Most of the attention this week has been at the AIPAC conference, but speaking today at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates struggled to lay out the reason(s) to keep troops in Iraq. Gates described it as “my last major policy speech.”

And among his flimsiest, as Gates’ entire argument for keeping the troops in Iraq was because it would make Iran uncomfortable. The comments came in the wake of an AEI “report” earlier in the day claiming Iran is a “serious threat” to Iran’s security. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has recently left the door open for keeping troops, but only if a “consensus” is reached on the matter. This would be impossible, however, because top Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose bloc controls the Iraqi National Alliance, has repeatedly condemned the notion, demanding an end to the US occupation. Gates shrugged off Sadr’s opposition, however, and insisted within the speech that he wasn’t sure how much opposition Sadr actually had and how much his comments stemmed from “Iranian backers.”

Interviews with several AIPAC delegates in the streets outside the conference reveals widespread ignorance by attendees of the controversial annual DC meeting.

On May 22, thousands of supporters of America's most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, converged on Washington for the group's annual conference. For two days they watched Democratic and Republican congressional leaders pledge their undivided loyalty to the state of Israel, and by extension, to AIPAC's legislative agenda. Speeches by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the conference, with Obama attempting to clarify his statement demanding that 1967 borders be the "starting point" for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

I interviewed several AIPAC delegates in the streets outside the conference. While few, if any, were able to demonstrate any degree of sophistication in the understanding of the Israel-Palestine crisis, they had been briefed inside on how to respond to critics. No one I spoke to would concede that Israel occupied any part of Palestinian territory; none would concede that Israel had committed acts of indiscriminate violence or that it had transferred Palestinians by force; one interviewee could not distinguish Palestine from Pakistan. With considerable wealth and negligible knowledge -- few had spent much time inside Israel -- the delegates were easily melded by the cadre of neoconservative and Israeli "experts" appearing in AIPAC's briefing sessions.

Foreign Ministry bracing for a flood of pro-Palestinian tweets ahead of the UN session on a Palestinian state.

The Foreign Ministry built up its social media activity after the excruciating flop of the Israeli digital media response following the Turkish flotilla to Gaza, which again taught a lesson about the strength of the Internet community in the Arab world. Surfers used the social websites as a key media tool to bring down the Egyptian government. The Internet is also central to fomenting unrest in Iran and Arab nations. On Nakba Day two weeks ago, social media were also central to disseminating messages and organizing the boundary breach between Israel and Syria, right under the noses of Israeli army officers, not to mention the Foreign Ministry's top brass.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Tuesday evening that the Senate is moving forward with a vote to extend certain provisions of the Patriot Act, without any votes on amendments -- whether certain Republicans and Democrats like it or not.

"I'm not at the luxury of waiting for a better time," Reid said on the Senate floor. "We cannot let the Patriot Act expire. I have a responsibility to try to get this bill done as soon as possible." Certain provisions of the Patriot Act -- the controversial law passed after 9/11 that expanded the government's authority to conduct surveillance in the U.S. -- expire at midnight on Thursday if an extension isn't passed. Some Democrats and Republicans seized the looming vote as a chance to change the Patriot Act.

Stephen Lendman: Extending Key Patriot Act Provisions

19 people killed and 150 wounded in NATO attacks against targets in Libya, since yesterday, according to Libyan television.

The air attacks against targets in the capital Tripoli continued on Wednesday. Six powerful explosions was heard in the Bab al-Aziziya, where Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has his residence. In the early hours of Tuesday, fighterjets attacked a military barracks, which, according to a spokesman for the regime no longer is being used by the country's security forces. Mussa Ibrahim spokesman said Tuesday morning that three people were killed in this attack, but the state television channel Jamahiriya reported late Tuesday night that the number of fatalities was 19. In the pictures that accompanied the proportion was seen three men, who, according to spokesmen were victims of "NATO crusaders attacks on Tripoli and suburbs."

The US warns Gadafi: the attacks will increase: ter·ror·ism  [ter-uh-riz-uhm] –noun 1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes. [Dictionary.com]

Reuters Africa: NATO ups strikes in Tripoli
Philly.com: NATO pounds Libyan sites
Die Presse: Nato fliegt „bisher größten Angriff“
The Guardian: Libyan capital hit by heaviest Nato air strikes in two months
The Scotsman: Terror, not protection of civilians is the goal of NATO

Seventeen lost pyramids are among the buildings identified in a new satellite survey of Egypt.

More than 1,000 tombs and 3,000 ancient settlements were also revealed by looking at infra-red images which show up underground buildings. Initial excavations have already confirmed some of the findings, including two suspected pyramids. The work has been pioneered at the University of Alabama at Birmingham by US Egyptologist Dr Sarah Parcak. She says she was amazed at how much she and her team has found.

"We were very intensely doing this research for over a year. I could see the data as it was emerging, but for me the "Aha!" moment was when I could step back and look at everything that we'd found and I couldn't believe we could locate so many sites all over Egypt. "To excavate a pyramid is the dream of every archaeologist," she said.

The team analysed images from satellites orbiting 700km above the earth, equipped with cameras so powerful they can pin-point objects less than 1m in diameter on the earth's surface.

Whites in America now believe that they face more racial bias than blacks, according to a recent study.

Samuel Sommers of Tufts University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard asked 208 blacks and 209 whites to use a 10-point scale to indicate how much they thought blacks and whites were a target of discrimination each decade from the 1950s through the 2000s. Less than 2 percent of blacks and whites gave anti-white bias the maximum score in the 1950s. More than 9 percent of both groups also gave anti-black bias the maximum score for that same decade. Blacks and white agreed that racism against blacks decreased as the decades progressed. But whites, unlike blacks, felt that anti-white bias had increased along with the drop in anti-black bias. Eleven percent of whites rated anti-white bias at the maximum during the 2000s, while only 2 percent of blacks did. "We propose that Whites' belief about the increasing prevalence of anti-White bias reflects a view of racism as a zero-sum game," researchers wrote (PDF), "which can be summed up as 'less against you means more against me.'"

CODEPINK activist Rae Abileah was arrested at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington D.C. after heckling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the anti-war group.

The 28-year-old Jewish American woman was allegedly tackled by members of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) during Netanyahu's speech to Congress after she yelled, "stop Israeli war crimes." Abileah was taken to the George Washington University Hospital, where she was being treating for neck and shoulder injuries. "You know I take it as a badge of honor, and so should you, that in our free societies that you can have protest," Netanyahu said after being interrupted by Abileah. "You can't have these protest in the farcical parliaments in Tehran or in Tripoli. This is real democracy."

Speaking from her hospital bed, Abileah said she was in "great pain" but that it was nothing "compared to the pain and suffering that Palestinians go through on a regular basis." “I have been to Gaza and the West Bank, I have seen Palestinians homes bombed and bulldozed, I have talked to mothers whose children have been killed during the invasion of Gaza, I have seen the Jewish-only roads leading to ever-expanding settlements in the West Bank." "This kind of colonial occupation cannot continue," she added. "As a Jew and a U.S. citizen, I feel obligated to rise up and speak out against stop these crimes being committed in my name and with my tax dollars.”

Israeli Prime Minister & Psychopath Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to Congress.

was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." (Gospel of John, 8:43-45)

This video is very instructive as regards a large majority of the members of the US Congress, who grovel and submit to the leader of a foreign nation. Their treason is astonishing and repulsive.

Salon: Netanyahu gets more standing ovations than Obama
Bob Johnson: Netanyahu and the Kosher Congress
Jason Ditz: Netanyahu Speech Pleases Congress, Virtually No One Else
Gideon Levy: Netanyahu's speech to Congress shows America will buy anything
Electronic Intifada Blog: Protestor who disrupted Netanyahu in Congress attacked, hospitalized, arrested

The habitual pilgrimage to kiss the ring of the “Khazar conspiracy” is upon us once again. The late great and trustworthy friend Alan Stang sheds light on the political movement called Zionism. “Presumably the Jews in Israel are Zionists, or they would leave. But there are only a few million Israelis. In the United States, there are scores of millions of Christians in mainline churches who are Zionists and who support Israel as staunchly as any Israeli, with funds as well as prayer.” He continues, “Consider that tens of thousands of Jews not only are not Zionists; they fervently oppose Zionism. They believe that Zionism is condemned by Holy Scripture.”

Within this context, the only way to view the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is as a pressure group that favors the political interests of a foreign nation at the expense of our own nation. The hordes of heretic Christian Zionists disgrace themselves because they cling to a false interpretation of scripture and are oblivious to the best self-interests of their own country.

Storm inflow moving south being sucked from the north in-
to a half-mile-wide tornado as it moves north in Oklahoma.

Violent thunderstorms with hail and tornadoes swept across the Plains, killing more than a dozen people, 48 hours after the deadliest U.S. twister on record leveled homes and businesses in Joplin, Missouri.

At least 13 tornadoes were reported in Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and Virginia yesterday, according to the U.S. Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma. Two people died in Kansas, three in Arkansas and eight in Oklahoma, the Associated Press reported. At least 60 injuries were reported in Oklahoma and Kansas, according to the Weather Channel. Tennis ball-sized hail was reported in at least one storm, according to the weather service.

ABC News: Death Toll Reaches 13 in Latest Midwestern Storms - The death toll from the latest severe weather in Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas rose to 13 early Wednesday morning, while the National Weather Service reports that a tornado has "destroyed the full town" of Denning, Ark., killing three in the town which had a population of approximately 270. Over large stretches of the Midwest, including the ravaged city of Joplin, Mo., residents braced for a new wave of severe weather early Wednesday. Meanwhile, rescue workers in Joplin continued the search for survivors in the rubble left by Sunday's massive EF-5 tornado that has left at least 124 in the city dead and leveled at least 30 percent of the town of approximately 50,000.

AMMAN - Syrian troops and security forces have killed at least 1,100 civilians in their two-month campaign to crush pro-democracy demonstrations, Syrian human rights organization Sawasiah said on Tuesday.

Sawasiah said it had the names of the 1,100 people who it reported were killed mostly in the southern Hauran Plain region, where the uprising erupted on March 18. The death toll rose sharply after street protests grew in number and spread out from the south, prompting a military crackdown, Sawasiah said.

LiveLeak: An encounter between Syrian protesters and a very close sniper shooting them (Video)

CARACAS, Venezuela -- President Hugo Chavez's government condemned U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela's state oil company for doing business with Iran, saying it is evaluating how fuel shipments might be affected.

Industry analysts, however, said the sanctions announced Tuesday probably won't significantly cut into the business of Petroleos de Venezuela SA because Washington is not preventing PDVSA from selling crude to the United States or through Citgo, its U.S. subsidiary. Venezuela is one of the United States' main suppliers of petroleum. "The sanctions would have only modest real impact on today's undertakings by PDVSA," said Gustavo Coronel, an energy consultant and former PDVSA executive. "The real significance has to be found in the psychological, political effect of the measure." "It constitutes the first real move of the Obama government against Chavez's Venezuela," Coronel said.