."

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William T. Hathaway

Yes We Did: Obama Deploys ‘Change Is’ Slogan

The first step towards that is to free ourselves from the strategies of deception with which the oligarchs try to shape our minds. The second is to join with others in active struggle. Just being angry isn't enough; to succeed we must be organized and militant.

To get a preview of Obama's strategies for winning a second term, we just need to read the liberal press. They are giving lip-service praise to the current protests while trying to steer them in a direction that serves the Democratic Party. Seeking to restore the fading illusion that the Democrats work in the interests of the 99%, they imply that if Obama is given a second term, his true nature will emerge and he'll crack down on the greed and corruption of the 1% and lead the country in a progressive direction. They conveniently ignore that he's done the opposite during his three years in office.

They also try to scare us into voting for him by claiming a Republican president would be much worse. In fact the differences between Republicans and Democrats are mostly a matter of image and style. Their military policies are equally aggressive, and their economic policies differ only in nuances. But the Democrats put a friendly face on their administration of capital. Their rhetoric is sprinkled with populist slogans as they're bailing out banksters and dropping bombs.

The more blatant style of a Republican president might actually be better now because it would generate more opposition at home and abroad. This opposition needs to build into militant resistance before it will produce real change. To prevent this sort of uprising was one of the reasons the corporate elite backed Obama. And until recently he's succeeded in quieting dissent. With masterful PR legerdemain, he put the antiwar movement to sleep while continuing to fight the wars. Under a Republican president we could revive the spirit of revolt and mobilize the people of the world against the empire. It's going to take that kind of international struggle to overthrow this colossus.

Another strategy of deception is to claim that the good old days of middle-class prosperity can be brought back. Both major parties say their policies will restore high employment at good wages. But those times are gone.

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Stephen Lendman

On April 17, about 1,600 Palestinian prisoners began open-ended hunger strikes. More on that below.

Palestinians face hellish conditions in Israeli prisons. They endure torture, deprivation, isolation, intimidation, and denial of basic rights. Administrative detainees are held indefinitely without charge or trial. Children young as 10 are treated like adults. So-called security prisoners are isolated punitively for extended periods. All Palestinian prisoners suffer overcrowding, poor ventilation and sanitation, lack of proper clothing, inadequate food in terms of quality, quantity, and conformity to dietary requirements, and poor medical care. They also have limited or no access to family members and counsel. They get wooden planks with thin mattresses and filthy blankets. They suffer winter and summer weather extremes. The Addameer prisoner support group calls overall conditions "appalling." Palestinians "are almost completely cut off from the outside world." Children are treated like adults. Women are treated like men. Toilets inside cells often back up through drains. Essential hygiene necessities like toothpaste, clean clothes, and cleaning products are denied. Medical negligence is common. Required surgery may take years to get if at all. Medications only are given to treat disease. "Sick detainees inside Israeli prisons live on painkillers and tranquilizers," says Addameer. Many released prisoners face chronic health problems. Often, early death results. Israeli treatment violates international law. Doing so is official Israeli policy.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Photo: Asylum seeker arrested as protesters gathered outside Lunar House, Croydon. - In a clear example of what [this] demonstration in Croydon was about, a distressed asylum seeker was arrested as protesters gathered outside Lunar House, which houses the headquarters of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) and its main screening unit. Three Metropolitan Police officers [...] grappled the man to the ground and restrained him whilst he lay face down on the concrete forecourt. He received cuts to his face as he shouted "Help me, help me!" Over 200 people from the Gatwick No Border Camp [had] gathered in East Croydon from 10am to protest against the mistreatment of refugees and asylum seekers at the hands of the UK immigration authorities. (UK Indymedia)

Asylum seekers are those, in the main, who are escaping war and/or have stood up to tyranny and injustice from their rulers. They are courageous people that need to be admired, not vilified.

Additionally, they are those who have the resourcefulness to escape their environment, overcoming in many cases unimaginable obstacles to make it to Britain. Given half a chance, they have the drive and wherewithal to make a positive contribution to Britain. Forebears of many of our current entrepreneurs and scientists sought asylum here for a variety of reasons and have enriched our society.

Applicants who do not qualify for refugee status under the 1951 UN convention on refugees are guilty of no more than being economic migrants trying to improve their future chances and that of their families. And let us be honest, how many of us would not do the same if we found ourselves under similar circumstances. Sometimes, those whose asylum applications are rejected have to be forcefully removed.

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