The World’s Long Festering Truth / Israel Is An Illegal Garrison State | Former President Jimmy Carter, author of a new book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, is interviewed from his home in Plains, Georgia. He responds to a caller who asks questions concerning pressure put on the US political system and the resulting support of Israel. ('Jimmy Carter the truth about Israel')

Top-secret archive document also reveals that Mandela was 'familiar with the problems of Jewry and of Israel' and that Israeli operatives tried to 'make him a Zionist.' ● Nelson Mandela, the former South African leader who died earlier this month, was trained in weaponry and sabotage by Mossad operatives in 1962, a few months before he was arrested in South Africa. During his training, Mandela expressed interest in the methods of the Haganah pre-state underground and was viewed by the Mossad as leaning toward communism. These revelations are from a document in the Israel State Archives labeled “Top Secret.” The existence of the document is revealed here for the first time. It also emerges that the Mossad operatives attempted to encourage Zionist sympathies in Mandela. Mandela, the father of the new South Africa and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, led the struggle against apartheid in his country from the 1950s. He was arrested, tried and released a number of times before going underground in the early 1960s. In January 1962, he secretly and illegally fled South Africa and visited various African countries, including Ethiopia, Algeria, Egypt and Ghana. His goal was to meet with the leaders of African countries and garner financial and military support for the armed wing of the underground African National Congress.

Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and several other EU countries were named among “third party partners” in the NSA-led global signal intelligence program, a new leak submitted by journalist Glenn Greenwald to Danish TV reveals. ● According to the document, obtained by Swedish TV program ‘Mission: Investigate’, that has been probing Sweden's participation in global spying operations, nine European countries were added to the list of NSA accomplices. The "third party partners" to the Five Eyes nations has now grown to include nine states - Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain. The newly-leaked document from Edward Snowden is the first written confirmation of Denmark's formal agreement with the NSA, the Copenhagen Post writes.

From the moment the government’s massive database of citizens’ call records was exposed this year, U.S. officials have clung to two main lines of defense: The secret surveillance program was constitutional and critical to keeping the nation safe. But six months into the controversy triggered by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the viability of those claims is no longer clear. NSA officials, who rarely miss a chance to cite Snowden’s status as a fugitive from the law, now stand accused of presiding over a program whose capabilities were deemed by the judge to be “Orwellian" and likely illegal. Snowden’s defenders, on the other hand, have new ammunition to argue that he is more whistleblower than traitor.

Edward Snowden News: Review: NSA snooping program should stay in place (CNN)
Marcy Wheeler: The NSA review panel didn't answer the real question: was any of this legal?

Raymond Ibrahim ■ One of the worst Christian massacres—complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches—recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi “rebels”; and the U.S. government and its “mainstream media” mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters). The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region’s inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria’s Christians could feel secure; 600 Christian families had earlier fled there for sanctuary from the jihad, only to be followed by it). In late October, the U.S-supported “opposition” invaded and occupied Sadad for over a week, till ousted by the nation’s military. Among other atrocities, 45 Christians—including women and children—were killed, several tortured to death; Sadat’s 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for “subhuman” Christians). The jihadis even made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam’s victory-cry, “Allahu Akbar” (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying “thank God”). Another video, made after Sadad was liberated shows more graphic atrocities.

Former Yukos' owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky has left the prison today, according to his lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant. Ex-tycoon was pardoned by a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. | Mikhail Khodorkovsky was freed from jail after spending more than 10 years in prison behind bars, said a spokesman for the ex-tycoon. "Yes, we confirm it," a spokesman for Khodorkovsky told AFP. Khodorkovsky's lead lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant also said that the defence had received confirmation from prison officials that the tycoon left his colony in the town of Segezha in northwestern Russia. Vadim Klyuvgant gave no details about the release. "He has left the (prison) colony. That's all I can say," said Klyuvgant.

BBC: Khodorkovsky on his way to Germany
Russia Today: Ex-oil tycoon Khodorkovsky leaves prison hours after Putin pardon

US government scientists have for the first time found direct evidence of toxic exposure in the Gulf of Mexico. ● US government scientists have for the first time connected the BP oil disaster to dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico, in a study finding direct evidence of toxic exposure. The study, led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found lung disease, hormonal abnormalities and other health effects among dolphins in an area heavily oiled during the BP spill. The diseases found in the dolphins at Barataria Bay in Louisiana – though rare – were consistent with exposure to oil, the scientists said.

USAID and CIA “Ghost Money” program to install West-backed technocrats in Afghanistan. ● The chief of staff to Afghanistan’s president drew a salary from two U.S. government contractors in 2002 and early 2003 as he was managing President Hamid Karzai’s office, serving as his spokesman and advising him on foreign affairs, according to documents reviewed by The Daily Beast and subsequent interviews. The contractor salary provided to Said Jawad was part of a U.S. initiative to directly pay high salaries to Western-educated Afghans who helped rebuild a government from scratch in the midst of an ongoing civil war and foreign occupation. While some current and former U.S. officials say these measures were necessary in the first months and years of the Afghan reconstruction to attract top talent to a daunting project, other experts say it’s no different from the kind of corruption the Bush and Obama administration have publicly criticized inside the Afghan government.

“The best way to take control over a people and control them utterly is to take a little of their freedom at a time, to erode rights by a thousand tiny and almost imperceptible reductions. In this way, the people will not see those rights and freedoms being removed until past the point at which these changes cannot be reversed.” ~ Adolf Hitler in "Mein Kampf"

Jonathan Turley ■ Former CIA Director James Woolsey has one wish for the holidays: for Edward Snowden to be tried for treason and “hanged.” That was Woolsey’s response to the suggestion of amnesty for Snowden.Of course, the National Intelligence Director can commit perjury and CIA officials can lie to Congress without nary an investigation let alone prosecution. Intelligence officials can run a torture program in violation of treaties and international law without punishment. CIA officials can openly destroy evidence so that it cannot be used against them in a criminal case and continue in office without penalty. The CIA director can even reveal classified evidence to a filmmaker working on a pro-torture movie. All of that is perfectly correct, but Snowden must die.

Brazil has rejected a contract for Boeing’s F/A-18 fighter jets in favor of the Swedish Saab’s JAS 39 Gripens. The unexpected move to reject the US bid comes amid the global scandal over the NSA’s involvement in economic espionage activities. The announcement for the purchase of 36 fighters was made Wednesday by Brazilian Defense Minister Celso Amorim and Air Force Commander Junti Saito. The jets will cost US$4.5 billion, well below the estimated market value of around US$7 billion.

The PC police and progressive stooges have long taken over the nation's public school systems, and the result has been a complete disaster. Not only have these idiots led our education system down a path of sustained decline - a fact which almost no one discusses - but they have turned our schools into havens of nonsensical tyranny while transforming our children into mind-numbed robots of conformity. The latest outrage, as reported by Britain's Daily Mail newspaper:

A 10-year-old boy was suspended after he pretended to shoot an imaginary bow and arrow at his classmate, the family's attorney said this week. Johnny Jones was disciplined after he playfully responded to his friend's imaginary gun duel during class in October, by making an imaginary bow and arrow using his pencil. Johnny was reported by a girl in his class at the South Eastern School District West in Pennsylvania.

Arthur Topham, publisher of the Canadian-based Radical Press website, is facing criminal charges. His crime: Parodying Zionist Jew Theodore Kaufman’s book “Germany Must Perish!” by changing “Germany” to “Israel” throughout the text. This tiny change produced the satirical masterpiece “Israel Must Perish!” – and led Canada’s Zionist Power Configuration to have him jailed on “hate crime” charges! The 1941 Zionist genocide manifesto Germany Must Perish! makes Mein Kampf look like a Mother Theresa homily by comparison. The mass murder of every German advocated by Kaufman was hailed by Time Magazine as “a sensational idea!” The annihilation of the women, children, and men of Germany was termed “a plan for permanent peace among civilized nations” by the Zionist flagship publication The New York Times.

China will not tolerate the US military buildup in Asia Pacific for supporting regional allies who are in dispute with Beijing over a chain of islands, says investigative journalist Wayne Madsen. ● “The US needs to recognize that China will not tolerate US military presence in its waters just as the United States will not tolerate Chinese naval ships off the coast of Atlantic City in New Jersey,” Madsen said in a phone interview with Press TV on Wednesday. Washington and Beijing have been trading barbs since USS Cowpens and a Chinese warship “nearly collided” in the South China Sea earlier in December. “With President Obama’s ‘pivot’ to Asia where he has redirected a lot of US military assets to East Asia, we’re going to see a lot more confrontations like the one we recently saw between a US Navy cruiser and a Chinese aircraft carrier,” Madsen said.

PressTV: Beijing warns US against meddling in China Sea - Video

Watch the full interview with Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald on Democracy Now! at http://owl.li/mkCnI. Greenwald, who broke the NSA surveillance stories, talks about the mystery around Edward Snowden and the Obama administration's decision to charge Snowden with espionage.

Greenwald says: "Dianne Feinstein is outright lying when she says that she doesn't know of any instances of abuse at the National Security Agency. Leaving aside the fact that there have been several different reports by ABC News, by The New York Times, of the NSA abusing its eavesdropping powers over the last four years, there is a 2011 opinion, 80 pages long, from the FISA court, the secret court that oversees the NSA. And what it ruled, although the court—the opinion is top-secret and hasn't been publicly released. What it ruled is that the way in which the NSA is spying on American citizens is in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, as well as in excess of the limitations imposed by the statute, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. In other words, what the NSA is doing is both unconstitutional and illegal. And so, although the public doesn't have access to that opinion—shockingly, that in a democracy you could have a court rule the government has violated the law and the Constitution and keep it all a secret—Dianne Feinstein has access to that opinion. And so, when she says into the camera that there's no evidence that she is aware of that the NSA has abused its spying powers, she's simply lying, because she knows that the claim she's making is false."

Russia Today: NSA lies? Agency lacks evidence it thwarted 54 terrorist attacks
Russia Today: NSA methods reminiscent of those used in USSR under Stalin – Lavrov
Washington's Blog: Former Top NSA Official: “We Are Now In A Police State”

Over 80 civilians in a town northwest of the Syrian capital of Damascus have been executed by Islamist rebels, sources within the Syrian military told RT. Many others were kidnapped to be used as human shields. ● Government forces are continuing a large-scale operation against Jabhat al-Nusra and Liwa Al-Islam fighters, who captured the town earlier this week. The area is located some 20 kilometers away from Damascus. According to SANA news agency, around 1,000 militants were in the town when it was enveloped by the army on Friday. The military sources said the “armed groups have performed an execution of civilians” in Adra, RT Arabic correspondent Abutaleb Albohaya reported from Syria. “For now it’s established that over 80 people were killed in the areas now taken over by the army. Often whole families were murdered,” he said.

IIT: UNBELIEVABLE: Adra massacre: Terrorists show photos of those they beheaded

The Federal Reserve System was created on December 23, 1913, when President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act into law. Today {12/16/13}, the Fed has decided to commemorate the event today with all three living Fed chairman delivering remarks. - A day that will live in infamy. Jacob H. Schiff, Paul Warburg and other bankers influenced Congress to pass the Federal Reserve Act (December 23, 1913). The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was created in October 1913 to minimize predictable criticism. The bankers have manufactured panics, withdrawn credit and in the process have confiscated the citizen’s resources and personal property through phony bailouts, sanctioned by compromised politicians. These actions are calculated and designed to ultimately decimate the economy. The same bankers who promoted the Federal Reserve funded Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Molotov and Kirov (assumed names) in their godless, violent take-over of Russia. The bankers began making major profits when Bernard Baruch, Louis Brandeis and others manipulated their puppet Woodrow Wilson into entering World War I on borrowed money after the provoked attack on the Lusitania.

Brazil has no plans to grant asylum to Edward Snowden even after the former U.S. National Security Agency contractor offered on Tuesday to help investigate revelations of spying on Brazilians and their president, a local newspaper reported. ● The Folha de S.Paulo newspaper, citing unnamed government officials, said the Brazilian government has no interest in investigating the mass Internet surveillance programs Snowden revealed in June and does not intend to give him asylum. In an "Open Letter to the Brazilian People" published by Folha and social media, Snowden offered to help a congressional probe into NSA spying on the country, including the personal communications of President Dilma Rousseff.

Russia Today/AWIP: Snowden offers to help Brazil investigate NSA spying when he's given asylum

A federal district judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, describing its technology as “almost Orwellian” and suggesting that James Madison would be “aghast” to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way. The judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, ordered the government to stop collecting data on the personal calls of the two plaintiffs in the case and to destroy the records of their calling history. But Judge Leon, appointed to the bench in 2002 by President George W. Bush, stayed his injunction “in light of the significant national security interests at stake in this case and the novelty of the constitutional issues,” allowing the government time to appeal it, which he said could take at least six months. “I cannot imagine a more ‘indiscriminate’ and ‘arbitrary’ invasion than this systematic and high-tech collection and retention of personal data on virtually every single citizen for purposes of querying and analyzing it without prior judicial approval,” Judge Leon wrote in a 68-page ruling. “Surely, such a program infringes on ‘that degree of privacy’ that the founders enshrined in the Fourth Amendment,” which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.

The Brad Blog: Federal Judge: NSA Phone Records Dragnet 'Likely Unconstitutional', 'Almost Orwellian'
The Examiner: Edward Snowden praises Judge Leon's ruling against the NSA
John Burton: Federal judge holds NSA telephone surveillance unconstitutional
Stephen Lendman: Federal Judge Rules Against Mass Surveillance

The NSA’s ultimate goal is to destroy individual privacy worldwide, working with its UK sidekick GCHQ, journalist Glenn Greenwald warned an EU inquiry, adding that they were far ahead of their rivals in their “ability to destroy privacy.” Greenwald, the former Guardian journalist renowned for publishing Edward Snowden’s leaks, criticized EU governments’ muted response to the revelations about the NSA’s mass espionage. Most governments reacted with “apathy and indifference” to reports that ordinary citizens were being spied upon, Greenwald said, pointing out that EU politicians only took action when they discovered that they themselves were being targeted. “I think western governments have inculcated people to accept that privacy does not really have much value,” said Greenwald, adding it was “to get populations accustomed to violations of their privacy.” “The NSA doesn’t need a specific reason to collect anybody’s communications,” said the journalist, reminding the panel that the agency’s ultimate goal was to “eliminate individual privacy worldwide.” Greenwald testified before the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs via a video link, contributing to an inquiry into the NSA’s surveillance on EU citizens.

Norsk etterretning er en stadig viktigere del av USAs globale overvåkningsnettverk. Det framgår av et topphemmelig dokument om «problemfritt» samarbeid mellom E-tjenesten og National Security Agency (NSA). ● «Modellpartner», «unik tilgang», «en av våre topp to-partnere» og «en ledende leverandør». Det er betegnelser National Security Agency (NSA) bruker internt om den norske Etterretningstjenesten på ulike områder i 2013. Også norsk signaletterretning mot utenlandske «sivile mål» som rapporteres videre til amerikanerne, blir framhevet. Det viser et hemmeligstemplet dokument som varsleren Edward Snowden i sommer hentet ut fra NSA og som Dagbladet har fått tilgang til. Denne artikkelen er skrevet i samarbeid med journalist Glenn Greenwald. Dagbladet skrev i går om hvordan E-tjenesten blant annet overvåker russiske politikere og rapporterer videre til NSA om sivil energipolitikk, men det er bare én del av samarbeidet. NSA er en av USAs største etterretningsorganisasjoner og opererer over hele verden. [Google Translate]

Russia Today: Revealed: Norway spies on Russia for NSA

Marine Le Pen, the leader of France's Front National, has denounced the EU approach to the Ukrainian crisis as intervention in the home affairs of a nation, which she said did not need EU integration in the first place. She also described as "strange, to say the least" the Union's demand that Ukraine's legally-elected government step down just because that's what a few dozens of thousands wanted. The head of France's third largest party compared the situation in Ukraine to what had been going on in France when some 1.5 million protesters took to the streets to rally against Paris's decision to allow gay marriages and yet she stressed Brussels never doubted the legitimacy of President Francois Hollande. The Voice of Russia's readers and listeners have shared their take on the discrepancy, which was brought to the fore by Marine Le Pen.

Marine Le Pen's interview: 'European Union has no right to demand anything'

Arctic sea ice last month was around 50 percent higher in volume compared with a year earlier, following a recovery in area this summer, the European Space Agency (ESA) said Monday. ● This is some good news for the Arctic, but does not reverse a longer trend of decline, it said. Data from ESA’s high-tech ice-monitoring satellite CryoSat found that in October this year, there was about 9,000 cubic kilometres (2,100 cu. miles) of sea ice in the Arctic. A year earlier, the volume was 6,000 cu. kms (1,400 cu. miles). When measured over a timescale of several years, ice in October 2013 was about 30 centimetres (19 inches) thicker than last year’s — a rise of about 20 percent. Sea ice is ocean water that freezes in extremely low temperatures. In the Arctic, this ice goes through regular swings, contracting in the northern hemisphere’s summer and expanding in its winter. As a result, the changes are considered a bellwether of global warming, although experts also warn that only decades-long data can show whether something is a trend — meaning a man-made shift in climate — rather than a blip in the weather.

TruthSeeker, Comment — Dec 17, 2013 ■ Interesting how this story is being reported elsewhere in the corporate media. For example the Independent, long given to spouting N.W.O. party lines aimed at the liberal middle-class sometimes known as the “chattering classes”, reports that the increase in volume is “probably only a temporary respite“. That maybe but it it’s as well to recall that just 13-years-ago the very same Independent predicted that Flashback: Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past. Since then, of course, Britain has seen plenty of snow in some of its worst winters in decades. So one should be a little sceptical by any of the Independent’s claims about climate.

A private firm with a federal contract - and backed up by city police - forced motorists off Laurel Street and into a private parking lot Friday to question them about their driving habits and ask for a swab of their mouth. ● "I feel this incident is a gross abuse of power on many levels," Reading resident Ricardo Nieves, one of those stopped, told City Council Monday. He said federal and local tax dollars were being used to stop innocent people without probable cause, and allow a private company to hire uniformed police to force citizens to listen to their questions. He said he wasn't told what the swab was for, but added, "Clearly it was for DNA." The checkpoint was among several being carried out in Pennsylvania by the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, hired by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

At least 76 people are dead today, overwhelmingly civilians and including gas many as 28 children, after a series of barrel bomb attacks against rebel-held districts in the contested northern Syrian city of Aleppo. The toll spans several strikes against at least 13 different districts, and the final count could be quite a bit higher, with some unconfirmed reports of tolls as high as 118.

The Syrian military is increasingly relying on barrel bombs in entrenched rebel areas in Aleppo. The makeshift munitions amount to little more than an oil barrel full of TNT, rolled out of the back of a helicopter. The bombs are powerful, but extremely inaccurate, and tend to careen off target quite often, which in densely populated territory is a recipe for high civilian casualties. Early reports had claimed Nusra fighters were working alongside the Islamic Front rebels, who are being courted by the US as the new “pro-West” faction. The locals haven’t mentioned Islamic Front in their accounts, however, claiming foreign fighters for Nusra were operating on their own.

Russia Today: Dozens killed including children in Aleppo airstrikes - Photos