Stephen Lendman

On July 12, Russia Today (RT) headlined "US 'blocks my asylum:' Snowden human rights activists to airport meeting," saying: Snowden remains stuck. He's in limbo. He's at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. He's in its transit area. A source told Interfax he'll meet with human rights organizations late Friday. Airport spokeswoman Anna Zakharenkova said she "can confirm that such a meeting will take place."

Snowden invited a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International and Poland's Krido Legal. Moscow officials weren't asked to come.

Russia's human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said he's willing to meet with Snowden. "I want to hear him out and then think what should be done," he said. "I think international organizations should take up this question. Snowden now is clearly in the situation of being a refugee from his country." He "wishes to express his thoughts on the US campaign for his capture that has put other passengers heading to Latin America at risk as a result."

Snowden's letter to human rights groups said:

"I have been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world. These nations have my gratitude. Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the US government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The scale of threatening behavior is without precedent: never before in history have states conspired to force to the ground a sovereign President's plane to effect a search for a political refugee. This dangerous escalation represents a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America or my own personal security, but to the basic right shared by every living person to live free from persecution."

UNHCR, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Transparency International confirmed receipt of Snowden's letter.

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Thomas Gaist & Barry Grey

Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
is visible through an ambulance window after he was
captured in Watertown, Massachusetts. (New York Post)

The New York Times published a front-page article Thursday (“In 2011 Murder Inquiry, Hints of Missed Chance to Avert Boston Bombing”) that raises new questions about the alleged perpetrators of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing and adds to the evidence of a government cover-up in the explosions that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

Citing “senior law enforcement officials,” the article asserts that the elder of the two Tsarnaev brothers alleged to have detonated two bombs near the finish line of the marathon, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was involved in the murder of three men in Waltham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston, on September 11, 2011—the tenth anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington DC.

The ostensible occasion for the article was the arraignment on Wednesday of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Tamerlan’s younger brother, on multiple terrorism charges before a federal judge in Boston. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was captured on April 19 following a shootout in which his older brother was killed. He pled not guilty to 30 counts, most of which potentially carry the death penalty. (See: “Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev arraigned in federal court”).

The Times article published Thursday asserts that Ibragim Todashev, a friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and, like Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen and martial arts fighter, was also involved in the triple slaying. The authors of the article repeat the official story that Todashev confessed to the involvement of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and himself in the gruesome killings during hours of interrogation at his Florida apartment last May 22. The questioning ended with a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) operative repeatedly shooting and killing Todashev.

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Stephen Lendman

Public anger in Egypt, Turkey, Palestine, Brazil, Chile, across Europe, in America against Wall Street, and elsewhere is real. It's visceral. It's deep-seated. It's growing. It reflects what media scoundrels won't explain.

Democracy's more illusion than real. People get the best kind money can buy. Manipulated elections control things. Systemic rule is hardline. Progressive change is verboten. Monied interests have final say. Corporate giants rule the world. Exploiting nations, markets and people for profit matters most. Governments conspire with business to facilitate it. Popular needs more than ever go begging. People increasingly are on their own sink or swim. Wealth, power, and privilege are hugely disproportionate.

Wars on humanity rage. Freedom's on the chopping block for elimination. Rule of law principles don't matter. Might makes right. Police state tactics assure it. They're vicious. Things go from bad to worse. Humanity and planet earth are up for grabs. Independent thought is verboten. Controlling the message is prioritized.

Most nations aren't fit places to live in. Hardline governments keep things that way. Popular uprisings reflect discontent too intense to contain. Public anger rages against systemic injustice. It's exploitive. It's predatory. It's uncaring. It's merciless. It's untenable.

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Introduction by by Paul Craig Roberts

In my latest book, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution of The West: Towards A New Economics For A Full World (Clarity Press, 2013), I emphasize that nature’s capital, not man-made capital, is the limiting factor for life on earth. I learned from ecological economist Herman Daly and others who were able to escape dogma and to think independently that the measure used by economists to measure economic success – the growth of GDP – does not include the most important costs. What this means is that economics as presently understood is defective and is leading humanity to its destruction.

Noam Chomsky has a brilliant mind and the courage to use it. As a critic of Israel’s inhumane policies toward the Palestinians, Chomsky has been branded by the Israel Lobby as an anti-semite and a “self-hating Jew.” (See here.) There is an entire industry that demonizes Chomsky. (See here.) Jews who make constructive criticisms of Israeli policies in attempts to protect Israel from the follies and mendacity of its government are branded “self-hating Jews.” Gentiles who provide constructive criticisms are branded “anti-semites” and “holocaust deniers,” even though they have never denounced Jews or denied the holocaust. The Israel Lobby has worked overtime to establish that any criticism of Israeli government policy reeks of total evil and is an indication that the writer intends a new holocaust. Absurd denunciations by the Israel Lobby of Israel’s critics have deprived “anti-semite” of its traditional meaning and given it a new meaning–possessor of a moral conscience.

Chomsky, a MIT professor who is the father of modern linguistics, has a moral conscience, and he turned his astute mind to the horrors of our time. Now that Chomsky is 85 years old, I am unsure what we will do without him.

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Wayne Madsen

Obama’s personalization of his war against a single American citizen has not only made Snowden a political refugee but an American folk hero.

President Barack Obama has met his unlikely match in a former Army Special Forces recruit-turned CIA technician-turned National Security Agency contractor. Obama has issued what amounts to an «all-points-bulletin» for Edward Snowden who, in May, left his job at NSA Hawaii as a contractor for Booz Allen Hamilton and departed Honolulu for Hong Kong with a treasure trove of classified documents pointing to NSA’s massive electronic surveillance of Americans without a warrant and billions of people around the world.

Obama, who fancies himself as a cool-under -fire seasoned politician from the rough and tumble south side of Chicago clearly did not like being upstaged by a young white privacy-minded intelligence specialist who grew up in North Carolina and the Maryland suburbs of Baltimore. After all, Obama inherited from George W. Bush the most intrusive surveillance powers ever amassed in a president of the United States and he was not about to have an impudent young man with the Anglo name of Snowden embarrassing the first African-American president, moreover one with a Kenyan last name.

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Dawud Rimal

Below is a translation from As-Safir, a Lebanese newspaper, July 6, 2013, by Arabic-English translator Eric Mueller. As the translator was not present at the Group of Eight meeting, he cannot vouch for the accuracy of the report, only for the accuracy of the translation. The report by Dawud Rimal does reflect Putin’s no-nonsense manner of speaking. The report from As-Safir contrasts with the US coverage. Diplomatic sources: Putin tells G8 “You want Asad to resign. Look at the leaders you’ve made in the Middle East.”

♣ ♣ ♣

Beirut: A diplomatic source has reported that the West has been discussing for some time the issue of the escalating role of Islamists in Lebanon and the Arab countries. The source reports that this discussion might wind up concluding that there is a need to rein in the role of the Islamists. It is along this line of thinking that the West has been encouraging the Lebanese regular army since the ‘Abra Battle. [A two-day battle between Lebanese regular army forces and the gang of a Sunni Salafi Shaykh Ahmad al-Asir ‘Abra near the southern Lebanese city of Sidon in late June 2013. - Translator's note]

The diplomatic source reports that the changes underway in Egypt were expected by the Western countries and that the leaders of the G8 discussed the matter of Islamists coming to power in a number of Arab countries, including Egypt, in their recent meeting in Northern Ireland. [The Group of Eight or “G8” (Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the USA, and Russia) met in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland, on 17-18 June 2013. - Translator's note.]

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Peter Schwarz

NSA facility in Bad Aibling, Germany

An interview with historian Josef Foschepoth published in the online edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung makes clear that US intelligence agencies have a free hand to do what they like in Germany, with the knowledge and blessing of the federal government.

Foschepoth is professor of history at the University of Freiburg, and an expert on the role of Allied intelligence in postwar Germany. In 2012, he published a book on the subject entitled, “Überwachtes Deutschland” ["Germany Surveilled"].

The historian regards the indignant response of the German government regarding the spying activities of American and British intelligence services unmasked by Edward Snowden as pure hypocrisy. For a Western intelligence agency, such as the National Security Agency (NSA), there are in principle no limits in Germany. "The NSA can do everything in Germany," explains Foschepoth. "Not only because of the legal situation, but above all because of the intensive collaboration between the services, which was always desired and always politically acceptable."

According to Foschepoth, the legal basis for the activity of Western intelligence services in Germany goes back to 1963. At that time, Germany and the Allied nations committed to close collaboration in the collection, exchange and protection of intelligence in a supplementary agreement to the NATO Status of Forces Agreement. The agreement came about through secret negotiations and was strictly confidential.

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Pepe Escobar

The working title of the Edward Snowden movie is still The Spy Who Remains in the Cold. Here's where we stand:

● Snowden could only fly out of Hong Kong because China allowed it.
● Snowden could only arrive in Moscow because Russia knew it - in co-operation with China. This is part of their strategic relationship, which includes the BRICS group (along with Brazil, India and South Africa) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. No official source though would ever confirm it.
● With the Latin American offers of asylum (Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua; even Uruguay would consider it), we're approaching the clincher: Moscow is now calculating whether - and how - to help Snowden reach his final destination while extracting maximum political capital out of Washington.

Into this script comes roaring the coup-that-is-not-a-coup sub-plot in Egypt. Cynics' eyebrows will be raised that just as the Barack Obama administration was going mental over the National Security Agency (NSA) spy scandal a revo-coup-o-lution explodes in Egypt. New revelations about the extent of the NSA-centric Orwellian Panopticon keep on coming, but they have been totally downgraded by US corporate media; it's all Egypt all the time. After all, the Pentagon - to which the NSA is attached - owns the Egyptian military, something that even the New York Times had to acknowledge. [1] Yet they don't own Snowden. - [And] this has nothing to do with "terra".

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Peter Schwarz

Satellite dishes at GCHQ's outpost at Bude, close to where
trans-Atlantic fibre-optic cables come ashore in Cornwall.

The real target of the intelligence surveillance is the vast majority of the people. This is the real enemy identified by the ruling class. The ruling class senses that popular opposition is growing and is responding by placing the entire population under surveillance.

Former NSA employee Edward Snowden has exposed the infrastructure of a police state whose surveillance powers far exceed those of totalitarian dictatorships such as the German Nazi regime.

American and European intelligence agencies monitor and store the communications data of hundreds of millions of citizens. Based on the metadata of tapped connections, they can draw up a seamless profile of an individual’s movements and contacts. This in turn enables them to selectively filter out the content of conversations and emails.

The right to privacy—a basic human right enshrined in the American and every European Constitution—and the associated guarantee of the confidentiality of the post and telecommunications are being ripped to shreds. The wiretaps are so obviously illegal that intelligence agencies in one country often delegate their activities to foreign partners in order to avoid overly blatant violation of their own national laws.

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Stephen Lendman

After 28 months of conflict, Assad defeated Washington's best laid plans. Its Syrian National Coalition (SNC) opposition lacks effective leadership. It lacks legitimacy. It's an artificial construct. It operates extrajudicially. It resembles a gang that can't shoot straight.

On July 8, another leader resigned. After four months, self-styled prime minister Ghassan Hitto announced he won't "continue in (his) capacity as prime minister tasked with leading the interim government, though (he) emphasize(s he'll) 'continue working for the interests of the revolution and towards achieving its objectives."

Hitto's resignation came two days after SNC members elected Ahmad Asi-al Jarba president. The post's been vacant since Mouaz al-Khatib resigned in April. He cited frustration over lack of enough international support, internal divisions, and disarray among "rebel" factions. Washington hoped he'd become Syria's Hamid Karzai. Maybe Obama has similar aspirations for al-Jarba. Washington's war on Syria's no "revolution." There's nothing civil about it. It's US proxy aggression. Foreign death squad invaders want Islamofacism replacing Syrian sovereignty.

Repeated changing of the guard shows SNC ranks in disarray. Al-Khatib and Hitto couldn't resolve SNC divisions. Don't expect al-Jarba to fare better. Just causes close ranks effectively. Rogue operations feature self-aggrandizing, power-hungry opportunists.

They face overwhelming Syrian opposition. Most Syrians support Assad. They do so for good reason. They alone want to decide who rule them. They deplore outside intervention. Disorganized "rebel" ranks are no match for Syria's superior military. It continues making impressive gains.

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William Blum

I have written on more than one occasion about the value of preaching and repeating to the choir on a regular basis. One of my readers agreed with this, saying: “How else has Christianity survived 2,000 years except by weekly reinforcement?”

Well, dear choir, beloved parishioners, for this week’s sermon we once again turn to Afghanistan. As US officials often make statements giving the impression that the American military presence in that sad land is definitely winding down – soon to be all gone except for the standard few thousand American servicemen which almost every country in the world needs stationed on their territory – one regularly sees articles in the mainstream media and government releases trying to explain what it was all about. For what good reason did thousands of young Americans breathe their last breath in that backward country and why were tens of thousands of Afghans dispatched by the United States to go meet Allah (amidst widespread American torture and other violations of human rights)?

The Washington Post recently cited a Defense Department report that states: The United States “has wound up with a reasonable ‘Plan B’ for achieving its core objective of preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for al-Qaeda and its affiliates.”

“Preventing a safe haven for terrorists” – that was the original reason given back in 2001 for the invasion of Afghanistan, a consistency in sharp contrast to the ever-changing explanations for Iraq.

However, it appears that the best and the brightest in our government and media do not remember, if they ever knew, that Afghanistan was not really about 9-11 or fighting terrorists (except the many the US has created by its invasion and occupation), but was about pipelines.

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Peter Schwarz

Germany Defends Its Cooperation with NSA: Angela Merkel's
government said on Monday that its cooperation with American
intelligence was fully regulated by strict legal guidelines after
a magazine reported that the U.S. National Security Agency was
in close cahoots with German spies. (Voice of America)

The claim by European governments that they were unaware of the extensive wiretapping undertaken by the US intelligence agency NSA is simply a lie. In fact, various European intelligence agencies, and in particular Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), work closely with the National Security Agency (NSA) in the surveillance of electronic communications.

This is clear from an interview with former NSA sub-contractor Edward Snowden published in the latest issue of the news magazine Der Spiegel.

To the question: “Are the German authorities and German politicians involved in the monitoring system”, Snowden answered: “Yes, of course. They [NSA people–Ed.] are in cahoots with the Germans, as with most other Western countries.”

The interview is based on written questions submitted by encryption specialist Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras in mid-May to Snowden, before he went to Hong Kong and began revealing the comprehensive monitoring activities of the NSA and Britain's GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters).

In the responses from Snowden, now published for the first time, he suggests that such international intelligence cooperation also serves to bypass national legal restrictions and shield political leaders. Intelligence agencies that exchange information never ask where it originates, he explains. “In this way, they can protect their political leaders from the backlash, if it should come out how massively people's privacy is being violated worldwide.”

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Stephen Lendman

Stasi was East Germany's secret police. It suppressed opposition to Stalinist power. It was one of the most repressive state apparatuses in modern times. When East Germany collapsed in 1989, Stasi had over 90,000 full-time employees. Another 300,000 were paid informants. They spied on East German citizens. Thousands of West German collaborators did so on theirs. Stasi infiltrated NATO headquarters.

Legendary spymaster Markus (Mischa) Wolf ran things. He did so for 34 years. He had Jewish roots. In the early 1930s, his family fled Germany. It did so to escape nazi persecution. Wolf was educated at Moscow's Comintern Academy. He worked as a journalist. He observed Nuremberg trial proceedings. Post-WW II, he returned to Germany. He was part of a communist Berlin delegation. He showed leadership qualities. He rose rapidly in the ranks. Stalinists trusted him. In 1953, he was among others in charge of foreign intelligence. He and Erich Mielke ran East Germany's Ministry of State Security (Stasi). It was justifiably feared. Historian John Koehler called it "an instrument for the ruthless oppression of East Germany's population as well as one of the world's most effective intelligence services." Wolf became known as "the man without a face." For years, Western intelligence agencies had no photos. He was lucky. In November 2006, he died peacefully in his sleep. Mielke was convicted of murder in absentia. After reunification, he was arrested. In 1993, he was convicted. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment. After less than two, he was paroled. In May 2000, he died in a Berlin nursing home. He was aged 92. He's buried in an unmarked grave. Stasi's infamous history represents the worst of police state repression.

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Jim Stone

If you [are] part of America's main core, they have ONE objective for you - to burn you to ashes or bury you in a pit somewhere.

When I worked for the NSA prior to 9/11, the NSA only looked outward, not inward. And I never thought the NSA ever would look inward and spy on the American people. I knew that if that ever happened the result would be catastrophic. After 9/11 I knew the NSA was looking inward to some degree, and had suspected they might be recording everything before Snowden blew the whistle, but I was not certain. Now we all can be. And I would like to go into a few things here to explain to people how grave this situation really is.

When an agency like the NSA looks outward into other countries, it cannot be a tool that is used by the governments of the countries being spied on to oppress the people in that country. When used to spy on foreigners the NSA and other similar agencies are not part of the policy making for that which they are observing. So the purpose for any spying by agencies such as the NSA will be limited to key elements of the observed nation, such as the government agencies and major companies that could present a problem to the whole of America in the future. The NSA will not pay attention to Joe the bar-b-q chef or Moe the mechanic, because on an individual level ordinary people in foreign countries are a waste of time to observe.

It is very different when such an intelligence agency looks inward at it's host population

With the NSA looking inward, especially with them recording every phone conversation and e-mail and not just the meta data, the people who understand what America really is supposed to be are now fully identified. These people, which are referred to as "the main core" represent what remains of the backbone of this once great nation, the core of which numbers 8 million with 30 or so million close enough to the main core for any psychopath to be able to justify taking out along with it. If America is to become the totally transformed Communist society that the Zionists want it to be, the main core has got to be ripped out, and the NSA has made this future event possible to accomplish with minimal effort and pin point precision.

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Tom Carter

We invited Professor Geoffrey R. Stone to respond to the article, “Liberal advocates of a police state turn savagely against Edward Snowden,” by David North and Eric London, posted on the World Socialist Web Site on June 14 [reproduced below]. In the article, the authors condemned those erstwhile liberal commentators who had jumped on the reactionary campaign to label NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden as a “traitor” and a “criminal.” Specifically, North and London observed that Professor Stone’s recent anti-Snowden article in the Huffington Post “advances arguments in support of authoritarian rule that totally contradict positions” he previously advanced. Professor Stone responded by email to Eric London on June 19. His letter, in its entirety, reads as follows:

“Thanks for sharing. What you seem not to understand is that situations are different and not everything is or should be on one side of the line or the other. Everything I’ve said about Snowden is perfectly consistent with everything I’ve ever said on this subject. Although I think we need a healthy distrust of our public officials, I also oppose the arrogance of a single, unelected individual who takes it upon himself, with no lawful authority or justification, to disclose properly classified information to persons unauthorized to receive it just because HE thinks the information shouldn’t be classified. The plain and simple fact is that Snowden betrayed the rule of law and the trust of the American people when he decided, without any legal authority, to disregard the judgments of the executive branch, the Congress and the judiciary in a way that put the security of the nation at risk. Even if what he did has beneficial consequences, he had no legal or moral right to do it. He is a criminal.”

The WSWS takes the opportunity presented by Professor Stone’s response to reply to his letter and explain its significance. From the first line to the last, Professor Stone’s letter confirms the WSWS’s frequent warning that the entire political establishment—including its “liberal” sections—is openly hostile to the democratic principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence and guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and in the later Civil War amendments. Professor Stone speaks for a significant section of academic intellectuals who are repudiating their previous commitment to democratic rights and advancing positions that would legitimize the establishment of a military-police dictatorship in the United States. Let us proceed to an examination of Stone’s condemnation of Edward Snowden.

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