Stephen Lendman

The FBI murdered Ibragim Todashev and lied about it.

America does it wholesale and retail. Obama's wars increase body counts. They mount daily. Special forces death squads in over 120 countries add their own. So do covert CIA agents. They're licensed to kill. They do it globally. FBI assassins operate domestically. Doing so belies their "Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity" motto.

They don't prevent crimes. They aid and abet them. They commit them. They're political police. They subvert democratic values. They menace freedom. They're agents of repression.

They support wealth, power and privilege. They're state-sponsored terrorists. They kill with impunity. They were involved in the Boston Marathon bombings. The official story doesn't wash.

They and/or police killed Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He and his brother Dzhokhar were set up. They were convenient patsies. An image showed Tamerlan trying to surrender. He was lying prone with his arms outstretched. He held no weapon. None was near him. No blood was visible. He was murdered in cold blood. His body was riddled with bullets from head to toe.

Brother Dzhokhar perhaps also tried to surrender. Local and/or federal assassins tried to kill him. He was shot multiple times. A throat wound prevented him from speaking. He can now.

More »

Bill Van Auken

In a series of raids in the capital of Istanbul and in the southern provinces of Mersin, Adana and Hatay near the Syrian border, Turkish police rounded up 12 members of Syria’s Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front along with chemical weapons materials.

The Turkish media initially reported that police recovered four and a half pounds of sarin, the deadly never gas which had earlier been linked to chemical weapons attacks inside Syria.

While widely reported in the Turkish press, the arrests Wednesday have been virtually blacked out by the corporate media in the US. Newspapers like the New York Times, which have openly promoted a US intervention in Syria, citing alleged chemical weapons use by the regime of Bashar al-Assad as a pretext, have posted not a word about the raids in Turkey.

The daily newspaper Zaman reported that “the al-Nusra members had been planning a bomb attack for Thursday in [the Turkish city of] Adana but that the attack was averted when the police caught the suspects. Along with the sarin gas, the police seized a number of handguns, grenades, bullets and documents during their search.”

More »

Stephen Lendman

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks into Syria from
the Golan Heights in January 2013. (Photo: Kobi Gideon)

Stephen Lendman: Israel Threatens Russia

Self-defense is inviolable. It's a fundamental right. International law affirms it.

On May 29, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Washington supports Israel's right to defend itself. Israeli-style defense is offense. It hasn't been attacked in 40 years. It faces no regional threats now except ones it invents. It prioritizes violence, conflict and instability.

Syria is Washington's war. Israel's very much involved. It's arming US-enlisted death squads. It bombed Syrian targets. It did so lawlessly. It initiated other provocations. It threatens more attacks now.

Russia's supplying Syria with sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. They have every right to do so. They're for defense, not offense. Washington wants Syria defenseless. It maliciously calls self-defense belligerent and provocative. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell "condemn(ed) the continued supply of Russian weapons to the (Syrian) regime." He responded to Moscow affirming its S-300 missile sale. White House spokesman Jay Carney said doing so "does not bring us closer to the political transition that Syria deserves."

International law is unequivocal. Sovereign rights are inviolable. No nation or combination thereof may interfere in the internal affairs of others. Syrians alone may choose who leads them.

More »