Bill Van Auken

While the FBI records in meticulous detail every category of crime committed in the US, no government agency keeps track of how many people die at the hands of the police.

New York City cops chased down and executed Darrius Kennedy in Times Square last Saturday. The encounter began with an attempt to arrest the 51-year-old street performer on suspicion of smoking a marijuana cigarette, a misdemeanor. Kennedy fled arrest and waved a knife at the police, leading them on a slow-motion chase as he walked and skipped backward down Seventh Avenue.

It ended with Kennedy cornered at the entrance to an office building, seven blocks south of where the initial encounter began. By this time he was surrounded by scores of police, some armed with military-style assault weapons, and hemmed in by police vehicles. Two of the cops closest to him opened fire, shooting some 15 rounds and hitting him seven times. He was pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital less than an hour later.

This was not Dodge City, but midtown Manhattan where Darrius Kennedy was gunned down like a dog. The incident was emblematic of the brutality that characterizes American society. The overwhelming force employed carried with it the stench of a police state.

Similar police killings take place every day and in every part of the country. Generally, they go unreported and unnoticed outside of the immediate area in which they take place. What distinguished the shooting last Saturday was that it unfolded in the middle of the afternoon in one of the most heavily traversed thoroughfares in the US, witnessed by hundreds of horrified tourists and passersby, some of whom fled in panic while others recorded the scene on their cell phones.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Whether you vote Republican or Democrat, the oligarchs will win.

The election of the next puppet president of the “world’s only superpower” is about two and one-half months off, and what are the campaign issues? There aren’t any worthy of the name.

Romney won’t release his tax returns, despite the fact that release is a customary and expected act. Either the non-release is a strategy to suck in Democrats to make the election issue allegations that Romney is another mega-rich guy who doesn’t pay taxes, only to have the issue collapse with a late release that shows enormous taxes paid, or Romney’s tax returns, as a candidate who advocates lower taxes for the rich, don’t bear scrutiny.

What are Romney’s issues? The candidate says that his first act will be to repeal Obamacare, a program that Romney himself first enacted as governor of Massachusetts. This will cost Romney political contributions from the insurance industry, which is thankful for the 50 million new private insurance policies that Obamacare, written not by Obama but by the private insurance companies, provides at public expense. It is not to the insurance industry’s benefit to have a single payer system like other western countries.

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Chris Floyd

Over the decades, Robert Parry has done yeoman service in exposing the vast criminality of the American state. From the foul bloodwork of American power in Central America to the treasonous machinations of the Iran-Contra scheme to the long, corrupt, murderous history of the Bush crime family, Parry has broken many important stories and brought much "lost history" -- the title of his best book -- to light. I have drawn on his work frequently, and learned a great deal from it.

Therefore it is extremely dispiriting to read his recent bitter blasts (here and here) at any and all of those "on the left" who might even contemplate refusing to support Barack Obama for re-election. Such people, he tells us, are vain, preening perfectionists who care more for their own self-righteousness than the fate of the world. Indeed, "leftists" who have refused to support the Democratic candidate -- no matter who he is, no matter what he has done -- are complicit, we’re told, in all the atrocities perpetrated by Republican presidents since 1968.

(Apparently, no Democratic president has ever perpetrated any atrocities; they are just "imperfect" politicians who might sometimes "do some rotten things" but always "fewer rotten things than the other guy.")

Parry believes he is preaching a tough, gritty doctrine of "moral ambiguity." What he is in fact advocating is the bleakest moral nihilism. To Parry, the structure of American power -- the corrupt, corporatized, militarized system built and sustained by both major parties -- cannot be challenged. Not even passively, not even internally, for Parry scorns those who simply refuse to vote almost as harshly as those who commit the unpardonable sin: voting for a third party. No, if you do not take an active role in supporting this brutal engine of war and injustice by voting for a Democrat, then it is you who are immoral.

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Stephen Lendman

In February 2011, major protests erupted. Bahrainis challenged despotic rule nonviolently. Daily they protest. Police state harshness confronts them.

At issue is King Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa's regime. Bahrainis want popularly elected leadership replacing him. He ranks with the world's worst despots. He's a US favorite. He's welcomed in Washington and other Western capitals. Obama and other world leaders turn a blind eye to his crimes.

Compared to him, Saudi leaders, and other Gulf state tyrants, Assad looks saintly. Peaceful Bahrainis brave tear gas, beatings, rubber bullets, live fire, arrests, torture, kangaroo court justice, imprisonment, disappearances and death. Life and limb are risked to live free. A huge price is paid for trying. Popular courage and resilience show no signs of waning. Stakes are too high to quit. State-sponsored terror challenges them. It continues unabated.

On August 3, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR) headlined "Self-determination peaceful protests violently suppressed, numerous arrests, reports of beatings and ill treatment," saying:

"August 2 was like most other days. Bahrainis protested peacefully. They want democratic freedom and social justice. Self-determination demands unite them. Violence confronts all demonstrations. Police used tear gas, stun grenades, and birdshot. Numerous injuries resulted. People were shot in the head. Hospitals are occupied and militarized. Protesters can't get proper treatment. Requesting it risks arrest, torture and imprisonment. People have to manage as best they can."

Excessive tear gas amounts are used. More on that below. It continues after protests are dispersed. Houses and neighborhood are targeted. Helicopters fire canisters indiscriminately. Arrests are made regularly.

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John Pilger

Vietnamese babies, deformed and stillborn after prenatal
dioxin exposure from Agent Orange (The Watchers)

This is a story of two letters and two Britains. The first letter was written by Sebastian Coe, the former athlete who chairs the London Olympics Organising Committee. He is now called Lord Coe. In the New Statesman of 21 June, I reported an urgent appeal to Coe by the Vietnam Women's Union that he and his IOC colleagues reconsider their decision to accept sponsorship from Dow Chemical, one of the companies that manufactured dioxin, a poison used against the population of Vietnam. Code-named Agent Orange, this weapon of mass destruction was "dumped" on Vietnam, according to a US Senate report in 1970, in what was called Operation Hades. One estimate is that today there are 4.8 million victims of Agent Orange, many of them shockingly deformed children.

In his reply, Coe describes Agent Orange as "a highly emotional issue" whose development and use "was made by the US government [which] has rightly led the process of addressing the many issues that have resulted". He refers to a "constructive dialogue" between the US and Vietnamese governments "to resolve issues". They are "best placed to manage the reconciliation of these two countries."

When I read this, I was reminded of the weasel letters that are a specialty of the Foreign Office in London in denying the evidence of crimes of state and corporate power, such as the lucrative export of terrible weapons. The former Iraq Desk Officer, Mark Higson, called this sophistry "a culture of lying".

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William Blum

Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s ... Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s ... Libya 2011 ... Syria 2012 ... In military conflicts in each of these countries the United States and al Qaeda (or one of its associates) have been on the same side.[1]

What does this tell us about the United States' "War On Terror"?

Regime change has been the American goal on each occasion: overthrowing communists (or "communists"), Serbians, Slobodan Milosevic, Moammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad ... all heretics or infidels, all non-believers in the empire, all inconvenient to the empire.

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, has the United States invested so much blood and treasure against the PLO, Iraq, and Libya, and now Syria, all mideast secular governments?

Why are Washington's closest Arab allies in the Middle East the Islamic governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain? Bahrain being the home of an American naval base; Saudi Arabia and Qatar being conduits to transfer arms to the Syrian rebels.

Why, if democracy means anything to the United States are these same close allies in the Middle East all monarchies?

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States shepherd Kosovo — 90% Islamist and perhaps the most gangsterish government in the world — to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia in 2008, an independence so illegitimate and artificial that the majority of the world's nations still have not recognized it?

Why — since Kosovo's ruling Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been known for their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts (sic) — has the United States been pushing for Kosovo's membership in NATO and the European Union? (Just what the EU needs: another economic basket case.) Between 1998 and 2002, the KLA appeared on the State Department terrorist list, remaining there until the United States decided to make them an ally, due in no small part to the existence of a major American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, well situated in relation to planned international oil and gas pipelines coming from the vast landlocked Caspian Sea area to Europe. In November 2005, following a visit to Bondsteel, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described the camp as a "smaller version of Guantánamo".[2]

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Gordon Duff

Slowly, every police department in the United States, at the behest of the Department of Homeland Security, is being trained by Israeli groups.

As part of this training, there is an increased move to use of military uniforms, armored vehicles, heavy weapons, illegal surveillance, lying to the people, press and courts and systematic interference in the electoral system. - They are becoming “Israeli.”

The door to this foreign influence in America was thrown open by the Department of Homeland Security and, in particular, Michael Chertoff, an Israeli citizen who was, in particular, most instrumental as former Director of DHS in implementing policies challenged as unconstitutional, policies the new “Israeli trained” American police are tasked with stopping opposition to.

“Israelization” of American police is a simple process:

■ Total militarization of police, military tactics, utter disrespect for civil law, the constitution, civil liberties, freedom of speech and the unbridled growth of centralized power under unlimited corruption; government by money and organized crime.
■ Systematic suppression of dissent
■ Systematic use of intimidation to control the electoral process at every level of government
■ Seamless coordination with military and “internationalist” groups to prepare for mass internment of sectors of the population, numbering in the millions
■ Coordinated use of full military power including but not limited to bombing, strafing, heavy artillery and summary executions, the same methods Israel uses on a daily basis
■ Even more control of the press, based on the Israeli model, with two “controlled” views, on pro-government and the second, “controlled opposition.”

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Eric London

The American government and military must increasingly rely on the most reactionary ideological views to justify its imperialist wars, occupations and brutal subjugation of foreign populations.

A critical element, which has been virtually ignored in all the media coverage of last Sunday’s massacre at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin is the close connections between the US Armed Forces and various fascistic and white supremacist organizations. Wade Michael Page, a neo-Nazi and former US Army service member, murdered six people and critically wounded three others August 5 before reportedly turning the gun on himself after being shot by police.

US Armed Forces recruiters, officers and high-ranking executive branch officials have quietly provided fascist organizations with opportunities to recruit soldiers into the ranks of the National Socialist Movement, Hammerskins, White Military Men and National Alliance.

Page, a self-described member of the Hammerskins, first began to actively sympathize with neo-Nazism during his time in the US military, which lasted from 1992 to 1998. Afterwards, Page made his fascist sympathies clear in hundreds of posts on various neo-Nazi websites and also attempted to purchase goods from the National Alliance in 2000. Both the Hammerskins and the National Alliance advocate a genocidal “racial holy war” and the establishment of a government modeled on Hitler’s Nazi regime.

“He really started to identify with neo-Nazism during his time in the military,” said University of Nebraska criminologist Pete Simi, who met Page during a 2001 study on white power groups. “And specifically, what he told me at one point was that, if you join the military and you’re not a racist, then you certainly will be by the time you leave.”

The Hammerskins, National Alliance, and a variety of other neo-Nazi groups were continuously involved in recruitment efforts at numerous Armed Forces bases across the US during the time of Page’s military service, according to reports by the FBI and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The findings point to especially high levels of fascist activity at Fort Bragg Army Base in North Carolina, where Page was stationed between 1995 and 1998.

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Alex Lantier

Politicians and the media in the United States and Europe stepped up demands for direct military intervention in Syria yesterday, as the Syrian army fought to expel US-backed forces from the city of Aleppo.

Syrian army forces reportedly captured much of the Salahuddin neighborhood in southwestern Aleppo, a Sunni-majority neighborhood that was a central base for the groups fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Some anti-Assad forces retired north towards the Sakkour district, though some reports stated that they continued to hold parts of Salahuddin.

Several hundred anti-Assad fighters were killed, amid reports that they were running low on ammunition and supplies.

Malek al-Kurdi, the deputy commander of the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA), told Voice of America: “We had wanted an active role from the international community to take a bold decision to stop the massacres in Syria. But the delay and the modest capacities of the Free Syrian Army have put the Syrian situation in a state of limbo.”

Syrian army units were also reportedly fighting north of Aleppo to cut off supply lines between the anti-Assad forces and Syria’s northern border with Turkey. Working with the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the European powers, Turkey is using the city of Adana—home of the US Incirlik air base—as a “nerve center” to reinforce the anti-Assad forces with munitions and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda forces play a critical role among the US-backed foreign fighters going to Syria (See also: Washington’s proxy in Syria: Al Qaeda).

The battle for Aleppo is particularly significant, given its strategic location next to Turkey and Aleppo’s role as a commercial center in the Syrian economy. The Syrian government must hold Aleppo if it is to prevent the United States and its allies from setting up bases in Syria along the Turkish border and resupplying their proxies with heavy weaponry. Ruling circles in the United States and Europe have responded to their proxies’ setback in Aleppo by escalating calls for direct military intervention.

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Stephen Lendman

Israel commits daily crimes against humanity. Intermittently, crimes or war are committed. For decades, Palestinians have been ruthlessly persecuted and denied justice. Dozens of incidents occur daily. Media scoundrels suppress or ignore them.

On July 30, Israel placed 10 International Solidarity Movement (ISM) activists in administrative detention uncharged. ISM resists Israeli repression nonviolently. Activists are frequently arrested, detained, mistreated, then deported. Israel considers supporting right over wrong illegal.

Palestinian Authority (PA) officials enforce Israeli lawlessness. Collaborationist leaders betray their people. Maliciously they accuse internationals of anti-PA incitement. Al Haq said the PA's

"persistent disregard for international law, combined with recurring abuses committed by several Palestinian security agencies in the West Bank have done nothing to appease the frustrations of Palestinian people." "Palestinians have come to expect little more than the suppression of freedom of expression, arbitrary arrest and even worse from their governing authority."

Abbas and prime minister Salam Fayyad lack legitimacy. So do those around them. They collaborate with Israel's illegal occupation. They derive special benefits for services rendered. Palestinians have no confidence they'll end land theft, settlement expansions, Gaza's siege, Israel's separation wall, and numerous other daily abuses. They enforce and replicate Israel's worst policies. They attack peaceful protesters violently. They imprison Palestinians for political reasons. They crush dissent. They ignore rule of law principles and judicial rulings. They're disgraceful puppets serving Israeli interests.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The bumper sticker on the beat-up pickup truck read: “Friends don’t let friends vote Democrat.”

The driver was obviously not affluent. Yet, despite all the news about mega-trillion dollar bankster bailouts, mega-million dollar bonuses for financial crooks, and unimaginable compensation packages for corporate CEOs who have moved middle class jobs out of America, something made the down-and-out pickup truck driver associate with the political party of the super-rich.

As I wondered at this strange alliance of the dirt poor with the mega-rich, I remembered that in 2004 Thomas Frank wondered about how the Republicans had managed to convince the poor to vote against their best interests. Frank’s answer, or part of his answer, is that the Republicans use “social issues,” such as gay marriage and Janet Jackson’s exposed nipple to work up indignation over the threat to moral values posed by liberal Democrats.

The working poor have been convinced by Republican propaganda that voting Democrat means giving the working poor’s tax dollars to the non-working poor, to providing medical care and schooling for illegal aliens, and being soft on terrorism.

To the pick-up truck driver, standing up for America means standing up for bankster bailouts and the military/security complex’s multi-trillion dollar wars.

The Karl Rove Dirty Tricks Team has honed the Republican propaganda. Republicans send each other via email an endless number of nonsense stories about Obama being a Muslim, about Obama being a Marxist, about Obama being a Manchurian Candidate turning America over to the New World Order or the United Nations, or to some other dastardly plotting organization. But never is Obama accused of turning the US over to Wall Street, the military/security complex, or Israel.

There is never any citation or source for the accusations in the emails. None are needed, because the words are what the Republicans want to hear. Ask them why Obama would be killing Muslims in seven countries if he was a Muslim, or why Wall Street and the military/security complex would put a Marxist in the White House, and they turn purple with rage. Just by asking the obvious questions instead of joining in the denunciations, a person confirms the propaganda that America is threatened by Obama dupes who won’t stand up for the country.

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Philip Giraldi

Does anyone remember Otto, the brain damaged ex-CIA assassin played so deliciously by Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda? Otto cruised around London in a massive old Chrysler, driving on the right and forcing British drivers off the road while screaming that they were a**holes. Described by one reviewer as a walking id, Otto’s most famous line was “Oh, you English are so superior, aren’t you? Well, would you like to know what you’d be without us, the good ol’ US of A to protect you? I’ll tell you. The smallest f**king province in the Russian Empire, that’s what! If it wasn’t for us, you’d all be speaking German! Singing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles’….”

Exit Otto, who is a fictional character, enter stage right Mitt Romney, who is, unfortunately, all too real. Mitt demonstrated his international savoir faire shortly after arriving in London by telling NBC’s Brian Williams that he had concerns about the preparations for the Olympics. This presumably was at least in part intended to highlight the splendid job he did in Salt Lake City after receiving massive subsidies from the federal government to prevent the total collapse of the enterprise. He wanted to compare that well-oiled machine to the work of the hapless Brits who, per Mitt, seem to be unable to control their own labor unions. Labor unions are a bit scarce in Utah. Unfortunately, the hapless Brits found out about the interview and Romney learned that the first rule in visiting foreign countries is not to insult your hosts.

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Stephen Lendman

Washington has no business being involved in Syria

Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov calls it "full-scale civil war." It's full-scale but not civil. Syria's been invaded. Civil war implies two internal warring sides. That's very much not the case. Primakov said, "Mercenaries and volunteers from other states are fighting (Assad) jointly with violent internal forces."

Most Syria opponents are nonviolent. They want peaceful conflict resolution. Washington has other ideas.

"President Obama has given a direct order to the CIA to support the Syrian opposition." "That is flagrant interference in internal affairs of a sovereign state, which does not endanger the United States or anyone else." "Saudi Arabia and Qatar are funding militants. Turkey is giving them active support." [So are other regional countries.] "Russia holds the only correct position," he added. "We have a moral position: we care for life and security of millions of people and for stability of the huge and important region."

Syria is strategically important for Moscow. Tartus is its only Mediterranean base. Protecting it is key. Assad is a valued regional ally. It's in Russia's interest to support him. Moscow backed Annan's peace plan dependent on keeping him in power and having Syrian sovereignty be respected. Its strategy also lets other global allies know it's committed to back them if needed. Some have their own internal problems and need reassurance.

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Matthew J. Nasuti

When the dinner bell rings in Washington, D.C., a swarm of politically-connected consultants and nonprofit organizations (NGOs) rush in to feast on aid funds designated for Afghanistan. The culprits are members of an exclusive club of favored parties who feed off of USAID and State Department contracts, grants and awards. The group includes Checchi and Company, Louis Berger Group, Chemonics, Inc., the Asia Society, Democracy International, the Brookings Institution, Casals and Associates, Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), National Democracy Institute, the International Republican Institute, etc.

A review of their boards of directors and leadership reveals that many are former USAID, State Department, Millennium Challenge, U.S. Institute of Peace, National Endowment for Democracy or United Nations officials who have decided to cash in on their relationships and experience. While the relationships between these groups and the U.S. Government are incestuous, an equally important problem is that most of this aid (tens of billions of dollars each year) is simply wasted.

Ordinary Afghans need good food, clean water, sewage treatment improvements, rural health care and education; instead these aid groups primarily generate reports, surveys and hold meetings with each other in Kabul. The following is a recent summary of how Afghan aid funds are being expended by the United States.

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Stephen Lendman

Strategy calls for waging winnable wars by exploiting sectarian and ethnic differences.

Fearmongering, propaganda, deception, and hidden truths are weapons of war. They're used to convince people they're justified, righteous and vital. When enemies don't exist they're created. No one threatened America since WW II. No one threatens Israel now. Both countries spurn peace. They manufacture threats to wage wars.

AIPAC is a dagger at humanity's heart. It represents lawless Israeli interests. It wields enormous influence in Washington and across America. It pressures Congress to get its way. It menaces global security. It lies to generate fear and regional wars.

■ It claims Syria threatens Israel. It says its government "continues to brutally crush the growing protest movement within the country while maintaining its support for terrorist groups."
■ It cites its chemical weapons. It warns about an alleged "illicit nuclear program."
■ It calls Iran

>

"the world's leading sponsor of terror and is racing toward a nuclear weapons capability." "Through its proxy armies of Hizballah in Southern Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iranian regime is supporting terrorists carrying out daily attacks on American troops and Israeli civilians."

Accusations like these and others come straight from its propaganda 101 handbook. Waging war depends first on selling it. Enlisting public support is key. Mind manipulation engineers consent. Enemies are invented. Truth is suppressed. Fear is stoked. National security issues are raised. Patriotism and democratic values are stressed. Dovish voices are silenced. Hawks are featured prominently. All wars are based on lies. Truth promotes peace.

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