Daniel McAdams

Mother Agnès-Mariam Attacked...By Human Rights Watch!

Since when does a human rights organization take to arguing the case for a military attack that will kill scores of innocent civilians? If you are Human Rights Watch, it's all in a day's work. The US regime's favorite "human rights " organization, which once praised the Obama Administration's continuation of its predecessor's torturous CIA "extraordinary rendition" program, pulled out all stops to bolster Obama's claims that the Syrian government was responsible for the August 21st chemical attack near Damascus.

As Obama was ready to teach Syria a lesson via Tomahawk cruise missiles, Human Rights Watch stood virtually alone in the world on the president's side. The human rights group was not busy trying to help the victims or promote international diplomatic efforts to end the crisis. They were instead feverishly engaged in a convoluted effort to prove that the missiles that purportedly carried the poison gas could only have come from Syrian government positions. They had no investigators on the ground, yet they determined independent of facts that the Syrian government must have been responsible. This is the job for a human rights group? To help a president make the case for war?

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Paul Craig Roberts

Putin established as the leader of the free world and the defender of the rule of law - Paul Craig Roberts

Putin’s article in the September 11 New York Times has the stuck pigs squealing. The squealing stuck pigs are just who you thought they would be–all those whose agendas and profits would be furthered by an attack on Syria by the obama Stasi regime.

Included among the squealing stuck pigs are Human Rights Watch bloggers who seem to be financed out of the CIA’s back pocket.

Does any institution remain that has not been corrupted by Washington’s money?

Notice that the reason Putin is being criticized is that he has blocked the obama regime from attacking Syria and slaughtering countless numbers of Syrians in the name of human rights. The stuck pigs are outraged that obama’s war has been blocked. They were so much looking forward to the mass slaughter that they believe would advance their profits and agendas.

Most of Putin’s critics are too intellectually challenged to comprehend that Putin’s brilliant and humane article has left Putin the leader of the free world and defender of the rule of law and exposed obama for what he is–the leader of a rogue, lawless, unaccountable government committed to lies and war crimes.

Putin, being diplomatic, was very careful in his criticism of obama’s September 10 speech in which obama sought to justify Washington’s lawlessness in terms of “American exceptionalism.” Obama, attempting to lift his criminal regime by the bootstraps up into the moral heavens, claimed that United States government policy is “what makes America different. It’s what makes us exceptional.”

What obama told Americans is exactly what Hitler told the Germans. The Russians, having borne more than anyone else the full weight of the German war machine, know how dangerous it is to encourage people to think of themselves as exceptional, unbound by law, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Security Council, and humane concerns for others. Putin reminded obama that “God created us equal.”

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Stephen Lendman

Anything's possible ahead. What follows remains to be seen. Revolutionary struggles are longterm. Regional ones just began.

February 11, 2011 marked the end of Mubarak's 30-year dictatorship. July 3, 2013 reflects its reincarnation. Iron fist junta power's reinstated. Perhaps it'll be worse than before. For sure it is now. Violence continues daily. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, died. Countless numbers were injured and arrested.

State terror targets Morsi supporters. Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) generals demand things their way. Human lives are a small price to pay for power. Tyranny defines today's Egypt. It's always been that way. It's worse than ever now.

Police state terror targets dissenters. Egypt's Emergency Law was reinstated. It was enacted in 1958. It remained in force from 1967 through May 31, 2012. It did so except for an 18 month 1980/81 period. It reflects police state harshness. Authorities have sweeping powers. Constitutional rights are suspended. Unapproved street demonstrations are banned. Media censorship's enforced. Political activism's prohibited. Anyone can be arrested and imprisoned for any reason or none at all. Innocence is no defense. Indefinite detentions are commonplace. Torture is widespread. Trials, if gotten, are farcical. Military judges preside. Closed door proceedings follow. Guilt by accusation is policy. Thousands languish in Egypt's gulag. They did so under Mubarak. They still do. Police states operate this way.

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James Bamford

In mid-May, Edward Snowden, an American in his late twenties, walked through the onyx entrance of the Mira Hotel on Nathan Road in Hong Kong and checked in. He was pulling a small black travel bag and had a number of laptop cases draped over his shoulders. Inside those cases were four computers packed with some of his country’s most closely held secrets.

Within days of Snowden’s documents appearing in The Guardian and The Washington Post, revealing several of the National Security Agency’s extensive domestic surveillance programs, bookstores reported a sudden spike in the sales of George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel 1984. On Amazon.com, the book made the “Movers & Shakers” list and skyrocketed 6,021 percent in a single day. Written sixty-five years ago, it described a fictitious totalitarian society where a shadowy leader known as “Big Brother” controls his population through invasive surveillance. “The telescreens,” Orwell wrote, “have hidden microphones and cameras. These devices, alongside informers, permit the Thought Police to spy upon everyone….”

Today, as the Snowden documents make clear, it is the NSA that keeps track of phone calls, monitors communications, and analyzes people’s thoughts through data mining of Google searches and other online activity. “Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it,” Orwell wrote about his protagonist, Winston Smith.

There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.

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Konstantin Gordeev

Edward Snowden, a young American, grabbed the world attention in the wink of an eye making the revelations on US global surveillance come into the open. The world telecommunications are under constant surveillance carried out by the watchful eye of US special services. The snooping is ubiquitous encompassing US citizens and people in other countries of the world. It’s really complete, there is no exaggeration here, it spreads on bums and presidents, bitterest enemies and bosom friends - all of them watched at any given moment. Phone calls are eavesdropped, fax messages, including the coded ones, are tapped, Internet networks and electronic messages are intercepted, bank transactions are followed, each and every thing is under the eagle eye, there is no escape and no exclusion from the rule.

No surprise, many in America think Snowden is a «traitor» and a «spy». But there is something else that is important: according to polls, over 40% of US citizens say no to the persecution of Snowden, they approve his actions and think he is the one who has revealed the illegal activities of US special services.[1] What has he done to make the US authorities exert pressure on other countries so that they would land foreign presidential planes or make the United States threaten everyone who dares to grant him political asylum at the time tens of thousands Americans come out to show their support for Snowden and his courageous deed? That’s what the Americans say in their in website and blogs posts comparing the US administration actions with fascism, in particular, that’s what an article published by the Truthout says.[2] A petition asking President Barack Obama to pardon admitted state secret leaker Edward Snowden and stop his persecution has passed 100,000 signatures.[3-4]

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Thomas Hedges

John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who blew the whistle on Bush’s torture program and is now in prison, sent an open letter[see below] to Edward Snowden last week warning him not to trust the FBI.

“DO NOT,” Kiriakou wrote, “under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI. FBI agents will lie, trick, and deceive you. They will twist your words and play on your patriotism to entrap you. They will pretend to be people they are not – supporters, well-wishers, and friends – all the while wearing wires to record your out-of-context statements to use against you. The FBI is the enemy; it’s part of the problem, not the solution.”

These are the words of a registered Republican who voted for Gary Johnson, whom the Rosenberg Fund for Children denied a grant, informing him that he wasn’t “liberal enough,” Kiriakou says, for the award — and who last year received a birthday card from Jerry Falwell Jr.

Kiriakou is the first CIA veteran to be imprisoned. It was after he blew the whistle on Bush’s torture program that the CIA, FBI and Justice Department came down on him, at first charging him with aiding the enemy and later convicting him of disclosing the identities of undercover colleagues at the CIA.

The FBI raided his house in the process. They took his computers. They also took his family photos because, they said, he could have embedded secret messages in them.

“I did not start this thing with the idea that I was going to be a whistle-blower,” Kiriakou told Salon in December, two months before being sent off to a low-security prison in Loretto, Pa., with a 30-month sentence.

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Stephen Lendman

On July 12, Russia Today (RT) headlined "US 'blocks my asylum:' Snowden human rights activists to airport meeting," saying: Snowden remains stuck. He's in limbo. He's at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. He's in its transit area. A source told Interfax he'll meet with human rights organizations late Friday. Airport spokeswoman Anna Zakharenkova said she "can confirm that such a meeting will take place."

Snowden invited a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) representative, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International and Poland's Krido Legal. Moscow officials weren't asked to come.

Russia's human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said he's willing to meet with Snowden. "I want to hear him out and then think what should be done," he said. "I think international organizations should take up this question. Snowden now is clearly in the situation of being a refugee from his country." He "wishes to express his thoughts on the US campaign for his capture that has put other passengers heading to Latin America at risk as a result."

Snowden's letter to human rights groups said:

"I have been extremely fortunate to enjoy and accept many offers of support and asylum from brave countries around the world. These nations have my gratitude. Unfortunately, in recent weeks we have witnessed an unlawful campaign by officials in the US government to deny my right to seek and enjoy this asylum under Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The scale of threatening behavior is without precedent: never before in history have states conspired to force to the ground a sovereign President's plane to effect a search for a political refugee. This dangerous escalation represents a threat not just to the dignity of Latin America or my own personal security, but to the basic right shared by every living person to live free from persecution."

UNHCR, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Transparency International confirmed receipt of Snowden's letter.

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Gilad Atzmon

Professor Richard A. Falk, UN Special
Rapporteur on "the situation of human
rights in the Palestinian territories occu-
pied since 1967."

I was amused and proud to see my latest book The Wandering Who? held aloft by Israeli chief Sayan Hilllel Neuer at the UN’s Human Right Council. The book was presented as ‘exhibit B’ in a farcical self-appointed Talmudic kangaroo court against the great Professor Richard Falk who lent his name, amongst many other leading humanists and intellectuals, in support of my work.

Infamous Hasbara spin-doctor Neuer doesn’t like Falk, this is clear. Along the years Zionists have developed a collective anathema towards humanists and humanism. Neuer Insisted that The Wandering Who? is ‘Anti-Semitic.’ In order to support his ridiculous claim, he recruited Ali Abunimah, the man who single-handedly managed to reduce the Intifada to an electronic blog.

So here is some bad news Neuer better take into consideration: 24 hours before Abunimah published his peculiar ‘interpretation’ of my thoughts, he was foolish enough to admit to Professor Norton Mezvinsky that he actually had not read The Wandering Who or “anything else by Atzmon.” How embarrassing. At the time, Professor Mezvinsky, gave me his full consent to publicise Abunimah’s confession.

In his relatively short intellectual career, Abunimah has managed to produce some of the most mind-boggling statements in the history of contemporary intellectual exchanges. I guess that Neuer could do with the support of someone who is familiar with my work or at least clever enough to hide his ignorance.

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Andrew Gavin Marshall

The following is my first original piece for The Hampton Institute, “a working class think tank,” at which I chair the Geopolitics Division. This essay is meant as an introduction to modern American geopolitics, and a reference piece for future research and published material through The Hampton Institute’s Geopolitics Division.

Educating yourself about empire can be a challenging endeavor, especially since so much of the educational system is dedicated to avoiding the topic or justifying the actions of imperialism in the modern era. If one studies political science or economics, the subject might be discussed in a historical context, but rarely as a modern reality; media and government voices rarely speak on the subject, and even more rarely speak of it with direct and honest language. Instead, we exist in a society where institutions and individuals of power speak in coded language, using deceptive rhetoric with abstract meaning. We hear about 'democracy' and 'freedom' and 'security,' but so rarely about imperialism, domination, and exploitation.

The objective of this report is to provide an introduction to the institutional and social structure of American imperialism. The material is detailed, but should not be considered complete or even comprehensive; its purpose is to function as a resource or reference for those seeking to educate themselves about the modern imperial system. It's not an analysis of state policies or the effects of those policies, but rather, it is an examination of the institutions and individuals who advocate and implement imperial policies. What is revealed is a highly integrated and interconnected network of institutions and individuals - the foreign policy establishment - consisting of academics (so-called "experts" and "policy-oriented intellectuals") and prominent think tanks.

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Stephen Lendman

Rhetoric substitutes for real change. Believing it's forthcoming is fool's hope. Nothing suggests otherwise.

The media didn't surprise. Media scoundrels support his worst policies. His neoliberal harshness is endorsed. His alliance with monied interests gets no coverage. His crimes of war, against humanity and genocide go unmentioned. His partnership with Israel against Palestine isn't explained. His systematic disdain for rule of law principles gets ignored.

Responses to his Thursday speech were largely positive. Challenging them follows below.

New York Times editors headlined "The End of the Perpetual War," saying:

"For the first time, a president stated clearly and unequivocally that the state of perpetual warfare that began nearly 12 years ago is unsustainable for a democracy and must come to an end in the not-too-distant future." "(T)here is no underestimating the importance of that statement." [Obama] "told the world that the United States must return to a state in which counterterrorism is handled.primarily by law enforcement and the intelligence agencies." [He] "announced important shifts in the policy of using unmanned drones" to kill targeted individuals." [He] "called on Congress to remove the restrictions (on) transfer(ing) detainees from the prison in Cuba." [He] "pledged to create new protections for Americans' civil liberties." [He] said a " 'free press is essential for our democracy.'" "There have been times when we wished we could hear the right words from Mr. Obama on issues like these, and times we heard the words but wondered about his commitment." "This was not either of those moments."

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