Paul Craig Roberts

In order to understand the improbability of the government’s explanation of 9/11, it is not necessary to know anything about what force or forces brought down the three World Trade Center buildings, what hit the Pentagon or caused the explosion, the flying skills or lack thereof of the alleged hijackers, whether the airliner crashed in Pennsylvania or was shot down, whether cell phone calls made at the altitudes could be received, or any other debated aspect of the controversy.

You only have to know two things

One is that according to the official story, a handful of Arabs, mainly Saudi Arabians, operating independently of any government and competent intelligence service, men without James Bond and V for Vendetta capabilities, outwitted not only the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency, but all 16 US intelligence agencies, along with all security agencies of America’s NATO allies and Israel’s Mossad. Not only did the entire intelligence forces of the Western world fail, but on the morning of the attack the entire apparatus of the National Security State simultaneously failed. Airport security failed four times in one hour. NORAD failed. Air Traffic Control failed. The US Air Force failed. The National Security Council failed. Dick Cheney failed. Absolutely nothing worked. The world’s only superpower was helpless at the humiliating mercy of a few undistinguished Arabs.

It is hard to image a more far-fetched story–except for the second thing you need to know: The humiliating failure of US National Security did not result in immediate demands from the President of the United States, from Congress, from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and from the media for an investigation of how such improbable total failure could have occurred. No one was held accountable for the greatest failure of national security in world history. Instead, the White House dragged its feet for a year resisting any investigation until the persistent demands from 9/11 families for accountability forced President George W. Bush to appoint a political commission, devoid of any experts, to hold a pretend investigation.

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William T. Hathaway

World Trade Center Building 7 before the
treacherous government of the United States
& Zionist Israel demolished it, thus starting
their phoney "war on terror". - Editor

"Vicious fanatics are trying to kill us and destroy our country. They're blowing up our soldiers overseas. They've infiltrated our country. We must defend ourselves against these mad-dog berserkers before it's too late."

This litany has been repeated by corporate-controlled media and politicians for years now, pumping fear into us. It is used to justify a massive ongoing war that has killed hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings and almost bankrupted the USA.

But is it really true? Who started this war? When did it begin? The history of this conflict reveals a different story than the one continually beamed at us. The Romans were the first Westerners to try to dominate and plunder the Middle East; the Christian crusaders followed, then nineteenth-century imperialists. From the Arabs' perspective, the barbarians keep descending on them from the north, and they keep throwing them out. In the past hundred years the attacks have intensified as new treasure has been discovered: vast reserves of black, liquid gold under the desert sands.

During World War One, the British persuaded the Arabs to fight on their side by promising them independence. Thousands of them died in battle for the Brits because of this promise of freedom. But after the victory Britain refused to leave. It maintained control by installing puppet kings -- Faisal in Iraq and Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia -- to rule in its interest.

After World War Two, Britain and the USA pressured the United Nations into confiscating Arab land to form the state of Israel, making the Arabs pay for the crimes of the Germans. In addition to providing a nation for the Jews, Israel would be a forward base for Western economic and military power in the Middle East. To the Arabs it was another European invasion of their territory.

In the early 1950s, the USA and Britain overthrew the government of Iran because it tried to nationalize its oil industry, which was under Western control. We installed the Shah as dictator, and he promptly gave the oil back to us. Then he began a twenty-five year reign of terror against his own people. His secret police jailed, tortured, or killed hundreds of thousands of Iranians who opposed him. Since they knew he was kept in power only by American military aid, they began hating the USA. They finally ousted the Shah, but then the CIA started subverting the new government, trying to bring it down. At that point the Iranians fought back by holding US Embassy officials hostage, which was a mild response, considering what we had done to their country.

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John Pilger

What is the world's most powerful and violent "ism"? The question will summon the usual demons such as Islamism, now that communism has left the stage. The answer, wrote Harold Pinter, is only "superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged", because only one ideology claims to be non-ideological, neither left nor right, the supreme way. This is liberalism.

In his 1859 essay On Liberty, to which modern liberals pay homage, John Stuart Mill described the power of empire. "Despotism is a legitimate mode of government in dealing with barbarians," he wrote, "provided the end be their improvement, and the means justified by actually effecting that end." The "barbarians" were large sections of humanity of whom "implicit obedience" was required. The French liberal Alexis de Tocqueville also believed in the bloody conquest of others as "a triumph of Christianity and civilisation" that was "clearly preordained in the sight of Providence".

"It's a nice and convenient myth that liberals are the peacemakers and conservatives the warmongers," wrote the historian Hywel Williams in 2001, "but the imperialism of the liberal way may be more dangerous because of its open ended nature - its conviction that it represents a superior form of life [while denying its] selfrighteous fanaticism." He had in mind a speech by Tony Blair in the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which Blair promised to "reorder this world around us" according to his "moral values". At least a million dead later - in Iraq alone - this tribune of liberalism is today employed by the tyranny in Kazakhstan for a fee of $13m.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Canadian FM John Baird showing the best
of Western culture and civilization...

Western nations have become a caricature of hypocrisy. If Western countries weren’t armed with nuclear weapons, the larger world would be rolling in laughter.

During the Vietnam War, Sweden was an independent country with a moral conscience, and Sweden gave sanctuary to US war protestors who refused the draft. Washington realized the cost to itself and purchased the Swedish government in order to prevent a reoccurrence of moral conscience on the part of any Western government.

In the aftermath of World War II and during the subsequent decades of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the Western nations presented themselves as the moral conscience of the world. It turns out that this was largely a hoax. The “Western nations” are merely pawns complicit in Washington’s crimes as Washington attempts to shut down all information in its pursuit of world hegemony.

Mark Weisbrot writing in Aljazeera has this to say about Washington’s use of its puppet government in Sweden to pursue Julian Assange for publishing leaked documents that reveal Washington’s mendacity and deception of other countries.

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Stephen Lendman

On November 6, Americans vote for president, Congress, and regional candidates. On matters concerning Israel, virtually every officeholder and aspirant expresses wholehearted support.

One-sided bipartisan platform language endorses it. Rock solid commitment defines it. Obama and Romney practically fall over each other affirming it. Doing so lets Israel to get away with crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide with impunity. It's no exaggeration.

Longstanding US policy permits it. Palestinians were thrown under the bus decades ago. Israel considers them lesser beings. So does America. Policies in both countries show it.

Human suffering is out of sight and mind. In late August, a UN report said Gaza won't be "livable" by 2020 without urgent help. At issue is improving water supply and safety, power, healthcare, education, other essential services, and rebuilding what war and regular Israeli attacks destroy.

UN humanitarian coordinator Maxwell Gaylard said conditions already are too severe to bear. Gaza's been suffocating under Israel's blockade for over five years.

It's democratically elected government is unrecognized. At the behest of Israel, Washington declared it a terrorist organization. Isolation renders Gaza's economy nonviable.

Peace and security don't exist because Israel prevents it. Land, sea and air attacks happen regularly. No one knows from day to day who'll live, die, or become permanently disabled.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Friday’s payroll jobs report says that 96,000 new jobs were created in August and that the unemployment rate (U.3) fell from 8.3% to 8.1%. As 96,000 new jobs are not enough to keep up with population growth, the decline in the U.3 unemployment rate was caused by 368,000 discouraged job seekers giving up on finding employment and dropping out of the work force as measured by U.3.

Discouraged workers are not included in the U.3 measure of unemployment, which makes the measure useless. The only purpose of U.3 is to keep bad news out of the news. the U.3 unemployment rate only measures those who have not been discouraged by the inability to find a job and are still actively seeking employment.

The government produces another unemployment measure, U.6, which includes people who have been discouraged by the inability to find a job and have been out of the work force for less than a year. This measure of unemployment is 14.7%, a number that would get attention if reported.

When the long-term (more than one year) discouraged workers are included, the US unemployment rate is about 22%. In other words, the real US rate of unemployment is almost three times higher than the reported–headline rate–of 8.1%.

What is the purpose of reporting an unemployment rate that is about one-third the real unemployment rate? The only answer is deception through Happy News.

Let’s have a look at those 96,000 jobs. What kind of high-tech, high-income super jobs is “the world’s only superpower, the indispensable nation, the world’s greatest economy and capitalist heaven” creating?

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Philip Giraldi

Normally Washington bureaucracies shut down in August, but this year the intelligence community was working flat out to develop information on two crises in the Middle East. One official describes a deep sense of foreboding, recalling NSC Counter Terrorism Security Group chairman Richard Clarke’s description of walking around the West Wing in August 2001 with his “hair on fire.”

Syria is on the frontburner as a shooting war in which the U.S. is already clandestinely involved. The attempt to come up with a consensus National Intelligence Estimate on the crisis has been put on hold, both because the situation is too volatile and because new intelligence paints an increasingly dark picture of the insurgency. A number of atrocities against civilians previously attributed to the Assad government are now known to be the work of the rebels, who are becoming less reticent about their plans to eliminate all regime supporters, which would include most Alawites as well as many in the Christian community. U.S. intelligence has also come to the conclusion that rebel militias are heavily infiltrated and frequently commanded by jihadis linked to al-Qaeda. Attempts by CIA officers to discuss the issue with the rebels’ political representatives in Lebanon and Turkey have been blown off or deferred, suggesting that the movement’s leadership might be fully complicit. There is also increasing concern about a domino effect spreading unrest to Lebanon. Even the Turks are backing away from more direct involvement, worried that major refugee and Kurdish-based terrorism problems are developing.

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Stephen Lendman

On October 7, Venezuelans get to choose between Bolivarianism under Chavez and Henrique Capriles Radonski's corporatism they rejected resoundingly in 1998. Polls show they'll do it again. IVAD late August results show Chavez ahead 55% to 34%. Only 10% of Venezuelans are undecided. Eight major July polls showed Chavez leading by 15 - 27%. Subsequent ones weeks later revealed his support remains strong. Few doubt October's outcome. At issue is only by how much. On December 16, regional elections follow.

In late August, Chavez warned that opposition forces plan to declare victory before electoral results are announced. They'll say they won, reject National Electoral Council (CNE) totals, and claim fraud. They'll call for violence, destabilization and US help. "They are gearing up….with some allies in the world, some media, some social organizations to claim victory," said Chavez. "We know they are capable of anything." He urged respect for official results, adding:

"We will support the National Electoral Council. We call on all sectors to respect the referee, the Constitution, the laws."

Capriles' economic advisor, Ricardo Hausmann, said his campaign will announce its own results independently of official ones. Ultimas Noticias editor Eleazar Díaz Rangel said they'll "claim fraud (and won't) recognize the people's will."

Since Chavez took office in February 1999, 15 national and regional elections were held. Independent observers declared them open, free and fair. America's Carter Center calls Venezuela's electoral system one of the world's most reliable. Around 200 or more international observers will monitor October 7 voting. Expect confirmation of another exemplary democratic process. It puts America's to shame and then some. US federal and many regional ones lack legitimacy. Big money controls them. Ordinary people have no say.

Venezuelans however get the real thing. They're not about to accept pre-Chavez harshness. They want no part of corporatism at their expense.

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Patrick Martin

Code Pink anti-war protesters march before the start of the
Democratic National Convention on Sep. 2, 2012 in Charlotte,
North Carolina. (Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

President Barack Obama’s speech Thursday night accepting the Democratic Party nomination for reelection brought two weeks of political demagogy at the Republican and Democratic national conventions to a shameful and repulsive conclusion.

In its banality, hollowness, self-glorification and unadulterated lying, Obama’s address was typical of those delivered by the politicians of the two corporate-controlled parties that are vying for power in the 2012 election.

Neither in Tampa nor in Charlotte was there any serious discussion of the actual conditions facing tens of millions of working people four years after the Wall Street collapse triggered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Still less was any program elaborated by either capitalist party to provide jobs for the unemployed or alleviate the mass suffering created by the crisis of the profit system.

Perhaps the most remarkable fact of the two conventions is that not a single significant political difference was articulated by either party. In a country with more than 300 million people, riven by social and economic polarization, the two officially recognized parties proceed with unanimity on all essential questions.

To call either Tampa or Charlotte a political convention amounts to false advertising. These assemblies decided nothing and discussed nothing. The delegates served not as representatives from states and regions across a vast continent, but as spectators and props in a political infomercial featuring appearances by politicians and celebrities.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The US government represents Israel and the one to ten percent. Everyone else is
disposable. Regardless of the political party whose lever is pulled in November,
every American who votes will be voting for Israel and for their own demise.

If political conventions are ranked on a one to ten scale for intelligence, I give the Republican Convention zero and the Democrats one. How can the United States be a superpower when both political parties are unaware of everything that is happening at home and abroad?

The Republicans are relying for victory on four years of anti-Obama propaganda and their propriety programed electronic voting machines.

For nearly four years Republican operatives have flooded the Internet with portraits of Obama as a non-US citizen, as a Muslim (even while Obama was murdering Muslims in seven countries), and as a Marxist (put in power by the Israel Lobby, Wall Street, and the military/security complex).

Most Republican voters will vote against Obama based on these charges despite the curious fact that no committee in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives held a hearing to determine if Obama is a citizen.

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Adnan Al-Daini

“Unemployment sucks. Youth unemployment sucks even more”

It is not a good time to be young. Our youth are bearing the brunt of the economic depression and its self-defeating solution of austerity and cuts. The future to them looks bleak; unemployment, debt and homelessness in various combinations, or all three beckon. Of course these three scourges (unemployment-debt-homelessness) are linked.

Youth unemployment (16-24 years old) is now 20.7 % in the UK. The average across the EU is 22.4%, with Greece and Spain leading the misery index at 52.8 % and 52.7 % respectively.

A report entitled “Youth unemployment: the crisis we cannot afford” produced by ACEVO (Association of Chief Executive of Voluntary Organizations) puts the human cost thus:

“Unemployment hurts at any age; but for young people, long-term unemployment scars for life. It means lower earnings, more unemployment, [and] more ill health later in life. It means more inequality between rich and poor – because the pain hits the most disadvantaged.”

The report quantifies the financial cost as follows:

“The human misery of youth unemployment is also a time-bomb under the nation’s finances. At its current rates, in 2012 youth unemployment will cost the [British] exchequer £4.8 billion (more than the budget for further education for 16-to-19-year-olds in England) and cost the economy £10.7 billion in lost output. But the costs are not just temporary. The scarring effects of youth unemployment at its current levels will ratchet up further future costs of £2.9 billion per year for the exchequer (equivalent to the entire annual budget for Jobcentre Plus) and £6.3 billion p.a. for the economy in lost output. The net present value of the cost to the Treasury, even looking only a decade ahead, is approximately £28 billion.”

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Stephen Lendman

Photo: Schumer calls the Jerusalem platform omission a 'mistake'. Luckily for the delegates, they saw their mistake in time and hastily corrected the platform. You see, AIPAC knows all there is to know about democracy. Paraphrasing Orwell's Animal Farm, we now happily bleat: All animals are chosen, but some are more chosen than others. - Or if you like, "Napoleon is always right." -Ed.

On Wednesday evening, Democrat convention delegates took three voice votes calling Jerusalem Israel's capital. Each time, nays sounded louder than yeas.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa chaired the convention. Despite boos and no votes more audible than yes ones, he declared rewriting platform language policy. Doing so violates international law and justice. Obama caved to AIPAC and other Israeli Lobby organizations. Pandering to Lobby pressure and Israeli lawlessness is policy. Palestinians don't matter so ignore them. Spurning international law is OK.

In 1947, the UN designated Jerusalem an international city under a UN Trusteeship Council. The area includes Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Beit Sahour. It encompasses Christian and Muslim holy sites. After Israel's 1947-48 War of Independence, it was divided between Israel and Jordan. During Israel's 1967 Six-Day War, East Jerusalem was captured and occupied. It remains so lawlessly today.

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Patrick Martin

Michelle Obama 'loves her husband more now than she did four
years ago'? The wives & family of all the people that have seen
their loved ones tortured and killed by Obama during his presi-
dency, what would they think about this tasteless spectacle?

The platform is discreetly silent on Obama’s claim of presidential authority to assassinate American citizens. Indeed, the word “drone” makes no appearance in the 80-page document.

As the Democratic National Convention went into its second day Wednesday, the predictable and banal character of this event became increasingly evident. Representing one of the two parties of American big business, the delegates assembled in Charlotte are a million miles away from the real conditions of life facing working people in the United States.

Speaker after speaker has sought to present the Democrats as the party more sympathetic to the plight of workers, young people, the unemployed, the poor, the sick and the elderly. But the speeches, devoid of any actual political content, have only demonstrated the vast social gulf separating the delegates, drawn largely from the more privileged layers of the upper-middle class, and the masses of working people.

Some speakers attempted to bridge the gulf with demagogy, usually of a right-wing populist and nationalist character, like the remarks of former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley on Tuesday.

Others told personal stories aimed at demonstrating their own rise from humble beginnings, like the keynote speaker, San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro. These accounts, usually of cloying sentimentality, aimed only to distract attention from the right-wing, pro-corporate policies of the Democratic Party.

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Philip Giraldi

It is September. And as surely as the swallows are preparing to depart Capistrano, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be arriving in New York. It is an annual ritual, with Netanyahu explaining to a skeptical U.N. General Assembly why Israel is not bound by the rules that most other nations observe. Last year the theme was Palestinian statehood, meaning that the Palestinians should not have any such thing until Israel says it’s okay. This year it is all about Iran, with Netanyahu preparing to “tell the nations of the world in a clear voice the truth about the terror regime of Iran which represents the greatest threat to world peace.”

Bibi will be in the U.S. for at least three days, and it is not certain whether he will meet with either President Barack Obama or Republican candidate Mitt Romney. I believe that he will likely meet with both because he knows that he has them in a vulnerable position that he will want to take advantage of to maximize what he can get out of them. He already has a commitment from Romney to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, which would make the United States the only nation to have its diplomatic mission in the disputed city that Israel claims as its capital, but this time he will be shooting for something much bigger. He wants nothing less than war with Iran, and he expects the United States to provide him with a casus belli, to set a date for the war to begin, and to actually do the fighting for him.

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Interview by Kourosh Ziabari
With Some Final Comments by Stephen Lendman

TEHRAN (FNA)- American writer and radio host Stephen Lendman believes that the successful arrangement and hosting of the 16th heads-of-state Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran was diplomatically a triumph for the Islamic Republic, which disappointed Israel and the United States and helped Iran improve its political profile on the international scene.

Stephen Lendman believes that despite the US and Israeli propaganda, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran which wrapped up on Friday was a great diplomatic victory for Iran and meant a great defeat and failure for the US and the Zionist regime of Israel.

What follows is the full text of Fars News Agency's interview with Stephen Lendman in which a number of issues pertaining to the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Tehran, the frustration of Western powers at the successful summit in Tehran, the attendance of Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi at the summit, the prospects of the movement under Iran's presidency and the role it can play in fostering global peace and stability were discussed.

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