Would Andrew Adler Be in Guantanamo If He Were Muslim?
It’s an important question. But you can be sure that not even Ron Paul, would mention this in a televised debate. Still, it’d be interesting to see what sort of response Gingrich comes up with, given his recent financial commitments. From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Assassinating US President Barack Obama for refusing to wage war on Iran is an opinion Andrew Adler wishes he never published. But that’s exactly what the owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times did on January 13 and now he’s facing vocal opposition and a Secret Service investigation.
”Give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies,” Adler wrote in a piece called ”What would you do?” Adler issued an apology, saying, ”I very much regret…
Mutually Assured Destruction Vs. Mutually Assured Respect
Here he goes again … crazy man. From the Daily Paul:
CIA-Linked General Poised to Win Guatemalan Presidential Election
Democracy Now! explores accusations of genocide against Presidential hopeful General Otto Molina Perez, and examines US foreign policy in Latin America with particular regard for the ongoing ‘War on Drugs’:
U.S. Has Provided $360 Million To Taliban To Fight U.S.
Granted, Afghanistan is very corrupt, and $360 million that flowed to criminals and the Taliban is a mere one percent out of the total reconstruction contracts reviewed. Also, consider this a marked improvement from our 1980s policy of giving billions of dollars to Afghanistan’s jihadist forces on purpose. Via Washington Post:
After examining hundreds of combat support and reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan, the U.S military estimates $360 million in U.S. tax dollars has ended up in the hands of people the American-led coalition has spent nearly a decade battling: the Taliban, criminals, and power brokers with ties to both. The losses underscore the challenges the U.S. and its international partners face in overcoming corruption in Afghanistan.
The Use Of U.S. Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010
Presented by the Federation of American Scientists, the Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2010 chronologically lists the cases in which the United States has used its armed forces overseas in military conflict over the course of our nation’s history.
It’s fascinating, and a quick skim highlights both that the majority of military action is overlooked, forgotten or unknown by the much of the public, and that with each passing decade, we seem to engage in warfare with increasing frequency. A mid-eighties retro snippet:
Wikileaks: U.S. Forced Haiti To Nix Raising Its Minimum Wage To 62 Cents
Wikileaks unveils an incredibly infuriating revelation, via the Nation. To sum up: desperately poor Haiti planned to raise its minimum wage from 24 cents per hour to 62 cents, angering the contractors for U.S. corporations such as Levis and Hanes, who pay slave wages to Haitians who sew our clothes. The Obama administration intervened on behalf of those companies, and bullied the Haitian government into setting the mark at 32 cents.
To put things in perspective, upping the hourly wage to 62 cents would have cost Hanes an additional $1.6 million each year. Hanesbrands turned $211 million in profit last year and CEO Richard Noll personally was paid $10 million.
Obama: Attacking Libya Is Not War, Because Americans Are Not Dying
How did the Obama administration authorize military action in Libya without congressional approval? Via a novel redefining of “war”, the Nation reports:
American planes are entering Libyan air space, they are dropping bombs, and the bombs are killing and injuring people and destroying things. It is war. Some say it is a good war and some say it is a bad war, but surely it is a war.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration insists it is not a war. Why? Because the balance of forces is so lopsided in favor of the United States. War is only war, it seems, when Americans are dying, when we die. When only they, the Libyans, die, it is something else for which there is as yet apparently no name. When they attack, it is war. When we attack, it is not.
According to “United States Activities in Libya,” a thirty-two-page report that the administration released last week, “U.S.…
Where In The World Do Exiled Leaders Flee?
France (where your neighbors don’t care about your personal vices), sunny Mexico, and despot-friendly Saudi Arabia are top destinations for fallen leaders on the lam. The most notable ex-dictator to live out their days in the United States was Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, who along with his cronies was given safe haven in Hawaii by Ronald Reagan. Created by GOOD Magazine, click through for full map and details:
With Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak now deposed and Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi struggling to hold on to his own seat, we wonder where former exiled leaders slip away to after being ousted.
Cynthia McKinney Slams U.S. On Libyan State TV
Cynthia McKinney
You can count on former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to speak her mind if she thinks something isn’t right. She really doesn’t think Western intervention in Libya is right! From CNN:
A former U.S. congresswoman slammed U.S. policy on Libyan state TV late Saturday and stressed the “last thing we need to do is spend money on death, destruction and war.”
The station is fiercely loyal to Moammar Gadhafi and her interview was spliced with what appeared to be rallies in support of the embattled Libyan leader.
“I think that it’s very important that people understand what is happening here. And it’s important that people all over the world see the truth. And that is why I am here … to understand the truth,” former Rep. Cynthia McKinney said during a live interview.
…At one point during the interview, state TV cut to what it said were live airstrikes, hitting Gadhafi’s compound.
“Is that a bomb?”…
Sasquatch Sighted At England’s Bath Abbey*; Osama Bin Laden Dead at Age 54
“The next worst thing to a battle lost is a battle won,” Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (1769-1852)
Team America–Fuck YEAH!” Joe Cowboy, upon ‘foiling’ a terrorist plot to destroy Paris
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” French proverb
“Heads you win, tails I lose,” Barack Obama to Rance Priebus, November 2012
“100 years of dogs on commemorative plates,” Dr. Lionel Tobin, British Association for the Paranormal (”B.A.P.”)
Obviously you have heard the news by now: On 1st May 2011, a team of U.S. Navy…
Noam Chomsky: Is The World Too Big To Fail?
In a talk given in Amsterdam, Noam Chomsky weighs in on revolutionary unrest in the Middle East and the United States’ unsustainable foreign policy and domestic power structure. Via the Huffington Post:
Support for democracy is the province of ideologists and propagandists. In the real world, elite dislike of democracy is the norm. The evidence is overwhelming that democracy is supported insofar as it contributes to social and economic objectives, a conclusion reluctantly conceded by the more serious scholarship.
Elections have become a charade, run by the public relations industry. After his 2008 victory, Obama won an award from the industry for the best marketing campaign of the year. Executives were euphoric. In the business press they explained that they had been marketing candidates like other commodities since Ronald Reagan, but 2008 was their greatest achievement and would change the style in corporate boardrooms. The 2012 election is expected to cost $2…
Juan Cole: Libya Is Not Iraq
Is the bombing of Libya Obama’s Iraq redux? Informed Comment says no, laying out the factors that make the Libyan intervention ethical, non-imperialist, and fundamentally different from Bush’s 2003 invasion. Convincing or not?
On the surface, the situation in Libya a week and a half ago posed a contradiction between two key principles of Left politics: supporting the ordinary people and opposing foreign domination of them. Libya’s workers and townspeople had risen up to overthrow the dictator in city after city. Even in the capital of Tripoli, working-class neighborhoods such as Suq al-Jumah and Tajoura had chased out the secret police. In the two weeks after February 17, there was little or no sign of the protesters being armed or engaging in violence.
Then Muammar Qaddafi’s sons rallied his armored brigades and air force to bomb the civilian crowds and shoot tank shells into them. Members of the Transitional Government Council in Benghazi…
Rand Paul: End ‘Welfare’ to Israel
Photo: Gage Skidmore (CC)
Jennifer Epstein writes in the Politico:
“There are always problems in our nation’s capital that are more important than party affiliation, and I will always believe that,” Paul said. “It’s not necessarily tea party versus Republican Party, but I would say that if you ask me what’s more important — tackling our nation’s deficit, our nation’s debt problems or being a Republican — I would say tackling the debt.”
Paul also defended his calls to end aid to Israel, saying they’re just part of his bigger efforts at fiscal responsibility. “I’m not singling out Israel. I support Israel. I want to be known as a friend of Israel, but not with money you don’t have,” he said. “We can’t just borrow from our kids’ future and give it to countries, even if they are our friends.”
And, he said, giving money to the country is especially unwise considering Israel’s relative…
Tear Gas Canister Stamped ‘Made In USA’ Used Against Egyptian Protesters
Via HuffPo. Richard Engel reporting for NBC News:
You talked earlier about anti-American sentiment and a lot of that has been because the United States while today the Press Secretary is saying how they’ve been talking about Egypt and the need for reform and bringing up this at every meeting that’s not the way many Egyptians see it. Most Egyptians see the United States as having stood solidly by President Mubarak while the government here grew more and more corrupt.
And they see the Americans as complicit in it. And just today, for example, when we were out on streets this is what a lot of people were showing us about American involvement. If you can see in my hands this is one of the tear gas canisters and very clearly written in English on it, it says “Made in the USA by Combined Tactical Systems from Jamestown, Pennsylvania.” And they say this is the kind of support that the United States has been giving to the Egyptian government and bears some responsibility, although today it it trying to say that it never backed Mubarak so much, it has been calling for reforms for a long time, Egyptians don’t see it that way.
What Did We Learn From WikiLeaks?
The mainstream media’s coverage of WikiLeaks has largely focused on Julian Assange’s sexy exploits — to the extent that one might forget about the actual leaked files. CBS admirably has an overview of the wealth of enlightening and interesting information that WikiLeaks has revealed to us. For starters:
- The Obama administration worked with Republicans during his first few months in office to protect Bush administration officials facing a criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies that some considered torture.
- Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has infiltrated the highest levels of government in Nigeria.
- Pope Benedict impeded an investigation into alleged child sex abuse within the Catholic Church.
- BP suffered a blowout after a gas leak in the Caucasus country of Azerbaijan in September 2008, a year and a half before another BP blowout killed 11 workers and started a leak that gushed millions of gallons of oil…
Assange: Many Arab Leaders Closely Aligned With CIA
Julian Assange claims that numerous high-ranking officials in Arab countries work closely with the CIA in secret — “[They] are spies for the US in their countries” — and says their names will be released if he is killed. Will the threat be enough to save him from the United States’ wrath? A decidedly miffed Business Insider reports:
Julian Assange has set the ultimate dead man’s switch: Arrest or kill him and thousands of files will be automatically released, including documents that out CIA-backed Arabs.
The Wikileaks leader had previously claimed to have files on auto-release. That he had info on CIA ties was first-mentioned in an interview yesterday with Al-Jazeera.
This is exactly the type of information that lead people to condemn Wikileaks as dangerous. If released it would certainly endanger many American operatives and cause a massive political disruption.
Peace Through Truth: 9/11 and State Crimes Against Democracy (Podcast)
Interchange — The Truth About 9/11: Graeme MacQueen and Laurie Manwell
Direct Download • RSS • Website
Graeme MacQueen and Laurie Manwell are prominent researchers in the national 9/11 Truth movement, seeking to educate the public regarding the facts of September 11, 2001 and calling for a new and independent investigation. Graeme MacQueen is founder of the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University and now a retired professor from that university. Laurie Manwell is a professor at Guelph University in Neuroscience and Applied Cognitive Sciences. MacQueen and Manwell were in Bloomington for a public presentation called “Peace Through Truth: 9/11 and State Crimes Against Democracy”. During their visit they sat down with local 9/11 Truth advocate Byron Bangert for an exploration of fact vs. fiction and how fear colors our perceptions.
What If Ron Paul Was The Shit?
Here’s something you won’t hear from the mainstream anytime soon…
Ron Paul, from a year and a half ago: “What if Obama has no intention of leaving Iraq? What if the American people learn the truth: that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security, that it never changes from one administration to the next?”
And before you reactionaries react, Ron Paul spoke out against the Tea Party: See Ron Paul’s Shocking message to the Tea Party.
