John W. Whitehead

“Of all the tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.”
— C.S. Lewis

Caught up in the televised drama of a military-style manhunt for the suspects in the Boston Marathon explosion, most Americans fail to realize that the world around them has been suddenly and jarringly shifted off its axis, that axis being the U.S. Constitution.

For those like myself who have studied emerging police states, the sight of a city placed under martial law—its citizens under house arrest (officials used the Orwellian phrase “shelter in place” to describe the mandatory lockdown), military-style helicopters equipped with thermal imaging devices buzzing the skies, tanks and armored vehicles on the streets, and snipers perched on rooftops, while thousands of black-garbed police swarmed the streets and SWAT teams carried out house-to-house searches in search of two young and seemingly unlikely bombing suspects—leaves us in a growing state of unease.

Mind you, these are no longer warning signs of a steadily encroaching police state. The police state has arrived.

Equally unnerving is the ease with which Americans welcomed the city-wide lockdown, the routine invasion of their privacy, and the dismantling of every constitutional right intended to serve as a bulwark against government abuses. Watching it unfold, I couldn’t help but think of Nazi Field Marshal Hermann Goering’s remarks during the Nuremberg trials. As Goering noted:

It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.

As the events in Boston have made clear, it does indeed work the same in every country. The same propaganda and police state tactics that worked for Adolf Hitler 80 years ago continue to be employed with great success in a post-9/11 America.

More »

Bill Van Auken

Navy Seal/Craft operative working for the Govern-
ment in a what in reality was a military exercise in
preparation for a full-fledged dictatorship. - We're
supposed to believe the corporate media's fairytales
about "terrorists". We're not supposed to understand
where all this is headed. - Until it's too late. (Editor)

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, was formally charged Monday with use of and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, a federal offense that carries the death penalty.

The twin bombings of April 15 killed three people and wounded over 170 more. The other suspect in the bombings, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother Tamerlan, died after a shootout with police.

A federal judge was brought to Tsarnaev’s hospital bed along with an assistant US attorney and a public defender for the formal presentation of the charges. Tsarnaev, who suffered multiple wounds before his capture last Friday, remains in serious condition, on a ventilator and under sedation. He is reportedly unable to verbally communicate because of a gunshot wound to the throat.

With one brother dead and the other wounded so he cannot speak, there is no one to contradict the official story that the two operated alone and without any knowledge of US intelligence agencies.

The hospital hearing marked the first time since his capture that Tsarnaev, a US citizen, has seen a lawyer. The Obama administration announced its intention not to read him his Miranda rights to remain silent and be represented by an attorney on the pretext of a “public safety” exemption, even though law enforcement officials in Boston assured the public that they were in no further danger. This gave an FBI-CIA interrogation team unfettered access to Tsarnaev, who was reportedly able to respond only by moving his head or writing down answers.

More »

Adnan Al-Daini

Pigs, marabou storks and human scavengers compete for food waste
at Dandora dump on the outskirts of Nairobi. (Photo: AlertNet)

"Waste not, want not." - How does the human race measure up to this wise saying when it comes to one of the essentials of life, food?

Not well, it seems. Research by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, reported in the Guardian, found that between 30% and 50% of all the food produced in the world, equivalent to 1.2 to 2bn tonnes, never makes it to a plate and ends up as waste every year. Reasons for this colossal waste are given:

“Unnecessarily strict sell-by dates, buy-one-get-one free and western consumer demand for cosmetically perfect food, along with poor engineering and agricultural practices, inadequate infrastructure and poor storage facilities…In the UK as much as 30% of vegetable crops are not harvested due to their failure to meet retailers' exacting standards on physical appearance, while up to half of the food that is bought in Europe and the US is thrown away by consumers.”

A report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations estimates that per capita food waste in the US and northern Europe is 95-115 kg/year while in sub Saharan Africa and south/south East Asia it is 6-11 kg/year. What a scandalous waste of resources! Lest we forget, the energy needed to produce and distribute this staggering amount of wasted food comes overwhelmingly from burning fossil fuels, with greenhouse gas emissions exacerbating global warming.

More »

Barry Grey

“We’ve only been showing the feeds that authorities are comfortable with.” ― Chris Cuomo, CNN

With the imposition of a state of siege in Boston, a historical threshold has been crossed. For the first time ever, a major American city has been placed under the equivalent of martial law. The already frayed veneer of a stable democracy based on constitutional principles is in shreds.

On Monday, April 15, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in the city’s center. Three people were killed and over 170 were injured, some seriously. This was a criminal act with tragic consequences. But violence, including acts of mass homicide and disasters resulting in major loss of life, is a regular feature of American society. Even as the events in Boston were unfolding, a factory explosion in Texas, to all appearances linked to safety hazards, took far more lives than the bombs detonated at the end of the marathon.

There is no precedent for the massive mobilization of military, police and intelligence forces carried out April 19 in Boston and its environs, which encompass more than 1 million people. Thousands of heavily armed police and National Guard troops occupied the streets, backed up by machine gun-mounted armored vehicles, Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters. As the WSWS noted, the scene resembled the US occupation of Baghdad.

More »

Pepe Escobar

Private military operatives hired to 'work' the Boston marathon
with black backpacks, radiation detectors, tactical gear. (NN)

The writing is on the (bloody) wall. The final vestiges of the rule of law are disappearing.

The Boston bombing was major blowback. That much is certain. The question is, what level of blowback?

It could have been a covert op gone real bad. It could have been blowback from former ''freedom fighters'' - in this case ethnic Chechens - reconverted into terra-rists. It could have been straight blowback for United States foreign policy targeting Muslims, whether dispatching them to Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib or Bagram, extraordinarily renditioning them, or target assassinating them.

The FBI, predictably, is not admitting any of these three options. It sticks to a convoluted screenplay worthy of those cocaine-fueled Hollywood nights in the 1980s; a couple of bad guys who ''hate our freedoms'' because...they do.

As I've written elsewhere in a sort of preamble for this article, there are inter-galactic holes in the story of the Tsarnaev brothers. Now we also know - via their mother - that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was monitoring elder brother Tamerlan for at least five years. In a subsequent interview to CNN's Piers Morgan, the mother actually talked, significantly, about ''counseling''.

At the same time, the FBI was forced to admit it had in early 2011 accepted a ''foreign government'' (code for Russia) request to take a closer look on Tamerlan. This, apparently, they did - and found nothing terrorist activity-worthy.

So what happened afterwards? Some IQ above 50 in the FBI must have noticed they now had access to a precious Chechen-American asset. So Tamerlan became an FBI informant. They could play him like a fiddle - like so many patsies before.

More »

Stephen Lendman

False flags are an American tradition. They go way back. The Boston bombings appear the latest. - Notable earlier false flags or incidents approximating them include:

■ In 1845, America lawlessly annexed Texas. It was Mexican territory. President James Polk deployed US troops. A future president led them. General Zachary Taylor paraded them along the disputed border. In May 1846, Polk told cabinet officials that if Mexican forces retaliated, he'd ask Congress to declare war. He wanted it whether or not Mexico attacked. After an incident occurred, Polk told Congress: "Mexico has passed the boundary of the US and shed American blood on American soil." The Mexican War followed. Half of Mexico was annexed. Included were California, Utah, Nevada, as well as parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming and Colorado. The Rio Grande became the Texas-Mexico border.

■ In 1898, Cubans neared freeing themselves from Spanish colonial rule. US President William McKinley promised to respect its sovereignty. In January 1898, the USS Maine entered Havana harbor. Allegedly it was to protect US Consul Fitzhugh Lee and other American citizens. On February 15, a huge explosion sank the Maine. Doing so killed 266 crew members. The Spanish-American war followed. At the time, publisher William Randolph Hearst hyped the big lie. He claimed Spain sunk the Maine. An internal coal bunker explosion caused it. Notably Hearst told his Havana illustrator: "You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war." Big lies launch them. Doing so enlists public support. America became Cuba's colonial power. The Philippines, Guam, Samoa, Hawaii, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Canal Zone, Puerto Rico and other territories were annexed.

More »

Paul Craig Roberts

“Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city,
And it will be a ruinous heap." (Isaiah 17: 1)

The United States government has been at war for eleven years. The US military destroyed Iraq, leaving the country and millions of lives in ruins and releasing sectarian blood-letting that had been kept in check by the secular Saddam Hussein government. On any given day in “liberated” Iraq, the death toll is as high as during the height of the US attempted occupation.

In Afghanistan eleven years of US attempted occupation has had no more success than a decade of Soviet occupation. The Afghans are still not worn down despite more than two decades of war with the two superpowers. Like the Soviets, the Americans have managed to kill many women, children, and village elders, but precious few warriors. In place of the Soviet puppet government there is Washington’s puppet government. That is the only change, and Washington’s puppet is no more secure than the Soviet one was.

In Libya, Washington used its corrupt NATO puppets and CIA-recruited bandits to overthrow another stable government, that of Muammar Gaddafi, leaving Libya mired in sectarian violence. A stable prosperous country has simply been destroyed by western governments that profess human rights values and condemn China and Russia for not having any.

Washington has also been killing civilians with drones and air strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, two countries with which Washington is not at war but has purchased the governments, paying the Pakistani and Yemeni governments for the right to murder their citizens and destabilizing both countries in the process. And now in Syria Washington is at work destroying another stable secular government headed by a British trained eye doctor.

More »

Daniel Denvir

If you thought you knew all there was to know about the Vietnam War, you were wrong. For example: ever heard of the "Mere Gook Rule," a code of conduct the US military came up with in order to make it easier for soldiers to murder Vietnamese civilians without feeling too bad about it? ("It's only a mere gook you're killing!")

Well, few people knew about this bit of history either until author Nick Turse discovered it in secret US military archives, which he used as the primary sources for his new(ish) book, Kill Everything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam. The book is based on Turse's discovery of theretofore secret internal military investigations of US-perpetrated atrocities alongside extensive reporting in Vietnam and among American veterans, and it reminds us that the most significant fact about the Vietnam War is its most overlooked: massive and devastating Vietnamese civilian suffering.

The debate over the US's war in Vietnam continues to hang over this country's most recent and techno-futuristic imperial adventures. Nick's book makes for timely if extraordinarily painful reading, and I sat down with him recently to talk about the ongoing relevance of Vietnam, massacres, and secretly photocopying whole US government archives.

VICE: Your book documents how the American war in Vietnam was a fight systemically waged against the civilian population. How does this account that you documented differ from the Vietnam war as it's popularly remembered in the United States today?

Nick Turse: We have 30,000 books in print on the Vietnam War, and most of them deal with the American experience. They focus on American soldiers, on strategy, tactics, generals, or diplomacy out of Washington and the war managers there. But I didn't see any that really attempted to tell the complete story of what I came to see as the signature aspect of the conflict, which was Vietnamese civilian suffering. Millions of Vietnamese were killed, wounded, or made refugees by deliberate US policies, like the almost unrestrained bombing and artillery shelling across wide swaths of the countryside. That is, deliberate policies dictated at the highest levels of the US military. But any discussion of Vietnamese civilian suffering is condensed down to a couple pages or paragraphs on the massacre at My Lai.

More »

Bill Van Auken

Obama does not care to ponder what underlies the bloody events from Tucson, to Aurora, to Newtown to Boston. Any serious examination going beyond incomprehensible “evil” would inevitably involve an indictment of himself, his government and the social order over which he presides.

Three days after the bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 170 at the Boston Marathon, President Barack Obama flew to Boston to deliver a speech at an interfaith service for the victims and survivors.

This marks the fifth time that Obama has delivered such an address following mass killings, beginning with Fort Hood, Texas in November of 2009 and including Tucson, Arizona in January 2011, Aurora, Colorado in July 2012 and Newtown, Connecticut last December.

The corporate media, which has cynically dubbed Obama the “consoler-in-chief,” hailed his latest speech as “inspiring,” “powerful” and “moving.” It was all they wanted to hear and in no way conflicted with their efforts to frame the events in Boston within the reactionary narrative of the “war on terrorism,” turning them into another justification for war abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.

In reality, it was painfully evident that Obama was working off of a template, engaged in a national ritual that is utterly routine, banal and insincere. Almost invariably, he begins these speeches by invoking “scripture.”

More »

Stephen Lendman

Canadian psychiatrist Robert Hare analyzes psychopathic behavior. He does so clinically. He believes about 1% of the general population is insane. So are 10% of Wall Street employees. Hare states:

"There is a class of individuals who have been around forever and who are found in every race, culture, society and walk of life." "Everybody has met these people, been deceived and manipulated by them, and forced to live with or repair the damage they have wrought." "These often charming - but always deadly - individuals have a clinical name: psychopaths." "Their hallmark is a stunning lack of conscience; their game is self-gratification at the other person’s expense. Many spend time in prison, but many do not. All take far more than they give." "The most obvious expressions of psychopathy - but not the only ones - involve the flagrant violation of society’s rules." "Not surprisingly, many psychopaths are criminals, but many others manage to remain out of prison, using their charm and chameleon-like coloration to cut a wide swathe through society, leaving a wake of ruined lives behind them." "(I)f we can't spot them, we are doomed to be their victims, both as individuals and as a society."

More »

Alex Lantier

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he and President Barack
Obama are wary of intervening in Syria just as U.S. forces are
trying to withdraw from 12 years of war in Afghanistan...

“We saw their humanitarian intervention in Iraq, in Libya, and now we see it in Syria.” - Bashar al-Assad

In testimony before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee on Wednesday, top US defense officials announced that they are deploying 200 troops of the 1st Armored Division to Jordan. They will establish headquarters near the Syrian-Jordanian border and plan for a rapid build-up, involving 20,000 or more US troops, awaiting orders from the White House to invade Syria.

A US invasion force would reportedly include Special Forces troops and regular units preparing for operations inside Syria, as well as air defense units guarding against possible retaliatory Syrian air strikes on Jordan.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the Senate committee that these deployments are part of “robust military planning for a range of contingencies,” carried out by the United States and its European and Middle Eastern allies.

At the same time, Washington is carrying out an international diplomatic offensive setting the stage for war with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad. The topic of US military operations against Syria will reportedly be on the agenda of US Secretary of State John Kerry’s discussions in Turkey this weekend, of General Martin Dempsey’s talks with Chinese officials next week, and of Hagel’s upcoming talks with military officials in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates.

As US officials admitted, invading Syria would likely involve the United States in a regional war throughout the Middle East. Hagel said that a US intervention in Syria “could have the unintended consequence of bringing the United States into a broader regional conflict or proxy war.” He noted that this “could embroil the US in a significant, lengthy, and uncertain military commitment.”

More »

Pepe Escobar

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani (L), Emir of Qatar, key backer
of Syrian opposition, shakes hands with United Nations Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon before their meeting on September 25 dur-
ing the General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York.

[Article originally published on Sep. 28, 2012]

Make no mistake - the Emir of Qatar is on a roll

What an entrance at the UN General Assembly in New York; Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani called for an Arab coalition of the willing-style invasion of Syria, no less. [1]

In the words of the Emir, "It is better for the Arab countries themselves to interfere out of their national, humanitarian, political and military duties, and to do what is necessary to stop the bloodshed in Syria." He stressed Arab countries had a "military duty" to invade.

What he means by "Arab countries" is the petromonarchies of the Gulf Counter-Revolution Club (GCC), previously known as Gulf Cooperation Council - with implicit help from Turkey, with which the GCC has a wide-ranging strategic agreement. Every shisha house in the Middle East knows that Doha, Riyadh and Ankara have been weaponizing/financing/providing logistical help to the various strands of the armed Syrian opposition engaged in regime change.

The Emir even quoted a "similar precedent" for an invasion, when "Arab forces intervened in Lebanon" in the 1970s. By the way, during a great deal of the 1970s the Emir himself was engaged in more mundane interventions, such as letting his hair down alongside other Gulf royals in select Club Med destinations.

So is the Emir now preaching an Arab version of the R2P ("responsibility to protect") doctrine advanced by The Three Graces of Humanitarian Intervention (Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice and Samantha Power)?

This is certainly bound to go down well in Washington - not to mention Ankara and even Paris, considering French president Francois Hollande has just called for UN protection of "liberated zones" in Syria.

More »

Paul Craig Roberts

Yen firms, investors dump gold and crude. Cash gold and U.S.
gold futures plunged to their weakest in over two years, pulling
silver lower and dragging Tokyo gold futures down almost 10 %.

Paul Craig Roberts: Assault On Gold - Update
Paul Craig Roberts: The Assault On Gold

■ Tuesday, April 16. The orchestrated attack on bullion in the paper gold market took the spot prices of gold and silver down on Friday and Monday, but actual physical purchases rose during this period. The sales were of paper claims, not of real metal.

■ The demand for physical possession of bullion rose so strongly that large wholesalers such as www.tulving.com and large retailers such as Gainesville Coins reported sold out items. Also, dealers raised the premiums above the spot price that is charged for coins. From Friday to Monday the premium on Silver Eagles at the large online retailer, Gainesville Coins, rose from $3.75 to $5.99 above the spot price of silver. The percentage increase in premium was larger than the percentage decline in the silver price. Thus, the price of a silver one Troy ounce coin did not drop despite the drop in the spot price. Today (April 16) the price of a silver eagle purchased with a credit card from retailer Gainesville Coins is $30.36. You would never know that the market had fallen out.

■ Today (Tuesday, April 16) Tulving reported 29% of its bar and coin bullion categories sold out and had almost no silver coin stock. The premium over spot on new gold eagles was $63.95. At large online retailers the premium was $71. Gainesville Coins has no silver Buffalos and lists shipment of orders to commence when coins are available, estimated to be May 10.

What I am reporting are facts, not a theory. We have just had two days of massive sales of paper claims on bullion, but during these days when the price of gold and silver collapsed under short sales, it was difficult to get your hands on the metal itself. On telephone orders you wait in long queues to place an order and are told that delivery awaits availability.

Listening to the media and to academic economists such as Paul Krugman, you would think no one any longer wants gold and silver. But try getting your hands on some.

More »

Stephen Lendman

On April 17, major media reported Obama and Senator Roger Wicker (R. MI) receiving letters containing suspicious substances. Both letters had similar markings. A separate report said Senator Richard Shelby (R. AL) received a suspicious package. Parts of Senate office buildings were cleared. FBI testing continues. Initial evaluations confirmed ricin. A subsequent statement reported "inconsistent results." Further analysis is being conducted. Ricin is poisonous if inhaled, injected or ingested. It's deadliest if inhaled. It's potentially lethal. It's not contagious. There's no antidote.

Around midday April 17, the FBI's National Press Office headlined "FBI Response to Reports of Suspicious Letters Received at Mail Facilities," saying:

"A second letter containing a granular substance that preliminarily tested positive for ricin was received at an offsite mail screening facility." "The envelope, addressed to the President, was immediately quarantined by US Secret Service personnel, and a coordinated investigation with the FBI was initiated." "It is important to note that operations at the White House have not been affected as a result of the investigation." "Additionally, filters at a second government mail screening facility preliminarily tested positive for ricin this morning. Mail from that facility is being tested." "Any time suspicious powder is located in a mail facility, field tests are conducted. The field and other preliminary tests can produce inconsistent results." " Any time field tests indicate the possibility of a biological agent, the material is sent to an accredited laboratory for further analysis." "Only a full analysis performed at an accredited laboratory can determine the presence of a biological agent such as ricin. Those tests are currently being conducted and generally take 24 to 48 hours." "The investigation into these letters remains ongoing, and more letters may still be received. There is no indication of a connection to the attack in Boston."

Investigations remain ongoing. Senator Claire McCaskill (D. MO) said police have a suspect. "The person that is a suspect writes a lot of letters to members," she said. Reports now say an arrest was made. Another one contradicted it. Perhaps one is imminent.

More »

Adnan Al-Daini

How does one assess the cuts to the welfare safety net? Let us, for the sake of argument, put aside whether cutting the deficit should be the priority in the depths of a recession. The argument of the government seems to be (a) we must make work pay and (b) there is no alternative.

Making work pay could be achieved by a number of actions: raising the minimum wage for example, restoring the 10p tax band at the bottom to be paid for by restoring the 50p tax band, and introducing a higher band at the top. It is not right that the method chosen to make it appear that work pays is to cut the welfare safety net to the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

Over 10 years up to 2012 executive pay trebled despite the double dip recession and the economic crash of 2008, with the average pay of chief executives of Britain's top companies at £4.8m, equivalent to 148 times the average wage. It is this skewed system of rewards that is keeping wages low, with taxpayers having to supplement the income of the working poor for them to survive. These in-work benefits, together with pension, constitute a substantial share of the welfare bill.

The in-work benefits are tantamount to a taxpayer's subsidy to enable those at the top of the income pyramid to receive such inflated salaries. How wrong can that be? The taxation system should be used to try and narrow the income and wealth gap between the very rich and the rest of society. Certainly there is a strong case for that.

More »