He may prove the most disastrous president in our history in terms of civil liberties. - President Obama not only retained the controversial Bush policies, he expanded on them... It's almost a classic case of the Stockholm syndrome, in which a hostage bonds with his captor despite the obvious threat to his existence. Even though many Democrats admit in private that they are shocked by Obama's position on civil liberties, they are incapable of opposing him. Some insist that they are simply motivated by realism: A Republican would be worse. However, realism alone cannot explain the utter absence of a push for an alternative Democratic candidate or organized opposition to Obama's policies on civil liberties in Congress during his term. It looks more like a cult of personality. Obama's policies have become secondary to his persona.

AWIP: August 1, 2007: Barack Obama on warrantless wiretaps. "The War We Need to Win" - VIDEO. Senator Obama: "I'll Stop Torture, Abide By The Geneva Conventions, Roll Back NSA Wiretapping Programs. No More Spying On Americans. No More ignoring the law when it's convenient. This is not who we are."]

Pakistan's intelligence chief says Islamabad will respond to any potential United States-waged military action against the country, responding to relevant threats by US officials. - Pakistan would not allow the situation to get to a 'point of no return,' should the US carry out an attack against the country, the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, said on Thursday, Reuters reported.

"American attack on Pakistan in the name of (fighting) extremism is not acceptable," he said.

On Monday, the US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Washington had to consider military action against Pakistan in the event of, what he called, Islamabad's continued support for militant attacks against the US troops in Afghanistan. Graham said that the US lawmakers might support military options beyond the drone strikes, which the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been conducting against Pakistan for year.

At least four people have been killed and five others injured in the latest US drone strike in troubled northwest of Pakistan, Press TV reports. - The assault took place in Baghar village of South Waziristan tribal district on Friday when the drone fired two missiles at a vehicle. The US frequently carries out attacks by the unmanned aircraft on Pakistan's tribal regions, claiming the airstrikes target pro-Taliban militants. The aerial attacks, initiated by former US President George W. Bush, were escalated under President Barack Obama. Relations between Islamabad and Washington have soured over the attacks with Pakistan insisting that the airstrikes violate its sovereignty. US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Thursday that there is growing support in the US Congress for expanding military options against militants in Pakistan beyond the drone strikes.

Sara Flounders puts it crystal clear. This is not a popular uprising against a “dictator”, but it is a 100% NATO war on a sovereign and independent country. People keep resisting because they don’t want their country to be in the hands of former colonial powers. They want to keep the independence that Muammar Gaddafi, their one and only leader, brought to them. NATO never intended to protect civilians. In the first place, because civilians were not in danger. And the white empire knew it. NATO miscalculated. They thought that having a bunch of Al Qaeda fighters on the ground fighting against the army (which was actually protecting civilians) and then bringing in their planes into the conflict, in order to bomb the hell out of the country, would make REAL LIBYANS shift and support the NTC (nothing more than a bunch of puppets, taking orders from their white masters). But no, Libyan people are strong. They are defiant. They are resilient. They resist. They know what is living under foreign occupation. They know what is living under the regime of a western puppet (King Idris). And they know what is living in absolute freedom, justice, independence and equalty. That is why they keep fighting. And that is why they’ll keep fighting, just as their leader said: “Fighting until victory or martyrdom” Defeat is not even an option.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya: Libya and the Big Lie: Using Human Rights Organizations to Launch Wars
EmpireStrikesBlack: Mass killing and humanitarian disaster in NATO siege of Sirte

SANA, Yemen — In a significant and dramatic strike in the campaign against Al Qaeda, the Defense Ministry here said American-born preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading figure in the group’s outpost in Yemen, was killed on Friday morning. - In Washington senior Obama administration officials confirmed that Mr. Awlaki was dead. But the circumstances surrounding the killing remained unclear. Mr. Awlaki’s Internet lectures and sermons have been linked to more than a dozen terrorist investigations in the United States, Britain and Canada. Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in May, 2010, cited Mr. Awlaki as an inspiration. It was not immediately known whether Yemeni forces carried out the attack or if American intelligence forces, which have been pursuing Mr. Awlaki for months, were involved in the operation. A Defense Ministry statement said that a number of Mr. Awlaki’s bodyguards were also killed.

Arthur Silber: You Can't Think, and You're Goddamned Liars
Stephen Lendman: Targeted Assassinations: Challenging US Policy
Bill Van Auken: United States exporter of terrorism: Obama to escalate slaughter in Yemen
Antiwar/AWIP: Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mulls Legality of Assassinating US-Born Cleric

Tom Eley: Obama orders assassination of US citizen - For the first time in history, an American president has officially ordered the assassination of a US citizen. "The public justification for killing Awlaki is based on bald assertions and hearsay from intelligence sources who refuse to even identify themselves. The executive branch arrogates to itself the powers of judge, jury, and executioner, and those targeted for liquidation have no right to question the supposed evidence against them."

Egyptian "security" forces have stormed the offices of Al-Jazeera Egypt, confining its journalists to one room and confiscating equipment. - Ahmed Zain said the officers entered the channel's new premises, roughed up staff, forced them into one room and took away their identity papers. One of the reporters, Hayat al-Yamani, asked for the security officers' identity papers but they refused and pushed her to the ground. Police at the nearby Agouza station later refused to take her statement, Zain said. Equipment including cameras and a laptop were also confiscated, he said. It was the second such raid on Al-Jazeera Egypt this month.

IN DARK days, people naturally seek glimmers of hope. So it was that financial markets, long battered by the ever-worsening euro crisis, rallied early this week amid speculation that Europe’s leaders had been bullied by the rest of the world into at last putting together a “big plan” to save the single currency. Investors ventured out from safe-haven bonds into riskier assets. Stock prices jumped: those of embattled French banks soared by almost 20% in just two days. But those hopes are likely to fade, for three reasons. First, for all the breathless headlines from the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington, DC, Europe’s leaders are a long way from a deal on how to save the euro. The best that can be said is that they now have a plan to have a plan, probably by early November. Second, even if a catastrophe in Europe is avoided, the prospects for the world economy are darkening, as the rich world’s fiscal austerity intensifies and slowing emerging economies provide less of a cushion for global growth. Third, America’s politicians are, once again, threatening to wreck the recovery with irresponsible fiscal brinkmanship. Together, these developments point to a perilous period ahead.

Adnan Al-Daini: Economics of the Madhouse

Dear friends

We have seen extraordinary duplicity on the part of powerful Western interests throughout the events of the Arab Spring, from Washington's early defence of Mubarak to the continuing assault on oil-rich Libya by the US, British, French and Italian airforces.

Some may recall hearing or reading about the harassment and persecution experienced by Bahraini doctors who treated protesters at the Salamaniya hospital in the capital Manama earlier this year. The protests began, were brutally crushed by Bahraini security forces - with the support of Saudi troops - and have been virtually forgotten since.

Twenty of those doctors and their fellow nurses were sentenced by a Bahraini military court yesterday. Thirteen received sentences of 15 years for "crimes against the state." The remaining seven received sentences ranging from 5 to 10 years. Their crime was to speak critically about the brutality of the government attack on unarmed protesters that resulted in a flood of dying and severely injured civilians being brought to the hospital for treatment on March 16, 2011.

Yet again, the US has been conspicuously absent. It so happens that Bahrain houses the US Navy's Fifth Fleet with its 15 warships and aircraft carrier battle group. Over the past two years, hundreds of millions of dollars of deadly hardware have been sold to the Bahraini government by US armaments manufacturers. And another 53 million dollar deal is presently on the table.

This well produced, high quality 50 minute video documentary "Bahrain: Shouting in the Dark" was broadcast by Al Jazeera early last month. It shows much of what has been hidden from the rest of the world.

With best wishes

Vincent Di Stefano

Bahraini women hold protests in the country's capital against the detention of anti-regime protesters and the harsh sentences handed down to them as well as those, who helped them. - The demonstration was held in Miqsha just outside Manama on Thursday after Bahrain sentenced 20 doctors to between five and 15 years in jail for their treating anti-regime protesters, Reuters reported. The doctors, who denied the charges, were among dozens of medical staff arrested during protests, which have been raging on since February 14. Ahlam Al-Khezaei, the head of Women's Affairs for Al Wefaq, the biggest opposition party in Bahrain, called for the release of female prisoners. "We ask for all women prisoners to be freed and for all charges against them to be dropped. These cruel sentences of our doctors, nurses and teachers, Rola al-Safar, Jalila al-Salman and Dr. Nadi Dhaif, and everyone else," she said, referring to some of the detainees. Bahrainis have been holding the peaceful rallies since mid-February, demanding an end to the Al Khalifa's over-40-year-long rule over the Persian Gulf island. Scores of people have been killed and hundreds more arrested in a brutal Manama-ordered and Riyadh-backed crackdown in the country, which hosts a huge American military installation for the US Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf.

BBC: Bahrain sentences medics who treated protesters (Video)
PressTV: Bahrain doctor shares Manama abuse (Video) - A female Bahraini doctor, who has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for treating injured anti-regime protesters, recounts her mistreatment at the hands of government's forces.

Tony Blair’s job as a Middle East peace envoy is in jeopardy after officials in the Palestinian Authority accused him of acting like an ‘extreme’ Israeli diplomat. - Senior figures in the Palestine Liberation Organisation are reported to be planning to sever all contact with the former prime minister. They described Mr Blair as ‘persona non grata’ and said they were looking to isolate the former PM so his position became untenable on the international stage. Mr Blair has been viewed with an element of distrust by some Palestinians ever since his appointment as the envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East – the mediating body comprising the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia. He was handed the job the day he left Downing Street in June 2007. But antagonism has mounted over allegations that he lobbied European powers to vote against a Palestinian bid for statehood which was submitted to the UN last week. One senior Palestinian official told the Daily Mail yesterday: ‘He does not represent the international community but works according to his own opinion, which he shares with the more extreme Israelis. We see him as an Israeli diplomat.

PressTV: Tony Blair biased towards Israel

THIS IS REQUIRED WATCHING FOR ANY AMERICAN CITIZEN Parts 2-11 HERE

Admiral Mike Mullen's allegations of Pakistani-Haqqani collusion may have been knowingly inaccurate. - Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech to lawmakers last week accusing Pakistan’s intelligence service of colluding with the Haqqani insurgent group was inaccurate and overstated, according to anonymous officials speaking with the Washington Post. A senior Pentagon official with access to intelligence files on Pakistan said Mullen’s language “overstates the case,” because there is little evidence of direct control or cooperation with the Haqqanis. Mullen suggested otherwise and cited the recent 20-hour attack on the US Embassy in Kabul as a case in point.

Paul Craig Roberts: The Latest Orchestrated Threat and The End of History

ISTANBUL — Turkey officially accepted delivery of its first domestically manufactured warship Tuesday at a ceremony that underscored the country's push to become a regional power. - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan used the occasion to criticize oil drilling in the eastern Mediterranean by Greek interests. He pointedly noted that the ceremony took place on the 473rd anniversary of the Battle of Preveza in northwestern Greece, where a fleet from the Ottoman Turkish empire defeated a much larger Christian force. President Abdullah Gul said the delivery of the ship showed that Turkey was now capable of developing its own weapons. He urged his country to make greater efforts to develop an independent arms capability, no matter how much work that might require.

A Turkish newspaper published the names and photographs on Monday of more than 140 Israeli soldiers who the paper said took part in the raid on a Turkish flotilla to Gaza last year that ended with the death of nine passengers and created a diplomatic standoff between Turkey and Israel. - The newspaper, Sabah, said the Turkish government began searching for the soldiers’ identities after the Israeli authorities failed to cooperate in an investigation that prosecutors in Turkey said could lead to legal action. The newspaper report received scant attention in Israel, where officials declined to comment. Others there described it as a recycled conglomeration of similar lists that have been circulating on the Internet.

Obama gave his infamous UN speech - 'I'm a Jewslave and you are too' - to the American (and Israeli) people (or, rather, the American and Israeli Jews) on September 21. That provides the context. Obama abased himself so much it created a bit of a panic amongst the Zionists. The over-the-top ultra Zionism from the President of the United States in what is perhaps the most embarrassing speech ever given by an American President, and one which the history books may mark as a turning point in American decline, provided the final confirmation of everything Walt and Mearsheimer has written on Lobby power (not to mention everything that Gilad Atzmon, not confined by the self-censorship required by academia, has written). - One can only hope that all the Zionist nonsense will make Atzmon's book a bestseller.

William A. Cook: Gilad Atzmon's The Wandering Who? - Tearing the Veil From Israel’s Civility

NYPD officer Anthony Bologna faces two investigations as video emerges of a second pepper-spray incident. - The senior New York police officer at the centre of the Occupy Wall Street pepper spray controversy fired the gas at protesters a second time just moments later. After new video emerged on Wednesday showing the second incident, New York police commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters that the Civilian Complaint Review Board would investigate the officer, deputy inspector Anthony Bologna. The New York Police Department's own internal affairs bureau also plans to open an investigation, the New York Times reports. The investigations were announced after bloggers and activists drew attention to video posted online which showed that Bologna fired pepper spray on two occasions last Saturday as officers broke up a protest march through Greenwich Village.

New York Times: Officer’s Pepper-Spraying of Protesters Is Under Investigation - VIDEO
My Catbird Seat: Occupy Wall Street Protestors Take Fight to Broadway; 80 arrested - VIDEOS
WSWS: Growing anger over police attack on Wall Street protesters

The Yes Men have been blamed for Alessio Rastani's comments on the financial crisis. But sometimes truth outdoes satire. - This week, an insignificant market trader and self-proclaimed financial self-help guru, Alessio Rastani, rocketed to stardom after speaking frankly on the BBC about the collapsing market and his plans to make money from it. We Yes Men heard about it right away, because soon after the broadcast, people started emailing from all over the world to congratulate us on another prank well done. They couldn't imagine that a real trader could possibly speak so candidly about the market, so they assumed Rastani was one of our posturings. He wasn't. Rastani is small potatoes, but he's a real trader.

AWIP: BBC Speechless As Trader [?] Says: "The Collapse Is Coming...And Goldman Rules The World" - VIDEO

Two US drone airstrikes have killed at least 4 people and wounded 12 others in southern Somalia, Press TVreports. - Somali officials have confirmed US aerial attacks Thursday morning in an area between Kismayu and Dhoobley cities. The US has increased the number of its attacks by unmanned surveillance aircraft in Somalia. Many civilians have died as a result. Somalia is the sixth country where US military has engaged in unauthorized aerial bombing campaigns through the use of its remote-controlled aircraft. The United States has also deployed its so-called drones for aerial attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. Washington claims the airstrikes target militants, though most of such attacks have mostly resulted in civilian casualties.

The French envoy to the UN has warned Iran that it risks a military strike if it continues pursuing its nuclear program. - "If we don't succeed today to reach a negotiation with the Iranians, there is a strong risk of military action," Ambassador Gerard Araud said on Tuesday during a panel discussion at the UN’s New York headquarters, AFP reported. The strike, he said, "would be a very complicated operation. It would have disastrous consequences in the region… all the Arab countries are extremely worried about what is happening."

A Saudi appeal court acquitted a local woman who was sentenced in January to three years in prison for severely torturing her Indonesian housemaid, a newspaper in the Gulf Kingdom reported on Thursday. - The court in the western town of Makkah upheld an earlier acquittal verdict by the appeals court in the nearby town of Madina, where the maid had worked. “The court in Makkah acquitted the defendant and decided to free her after it found no evidence of torture and the lawyer for the defendant failed to present any concrete evidence,” Sabq newspaper said. In April, the judge at the appeal court in Madina also said there was no evidence the 53-year-old woman tortured her maid while her lawyer said he would seek damages for his client who had spent several months in jail. In January, a court in Madina sentenced the woman to three years in prison for stabbing, beating and burning her 23-year-old Indonesian maid. The Saudi woman was arrested after allegedly beating Sumiati Binti Salan Mustapa so severely as to break bones and cause internal bleeding, putting a hot iron to her head and stabbing and slashing her with scissors. Sumiati's case shocked and outraged human rights groups and labour activists as another example of the paucity of protection for millions of mostly Asian domestic workers, especially in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil producers.

The Guardian: Saudi woman to be lashed for defying driving ban
Newsweek/Daily Beast: Interactive: Best & Worst Places to Be a Woman

Libyan Rebels killing innocent Libyan prisoners

Waterput: NATO's war on the People of Sirte
Mathaba: Venezuela condemns U.S., NATO, UN over Libya War at UN General Assembly

A nationwide pro-Ghaddafi resistance movement is slowly gaining momentum as NATO-Al Qaeda and Rebel forces desperately pound southern Libyan cities loyal to Ghaddafi. - US-NATO have dispatched around 1500 foreign Al Qaeda mercenaries from Afghanistan to Libya when several hundreds of rebels were killed during recent offensive on Sirte, bani-Walid, Sabha and other towns loyal to Muamar Ghaddafi. Also the all important oil town of Ras Lanuf has been liberated by Ghaddafi forces and that oil exports by the National Transitional Council (NTC) - initially destined for western colonial masters - should now come to a standstill. In addition thousand of tribal fighters from Southern Sahara region are joining Ghaddafi forces and the beginning of a fierce counterattack against NATO-Al Qaeda-Rebel positions is reportedly taking shape with counterattacks to commence in the next few days. Meanwhile Muammar Ghaddafi has just delivered his latest radio message on Bani-Walid radio in which he promised to launch massive counteroffensive to liberate all of Libya. [Including: Gaddafi's Speech: Zero Hour will Inevitably Come]

The German parliament will hold a crucial vote today on whether to approve an extension of powers for the eurozone's financial rescue fund. - The Bundestag is expected to pass the legislation, backed by the opposition Social Democrats and the Green party – but the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is still struggling to persuade her own ruling coalition to vote in favour. If she is unable to win the support of her Christian Democrat party and their coalition partners, the Free Democrats, Ms Merkel would be expected to hold a parliamentary vote of confidence in her government. The expectation is she would lose such a vote, which would mean early elections.

RT: Germany boosts EU bailout fund
BBC: Greek economic crisis: Living on less
IRNA: UK worst quality of life in EU
The Independent: In Athens, 'austerity' remains a dirty word
Stephen Lendman: Imploding Bubble Economies