Latest articles
“No to wars!”
by Dr. Hakim / August 12th, 2014
“Her father was killed in Helmand amidst fighting between the Taliban and the Afghan/U.S.-NATO forces,” said a relative about Gul Jumma, who looked down, shy and full of angst, sensing a future that’s not promising.
Gul Jumma, together with the Afghan Peace Volunteers, expressed their opposition to wars in this video. Gul Jumma holds up the sign for ‘Ukraine’, indicating ‘No to wars in Ukraine’. She understands what it is like to be caught in the crossfire, as happened to her father when he was killed in battle.
…
by Ramzy Baroud / August 12th, 2014
My old family house in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza was recently rebuilt by its new owner, into a beautiful three-story building with large windows adorned by red frames. In Israel’s most recent and deadliest war on Gaza, the house sustained significant damage. A large hole caused by Israeli missiles can be seen from afar, in a part of the house where our kitchen once stood.
It seems that the original target was not my house, however, but that of our kindly neighbor, who had spent his entire working-life toiling between manual jobs in Israel, and later in life as …
by Paul Haeder / August 11th, 2014
contains more wisdom than in all the bucket heads of the Ivy League/Stanford Class/Zionist Tower of Babel Combined
I’ve got to admit: Some of the most interesting stuff coming out of people’s mouths, versus the awful crap coming out of the droning digital internet, on TV, in books, anything we might call media, well, the most interesting stuff comes from regular folk, like our own Chuck O. (read below concerning my last post on why we need to call these cock-suckers cock-suckers whenever we can, instead of this patty-cake bullshit play nice and inside voice school marm lie this country has …
by Gareth Porter / August 11th, 2014
Washington, August 12, 2014 (IPS) — United Nations officials and human rights organisations have characterised Israeli attacks on civilian targets during the IDF war on Gaza as violations of the laws of war.
During the war, Israeli bombardment leveled whole urban neighbourhoods, leaving more than 10,000 houses destroyed and 30,000 damaged and killing 1,300 civilians, according to U.N. data. Israeli forces also struck six schools providing shelter to refugees under U.N. protection, killing at least 47 refugees and wounding more than 340.
The administration’s public stance in daily briefings in the early days of the war suggested little or no concern about …
The Anti-Empire Report #131
by William Blum / August 11th, 2014
During Cold War One those of us in the American radical left were often placed in the position where we had to defend the Soviet Union because the US government was using that country as a battering ram against us. Now we sometimes have to defend Russia because it may be the last best hope of stopping TETATW (The Empire That Ate The World). Yes, during Cold War One we knew enough about Stalin, the show trials, and the gulags. But we also knew about US foreign policy.
E-mail sent to the Washington Post July 23, 2014 about the destruction of …
by James Petras / August 11th, 2014
Outside of Israel and its organized supporters in the major Zionist organizations, world public opinion and most experts in international law see the Jewish State’s invasion of Gaza and its systematic attack on civilians and basic infrastructure as a crime against humanity.
The purpose of this essay is 4-fold: 1. To identify the nature of the crime – the genocidal character of the armed assault and the sequence leading up to it; 2. To identify the direct perpetrators of the war crimes and their domestic and international accomplices; …
by Robert Hunziker / August 11th, 2014
The evermore-dangerous-changing climate is not waiting for the climate denial contingency in Congress to come to their senses. Global warming/climate change is on a fast track with inconvertible evidence of its human-caused impact. It’s found everywhere. It’s almost impossible to miss it, especially in Europe where the glaciers in the Alps are relentlessly melting away, more than 32 feet of thickness, on average, over the past decade alone.
In that regard, The Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences jointly produced a video entitled: “Climate Change, Lines of Evidence,” which …
by T.P. Wilkinson / August 9th, 2014
Douglas Valentine explained the purpose or at least the subject of his study of the Vietnam Phoenix Program as “terror and its role in political warfare”. He is generous, like most Americans—even critical ones—when he writes “It will show how, as successive American governments sink deeper and deeper into the vortex of covert operations—ostensibly to combat terrorism and Communist insurgencies—the American people gradually lose touch with the democratic ideals that once defined their national self-concept. This book asks what happens when Phoenix comes home to roost?” ((Valentine alludes here to Malcolm X’s notorious reaction to the assassination of John F. …
by John Andrews / August 9th, 2014
When is a troll not a troll?
The word “troll” originated in Scandinavian folklore as a synonym for a demon. Today the word is more commonly understood to mean someone who maliciously interferes with discussions in open internet communications – such as in discussion groups and forums – through being abusive to others in the group, or by knowingly contributing misleading or distracting information.
It begs the question as to the sort of people who might do this. Who are they and why do they do it? Without doubt some of them are just ill people, or misanthropic computer nerds or bored …
Whatever happened to the US-Quartet Agreement , signed by Israel, 'to give the Palestinian people freedom to move, to trade, to live ordinary lives'?
by Stuart Littlewood / August 9th, 2014
What are the chances of anything good happening to the Palestinians after this latest carnage? Was their torment addressed on previous occasions? Were the wrongs against them righted?
Think back.
When Israel “disengaged” from Gaza in September 2005 (i.e., pulled out its ground troops and squatters) it signed an Agreement on Movement intended to maintain and develop Gaza’s economy and set the scene for a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.The Agreement was drawn up by the US, sponsored by the Quartet and launched by Condoleezza Rice (US Secretary of State) and Javier Solana (EU High Representative) in Jerusalem …
The Metadata Confusion in Oz
by Binoy Kampmark / August 8th, 2014
It is sometimes hard to know whether those in power adopt a policy of confusion purposely, or through grand design. When it comes to the flawed policy of data retention on a mass scale, a burden that is bound to fall on telecommunications companies, the problem is most acute of all. What is to be kept? What falls within that broad term metadata?
The Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, a somewhat challenged individual in twenty first century politics, is one such example. Here, dinosaur meets politician, and the result is far from pretty. It is less pretty for the fact that …
by Gilad Atzmon / August 8th, 2014
According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the London Times refused to run an ad featuring Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields.
The ad’s headline reads: “Jews rejected child sacrifice 3,500 years ago. Now it’s Hamas’ turn.” Wiesel’s statement is a blatant lie and the London Times knew it.
Jews have never stopped sacrificing their children. The Hannibal Protocol is an IDF directive that orders soldiers to take ‘necessary measures’ to prevent their comrades from being captured by enemy forces. ‘Necessary measures’ include risking the life of the Israeli soldier and anyone who happens to be in his vicinity. Similarly, …
by Paul Craig Roberts / August 8th, 2014
The consequence of Washington’s reckless and irresponsible political and military interventions in Iraq, Libya, and Syria has been to unleash evil. The various sects that lived in peace under the rule of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, and Assad are butchering one another, and a new group, ISIS, is in the process of creating a new state out of parts of Iraq and Syria.
The turmoil brought into the Middle East by the Bush and Obama regimes has meant death and displacement for millions and untold future deaths. As I write 40,000 Iraqis are stranded on a mountain top without water awaiting death …
The Schizophrenia of the Deep State
by William A. Blunden / August 8th, 2014
A few days ago Dan Geer, the chief information security officer at In-Q-Tel, gave a keynote address at Black Hat USA. ((Kim Zetter, “CIA Insider: U.S. Should Buy All Security Exploits, Then Disclose Them,” Wired, August 6, 2014)) According to the company’s web site In-Q-Tel is a non-profit, but it’s a special sort of non-profit. It offers venture capital funding on behalf of the “intelligence community” (read government spies). During his presentation Geer proposed, among other things, that the U.S. government bolster internet security by dominating the market for zero-day vulnerabilities.
Zero-days are basically flaws, unpatched bugs, in software and …
by Haider Riaz / August 8th, 2014
Huron Historic Gaol was once a prison complex for the Huron County of Upper Canada. The prison was designed by Thomas Young and modeled after Bentham’s Panopticon. The Panopticon, named after a hundred eyed giant watchman from Greek mythology called Panoptes, is an institutional structure where a watchman can observe all inhabitants anonymously. Although the Huron County Gaol Jail now serves only as a prison museum (and is a National Historic Site of Canada), the clandestine construction of a billion dollar headquarters in Ottawa for the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC), an obscure Canadian intelligence agency, is a …
by T. Mayheart Dardar / August 8th, 2014
Hawkeye: My father warned me about you…
Cora Munro: [interupting] Your Father?
Hawkeye: Chingachgook, he warned me about people like you.
Cora Munro: Oh, did he?
Hawkeye: He said “Do not try to understand them.”
Cora Munro: What?
Hawkeye: Yes, and, “do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart and make no sense.”
— The Last of the Mohicans (Movie) 1992.
As an Indigenous person I really do struggle to understand what passes for political dialog in this country. While I long ago gave up on …
by Shepherd Bliss / August 8th, 2014
Village Building Convergence (VBC) activists and their supporters from Cittaslow Sebastopol, Transition, the Grange, Permaculture Skills Center, and other groups recently packed the City Council meeting of small town Sebastopol in semi-rural Sonoma County, Northern California. Testimony in support of VBC came from enthusiastic advocates from 3-years-old to 70-years-old.
After an hour-long discussion at its August 5 regular meeting, the Council voted unanimously to permit the VBC to occur on public property from Sept. 12 to Sept. 21. Some local merchants have welcomed VBC to beautify their places. In addition to art and natural building “place-making” projects, there will be …
Doing Itself in
by Ralph Nader / August 8th, 2014
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the minority leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives, just had her political consultants send out a mass mailing to women asking for money and responses to an enclosed survey of their opinions.
The mass mailing duly recites the truly horrible House Republican votes against a variety of women’s health, safety and family protections and seeks to survey women’s priorities for the Congressional Democrats’ legislative agenda. Under the category titled “Employment,” there is no mention of restoring the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, which Rep. Pelosi supports. The closest option to check was “inadequate/or …
by Denis Rancourt / August 8th, 2014
Israel’s long-term goal is to cleanse all of the territory that it militarily controls, by whatever most-efficient means it can get away with, which is facilitated and funded by the USA.
Since 1948, the name of the game is genocide, and this is no secret. Israel’s plans have been explicitly expressed and Israel’s genocide against Palestinians follows exactly the pattern of Canada’s genocide against First Peoples, except that it is in full-throttle rather than being in end-phase as in Canada. (( “Israel’s attempted genocide must fail — Lessons from Canada’s genocide” by Denis G. Rancourt, Dissident Voice.))
Rome Statute …
by Jay Knott / August 7th, 2014
On July 30, Dissident Voice published an article by Yves Engler remarking on increasingly strident support for Israel among sections of the Toronto Jewish community.
He describes aggressive Jewish support for the child-murderers of the Israeli Defense Forces, including attacks on protesters like himself, then contrasts this with what Jews were like before world war two:
The idea that Toronto’s Jewish community in 2014 would be front-and-centre in backing racist militarism is profoundly depressing and quite the historic reversal. Seven decades ago righteous Jewish youth fought back against fascist thugs terrorizing non-Anglo-Saxons in the 1933 Christie Pits Riot.
But perhaps the reason …
by Binoy Kampmark / August 7th, 2014
Paternalism is rarely a pretty thing. In many cases, it is fair to say it is a downside grotesque feature of human relations. One person, or entity, extends a hand that does not so much help the individual in trouble as slap the person in question across a grieving face. When it comes to international relations, the image gets even uglier. Here, states can assert the ultimate entitlement to assert control over a regime, or a state, which has fallen foul of appropriate conventions. The modern dress code of the humanitarian interventionist is simple in its absurdity: the Responsibility …
by Raji Abuzalaf / August 7th, 2014
“There is no such thing as Palestine”
• I am Palestinian. My ancestors have lived in Palestine and were called “Palestinians” for 100 generations. I still have my parents’ Palestine passports.
• Before history is completely rewritten by Zionists, research plainly shows that the land has been called “Palestine” and her inhabitants “Palestinians” since 500 BCE.
• The United Nations partitioned “original Palestine” into two states: Israel (55%) and Palestine (45%) – (U.N. Resolution 181 – 11/29/1947).
Conclusion: Palestine has existed (by that name) for over 2500 years. Although the Zionist state of Israel was illegitimately formed on 78% of the land (which was …
by Kim Petersen / August 6th, 2014
A while back, I saw an addition to a roadside sign that stated “Welcome to GREATER VICTORIA.” Appended underneath was another sign which read “LOCATED ON COAST SALISH TERRITORY.” The upper sign makes a colonialist statement. The lower sign signifies that the territory belongs to the Coast Salish, that includes Xwsepsum, Songhees, T’Sou-ke, W̱SÁNEĆ, Scia’new, and Malahat, to which one Nuu-chah-Nulth First Nation, the Pacheedaht, could also be added.
Salish Sea, Coast Salish Territory
The education department at “Vancouver” Island University has an area …
by John V. Walsh / August 6th, 2014
Well, look, there’s no doubt that a robust, interventionist foreign policy on behalf of certain principles, ideals or international rules is not a tradition that most countries embrace. And in the 20th century and in the early stages of the 21st century, the United States continues to be the one indispensable power that is willing to spend blood and treasure on that.
— Barack Obama in interview with The Economist
On the eve of Obama’s meeting with African politicians, he gave an interview with obsequious editors and reporters from The Economist. He used it to attack Russia and Putin once again. …
by Robert Bonomo / August 6th, 2014
Let’s do a thought experiment and imagine that the Arabs had gotten the better of the Israelis in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and after years of conflict, all that was left of Israel was the Gaza strip.
Assume for a moment that instead of Palestinians, over 1.8 million Jews were crammed into the 11 mile Gaza strip and the state of Palestine, subsidized and supported by a superpower, was administering the calories to the Jews in Gaza, keeping them to a limit of 2,300 a day.
Imagine that instead of Palestinian children, it was Jewish children living under a Palestinian embargo that …
by David Swanson / August 6th, 2014
There’s a wide and mysterious chasm between the stated intentions of the Israeli government as depicted by the U.S. media and what the Israeli government has been doing in Gaza, even as recounted in the U.S. media.
With the morgues full, Gazans are packing freezers with their dead children. Meanwhile, the worst images to be found in Israel depict fear, not death and suffering. Why the contrast? If the Israeli intent is defensive, why are 97% of the deaths Gazan, not Israeli? If the targets are fighters, why are whole families being slaughtered and their houses leveled? Why are schools and …
Expanding powers in the Antipodes
by Binoy Kampmark / August 6th, 2014
Even as an international drive against the data merchants is gathering force and voice (see, for instance, those “nature walks” by Germans from Griesheim to the Dagger Complex, stacked with spooks), the Australian side of the Five Eyes spy arrangement is being shored up. If there is one place in the Western world that has shown conspicuously little administrative and policy reform on the subject of bulk surveillance and whistleblowing, Australia is it.
The whistleblowing reform drive has been tardy at best, retarded at worst. Edward Snowden is more than a nuisance ‘down under’. He is …
On Heroes and Preachers
by Ramzy Baroud / August 6th, 2014
“Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? In Israeli prison, of course!,” was the title of an article by Jo Ehrlich published in Modoweiss.net on Dec 21, 2009. That was almost exactly one year after Israel’s concluded a major war against Gaza. The so-called Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009) was, till then, the deadliest Israeli attack against the impoverished strip for many years.
Ehrlich was not in the least being belittling by raising the question about the ‘Palestinian Gandhi’ but responding to the patronization of others. Right from the onset, he remarked: “Not that I’m …
by William Hanna / August 5th, 2014
… In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
— A warning from President Eisenhower’s Farewell Address to …
Judith Miller’s Co-author, Michael R. Gordon, on false 2002 NYT “report” on Iraq WMD continues his lying
by John V. Walsh / August 5th, 2014
There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.
— George W. Bush
Those in the U.S. who are enthralled by relentless reports of the most demonic acts attributed to President Vladimir Putin and the rebel Eastern Ukrainian federalists in the NYT (New York Times), NPR, ETC. would do well to look at the track record of the “reporters” dishing out this stuff. What they will find is a trail of deception that is piled …
