Alex Lantier

The Pentagon is planning a major escalation of the US-led war against Syria, involving direct US military involvement to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In a letter to Democratic Senator Carl Levin, the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Martin Dempsey spelled out proposals and cost estimates for various potential US interventions in Syria. His plans include training opposition militias in Syria; missile strikes against Syrian targets; setting up a “no-fly zone” to ground or destroy Syria’s air force; seizing “buffer zones” of Syrian territory near Jordan or Turkey; and Special Forces raids to seize chemical weapons.

Pentagon plans include large-scale operations, costing at least tens of billions of dollars per year. Dempsey said Special Forces strikes would cost over $1 billion a month, and missile strikes—requiring “hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers”—would cost “in the billions.”

Dempsey’s letter followed a vote last week by the US House and Senate intelligence panels to directly arm opposition forces in Syria. Until now, they had been funded and armed by US-allied oil sheikdoms such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and not directly by the US. This allowed Washington to cynically claim the opposition was not on its payroll, even as the CIA coordinated the flow of arms and money.

The Obama administration lobbied intensively for the votes to arm the opposition in Syria. Vice President Joe Biden, CIA Director John Brennan, and Secretary of State John Kerry all called or briefed members of Congress.

The original justification for the Syrian war—that it was a humanitarian struggle to defend a democratic uprising of the Syrian people—is so nakedly exposed that the US and its European allies barely bother to repeat it. They recklessly armed Al Qaeda-linked forces like the Al Nusra Front and promoted a “moderate” stable of CIA assets and regime turncoats, hoping to topple Assad. While the Syrian people faced an onslaught of US-backed gangs and militias, the media and bourgeois “left” praised these forces as revolutionary fighters for democracy.

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Paul Craig Roberts

I spent the summer of 1961 behind the Iron Curtain. I was part of the US-USSR student exchange program. It was the second year of the program that operated under auspices of the US Department of State. Our return to the West via train through East Germany was interrupted by the construction of the Berlin Wall. We were sent back to Poland. The East German rail tracks were occupied with Soviet troop and tank trains as the Red Army concentrated in East Germany to face down any Western interference.

Fortunately, in those days there were no neoconservatives. Washington had not grown the hubris it so well displays in the 21st century. The wall was built and war was avoided. The wall backfired on the Soviets. Both JFK and Ronald Reagan used it to good propaganda effect.

In those days America stood for freedom, and the Soviet Union for oppression. Much of this impression was created by Western propaganda, but there was some semblance to the truth in the image. The communists had a Julian Assange and an Edward Snowden of their own. His name was Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church.

Mindszenty opposed tyranny. For his efforts he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Communists also regarded his as an undesirable, and he was tortured and given a life sentence in 1949.

Freed by the short-lived Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Mindszenty reached the American Embassy in Budapest and was granted political asylum by Washington. However, the communists would not give him the free passage that asylum presumes, and Mindszenty lived in the US Embassy for 15 years, 79% of his remaining life.

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Stephen Lendman

Societies are perhaps best judged by how they treat prisoners, the elderly, their most disadvantaged and children. Israel fails on all counts.

On July 9, perhaps it reached a new low. Seven IDF soldiers and an officer terrorized a 5-year old boy. They threatened him and his parents. They handcuffed and blindfolded his father. They handed the boy over to police. They wrongfully accused him of stone-throwing. Many other children face similar charges.

Guilt by accusation is policy. Justice is a four-letter word. Fines, detention or longer-term imprisonment follow. More on the latest incident below. Defence for Children International (DCI)/Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement." It "promot(es) and protect(s) the rights of Palestinian children." It does so according to international law principles. Each year, about 700 West Bank children are arrested, detained, interrogated, terrorized, and prosecuted in Israeli military courts. DCI lawyers represent 30 - 40% of them. They're treated like adults. According to DCI, Israel operates "almost completely devoid of international scrutiny." It systematically spurns human rights and humanitarian law. It does so with impunity. Due process and judicial fairness don't matter. Israel does what it pleases. It remains unaccountable.

Palestinian children are routinely terrorized. It's done for any reason or none at all. They're arrested at checkpoints, on streets, heading to school, coming home, helping parents plant and harvest crops, at play, and while sleeping pre-dawn. Family members are threatened not to intervene. They're beaten if attempt to. Regardless of weather, they're forced onto streets in their nightclothes. Their homes are disruptively ransacked.

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Pepe Escobar

Amidst the incessant rumble in the (Washington) jungle about a possible Obama administration military adventure in Syria, new information has come to light. And what a piece of Pipelineistan information that is.

Picture Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw, and the current Iranian caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi getting together in the port of Assalouyeh, southern Iran, to sign a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, no less.

At Asia Times Online and also elsewhere I have been arguing that this prospective Pipelinestan node is one of the fundamental reasons for the proxy war in Syria. Against the interests of Washington, for whom integrating Iran is anathema, the pipeline bypasses two crucial foreign actors in Syria - prime "rebel" weaponizer Qatar (as a gas producer) and logistical "rebel" supporter Turkey (as the self-described privileged energy crossroads between East and West).

The US$10 billion, 6,000 kilometer pipeline is set to start in Iran's South Pars gas field (the largest in the world, shared with Qatar), and run via Iraq, Syria and ultimately to Lebanon. Then it could go under the Mediterranean to Greece and beyond; be linked to the Arab gas pipeline; or both.

Before the end of August, three working groups will be discussing the complex technical, financial and legal aspects involved. Once finance is secured - and that's far from certain, considering the proxy war in Syria - the pipeline could be online by 2018. Tehran hopes that the final agreement will be signed before the end of the year.

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Gilad Atzmon

(L-R) Lebanon's Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mah-
moud Ahmadinejad in Damascus (25 February 2010).

The interventionist EU, that together with the USA inflicts terror on every piece of land rich with oil and other minerals, decided yesterday that a Lebanese resistance to occupation is terror. It designated the Shia movement as a terror organisation.

- How pathetic!

The Guardian, once a respected paper, was brave enough to tackle the issue; but rather than presenting a so-called humanist or intellectual and critical approach, it pretended to present an ‘impartial position’. Yesterday it published a debate between war criminal Tzipi Livni and Sami Ramadani.

One may wonder, why is Tzipi Livni, an Israeli politician, a side in this debate? Israel is not part of the EU. Israel is clearly the element that pushes for the EU to brand the Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Yet, it is far from being clear why The Guardian asked Livini for her opinion in that particular debate? Maybe time is ripe for The Guardian to decide whether it is the guardian of the truth or the guardian of Israel.

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Thomas Gaist

In what the Washington Post describes as the “next phase of drone warfare,” the Obama administration is set to “extend the Pentagon’s robust surveillance networks far beyond traditional, declared combat zones.” According to the Post, Washington is set to deploy the drone fleet to new areas across the globe, where it will be used to monitor drug runners, pirates and “other targets that worry US officials.”

A Defense Department spokeswoman said the military is “committed to increasing” drone activities throughout Asia and the Pacific. The Post also cites Colombia as a war theater that will likely see increased use of American drones, although US drones have already been engaged in operations against “narco-terrorists” in collaboration with the Colombian military.

“Surveillance drones could really help us out and really take the heat and wear and tear off of some of our manned aviation assets,” Marine Gen. John F. Kelly, head of the US Southern Command, said in March.

While Obama has claimed that “the tide of war is receding,” actually the US government is intensifying military operations worldwide. During the past decade, the Pentagon has assembled a fleet of hundreds of high-altitude, “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs), which now carry out missions on a daily basis in service of the strategic aims of US imperialism. The “Predator” drone series alone has carried out at least 80,000 sorties in conflict areas including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Serbia, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and Somalia.

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Stephen Lendman

German artist Oliver Bienkowski, who projected the words ‘United
Stasi of America’ together with a picture of Kim Dotcom on to the
wall of the US embassy in Berlin, may face criminal charges. Investi-
gation has been launched into whether Bienkowski’s action falls under
the category of “slander against the organizations and representatives
of a foreign state,” Berlin-based Der Tagesspiegel newspaper reports.

A previous article discussed Stasi. It was East Germany's secret police. It was one of the most repressive state apparatuses in modern times. Its infamous reputation speaks for itself.

It's reincarnated in new form. Given today's state-of-the-art technology. It's worse now than then. The previous article said the following:

On July 7, Der Spiegel headlined "Snowden claims: NSA Ties Put German Intelligence in Tight Spot." They're in bed together. NSA partners with foreign intelligence in other countries. Its Foreign Affairs Directorate [BND] does so. It's done in ways to insulate their political leaders from the backlash. It's precautionary in case people learn how grievously they're violating global privacy.

BND/NSA cooperation is far greater than previously known. At issue are serious violations of Germany's privacy laws. According to Der Spiegel, NSA provides "analysis tools":

They're for BND's signals monitoring of foreign data streams that travel through Germany. Besides other areas, BND focuses on the Middle East route through which data packets from crisis regions travel. Der Spiegel said BND pulls data from five different nodes that are then analyzed at the foreign intelligence service's headquarters in Pullach near Munich. Gerhard Schindler heads it. He confirmed the partnership during a meeting with members of the German parliament's control committee for intelligence issues.

Snowden told Der Spiegel that German outrage over NSA spying was pretense. Both countries work closely together. Relations are longstanding. Current operations far exceed Stasi's.

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Jim W. Dean

On December 14, 2012, Dr. Eran Elhaik turned almost two generations of Jewish genome research upside down. But he went even further. The young Israeli-Ameican geneticist has charged former researchers with academic fraud, and he has the research to back it up.

How could those those eminent Jewish scientist before him have been so wrong? Easy says Dr. Elhaik, “First these researchers decided what conclusions they wanted to find, and then they set off to find evidence to support it.” I was not bashing Jewish scientists. What Elhaik has described is a slam dunk fraud.

But why? Why would Jews who take such pride in the academic achievement risk exposing themselves to a group deception which was bound to be discovered later? Dr. Elhaik does not delve into the quicksand of the politics, but I will gladly do so.

They perpetrated the fraud solely to support the bogus biblical claim to Palestine which was anchored in their being a separate people. This distinguished them from all others because they claimed a land title in their blood. They bet the farm on this DNA proof of purchase, a God given bar coded passport to the Palestine. Dr. Ehaik just erased the bar code. It was just stamped on anyway, because it was never in the blood.

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Stephen Lendman

She's one of thousands of US political prisoners. She's well known. She committed no crimes. She's been brutalized in captivity. Mercy isn't in America's vocabulary. Rogue states operate that way. Washington's by far the worst.

It reportedly agreed to Pakistan's extradition terms. Both sides will swap prisoners. Previous articles discussed her 2003 abduction, detention, torture, false charges, prosecution, and conviction. More on that below.

On July 20, the Pakistan Observer headlined "US agrees on Aafia's Siddiqui's extradition," saying: "In a major breakthrough, the US has offered Pakistan to sign prisoner swap agreement for the extradition of Dr Aafia Siddiqi, after which the Pakistani scientist will be allowed to serve the remaining part of her imprisonment in homeland." Pakistan foreign office spokesman Uman Hameed said terms include other prisoner swaps.

Washington offered Pakistan two deals. They include the European Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons and Inter-American Convention on Serving Criminal Sentences Abroad.

On July 20, Justice for Aafia Coalition (JAC) headlined "The Family of Aafia Siddiqui and the Aafia Movement welcomes development on Aafia issue," saying: "(I)t appears some steps are finally being taken towards" repatriating her. She's called "the daughter of our Nation." Previous steps forward ended up two back. "We are hopeful" what's announced is genuine.

America can't be trusted. It's duplicitous. It's uncertain what's next. Promises made are broken. Aafia's been in limbo for years. It remains to be seen what follows. Will she or won't she be extradited? Nothing's guaranteed. Not in deals with America. Promises made are broken. It's standard rogue state practice. Both prisoner exchange conventions are similar. The Inter-American one is simpler. If both sides agree, Aafia can be returned in weeks.

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John W. Whitehead

UVA student Elizabeth Daly was
booked on three felony charges after
an encounter with ABC agents in the
Harris Teeter parking lot. (The Hook)

What do college girls and bottled water have to do with the emerging American police state? Quite a bit, it seems.

Public outcry has gone viral over an incident in which a college student was targeted and terrorized by Alcohol Beverage Control agents (ABC) after she purchased sparkling water at a grocery store. The girl and her friends were eventually jailed for daring to evade their accosters, who failed to identify themselves or approach the young women in a non-threatening manner.

What makes this particular incident significant (other than the fact that it took place in my hometown of Charlottesville, Va.) is the degree to which it embodies all that is wrong with law enforcement today, both as it relates to the citizenry and the ongoing undermining of our rule of law. To put it bluntly, due in large part to the militarization of the police and the equipping of a wide range of government agencies with weaponry, we are moving into a culture in which law enforcement officials have developed a sense of entitlement that is at odds with the spirit of our Constitution—in particular, the Fourth Amendment.

The incident took place late in the evening of April 11, 2013. Several University of Virginia college students, including 20-year-old Elizabeth Daly, were leaving the Harris Teeter grocery store parking lot after having purchased a variety of foodstuffs for an Alzheimer’s Association sorority charity benefit that evening, including sparkling water, ice cream and cookie dough, when they noticed a man staring at them as they walked to their car in the back of the parking lot.

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Stephen Lendman

Imagine the worst ahead. Survival's up for grabs.

Conflict drags on interminably. Dozens or more die daily. Syrian forces outmatch Western-backed death squad terrorists. They're not rebels. They're lawless invaders. They're US proxy fighters. They're imported from dozens of countries. They're waging war against sovereign Syrian independence. Don't expect duplicitous Western politicians or media scoundrels to explain.

Assad's military outguns and outflanks Washington's shock troops. Reinforcements keep coming. Libya 2.0 looks possible. Perhaps likely.

Russia hopes for a September international peace conference. Originally a June one was planned. Why bother when Washington prioritizes war. It spurns peace. Last year's conference failed. Expect nothing different this time. Peace remains elusive. Advocates have no partners.

According to European Council president Herman Van Rompuy: "A military solution to the crisis is impossible. (T)he solution is only diplomatic." Conflict can end soon. It can happen if Washington calls off its dogs. It shouldn't have unleashed them in the first place. Syria is Obama's war. He began it. He can end it.[*]

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David Bromwich

The crux of the NSA story in one phrase: 'collect it all'.
~ Glenn Greenwald

Most Americans who know anything about the National Security Agency probably got their mental picture of it from a 1998 thriller called Enemy of the State. A lawyer (Will Smith), swept up by mistake into the system of total surveillance, suddenly finds his life turned upside down, his family watched and harassed, his livelihood taken from him and the records of his conduct altered and criminalised. He is saved by a retired NSA analyst (Gene Hackman) who knows the organisation from innards to brains and hates every cog and gear that drives it. This ally is a loner. He has pulled back his way of life and associations to a minimum, and lives now in a desolate building called The Jar, which he has proofed against spying and tricked out with anti-listening armour, decoy-signal devices and advanced encryption-ware. From his one-man fortress, he leads the hero to turn the tables on the agency and to expose one of its larger malignant operations.

Michael Hayden, who became the director of the NSA in 1999, saw the movie and told his workers they had an image problem: the agency had to change its ways and inspire the trust of citizens. But in 2001 Hayden, like many other Americans, underwent a galvanic change of consciousness and broke through to the other side. In the new era, in order to fight a new enemy, he saw that the United States must be equipped with a secret police as inquisitive and capable as the police of a totalitarian state, though of course more scrupulous.

Gripped by the same fever and an appetite for power all his own, Dick Cheney floated the idea of Total Information Awareness (soliciting Americans to spy on their neighbours to fight terrorism), but found the country not yet ready for it. So he took the project underground and executed it in secret. Cheney issued the orders, his lawyer David Addington drew up the rationale, and Hayden at NSA made the practical arrangements. Eventually Cheney would appoint Hayden director of the CIA.

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Pepe Escobar

Dashte Laili, Northern Afghanistan (Everything Afghanistan)

I've got to confess that Anna Badkhen beat me to it. Sometimes I have the feeling the world is a carpet. She went one up, writing a marvelously evocative book with the same title, centered on a village in Northern Afghanistan so remote that Google Maps cannot find it.

This is a book for those who love the Silk Road; who love Afghanistan; who love carpets; and all of the above. The Roving Eye fits all these descriptions; no wonder Badkhen's delicate tale projected me on a magic carpet ride down memory lane, as I retraced my own steps over the years in bits and pieces of the Silk Road, from Balkh to Bukhara, from Herat to Hamadan; and all these roads, of course, were paved with carpets.

Historic Khorasan - which includes Northern Afghanistan - is quite special. Around Balkh, Turkomen have been spinning wool for 7,000 years. People are born on carpets. They pray on carpets. They sleep on carpets. They even adorn their tombs with carpets.

When Alexander the Great conquered Khorasan in 327 BC he sent his mum, Olympias, a carpet as a souvenir of his victory in Balkh. Balkh is the fabled feudal capital, now in ruins (blame the Mongols) about 36 kilometers southwest of Oqa - the beyond-the-reach-of-the-NSA village in the salt-frosted Afghan desert where Badkhen chose to follow one year in the life of Thawra's mud-and-dung loom room as she weaves a yusufi, a magnificent carpet.

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Stephen Lendman

America's a police state. It's ruthless. Iron fist authority rules. International law's quaint and out-of-date. US statute protections aren't worth the paper they're written on. Constitutional rights don't matter. They never did for most people. It's truer now than ever. They're null and void. Executive diktat power rules. Congress and federal courts go along. They're complicit. They support sweeping lawlessness. It's unprecedented. It affects domestic and geopolitical issues. No one's safe anywhere.

Obama has life and death powers. He can order anyone murdered. He can do so on his say alone. US citizens are as vulnerable as foreign nationals. He can order anyone indefinitely detained. He can throw them in military dungeons. He can deny them due process and judicial fairness. They can remain there uncharged and untried. They can stay there forever. They can be brutally tortured. It's OK. Federal courts said so. More on that below.

Section 1031 of the FY 2010 Defense Authorization Act contained the 2009 Military Commissions Act (MCA). The phrase "unprivileged enemy belligerent" replaced "unlawful enemy combatant." Language changed but not intent or lawlessness. Obama did what supporters thought impossible. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He promised to close Guantanamo. He lied. He's a serial liar. He broke every major promise made. He prioritizes keeping it open. He wants it expanded. He's got lots more victims in mind. He'll send there and/or to other US global torture prisons. Dozens operate worldwide.

Guantanamo's the tip of the iceberg. Obama supports torture and other forms of cruel and degrading treatment. He does so unapologetically. He treats US citizens as lawlessly as foreign nationals.

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John W. Whitehead

Leila Tarantino has filed a lawsuit against the Citris
County Sheriff’s Office for a 2011 traffic stop during
where a female officer removed a tampon during a
road side strip search in plain sight of oncoming traffic.

“The Fourth Amendment was designed to stand between us and arbitrary governmental authority. For all practical purposes, that shield has been shattered, leaving our liberty and personal integrity subject to the whim of every cop on the beat, trooper on the highway and jail official.”—Herman Schwartz, The Nation

During a routine traffic stop, Leila Tarantino was allegedly subjected to two roadside strip searches in plain view of passing traffic, while her two children—ages 1 and 4—waited inside her car. During the second strip search, presumably in an effort to ferret out drugs, a female officer “forcibly removed” a tampon from Tarantino. No contraband or anything illegal was found.

● A North Carolina public school allegedly strip-searched a 10-year-old boy in search of a $20 bill lost by another student, despite the fact that the boy, J.C., twice told school officials he did not have the missing money. The assistant principal reportedly ordered the fifth grader to disrobe down to his underwear and subjected him to an aggressive strip-search that included rimming the edge of his underwear. The missing money was later found in the school cafeteria.

● Suspecting that Georgia Tech alum Mary Clayton might have been attempting to smuggle a Chik-Fil-A sandwich into the football stadium, a Georgia Tech police officer allegedly subjected the season ticket-holder to a strip search that included a close examination of her underwear and bra. No contraband chicken was found.

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