Stephen Lendman

Imagine defending the indefensible!
Imagine supporting wrong over right!

Times editors find new ways to disgrace themselves. Since conflict erupted in March 2011, they wrongfully blamed Assad for Obama's war. He's vilified for US-backed death squad atrocities. He's held responsible for terrorists blocking aid to hundreds of thousands of displaced or entrapped Syrians. Times policy is consistent. It's outrageous. It points fingers the wrong way. It's standard practice. Managed news misinformation substitutes for honest reporting and opinion. Legitimate journalism is sacrificed in the process. It's verboten.

Syria bashing continues. On February 10, Times editors headlined "The Message from Homs," saying:

Evacuating "mostly women, children and the elderly (is) pathetically incomplete." [UN officials brokered a humanitarian pause in fighting.] "At best, the evacuation is likely to save only a fraction of the civilians in danger." "Thousands more remain in Homs, and millions more around the country are under attack and being denied food, medicine and other necessities."

Syrian Red Crescent workers are deliberately attacked. Terrorists bear full responsibility. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman AK Lukashevich blamed "militants for attacking aid convoys and ceasefire violations.

More »

Tom Carter

The Associated Press Monday published an extraordinary report based on deliberate leaks from senior US government officials announcing that the Obama administration is “wrestling with whether to kill [an unnamed US citizen] with a drone strike and how to do so legally under its new stricter targeting policy.” The targeted individual is alleged to be a terrorist residing “in a country that refuses US military action on its soil and that has proved unable to go after him.” The media subsequently carried various reports indicating that the individual is located in Pakistan.

Monday’s revelation that the White House is once again preparing to carry out the illegal murder of an American citizen gives an entirely new and sinister meaning to President Obama’s campaign slogan, “Yes we can.”

Indeed, if the government can order the state assassination of a US citizen in the name of national security, what can it not do? Concentration camps (a remedy recently justified by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia), torture, disappearances, martial law, the suspension of the Constitution—all the methods of a police state dictatorship become equally justifiable and possible.

The apparent purpose of the Obama administration’s calculated leak is to blunt popular opposition to an illegal state murder by creating a phony aura of “due process,” “transparency” and careful deliberation for a criminal operation that is steeped in secrecy, conspiracy and contempt for core constitutional principles.

More »