Stephen Lendman

Syria threatens no one. It hasn't used chemical weapons against insurgents or its own civilians. Claims otherwise are fabricated.

In contrast, Israel is nuclear armed and dangerous. It maintains large chemical and biological weapons arsenals. More on that below.

In 1986, Dimona nuclear technician/heroic whistleblower Mordechai Vananu revealed important documents, photos, and other scientific evidence. They proved Israel began producing atomic weapons since at least the 1960s. Years later, thermonuclear warheads were manufactured. It's believed Israel's arsenal includes hundreds it won't admit to publicly. It's missile capability can deliver them long range. So can its nuclear submarines. Vananu revealed Israel's nuclear program. He provided credible evidence. Doing so cost him dearly.

In 1986, Mossad agents lured him to Rome. They beat, drugged and kidnapped him. He was secretly tried. He was convicted on espionage and treason charges. He got 18 years in prison. He spent much of it in brutalizing solitary confinement. He suffered cruel and barbaric treatment.

After release, he was imprisoned again. It was for speaking to foreign journalists. Daniel Ellsberg calls him "the preeminent hero of the nuclear era." Vananu said "I am neither a traitor nor a spy. I only wanted the world to know what was happening." People everywhere have a right to know.

More »

Stephen Lendman

In awarding its 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, Committee members turned truth on its head, saying:

Obama made extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. He created a new climate in international politics. Multinational diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions play. He envisions "a world without nuclear weapons. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened. Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely the international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman.

Fact check: Throughout his tenure, Obama supported multiple direct and proxy wars. He backs perpetual wars. He spurns peace. He deplores it. He pursues confrontational policies. He chooses them over diplomatic conflict resolution. He does it every time. He supports some the world's most ruthless despots. They get White House photo-op invitations. He reinvented a new Cold War with Russia. His Asia pivot targets China and North Korea. He supports Honduran coup d'état rule. He conspired with fascist plotters to oust democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. After its disastrous January 2010 earthquake, he militarized Haiti. He plundered it freely. He opposed Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return. He orchestrated rigged elections. He prohibited democratic rule.

More »

If Americans Knew

Israel has a population of approximately 7.7 million, or a million fewer than the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income similar to that of the European Union.[1] Israel's unemployment rate of 6.3% is much better than America's 8.2%,[2] and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 146th in the world while the US sits at a dismal 193rd.[3]

Yet, Israel receives more of America’s foreign aid budget than any other nation.[4] The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined—which have a total population of over a billion people.[5]

And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel. Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Lynne's wrongfully imprisoned. She's one of America's best. For 30 years, she defended its poor, underprivileged, unwanted, and forgotten. Without advocates like her, they're denied due process and judicial fairness. She was targeted for representing clients prosecutors want convicted. A previous article said Obama wants her dead. She's gravely ill. She's a breast cancer survivor. It reemerged. It's spreading. She's denied proper treatment. More on her below.

America's gulag prison system shames the nation. It's a crime against humanity. It's by far the world's largest. It's one of the worst. Many in it shouldn't be there. Blacks and Latinos comprise two-thirds of its population. They're society's most vulnerable. Around half imprisoned are for nonviolent offenses. Many are elicit drug related. They're captives under cruel and inhumane conditions. Mandatory minimum sentences exacerbate things. So do racist and other deplorable policies. They include pervasive judicial unfairness, three strikes and you're out, get tough on crime harshness, and a guilty unless proved innocent mentality.

In his book "Race to Incarcerate," Marc Mauer discussed America's obsession with imprisonment, punishment, the commodification of prisoners, and rage to fill prison beds. Countless numbers of political prisoners fill them.

More »

Michael Albert

John Pilger Interviewed by Michael Albert

Michael Albert: 1. As a person very well known for both video work and writing work - I wonder if you could tell us how you got started in each, so people know a bit more about your history.

John Pilger: My journalism began in Australia when I started a newspaper at Sydney High School. It was called 'The Messenger' and I was 12 years old. Or perhaps it began a year or two earlier when I would get up before sunrise to deliver newspapers, only to be chastised by my employer for wasting his time reading them. Journalism certainly helped bring the world to me as I grew up; the antipodes are ruled by a tyranny of distance; I tried to imagine the rest of humanity so far away.

I grew up in Sydney, in what was then quite a poor industrial city, in a family that was considered "political": that is, we were "on the side of the underdog", as my mother would say. Australia was a society divided deeply by class, religion and silence, as Mark Twain recognised on one his visits. He described our colonial history as "like the most beautiful of lies". The indigenous people, the oldest continuous culture on earth, about whom almost no one spoke, did not exist; the likeness with South Africa was too disturbing.

More »

Stephen Lendman

A previous article discussed America's quadrennial exercise in hypocrisy. It's institutionalized. It conceals the nation's dark side.

Pomp and circumstance hide neoliberal harshness. War is portrayed as peace. Lawless government is called legitimate. Democracy never existed and doesn't now. Freedom in America is endangered. Bipartisan complicity plans destroying it altogether. America is on a fast track toward tyranny and ruin. Police state laws threaten everyone.

Activism and dissent are marginalized. Increasingly they're not tolerated. Supporting what's right is called dangerous to national security. Peaceful demonstrations are attacked and disrupted. Protesters are called terrorists. They're arrested and jailed for expressing constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment and other rights. Authorities claim doing so gives material support to enemies. None exist except invented ones.

Monied interests run America. Obama's their front man. Doublespeak duplicity conceals his dark side. He supports wrong over right. Liberalism, progressive change, and populism are ideologically opposite his agenda. Militarism, corporatism, elitism and privilege reflect it. Don't expect media scoundrels to explain.

More »

Stephen Lendman

For years, America has been on a fast track to tyranny. Duopoly power runs things repressively. Government of, by, and for the people never existed and doesn't now. Homeland repression is policy. Police state laws target resisters. Elections are farcical, rigged, and illegitimate. People have no say. Corporate controlled electronic voting machines decide for them. Money power is firmly in charge. Democracy is illusory, not real.

Corporate/party boss-run Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) members exclude alternative voices. Money power operates secretly with no public oversight. A sham process repeats each electoral cycle.

On October 16, Green Party presidential and vice presidential candidates learned firsthand. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala were arrested, detained, and held handcuffed uncomfortably to metal chairs in a remote police warehouse for hours. They were charged with "obstructing traffic." None at the time was visible. That's how tyranny works. Challenging authority risks prison or worse. Many are tortured and abused. Some end up dead. Obama appointed himself judge, jury and executioner. He decides who lives or dies. Romney won't change a thing. No matter who wins, expect police state America to be more repressive than ever post-election.

Alternative party presidential candidates risk arrest for showing up to watch debates. Participation is out of the question. If presidential challengers can be arrested and abused, what chance have ordinary people. Step out of line and expect the worst. Stein learned firsthand a second time. Her web site explained. She supports activists opposing the environmentally destructive Keystone XL (KXL) project. More about it below.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Washington and Israel wage dirty covert wars. Iran's been targeted for years. Imperial aims are prioritized. Rule of law principles don't matter. Israel wants sole regional dominance. America wants it globally. Lawless tactics continue. They include cyber attacks, other sabotage, targeted assassinations, deadly explosions, sophisticated satellite, drone, and other spying, bogus accusations, a virtual blockade, hostile saber rattling, multiple rounds of sanctions, and attempts to cripple its central bank and oil industry. In addition, relentless anti-Iranian propaganda substitutes malicious misinformation and bald-faced lies for accuracy and truth.

At issue is Iranian independence. The Islamic Republic threatens no one. Its nuclear program is peaceful. It seeks cooperative international relations. It wants its sovereign rights respected. However, belligerence is America's option of choice. Regime change is planned. It wants pro-Western governments replacing independent ones. Peace and stability are sabotaged. Pretexts are created. One war follows another. After Syria comes Iran.

More »

Philip Giraldi

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, poses for a picture with
the national synchronized swimming team during an awards cere-
mony for Russia's Olympians in Moscow's Kremlin. (08/15/12)

That 120,000 Russians can gather in the streets to protest an election speaks well of them and they should be left alone to find their own way. Would that half that many Americans could come together to actively protest the political process in the United States. That would be something worth seeing.

I confess that I cannot quite understand the campaign by the neoconservatives and also a number of leading Democrats to vilify Russia and confront it at every opportunity. The Cold War has been over for more than 20 years, but some appear to want to revive it. Russia has evolved into a developing democracy, has a relatively free press, has a judiciary that functions at least some of the time, is natural-resource rich, and has an economy that is now linked to the rest of the world and is doing reasonably well. On the negative side, it is plagued by corruption and cronyism as well as increasing authoritarianism, but the average Russian enjoys freedoms never experienced in Soviet days and can also see steady improvement in the standard of living. The country’s president, Vladimir Putin, continues to be supported by most Russians, though dissent is admittedly growing over his clear reluctance to give up power.

Russia has a lot to offer the West. It has good ties with its traditional friends in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and it still is seen by many foreign governments as an anti-colonial power. This means it is well placed to help mediate crisis situations with countries like Syria and Iran, which no longer trust Washington or the Western Europeans. Instead, however, the U.S. and some of its allies have seen Russia as an obstruction precisely because it refuses to endorse “humanitarian intervention” and regime change. Regime change has not exactly worked out very well in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we shall soon see what will happen in Syria. Moscow’s cautious approach is almost certainly the better option.

And Russia is still a major military power. It is the only country in the world that has the ability to destroy the United States, which one might think would be sufficient reason to establish a friendly relationship. Russia has also indicated its willingness to reduce its own nuclear and chemical arsenals and to work with Washington to safeguard existing nuclear stockpiles through the bilateral Cooperative Threat Reduction Program.

More »

Stephen Lendman

Since 2008, Western nations have force-fed their people austerity poison. Decline replaces prosperity. Millions suffer. Living standards deteriorate. Societies become no longer fit to live in. Neoliberal and imperial priorities let essential public needs go begging. How much more people will take before erupting remains to be seen. The longer fiscal pain continues, the closer an ultimate day of reckoning approaches. It'll arrive disruptively. Perhaps people will recognize that throwing out bums for new ones accomplishes nothing.

America is Exhibit A. Political Washington is corrupt, immoral, degenerate, and unprincipled. Instead of helping people, they destroy them. They benefit from imposing misery. Allied with criminal bankers an other corporate predators, their policies made conditions for growing millions intolerable.

Imperial wars destroy nations. Austerity leaves "nothing to drive the economy," says Paul Craig Roberts. Washington's solution is increase it. Doing it is economically destructive. Only bankers, other corporate favorites, and war profiteers benefit.

Michael Hudson says austerity sacrifices the "production economy, the consumption economy, (and) the real economy...." Viable alternatives are ignored to benefit privileged elites at the expense of most others. Hudson calls it

"financial warfare against the entire society, not only against labor, but against industry and, most of all, against government." Productive "industrial capitalism" became predatory "finance capitalism." It's not financing industry. It's furthering "economic parasitism and overhead."

Politicians in Washington support it. Obama exceeds the worst of Bush. Europe is corrupted the same way.

More »