Stephen Lendman

For nearly two years, Washington waged terror war on Syria. Death squad proxies are used. They recruited largely from regional countries. Some come from Europe. America supplies small numbers. They invaded Syria. They want Assad toppled, so they say. They're manipulated to believe he must go. They want Islamic extremism replacing secular governance. They're reigning terror on defenseless people to achieve it. Assad loyalists are targeted. Scores die daily. No one's sure how many. For sure it's many thousands.

On January 16, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) headlined "Foreign and Expatriates Ministry Calls on UN and UNSC Member States to Condemn Massacre against Aleppo University Students and Terrorist Crimes in Syria." Students, employees, and others seeking refuge were slaughtered or injured. At least 87 died. Another 150 or more were injured. On January 15, terrorist rockets struck. A university dormitory was targeted. It was used as a shelter. Terrorists bombarded it. They've committed numerous other similar attacks and atrocities throughout the country. SANA said 2,362 schools were destroyed. Many innocent children and teachers were killed.

Washington and supportive Security Council members don't condemn terrorism. Nor does the UN Human Rights Council. It said nothing about Monday's attack. It blames Assad for death squad crimes. It's done it throughout the conflict. It's complicit in Washington's war on Syria.

SANA called on Security Council and other UN member states to condemn terrorist crimes. It wants Aleppo martyrs recognized. It wants guilty parties held responsible. There's "no excuse for states which are practicing double standards and supporting terrorism in Syria while they condemn it" elsewhere. Hypocrisy defines Washington's agenda. Complicit NATO partners and regional allies share guilt. Conflict shows no signs of ending.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Why do some of us turn into intolerant, unforgiving monsters once we're driving a car?

Some time ago, on a rainy day, I was driving to a meeting. I approached a roundabout thinking I was going straight on, then I suddenly realised I should actually be turning left.

Glancing to my left, making sure there was no vehicle, I indicated and moved to the left lane. Looking in my rear view mirror I could see that the driver behind me had had to slow down. I put up my hand in apology and acknowledgement that it was entirely my fault. He then started driving aggressively, flashing his headlights and tailgating my car, and I could see in my rear view mirror that he was furious.

Thinking that he was either going to ram my car or cause an accident with his erratic driving, I took the first available left turning, which turned out to be the empty car park of an official looking building, hoping he would carry on and leave me alone. To my horror he followed me into the car park. There was no option for me but to stop. I stopped, opened the car door and sat waiting for him.

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Eric Peters

"A Fish Rots from the Head Down" (Etching by Michael Goro)

They come to understand that they can be the ones exercising this authority. This lawful violence. All they have to do is get elected – or appointed – and they will acquire the legal power to order other people around.

America is a violent place. But I don’t mean the much-discussed shootings – which are both sporadic and incidental. No, the real violence is invisible because it is all around us – routinized and legalized to such an extent that most of us hardly take notice of it anymore. But nonetheless, it has corroded our souls – and some of these souls lash out in ways that differ from the acceptable way – that is, via the ballot box – but which when you stop to think about it express the same ugly ethics: Other people’s lives are my playthings. And, expendable.

Are you more of a victim if you are murdered by an Adam Lanza – than if by the thug scrum sent by the government to do exactly the same thing? If anything, Lanza’s motives were purer, more honest. He cut to the chase without all the intermediate foolishness. Such as “you owe” letters from the county (or federal) tax thugs. In both cases, aggressive violence against peaceful people is the common thread. The only difference is the preliminaries.

My statement will chafe in some quarters precisely because of the near-totality of the conditioning of this country’s people to the idea of acceptable aggressive violence. It is considered – by most people – perfectly ok to restrict the liberty of another human being or deprive him of his property so that it may be given to others . . . via the ethical alchemy of the ballot box. Hey, presto! Theft and extortion become 'taxes', 'paying your fair share'. Kidnapping at gunpoint becomes 'arrest' – and your execution (if you attempt to defend yourself) 'resisting arrest'. All nice and lawful.

But aggressively violent, just the same. Process does not obviate the violence – it merely masks it. Makes it palatable by evasion – in much the way that sauces were originally invented as a way to cover up the taste of spoiled food. But the rot remains – and it poisons all who partake of it.

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Stephen Lendman

Israel is a rogue terror state. It has no enemies. It invents them and pretends.

Israel threatens world peace and security. It's a global menace. The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAZN) is unequivocal. Its new pamphlet headlined "Israel's Worldwide Role in Repression." It discusses...

"...the role of Israel’s government, its military, and related corporations and organizations in a global industry of violence and repression." "The states most involved with this industry profit from perpetual war and occupation across the globe while maintaining vastly unequal societies of their own." "Maintaining and expanding" Israeli colonization of Palestine requires regional ethnic cleansing, military repression, and "accompanying atrocities." Israel "developed great expertise." It exports it "on an industrial scale. Doing so is crucial to its economic and political power."

It partners with Washington's crimes. It collaborates with the worst of regional despots. It's waging war on Palestine, other world communities, and popular movements.

Allied with America and other Western states, it seeks regional dominance and resource control. It wants its share of what Franklin Roosevelt's State Department called a "stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history." It referred to Saudi oil. Regional control is now sought.

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Naomi Spencer

"[A large amount of] ammunition has been solicited by the DHS. Within the next 4 years, they expect to acquire 200,000 million rounds of .223 rifle bullets. For training snipers, DHS have ordered two types of .308 caliber rounds – blanks and 168 grain hollow point boat tail ammunition. This new purchase adds to the 1.8 billion rounds of ammunition they have solicited for months in preparation for...something." (Susanne Posel)

Flanked by schoolchildren to evoke the December 14 Newtown, Connecticut school shooting, President Barack Obama announced a raft of gun control proposals Wednesday. In addition to legislative proposals for Congress, Obama signed 23 executive orders during a news conference at the White House.

The plan, drawn up by a task force headed by Vice President Joseph Biden, includes the expansion of FBI databases to include background checks on all individuals seeking to purchase a gun and a ban on military-style assault weapons.

Since the tragic tragic mass shooting by 20-year old Adam Lanza, including the killing of 20 children, nothing has been said in the political establishment and mass media about the underlying causes of such actions: social dislocation, inequality and above all the militarization of American society.

On the contrary, the new gun control measures are primarily aimed at expanding the powers of the state over an increasingly polarized and unstable society.

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Jon Rappoport

Weapons are being fired all the time on television, but that happens on cop shows. Network programmers know the public will obsessively watch guns going off and bodies falling. On the news, however, the issue of gun ownership is adjudicated independently of the glee that accompanies watching fictional people kill each other. When it’s fantasy, the audience wants violence. When it’s real, the audience wants no violence. Dealing with this schizoid condition would be a problem for the networks, were it not for the fact that there is a bridge between the two states of mind: “The good guys win.”

They win in every episode of every cop show. They always have. Decades of this operant conditioning lead the audience to expect it will happen in real life, where crime and guns and cops are involved. So in the wake of Sandy Hook, for the public, the resolution must belong to the cops. The idea that it might somehow belong to private citizens doesn’t sit right. The cops win by controlling the guns. For the television-watching public, that fits. It makes sense.

In every crime series, the guns of the cops turn out to be superior to those of the criminals…so to speak. And in real life, it translates into: take the guns from private citizens. Make the good guys win.

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Stephen Lendman

Little man asks for big gifts: Millions stand behind me!

Worse than ever times loom. They've been planning it for decades. — Destroying America's social contract. Third-worldizing America. Neo-serfdom is coming.

Throughout his tenure, Obama's done what supporters thought impossible. He's governed to the right of George Bush. He mocks rule of law principles and other democratic values. He prioritizes wars on humanity. He's waging multiple direct and proxy ones. War on terror subterfuge disguises them. He plans more. He's sending US special forces to 35 African countries. They already infest most others. CIA elements operate everywhere. They come to destabilize and disrupt, not help.

France attacked Mali. Obama offered support. Ravaging another another northern African country is planned. Expect others to follow. Obama prioritizes replacing independent governments with pro-Western puppet ones. He mocks legitimate governance. He challenges Russia's military strength. He targets China's growing economic might. At the same time, he's in bed with rogue Israeli governance. He supports some of the most ruthless corrupt tyrants.

He's economically and socially destructive at home. He spurns popular interests. He looted the nation's wealth. He wrecked the economy. He consigned growing millions to impoverishment without jobs. He institutionalized tyranny. He targets dissenters. Challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or abuse of power lawlessness endangers anyone who tries. He's a con man. After all the harm he caused, half the country still supports him. He gets away with murder and much more.

Most people haven't a clue. They're out of touch. They don't understand what harms them. They ignore their own welfare. Some perhaps don't care. Others are dismissive. They know more about bread and circuses than vital major issues to address. Obama takes full advantage.

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Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian

A Jewish “Israeli” man messaged me to inquire why am I opposed to the idea of what he calls “vote-switching”. This is my response.

The idea of “vote giving” is a pathetic one, in so far that it is primarily ineffective, and what is more it gives YOU, “Israeli” Jews, the impression that YOU are being “helpful” and “generous” by “giving” us “something”, on the other hand it stages Palestinians in the most undignified position at the receiving end of the occupier’s “charitable” deed. While in reality it is mere vacuous bubble, smoke in the air:

1) It gives the fake impression of legitimacy to an entity which is in reality ILLEGITIMATE, an attempt to “beautify” and “democratize” that which is heinously ugly and fundamentally undemocratic.

2) It is a form of normalization, where Palestinians under occupation and in exile are hoodwinked to believe that “they are voting”, when in reality they are “voting” in a system and for a system that is oppressing them.

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Jon Rappoport

Unit 28, solitary/isolation units at Camarillo State Mental Hospital.
This ward was built in 1937. There were many incidents of patients
dying in restraints, heavily drugged, left alone in these rooms.

Coming to your neighborhood.

It’s a done deal. — Governor Cuomo, along with Democrat and Republican legislators, is ramming through a bill to restrict gun ownership, re-classify weapons in order to ban them—and, in a far-reaching move, create psychiatrists as cops who must report patients to law-enforcement, in order to keep the patients from owning a weapon. Psychiatrists must report patients “who could potentially harm themselves or others.” If such a patient owns a gun, it will be confiscated.

This means a comprehensive data base, accessible by law-enforcement personnel and anyone else involved in doing background checks These “problematic” patients will be kept from buying a new weapon, too. Otherwise, the law would have no teeth.

As usual, the devil is in the details. Psychiatrists will err on the side of caution and report many patients. No shrink wants to blink into television cameras after one of his patients has just shot his father.

Patients who want to own weapons will lie to psychiatrists about their thoughts and feelings, never admitting they’re considering suicide or murder. After such a murder, a psychiatrist will say: “He never said anything about killing anybody. Here, look at my notes. There’s nothing there.” For this and other reasons, such as the existence of the data base, doctor-patient confidentiality will go out the window.

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William T. Hathaway

"The Insurrection" by Barbara Alden Campbell (oil on canvas)

From the book
RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War
by William T. Hathaway

The long, flouncy curls from Judy Davis's cheerleader days are gone. Her straight blonde hair is now cut short. Large blue eyes stand out in a face pale without makeup. Her soft Southern drawl has an undertone of determination. "It's taken me awhile, but now I'm glad to be considered an 'unsuitable influence.' That was how the school board justified my firing. That and 'deviating from the curriculum.' It's like they were implying I was a deviant. And according to their norms, I am."

The twenty-nine-year-old was fired for teaching her high school students how US foreign policy has provoked terrorism. This struggle with her school board turned her from a Republican into a revolutionary for peace.

"I taught my tenth grade American history class about what the USA has done for decades in the countries in which we now have terrorism. We work with the local oligarchs there to keep the country under control for our economic advantage. We support dictators and also the kind of managed democracy we have in the USA, where the only political parties that have a chance are those aligned with business and the private ownership of resources. People in those countries are tired of being kept at the bottom. They're tired of CIA coups and assassinations of progressive leaders. So now they're defending themselves the only way they can. And they're getting pretty good at it.

"This was a lesson for my class in history but also in cause and effect, as I explained what has provoked so many people to such anger at the USA. But the effect on me was that I got fired and now apparently blacklisted.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Those concerned about “The New World Order” speak as if the United States is coming under the control of an outside conspiratorial force. In fact, it is the US that is the New World Order. That is what the American unipolar world, about which China, Russia, and Iran complain, is all about.

Washington has demonstrated that it has no respect for its own laws and Constitution, much less any respect for international law and the law and sovereignty of other countries. All that counts is Washington’s will as the pursuit of hegemony moves Washington closer to becoming a world dictator.

The examples are so numerous someone should compile them into a book. During the Reagan administration the long established bank secrecy laws of Switzerland had to bend to Washington’s will. The Clinton administration attacked Serbia, murdered civilians and sent Serbia’s president to be tried as a war criminal for defending his country. The US government engages in widespread spying on Europeans’ emails and telephone calls that is unrelated to terrorism. Julian Assange is confined to the Ecuadoran embassy in London, because Washington won’t permit the British government to honor his grant of political asylum. Washington refuses to comply with a writ of habeas corpus from a British count to turn over Yunus Rahmatullah whose detention a British Court of Appeals has ruled to be unlawful. Washington imposes sanctions on other countries and enforces them by cutting sovereign nations that do not comply out of the international payments system.

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Eric Peters

When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away. Ten minutes away, in the case of a home-invasion murder/rape that almost took place last week in Loganville, GA – and which would have taken place if Melinda Herman had depended on the state’s costumed goons for her safety. (See here.)

Instead, she depended on a handgun. The tool Dear Leader and his amen corner – Michael Bloomberg, Diane Feinstein, Piers Morgan, et al – would very much like to take out of everyone’s hands. - Except their hands, of course.

Herman was at home with her two young kids when a strange man came to the door and began repeatedly ringing the doorbell. He then went to his vehicle, returned, and broke into the house through a crawl space. Herman retreated to a bathroom with her children and by this time was on the phone with her husband, who called the 911 dispatcher – who proved as useful as a bailing bucket on Titanic. Herman’s gun was much more helpful.

As the creep closed in, bent on who-knows-what, Herman used her equalizer – the gun – to thwart the attack. She shot 32-year-old Paul Slater several times. He survived – unfortunately – and was later found by police.

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Stephen Lendman

Media scoundrels stopped short of truth and full disclosure. The Wall Street Journal headlined "An Internet Activist Commits Suicide." New York's medical examiner announced death by "hang(ing) himself in his Brooklyn apartment."

The New York Times headlined "Internet Activist, a Creator of RSS, Is Dead at 26, Apparently a Suicide."

Lingering suspicions remain. Why would someone with so much to give end it all this way? He was one of the Internet generation's best and brightest. He advocated online freedom. Selflessly he sought a better open world. Information should be freely available, he believed.

A legion of followers supported him globally. Alive he symbolized a vital struggle to pursue. Death may elevate him to martyr status but removes a key figure important to keep alive. He was an Internet folk hero. He supported online freedom and copyright reform. He advocated free and open web files. He championed a vital cause. He worked tirelessly for what's right.

Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle called him "steadfast in his dedication to building a better and open world. He is among the best spirits of the Internet generation." Who'll replace him now that he's gone? He called locking up the public domain sinful. He selflessly strove to prevent it.

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Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

German political pundit Dr. Christof Lehmann believes that the Doha conference failed to unite the Syrian opposition and there are many conflicting interests even among those nations who support the foreign backed opposition.

"The Doha Conference and the establishment of the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, SNCORF, was one more failed attempt to create a unified, politically and militarily credible opposition… The failure to create this opposition is not least caused by the fact that there exist considerable conflicts of interest between the US, UK, the PGCC members and Israel on one hand, and continental European EU member states and Turkey on the other," said Dr. Christof Lehmann in an interview with Fars News Agency.

Dr. Christof Lehmann is a German political pundit, analyst and author. He has been the advisor of many political figures and leaders across the world. He is also a practicing clinical psychologist and has been actively advocating Palestinians' right to statehood and self determination. He is the founder of NSNBC media collective and his writings have appeared on different online and print outlets such as China's The 4th Voice.

Christof Lehmann took part in an interview with Fars News Agency to discuss the latest developments in Syria, the failure of opposition groups to reach a consensus and the prospect of the 22-month crisis in the country. What follows is the text of the interview.

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Ernst Wolff and Alex Lantier

French aircraft and ground troops attacked Islamist rebel forces in northern Mali on Friday and over the weekend, while hundreds more French troops arrived in Mali’s capital Bamako.

Without even consulting the parliament, which will take up the issue today, French President François Hollande declared an open-ended war in Mali, ostensibly to help the Malian government fight Al Qaeda-linked forces among the rebels. He said the war would last “as long as necessary.”

The Islamist Ansar Dine militia reportedly threatened to overrun a major Malian government airfield in nearby Sévaré, which is considered vital for any military intervention in northern Mali. This militia has controlled much of northern Mali since last April, after Tuareg forces fleeing the NATO war in Libya forced weak and divided Malian government forces out of the northern part of the country. For months, France and its NATO allies have been planning war in Mali.

On Thursday, the rebels captured the village of Konna after heavy fighting with government forces. The French Air Force retaliated, striking Konna on Friday and killing approximately 100 people. A French helicopter pilot was reportedly killed by small arms fire, and 11 Malian soldiers fighting alongside the French were killed. French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Islamists were driven out of Konna but remained in the area after “intensive fighting.”

Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Bouamana told Al Jazeera, “The terrorist French military bombed Konna. The hospitals are now filled with the injured—women, children, and the elderly are the main victims. It’s impossible to know how many have been killed, but the number is huge. Only five of those killed were our fighters. The rest are all innocent civilians killed by the indiscriminate bombing of the French air forces.” Denying that his organization had ties to Al Qaeda, Bouamana added that Mali “will be the Afghanistan of the region, and France’s downfall.”

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