Pepe Escobar

When the going gets tough, count on the Ministry of Truth to get going.

The end of Ramadan was imminent. The jihadi chattering classes of that fuzzy entity, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), went on overdrive. It was jailbreak galore from Libya to Pakistan via Iraq. And all this in perfect synch with two successive fatwas issued by that perennial bogeyman, former Osama bin Laden sidekick Ayman "Doctor Evil" al-Zawahiri.

Imagine a rushed crisis meeting at the highest levels of the Orwellian/Panopticon complex:

"Gentlemen, we have a golden opportunity here. We are under siege by defector spy Edward Snowden - liberated by the Soviets - and that terrorist hack Greenwald. Snowden may be winning: even among US public opinion, there's a growing perception we may be more of a threat than al-Qaeda. So we must show we are vigilantly protecting our freedoms. Yes; we're gonna scream Terra, Terra, Terra!"

Instantly, we have the closing, with much fanfare, of plenty of US embassies and consulates in the "Muslim world" and a State Department "worldwide" travel alert - soon expanded by Interpol. Confusion ensues - with many trying to figure out whether backpacking in Thailand or eating fresh caviar in Baku is a surefire way of not being blown up. And right away we'll also have US and Western corporate media falling in love with the Terra Terra Terra meme all over again. And woe to those who think this has anything to do with Islamophobia. You thought that Terra was gone? No, Terra is omnipresent, omniscient, lurking everywhere. Terra Wants You. Trains and boats and planes - you're nowhere safe.

Yet the fabulous specific intel unearthed by the Ministry of Truth amounts to some lowlife jihadi boasting on the net that he and his buddies will be doing something nasty someday somewhere in multiple, unspecified locations all across Middle East-Northern Africa (MENA).

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Stephen Lendman

Accused Boston mobster James "Whitey" Bulger during
a pretrial conference in federal court in Boston. Closing
arguments began Monday in his trial. (J. Flavell Collins)

FBI, CIA and other federal agencies operate their own way. They do so extrajudicially. Law and order's a quaint artifact. It works only on TV.

Evidence mounts. America's a rogue police state. NSA is Stasi's new incarnation. Lawless spying is official policy. Virtually everyone's illegally monitored all the time everywhere.

Homeland Security and FBI operate like Gestapo. They menace freedom. They terrorize. They don't protect. They do so for wealth, power, privilege and unchallenged dominance.

FBI calls itself "an intelligence-driven and a threat-focused national security organization with both intelligence and law enforcement responsibilities."

Its mission "is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners."

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Paul Craig Roberts

The United States has issued a global travel alert because of
an "al-Qaida terrorist threat". The travel alert comes a day
after the U.S. announced that it would shutter its embassies
and consulates throughout the Muslim world on Sunday,
and possibly longer. (thenews.com.pk)

Introduction: The peoples of the world are not stupid. They realize what it means that a nuclear armed “superpower” intends to exercise hegemony over them. They realize that there are people with better reasons to be proud than the lawless neocon inhabitants of Washington and that Washington’s ambitions are likely to result in the destruction of human life.

Have you ever seen videos of Iran or visited the country? This ancient civilization not only has ancient monuments and extraordinary museums, but also beautiful modern cities, roadways, natural beauty, and a better educated population than the United States.

Washington wants to bomb Iran into the stone age simply because Iran, a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (which means weapons), intends to exercise its rights under the treaty to nuclear energy. Washington’s position is that Iran must be denied its rights under the treaty or be destroyed. Every other signatory can have its nuclear energy rights, but not Iran.

Clearly, the US government has taken a totally lawless position, which is consistent With the lawlessness with which it rules at home. Bombing independent countries into the stone age is a favorite threat of the criminals in Washington. The media does not hold those who issue such threats to account.

Americans need to understand that “their” government, that is, the government in Washington that belongs to Wall Street, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, Monsanto and agribusiness, and to the mining, energy, and timber industries, not only thinks that Americans are gullible, but also believes that you are completely stupid.

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