Stephen Lendman

17 Mutilated Bodies of Policemen Lifted Fromthe Orontes River

It's no surprise. It's an open secret. It's been ongoing since early last year directly and/or indirectly. Rhetorically supporting peace while waging war exposes Washington's transparent hypocrisy.

On June 15, the UK Daily Telegraph headlined "US holds high-level talks with Syrian rebels seeking weapons in Washington," saying:

In the past week, a Free Syrian Army (FSA) representative met with outgoing Syrian ambassador Robert Ford and special Syrian coordinator Frederick Hof at the State Department.

Meetings with senior National Security Council officials were also held.

FSA members want heavy weapons. They include anti-tank missiles and heavy machine guns.

"(T)he Daily Telegraph has learned that advanced contingency plans are already in place to supply heavy weapons to the rebels, including sophisticated anti-tank weapons and surface to-air-missiles."

Plans may crystallize at the upcoming June 30 Geneva Friends of Syria meeting. The June 18-19 Los Cabos, Mexico summit will focus more on Eurozone economic crisis conditions. Syria discussions won't change Russian and Chinese opposition to military intervention.

Nonetheless, Obama and Putin will hold bilateral talks. It'll be their first meeting since Putin's reelection. Obama will also meet privately with Chinese President Hu Jintao. Expect no Syrian breakthroughs.

More »

Arthur Silber

In writing about the ongoing crisis facing Greece (and Europe generally), commentators often advance the notion that what is occurring in Greece in particular provides a preview of what will happen in the United States if we continue on our current path. Conservative and neoliberal writers (but I repeat myself) proclaim that this necessitates governments becoming far more brutal in their dedication to "austerity": that is, the ruling class must be extravagantly ruthless, without surcease, in depriving those who are without power, wealth and privilege of every means of sustaining their lives. One of the assumptions of our "betters" is that truly deserving, "good" people will nonetheless manage to survive, and perhaps thrive, even in the midst of resources and possibilities for action that diminish daily. We are told that this is one of America's greatest virtues: anyone who is hardworking and dedicated, who genuinely "makes the effort," can succeed -- because, of course, the ruling class's success has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that they have long been favored by privilege and power, often from birth. To the contrary: the ruling class is the ruling class because of their magnificent virtue and hard work. They deserve their privilege, power and wealth. And you? If you can't manage to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps -- even though the last bootstrap was destroyed a generation or two ago, and even though you are unable to grasp a bootstrap or anything else since the ruling class cut off your hands -- well, you deserve to die.

More »

Chris Marsden

Greek election: New Democracy wins 30pc of vote (ΖΑΠΠΕΙΟN =
To Ζάππειο - The Zappeion)

The conservative New Democracy narrowly defeated SYRIZA in Greece’s general election yesterday.

New Democracy won 30 percent of the vote. SYRIZA came in a close second with 26.5 percent, winning popular support based on its criticisms of austerity measures set forth in the Memorandum signed with the Troika—the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and European Central Bank (ECB).

This sets the stage for intense negotiations over the formation of a coalition government. Coalition talks have a 48-hour deadline, according to most observers. The EU is demanding that they affirm a commitment to key terms of the second Greek bailout, worth €130 billion, which have already meant devastating social cuts and wrecked the country’s economy.

Throughout the election, the EU threatened to cut off credit to Greece if it objected to the bailout terms. This would force Greece to either accept the collapse of its financial system or reintroduce a Greek national currency to fund its banks. Greek officials said last week that unless a delayed €1 billion tranche of troika funding is paid, they will run out of funds to pay pensions and public sector wages by July 20.

These efforts to blackmail the Greek working class did not prevent SYRIZA’s vote increasing substantially from the 16.7 percent won in Greece’s previous election, held last month.

More »

Stephen Lendman

[Liquidación por cierre = Closing-out Sale (Spain)]

Four and a half years after crisis conditions erupted, nothing's been done to resolve them. The smartest guys around haven't fixed things.

On June 14, rumors circulated about coordinated central bank intervention. European banks are especially troubled. Recapitalizing them hasn't worked.

Expecting more of the same to accomplish what hasn't so far worked is another way of defining failure.

Along with talk of more stimulus, Egan-Jones Ratings, an independent NRSRO (Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organization), downgraded French sovereign debt from A- to BBB+ with a negative outlook. Doing so shows core European weakness.

Dutch banks were also downgraded. So were Spanish ones and sovereign Spanish and Cyprus debt. Both countries approach junk status.

Germany shows weakness. Its 10-year sovereign debt jumped over 30 basis points from recent lows. It's troubled by having to fund more bailouts or face euro dissolution issues. It's also pressured by having to shore up the ECB in case it's threatened.

The average Eurozone country has a 500% debt/GDP ratio. Expects more defaults, write-downs, and frantic steps to shore up sovereign debt.

Spanish bonds touched 7% before settling slightly lower. Liquidity isn't the problem. Markets are awash with it. At issue is sovereign and banking sector solvency.

Multiple intervention rounds solved nothing. Neither will more of the same. Structural problems remain unresolved.

More »

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Safaa Al-Hasanat's Identity (ID) card request was submitted in 1997, as part of the last wave of applications accepted by Israel prior to 2000; since that date, and disregarding its obligations as an Occupying Power, Israel has refused to process applications for unregistered Palestinians. After Israel took over the Gaza Strip as an Occupying Power, hundreds of thousands of Gazans who left the Gaza Strip were not registered, preventing them from returning to Gaza and obtaining the ID card to which they are entitled. However, despite being part of the formal application process, Safaa -like many other Palestinians - has still not received an ID card, a reality which has a profound impact on her quality of life.

Safaa moved to the Gaza Strip in 1997, when she came to study journalism. After her marriage to a Palestinian man in late 1997, she applied to the Israeli Authorities for the ID card to which she is legally entitled.

Despite the fact that Safaa applied before 2000, she has yet to receive her ID: “My application was never rejected. My husband inquired and I am on the list of people that are supposed to get an ID card. Yet, until today, I have received no information and no ID card.” This means that Safaa, like so many other Gazans, is trapped within the borders of the Gaza Strip.

Not having an ID card in the Gaza Strip has an enormous effect on every facet of life: “I cannot travel to see my family. I cannot get [specialized] medical care. I cannot fully develop myself at work. I am a prisoner in Gaza. If I had my ID card, my entire life could change.” Unfortunately, in the current situation, there is little anyone can do to help. There is no recourse for her and so many others. The situation has recently become even worse.

More »

Gilad Atzmon

In the last two weeks we have learned that one of central London’s abandoned houses has been reclaimed and transformed into a “radical” centre for “discussion, action, and education around the issue of Palestine.” The Palestine Place promised to become a “squatted hub of activity from the 2nd-17th June running everything from film screenings, lectures, workshops and trainings to cultural, musical and culinary events”. But it didn’t take more than a week for the ‘radical’ place to become yet another crypto-Zionist gathering engaged primarily in gatekeeping and even expulsion of some distinguished activists and thinkers.

I have learned yesterday that Ken O’Keefe, one of our most prominent solidarity activists, a man who spent many months of his life in Gaza, a man who is married to a Palestinian woman and is father to two Palestinian kids, a man who posses a Palestinian passport and a key to Gaza, given to him personally by Ismail Haniya – two days ago this man was rudely expelled from Palestine Place. Clearly a Palestinian Passport and a ‘key to Gaza’ were not sufficient for London’s Palestine Place’s radical committee.

As soon as Ken told me about his expulsion I spoke with two Palestinian grassroots activists, both of whom had participated in missions alongside Ken. They both repeated the same shocking line:

Palestine Place, forget about them, it is taken over by the PSC and the BDS gang.

The news about PSC and the ‘BDS gang’ being dominated by AZZ are now widely accepted amongst most commentators on Palestine but still, I was intrigued to know what happened there in this ‘radical’ Palestine Place that led to these ‘pro’ Palestinian squatters to behave like Israelis and evict KenO’Keefe.

More »

Paul Craig Roberts

When neoconservatives, politicians, and high ranking military officers speak of a 30-year war against terrorism, there is no discussion about its affordability or whether the one significant attack (September 11, 2001) that is attributed, perhaps incorrectly, to Muslim terrorists justifies an open-ended war against a dozen countries. There is no discussion of the burden on future generations of the massive increase in the public debt in order to finance today’s wars.

Affordability and intergenerational burdens are topics reserved for the discussion of Social Security. Conservatives and libertarians constantly assert that Social Security is unaffordable and decry the intergenerational basis for Social Security retirement.

Recently economist Walter Williams again made the argument that Social Security is not a retirement program, because the income earner’s payroll tax payments do not go into an account for the person paying the taxes, but instead are used to pay benefits for older people who have reached retirement age. Williams characterizes Social Security retirees as thieves who outvote those still in the work force and have the ear of Congress.

This is an ideological argument that overlooks that Social Security is a pact between generations. The working generations provide retirement incomes for the elderly and in turn are provided retirement incomes by succeeding generations. Terminating Social Security for the elderly also terminates it for those who follow. In other words, it is incorrect to describe Social Security as the elderly using the political system to steal from the young.

More »

Philip Giraldi

Last Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky endorsed Mitt Romney for president of the United States and followed up a day later by saying he would be “honored” to be Romney’s choice for vice president. Paul pledged his support after having a discussion with Romney in which the latter outlined some of his positions that were of particular concern. According to Paul, Romney supported “reforming the Federal Reserve, limiting regulations, and opposing the Stop Online Privacy Act,” adding that “there is a lot of kinship between us on those issues.”

Regarding Mitt’s foreign policy views, Rand Paul told Sean Hannity that “[we] had a very good and I think honest discussion about a lot of these things; and I came away from it feeling he would be a very responsible commander in chief, I don’t think he’ll be reckless, I don’t think he’ll be rash, and I think that he realizes and believes as I do that war is a last resort and something we don’t rush willy-nilly into, and I came away feeling that he’ll have [a] mature attitude and beliefs toward foreign policy.”

Basically, Rand Paul came away with nothing in exchange for providing Mitt Romney with some modicum of acceptability and respectability vis-à-vis the millions of Paulistas and tea partyers who support him and his father. Mitt does not want to audit the Fed but would indeed limit government regulation as it relates to himself and his predatory capitalist friends. He might or might not oppose SOPA, but freedom of the Internet is not a core issue for him and might, in fact, be something he opposes for copyright protection, i.e., corporate money, reasons. And Rand is dead wrong about Mitt the commander in chief. It is generally accepted that Mitt’s foreign policy will be a repeat of George W. Bush’s, except maybe even worse. In exchange for a pocketful of mumbles for Rand, Mitt Romney has successfully marginalized Ron Paul supporters, who are now under orders not to try to disrupt the Republican Convention in Tampa in August.

More »

Chris Marsden

Russ Baker: Syria: The Dangers Of One-Sided Reporting
Daniel McAdams: Implosion of The Houla Massacre Story
Stephen Lendman: Stepped Up Media War on Syria

As quietly as possible, BBC world news editor Jon Williams has admitted that the coverage of last month’s Houla massacre in Syria by the world’s media and his own employers was a compendium of lies.

Datelined 16:23, June 7, Williams chose a personal blog to make a series of fairly frank statements explaining that there was no evidence whatsoever to identify either the Syrian Army or Alawite militias as the perpetrators of the May 25 massacre of 100 people.

By implication, Williams also suggests strongly that such allegations are the product of the propaganda department of the Sunni insurgents seeking to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

After preparatory statements of self-justification noting the “complexity of the situation on the ground in Syria, and the need to try to separate fact from fiction,” and Syria’s long “history of rumours passing for fact,” Williams writes:

“In the aftermath of the massacre at Houla last month, initial reports said some of the 49 children and 34 women killed had their throats cut. In Damascus, Western officials told me the subsequent investigation revealed none of those found dead had been killed in such a brutal manner. Moreover, while Syrian forces had shelled the area shortly before the massacre, the details of exactly who carried out the attacks, how and why were still unclear.”

For this reason, he concludes somewhat belatedly,

“In such circumstances, it’s more important than ever that we report what we don’t know, not merely what we do.”

“In Houla, and now in Qubair, the finger has been pointed at the Shabiha, pro-government militia. But tragic death toll aside, the facts are few: it’s not clear who ordered the killings—or why.”

No trace of such a restrained approach can be found at the time on the BBC, or most anywhere else.

More »

Stephen Lendman

American War Criminal honors Israeli War Criminal with
Medal of Freedom. ( - Yes, it's come to this. It's that bad.)

On July 6, 1945, Harry Truman authorized awarding the Medal of Freedom

"to any person....who, or on after December 7, 1941, has performed a meritorious act or service which has aided the United States in the prosecution of a war against an enemy or enemies and for which an award of another United States medal or decoration is considered inappropriate."

On February 22, 1963, Jack Kennedy ordered it be replaced by Presidential Medal of Freedom. It's awarded

"for especially meritorious contributions to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors."

The Presidential Medal of Freedom mocks what it claims to represent.

It replicates Nobel hypocrisy. Unworthy Peace Prize recipients include war criminals and genocidists. Anyone can be nominated.

Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and George W. Bush were past nominees. So were Tony Blair and Rush Limbaugh.

Shimon Peres was a past honoree. He's a war criminal and genocidist. He deserves prosecution and imprisonment, not awards. Instead, fellow war criminal, Nobel winner Obama honored him.

More »

Andrew P. Napolitano

A ShadowHawk drone helicopter (Vanguard Defense Industries)

For the past few weeks, I have been writing in this column about the government’s use of drones and challenging their constitutionality on Fox News Channel where I work. I once asked on air what Thomas Jefferson would have done if — had drones existed at the time — King George III had sent drones to peer inside the bedroom windows of Monticello. I suspect that Jefferson and his household would have trained their muskets on the drones and taken them down. I offer this historical anachronism as a hypothetical only, not as one who is urging the use of violence against the government.

Nevertheless, what Jeffersonians are among us today? When drones take pictures of us on our private property and in our homes, and the government uses the photos as it wishes, what will we do about it? Jefferson understood that when the government assaults our privacy and dignity, it is the moral equivalent of violence against us. The folks who hear about this, who either laugh or groan, cannot find it humorous or boring that their every move will be monitored and photographed by the government.

Don’t believe me that this is coming? The photos that the drones will take may be retained and used or even distributed to others in the government so long as the “recipient is reasonably perceived to have a specific, lawful governmental function” in requiring them. And for the first time since the Civil War, the federal government will deploy military personnel inside the United States and publicly acknowledge that it is deploying them “to collect information about U.S. persons.” It gets worse.

More »

Ellen Brown

Poet & Performer Gil Scott Heron

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to skip out for beer during commercials. Because the revolution will not be televised...The revolution will be live.”
~ From the 1970 hit song by Gil Scott-Heron

Last week, the city of Philadelphia’s school system announced that it expects to close 40 public schools next year, and 64 schools by 2017. The school district expects to lose 40% of its current enrollment, and thousands of experienced, qualified teachers.

But corporate media in other cities made no mention of these massive school closings – nor of those in Chicago, Atlanta, or New York City. Even in the Philadelphia media, the voices of the parents, students and teachers who will suffer were omitted from most accounts.

It’s all about balancing the budgets of cities that have lost revenues from the economic downturn. Supposedly, there is simply no money for the luxury of providing an education for the people.

Where will those children find an education? Where will the teachers find work? Almost certainly in an explosion of private sector “charter schools,” where the quality of education – from the curriculum to books to the food served at lunch — will be sacrificed to the lowest bidder, and teachers’ salaries and benefits will be sacrificed to the profits of the new private owners, who will also eat up many millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies.

Why does there always seem to be enough money for military expansion, prisons, bank bailouts and tax cuts for the wealthy, but not enough for education—or for jobs, housing, healthcare, or old age pensions? These are not “welfare” but are part of the social contract for which we pay taxes and make social security payments.

More »

Russ Baker

Rosemarie Colvin holds a picture of her daughter, Marie
Colvin, who was killed in Syria reporting on crimes against
humanity. (Photo: Rashed Mian/Long Island Press)

Daniel McAdams: Implosion of The Houla Massacre Story
Stephen Lendman: Stepped Up Media War on Syria

The news out of Syria gets more and more appalling. But so does the quality of the journalism. Here’s an example, from the BBC dated May 26:

At least 90 people, including many children, have been killed in Syria’s restive Homs province, opposition activists say, calling it a “massacre”.

They said scores were wounded in the violence in Houla, as government forces shelled and attacked the town.

Shocking footage has emerged of the bodies of children killed as part of one the bloodiest attacks in one area since a nominal truce began in April.

The UN said international monitors were heading to the area.

BBC then quotes the wire service AP:

An activist in Houla told the Associated Press news agency that troops began the assault on Houla after an anti-regime demonstration following Muslim prayers on Friday.

The assault began with artillery shelling which killed 12, he said – but scores more were butchered when pro-regime thugs known as “shabiha” then stormed the area.

And here’s UPI:

DAMASCUS, Syria, May 26 (UPI) — At least 88 people, many of them children, were killed in a town in the restive province of Homs in Syria in an attack by government forces, activists said.

All these reports were based almost entirely on the word from activists on one side in the conflict, not from journalists or neutral observers. That is not journalism. Why are there not more journalists actually in these places reporting? In the past, reporters always managed to get into conflict zones. And, notwithstanding Syrian government controls on access to these areas and the obvious physical dangers attendant to work in such places, news organizations should be able to hire Syrians who will be diligent, careful and precise.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Russia is Washington's main military rival. Each nation has powerful nuclear arsenals and delivery systems able to destroy the other.

On December 31, 1999, Russia's lost decade under Boris Yeltsin ended. Vladimir Putin replaced him. Yeltsin institutionalized "shock therapy." Economic genocide followed. GDP plunged 50%. Life expectancy fell. Democratic freedoms died. An oligarch class accumulated enormous wealth at the expense of millions of harmed Russians. Contemptuously ignoring essential needs, human rights and civil liberties, Yeltsin let corruption and criminality flourish. One scandal followed another. Money-laundering became sport. Billions in stolen wealth were hidden in Western banks or offshore tax havens. Nonetheless, Western governments and media scoundrels loved him. Decades more may be needed to recover from the human wreckage he caused.

Putin's governing style differs. He rejects US imperialism. He opposes foreign intervention. In 2007, he condemned Washington's quest for unipolar global dominance “through a system which has nothing to do with democracy."

He points fingers West. He says we're "witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of military force in international relations."

It's "plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts." Political settlements become impossible. America won't tolerate them.

Putin accuses Washington of spurning international norms and principles. It pursues a reckless arms race. It “overstepped its national borders in almost all spheres." It spurns "basic principles of international law."

It chooses war, not peace. It violates national sovereignty rights. It undermines global stability. It considers aggression a divine right. It threatens humanity.

Its humanitarian wars destroy nations to save them. At issue is global dominance, not liberation. Putin is fundamentally opposed. As a result, media scoundrels bash him.

More »

David Michael Green

People waiting in line for voting to open in Milwaukee. Wis-
consin Republican Gov. Scott Walker took on Democratic
challenger Tom Barrett in a recall election.

I could tell you that my heart was broken by what happened in Wisconsin this week, but in truth that’s not quite accurate.

I grew into political awareness and maturity in the middle of the 1970s. For people my age, then, our entire adult lives have been one long witness to the dismantling of that which we grew up taking for granted as a foundation for any further progress that might come. We lived in the relatively egalitarian country of the New Deal and the Great Society, with its robust middle class and a measure of earnest compassion for the poor. Today, that seems like a foreign country, if not a remote planet.

Over the course of our adult lives:

We watched in shock and horror as the country turned to a Hollywood washout, who was literally a national joke candidate five years earlier, and made him president, following him down every path of joyful self-destruction and absurd deceit.

More »