Liu Chang / Jeff J. Brown / Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts: Xinhua is a news agency of the Chinese government. The Chinese government sees Washington as a largely spent power. Liu Chang puts Washington’s loss of uni-power status very concisely.

After you read the official Liu Chang's commentary (below), read Jeff J. Brown’s commentary on Liu Chang’s report.

Jeff Brown is an American citizen who has worked in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and China, where he has lived for 10 years. He in fluent in English, Portuguese , Arabic, French, and Mandarin. Recently, Jeff Brown published a book, 44 Days Backpacking In China available from Amazon.com.

If you have not recently visited China, this book will give you an idea of the rising superpower, while the bankrupt and de-industrialized US disappears into Third World status. China has the manufacturing and industrial power that America had before Wall Street and the corporations sold out the country. Russia has abundant natural resources. A China/Russian alliance is the consequence of US hegemonic behavior.

Moreover, both Russia and China have recently emerged from their existence under police states comparable to the one that is rising in the US. Countries that have recently lived under police regimes are not interested in returning to them. In the presstitute American media, both China and Russia are portrayed to be the police state that, in reality, now exists in the US.

Americans have been sold out by their “leaders.” America, looted and depleted by Wall Street and the military/security complex, is sucked dry like the victim of a spider’s web. America has become a caricature of itself. America is the source of endless wars on innocent peoples who are demonized as ”terrorists” for no other reasons than profit for the American military/security complex and expanded living space for Israelis.

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Alex Lantier

The US military-intelligence complex has developed through criminal means the surveillance infrastructure of a global police state.

The National Security Agency (NSA) is spying on hundreds of millions of users of Google and Yahoo services, according to a report yesterday in the Washington Post based on internal documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

The NSA has broken into the main communication links connecting Yahoo and Google data servers worldwide. In a program codenamed “MUSCULAR,” operated jointly with Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the agencies collect and monitor all communications—involving US and non-US citizens alike—between these servers.

Because the data culling is indiscriminate, the NSA refers to it as “full take,” “bulk access” and “high-volume.” After the communications are collected, they are searched based on undisclosed criteria, with much of it sent on to permanent locations run by the NSA.

The report shatters claims by the Obama administration and American legislators that US agencies respect privacy rights and operate under strict legal oversight. Testimony by spy agency chiefs before the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, aimed at defusing the diplomatic crisis over the exposure of US spying on German Chancellor Angela Merkel and hundreds of millions of phone and SMS communications in Europe, consisted of disinformation and lies.

A top secret NSA document shows that in the one-month period ending January 9, 2013 the MUSCULAR program sent back more than 181 million new records for storage at NSA headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. These records include both “metadata” information—such as the identity or location of the sender and receiver of messages—and the content of text, audio and video communications.

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John W. Whitehead

“The perception here is of a United States where security has trumped liberty, intelligence agencies run amok (vacuuming up data of friend and foe alike), and the once-admired “checks and balances” built into American governance and studied by European schoolchildren have become, at best, secret reviews of secret activities where opposing arguments get no hearing.” – Roger Cohen

Recent reports indicating that President Obama was aware of and personally approved an NSA program that involved spying on the personal communications of various international leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have once again highlighted the deception and intransigence of the Obama administration in dealing with the revelations that the National Security Agency has been acting outside the bounds of the law, sucking up electronic communications the world over.

While this may come as a shock to most Americans, I’ve been writing about the NSA’s illegal surveillance tactics since the 1980s, which features prominently in my new book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State. However, this latest development in the spying saga—that the NSA has been aiming its surveillance activities at the citizens of allied countries, including France and Germany—has thrown a kink into the Obama administration’s attempts at maintaining a cozy relationship with its foreign allies.

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Joseph Kishore

There is no constituency within the American political establishment or military-intelligence apparatus that retains any commitment to democratic rights. The mentality of a police state pervades official political circles, in the US and internationally.

Over the course of the past week, the Obama administration has been rocked by an escalating international diplomatic scandal sparked by a new series of leaks from Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor-turned whistleblower.

At the heart of the crisis is the exposure of an American intelligence apparatus that operates without any legal constraints, international or domestic. Thanks to these and previous revelations from Snowden, the world now has concrete evidence that the NSA sweeps up communications records—including telephone calls and emails—of hundreds of millions of people all over the world.

While European governments have shown little concern about NSA spying on their own populations—and, indeed, have collaborated with the US in this—reports that the NSA has been wiretapping German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s personal cell phone have produced warnings of a rupture in US-German relations. The monitoring began in 2002, when Merkel was still in the opposition as the chairperson of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

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Paul Craig Roberts

To inform people is hard slugging. Everything is lined up against the public being informed, or the policymakers for that matter.

News is contaminated by its service to special interests and hidden agendas. Many scientists or their employers are dependent on federal money. Even psychologists and anthropologists were roped into the government’s torture and occupation programs. Economists tell lies for corporations and Wall Street. Plant and soil scientists tell lies for agribusiness and Monsanto.

Truth tellers are slandered and persecuted. However, persistence can eventually win out. In the long-run, truth sometimes emerges. But not always. And not always in time.

I have been trying to inform the American people, economists, and policymakers for more than a decade about the adverse impacts of jobs offshoring on the US economy. The word has eventually gotten out. Last week I was contacted by 8th grade students competing for their school in CSPAN’s StudentCam Documentary Contest. They want to interview me on the subject of jobs offshoring for their documentary film.

America is a strange place. Here are eighth graders far ahead of the economics profession, the President, the Congress, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street, and the financial press in their understanding of one of the fundamental problems of the US economy. Yet, people say the public schools are failing. Obviously, not the one whose students contacted me.

Is it too late? I know much, but not all. So this is not the final word. I think it might be too late.

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Wayne Madsen

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, left, attends a coffee ceremony
with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. (Photo: VOA)

But one thing that is certain about Bandar and his neocon allies in Washington and Israel. When backed up against the wall, they will strike like desert asps.

A number of seasoned observers of Middle Eastern affairs agree that U.S. - Saudi relations are at their lowest ebb since U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established America’s «special relationship» with the Saudi monarchy on February 14, 1945, just a few months before FDR’s death.

Subsequent to the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met Saudi King Ibn Saud on board the USS Quincy on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal in Egypt. Roosevelt and Saud inked the «Quincy Agreement», by which the United States would provide Saudi Arabia with military equipment and training in return for the U.S. establishing a military base at Dhahran in the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia guaranteeing the United States a steady flow of Saudi oil. Except for the Arab oil embargo instituted against the West in the 1970s, the Quincy Agreement has survived six Saudi kings. However, the Quincy Agreement is in trouble.

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Ulrich Rippert

Wärmebild der US-Botschaft in Berlin: je heller die Farbe,
desto wärmer das Mauerwerk. (Foto: Reuters/Süddeutsche.de)

New revelations on the National Security Agency’s activities and the consequences of its bugging of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone dominated German media at the start of the week.

Under the headline “The Sinister Friend,” the German weekly Der Spiegel warned Monday of the threat of an “ice age” in German-American relations. It reported that a likely centre of the US spying operation was the massive, recently built US embassy at Brandenburg Gate, just a stone’s throw from the Chancellery and the main German government buildings. Der Spiegel suggested that a listening post had been established in the embassy, which has a forest of antennae on its roof.

Infrared images indicate that enormous amounts of energy are being consumed inside the building, indicating surveillance activities.

Systematic monitoring of leading German politicians and officials began in 2002, when the Social Democratic (SPD)-Green Party government headed by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder (SPD) spoke out against German participation in the impending Iraq war. Over the ensuing years, the monitoring of the German government was systematically extended. In addition to the German chancellor, the NSA has monitored at least 34 other international leaders.

The NSA surveillance operations are not limited to politicians, but target masses of people throughout Europe. It was reported at the weekend that the US secret services had monitored 60 million phone calls in Spain in December alone. According to Spanish news reports, the NSA had gathered information on phone numbers, the origin and duration of calls, and their content. On Monday, the Spanish Foreign Ministry officially summoned the US ambassador to inform him of the displeasure of the Spanish government and demand an explanation.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama encourages global spying. He wants world leaders monitored. He wants stepped up surveillance doing it. Despite official disclaimers, it continues.

Obama lied claiming otherwise. He's a serial liar. He's a moral coward. He's a war criminal multiple times over. He did what supporters thought impossible. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He plans lots more ways to prove it through 2016. Humanity may not survive the ordeal.

On October 27, Deutche Welle (DW) headlined "Media reports suggest Obama knew NSA spied on Merkel." Der Spiegel said NSA's Special Collection Service (SCS) monitored her cell phone conversations since 2002. Obama lied telling Merkel he knew nothing about it. According to DW, "a report in Bild am Sonntag published Sunday cites an unnamed NSA official who said (Obama) ordered the program be escalated." NSA chief Keith Alexander told Obama about monitoring Merkel's phone calls. It hacked into her "supposedly secure phones". "Only a special, secure landline phone in her office was reportedly not accessible to electronic tapping." Hacked information was reported directly to the White House. Evidence suggests monitoring Merkel continued at least through the "immediate past."

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Kelly Mitchell / Paul Craig Roberts

Introduction by Paul Craig Roberts: I do not know what role facts, evidence, or a desire to know the truth any longer play in American lives. This article confirms my experience as a scholar, journalist, public policy maker, and corporate director. The vast majority of people believe what they want to believe. Facts and evidence have little to do with it. People believe what serves their hopes and self-interests as they perceive their interests (often incorrectly) and what validates their emotional commitments. A select few can think independently, but their voices are usually drowned out.

To help those who are capable of independent thought, I am posting with permission the Introduction to a new book, GOLD WARS by Kelly Mitchell, from Clarity Press. I encourage you to order this book and to study it. American institutions are so corrupted that no leadership can rise from the political parties, media, corporations, or universities. We are on a many-faceted course of destruction. Leadership will have to come from non-traditional sources. Perhaps those who can think independently can produce the needed leadership.

The economics profession, Wall Street, and the financial media are committed to maintaining the status quo. There is no independent thought there. The voices maintaining the Matrix in which we live are far more numerous and loud than my voice and the voices of Michael Hudson, Herman Daly, John Williams (shadowstats.com), Mike Whitney, Nomi Prins, Pam Martens, Matt Taibbi, Gerald Celente, Dave Kranzler and the few others who endeavor to break people free of the false consciousness that blinds them to reality. “Free market” economists pretend that financial markets are efficient and do not need to be regulated. Kelly Mitchell shows us that financial markets are manipulated and serve narrow private interests at the expense of society.

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Stephen Lendman

Mossad's credentials are notorious. They're well known. It's expertise is acknowledged. Its rap sheet is longstanding and nefarious. Its tactics include targeted assassinations, satellite, drone and other type spying, hacking and espionage expertise, computer viruses, other cyber attacks, bombings, sabotage, and other lawless practices.

On October 25, France's Le Monde headlined "The NSA's intern inquiry about the Elysee hacking revealed." Edward Snowden connected important dots for millions. Documents he released included "a four-page internal NSA memo," said Le Monde. It's marked "top secret." France sent it.

It said French secret service technical director Bernard Barbier and National Agency for IT systems security head Patrick Pailloux "are coming to ask their American counterparts, whom they suspect are (conducting Elysee Palace espionage) for an explanation." It's the official French president's residence. It includes his office. It's where government ministers meet to discuss official business.

[France] "learn(ed) that none of the services capable of carrying out this type of electronic attack came from America, Britain or Canada. Carefully chosen wording said the NSA "intentionally did not ask either the Mossad or the ISNU (Israeli technical administration services) whether they were involved."

Penetrating Elysee began while Nicolas Sarkozy was president. Security systems were in place to detect electronic espionage. The attack conducted wasn't "part of an act of sabotage which was to be made public but of the desire to be permanently installed invisibly at the centre of the Presidency," said Le Monde.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Ole Ullern on Osama bin Laden’s “killing”

A reader, Ole Ullern from Norway, sent in this information regarding the range of the Chinook CH-47F helicopter that allegedly made the round trip from Bagram to Abbotabad and returned with bin Laden’s body.

According to Google Earth, the round trip distance (straight line) is 700 km. High mountains between the two sites would prevent straight line flight, and the thin air of high elevation would use more fuel.

According to Wikipedia, the Chinook’s range is 741km; its combat radius is 370 km.

According to the official story, the helicopter that landed in Abbotabad was destroyed. Another helicopter, which had been flying around in circles during the alleged SEAL assault on “bin Laden’s compound,” landed, picked up the SEALs, the crew of the destroyed helicopter, and bin Laden’s body and returned to Bagram Airfield.

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Kevin Gosztola

Family of Mamana Bibi, 68-year-old grandmother killed in US
drone strike in Pakistan

Human rights organization, Amnesty International, has released a report that presents two case studies on victims of United States drone strikes in Pakistan and also details the practice of signature strikes, which has led to rescuers being killed in follow-up attacks while they are trying to help wounded individuals. Both of the drone strikes detailed in the report, “Will I Be Next?”, occurred in 2012 and were reported. In the aftermath of one of the strikes, there was particular focus on the fact that the US was deliberately attacking civilian rescuers after the first strike was launched against whomever had been targeted.

On July 6, 2012, laborers from the Zowi Sidgi village were gathered in a tent after working a long day in the summer heat. Residents nearby could clearly see four drones were flying overhead. Then, as the Amnesty International report describes, “the sound of multiple missiles” suddenly was heard “piercing the sky, hitting the tent and killing at least eight people instantly.”

Ahsan, a chromite miner who lives in Zowi Sidgi, said, “When we went to where the missiles hit to help people; we saw a very horrible scene. Body parts were scattered everywhere. [I saw] bodies without heads and bodies without hands or legs. Everyone in the hut was cut to pieces.” There was panic, with people running to their homes, to trees, anywhere to escape. Some villagers chose to go see if there were any survivors.

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Stephen Lendman

Left: Mamana Bibi was killed by a US drone aircraft while tending to her
crops on the afternoon of 24. October 2012. Right: Impact crater left by the
second US drone strike that hit a vacant area of land a few feet from whrere
Mamana Bibi was killed minutes earlier. (amnestyusa.org)

Two UN reports highlight the problem. More on them below.

Sixteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai is an activist for women's education, a blogger, and Sakharov Prize winner. She's a Pakistan National Youth Peace Prize recipient. She was a 2013 Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children's Peace Prize. On October 16, Canada said it plans to grant her honorary citizenship. Obama invited her to the White House. Perhaps he wishes he hadn't. She took full advantage. She didn't hold back.

"(D)rone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people."

Predator drones sanitize killing on the cheap. Remote warrior teams operate computer keyboards and multiple monitors. They murder by remote control. They target faceless victims. They kill indiscriminately. They do so unaccountably. Studies show mostly innocent civilians are killed. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Drones are instruments of state terror.

A previous article discussed a joint Stanford University International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic (SU)/New York University School of Law Global Justice Clinic (NYU) report. It's titled "Living Under Drones." The dominant Washington narrative claims drone strikes are precise and effective. Targeted killings "minimi(ze) downsides or collateral impacts," it says. Doing so makes America safer, it alleges.

False! Drone attacks kill indiscriminately. Mostly noncombatant civilians are affected. "Living Under Drones" exposes what Washington won't say. Obama's a serial liar. He falsely claims drones haven't "caused a huge number of civilian casualties. They're targeted, focused at people who are on a list of active terrorists trying to go in and harm Americans." Hard evidence proves otherwise. On site investigations and eyewitness testimonies are damning.

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Steve Goreham

Climate science is in turmoil. Contrary to predictions by the world’s leading climate models and despite rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, global surface temperatures have been flat for 16 years. How can the climate models be wrong?

Last October, the Daily Mail (London) announced that temperature data from the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office showed no global warming for 16 years. In December, an advance chart from the upcoming Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed a divergence between model projections and actual global temperatures. In January of this year, the Met Office revised its forecast of temperatures down to almost no increase over the next five years.

Media publications that have been staunch supporters of the theory of man-made climate change have noted the model failure. In March, The Economist stated, “The climate may be heating up in response to greenhouse gases less than was once thought.” The New York Times noted in June that the temperature slowdown “is a bit of a mystery to climate scientists.”

All major climate models have overestimated the effects of man-made warming. Analysis by Dr. Roy Spencer and Dr. John Christy shows that 44 of the world’s leading climate models projected an average temperature rise of about 0.5 degrees C during the last 16 years when measured temperatures were flat. The analysis was recently updated to include 73 of the leading climate models. Not a single model made an accurate forecast.

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Guillaume Henchoz

Le film sur Hannah Arendt rouvre le débat

Hannah Arendt, de la réalisatrice allemande Margarethe von Trotta, sort sur les écrans romands cette semaine. Assistant au procès du criminel nazi Eichmann, Arendt développe un concept qui continue de susciter la polémique de nos jours: la banalité du mal.

L’homme est aux abois. Dans son lit, il attend la mort, alors que son amie de toujours, Hannah Arendt, cherche à se réconcilier avec lui avant la fin. Peine perdue. Comme beaucoup de proches de la philosophe, le sioniste Kurt Blumenfeld ne lui pardonne pas ses propos tenus dans son dernier ouvrage et se détourne dédaigneusement. La caméra s’arrête un instant sur le visage déconfit d’Arendt. La polémique l’a emporté sur l’amitié. Fin du plan.

Le dernier film de la réalisatrice allemande Margarethe von Trotta, Hannah Arendt, revient sur un moment particulier de la vie de cette intellectuelle juive allemande qui a fui l’Europe pour les Etats-Unis pendant la Seconde Guerre Mondiale. En 1961, Arendt obtient du mensuel New Yorker la possibilité de couvrir le procès d’Adolf Eichmann qui est sur le point de s’ouvrir à Jérusalem. Ce criminel nazi, pièce maîtresse du processus d’élimination des juifs pendant la guerre, a été capturé en Argentine l’année précédente et ramené en Israël. L’ouvrage Eichmann à Jérusalem, que Hannah Arendt consacre à l’affaire, va susciter une violente polémique qui ne s’est pas encore éteinte cinquante ans après sa parution. Cette dernière porte notamment sur l’utilisation d’un terme qui va devenir un concept: la «banalité» du mal.

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