[...] So in the final analysis, is it any wonder why the income inequality gap is growing? Without small businesses having a legitimate chance to compete and without good jobs for American workers, the middle class in America is going to continue to get chewed up and spit out. The following are 30 statistics that prove that the elite are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is being destroyed in 2010....

One day in March 1969, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist spoke at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Our government has become preoccupied with death," George Wald said, "with the business of killing and being killed." More than four decades later, how much has really changed?

Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that "engineering public consent" was for the greater good. This could be achieved by the creation of "false realities" which then became "news events". Here are examples of how it is done these days.

In their reporting, however, the US corporate media - in near monolithic fashion - has failed to mention the drawdown would not include the more than 100,000 private military contractors that are already serving in Iraq, in addition to the 144,000 troops. 

Many readers have started to complain that all I do is "scare" people and that I don't provide any practical solutions.  Well, not everyone can move to Montana and start a llama farm, but hopefully this article will give people some practical steps that they can take to insulate themselves (at least to an extent) from the coming economic collapse. 

IT IS OUR BEST ESTIMATE THAT SUCH A MILITARY STRIKE WOULD SET A CHAIN OF EVENTS IN MOTION THAT WOULD CUMULATE IN A CHANGE OF REGIME IN IRAN TO ONE THAT WOULD NOT BE A THREAT TO ISRAEL, THE UNITED STATES, OR TO US INTERESTS:

John Pilger is working on a new documentary called The War You Don't See. Riz Khan talks about spin, wars and the war in Iraq in particular with veteran documentary maker, investivative reporter John Pilger.

While commenting favorably on China's increased "contributions to international peacekeeping efforts, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and counter-piracy operations," it focuses extensively on what was noted above: That the nation's military capacity may keep pace with its economic growth and pose a challenge to the domination of the western Pacific Ocean region [...].

The 9/11 killers were mass assassins who gave up their own lives to murder thousands.  It’s now clear that, in response, the U.S. went into the global assassination business.  The first of its “targeted killings” in the Global War on Terror launched by the Bush administration and expanded by the Obama administration seems to have taken place in Yemen in 2002. 

The subpoenaed documents reveal Israel's clandestine programs for "cultivation of editors," the "stimulation and placement of suitable articles in the major consumer magazines" as well as U.S. reporting about sensitive subjects such as the Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

But the high number of attacks on Iran’s gas pipelines within the space of less than a month will inevitably raised suspicions that this is the work of professional saboteurs. The CIA, for example, is known to have a clandestine operation underway to destabilise the Iranian regime.

"The MPA has received six reports from health care professionals regarding narcolepsy as suspected adverse drug reaction following Pandemrix fluvaccination," it said in a statement.

The article also reflected "the Gulf states' growing tension and concern regarding Iran's nuclear program, and mentioned their proximity to the Bushehr reactor." What is scary is that the straw man of military intervention is pretty much presented as a fait accompli, and alternatives to military intervention are not even considered as an option. 

Netanyahu administration officials used Goldberg to convey the message to the Americans that they didn’t believe Obama would launch an attack on Iran, and therefore Israel would have to do so. [...] The knowledge that Israel could not attack Iran without U.S. consent makes Israeli officials extremely sensitive about the possibility that Obama would explicitly reject an Israeli strike.

Judging by Israel’s rhetoric, it is easy to conclude that these beliefs are genuinely held as undisputable truths by the Israeli security apparatus. But if judged by its actions rather than its rhetoric, a very different image emerges -- one that shows an astute Israeli appreciation for the complexity of Iran's security calculations and decision-making processes, and a recognition that conventional arguments are insufficient to convince Washington to view Iran from an Israeli lens.

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by descendants of the Apache warrior Geronimo, who claimed some of his remains were stolen in 1918 by a student society at Yale University.

[...] a move designed to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, according to defense analysts. [...] "This is a pattern we’ve seen before. The US offers Arab states expensive modern armaments, and then turns around to Israel and tells it it needs to have even better weapons to stay ahead in the race. Then the pressure again mounts on the Arab states. It’s a racket that has been a bonanza for US arms manufacturers," he said.

I am not engaging in a thought exercise, or a one-man war game, when I discuss the plausibility and potential consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran. Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. [...] But, based on my conversations with Israeli decision-makers, this period of forbearance, in which Netanyahu waits to see if the West’s nonmilitary methods can stop Iran, will come to an end this December.

Friedman pokes at the seamy side of democracy, uncovering the story of computer programmer Clint Curtis, who recounts being asked before the 2000 election by a prominent Florida legislator to create vote-rigging software for electronic voting machines. The vote-rigging scandal devolves into a murder mystery, with Friedman shaking down the facts.

If the news is confirmed, the threat posed by the system would be a serious deterent to military planners contemplating a strike on Iran's nuclear programme. The S-300 is capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of more than 90 miles and at altitudes of about 90,000 feet.

The intelligence experts explain that Israel’s tactic is to launch the war suddenly and then make it politically untenable for Obama to do anything other than offer the United States’ full military support for the campaign.

They are probably telling you that, since you have privately counseled Prime Minister Netanyahu against attacking Iran, he will not do it. This could simply be the familiar syndrome of telling the President what they believe he wants to hear. Quiz them; tell them others believe them to be dead wrong on Netanyahu. The only positive here is that you — only you — can prevent an Israeli attack on Iran.

"It will be primarily an air attack with covert work to start a 'velvet' revolution so [the] Iranian people can take back their country," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, a former fighter pilot.

What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.

The public has now heard the disastrous consequences of the invasion. They have witnessed political protagonists try to disassociate themselves from the decision to invade. And they have seen public servants criticise the manner in which Britain was propelled into war.

Mullen said allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon was also unacceptable. "Quite frankly, I am extremely concerned about both of those outcomes," he said.

Ms. Hayes-Beaty is being monitored by Lotame Solutions Inc., a New York company that uses sophisticated software called a "beacon" to capture what people are typing on a website—their comments on movies, say, or their interest in parenting and pregnancy. Lotame packages that data into profiles about individuals, without determining a person's name, and sells the profiles to companies seeking customers

EPA Senior Policy Analyst Hugh Kaufman, MSNBC, July 28, 2010.

Several reports from Army psychological operations units and provincial reconstruction teams (also known as PRTs, civilian-military hybrids tasked with rebuilding Afghanistan) show that local Afghan radio stations were under contract to air content produced by the United States. Other reports show U.S. military personnel apparently referring to Afghan reporters as "our journalists" and directing them in how to do their jobs.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the United States and Israel plan to attack two countries in the Middle East as part of a conspiracy to apply pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Israel's defense forces have been planning to eventually operate three anti-missile systems: Iron Dome to tackle rockets with a shorter range of up to 60 kilometers; David's Sling - known also as Magic Wand - which has a range of hundreds of kilometers; while the Arrow 3 is designed to shoot down missiles outside the earth's atmosphere. [...] A day before that, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said that the United States would continue to maintain Israel's military advantage as well as protect it in the diplomatic arena, adding that the American commitment to Israel's security was "not negotiable."

De malware is vorige maand ontdekt door antivirusbedrijf VirusBlokAda uit het Oost-Europese Wit-Rusland. Dat bedrijf trof de worm aan op een systeem van een Iraanse klant. De worm is al langere tijd in omloop, mogelijk al sinds januari , vertelt technisch directeur Elias Levy aan Computerworld.

The US said the exercises are designed to send a potent message to North Korea that it must renounce its "aggressive behaviour". Ahead of the drills, North Korea said it was ready to launch a "retaliatory sacred war" and vowed to use its "nuclear deterrent". [...] In terms of the number of military assets involved in the drill, this week's exercise is the largest since 1976, [...].

The next war hangs largely on whether U.S. intelligence analysts with integrity are allowed to ply their trade without fear or favor; or, failing that, whether they will decide to give priority to the supervening value of preventing another unnecessary war, as opposed to keeping a promise not to divulge classified information. Most of them are well aware that all too often such information is stamped “SECRET” simply to keep the truth from the American people.

The Post — whose editorial page has been notably receptive to the growth of the security state over the years — explains in an editorial comment that it ran its constellation of websites by security officials to ensure that it wasn’t jeopardizing national security. In one instance, the editors deleted certain unspecified specific “data points” the project initially disclosed.

Other intelligence sources say that the U.S. Army's Central Command, which is in charge of organizing military operations in the Middle East, has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes — aided, in large part, by the vastly improved human-intelligence operations in the region.

President Lyndon cited the attacks to persuade Congress to authorize broad military action in Vietnam, but historians in recent years have concluded that the Aug. 4 attack never happened. Still, the transcripts show the outrage the senators were expressing behind closed doors.

The Torture Report, an initiative of the ACLU’s National Security Project, aims to give the full account of the Bush administration’s torture program. It will bring together everything we know from government documents, investigations, press reports, witness statements and other publications into a single narrative – one that is updated regularly and subject to critical review and improvement as it unfolds.

The magazine’s general tone and use of the English language is either clumsy or purposely intending self-parody.  For example, the “Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom” article and the usage of the word “terrorist” as a form of self reference.

He said journalism needed to work towards making more primary source material available online, arguing that this was the standard process for scientific investigations and it should be the same for journalism.

Hours before this announcement, Iran admitted to having 20 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

With specific reference to internet governance, the group says ACTA would: Encourage internet service providers to police the activities of internet users by holding internet providers responsible for the actions of subscribers, conditioning safe harbors on adopting policing policies, and by requiring parties to encourage cooperation between service providers and rights holders;

Did Netanyahu promise that Israel will not launch a preemptive strike if it receives American guarantees for the maintenance of its deterrence? Or does Obama's receptiveness indicate that the Americans have already reconciled themselves to the Iranian bomb and are now putting in place regional security arrangements for once they pass the fail-safe point?

They want you to believe aspartame delivers all the benefits of sugar and none of its drawbacks. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Cooke writes, “When the UN refused to agree to the severe sanctions that the U.S. wanted, Obama responded with typical Bush flair and went solo. The new U.S. sanctions against Iran — signed into law by Obama on July 1st — are an unmistakable act of war.” 

What was a matter of central concern for Orwell as an instrument of enabling evil ("language can also corrupt thought") has become, to "journalist" Bill Keller, nothing more than irritating and tendentious political correctness.  That's how far and how quickly we've devolved

Iran and Syria both denied that a radar transfer took place. [...] Though officials say the transaction took place about a year ago, Israel and the U.S. haven't publicized it, a departure from years past when Israeli officials were often eager to trumpet Iranian arms transfers to Syria and Hezbollah as violations of Security Council resolutions.

“From the early 1930s until the modern story broke in 2004, the newspapers that covered waterboarding almost uniformly called the practice torture or implied it was torture,” the study noted. But the study found that things changed in the years when “war on terror” became part of the American lexicon.

The media loves the Black Block rioters in Toronto at the G20 2010. The question is whether or not these people are actually demonstrators or members of the police. Judge the video's for yourself.
The video's of the riots are eaten up like candy by Reuters and Associated Press and broadcast all over the world. The voice over in the tv news tells the public that what they see are left wing agitators. But are they? Or are they, in Gladio fashion and in true false flag manner, yet another incarnation of devide an conquer?

Imagine if eBay had a rule where you could cancel your bid within 1 second. I put up some stuff on ebay, and you place a bid for it. Then I place a bid that is higher than the current bid to see if that becomes the new highest bid. If it is, I cancel it within milliseconds. Remember, I don't want to buy the product -- I just want to drive the price higher!

The following are 25 signs that almost everyone in the financial world is expecting an economic downturn during the second half of 2010....

But because the discussions are not taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, they are not subject to disclosure on the visitors’ log that the White House releases as part of its pledge to be the “most transparent presidential administration in history.”

He said: "The mobilization is due to the presence of American and Israeli forces on the western border," adding, "Reinforcements are being dispatched to West Azerbaijan Province because some western countries are fueling ethnic conflicts to destabilize the situation in the region."

Things have never been worse. The superpower under whose patronage we shelter is becoming increasingly weak and increasingly distant. As a result of these two mutually amplifying processes the Middle East is becoming unstable. There is no one to stop Iran's rise or Turkey's growing extremism, or to provide security for the moderates in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Palestine.

In December a federal judge threw out charges against five of the alleged Blackwater shooters on procedural grounds, but the Justice Department is appealing the ruling. Early this year German prosecutors launched a preliminary investigation into allegations that the CIA sent Blackwater operatives on an assassination mission against a suspected terrorist in Hamburg, Germany, in 2001. In April, meanwhile, a federal grand jury indicted four of Prince's former top deputies, including his legal counsel, and a fifth employee, on 15 counts of conspiracy, weapons and obstruction-of-justice charges.

The Israeli Air Force recently unloaded military equipment at a Saudi Arabia base, a semi-official Iranian news agency claimed Wednesday, while a large American force has massed in Azerbaijan, which is on the northwest border of Iran. Both reports follow by less than a week the Pentagon’s confirmation that an unusually large American fleet sailed through the Suez Canal Saturday. Several reports stated that an Israeli ship joined the armada.

"This is nuclear energy- promoting, oil drilling-championing, coal mining-boosting legislation with a weak carbon pricing mechanism thrown in."

Ms Napolitano said it was wrong to believe liberty was sacrificed if security was embraced, and pointed to restrictions on full-body scanners at airports to protect privacy.

"I don't think we're prepared to even talk about containing a nuclear Iran. I think... our view still is we do not accept the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons," he said in an interview with Fox News Sunday. "And our policies and our efforts are all aimed at preventing that from happening," he said.

But while the unit's name refers to "foreign intelligence," civil liberties advocates and the Pentagon's own description of the program suggest that Americans will likely be included in the new database.

Downey and Fecteau were assigned to a covert program called "Third Force," intended to create a resistance network. Small teams of noncommunist Chinese exiles were airdropped into the Manchuria area of China to link up with disaffected communist generals. The goal was to destabilize Mao Zedong's new government and distract it from the Korean War, which Chinese forces had entered two years earlier.

The prime minister's office issued a press release in English following the meeting, which was also sent to foreign diplomats, was substantially different than the Hebrew announcement--according to the English text, a decision was made to ease the blockade, but in the Hebrew text there was no mention of any such decision.

It is unclear at first read what the third carrier group may be, but if this news, which was also confirmed by the Jerusalem Post and Haaretz, is correct, then the Debka report about a surge in aircraft activity in the Persian Gulf is well on its way to being confirmed. There has been no update on the three Israeli nuclear-armed subs that are believed to be operating off the coast of Iran currently.

The following statement was released today by Coleen Rowley, an FBI whistleblower who was one of Time Magazine's people of the year in 2002; Ray McGovern, CIA analyst for 27 years; and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers (top-secret government documents that showed a pattern of governmental deceit about the Vietnam War):

In other words, exactly what the U.S. Government wanted to happen in order to destroy WikiLeaks has happened here:  news reports that a key WikiLeaks source has been identified and arrested, followed by announcements from anonymous government officials that there is now a worldwide "manhunt" for its Editor-in-Chief. 

When ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero last week addressed the progressive conference America's Future Now, he began by saying:  "I'm going to start provocatively . . . I'm disgusted with this president."  Last night, after Obama's Oval Office speech, Jon Stewart began his show with an 8-minute monologue on Obama's executive power and civil liberties record which, in essence, provided just some of the reasons why Romero's strong condemnation is so justified. 

Adding everything up, one can clearly cast doubt on the legitimacy of this story. It looks more like an attempt to flush out Wikileak members, while trying to get the public to form a general dislike for whistle blowers.

I'm baffled to the point of punching tree trunks to witness the determination of some folk to throw themselves in front of these heads of corporations and presidents of banks and to wave their arms protectively, yelping: "Leave them alone! Let them strategise for the good of the world in peace! How could they possibly have a frank discussion with our politicians if we were privy to it? Stop this unseemly prying!" I mean, seriously. 

The conclusion remains clear. The idea that Afghanistan’s mineral riches were not part of the invasion and occupation agenda, drawn up before 9/11, and have suddenly been discovered, is provably false. The New York Times is once again engaged in the dissemination of propaganda in an attempt to sell the empire building of the new world order.

Another factor driving up food prices is the controversial biofuels industry. The report predicts that continued expansion of biofuel output – often to meet government targets – will create additional demand for wheat, coarse grains, vegetable oils and sugar

In a major setback for holding US officials accountable for rendition and torture, the Supreme Court has rejected Arar’s lawsuit against the US government.

2) The markets are not "fair and honest", 3) Securities prices are presently "susceptible to manipulation and control, and the dissemination of such prices gives rise to excessive speculation, resulting in sudden and unreasonable fluctuations in the prices of securities

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.

So, now, back to the point I am making, why would we back away twice from what would be a reasonable position. And I cannot think of any motivational position than to continue to turn up the pressure on Iran hoping they will do something stupid that then could trigger us to act in a warlike fashion.

The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years – and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder. [...] By the time Obama spoke, it was increasingly evident that this was not merely an ecological disaster. It was the most devastating assault on American soil since 9/11.

The two men reportedly objected strongly to Karzai's order to release all accused Taliban prisoners who are being held without enough evidence for trials. The order was seen as the latest in a series of moves designed to reconcile with the Taliban leadership, a step that Washington has strongly opposed until now.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait. And given the contents of the cables, the feds have good reason to be concerned.

US and French bombers took off from each other's aircraft carriers, the USS Harry S. Truman and the Charles de Gaulle, while the British planes flew in from their bases in England. Together, they practiced their strike capabilities in a real war. The Caniuers training facility near Toulon stood in for an Iranian target.

Israel is also seeking to increase the amount of gear held by the American army in their emergency stores in Israel by 50% - from $800 million to $1.2 billion. The Obama administration placed the stores in Israel in December, as part of a number of steps to improve U.S. assistance to Israeli security. To date, $600 million worth of American emergency equipment has been placed in Israel.The American stores hold rockets, bombs, aircraft ammunition and armored vehicles, along with other weapons.

Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, told the Center for Public Integrity that “on some level the correlation between the interests of donors and the actions of Members of Congress is as old as the Republic. The explanation of that correlation has its roots in two camps: first, donors prefer to give to politicians they agree with. Second, politicians like to please their donors to ensure they keep their coffers open for future needs.” 

Public support for the war has also fallen as the number of dead has increased - just as it did with Vietnam. More than half of Americans now believe that the fighting in Afghanistan has not been worth the cost.

But several search engine marketing experts are questioning BP's intentions, suggesting that controlling what the public finds when they look online for oil spill information is just another way for the company to try and rebuild the company's suffering public image.

"This is an important document because it brings together in one place the information that has been known and has been in the public awareness for a long while, but in a scattered fashion, "Amnesty International's representative at the U.N. in Geneva, Peter Splinter, told IPS. [...] The study's recommendations included an explicit prohibition of secret detention, and the keeping of clear detention records, even at times of armed conflict, as stipulated by the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war.

An investigation by the British Medical Journal and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the not-for-profit reporting unit, shows that WHO guidance issued in 2004 was authored by three scientists who had previously received payment for other work from Roche, which makes Tamiflu, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), manufacturer of Relenza.

If the euro were to go under, it would expose the inherent weakness of continental monetary unions and all but derail the wider agenda for a one world currency.

The report also claims that Gulf states are also beginning to switch their euro reserves into dollars and gold as some forecast the single currency could sink to parity with the U.S. dollar by next year.

In het gesprek gaat Middelkoop nader in op zijn tweet: 'IMF is duidelijk bezig de wereld klaar te stomen voor a "new world currency"'. Middelkoop vertelt dat het IMF de volgende fase aankondigt in de kredietcrisis: een vervanger voor de dollar als wereldreservemunt. Een stap die na een nieuwe crisis kan resulteren in een wereldmunt.

This year's conference marks a new level of exposure and opposition to the Bilderberg group itself. Daniel Estulin will be making an historic speech to the European parliament on June 1along with Mario Borghezio, Nigel Farage, and other key MEPs. Then Charlie Skelton, reporting once again for the UK's Guardian newspaper, will be taking part in a mass counter-conference where those opposed to the Bilderbergers and their secret proceedings will gather to draw attention to the group.

A congressional staff member said the request for the funding "seems to have come directly from the commander in chief," Obama. It was not entirely clear what prompted it. [...] In addition, the Obama administration is working toward a Middle East missile defense that envisions adding an advanced radar site in a Gulf state to one already in Israel to thwart any Iranian attack, U.S. officials have told Reuters.

The deal negotiated by Brazil and Turkey was materially identical to the one the Obama Administration had been demanding Iran sign since October. Now that Iran has signed it, the US has expressed vigorous opposition to the deal. In fact, not only is the US now fighting the deal, they seem to be angrily fighting Turkey and Brazil, two nations whose only crime is trying to convince Iran to agree to the deal the Obama Administration claimed to have wanted all along.

If this ruling is allowed to stand, the Supreme Court will have abdicated its responsibility to ensure that no one can be kidnapped anywhere in the world and held indefinitely, without charge or trial, and with no way of challenging the basis of their detention in a satisfactory manner, either in Bagram, or, for that matter, in any other U.S. facility in a foreign land.

These are but a very few of the recent headlines about more U.S. war, but the Iranian and Korean situations are the most dangerous, and the threats against Iran I think the most real. [...] War is the obvious answer, as war solidifies the putrid and false nationalistic worship of the peasants more than any other ploy.

How many average Americans are aware that while troop numbers come down, contractor numbers go up? The number of troops in Iraq is supposed to go down by this August to 50,000 but with contractors the number would be 125,000. Can you imagine that candidate Obama would have campaigned on the promise of having 125,000 personnel in Iraq by the end of summer 2010?

We Are now closing in on the next planned world war as a result. When and where we can only guess, but it surely is on the way, the same way it was in the late 1930s. War is a distraction and it succeeds in culling the population. It is also a cover-up for massive financial and economic problems that have resulted from the financial elite looting the system. The system is not being fixed and deliberately so. The elitists do not want it fixed. They want a collapse. This is the only way they can force people to accept world government.

"The twin towers were brought down by a controlled ground explosion, not the planes,” said Hart, adding that this view was based on his close friendship with consultants who work with the world’s leading civil engineering and construction firm. Hart asked the company to study the collapse of the twin towers, after which they told him directly, “There’s absolutely no doubt whatsoever that the towers were brought down by a controlled ground explosion."

The Obama administration's war on whistleblowers -- whose disclosures are one of the very few remaining avenues for learning what our government actually does -- continues to intensify.

This latest revelation bolsters evidence that the intelligence agencies, and perhaps more significantly, the military have been engaged in creating fake Bin Laden videos in the past.

The secret directive [is] to “prepare the environment” for future attacks by American or local military forces, the document said. The order, however, does not appear to authorize offensive strikes in any specific countries. [It] authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.

"These are deaths occurred quite literally off-base and that is interesting. One assumes at any given time that the military is up to something that is not revealed… dark or secret operations," he said. "Such operations are obviously continued in Iraq. This is my guess, because there is a complete lack of other information. But I think an informed and educated guess would suggest that it [the deaths] has something to do with oil," Sanders added.

With just one aircraft carrier in proximity to Iran, the Nobel peace prize winner has decided to send a clear message that peace will no longer be tolerated, and has decided to increase the US aircraft carrier presence in the region by a 400-500% CAGR. 

The crude rejection of the Brazilian-Turkish-Iranian peace initiative is a clear signal that we are well along on the road to war. Soon we’ll reach the point of no return, but there’s still a chance to stop the War Party. We must appeal to the President directly. [...] Peace seemed to be breaking out all over – but not if the US government and its allies on the UN Security Council could help it. [...] The tripartite pact put the hellbent-on-war Americans, and their British and French compatriots, in a panic.

In the first place, every indication suggests that Furlong’s intelligence and murder outfit was authorized at the highest levels of the Defense Department.It certainly corresponds to the escalation of US military operations, both in Afghanistan itself, with mass arrests, torture and Special Operations death squads, and in Pakistan, where US Predator drones are striking targets at triple the rate of last year. As the Times now reveals, the program continues, and it includes information used directly for the purposes of targeting US air and missile strikes. 

Every Indian above the age of five will now have a unique ID. What it will take -- 10 fingerprints and an Iris scan, besides the name, date of birth and residence proof.

"She was our representative's contact," said Mr Siramy. In this capacity she provided reports on domestic politics in the run up to last July's presidential elections and on a nuclear site under construction next to the central town of Isfahan where she was an assistant university teacher, said Mr Siramy. "She deserves to be recognised as someone who worked very well (for France)," he said.

"Why are we putting money into Afghanistan to fight a losing war and following the Soviet example rather than putting money into [our] local communities?" he asked. 

President Obama, upon taking office, issued an executive order requiring the CIA and military to adhere to the Army Field Manual's guidelines for interrogations. "However, under secret authorization, the DIA interrogators use methods detailed in an appendix to the Field Manual, Appendix M, which spells out "restricted" interrogation techniques," reports Ambinder:

Spanish prosecutors are asking a judge to issue arrest warrants for 13 CIA agents who they believe were involved in the spy agency’s 2004 “extraordinary rendition” of a German citizen, according to Spain's El Pais newspaper.

"What it means is, and I've been told this anecdotally by five or six different people, battlefield executions are taking place," he continued. "Well, if they can't prove they're Taliban, bam. If we don't do it ourselves, we turn them over to the nearby Afghan troops and by the time we walk three feet the bullets are flying. And that's going on now."

In non-policy-wonk terms, the administration is winging it when it comes to figuring out how to achieve long-term stability in Afghanistan, which is supposedly a goal of U.S. policy.

Last week, during a wide-ranging interview with Truthout, Kiriakou, who recently published a book, "The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA's War on Terror, was confronted with these facts and he acknowledged that the intelligence that asserted Zubaydah was Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, that he had played a role in the planning of 9/11 and that he was a major figure in al-Qaeda was "obviously flawed."

Still, there are some tantalizing new details. Take the origins of MK-ULTRA, the notorious CIA program that dosed thousands of unwitting participants with hallucinogenic drugs. Initially funded by the Navy, the project set out to [...]

McChrystal’s staff has made no secret of their hope to convince the U.S. public that his strategy is making such progress in Helmand and Kandahar that it should be extended past mid-2011, when President Obama has said he would begin a U.S. military withdrawal and transition to Afghan responsibility for security.

Above all, the Obama administration seeks to convey the impression to the people of the US and the world that it is diligently trying to reduce weapons, ease world tensions, and diminish the danger of more war. In reality, the US government is widening the wars, hiking military spending, introducing an entirely new and disruptive weapon, while erecting obstacles to the swift attainment of nuclear disarmament. [...] President Obama has cautioned that his vision of a nuclear free world might not happen in our lifetime and the NPR shows why he might be right.

In addition this document, published in April, retains "hair-trigger" nuclear launch readiness, refuses to declare its nuclear force is for deterrence only (suggesting offensive use) and for the first time authorizes a nuclear attack, if necessary, on a non-nuclear state (Iran).

We would have rethought more seriously our role in the world, brought home troops in places like Okinawa. Instead, we did every thing in our power to shore up the Cold War structures in East Asia, in Latin America. The search for new enemies began. That’s the neoconservatives. I was shocked, actually, by this. Did this mean that the Cold War was a cover for something deeper, for an American imperial project that had been in the works since World War II? I began to believe that this is the case.

And that is precisely the reason why I think a new war in the Middle East is inevitable and will take place this year, probably by August.

The first group of people to be targeted in a military conflict is the public. They are the first victims, for in a military conflict war is only one stage of the battle. The biggest battle is for the hearts and minds of the public at large.

Early this year, she got her wish when ConAgra decided to reformulate one of its biggest brands, replacing the high-fructose corn syrup in Hunt’s ketchup with old-fashioned sugar. This month, new bottles featuring a banner proclaiming “No high fructose corn syrup” arrive in stores.

Although I agree with Osseiran’s second criticism, I disagree with the other three. I will discuss his four criticisms in the above order (which is the order in which he introduced them). 

You don't want to end up like the folks in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  You don't want to have to rely on the government to take care of you if something really bad happens. Right now the U.S. strategic grain reserve contains only enough wheat to make half a loaf of bread for each of the approximately 300 million people in the United States.

Why has the U.S. has not occupied North Korea? Because there is a deterrent. I repeat: nobody wants Iran to have nuclear weapons, but the likelihood that Iran would use nuclear weapons is minimal. This can be proved in the testing of U.S. intelligence. If Iran wanted to equip themselves with a single nuclear warhead, probably the country would be devastated. Such a fate is not to the liking of Islamic clerics in the government: until now they have not shown any suicidal impulse.

De eerste groep mensen die bij een militair conflict onder vuur komt te liggen, is het publiek. Zij zijn de eerste slachtoffers in de strijd. Want bij een militair conflict is oorlog slechts een fase. De grootste strijd is die om de hearts and minds van het grote publiek.

I am hopeful that the video and our speaking out will help. There’s the old adage that war is hell, but I don’t think people really understand just what a hell war is. Until you see it first-hand, you don’t really know what’s going on. Like I said, this video shows you an every-day occurrence in Iraq, and I can only assume, in Afghanistan. So I hope people wake up and see the actual hells of war.

The last few weeks have seen a flurry of activity regarding Iran.

“America is the symbol of democracy, but then you have the abuses at Abu Ghraib,” Maliki remarked, according to Dagher's report. “The American government took tough measures, and we are doing the same, so where is the problem and why this raucousness?”

Our research proved something which we really never doubted: with some preparation anyone with even momentary access to paperless voting machines can own the country. If it wasn’t fun to do it would be depressing that something that obvious needs proving over and over again. Maybe some day we’ll skip the film and just own the country instead. (Just kidding…).

The lack of attention paid recently to Iraq and Afghanistan by the "mainstream" media, and by independent journalists like myself, has been disgraceful and must change. [...] The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan affect every living American well beyond the impact of the flesh-and-blood conflicts we occasionally see on TV. The issue of who is still getting rich off those wars, how our society has been wired to blindly support a permanent state of war, and why we hear so little about these all-consuming matters, remain deeply pressing and of deadly importance.

Not that NIEs – or U.S. officials – matter much in terms of a potential military showdown with Iran. The "decider" here is Netanyahu, unless Obama stands up and tells him, publicly, "If you attack Iran, you’re on your own."
Don’t hold your breath

Experts who spoke with Antiwar.com said the relentless urban war zone through which these citizen soldiers have rotated for one, two, even three tours can warp their perspective of the policing environment back home. Their "area of operation" today may be a gritty public housing project or a sleepy middle-American burg, but it may all seem like Baghdad again in a troubled vet’s mind.

Boiling Frogs Post presents an exclusive interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson on the tyrannical presidency and politics of fear, Israel’s interests versus US interests and the question of loyalties, and more:

there is a serious risk that President Barack Obama may eventually be maneuvered into ordering military strikes against Iranian nuclear targets.

In a "top secret" paper (undated) entitled "The CIA Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, March 2001 - January 2003," in a section that, though heavily redacted, describes the review of the tapes by a CIA attorney from the Office of General Counsel, "interrogation materials" are described as consisting of "videotapes, logbook, notebook, and psychologist's notes."

There’s just one teeny-tiny problem: the launches could very well start World War III. Over and over again, the Bush administration tried to push the idea of these conventional ICBMs. Over and over again, Congress refused to provide the funds for it. The reason was pretty simple: those anti-terror missiles look and fly exactly like the nuclear missiles we’d launch at Russia or China, in the event of Armageddon.

This is indeed the case, but what is missing from Judge Kennedy’s conclusion, but is glaringly obvious from his opinion as a whole, is that the shadows which never quite coalesce around the barely fleshed-out figure of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman are populated not by reliable witnesses, but by a procession of torture victims or other prisoners worn out by endless interrogation, who, when shown photographs, invented stories to get the torture to stop, or to get the interrogators off their back.

The Nuclear Posture Review broadens the range of contingencies in which nuclear weapons might play a role so as to include an Iranian military response to an Israeli attack.

I object to this entire push for war on Iran, however it is disguised. [...] We hear war advocates on the floor today arguing that we cannot afford to sit around and wait for Iran to detonate a nuclear weapon. Where have we heard this before? Anyone remember then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's oft-repeated quip about Iraq: that we cannot wait for the smoking gun to appear as a mushroom cloud. We need to see all this for what it is: Propaganda to speed us to war against Iran for the benefit of special interests.

"The white-collar criminal has no legal constraints. You subpoena documents, we destroy documents; you subpoena witnesses, we lie. So you are at a disadvantage when it comes to the white-collar criminal. In effect, we're economic predators. We're serial economic predators. We impose a collective harm on society."

But studies of World War II veterans suggest that very few men are innately bellicose. The psychiatrists Roy Swank and Walter Marchand found that 98 percent of soldiers who endured 60 days of continuous combat suffered psychiatric symptoms, either temporary or permanent.

Why tsunami? If oil reaches even $120 a barrel, let alone a higher level, the global economy would tip again into a catastrophic global recession. While oil-exporting Arab states and Russia would initially benefit from surging oil prices, the benefit would be very short-lived. Just as it did in 2008, a global recession would eventually cause oil prices to collapse. Oil receded to $30 a barrel after the global economy faltered and Russia experienced a sharply negative growth in 2009. That boom-bust cycle would repeat itself following an Israeli attack.

But at the same time one must challenge the judgment of those who enabled her rise to a position of great responsibility and power and there should be serious questions about whether her bellicose and racially tinged viewpoint comes from objective and honest analysis of the genuine challenges confronting the United States or from her loyalty to her country of birth.

"At this point, there is no question that the body scanner program should be shut down," Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said in a prepared statement. "This is the worst type of government boondoggle -- expensive, ineffective and offensive to Constitutional rights and deeply held religious beliefs."

“When it comes to the legal framework for confronting terrorism, President Obama is acting in no meaningful sense any different than President Bush after 2006, when the Supreme Court overturned the view that the president’s war time powers were effectively unlimited,” writes Lake.

"Military options would go a long way to delaying it," Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters after speaking at a forum at Columbia University in New York.

The Times of London reports that Mr. Gates raised concerns about what the US would do if Iran obtained all the necessary components to build a nuclear weapon but did not actually put together a nuclear missile. In this case, Iran would become a “ ‘virtual’ nuclear weapons state” and keep its status as a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

The new Hizballah is being trained to carry out such offensive operations as capturing parts of Israel's Galilee and equipped with the hardware for knocking out warplanes, warships and armored strength. 

The executives were some of the closest advisers to Blackwater’s founder, Erik Prince, and helped him steer the company during its swift rise to become the leading contractor providing security for American diplomats in Iraq and Afghanistan, working for the State Department, the C.I.A. and the Pentagon.

An examination of the documentary record reveals a clear pattern of willful deception on the part of the 9/11 Commission with regard to alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour in an apparent effort to manipulate the facts to suit the official theory.

These speakers, including American Free Press reporter Pat Shannan, who has reported extensively on the case, to former federal grand jury member Hoppy Heidelberg, the common thread was that the bombing was not accomplished by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols alone, that others were involved, including agents of the federal government.

NATO troops accidentally killed 72 civilians in the first three months of 2010, up from 29 in the same period in 2009, according to figures the International Security Assistance Force gave USA TODAY. 

That's five years and 42 lives for three miles of terrain. On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that U.S. forces are withdrawing from the Korengal, leaving only a small outpost at the mouth of the valley. [...] How many more will die before we leave the country? And what will we have accomplished?

There they are, the people who brought you every bit of the action in the WikiLeaks video and all of the other horrors flowing from invasion of Iraq. Madeleine Albright (far right, above), former Clinton Secretary of State, is a good place to start. From 60 Minutes [...] :

Shortly after the tapes were destroyed at the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the head of the C.I.A.’s clandestine service, Mr. Goss told Mr. Rodriguez that he “agreed” with the decision, according to the document. He even joked after Mr. Rodriguez offered to “take the heat” for destroying the tapes. “PG laughed and said that actually, it would be he, PG, who would take the heat,” according to one document, an internal C.I.A. e-mail message.

Of course, these comments are just an entertainment industry wishlist, an exercise in asking for the moon. But they reveal a great deal about the entertainment industry's vision of the 21st century: less privacy (with citizens actively participating in their own surveillance), a less-neutral Internet, and federal agents acting as paid muscle to protect profits of summer blockbusters.

A total of 33 states and the Virgin Islands have depleted their funds and borrowed more than $38.7 billion to provide a safety net, according to a report released Thursday by the National Employment Law Project. Four others are at the brink of insolvency.

Technically, the euro has three critical levels ahead: A long-term trendline support just above 1.30, the 2008 low of 1.233, and the 61.8 percent Fibonacci retracement of the euro’s historical high to the historical low — which lies just above 1.12 to the dollar.

Analysts at British defence specialists Jane's believe the Jewish state has between 100 and 300 nuclear warheads, putting them among the more advanced nuclear weapons states and roughly on a par with Britain.

Anti-U.S. cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, likely to be a key player in forming a new Iraqi government following elections last month, urged Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims on Friday to unite to oust American troops.

He alleged that for Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld “innocent people languishing in Guantánamo for years was justified by the broader War on Terror and the small number of terrorists who were responsible for the September 11 attacks”.

Als de Federal Reserve en de centrale banken niet door zullen gaan met het injecteren van het systeem met nieuw geld, dan zal het hele systeem volledig in elkaar storten. Dat zegt Bob Chapman van The International Forecaster tegen Alex Jones.

We begin today with a Democracy Now! exclusive. As the U.S. Central Command says it has no plans to re-open an investigation into the July 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, we’ll play never-before-seen eyewitness interviews filmed the day after the attack.

When it comes to that slo-mo drawdown, all the numbers turn out to be staggering.  They are also a reminder of just how the Pentagon has been fighting its wars in these last years -- like a compulsive shopper without a 12-step recovery program in sight. [...] Those sorts of figures define the U.S. military in the Bush era -- and now Obama's -- as the most materiel-profligate war-making machine ever. 

What is WikiLeaks, exactly? How did they get this video, what did they hope to accomplish, and what role are they playing in the global conversation into which they've just injected themselves?

The discussions many people are having today -- about the brutal reality of what the U.S. does when it engages in war, invasions and occupation -- is exactly the discussion which they most want to avoid.

I’m in Washington DC right now where I just assisted WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange put on a press conference. [... ] At least I can now tell you all what I have been helping WikiLeaks with. Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted previously unreleased video footage from the onboard camera of a US Apache helicopter over Baghdad in 2007. The audio has the radio communication going on at the time. We released that video today. In it we see Reuters journalists Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh and others getting shot by the Apache on a square in Eastern Baghdad [...].

"We've become used to the level of security service interest in us and have established procedures to ignore that interest," Assange wrote in the editorial. "But the increase in surveillance activities this last month, in a time when we are barely publishing due to fundraising, are excessive."

Uit een interview met Kees de Kort, Macro econoom bij AFS Capital Management, blijkt dat de klappen in het financiële systeem ook in Nederland binnenkort goed zullen aankomen. De Kort vergelijkt Nederland met Ierland.

The CIA Red Cell recommendations for influencing the European public into continuing their support for the mission in Afghanistan was quite remarkable. But the reality is that the contents of the document prove the rule, not the exception. From my book The Next War - The Attack on Iran - A Preview I took some excerpts that show that the CIA document is not quite unique

Voor de weinigen die de ontwikkelingen volgen rondom de inspanningen van GATA, de te hopen veranderingen binnen het CFTC en de recente hoorzittingen over de manipulatie van de goud- en zilverprijzen door Goldman Sachs en consorten op de Comex, zijn spannende tijden aangebroken. Nu zelfs ingewijden als klokkenluiders opstaan, zullen de gevolgen niet lang op zich laten wachten.

The US government’s retreat underscores yet another problem with President George W. Bush’s use of torture. Besides its illegality and immorality, torture can be applied to suspected terrorists who have been falsely identified and who thus don’t possess the expected information, which can lead frustrated interrogators to escalate the torture until the subject provides something, whether true or not. Such false expectations appear to have been a factor in the case of Zubaydah [...].

The U.S. report was produced by the CIA Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center, known as WINPAC. [...] Karen Kwiatkowski: Who is WINPAC?

By Alexander Lehmann. Du Bist Terrorist - Winner of the Viral Video Award of the Interfilm Festival 2009 and a Gold prize on the Spotlight Festival.

Het CIA Red Cell-advies om de bevolking van Europa te beïnvloeden zodat het de missie in Afghanistan blijft steunen, was opmerkelijk. Maar de realiteit is dat de inhoud van het document de regel bevestigt. In mijn boek De Volgende Oorlog - De Aanval op Iran - Een voorbeschouwing heb ik een aantal feiten over dit soort beïnvloeding op een rij gezet. In het vorige deel van dit artikel stond een aantal voorbeelden. Ook in dit deel volgen nog enkele citaten uit het boek.

What's special about the case of the document is not so much its content, but the fact that it is now available for all to see. In a military conflict, war is only one stage of the struggle. The biggest struggle is for the hearts and minds of the public at large.

Will this mini cold war continue, giving both the US and Iran time and face to get back to the negotiating table, or will the bellicose words lead to a confrontation that neither side wants? Empire finds out.
Includes an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski.

On Monday we asked you to count the hours before links to the feds emerged on this one – turns out it was 48. [...] In sworn testimony, Thomas William Piatek is described as a Cooperating Witness and an undercover FBI agent.

Killing dissident citizens without due process is not a unique practice. Libyans, Iranians, and Soviets all did it in the 1980s and 1990s. But it is unusual in a liberal democracy where there are restraints on depriving a citizen of his life. The odd thing is that no one who matters seems too disturbed. No congressional committee protested, the New York Times only ran a short discussion thread on its online opinion page, and the Washington Post relegated the story to page 3 without any follow-up.

These threats of war and open discussions of nuclear genocide are no doubt intended to browbeat the Iranian regime into complying with the demands made on it by the P5+1 group, consisting of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany. But they also serve to prepare public opinion for impending Israeli or US military aggression.

The notorious Russian FSB has a documented history of staging false flag events in order to accomplish political agendas. Vladimir Putin came to power as a result of an FSB orchestrated reign of terror in the autumn of 1999 which involved blowing up apartment blocks all over Russia and blaming the attacks on Chechen separatists, allowing Putin to start a new war and secure victory in the presidential election.

Bij een militair conflict is oorlog slechts een fase in de strijd. De grootste strijd is die om de hearts and minds van het grote publiek. Het bijzondere aan de affaire rond het CIA Red Cell-document is dan ook niet de inhoud, maar dat het is gelekt. Het document is schokkend, maar de realiteit is dat de inhoud de regel bevestigt.

Israel will retaliate against any attack on its citizens or soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, adding that Hamas would be made to be held accountable for actions. [...] Finance Minister Steinitz said that Israel must deal with Hamas, and may have to reenter Gaza to destroy the regime.

Evidently spooked by the collapse of the Dutch government over the country's involvement in Afghanistan, the CIA has put together a strategy proposal to prevent what it fears could be a "precipitous" collapse of support for the war in Afghanistan among European allies.

Here is news of the Third World War. The United States has invaded Africa. US troops have entered Somalia, extending their war front from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen and now the Horn of Africa. In preparation for an attack on Iran, "bunker-buster" bombs are said to be arriving at the US base on the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

[...] actually go out to where the people live who are most affected by these policies -- be it Afghanistan or the slums of the United States. You have to be un-embedded from the powerful and you have to embed yourself with the disempowered, because I think part of our role as independent journalists is not only to confront those in power, but to give voice to the voiceless.

 About 1 million have received Rotarix. The agency is now attempting to determine whether the vaccine contains intact PCV1 or simply viral fragments, as well as how it got into the vaccine.

'America's Pro-Israel Lobby', as AIPAC calls itself, holds the biggest conference in its history today, yesterday and the day before in Washington. 'This year, the lobby has built its annual conference, and its entire lobbying agenda around the issue of Iran', writes Haaretz. AIPAC is very influential, and Washington fears the long arm of the lobby. One of the resources it employs is the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI).

Tim Ripley, a defence analyst at Jane's, said: “In December the Government shed £900million from the budget. The cuts have affected our ability to engage with Iran. “The bitter truth is that, with the exception of a nuclear strike, we would not be able to contribute to any conflict, even in a coalition."

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will use a visit to Washington this week to press the US to release sophisticated bunker-busting bombs needed for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation. Mr Blair - who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 - also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait.

Because of his concern over the US president's step to divert the shipment, prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to take the defense minister with him to Washington next Monday, March 22 and have him present at the meeting with Obama which the US media reports has been fixed for Tuesday (the day after his address to the AIPAC annual conference).

The battle against Iran has already begun. War is only one phase of this process - just as it was with Iraq. The preparation is the most important part of the battle. Whoever thought that the preparation for war ended when Barack Obama took office is advised to take note of the views of critical thinker Noam Chomsky in the previous installment of this DeepJournal series. He says that Obama's policy on Iran is a continuation of the policy of his predecessor, President Bush. Anyone who cares to look at the facts will see that he is right.

Also under President Obama Iran continues to dominate the world agenda. Iran is being presented as a crucial problem that must be solved. The Iran Problem is one with several layers. The uppermost layer is that Iran is a potential threat to world peace. What are the facts and the fiction that make up this first layer?

FBI agents have created fake personalities ‑ in apparent contravention of some of the sites' rules ‑ in order to befriend suspects and lure them into revealing clues or confessing, access private information and map social networks.

Additional insight comes from Dan Plesch, director of the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of London: “They are gearing up totally for the destruction of Iran.

One year later, Obama's requests for transparency have apparently gone unheeded. In fact a provision in the Freedom of Information Act law that allows the government to hide records that detail its internal decision-making has been invoked by Obama agencies more often in the past year than during the final year of President George W. Bush.

Ook onder president Obama blijft Iran de wereldagenda domineren. Iran wordt gepresenteerd als een cruciaal probleem dat moet worden opgelost. Het Probleem Iran is er een met meerdere lagen. De bovenste laag is dat Iran een potentieel gevaar is voor de wereldvrede. Uit welke feiten en fictie bestaat deze eerste laag?

“You just can’t become involved part-time in these things,” Chomsky says. “It’s either serious and you’re seriously involved, or you go to a demonstration and go home and forget about it and go back to work, and nothing happens. Things only happen by really dedicated, diligent work.”

Meet Google. The noun that became a verb. The world's favourite search engine, and the company whose motto is "Don't be evil..."

As Europe's politicians were calling for transparency and limitations, President Obama went to the US Export-Import Bank and made a speech in which he praised ACTA. Yes, it was mentioned only once, but the treaty was picked out by name, and without qualification.

“The most likely case is that the Chinese government will engineer a massive financial bailout of the financial sector,” said Shih, a professor who spent months researching borrowing by about 8,000 local government entities. [...] “The risk is that inflation or asset bubbles force the government to withdraw their support to local governments much earlier than expected,” he said in a phone interview. 

The CIA is working together with the Taliban? Is this a misprint? Not according to RT contributor Wayne Madsen, he says that is how the US got to the Afghan Talibans number two commander.

Essentially, Chomsky believes that President Obama's foreign policy has embodied a continuation of the policies of George W. Bush's second term in office. [...] The problem, said Chomsky, is the defiant and hypocritical insistence of the United States on holding the constant threat of military action over Iran as a punishment for its noncompliance with United Nations mandates.  “Hostile actions of the United States and its Israeli client are a major factor in Iran's decisions of whether or not to develop a nuclear deterrent.”

[...] Otherwise, there is virtually no prospect of lessened tensions, and a near-term prospect that things can get dramatically worse — an Israeli provocation and/or a preventive strike on Iran, for example.

“It’s despicable, the national press corps right now,” declared an angry Kennedy. “Cynicism is that there’s one, two press people in this gallery. We’re talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV! We’re talking about war and peace, three billion dollars, 1,000 lives and no press! No press!” said Kennedy as he pointed to media seats overlooking the House floor. “It’s because the press, the press of the United States, is not covering the most significant issue of national importance, and that is the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country.”

Dismiss his warning at your peril. Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history. The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse.

Yet while serving out a hit piece against the global "9/11 Truth" movement, it is in fact the editors of the Washington Post who are demonstrably "fact-averse".

The problem with how we have reacted so far to the Great Recession of 2007 is that most of the recovery programs are, as in the '50s and '60s, only for those Americans living in the outer ring: programs such as "cash for clunkers", first-time homebuyer credits, expanded Pell Grants, etc. In 2010, however, after decades of wide-spread wage stagnation, the entire middle class needs help as well, and the simple proof of this is that overall income inequality in America is now the greatest since 1928, when we first began to measure it.

Benjamin reports that the waterboarding sessions were "so excruciating" that some detainees simply decided not to struggle and let themselves drown.

"This is the new, 21st-century colonization. The Saudis are enjoying the rice harvest, while the Oromos are dying from man-made famine as we speak," he said.

Joseph Stiglitz explained to Maria Bartiromo why he thinks the Fed is desperately in need of reform. Basically, it comes down to the influence the banks have in selecting the Fed chairman. How can we expect effective regulation or fair financial rescues from men who owe their power to the heads of the biggest banks?

It turns out, however, that the picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict.

That is why the market will allow dividends to persist at an average of two percent while the long-term average dividend is double that amount – implying that share prices should be half what they are today. It needs little imagination to see what must happen in the near future: the mother of all corrections.

The very concept of capitalism, Moore declares in the film, is the problem because it inevitably leads to a system where the richest few control the means of production as well as the levers of power -- leading to a "plutonomy," a term used in a leaked Citigroup memo from 2005, in which the finance juggernaut concluded that the United States is no longer a democracy.

"I am in no doubt that this is a very inhumane and unacceptable blockade and siege, very counter-productive to a peace process," Martin told reporters on the sidelines of meeting with his EU counterparts in Cordoba, Spain. He said that while in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip last week he witnessed "too much malnutrition, abject poverty" and noticed very poor drinking water.

Critics say their use not only takes innocent lives, but amounts to unlawful extra-judicial killing of militants.

"The reason you talk about governance is because in a democracy you want people to have confidence," Stiglitz said. "This is a structure that will undermine confidence in a democracy."

A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage. [...] The controlled experiment was carried out for the BBC Two documentary How safe are our Skies? Detroit Flight 253.

Greater federal involvement in privately operated networks may spark privacy or surveillance concerns, not least because of the NSA's central involvement in the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping scandal. Earlier reports have said that Einstein 3 has the ability to read the content of emails and other messages, and that AT&T has been asked to test the system. (The Obama administration says the "contents" of communications are not shared with the NSA.)

These new trends threaten the old media model, and cable and broadcast companies are hatching various plans to keep their stranglehold on content, control and profit—all to the detriment of consumers. If they get their way, we’ll likely see higher prices, fewer choices, worse programming and a slow stifling of online video innovation.
Here are three developments worth paying attention to:

U6 is more important than the headline unemployment rate because it includes both the unemployed and "underemployed" workers faced with reduced hours who "still can't pay their bills," Lekas tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. "I think that's a more representative number."

The document also calls into question Mr Blair's claim that using troops to bring down Saddam Hussein was only discussed after the 9/11 terror attacks on New York – and will increase pressure on the inquiry to call Mr Blair back to give further public evidence this summer.

As of this writing, HUSTLER stands to be the largest, most “corporate” U.S. outlet in which these startling, now-public, on-the-record disclosures have been reported. The moral: Pull off a large enough crime, and it becomes too big to do anything about.

“The timing of the meeting, the way it was undertaken and the ensuing press conference that was held at its conclusion, all point to a strategic coalition being reinforced. This is the build-up of a new front that will spearhead the confrontation with the US-Israeli alliance and whichever Arab countries that may, expressly or implicitly, be affiliated with it.”

These types of blatant, undisclosed conflicts are rife on cable news and information shows. Lobbyists, PR flacks and corporate officials regularly appear promoting their clients' interests, introduced only with titles like "Former governor," "Republican strategist" and "Retired U.S. Military," without disclosing their true lobbying connections.

Now the question is: Which of these events can be turned into a Gulf of Tonkin-like fakery that can create enough fear to let the military and the government turn the open internet into a controlled, surveillance-friendly net. What do they dream of?

Uw verslaggever heeft eerder geprobeerd om inzage te krijgen in ACTA-documenten via bestaande procedures, maar slaagde daar uiteindelijk niet in. Inmiddels zijn de omstandigheden veranderd doordat er meer is uitgelekt. Daarom is er nu een nieuw informatieverzoek ingediend, op basis van de Wet openbaarheid van bestuur (Wob) en een Europees verdrag voor openheid van informatie. Een weigering zal desnoods tot in hoogste instantie worden uitgevochten. Webwereld heeft daarvoor financiële ondersteuning toegezegd.

Jundullah is a key part of the US-UK strategy of fomenting ethnic and religious civil war in both Iran and Pakistan. Jundullah is a twofer in this context, since it can help destabilize both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border. Baluchistan has special importance because any oil pipeline linking Iran with China must go straight across Baluchistan. Jundullah’s false flag jihad is a means to make sure that strategic pipeline, which would help solve China’s energy problem, is never built.

A new resolution would need only nine of the Security Council's 15 votes to pass. But the abstentions would be seen as a blow because U.S. officials and their allies want to convince Iran that it faces economic and political isolation if it continues work on its nuclear program.

In a statement to ABC News, Sen. Levin echoed the charge that Paravant was a "shell," "set up to avoid the 'baggage' that the name Blackwater carried."

Belangrijker is de inhoudelijke conclusie dat het ACTA-verdrag – althans voor zover dat nu is na te gaan – de grondrechtelijke toets niet kan doorstaan. Hij stelt vast dat “three strikes“-wetten, die erop neerkomen dat internetgebruikers worden afgesloten als drie keer auteursrechtinbreuk wordt vastgesteld, een vergaande inbreuk vormen op de persoonlijke levenssfeer:

That, of course, is exactly what Obama should not be doing. Instead, as I suspect they've done already -- indeed, even during the Bush administration, Admiral Mullen did this -- is make it clear to the Israelis that under no, repeat no, circumstances will an Israeli strike on Iran be tolerated by the United States

“The next war will be a dirty war,” he told fund managers: "What are you going to do when your mobile phone gets shut down or the internet stops working or the city water supplies get poisoned?” [...] He also said that they should consider holding part of their wealth in the form of precious metals “because they can be carried”.

That Bush officials have to cling to the harsh condemnations of Margolis as "vindication" reveals just how wretched and lawless their conduct was.  Essentially, the current posture of the U.S. to the world is this:

The usual suspects are hyping—and distorting—thin-gruel language in the report to “prove” that Iran is hard at work on a nuclear weapon. [...] So What's New?  The Director General of the IAEA, for one thing. [...] For God's sake, spare us such “intelligence” on Iran.

"No strike, however effective, will be in and of itself decisive," Mullen told a press conference after recently returning from a visit to the Middle East. But he said the US military stood ready with plans for possible action if necessary.

The U.S. president and his National Security Council try to keep the crisis from escalating. That sours U.S.-Israeli relations, already stressed by the fact that Israel didn't inform Washington in advance of the strike. The White House tries to open a channel for talks with Iran, but is rejected. Instead, Iran attacks Israel, both directly and through its proxies in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It misinterprets U.S. actions as weakness and mines the Straits of Hormuz, the world's chief oil artery. That sparks a clash and a massive U.S. military reinforcement in the Persian Gulf.

Those who have argued that Russia's increasing willingness to acquiesce in tougher UNSC sanctions might influence China to go along, too, should rethink. Russia doesn't seem all that aboard with a brutal sanctions regime. China not only has its own reasons not to want its own deals with Iran to be declared illegal, but its leaders doubt Iran has the capacity to construct a nuclear warhead anytime soon.

Understanding Deep Politics will bring together ten distinguished speakers and hundreds of concerned citizens in one weekend for the purpose of challenging the mainstream perceptions of political reality - revealing the hidden forces behind many widely accepted historical and current events.

Michel Chossudovsky, who's from an independent Canadian policy research group, believes that what Iran says hardly matters, because the U.S. is planning for war.

Iarpa wants to do away with deception and stress as surrogates for trustworthiness, and instead develop methods to evaluate four different elements that could contribute to one’s (dis)honesty: neural, psychological, physiological and behavioral signals.

The press conference will be held concurrently in 19 states, 3 continents, 6 countries, 38 cities and 48 locations on 2/19/10. - 1,000+ Architects & Engineers demand a new 9/11 WTC investigation!

Rashid interprets that Pakistani move as the logical culmination of the policy decision he had reported earlier. He told Radio Free Europe he hoped Baradar would be treated as a "guest" rather than as a prisoner, and would be used to "start some kind of negotiations" involving the Taliban leadership, the Afghans and the U.S.

The Eitan's role would be to operate in the highest altitudes, along with other aircraft flying at lower altitudes. The new drone will be providing an effective means at all theaters, with an emphasis on distant ones – including Iran.

EU energy security is significantly dependent on production from a relatively small number of Norwegian and Russian fields. Almost all of Norway’s production derives from 18 large fields, 9 of which are classifiable as giant fields. [...] From a European energy security perspective the dependence of pipeline gas imports is not the only energy security problem to be in the limelight, the question of physical availability of overall gas supplies deserves serious attention as well.

One thing that people tend to overlook is the fact that the historic price of oil back when most of our infrastructure was built was quite low--$20 a barrel or less. So even the prices we are seeing now—in the $70 barrel range—are quite high by historical standards. Prices don’t have to be extremely high to have recessionary impacts and to cause debt defaults.

In a masterful analysis of the current crisis in Yemen, American professor Robert Prince examined that nation’s role in American plans for armed hostilities against Iran. [...] “There is another possible strategic consequence to US bases in Yemen, hypothetical but not out of the range of possibility: a US air base in Yemen could be used as a launching pad for an air attack on Iran, not only for US planes but for the Israelis as well.”

There are many other instances of false flag attacks used throughout history proven by the historical evidence. See this, this and this. The above are only some examples of governments admitting to using false flag terror.

Russian news agencies quote the head of the military's chief of staff as claiming the United States intends to attack Iran.

“Without pre-emptive action, the US risks its next crisis,” Mr Hoenig said in a speech at the Pew-Peterson Commission on Budget Reform. He was the only Fed member who dissented at last month’s meeting against language indicating that interest rates should remain near zero for an “extended period”.

how many hundreds or thousands of full time, professionally run honeypots, black propaganda outlets, sock puppets/trolls/shills etc. are operational on Facebook.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany are mulling a fourth round of U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran to persuade it to rein in its nuclear program. Russia has indicated that it would not oppose new sanctions against Tehran for defying five U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding that it halt its nuclear enrichment program, but diplomats say China's position is less clear.

Mullen, who was speaking to journalists during a visit to Israel, went on to say however that US President Barack Obama had been "very clear that from a policy standpoint, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapons." "We haven't taken off any option from the table," the admiral said, using diplomatic language for keeping open the possibility of launching military strikes.

Asked in a television interview about Israeli leaders' vows to "take care" of the perceived threat, ex-general Dan Halutz, who stepped down as armed forces chief in 2007, said: "We are taking upon ourselves a task that is bigger than us."

According to Robin Cook's memoirs, Mr Brown told a Cabinet meeting on 13 March that “the message that must go out from this Cabinet is that we pin the blame on France for its isolated refusal to agree in the Security Council”.

the Iran attack scenario, which had been pushed to the back burner by the US National Intelligence Estimate of December 2007 — which stated that there was no Iranian nuclear weapons program — is once again operational, this time as a means at striking at China’s oil supply.

On June 11, 2009 Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the WHO, declared the Swine Flu a pandemic. The declaration of phase six means that emergency procedures are put into motion which bypass established systems designed to safeguard the public health. The result of this is described in part six of this DeepJournal series on the Swine Flu. Conclusion: the vaccine is being tested while being administered to the public. The definition of what a pandemic is, is therefore of great import.

Attempts by Western countries to establish bases closer to Russia are more worrying than possible Iranian plans to obtain weapons of mass destruction, he said.

"It is morally reprehensible that we live in the wealthiest nation in the world where one in six people are struggling to make choices between food and other basic necessities," Escarra said in a statement.

Bij een invloedrijke organisatie als de WHO is onafhankelijkheid cruciaal. Daarom is het gerechtvaardigd te kijken naar de inkomstenbronnen. [...] Die contributies bedragen blijkens het budget van vorig jaar 2,3 miljard euro en dat bedrag is ruim drie maal zo groot als wat de landen van de VN bijdragen. [...] De definitie van wat een wat een pandemie is, waardoor fase zes kan ingaan, is dus van groot belang. [...] Door het nieuwe criterium is de term pandemie flink geïnflatteerd. Het is een cosmetische verandering die in de praktijk een groot verschil maakt.

The SBX radar is a major component of the ground-based midcourse defense, the sole U.S. bulwark against long-range missiles that could be tipped with chemical, biological or nuclear warheads. It was the first time the United States had tested its long-range defense against a simulated Iranian attack.

Ab Osterhaus is playing an important role in the affair surrounding the Swine Flu. Through his influence and conflicts of interest, he personifies a system that is now being subjected to investigation from all directions. Soon the investigators will undoubtedly stumble upon SAGE, the strategic advisory group of vaccine and immunity experts for the World Health Organization, or WHO. Osterhaus turns up here as well - he is an expert with SAGE.

Also beyond The Netherlands the question is being raised over whether the large-scale acquisition of vaccines made sense. The Council of Europe began an investigation into this question last Tuesday. 'A number of members of the Council of Europe have expressed exceptionally harsh criticism of the World Health Organization and are asking themselves out loud whether drug manufacturers had too much influence in this decision'.

All appear to be aimed at increasing pressure on Tehran. The efforts build on commitments by the George W. Bush administration to sell warplanes and antimissile systems to friendly Arab states to counter Iran's growing conventional arsenal.

Think of the enormity of that statement. A staffer at a body with little public accountability and that exists to serve bankers is lamenting the inability to keep Congress in the dark.

Rajendra Pachauri was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear by 2035 was wrong, but he waited two months to correct it. He failed to act despite learning that the claim had been refuted by several leading glaciologists. The IPCC’s report underpinned the proposals at Copenhagen for drastic cuts in global emissions.

With the information we already knew and the admission from the above referenced Detroit News article, we have evidence and claims made by government officials that the U.S. Government wanted Mutallab to proceed into the U.S. in order to obtain information on other terrorists involved with him. Once we take this statement and add it to my eyewitness account of a “Sharp Dressed Man” escorting Mutallab through the boarding process and allowing him to baord without a valid passport we can make the connection that the “Sharp Dressed Man” was a U.S. Government offical/agent.

The report shows that the violations continued well after U.S. President Barack Obama took office last year, despite U.S. and NATO emphasis on winning the hearts and minds of local Afghans as counterinsurgency operations are stepped up.

"They are comparable to CNN," said Steve Randall, about television news channels such as Russia Today, Al Jazeera, CCTV of China, and the Press TV of Iran, which are now being watched by millions of people in the United States via cable and dish networks.

Ab Osterhaus speelt een belangrijke rol in de affaire rond de Mexicaanse griep. Door zijn invloed en belangenverstrengelingen verpersoonlijkt hij een systeem dat nu aan alle kanten aan onderzoek wordt onderworpen. Ongetwijfeld zullen de onderzoekers binnenkort stuiten op SAGE, de strategische adviesgroep van vaccin- en immuunexperts voor de Wereldgezondheidsorganisatie, de WHO. Ook hier duikt Osterhaus weer op. Hij is expert bij SAGE.

As I explained in an article last week, following the publication of the first ever list of prisoners held in Bagram, it appears that a handful of these men may indeed be in Bagram, but not all of them, and it is, therefore, imperative that the publication of this list leads to pressure on the Obama administration to reveal details of all the "disappeared" detainees.

Het aanvankelijke enthousiasme over de voortvarende aanpak van de Mexicaanse griep door viroloog Ab Osterhaus en minister Ab Klink heeft plaatsgemaakt voor kritiek. Ook buiten Nederland rijst de vraag of verstandig is gehandeld bij het grootschalig aankopen van vaccins. [...] 'Een aantal leden van de Raad van Europa heeft buitengewoon harde kritiek op de Wereld Gezondheidsorganisatie en vraagt zich hardop af of medicijnfabrikanten te veel invloed gehad hebben bij dit besluit'.

Sadly, the inevitable conclusion is that, although Obama is not as dumb as his predecessor, he is no less willing to sacrifice thousands of lives for political gain.

Volgens hoogleraar Jacobs kun je ‘er donder op zeggen’ dat de databases gebruikt gaan worden voor andere doeleinden dan waarvoor ze gemaakt zijn. Function creep heet dat.

Wow, what a year 2009 was for makers of the swine flu vaccine. But in 2010, drug companies may get their comeuppance.

“In order to mitigate or impart surprise, the United States should [begin] deception planning and action prior to the need for military operations.”

Alabama State Climatologist Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, served as a UN IPCC lead author in 2001 for the 3rd assessment report and detailed how he personally witnessed UN scientists attempting to distort the science for political purposes.

Sir Michael Wood, who was senior legal adviser at the Foreign Office, said he had considered resigning on the eve of the invasion in March 2003 in protest at the decision to join the US-led attack. He described how he was sidelined after he made clear his objections to military action.

I've changed my mind. The nuclear talks are going nowhere. [...] This debate is anything but academic. It's at the core of what is likely to be the most compelling international story of 2010: Iran. [...] Iran may be closer to profound political change than at any time since the revolution that ousted the shah 30 years ago.

Faced with declining poll numbers, increasing criticism from the left and an emboldened right, Obama has admitted that his administration has had trouble adequately explaining the rationale for his proposals to the middle and working class grappling with a sharp economic downturn.

This may technically be legal in the United States, but it is at odds with everyone else's understanding of the laws of war.

That's exactly the opposite of what must happen. The law needs our president as an authentic advocate-not just in words but in deeds-when times are "hard" and war rages. This is the case right now. To do anything else is to condemn this nation to a free fall into the "dark side" where Dick Cheney seems so comfortable.

Beluister de interviews over het geheime genootschap Skull & Bones die Daan de Wit gaf aan Goedemorgen Nederland en BNN Today.

Americans should no longer talk of terrorism or fear it because it is largely an empty threat. [...] Leaving them alone might well be the best foreign and security policy that the United States could embrace.

“The contrast between what Americans saw on the news and what European and pan-Arab audiences saw is striking. Foreign news bureaus showed far more blood and gore than American stations showed. The foreign media were delivering audiences the true face of the war,” writes Michelle Pulaski, an assistant professor at Pace University, New York.

Analysts from across the U.S. intelligence community have been finalizing a revised national intelligence estimate (NIE) that is expected to bring the United States more into line with its European allies about the state of Iran's nuclear program.

You know, to start with Clinton, very briefly Aristide's forced out of office by a military coup in September '91 when Bush Senior is in power. Clinton maintains the standard US policy, which was not to return Aristide to power until, through negotiations with the coup leaders, with the Army, they had managed to extract a whole series of concessions, which basically involved him accepting the neoliberal policies that he'd opposed when he was elected. And the pressure they put on him was very simple, which was to kill his supporters in Haiti.

Presence of US troops provides both hope of relief, and fear of continuing legacy of US domination. Watch the video.

However, Gates and his military brass will ensure that Aristide will not show up to threaten Preval’s continuing disastrous leadership of Haiti. It was Gates, who was George H. W. Bush’s nominee to be CIA director, who helped plan the military coup that ousted Aristide the first time in September 1991. Gates, at the time, was Bush’s deputy national security adviser. [...] Bush decided it was time for the CIA and the Southern Command to remove Aristide, which they did with the help of France and Canada. [...] Preval regained office in 2006 after a phony election engineered with the help of [IRI and NDI].

Yet in a near contradiction, the doctrine also states that “When authorized, PSYOP forces may be used domestically to assist lead federal agencies during disaster relief and crisis management by informing the domestic population.”  Perhaps the PSYOP forces are supposed to inform the domestic population without “targeting” them.

The administration and Congress need to move quickly - before the fact - to alert Americans to this latest threat to their economic security. The people, as well as their leaders, need to understand that the clock is ticking on this crisis.

The country as a whole has been living beyond its means. There will have to be some adjustment. And someone will have to pick up the tab for the bank bailouts. With real median household income already down some 4 percent between 2000 and 2008, the brunt of the adjustment must come from those at the top who have garnered for themselves so much over the past three decades, and from the financial sector, which has imposed such high costs on the rest of society.

How did Haiti end up so economically weakened, with infrastructure, from hospitals to water systems, busted or non-existent - there are two fire stations in the entire nation - and infrastructure so frail that the nation was simply waiting for "nature" to finish it off? Don’t blame Mother Nature for all this death and destruction.

At the October meeting in Ramallah, Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin told Abbas that if he did not ask for a deferral of the vote on the critical report on last year's military operation, Israel would turn the West Bank into a "second Gaza."

What if, as Nobel-winning economist Joe Stiglitz suggests, we foreclosed on bankers and politicians who are morally bankrupt? What if people started showing up at town halls demanding accountability from those who gambled away their jobs and homes? There is plenty of blame to go around. Let's start putting some of it back where it belongs.

The countries most likely to blow up this time around are the "PIIGS": Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain.  One ore more of them, Faber says, will likely default in the next couple of years. And, that could result in the death of the Euro currency. Longer-term, Faber says, Japan and the US are in line for the same fate. The US crisis won't hit us this year or next year.  But within 5-10 years, the United States will be forced to quietly default on its debt, most likely by printing money and destroying the value of the currency.

The targeting of the scientists in the heart of Tehran by a remote-controlled explosion shows that the covert agencies working to sabotage Iran's controversial nuclear program have managed to plant death squads in the Iranian capital like those operating in Damascus. Shadowy inside elements are therefore threatening the military nuclear projects of both these allies.

High unemployment and a record $1.4 trillion deficit are among the toughest domestic challenges facing Obama and could dim the election prospects for his Democratic Party in congressional elections next November.

But all the evidence indicates that the real story is exactly the opposite: far from wanting to hide the existence of nuclear facilities from the outside world, Iran has wanted Western intelligence to conclude that it was putting some of its key nuclear facilities deep underground for more than three years.

Talk about “counterinsurgency” as much as you want, but this is another kind of battlefield, and “protecting the people” plays no part in it.  And of course, this is only what can be gleaned from afar about a semi-secret war that is being poorly reported.  Who knows what it costs when you include the U.S. hired guns, the Afghan contractors, the bases, the drones, and the rest of the personnel and infrastructure?  Nor do we know what else, or who else, is involved, and what else is being done.  Clearly, however, all those billions of "intelligence" dollars are going into the blackest of black holes.

So we're running up our debt - which will eventually decrease economic growth - and creating many fewer jobs than if we spent the money on non-military purposes.

"They [the Guard] have become the main, most faithful caste, to protect the system of Islamic government," said Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, a former journalist, who now works as an analyst at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran. "In exchange, wealth, power and respect are being transferred to them at an increasing rate." He was among many arrested last month after a day of major demonstrations. The reason for the arrest was not clear.

The US does not want to see confrontation with Iran but is still preparing its military for that possibility, America's top uniformed officer said Thursday. [...] "I believe that they're on a path that has a strategic intent to develop nuclear weapons and have been for some time," he said.

The year 2010 begins on a fascinating new note: will Russia, China and Iran coordinate future moves or at least harmonize their competing interests? [...] The Turkmen-Iranian pipeline mocks the US's Iran policy. [...] The matter is of profound consequence to the US global strategy.

For every month we keep trying to prevent the liquidation of insoluble debt we add months of additional time to that required to resolve the bust and deepen the amount of pain that must be suffered, since all we are doing is adding more debt upon existing debt.

The Obama administration is increasingly questioning the long-term stability of Tehran's government and moving to find ways to support Iran's opposition "Green Movement," said senior U.S. officials. [...] "Do we expect the current government to be overthrown? I wouldn't say that at the current time," said a senior State Department official. "But a crack can certainly grow over time."

If a breaking story relates to Iran and appears first in the Times it is probably not completely true and might be completely false, a shaky foundation for building a case for war.

Important events, no doubt. But assertions that the Islamic Republic is now imploding in the fashion of the shah’s regime in 1979 do not hold up to even the most minimal scrutiny.

The evidence suggests that the Pentagon and US intelligence are moving to militarize a strategic chokepoint for the world oil flows, Bab el-Mandab, and using the Somalia piracy together with claims of a new Al Qaeda threat arising from Yemen to militarize one of the world’s most important oil transport routes. As well, undeveloped petroleum reserves in the territory between Yemen and Saudi Arabia are reportedly among the world’s largest.

If Wolf's report is accurate, these Obama officials may be pulling on a thread which could begin to unravel the entire secret structure of illegitimate power which has afflicted this country -- in this case, the apparatus which manufactures terrorist incidents for political purposes of mass manipulation, dictatorship, and war.

Washington is distancing itself from a controversial National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), produced by several US spy agencies in 2007, which suggested Iran had suspended work on weapons design four years earlier.

Policymakers seem to believe that blanket government guarantees and stock market manipulation are enough to forestall another disaster. But critics think that a day of reckoning is fast approaching.

When will we pick up the Financial Times or any other daily and read about our own high-speed rail line carrying American passengers from New York to Boston in less than one hour?  When will our own factories supply our hardware stores?  When will we build wind, solar and ocean-based energy generators?  When will we abandon our military bases and let the world's warlords, drug traffickers and terrorists face the justice of their own people?

These factors have led the administration’s policy makers to lengthen their estimate of how long it would take Iran to accomplish what nuclear experts call “covert breakout” — the ability to secretly produce a workable weapon. [...] Mr. Obama’s top advisers say they no longer believe the key finding of a much disputed National Intelligence Estimate about Iran, published a year before President George W. Bush left office, which said that Iranian scientists ended all work on designing a nuclear warhead in late 2003. [...] Another possible problem for Iran is the Western sabotage efforts.

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

"The Iraqi government regrets the decision," he said. "Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force."

The officials said Abdulmutallab left Yemen Dec. 7 on a flight to Ethiopia and then continued on a few days later to Ghana. In Ghana's Accra Airport Dec. 16, he purchased his $2,853 plane ticket with cash, what has been considered a red flag for potential terrorists. [...] At Lagos airport, Abdulmutallab boarded the intercontinental flight without luggage, another red flag for potential terrorists.

Over the past year, the C.I.A. has built up an archipelago of firebases in southern and eastern Afghanistan, moving agency operatives out of the embassy in Kabul and closer to their targets. But the push to the front lines carries great risk.

For now, Congress and the President remain as clueless as Time. To show its resolve to 'get to the bottom of things,' the Obama Administration has impaneled a commission to investigate the causes of the financial crisis. Do not expect the proceedings, which are just getting underway, to come up with anything but the most politically useful explanations.

Now, Obama a new military front appears to be opening up against Yemen with Obama ordering cruise missile attacks there. Meanwhile, the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay remains open and human rights groups have decried what they call an Obama administration policy of preventive detention.

The diplomatic stalemate has set off speculation that the Israelis, perhaps fearing a shift by Washington to a Cold War-style policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran, would make good on veiled threats to hit their arch-foe preemptively. Asked whether Israel is facing any U.S. pressure over the issue of possible military action, Oren said: "It's not a subject that comes up. It's not a subject of discussion. It's not a subject of conversation between us because we're not there yet. We're far away from that.

US officials are keeping mostly mum on what they have gleaned from a Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane despite criticism that they are leaving a frightened public in the dark.

Our current response to terrorism is a form of "magical thinking." It relies on the idea that we can somehow make ourselves safer by protecting against what the terrorists happened to do last time.

Also, lest we forget: Three key provisions of the Patriot Act are scheduled to expire 31 December 2009. Hmm. I wonder if post-Abdulmutallab they will get renewed?

1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
2. Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA
3. InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business

What can we do to avoid hyperinflation? What if we just shut down the Fed or something like that?
We can't. [...] Although the hyperinflation is going to be limited largely to the U.S., the economic downturn will affect things globally. I can't tell you how things will go with a hyperinflationary Great Depression, which is where I see things going.

The Netherlands has an ongoing contract with Solvay Pharmaceuticals for the making of vaccines without additives. Then Dutch Health Minister Klink severs - with all of its accompanying financial consequences - the contract with Solvay. He signs new, secretive contracts with GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, companies that make vaccines with additives - the so-called adjuvants. In The Netherlands everyone is receiving the same vaccine containing adjuvants - whether they are young or old, pregnant or not. What happened that caused Klink to make this decision?

All over the United States, in every congressional district, communities depend upon the war economy. Our own weapons-components plant, though it looms large in our local economy, is a small fish in the huge and murky pond of military contractors. It means that, yes, even in Woodstock, too much of our hard work and creativity is expended producing products and services that go to war, that is, to desolation and waste. And it means that, together with towns around the world, we have a responsibility to turn our local productivity in a positive direction.

In a piece of research that involved 14 of its senior analysts from across five leading financial centres scrutinising data from 32 leading indices over several decades, Macquarie Securities has arrived at a startling discovery: the two days on either side of the new lunar month represent most of the positive returns on equity markets for the next four weeks.

Arguing that "covert action and analysis do not belong together in the same agency," a former CIA agent who prepared intelligence briefings for President Reagan in the 1980s says the CIA should be broken in two.

The war games also showed that while Israel was diplomatically and militarily hobbled, Iran would likely continue enriching uranium. Yesterday Mr Ahmadinejad dismissed the end-of-year deadline set by Washington for Tehran to accept a UN-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

"They are all fabricated bunch of papers continuously being forged and disseminated by the American government," Ahmadinejad told ABC News in an interview aired Monday when asked about the confidential documents first revealed in London's The Times newspaper.

He also stressed that Iran had become a regional power. "We owe this to the Americans," he said. "When they launched their operation in Iraq, they destroyed the balance of forces that had existed for years. Iran has attained the level of a Middle East power that must be reckoned with."

Nederland heeft een lopend contract met Solvay Pharmaceuticals in Weesp voor het maken van vaccins zonder toevoegingen. Maar minister Klink verbreekt het contract, met alle financiële gevolgen vandien. Hij ondertekent nieuwe, geheime contracten met GlaxoSmithKline en Novartis die vaccins maken mèt toevoegingen, de zogenoemde adjuvants. In Nederland krijgt iedereen - jong of oud, zwanger of niet - hetzelfde geadjuveerde vaccin. Wat is er gebeurd dat Klink deze beslissing heeft gemaakt?

Despite U.S. President Barack Obama’s pledge in his December 1 address at the West Point Military Academy that deploying 30,000 more of his nation’s troops to Afghanistan would be coupled with “a goal of starting to withdraw forces from the country in July 2011,” everything else he has said and all the facts on the ground suggest that the war will continue into the indefinite future.

In the international battle against Swine Flu different countries use different vaccines to protect their citizens. In the Netherlands vaccines containing additives are being used. Even women 13 weeks pregnant are receiving this vaccine. In arriving at his decision, Dutch Health Minister Klink sought advice from the Health Council of The Netherlands. But he didn't get this advice. And yet he still went ahead and made a decision. Who advised him on this?

But little attention has been paid to the potential conflicts of advisers to the C.D.C., even though that agency’s committees have significant influence over what vaccines are sold in the United States, what tests are performed to detect cancer and how coal miners are protected.

The huge increase has cost hundreds of millions of pounds, including at least £170million in Home Office grants - although there are doubts over whether the cameras actually help catch criminals.

In Afghanistan, the Obama administration blows the Bush administration out of the privatized water. [...] That means that the current total US force in Afghanistan is approximately 189,000 personnel (68,000 US troops and 121,000 contractors). [...] Overall, contractors now comprise a whopping 69% of the Department of Defense’s total workforce, “the highest ratio of contractors to military personnel in US history.” That’s not in one war zone—that’s the Pentagon in its entirety.

The Israeli officials say the Americans now understand that the Chinese agreed to join the condemnation announcement only because Obama made a personal request to Hu, not as part of a policy change. [...] After the Beijing summit, the U.S. administration thought the Chinese had understood the message; Beijing agreed to join the condemnation of Iran by the International Atomic Energy Agency only a week after Obama's visit. But in the past two weeks the Chinese have maintained their hard stance regarding the West's wishes to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

The network was a large one, 24 from one arm of the Iraqi security forces, 13 from another, and eight or nine from another," Maliki told a news conference without saying which branch of the security forces those involved came from.

As we have learned with US sanctions on Iraq, and indeed with US sanctions on Cuba and elsewhere, it is citizens rather than governments who suffer most. The purpose of these sanctions is to change the regime in Iran, but past practice has demonstrated time and again that sanctions only strengthen regimes they target and marginalize any opposition.

This next test... is more of a head-on shot like you would use defending against an Iranian shot into the United States. So that's the first time that we're now testing in a different scenario," Lt.-Gen. Patrick O'Reilly, head of the US Missile Defense Agency, said [...].

As President Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan unfolds, the number of contractors will likely jump by between 16,000 and 56,000, adding up to a total of 120,000-160,000, according to an updated study from the Congressional Research Service.

Philip Crowley, the US State Department spokesman, said: “It’s safe to say the United States Government will be investigating... the revelations this week about nuclear triggers.” He praised the report in The Times, calling it a “fine piece of journalism”.

"This will unify the Iranian people against us," Representative Ron Paul said. [...] If a similar bill passes the Senate, the final legislation would impose the harshest sanctions yet approved by Congress to protest Iran's nuclear program. The State Department said there are parts of both bills it likes, and it will work to make sure the final version that emerges supports administration policy.

DoD's 2010 budget request called for $534 billion, plus $130 billion to cover the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It did not include the estimated $30 billion that will be needed to fund President Barack Obama's recent decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

In fact, Gilani was so helpful as a DEA informant in the late 1990s on heroin imported from Pakistan, according to records and Inquirer interviews, that prosecutors made a rare move: They ended his probation years early, allowing him to travel freely. Within weeks, investigators say, he began training with terrorists in Pakistan.

In de strijd tegen de Mexicaanse griep wordt in Nederland een vaccin ingezet met toevoegingen. Ook zwangeren vanaf 13 weken krijgen een dergelijk vaccin. Om tot die keus te komen vraagt minister Klink advies aan de Gezondheidsraad. Maar hij krijgt dit advies niet. Toch neemt hij vervolgens een besluit. Wie heeft hem daarbij geadviseerd?

Using investment bankers as an example, it said: 'Far from being "wealth creators", City bankers are being handsomely rewarded for socially -damaging activity.

The moment is fast approaching when Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, may have to make the most difficult decision of his career — whether to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities and risk triggering a conflagration that could spread across the Middle East.

“The tendency for food prices is up, it’s not down,” Unilever Chief Executive Officer Paul Polman said [...]. “Agricultural commodities will be a great investment in the next three to five years,” said Oliver Kratz [...].

The Sucre is a common account unit, a non-material currency, agreed by the ALBA member states to estimate their offset operations, that is, to ascertain values in swap of products for commodities or services.

The newly discovered e-mails were apparently mislabeled and were recently uncovered by contractors hired by the White House. The e-mails will eventually be made available to the public, after they are archived through the National Archives and Records Administration.

Confidential contracts detailing Monsanto Co.'s business practices reveal how the world's biggest seed developer is squeezing competitors, controlling smaller seed companies and protecting its dominance over the multibillion-dollar market for genetically altered crops, an Associated Press investigation has found.

The ACLU said that as much as the Obama administration may hope that additional revelations related to the Bush administration’s policy of torture will slip underneath the radar, numerous documents expected to be released in the weeks and months ahead will ensure the issue remains front and center for years to come, and calls for accountability will continue.

Iraq’s second oil-licensing round, to be held Friday and Saturday, has elicited substantial interest from Big Oil. The most tempting prizes are the Majnoon and West Qurna-Phase 2 fields, each of which contains more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves. The fields have been in the majors’ sights for decades.

And for many Afghans, Obama's strategy of even more troops does not fit into their vision of what will bring peace. From Kabul, Steve Chao reports.

In the end, the Obama administration seems to have adopted a position that makes it impossible to achieve an agreement acceptable to Tehran and move towards a global settlement with the US. If this is the case, the US may have started down the long, dark corridor to confrontation.

But the smooth run-up to the conference has been upset by a row over the publication of about a thousand e-mails sent by and to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia which appear to suggest a deliberate attempt to skew the science of global warming.

Much of Russia's vast oil and gas reserves lie in difficult-to-access areas of the far North. One school of thought is that Russia, unlike most countries, would have little to fear from global warming, because these deposits would suddenly become much easier and cheaper to access.

However, since we lost a couple of hundred of our top special operations forces hunting for bin Laden after we knew he was dead, is someone going to answer for this with some jail time?  Since we spent 200 million dollars on "special ops" looking for someone we knew was dead, who is going to jail for that?

Two former counterterrorism intelligence specialists who followed the Taliban closely until earlier this year told IPS this week that the facts do not support the portrayal by Gates and Mullen of the Taliban and al Qaeda as ideologically united. [...] President Barack Obama appears to have been informed about the evidence of divergent Taliban and al Qaeda interests. Senior administration officials told the New York Times in early October, evidently with the encouragement of the White House, that the Taliban was now viewed by the national security team as a group that did not have "ambitions to attack the United States."

The Brussels agreement, which will come into force in two months’ time, requires the 27 EU member states to grant requests for banking information made by the United States under its terrorist finance tracking programme. In a little noticed information note released last week, the EU said it had agreed that Europeans would be compelled to release the information to the CIA “as a matter of urgency”. The records will be kept in a US database for five years before being deleted.

Israel has talked about the end of the year as a deadline for Iran to give in to international demands, suggesting that a military strike might be on the table. That would be absolutely the worst thing that could happen. There is no military solution. . . . If a country is bombed, you give them every reason -- with the support of everybody in the country and outside the country -- to go for nuclear weapons, and nobody can even blame them.

General Khudaidad, Minister of the Narcotic Campaign of the Kabul Administration has acknowledged in a press conference that US military officers had hands in drug trafficking. [...] the White House Security Advisor James Jones says there are fewer than 100 Al-qaeda members in Afghanistan and on the other hand, Obama sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

These developments again demonstrate the counterproductive futility of enshrining uranium enrichment and sanctions as the keys to resolving the nuclear issue. By prompting Tehran to reduce cooperation with the IAEA, the United States and its European partners have done real damage to the international community's ability to monitor the state of Iran's nuclear program. [...] It is not analytically serious to describe an Iran with mastery of the nuclear fuel cycle as an existential threat to Israel or any other state.

There is an amazing story in Ha'aretz today on the "pro-Israel" litmus test that determines who is permitted to serve in the United States government. Here's the sort of lede you're not likely to read in the New York Times or Washington Post:

'They were convinced they had their witch (Saddam) in front of them, and they searched for the evidence and believed it without critical examination'. The result, says the former UN weapons inspector, was that Blair and Bush 'misled themselves, and then misled the public.

All I'm asking is whether the U.S. refusal to accept the Taliban's offer to hand over Bin Laden should be viewed as similar to its refusal to accept Saddam's offer to go into exile for $1 billion dollars. In other words, we should ask whether the U.S. was hell-bent on going to war against Afghanistan and Saddam, without - contrary to official statements - really caring about the bad guys.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the BBC the allegations were serious. "We certainly don't want to brush anything under the carpet," he said. The controversy arose from the release of thousands of emails, between scientists at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit and their peers around the world, which suggested attempts to suppress or manipulate data.

Barack Obama, the anti-war candidate, has proven to be a perfect decoy for the military industrial complex. Consider all the opposition and bad press Bush received when he announced the surge in Iraq. Then consider this:

As word spreads of an upcoming Israeli attack on Tehran, the US Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) confirms that Iran can easily seal off the Strait of Hormuz in the event of war.

"Its very important that people in Afghanistan hear this very clearly: this is not a withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan in 2011, it is a decision to turn over to the Afghans some of the responsibility where they are ready to accept that responsibility. But in no manner, shape or form is the United States leaving Afghanistan in 2011."

3. Obama's goal to "break the Taliban's momentum" may well fail. Only 20 percent of insurgencies in modern times are defeated in a decisive military manner.

Despite Obama’s embrace of these new national security arguments, however, he has rejected within the past few weeks the critical link in the national security argument for deploying tens of thousands of additional troops – the allegedly indissoluble link between the Taliban insurgency and al-Qaeda. [...] Only three days later, however, the New York Times reported that "senior administration officials" were saying privately that Obama’s national security team was now "arguing that the Taliban in Afghanistan do not pose a direct threat to the United States."

“In an extreme situation a fiscal crisis could lead to some domestic capital flight, severe pound weakness and a sell-off in UK government bonds. The Bank of England may feel forced to hike rates to shore up confidence in monetary policy and stabilize the currency, threatening the fragile economic recovery,” they said.

While both China and Russia supported Friday's IAEA resolution demanding that Iran stop construction at the Qom facility, it remains unclear whether the two powers – who enjoy veto power in the Security Council - will support additional economic sanctions against Tehran. Most experts here dismissed Ahmadinejad's plans as folly from both a technical and an economic point of view. They also noted that such a decision would be taken by the Supreme National Security Council under Khamenei, rather than by Ahmadinejad and his cabinet.

The CIA, the FBI, the U.S. government and the major banks all put pressure on SWIFT until the society "voluntarily" began to hand over millions of pieces of data.

When we elected you we didn't expect miracles. We didn't even expect much change. But we expected some. We thought you would stop the madness. Stop the killing. Stop the insane idea that men with guns can reorganize a nation that doesn't even function as a nation and never, ever has. [...] Tomorrow, we shall see.

Newly decoded data provided by an independent researcher and computer programmer from Australia exposes alarming evidence that the reported hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 was impossible to have existed. A data parameter labeled "FLT DECK DOOR", cross checks with previously decoded data obtained by Pilots For 9/11 Truth from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) through the Freedom Of Information Act.

It isn't clear whether the Security Council, which has already imposed some sanctions on Iran in connection with its nuclear program, would be willing to implement stricter measures. China and Russia, for example, both have commercial ties to Tehran that might be threatened by such a step.

The U.S. and Israel are trying to force Russia to halt the sale of an $800 million missile system to Iran that will help protect nuclear plants, the commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps said.

The officials reportedly carried the message that if China would not support the US on the issue, Israel would be likely to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. The paper quoted the officials as saying that Israel saw the issue as "an existential issue," and that "countries that have an existential issue don't listen to other countries."

The guide was part of a larger CIA programme, called Project MK-Ultra, aimed at countering the Soviet mind-control techniques of the Cold War era. [...] The CIA ordered copies destroyed in the 1970s, but one survived. It has been republished as The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception.

Volgens BoF is Nederland niet alleen al jarenlang internationaal 'koploper op het gebied van aftappen'. Informatie over de effectiviteit blijft achterwege, de zorgvuldigheid laat te wensen over en het Kabinet is in haar informatieverstrekking aan de Tweede Kamer onvoldoende transparant", aldus de actiegroep.

With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA PATRIOT Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.

The vaccines Pandemrix and Focetria have been chosen to fight the Swine Flu in The Netherlands, vaccines with so-called adjuvants. On what basis was the decision made to vaccinate pregnant Dutch women with these specific drugs? The answer from the National Health Council is clear - though not reassuring - namely 'that there is practically no scientific data on the use of the adjuvants (agents that stimulate the immune system) used in the vaccines during pregnancy'.

It’s a new world in the 21st century, and we need weapons that were designed for and support the needs of the 21st century.” Of particular concern, Chilton said, is the deterioration of the nation’s nuclear laboratories, which he called “decrepit.” These laboratories must be modernized in order to attract and retain the scientists needed to sustain a weapons program, he said.

Despite promises that the Swine Flu vaccine is safe, it has not been tested on the target demographic that is now receiving the shots in Europe. The testing phase began the moment the drug became available and was administered to the public. It actually has been tested, but only on a small group of healthy people. This was done in a very short period of time. The long-term effects to all parties involved are unknown.

In ons land is gekozen voor het gebruik van Pandemrix en Focetria, vaccins met zogenoemde adjuvantia. Op basis waarvan is de beslissing gemaakt de Nederlandse zwangeren juist met deze middelen te vaccineren? Het antwoord van de Gezondheidsraad is duidelijk, maar niet geruststellend, namelijk 'dat er vrijwel geen wetenschappelijk gegevens zijn over het gebruik van de in de vaccins gebruikte adjuvantia (immuunstimulerende middelen) tijdens de zwangerschap'.

But in the case of “Climate Change”, the MSM has been caught with its trousers down. The reason it has been so ill-equipped to report on this scandal is because almost all of its Environmental Correspondents and Environmental Editors are parti pris members of the Climate-Fear Promotion lobby.

The head of Iran's air defence said the aim of the exercises was to thwart aerial reconnaissance and air attacks. Another official warned Tehran would retaliate with a missile strike on Tel Aviv, if it was attacked by Israel.

The reports disclose that:
Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.
[...]

Ondanks toezeggingen dat het Mexicaanse-griepvaccin veilig is, is het niet getest op de doelgroep die nu wordt geprikt. De testfase is ingegaan op het moment dat het middel voor het eerst beschikbaar was en werd toegediend. Het is eerder wel getest, maar op een kleine groep gezonde mensen. Dit is gedaan gedurende een zeer korte periode. Lange-termijneffecten zijn voor alle betrokkenen ongewis.

There was a fear that graphic reports, even in censored form, could be uncovered by opposition parties and the media through access-to-information laws, leading to revelations that would further erode already-tenuous public support. [...] “It was meant to put on happy face,” he added.

Major-General Paul Newton said: “The best weapons to counter insurgents don’t shoot. In other words, use bags of gold in the short term to change the security dynamics. But you don’t just chuck gold at them, this has to be done wisely.” [...] The manual says that money can be the answer, if it is prudently distributed. [...] “The counter-insurgent should be careful not to be over-generous since this will distort local economic and social activity and may lead to unproductive dependency.”

Middelkoop kijkt in dit interview terug op de interviews met De Wit in 2006 en daarna. Hij geeft tips hoe de huidige kredietcrisis te overleven: 'Behoud je baan, wees flexibel en maak geen schulden'. Middelkoop legt uit dat de huidige oplossing voor de crisis uitstel van executie betekent en dat intussen het vertrouwen afneemt van burgers en overheden in het financiële systeem, met alle gevolgen vandien. De introductie van een wereldmunt ziet Middelkoop niet gauw gebeuren: 'Pas als er een wereldwijde ineenstorting van het financiële systeem plaatsvindt'.

The apparent Iranian decision to begin preparations for a U.S. attack on Iran in 2002 came after President George W. Bush had declared in his Sep. 20, 2001 speech to a joint session of Congress that any nation that 'continues to harbor or support terrorism' would be regarded as a 'hostile regime' and then named Iran as part of the 'Axis of Evil' with Iraq and North Korea in January 2002. The new evidence contradicts the U.S. charge that Iran had been working on constructing a covert enrichment plant for several years [...].

"The newspaper should know that if a country plans to send a secret arms cargo to another, it will not brand the shipment with a full description of the batch," Iranian media reports stated. Iran deflected the allegations, saying it was an effort by Israel to draw attention away from a U.N. report describing Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

The American people [...] really don’t need another war, but another war is what they are going to get.  Blame the usual players in Congress and the mainstream media for a lot of it, but the case being made that Iran is a threat to the remainder of the world is largely being cranked up by Israel and its yapping poodles loosely described as the Israel lobby. 

Despite the urgent advice of the government and reassuring words from the minister responsible, there remains much doubt. To be or not to be vaccinated against the Swine Flu? While there are long lines to get the shot, many others are choosing not to be vaccinated. Part of the controversy surrounding the vaccine are the additives, such as squalene and the mercury compound Thiomersal. How dangerous are these substances in reality?

Neurologists and obstetricians in the city interviewed by the Guardian say the rise in birth defects – which include a baby born with two heads, babies with multiple tumours, and others with nervous system problems - are unprecedented and at present unexplainable.

"You know who's guarding Hillary Clinton in Afghanistan right now? Blackwater," Scahill told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Tuesday night. "You know who guards members of Congress? Blackwater. They have half a billion dollars in contracts in Afghanistan right now. CIA, State Department, Defense Department. Why is President Obama keeping these guys on the payroll? There has never been a company in recent history that made the case that corporations are corrupt, evil organizations [better] than Blackwater."

Ondanks de dringende adviezen van de overheid en de geruststellende woorden van de verantwoordelijke minister, is er veel twijfel onder de Nederlandse bevolking. Wel of geen vaccin tegen de Mexicaanse griep? Terwijl er staan lange rijen staan voor het krijgen van de prik, kiezen veel anderen ervoor zich niet te laten vaccineren. Onderdeel van de controverse rond het vaccin zijn de toevoegingen, zoals squaleen en de kwikverbinding Thiomersal. Hoe gevaarlijk zijn deze middelen nu echt?

To identify potentially dangerous individuals, the Transportation Security Administration has stationed specially trained behavior-detection officers at 161 U.S. airports. The officers may be positioned anywhere, from the parking garage to the gate, trying to spot passengers who show an unusual level of nervousness or stress.

Both the Reagan-Bush Republicans and the Carter Democrats “started from the proposition that Imam Khomeini, having announced a policy of ‘neither the West nor the East,’ and cursing the ‘American devil,’ imperialism and Zionism, was forced to acquire American weapons, spares and military supplies by any and all possible means,” the Russian report said. The Republicans just won the bidding war.

Lange rijen voor de gezondheidscentra die vaccins toedienen tegen de Mexicaanse griep. Maar niet iedereen wordt bereikt. Veel artsen en verpleegkundigen durven het risico van het vaccin niet aan. Zij wijzen op de mogelijke bijwerkingen en op het feit dat de Mexicaanse griep slechts een fractie treft van het aantal mensen dat ieder seizoen sterft aan de gewone griep. Vaccinatie in Nederland is vrijwillig, maar in Amerika is men een stap verder.

[...] most notably the CIA, have failed to appreciate that both the Cold War and the so-called Global War on Terror were fought in error against enemies that were deliberately distorted and magnified to create fear. In today’s complicated multipolar world, the CIA and its sister organizations could well be the essential elements in the creation and management of a new security environment [...]

Long lines are forming at health centers that are administering the Swine Flu vaccine. But the vaccine isn't getting to everyone. Many doctors and nurses don't dare take on the vaccine's risk. They point to the potential side-effects as well as the fact that the Swine Flu has only affected a fraction of the number of people that die every year of the common flu. Vaccination in The Netherlands is voluntary, but in America they've taken it one step further.

"The one who's bluffing is Iran, which is trying to play with cards they don't have," Ayalon told the British station. "All the bravado that we see and the testing and the very dangerous and harsh rhetoric is hiding a lot of weaknesses."

Webster Tarpley explains all the details surrounding the CIA convictions in Italy, last Wednesday. Tarpley also mentions the counter terrorism intelligence centers.

The men in this video were held at Guantanamo for years without charge and denied any meaningful opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. But now they are finally free. This is their story.

America’s military, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies already devote thousands of people and billions of dollars to tracking down top terrorists and insurgents. [...] would like to see a permanent group with clear authority, training, doctrine and technology to go after these dangerous individuals. These “manhunting teams would be standing formations, trained to pursue their designated quarry relentlessly for as long as required to accomplish the mission,” he writes.

"I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles," he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. "I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."

”Iran also knows where we draw a line. A nuclear bomb in the hands of an Iranian President who denies the Holocaust, threatens Israel and denies Israel the right to exist is not acceptable,” Merkel said in a rare address to the US Congress.

Chomsky said Middle East oil reserves are understood to be “a stupendous source of strategic power” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.” [...] He said the presence of U.S. anti-missile weapons in Israel are really meant for preparing a possible attack on Iran, not for self-defense, as they are often presented.

Overall, the verdict was a victory for anti-terrorism prosecutors and police in Milan who spent six years building a massive, politically charged prosecution, the first anywhere of the CIA's so-called "extraordinary rendition" program. The trial endured delays, legal battles and attempts by the Italian government to scuttle the proceedings.

Reassuring reports in the mainstream media about the flu vaccine contrast with the coverage by online publications, where anxiety is setting the tone. An increasing number of people want to know exactly what's going on, but are no longer able to see the forest for the trees. Part two of a DeepJournal series on the facts and fiction surrounding the Swine Flu.

In the course of this study I have tried to utilize as my sources high-quality, peer-reviewed journals, data from the CDC and accepted textbooks of virology.

What is more likely happening is a repeat of the Great Depression. We might have up to a year or so of an economy growing just slightly above stagnation, followed by a drop in growth worse than anything we have seen in the past two years.

"We're here for some very specific reasons, some specific threats that the Israelis are interested in, that we're interested in. And that's as far as I want to go down that road."

De geruststellende berichtgeving in de reguliere media over de Mexicaanse griep contrasteert met online publicaties waar verontrusting de toon zet. Een toenemend aantal mensen wil weten hoe het precies zit, maar ziet door de bomen het bos niet meer. Deel twee van een serie van DeepJournal over de feiten en de fictie bij de Mexicaanse griep.

The ever-churning list is said to contain more than 400,000 unique names and over 1 million entries. The committee was told that over that same period, officials asked each day that 600 names be removed and 4,800 records be modified. Fewer than 5 percent of the people on the list are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents. Nine percent of those on the terrorism list, the FBI said, are also on the government's "no fly" list.

Here's the thing. Would you believe there is no current National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan? Rather, Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal are running the show, allowing professional intelligence analysts to be mostly straphangers at planning and strategy meetings. [...] Without batting an eyelash, Brzezinski noted that within three months the war in Afghanistan will be the “longest war in U.S. history,” and warned that the United States could be “bogged down there for another decade or so.” At the same time, he argued, the world impact of an early U.S. departure “would be utterly devastating.” Quagmire, anyone?

He said a psychiatrist assigned to speak to him had asked him if he had ever considered committing suicide and even suggested how he could kill himself by tying his prison clothes to make a rope that could be used as a noose. “Of the six deaths that I knew of during detention, five were carried out in this way,” Begg said, adding that the detainees were also drugged.

Removal of Hussain was important as it was "felt" that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction and the then President was not allowing IAEA inspectors in, Bush said while addressing the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here. [...] Bush said the decision to "change regime" in Iraq had actually been taken by the previous Bill Clinton administration. "My hope was to disarm Saddam peacefully... I am sorry we had to use military but there was no choice," the former US President said.

Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.

Of course, back then it was Russia who was fighting -- and the U.S. which was funding and arming -- the very religious extremists who, today, we insist are such an existential threat that we must fight endless wars to extinguish them.  That's what is most striking about war propaganda:  no matter how many times it's re-cycled, regardless of by whom and for which wildly divergent ends, it never loses its efficacy. 

What I think—one of the things that is ignored is that the real riches for the corporate CEOs is in the pensions, that when they go home and they retire after having already made tons of money, they make even more in pensions that they take away, at the same time that regular workers almost don’t have pensions.

One must remember that the general has accomplished little of note during his short tenure to date as the military commander in Afghanistan. His entire reputation is built around the potential to turn things around in Afghanistan. And to do this, McChrystal has said he needs time, and 40,000-plus additional American troops. There are currently around 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. McChrystal's request would raise that number to around 110,000 troops – the same number as the Soviets had deployed in Afghanistan at the height of their failed military adventure some 20 years ago.

Though officials in the Obama Administration have been publicly neutral about the new round of sanctions against Iran moving its may through the House and Senate, the administration is quietly supporting the efforts, despite the deleterious affect they may have on negotiations.

if the Israelis attack and destroy the IAEA-Safeguarded natural-uranium fueled, heavy-water moderated, medical-isotope producing reactor nearing completion at Arak, that may be, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Who knows, we may even have World War III on our hands.

U.S. and other NATO military contingents operating in the provinces of Afghanistan's predominantly Pashtun south and east have been hiring private militias controlled by Afghan warlords, according to these sources, to provide security for their forward operating bases and other bases and to guard convoys.

And Republican Representative Ron Paul asked rhetorically "how would we react if someone closed down our oil imports?" and warned that sanctions "are an act of war." [...] Democratic Representative Barbara Lee said the measure would "undermine" Obama's authority.

“It engaged in horrendous abuses, they appear to have taken precautions to prevent people from dying. This might sound humane, but in fact it’s sickening, as they were torturing them at the same time trying to maintain their health so that they could continue.”

That, unfortunately, is precisely why Obama is going along with this cockamamie escalation.  Imagine how Dick Cheney and the rest of the war banshees would wail if Obama stiff armed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s escalation demand and somebody snuck through the Homeland Defense screen and blew up a school or a stadium or something.  Ouch!   

Rumors about the Swine Flu are getting around faster than the virus itself. Mass compulsory vaccinations would beimminent. Tiny nanochips hidden inside the vaccine? This article is a first step towards separating fact from fiction.

"In other words -- according to one of the President's most supportive media outlets -- the Obama administration is advancing false and pretextual claims of "national security" in order to justify radical secrecy and immunity powers: claims that should not even be 'taken seriously,'" Greenwald adds. "Does that sounds familiar?"

The hidden apparatus has been constructed to monitor "domestic extremists", the Guardian can reveal in the first of a three-day series into the policing of protests. Detailed information about the political activities of campaigners is being stored on a number of overlapping IT systems, even if they have not committed a crime.

researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are busy as proverbial bees building a "total information" surveillance system, one that will, so they hope, provide police and security agencies with what they euphemistically call "actionable intelligence."

Michael Ruppert is a different kind of American. A former Los Angeles police officer turned independent reporter, he predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter “From the Wilderness” at a time when most Wall Street and Washington analysts were still in denial. [...] Sitting in a room that looks like a bunker, Ruppert recounts his career as a radical thinker and spells out the crises he sees ahead.

Ms Dix, whose brother Peter Dix, 35, was on the doomed Pan Am jet, said: “One of the central purposes of a full inquiry would be finally to scotch the many, often outlandish, conspiracy theories that exist around Lockerbie and why and how it happened. To take Megrahi and the criminal investigation: there are those who believe he is innocent, those who believe he is guilty and those somewhere in the middle – like me – who believe that they simply don’t know.

The sequence of events surrounding the Iranian policy change and the subsequent beginning of construction on a second enrichment facility suggests that Iran was hedging its bets against a U.S. air attack, while retaining the obligation to provide detailed information six months before the introduction of nuclear material – if the threat of an attack were to subside.

An overwhelming 84 per cent believe British troops are currently losing the war in Afghanistan, a Channel 4 News poll finds, as thousands march on London urging an end to the conflict.

Feingold, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and new Democrat Arlen Specter (Pa.) had the constitutional courage to oppose the Judiciary Committee bill eventually going to the floor that with few exceptions, leaves the Patriot Act intact. I'll be reporting on the crucial fight to bring the Bill of Rights back into the Patriot Act as Senate and House versions merge into a law to be signed by Obama as he continues the Bush-Cheney legacy.

"This is not the first time the terrorist cell have committed crimes. The Iranians are wondering how such a group easily commute in the neighboring Pakistan's soil," Mohammad-Najjar told reporters before leaving.

Fearing public disapproval, Iran denied an exchange had taken place at all, calling it a "lie" designed to strike a psychological blow against the Islamic state's "dynamic diplomacy". Israel begrudgingly acknowledged the exchange, which took place across the conference floor, but was quick to stress that it took place in an atmosphere bereft of conviviality.

The US military is in Afghanistan for two reasons. First to restore and control the world's largest supply of opium for the world heroin markets and to use the drugs as a geopolitical weapon against opponents, especially Russia. That control of the Afghan drug market is essential for the liquidity of the bankrupt and corrupt Wall Street financial mafia. [...] The second reason the US military remains in Afghanistan long after the world has forgotten even who the mysterious Osama bin Laden and his alleged Al Qaeda terrorist organization is or even if they exist, is as a pretext to [...].

Why wasn't there a CNN stakeout at the homes of former Goldman-execs-turned-treasury-chiefs Robert Rubin and Henry Paulson aimed at finding out how they feel about the almost $7 billion profit that Goldman Sachs made in the last two quarters in the wake of the government's bailout of the firm?

By leaking information that the commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, says the war would be lost without an additional 40,000 American troops, top brass have put Obama in a no-win situation, Hersh contended. “If he gives them the extra troops they’re asking for, he loses politically,” Hersh said. “And if he doesn’t give them the troops, he also loses politically.”

The highest court in the nation with the world's fourth largest economy makes law that bans electronic voting after determining that computerized elections are fundamentally opposed to democratic principles. The decision applies directly to the electronic voting systems used in the United States. What do we hear from the U.S. corporate media? Just about nothing. In this case, when a tree falls in the forest and just a few people hear it, it's no big deal. But it should be.

A months-long review of documents and interviews with Pentagon personnel has revealed that the Bush Administration's military analyst program -- aimed at selling the Iraq war to the American people -- operated through a secretive collaboration between the Defense Department's press and community relations offices. Raw Story has also uncovered evidence that directly ties the activities undertaken in the military analyst program to an official US military document’s definition of psychological operations -- propaganda that is only supposed to be directed toward foreign audiences.

Israeli public radio quoted an unnamed senior military official saying that the two-week drill is aimed as preparation for any confrontation with arch-foe Iran, which Israel accuses of trying to obtain nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies.

The new rules allowing access to internet records will be introduced by Parliament before the end of the year. They are known as the Intercept Modernisation Programme.

So, let's sing the praises of perpetual war. We better, since right now every forecast in sight tells us that it's our future.

China's "current strategy is to diversify out of dollars and into commodities," Ferguson says. Furthermore, China's recent pact with Brazil to conduct trade in their local currencies is a "sign of the times." [...] Because of the "rapid growth" of Chinese domestic consumption, Ferguson predicts China's international trade surplus could be gone by next year.

In 2008 the American journalist Seymour Hersh reported that United States congressional leaders had secretly agreed to President Bush’s $400 million (£245 million) funding request to give Washington a free hand in arming and funding militant groups such as Jundallah.

The Islamic regime in Iran regularly blames all opposition on America and Britain, but there have been claims outside the country for a number of years that the Bush administration provided funding to Jundullah, the militant group which claimed responsibility for the attack on Sunday. [...] Pakistani and Iranian relations have improved in recent years, but Iran claims that while the United States, and possibly Saudi Arabia, may have funded Jundullah, as they did with the Mujahidin in Afghanistan, the Pakistanis, or elements in its military, provide the logistics.

A story entitled, US funds terror groups to sow chaos in Iran, reveals how funding for the attacks carried out by the terrorist groups “comes directly from the CIA’s classified budget,” a fact that is now “no great secret”, according to a former high-ranking CIA official in Washington who spoke anonymously to The Sunday Telegraph. Former US state department counter-terrorism agent Fred Burton backed the claim, telling the newspaper, “The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilise the Iranian regime.” John Pike, the head of the influential Global Security think tank in Washington, said: “The activities of the ethnic groups have hotted up over the last two years and it would be a scandal if that was not at least in part the result of CIA activity.

The 2007 NIE delivered a body blow to the War Party from which it is only now beginning to recover. However, the fight to avert World War III – surely the result of an attack on Iran – is very far from over. [...] Whether he [Obama] chooses the proving ground of Afghanistan to establish his bona fides as commander in chief or opts to keep his powder dry until it’s time to go after Iran is a toss-up, at the moment. What we can count on, however, is that the groundwork for a confrontation with Iran has already been laid.

Does it make any sense at all to give even more financial rewards to the very people who have helped put millions of Americans out of work and caused the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression? Of course not, but that is exactly what AIG management is poised to do.

Trevor Paglen visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss his book "Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World."

The obvious journalistic point to make here is that such a profoundly blatant omission of the most significant context, 'the highest order bit' so to speak, of the 'empire' itself secretly cultivating the 'pirates' in order to continually wage a war of aggression upon other nations through various superpower instruments of coercion, is an excellent example of manufacturing consent in the West for its global “War on Terror” against all shades of 'Islamist terrorists' as being real and un-fabricated.

Now McClatchy Newspapers is citing officials in the Obama Administration and military as saying that the General’s “low-risk” option was actually even higher, asking for 80,000 additional troops for the war in Afghanistan.

The possible reassessment comes as pressure is mounting from Congress and among U.S. allies for the Obama administration to redo the 2007 assessment, after last month's revelation of a second uranium enrichment plant in Iran. German, French and British intelligence agencies have all disputed the conclusions of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, in recent months, the Journal said, citing European officials briefed on the exchanges.

The political system is unresponsive to the American people. It is monopolized by a few powerful interest groups that control campaign contributions. Interest groups have exercised their power to monopolize the economy for the benefit of themselves, the American people be damned.

The event presented a slightly odd situation, given that Obama's administration has at times broadcast a rejection of policies and ideas under George W. Bush.

Britain has seen its own Obama-like mysticism. The day after Blair was elected in 1997, the Observer predicted that he would create “new worldwide rules on human rights” while the Guardian rejoiced at the “breathless pace [as] the floodgates of change burst open”. When Obama was elected last November, Denis MacShane MP, a devotee of Blair’s bloodbaths, unwittingly warned us: “I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.”

the fact remains that the US embassy in Islamabad has brought to Pakistan at least two consignments of modern weapons during this year.

It's being built by the ultra-secret National Security Agency—which is primarily responsible for "signals intelligence," the collection and analysis of various forms of communication—to house trillions of phone calls, e-mail messages, and data trails: Web searches, parking receipts, bookstore visits, and other digital "pocket litter."

In a 63-page paper representing his personal views, but reflecting conversations with other officers who have served in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis argues that it is already too late for U.S. forces to defeat the insurgency.

George W. Bush is gone, but as David Swanson, TomDispatch regular and author of Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union, makes clear, our increasingly engorged presidency remains essentially untouched, despite the new occupant in the White House.

It seems to have all been started – or at least given credence – by the leading American neocon Michael Ledeen.

Now that both the American empire and global political economy are in decline and collapse, the prospect of a violent end to the American imperial age is drastically increasing.
This essay is broken into three separate parts.

Mr Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president had not yet made a decision on troop numbers. [...] He added: "I think that you can assume that the BBC will not be the first outlet for such a decision."

The decision from Mr Obama comes after he considered a request from General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, to send tens of thousands of extra American troops to the country.

Why think of war? The world has heard no evidence that Iran has nuclear weapons, and only an unproved case that it is pursuing them. Yet, we are already getting set for the airstrikes that former Vice President Dick Cheney never got the chance to unleash. It's absurd and far more dangerous than our political leaders have bothered to explain.

He added: “There is also a multiple options provision for use of nuclear weapons depending on the situation and intentions of the potential enemy. In a situation critical for national security, we don’t exclude a preventive nuclear strike at the aggressor.” If adopted, this will be a strong change from the military doctrine now in force. The current version allows the use of nuclear weapons in a response to an attack with weapons of mass destruction, or a large-scale conventional aggression.

Yet some top flu researchers are deeply skeptical of both flu vaccines and antivirals. Like the engineers who warned for years about the levees of New Orleans, these experts caution that our defenses may be flawed, and quite possibly useless against a truly lethal flu. And that unless we are willing to ask fundamental questions about the science behind flu vaccines and antiviral drugs, we could find ourselves, in a bad epidemic, as helpless as the citizens of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

THE Pentagon is speeding up delivery of a colossal bomb designed to destroy hidden weapons bunkers buried underground and shielded by 10,000lb of reinforced concrete.

When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, "there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines. Who in future generations will believe this? I myself writing it as a knowledgeable eyewitness can hardly believe it...."

"All hopes placed in the new U.S. administration and President Obama have evaporated," the document said. "Obama couldn't withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby, which led to a retreat from his previous positions on halting settlement construction and defining an agenda for the negotiations and peace."

Honduras did not suffer the same level of state-sponsored violence as South American nations under military regimes or neighbors Guatemala and El Salvador during Central America's civil wars in the 1980s. But veteran rights activist Bertha Oliva says in some ways things are worse now.

"And if you look at the general picture that the media says, Afghanistan seems a lot quieter in terms of alleged misconduct of British troops, that to me is quite concerning, because it tells me that the Army hasn't suddenly gotten a lot better. It tells me that the Royal Military Police are very efficiently toeing the party line for the Army."

On Monday, British newspaper The Independent published Fisk’s report claiming that China, Russia, France, Japan and some Gulf states had held secret talks to replace the greenback.

"It is nonetheless an interesting study of the pscychological factors which are currently putting pressure on the dollar. Even if conspiracy theories turn out to be nonsense, the dollar is subsequently able to retrace only some of its losses."

Professor Niels Harrit was being interviewed by Daan de Wit for DeepJournal, during the annual 9/11-meeting, this year in in Paris, 10 October 2009. Subject is the scientific research Harrit conducted. He and his team found residue from explosives in the rubble of the three WTC towers that collapsed on 9/11. The team found nano-thermite, a material used exclusively to bring down buildings in a controlled demolition.
Listen to the interview.

What it all means is that nine years after the launch of the most contractor-intensive war in U.S. history, nobody is sure how many contractors there are, what they are doing, or how many have been killed or wounded.

Initially, the incoming Obama administration said it would comply with the ruling. But the administration reversed itself on the issue in May, and asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. The court is expected to decide on October 9 if it will hear the case.

During the nearly four years Nasr was in Egyptian custody, Scambia said his client suffered "unimaginable torture" including rape, electric shock and repeated beatings.

But in some crucial and very basic ways, many in the media are performing just as poorly as they did in 2002 and 2003. [...] If corporate media wish to convince us that they learned a lesson from their Iraq War failures, they have a strange way of showing it.

The al-Qaida presence is very diminished. The maximum estimate is less than 100 operating in the country, no bases, no ability to launch attacks on either us or our allies.” Less than 100! And he is basing his conservative estimate on the best intelligence data available to our government. That means that al-Qaida, for all practical purposes, does not exist in Afghanistan—so why are we having a big debate about sending even more troops to fight an enemy that has relocated elsewhere? Because [...].

Sixty-one percent of the 1,500 respondents interviewed by Pew said it was "more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action" [...] The new poll offers ammunition to both sides in the ongoing debate.

The Pentagon is always making plans, but based on a little-noticed funding request recently sent to Congress, the answer to that question appears to be yes.

A chorus of congressional voices, both Republican and Democratic, urged tough action against Tehran following a New York Times report that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has determined Iran now has "sufficient information" to build a nuclear weapon.

For the first time in a year international talks are being held with Iran. The question is whether or not these talks are designed to arrive at a solution. Or do these discussions - and the sanctions which will no doubt follow - represent an uptick in the direction of a military conflict, just as was the case with Iraq?

When Congress killed the DARPA program in 2004, most critics believed that was the end of the Pentagon's leap back into domestic intelligence. However, as we have since learned, the data-mining portion of the program was farmed out to a host of state agencies, including the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the FBI.  [...] "the FBI's pre-crime intentions are much wider that the bureau acknowledged." This will inevitably change--and not for the better--as NSAC expands its brief and secures an ever-growing mountain of data at an exponential rate.

Voor het eerst na een jaar worden er weer internationale gesprekken gevoerd met Iran. De vraag is of het doel is om tot een oplossing te komen. Of zijn de gesprekken en de sancties die ongetwijfeld zullen volgen een opmaat naar een militair conflict, net als dat bij Irak het geval was?

Impending today are two of the most critical decisions Barack Obama will ever make, which may determine the fate of his presidency, as well as the future of the United States in the Near and Middle East. The first is whether to approve Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for thousands more U.S. troops he says he needs to prevent "mission failure" — i.e, to stave off a U.S. defeat in Afghanistan. The second is whether Obama will start up the road of "crippling sanctions" to war with Iran, to prevent Tehran from moving closer to a capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the talks should have the chance to succeed. But, he added, "We don't have to wait, certainly for Russia or China or for anybody else, to take the action we deem to be appropriate."

The current edition is larger than even, and includes the year's honorable mention choices as well as additional chapters covered below. In the preface, Peter Phillips and former Associate Director Mickey Huff highlight Censored 2010's theme in explaining the corporate media's emphasis on commercialism, the "inane", the "irrelevant," and their willful suppression of real news and information on vital issues.

As Moore has toured the media circuit promoting his film, hosts and pundits have worked quickly to try to marginalize his message. Rather than attack the substance of his film or debate the issues he raises, media figures are attempting to destroy Moore’s credibility.

The May 1, 1952, document states that Iran’s nationalistic and democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq reached out to the United States to sell it oil after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) in March 1951. However, the CIA, acting in concert with the British, launched Operation Ajax to overthrow Mosaddeq and placed Kermit Roosevelt, Jr., the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, in charge of the clandestine mission.

In the ruling, to put it bluntly, it was revealed that the US government tortured an innocent man to extract false confessions and then threatened him until he obligingly repeated those lies as though they were the truth.

The official jargon for this kind of propaganda is “psy-ops”, the military term for psychological operations. In the Pentagon and Whitehall, it has become a critical component of a diplomatic and military campaign to blockade, isolate and weaken Iran by hyping its “nuclear threat”: a phrase now used incessantly by Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, and parroted by the BBC and other broadcasters as objective news. And it is fake.

But on this occasion, I thought I'd take the opportunity to list some things that people tend to think they know about Iran, but for which the evidence is shaky.

The Financial Times and New York Times have separately reported that Western and Israeli intelligence agencies are in the throes of a dispute over the exact nature of Iran's work to build a functioning atom bomb.

The UN's chief weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today he had seen "no credible evidence" that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, rejecting British intelligence allegations that a weapons programme has been going on for at least four years.

The fact that the administration had made no move to brief the IAEA or other governments on the site before Iran revealed its existence suggests that site had not yet reached that stage where the evidence was unambiguous.

The size of a facility does not determine whether it can or cannot produce weapons-grade, or highly-enriched, uranium (HEU). Both enrichment to a low degree for a nuclear reactor and to a high degree for a nuclear weapon are done by gas centrifuges, in fact, potentially exactly the same machines.

Well, my next guest was a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s. Scott Ritter is the author of “Iraq Confidential” and “Target Iran” and his forthcoming book is called “Dangerous Ground: America’s Failed Arms Control Policy From FDR to Obama.” His latest article in the UK Guardian newspaper is “Keeping Iran Honest” where he warns against “politically motivated hype.” Scott Ritter joins us from Albany, New York.

Now the whole process is repeating itself. This time the target is Iran.  As there is no real case against Iran, Obama took a script from Bush’s playbook and fabricated one.
First the facts:

The U.S. official said Washington was sharing the "very sensitive intelligence information" collected to date with both Russia and China in order to gain their support for international sanctions in the event that the negotiation that begin next week do not quickly bear fruit.

"Four cameras in four different locations going blank at basically the same time on the morning of April 19, 1995. There ain't no such thing as a coincidence," Trentadue said.

There is a new wind blowing in Washington. The American government once again has a human face. Barack Obama will restore respect and dignity to his country. This is the hope. But the reality is much different.

There is a new wind blowing in Washington. The American government once again has a human face. Barack Obama will restore respect and dignity to his country. This is the hope. But the reality is much different.

Tehran is too close to its goal of a nuclear weapons capability to be deterred by offers of engagement or economic penalties. Obama certainly knows this. He also understands that Iran is now unstoppable except by force. His performance was therefore directed at another target: Israel, whom he is determined to dissuade from resorting to military action against Iran's nuclear installations. [...] Netanyahu's Sphinx-like silence on the nuclear to-do in the US this week was apt. But it is hard to tell what he is hiding. Will he succumb to the world powers' pressure to sit tight while Iran goes all the way to a military nuclear capability - or face up to it and act? This is the most important decision of Netanyahu's political life as two-time prime minister of Israel. It will also determine Israel's future.

Calls for "crippling" sanctions on Iran by Obama and Brown are certainly not the most productive policy options available to these two world leaders. Both have indicated a desire to strengthen the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Iran's action, in declaring the existence of the Qom facility, has created a window of opportunity for doing just that, and should be fully exploited within the framework of IAEA negotiations and inspections, and not more bluster and threats form the leaders of the western world.

President Obama said "the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program." [...] Mr. Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy made the announcement at the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh, in the northeastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

Er waait een nieuwe wind in Washington. De Amerikaanse overheid heeft weer een menselijk gezicht. Barack Obama zal zijn land weer het respect en de waardigheid teruggeven. Dat is de hoop. Maar wat is de praktijk? Wat zijn de plannen van de nieuwe president, welke oplossingen draagt hij aan?

Er waait een nieuwe wind in Washington. De Amerikaanse overheid heeft weer een menselijk gezicht. Barack Obama zal zijn land weer het respect en de waardigheid teruggeven. Dat is de hoop. Maar wat is de praktijk? Wat zijn de plannen van de nieuwe president, welke oplossingen draagt hij aan?

Sixty-eight straight years of war emergency powers (1941–2009) have made the abnormal normal, and constitutional diminishment the settled order. The truth of this was borne out in the early days of Barack Obama's presidency. [...] Even in areas outside national security, the Obama administration quickly came to resemble Bush's.

With the election of Barack Obama in the US and an end to the most outrageous CIA practices, the temptation may be to argue that the worst is over, that nothing is to be gained by coming clean and that the principal issue left by the ‘war on terror' is to find homes for Guantánamo Bay detainees.

The cameras assess situations and individuals based on pre-programmed criteria and can relay warnings to police and control rooms. [...] The developers are planning to add metal detectors, motion detectors and microphones to the technology, which they say can be used with any existing network of surveillance cameras.

Problematic in this and other recent reports is the use of anonymous law enforcement sources, who repeatedly hype alleged ties to al Qaeda, identify “persons of interest,” and detail dramatic but unspecified plots.

"We are not exactly impotent little babies," Brzezinski said. "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse."

The Israel Defense Forces and the U.S. military will soon hold a training exercise in which they will simulate missile attacks on Israel from Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat reported Sunday.

Europese regelgeving: Nederland moet aan de spaarlamp. Doel is het besparen van energie, maar hoe zit het met de verborgen kosten? Want die zijn er: [...]. Ondanks het enthousiasme van de overheid zijn spaarlampen dus niet echt ideaal.

On the anniversary of the financial meltdown, RT spoke to Gerald Celente, the founder of economic forecasters the Trends Research Institute, who predicted the crisis in early 2008.

An Obama administration official says that top policymakers are being told that there is no significant disagreement among U.S. intelligence agencies and experts about the latest assessments regarding Iran's nuclear effort. That may encourage the White House's efforts to continue to try to engage Iran in diplomatic dialogue, including discussion of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has finalised a $10m agreement with a large globalist defense contractor to operate a network of psychological operations websites, with Britain and France named as “targeted regions”. [...] Their role, according to SOCOM is to “influence foreign audiences per Government-approved Concepts of Operations (CONOPs), conceptual approaches and previously approved prototypes.”

Israel's mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth daily quoted Barak, the head of Israel's centre-left Labour party, as saying "Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel."

The entire screed utilizes all the tricks available to a clever wordsmith: how to use rhetorical questions to silence others, how to pretend that you're sympathetic with the people but not their evil leaders, how to avoid making statements that produce negative reactions. All of that came from the first of 18 chapters. Several other chapters, especially on “words that work”, talk about settlements, Israel's so-called right to self-defence, Hamas, and tackling a nuclear Iran will be taken up in coming exposures.

The exaggeration of the Soviet threat in the 1980s led to an additional trillion and a half dollars in defense spending against a Soviet Union that was in decline and a Soviet military threat that was disappearing. It is time to recognize the great harm that was done to the intelligence community and the CIA with the politicization of intelligence in the 1980s as well as the militarization of intelligence over the past twenty years.

Reports of the operation are still unclear as the US military has refused to comment. But various press accounts from eyewitnesses and unnamed intelligence sources provide a glimpse of the operation.

The scientist does not believe, based on intensive laboratory research of the A/H1N1 virus, that its sudden appearance in Mexico this past spring was a natural occurrence. [...] The mutation of A/H1N1 has been discovered by our virologist source to have been more rapid than is naturally possible. The following is what was described in scientific terms about the rate of mutation of A/H1N1: [...] As far as the reassortant A/H1N1 virus is concerned, there is a fear that a human was used as a laboratory “guinea pig” to permit the exchange of genes between humans, pigs, and fowl.

But the IAEA has refused to acknowledge publicly significant evidence brought to its attention by Iran that the documents were fabricated, and has made little, if any, effort to test the authenticity of the intelligence documents or to question officials of the governments holding them, IPS has learned.

All this only helps persuade Israel's skittish leadership that when President Obama calls a nuclear-armed Iran "unacceptable," he means it approximately in the same way a parent does when fecklessly reprimanding his misbehaving teenager. That impression is strengthened by Mr. Obama's decision to drop Iran from the agenda when he chairs a meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24; by Defense Secretary Robert Gates publicly opposing military strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities; and by Russia's announcement that it will not support any further sanctions on Iran.

“In the U.S. and many other countries, the too-big-to-fail banks have become even bigger,” Stiglitz said in an interview today in Paris. “The problems are worse than they were in 2007 before the crisis.”

The 2001 U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan has never been the "good and necessary war" defended by President Obama. Although you never read it in the mainstream media, Washington's primary motive is control of oil.

General Danny Yatom, former chief of the Israeli intelligence agency, the Mossad. “If Iran has a bomb, all the rules of the game will change for the worse and the world will be in disorder. So there should be a solution. I hope it will be peaceful, but I’m not sure it’s possible.”

"Let me just leave you with this thought," he said, "and that is that I think Panetta, and to a degree President Obama, are afraid --- I never thought I'd hear myself saying this --- I think they're afraid of the CIA."...

World powers have given Tehran a late September deadline to begin negotiations with them concerning the atomic program or face more sanctions. Tehran is already under three sets of UN sanctions. If Iran fails to meet the deadline, Berman, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he would mark up bipartisan legislation next month that places additional sanctions on the Islamic republic.

In just a few weeks, additional Aegis vessels will arrive here to participate in the biennial Juniper Cobra missile defense exercise that the IDF has been holding with the US European Command (EUCOM) and Missile Defense Agency since 2001. This year's drill, scheduled for mid-October, is being described as the largest joint exercise ever held by the countries. During it they will jointly test four ballistic missile defense systems. [...] Officials said that the exercise may include live fire by the systems - most likely the Patriot - but the teams will mainly conduct computerized simulations of various threat scenarios launched from fictitious countries.

Incredibly, this is the breathtaking theory that is gaining credence among political commentators, respected academics and even terror experts. [...] Bin Laden has been the central plank of the West's 'war on terror'. Could it be that, for years, he's just been smoke and mirrors?

The 9/11 Commission now tells us that the official version of 9/11 was based on false testimony and documents and is almost entirely untrue. The details of this massive coverup are carefully outlined in a book by John Farmer, Senior Counsel for the 9/11 Commission. 

The implications are grave, but we ask that you look at the facts. AE911Truth is also concerned that evidence has been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned to investigate the building collapses.

"I do agree with the consensus that we'll have a couple of quarters of strong economic growth. The question is whether the medium-term growth is going to be V-shaped a return to potential or anemic growth below potential. My view of it is that it's going to be anemic."

American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb. [...] At a meeting with a senior Obama administration official several months ago, Israeli officials pressed for intelligence and other help necessary for a strike, according to one official with knowledge of the exchange.

He can walk away from an existing war and from starting a new one and he could also take the first step to disengage the United States from Israeli foreign policy and partisan involvement in the Middle East. [...] If Obama does not opt for real change and moves to the dark side, we citizens who had hoped for better can have absolutely no positive expectations for the next three years.

Kommersant newspaper quoted "experts" as saying they believe a visit of this kind could have stemmed from urgent circumstances, "for example, in the event that Israel plans to attack Iran".

This is pure black propaganda. Sadly, it's getting picked up. This afternoon, on WTOP radio in Washington, a breathless report by the radio station's alleged "national security correspondent," someone called J.J. Green, idiotically parroted Morgenthau's baseless warning, hyping it even further and suggesting that the Israelis might take care of the problem for us.

It's a neat rhetorical loophole that will allow US officials to say that the country has withdrawn from Iraq, while its contractors remain.

This is the opposite of what the Israel Defense Forces has said. [...] Of the civilians killed, 320 were minors under the age of 18 and another 109 were women, the organization said.

The data also show that a clear majority of people in nearly all the states polled believe Iran is intent on acquiring atomic weapons. Iran claim s that it is merely enriching uranium in order to acquire civil nuclear capability. Only in the UK are there doubts, with 48 per cent of people saying Iran wants the bomb while 44 per cent say they are not sure.

His investigative piece, published in the September American edition of GQ, challenges the official line on a series of bombings that killed hundreds of people in 1999 in Russia. It profiles a former KGB agent who spoke in great detail and on the record, at no small risk to himself. But instead of trumpeting his reporting, GQ's corporate owners went to extraordinary lengths to try to ensure no Russians will ever see it.

It was inevitable that the same people who pushed through the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street would come out later on and tell us what a great idea theirs turned out to be, in retrospect and under the light of evidentiary examination. [...] Don’t be surprised if you hear more of this sort of thing in the coming years.

Now, here's the funny part. This dark fantasy of a third Bush term is also an accurate portrait of Obama's first term to date. In following Bush, Obama was given the opportunity either to restore the rule of law and the balance of powers or to firmly establish in place what were otherwise aberrant abuses of power. Thus far, President Obama has, in all the areas mentioned above, chosen the latter course. Everything described, from the continuation of crimes to the efforts to hide them away, from the corruption of corporate power to the assertion of the executive power to legislate, is Obama's presidency in its first seven months.

"Yes, there's concern about Iran's future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and international community," he told the Chicago-based magazine. "But the idea that we'll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn't supported by the facts as we have seen them so far."

PHR is concerned that this data collection and analysis may amount to human experimentation and calls for more investigation on this point. If confirmed, the development of a research protocol to assess and refine the u