Stephen Lendman

On November 14, Israel murdered Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari in cold blood. A missile struck his car. Another passenger was killed. Unconfirmed reports said it was his son. An IDF Twitter message said,

"We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead."

Press TV said Shin Bet claimed responsibility. An official statement said:

"During a joint operation of the General Security Service (Shin Bet) and the IDF today, Ahmed al-Jabari, the senior commander of the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, was targeted."

Attacks continue. Israel's Operation Pillar of Cloud (aka Cloud Column) killed at least nine Palestinians. Over 20 others were injured. Authorities expect death and injury tolls to rise. Bombing and shelling continued overnight. At least three more Palestinians were killed. More were injured. Israel said over 20 sites were targeted. Hamas' military wing, Izzeddin Qassam Brigades, said Israel "opened the gates of hell." A robust response was promised.

Jabari is the most senior Hamas official killed since Cast Lead. He was involved in capturing Gilad Shalit. During his five years in captivity, he led negotiations that freed him. Netanyahu said Israel chose this time to "exact the heaviest price." Initially he added that a significant military action wouldn't be undertaken. In fact, it was initiated and remains ongoing. Perhaps something greater is planned.

More »

Gilad Atzmon

A Short Comment By Gilad Atzmon

Once again we've learned today that in the Jewish State, Goyim's blood translates into political power. In order to win the Israeli election, Benjamin Netanyahu feels the need to present the Israeli voter with a substantial pile of Palestinian corpses.

Like in the case of previous IDF's genocidal operations, the current Israeli Pillar of Cloud also has a Biblical connotation. In Exodus 13:21-22, you will find the following: “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light.”

Seemingly, the current Israel murderous assault against civilians is consistent with the Zionist secular interpretation of the Old Testament. " …then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them and show them no mercy.” (Deuteronomy 7:1-2). However, this time it isn’t God who guides his chosen people. It is actually a democratically elected war criminal that was chosen by God’s favourite people.

More »

Barry Grey

Trade union leaders met Tuesday with President Barack Obama to give their support to his plans for massive cuts in social programs upon which tens of millions of workers depend.

The hour-long, closed-door meeting at the White House was the first act in a carefully orchestrated campaign to convince the public that unprecedented cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps and other welfare programs are the only alternative to economic disaster in the form of the so-called “fiscal cliff.”

The task assigned to the union chiefs is to counter broad popular opposition to the cuts by promoting the White House claim that it is pursuing a “balanced” approach to deficit-reduction, combining spending cuts with increased taxes on the rich.

Also on Tuesday, the post-election “lame-duck” Congress, which continues to sit until the newly elected Congress takes office January 1, reconvened. Previous deals between the White House and congressional Democrats and Republicans insured that the lame-duck session would be conducted in an atmosphere of crisis over hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes and automatic spending cuts slated to begin January 1.

No sooner was the election out of the way than the ruling class launched a mind-numbing, saturation media campaign over the need to enact a bipartisan deficit-reduction plan before the new-year. Both the Democrats, who control the White House and the Senate, and the Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, agree that such a plan must include sweeping cuts in social entitlements and a comprehensive “reform” of the tax system.

More »

Bill Van Auken

The Petraeus investigation has expanded to include Gen.
John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan. (AP)

The atmosphere of crisis in Washington triggered by retired Gen. David Petraeus’ resignation as CIA director following an FBI investigation into an extramarital affair has deepened with Petraeus’ successor as the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen, being linked to the scandal.

The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it has placed on hold Allen’s nomination to become the senior military commander in NATO and chief of US forces in Europe, following allegations that the American general had engaged in “inappropriate communications”—some 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails over the last two years—with the woman in Tampa, Florida whose complaint to the FBI initiated the probe that led to Petraeus.

The Pentagon did not clarify what was “inappropriate” about the emails, raising questions as to whether they were of a sexual or security character. An unnamed senior Defense Department official told the New York Times, however, that the content of some of the e-mails “was of a flirtatious nature.”

The woman to whom Allen had allegedly sent the emails was Jill Kelley, a Tampa socialite and wife of a local doctor. Last June, Kelley contacted a personal friend in the Tampa FBI office complaining of harassing emails from an anonymous source.

The matter is being dealt with by the inspector general’s office of the Department of Defense. Under some circumstances, adultery is a prosecutable offense under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. While Obama issued a statement praising Allen for “ably” leading American occupation troops in Afghanistan, the administration also pressed the Senate to hold speedy confirmation hearings for the officer nominated to succeed Allen in Kabul, Gen. Joseph Dunford.

The FBI launched an investigation and traced the harassing emails to Paula Broadwell, a married US Army reserve officer and West Point graduate, who had authored a fawning biography of Gen. Petraeus that was published last January. The investigation, according to the FBI’s account, led to the discovery of extensive emails between Broadwell and Petraeus and subsequent interviews in which both acknowledged the affair.

More »

Nahida Izzat

(This is my thought)

|

\/

More »

Stephen Lendman

Photo: Mortar shell marks are seen on a wall as a person closes a broken window of his house in a community along the Israel Gaza border, Israel, Sunday, Nov. 11, 2012. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit/Associated Press)

Previous articles said beware of false flags. For months throughout the Syrian conflict, possible full-scale Western intervention loomed. It still does. Post-US elections, it's more likely, not certain, but reports suggest expect it.

Several stray mortar shells from Syria struck occupied Golan. No injuries were reported. Israel holds Damascus responsible. On November 9, Israel warned Assad. Vice Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon said,

"We see the regime in Syria as responsible for what is happening along the border." "If we see that it is spreading in our direction, we will know how to defend the citizens of the State of Israel and the State of Israel's sovereignty.”

Defense Minister Ehud Barak added,

"We have made clear via UNDOF (Golan's United Nations Disengagement Observer Force) that we intend for there not to be shells falling on us." [Without elaborating, he added:] "I hope this will not continue, and that the rebels will win in Syria, that Assad will fall and that, at long last, a new stage in the life of Syria will begin."

It's hard imagining what he means or wants. Israel already has post-Mubarak Egypt to deal with. Mohamed Morsi is more outspoken on issues where both countries disagree. Similar or more extremist Syrian governance would substitute a peaceful opponent for one more adversarial. The adage about being careful for what you wish applies.

More »

Chris Floyd

To all those now hailing the re-election of Barack Obama as a triumph of decent, humane, liberal values over the oozing-postule perfidy of the Republicans, a simple question: Is this child dead enough for you?

This little boy was named Naeemullah. He was in his house -- maybe playing, maybe sleeping, maybe having a meal -- when an American drone missile was fired into the residential area where he lived and blew up the house next door.

As we all know, these drone missiles are, like the president who wields them, super-smart, a triumph of technology and technocratic expertise. We know, for the president and his aides have repeatedly told us, that these weapons -- launched only after careful consultation of the just-war strictures of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas -- strike nothing but their intended targets and kill no one but "bad guys." Indeed, the president's top aides have testified under oath that not a single innocent person has been among the thousands of Pakistani civilians -- that is, civilians of a sovereign nation that is not at war with the United States -- who have been killed by the drone missile campaign of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Yet somehow, by some miracle, the missile that roared into the residential area where Naeemullah lived did not confine itself neatly to the house it struck. Somehow, inexplicably, the hunk of metal and wire and computer processors failed -- in this one instance -- to look into the souls of all the people in the village and ascertain, by magic, which ones were "bad guys" and then kill only them. Somehow -- perhaps the missile had been infected with Romney cooties? -- this supercharged hunk of high explosives simply, well, exploded with tremendous destructive power when it struck the residential area, blowing the neighborhood to smithereens.

More »

Paul Larudee

Photo: The Ruweidi family outside their home in Silwan May 9, 2012. - After two decades of legal struggle, the Ruweidi family from Silwan has been granted recognition by the courts that they are indeed the rightful owners of their home. The decision rejects the Jewish National Fund’s claim that the home is the property of the State of Israel. (Moriel Rothman/+972)

The 2005 call by more than 170 Palestinian organizations, both within Palestine and without, to boycott Israeli products and services, divest from companies that support and sustain Israel and sanction the Israeli state and its agencies is one of the most important and potentially one of the most effective strategies to end the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinian people as a result of the creation of a Zionist state and by Zionist actions even before.

Nothing in this article is intended to criticize or undermine BDS as a strategy. On the contrary, BDS should be encouraged and pursued as vigorously as possible. I am among those that believe that the only way to end the injustices is to end the state itself, but the participants in BDS need not agree about this in order to undertake BDS actions.

Recently, I and others have expressed concern about an apparently unauthorized change in the wording of the 2005 BDS call, posted on the BDS National Committee (BNC) website. This is also not a criticism of the strategy or of the movement, but rather of the actions of unknown parties that appear to have committed a breach of trust with the signatories of the 2005 call, by altering the wording of that call without consulting them.

Some have argued that the change of wording is insignificant and that the meaning remains unchanged. This is absurd. Why bother to change the wording if there is no change in meaning? That change in wording is important to someone. But to whom? And why? And by what protocol (if any) was the change made? Has this action been accountable in any way?

More »

Robert S. Dotson, M.D.

Obamacare: Just give us a bill to hype; we don’t care what it is - In the article below, Dr. Dotson provides more information about Obamacare. The program is not what its supporters or its critics imagine. In my opinion, with Republicans blocking a single-payer national health system, the Obama White House went to the insurance lobby and said, “give us a health care bill that you can get Congress to pass.” The result is a complex system of taxes, penalties, and government subsidized private health insurance policies with a layer of profits added to the costs of new levels of bureaucracy. Nomi Prins reports that the claim is laughable that Obamacare will lower costs by creating competitive insurance premiums, because of consolidations and mergers of insurance companies in preparation for the “insurance exchanges.” Wall Street is already making money off the mergers. What Obamacare really does is to allow concentration and control of health care by large corporations that will sacrifice health care to private profits. Dr. Dotson believes that Obamacare will result in Medicare being blended into some type of corporatist insurance product bringing higher costs and fewer benefits to patients. It will be a “health system” that funnels federal revenues into insurance company profits instead of into health care. The unexpected consequences of Obamacare are likely to require endless amendments to the legislation. The complexity will result in mistakes by doctors and hospitals that will be prosecuted as crimes. Health care for patients and adequate payment to health care providers will become back burner concerns. Once Obamacare is up and running, the private and bureaucratic interests that benefit from the monstrosity will protect it regardless of its failure. It would have been so much better, so much cheaper, and so much simpler to have created a single-payer national health service like every other developed country. Instead, “superpower americans” are to be deprived of good and inexpensive health care for the sole sake of corporate profits. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

More »

Niall Green

The Hafiz M-113 based mobile missile launcher carries six
Tamuz missiles, target acquisition system employed in line-
of-sight modes and a datalink maintaining non-line-of-sight
(NLOS) communications with the missiles through its flight.

Following the re-election of Barack Obama in last week’s US presidential poll, Washington and its allies have stepped up their war drive against Syria. In the most serious escalation of the 20-month conflict in the Middle East country, the Israeli armed forces fired a missile into Syrian territory Sunday.

The strike, by an advanced Tammuz guided missile, is the first acknowledged attack by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on Syria since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israeli warplanes struck the site of an alleged Syrian nuclear project in 2007, but neither regime ever officially confirmed the action.

The Israeli missile reportedly struck a Syrian army base, though the government in Damascus has not released any details of the damage caused.

The IDF strike was reportedly carried out in response to a Syrian mortar that landed in the Golan Heights, the Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Nobody was reported killed or injured by what appears to have been a misdirected 120mm Syrian tank shell.

A statement issued by the IDF shortly after the Tammuz missile struck Syrian territory claimed, “IDF forces fired warning shots and relayed a message to the Syrian forces via the United Nations that warns against additional fire. Additional fire will prompt a quick response.”

The IDF acknowledged that eight Syrian shells had fallen within the Israeli-controlled section of the Golan Heights over the past two months, likely the inadvertent result of fighting between Syrian government forces and “rebel” fighters, without any military response from the IDF.

While Israel appears to have turned a blind eye to errant Syrian shells in the weeks leading up to the US election, the decision by the IDF to launch a strike now indicates that Washington and its allies are entering into a new phase of their conflict with the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

More »

Philip Giraldi

The silhouette of U.S. President Barack Obama is seen as he
sits in the back of the Marine One helicopter, landing on the
South Lawn of the White House in Washington.

Outside of websites such as Antiwar.com, there has been remarkably little commentary over the issue of the White House–managed kill lists, which played no part in the election but will nevertheless continue to be a keystone of security policy in the new administration in Washington. Details on how the lists were developed and maintained surfaced in the media on Oct. 23 in an article in the Washington Post which described how the White House has decided that targeted assassinations will continue to be necessary for the next decade. The article provoked some negative commentary in the usual places, but little in the way of genuine outrage. In a saner world, one might even have expected that extralegal targeted killing could have been used in a partisan fashion by the Republicans to highlight Obama’s dismantling of constitutional and legal protections, but Mitt Romney voiced nary a word of criticism, suggesting that he too sees death by government fiat as an essential tool against terrorism and approves of what the president is doing.

The assassination by drone and special ops teams was a program initiated by President George W. Bush but it appears that it was not actually made operational until a former community organizer who promised change named Barack Obama entered the White House. Citing the difficulty of dealing with the Guantanamo prisoners, Obama apparently determined that it would be better to kill possible terrorists than to go through the tactical complications and extra expense entailed in trying to detain them and risk a trial in a court of law.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Some observers call Washington a city of scandals. Lots of intrigue reflects daily life in the nation's capital. Elected and appointed officials come and go. Most often it's uneventful. Other times once powerful figures fell from grace or scandals affecting them rose to the level of affixing a "gate" suffix on what happened. Watergate, Whitewatergate, Iran/Contragate, Koreagate, Travelgate, and Troopergate among others come to mind. Perhaps Petraeusgate will enter the lexicon of political scandals. You read it here first.

Forget resignation over extramarital sex nonsense unless state secrets were compromised. Lots of elected and appointed Washington officials had affairs. Many likely have current ones. Resignations don't generally follow. Newt Gingrich survived sex and ethics scandals. He resigned as House Speaker after the Republicans faired poorly in 1998 off-year elections. In 1999, extramarital sex defrocked Speaker-elect Bob Livingstone. He could have stayed, but opted to become a high-paid DC lobbyist. Extramarital affairs didn't defrock past notable officials. They included Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Buchanan, Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower (during WW II), Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Bill Clinton. Unconfirmed rumors also surfaced about GHW and GW Bush. Jimmy Carter once admitted to having "lusted in his heart," but never let it go further than that.

More »

Yvonne Ridley

Israel squirms and wriggles like a worm on a fishhook over the Turkish trial into the deaths of nine unarmed humanitarian aid volunteers on board a ship bound for Gaza.

Tel Aviv has called the hearing in Istanbul a "show trial" with no legal foundation or meaning at all since, rather predictably, the four military commanders at the centre of the brutal air and seaborne assault are being tried in absentia.

In a 144-page indictment, the four stand accused of inciting murder and injury, and prosecutors are seeking multiple life sentences for the top brass group which includes the former Israeli military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

I sat and listened in a hushed courtroom as the trial opened on the first day with a number of survivors recounting the military assault on their aid flotilla in May 2010 bound for besieged Gaza.

They came from around the world and included a former US Army colonel, journalists and peace activists who witnessed the massacre onboard the Mavi Marmara.

They told how live ammunition was fired at them killing nine and injuring countless more; how hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, laptops, credit cards and other valuables were stolen never to be seen again.

More »

Nahida Izzat

RE: The Return of Ali Abu-Fighter - Ali Abunimah, the Chicago-based, American-Palestinian activist, is, once again, on the attack. In the last few months he has launched campaigns against some of the most prominent pro-Palestinian figures such as Prof. Finkelstein, Prof. Chomsky, Greta Berlin, Col. Ann Wright and myself. But now he seems to stepping one gear up. - Gilad Atzmon

Through many years of work with Palestine solidarity, I came to realize that the movement is heavily infiltrated by Jewish (Zionist and anti-Zionist) activists[*], thus affecting at core level the path, aims and strategy of the movement. They also have managed to influence many in the movement including some Palestinian "intellectuals".

Through this infiltration they were able to obliterate the concept of LIBERATION and remove it completely from the vocabulary.

Some other consequences of allowing such element at the heart of solidarity is their STEERING the movement towards a favourable position when dealing with "israeli"-Jews.

They aim to block intellectual discussion, suppress Academic Freedom, obstruct rational and scholarly debate, filter vital information and smother serious research that examines four main identifiable problems:

1) The problem of the ideology of Jewish supremacism (by accusation of anti-Semitism)
2) The problem of global Jewish-Zionist networking and lobbying. (by accusation of anti-Semitism)
3) The problem of idolizing the Holocaust (which is used as a tool to further Zionists aims) (by accusation of Holocaust denial)
4) The problem of manipulating world policies through False-Flag operations. (by accusation of being a conspiracy theorist)

More »

Eric Peters

Strong passions have to be released somehow. Else, they might erupt in unpredictable ways. The state understands this – and desires that strong passions be released in a harmless way – to the state that is.

Enter the modern, near universal obsession – in particular, the male obsession – with football and organized, mass spectacle sports generally. These things are the actualization of the fictional Two Minutes’ Hate in Orwell’s 1984.

A means by which the passions – the frustrations and anger of men in particular – are diverted and dissipated. In order that they aren’t directed at anything actually important – such as the ever-increasing control exercised over men by the state. The stifling of independent action, the punishment of deviation from any official orthodoxy… and most of all, the relentless suppression of independent judgment and self-reliance. The systematic thwarting, simply put – of a normal man’s inclination to be a man.

The average man has virtually no real control over his life in modern America. He must Submit and Obey at every turn, from the moment he awakes to the moment he lays his head down on the pillow at night. He must never raise his voice, at work or in public. He must avoid confrontation at all costs. (This lesson, in particular, is really being hammered home to today’s boys – who are told in no uncertain terms by the authorities that they cannot even defend themselves when attacked by a bully. And the boys’ fathers are told they must teach them to accept this.)

He stews in silent, impotent fury as a cop half his age lectures him about “buckling up for safety” in front of his kids. Or as he submits to having his wife and kids get fondled by useless-eater (and probably pedophilic) blue-shirted poltroons at the airport. He must put up with being told what to do – and even worse, what not to do – by smarmy little busybodies, stretchpants-wearing females. From the Parent-Teacher Association to the Department of Motor Vehicles to the Home Owners Association, he is hectored and hemmed in at every turn.

More »