This Week in Maritime History: 17th Century Pirate Haven Destroyed, Israel Attacks USS Liberty.

Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty in international waters off Egypt’s Gaza Strip. Israeli aircraft fired napalm and rockets at the intelligence ship that was well marked as a U.S. vessel. The Liberty called for assistance but radio transmissions were blocked by Israel. The lightly armed vessel was eventually able to make contact with the U.S. carrier, Saratoga, whose 12 fighter jets and four tanker planes were launched to defend the Liberty.

Shortly after the aircraft were deployed, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered the planes to return to the carrier. The Israeli air raid left nine of the 294 crew members dead and 60 wounded. Israeli torpedo boats also attacked the Liberty. The ship successfully dodged four of the torpedoes but was hit at the waterline by one. With severe damage to its hull, the Liberty launched its life boats, but these were also met with attack, a violation of international law. The Liberty did not sink and Israel retreated. The damaged USS Liberty managed to sail to a safe port. A total of 34 Americans were killed and 171 were wounded in the two hour attack.

What Phil Saw That Day
USS LIBERTY Issue Proves to Be the Silver Bullet as Powerful Zionist Group Runs For Cover

One of the Obama administration’s go-to civil rights groups in its efforts to build relationships with American Muslims is suing the New York Police Department over its surveillance programs, some of which were paid for with federal money. - Eight Muslims filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday in New Jersey to force the NYPD to end its surveillance and other intelligence-gathering practices targeting Muslims in the years after the 2001 terrorist attacks. The lawsuit alleged that the NYPD’s activities were unconstitutional because they focused on people’s religion, national origin and race.

PressTV: NY judge rejects lawsuit by OWS protesters against top officials

The U.S. administration does not fully appreciate the consequences of its support for Georgia's efforts to propagandize the "Russian occupation of Georgia," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Wednesday. - "Highly placed American representatives are once again making loud statements in support of [Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili, repeating word for word a lying thesis of his propaganda on the "Russian occupation of Georgia," he said. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Georgia Tuesday, reaffirmed U.S. support for Georgia’s territorial integrity and urged Russia to commit to the August 2008 ceasefire agreement. Fueling Tbilisi’s “revanchist sentiments” in this way, "Washington does not wholly appreciate the measure of its liability," Lukashevich said on the Foreign Ministry website. The United States has not learned “the right lessons” from the August 2008 events, Lukashevich said.

RIA Novosti: Moscow Blasts U.S.-Georgia 'Neutral Passports'

“A politically incorrect wave of labyrinthine madness is casting its heavy shadow over Syria as the country is being surrounded left and right by Zionist plots thickening beyond control,” wrote Dr. Ismail Salami, author and Middle East expert, in an article published on the Global Research website on Monday.

Pointing to the activities of such Zionist heavyweights as Haim Saban, “an Egyptian born Israeli-American media mogul…and self-described as ‘a one-issue man’ with Israel being ‘his issue’,” he explained how Tel Aviv and its agents are working to unseat Assad.

“Israel is following a tripartite plot in order to topple Bashar Assad and destroy Syria under the guidance of [such figures as] Haim Saban: 1. make donations to political parties (e.g. funding and arming rebels and Wahhabi terrorists in Syria) 2. establish think tanks (e.g. setting up centers such as the Zionist Saban centers in Washington and Doha and formulating effective strategies to bring down the Assad government) and 3. control media (blacking out Arab and Western media from delivering honest and unbiased reports on the Syrian situation),” [the author noted. Elaborating on the role of Saban, he went on to say that in 2002, the influential Zionist] “founded the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, in Washington, D.C. which is affiliated to the powerful Zionist lobby in America notoriously known as AIPAC. Three ways to be influential in American politics are to make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets,” [Salami quoted Saban as saying during a conference in Israel.]”

PressTV: Kofi Annan warns against military intervention in Syria - Video
Russia Today: Those behind Hama barbaric violence must be severely punished - Moscow
[12/16/2011:] Sibel Edmonds: US and NATO troops train on the Syrian border - MUST SEE VIDEO

There have been reports of hundreds of American and NATO troops training militants on the Syrian border to overthrow Al-assad's regime. According to a former FBI official this has been going on since May 2011. Why are we not hearing about this on American mainstream media? Sibel Edmonds, president of the National Security Whistle blowers Coalition, exposes what is going on around Syria.

Antiwar.com news editor Jason Ditz debated former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle on the subject of US drone strikes in Pakistan. The debate was broadcast live on BBC Radio 5 Live yesterday (June 6). Listen to the debate (9:33).

Jason Ditz: Panetta: US at Limit of Its "Patience With" Pakistan
John Glaser: UN Rights Chief Seeks Probe of US Drone War in Pakistan
Alex Lantier: US Defense Secretary Panetta threatens ground intervention into Pakistan

The Arab Spring has borne no fruit for any of the affected countries, so the ongoing process should rather be called the Israeli Spring, since no country now poses a threat to Israel, Lebanese Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told RT. External forces seek to divide and weaken all the countries surrounding Israel in order to ensure that state’s security, he said to RT in an exclusive interview.

After continuing his attacks on the Palestinian-led BDS movement, Finkelstein offered this thought on the consequences of Palestinians continuing to insist on their rights, and rejecting the so-called two-state solution which Finkelstein misleadingly asserts is “the law”:

That’s the law. If you want to go past that law, or ignore the Israel part, you’ll never reach a broad public. And then it’s a cult. It’s pointless in my opinion. We’re wasting time. And it’s not only a wasting of time. It becomes – and I know it’s a strong word and I hope I won’t be faulted for it – it becomes historically criminal.

There you have it, Palestinians. If you continue to insist on rights for all Palestinians, you are committing a crime. As for Democracy Now, will it allow Palestinians an opportunity to respond to Finkelstein’s misleading attacks?

"We will tell the Palestinians that if a single missile is fired over the fence, we will fire 10 in response. And women and children will be killed, and houses will be destroyed... if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day." - Jewish-Israeli Prof. Arnon Soffer of Haifa University, Jerusalem Post

"[...] The only ones making noise are leftists and so-called human rights lawyers who only care about the well-being of cats, dogs and Palestinians, but never about Jews." - Jewish-Israeli Prof. Arnon Soffer of Haifa University, Jerusalem Post

How could anyone develop such a perception of themselves, of others, of the world, and of reality around them? What kind of mindset would produce a perception so twisted, so skewed, so severely distorted almost beyond repair or recognition?

The first time I heard about the protocol was from the BBC. A few months ago, they published an article called "Canadian government is 'muzzling its scientists'. The piece explained that back in 2008, soon after Stephen Harper won his second minority, his Conservatives issued a new "protocol" to all scientists working for the federal government — so that's people in departments like Health Canada, Environment Canada, and the Department for Fisheries and Oceans. The protocol says that those scientists are no longer allowed to talk to the media without permission from Harper's public relations officials first. If a scientist wants to discuss their work, Conservative PR people decide whether or not they're allowed to. And if the interview is approved, Conservative PR people decide what the scientists are — and are not — allowed to say.

In a matter of days, the number of expected foreign visitors to Tibet has gone from millions to zero. Chinese authorities alerted foreign travel agencies Tuesday that they would no longer be issuing entry permits to Tibet, the latest in a series of regulations being put on travelers to Tibet. The announcement follows the self-immolation of two Tibetans last week. - Tibet is no stranger to Chinese interference in its tourism industry. Tibet’s failed rebellion in March 1959 and the event’s annual memorial on National Uprising Day has chronically put the region at odds with the People’s Republic of China. In 2008, protests after National Uprising Day turned into riots that were met with violence by PRC forces. The Chinese government temporarily closed Tibet to foreign visitors. That is a now-annual practice in March, and during other national events significant to the Chinese government. Now, many are saying that the latest in a string of Tibetan self-immolations led to the country’s shutdown to outsiders. According to Free Tibet, a campaign promoting Tibetan independence from China, there have been more than 30 self-immolations since March 2011. Most recently, on May 27, 2012 two Tibetans were the first to set themselves on fire in Lhasa, Tibet’s tightly-controlled administrative capital. The shutdown also coincides with the Saga Dawa festival, which celebrates the Buddha’s birth and draws many Buddhists to Tibet. This year, the festival began on June 4, which is also the anniversary of the Chinese government crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.

Moscow city court has upheld a decision to turn down the LGBT activists’ request for permission to hold gay pride parades for the next 100 years. - Earlier, Tverskoy district court ruled lawful the decision of the Moscow municipal government to ban public events that can be qualified as gay parades from March 2012 till May 2112. Nikolay Alekseyev, one of the leaders of the Russian LGBT community and organizer of gay pride events, told reporters that he intended to appeal the decision in the Moscow City Court Presidium, and that if the highest Russian instance also rules against him, to address the European Court of Human Rights. Alekseyev explained to the reporters that in 2011, the activists found a loophole in Russian legislation and submitted requests for 102 gay pride parades to the Moscow Mayor’s office. According to the activist, all they got in return was a letter with a quote from regulations, although the law obliges the city authorities to either allow or ban the planned event within 15 days. At the same time, Alekseyev admitted that he and his comrades never hoped to actually receive a license for the parade but simply needed a formal excuse to turn to the European Human Rights Court.