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New Iran Sanctions Bill
by Stephen Lendman
Last July, House members overwhelmingly passed new Iranian sanctions. A companion Senate bill didn't follow. Members of both parties want one.
On December 19, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez (D. NJ) headlined his press release: "Twenty-Seven Senators Introduce the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (NWFI)."
Fiddling around while Syria burns
Michael Collins
The rebels with power don't want to attend the peace conference or can't for political reasons and the rebels that can attend lack any power.
Syria is a swirling cauldron of battles and tragedies as the thirty-day countdown begins for the January 22, 2013 United States-Russia sponsored peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland. (Image)
Syrian government sources reported between 80 and 100 killed in Adra, an industrial town northwest of Damascus. Al Qaeda aligned Al Nusra rebels and the Saudi sponsored Islamic front entered the town on December 12 after a series of defeats in the surrounding area. Reports indicate that Christian and Druze Syrians were singled out. According to local workers, rebels infiltrated factories then began shooting workers. Workers staged a protest on December 20 demanding a response by the United Nations and support from the International Labor Organization.
Battles between the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and rebels heated up in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, and the mountainous Qalamoun region near the border with Lebanon.
US Death Squad Diplomacy in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Radicalized elements dominate anti-Assad aggression. Salafist extremists are heavily involved. They comprise Washington's main fighting force. They get active US support.
Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, and other groups hold territory in northern Syria. In November, the Islamic Front was created. Zahran Alloush heads it. His father, Mohammed, is a Salafist cleric.
Zahran controls about 50 brigades. He commands tens of thousands of fighters. Saudi Arabia funds them. They're waging US proxy war on Syria. Saudi analyst Jamal Khashoggi said: "For us in Saudi Arabia, the worst scenario is to let (Assad) survive. He has to go."
So-called moderate anti-government elements are weak by comparison to extremist ones. They're ineffective. They get little Western support. It's earmarked for US backed death squads.
The Changing Contours of US Imperial Intervention in World Conflicts
James Petras
Introduction
Following the Vietnam War, US imperial intervention passed through several phases: In the immediate aftermath, the US government faced a humiliating military defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese liberation forces and was under pressure from an American public sick and tired of war.Imperial military interventions, domestic espionage against opponents and usual practice of fomenting coups d’état (regime change) declined.
Slowly, under President Gerald Ford and, especially President ‘Jimmy’ Carter, an imperial revival emerged in the form of clandestine support for armed surrogates in Southern Africa – Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau--- and neo-liberal military dictatorships in Latin America. The first large-scale imperial intervention was launched during the second half of the Carter Presidency .It involved massive support for the Islamist uprising against the secular government of Afghanistan and a mercenary jihadist invasion sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US (1979). This was followed by direct US invasions in Grenada (1983) under President Reagan; Panama (1989) and Iraq (1991) under President Bush Sr. and Yugoslavia (1995 and 1999) under President Clinton.
Elie Wiesel's Anti-Iranian Agenda
by Stephen Lendman
Wiesel
On December 18, The New Times ran a full-page anti-Iranian ad. It did so disgracefully. On December 19, the Wall Street Journal published it.
It's an Elie Wiesel rant. It's hateful. It's racist. It's malicious misinformation. It's typical Wiesel. It's titled "Iran Must Not Be Allowed To Remain Nuclear." More on it below.
Wiesel is no humanitarian. He's a shameless self-promoter. He's a holocaust exploiter. He made a career as a pseudo-official spokesman.
Norman Finklestein calls him the "resident clown" of the holocaust circus. He described him as "vain, arrogant, gullible, naive about international affairs, (and defender of) the worst excesses of previous Israeli governments."
Chomsky calls him "one of the major frauds of our time." He's an apologist for Israel's worst crimes.
His "shameful subservience to the State of Israel (is) all the more grotesque in his case because of the pretense of saintliness," Chomsky explained.
A TALE OF TWO DIPLOMATS [2]
by Chuoong Hua
British diplomat Michael Easton with underage "ladyboy" on a Pattaya
Beach, Thailand street.
One diplomat is a 39-year old Indian woman who this week was hauled into a New York City jail, stripped, subjected to a humiliating “full body cavity search,” and charged with a convoluted visa fraud violation which could bring her a 10-year prison sentence.
The other “diplomat” isn’t really a diplomat but an official cover British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) working undercover in the British Embassy in Moscow who clearly is afforded more diplomatic protection than the proper Indian diplomat abused by American authorities this week.
Devyani Khobragade, the Indian deputy consul in New York. Michael Easton, a Second Secretary at the British embassy in Moscow. These two diplomatic figures couldn’t be more different. Ms. Khobragade apparently ran afoul of U.S. visa regulations that are as complicated as the U.S. tax code and may have made a simple error in bureaucratic procedural codes which caused this harsh American police state response.
How does this compare to British national Mr. Easton of the British Embassy in Moscow who has a background which strongly suggests he is part and parcel of a group of diplomatic passport-bearing foreign service corps employees who habitually exploit their status to engage in improper behavior with underage children in some of the world’s poorest countries?
Remembering Eyad El-Sarraj
by Stephen Lendman
Sarraj founded and headed Gaza's Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP). He called its mission: "Healing the Spirit. Instilling Hope."
He said "(i)f you're not enjoying human rights, then you're definitely not enjoying sound mental health."
Friends and associates called him indefatigable. After Israel's 1967 occupation, his father and brother were arrested. They were brutally tortured and abused.
In the mid-1990s, he became Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens' Rights Commissioner General. He took full advantage.
He denounced Israeli and complicit Palestinian Authority human rights abuses. Three times PA authorities arrested him. They imprisoned him. He was isolated, beaten and tortured. He was punished for defending right over wrong. He refused to remain silent.
He was outspoken to the end.
Digital Age Privacy Rights
by Stephen Lendman
Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation."
"Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights states:
"Everyone has the right to respect for his privacy and family life, his home and his correspondence."
New York Times Editors Support Wrong Over Right
by Stephen Lendman
Longstanding Times policy is consistent. It promotes establishment values. It supports wealth, power and privilege. It endorses global US dominance.
When America goes to war or plans one, Times editors march in lockstep. Propaganda substitutes for truth and full disclosure. Managed news misinformation is featured.
Editorial policy defends the indefensible. It backs wrong over right. It justifies what demands condemnation.
It supports banksters looting the federal treasury. It does so by not exposing and denouncing them. It does it by not demanding top Wall Street officials be prosecuted.
Monied interests run America. Times editors ignore it. They turn a blind eye to America's de facto one party state. They endorse sham US elections. They give legitimacy to a rigged process.
They give short shrift to growing US poverty, unemployment, underemployment, hunger, homelessness, and human misery.
They support destroying vital safety net protections when most needed. They endorse force-fed austerity instead of denouncing it.
News they claim fit to print isn't fit to read. Managed news misinformation substitutes. Vital truths readers most need to know are suppressed. Core journalistic ethics are violated.
Russian Ukrainian Aid v. US/EU Neoliberal Harshness
by Stephen Lendman
On December 17, Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych met in Moscow. Russia offered generous aid.
Ukraine's Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said providing it helped prevent serious economic trouble. "What would have awaited Ukraine" without it, he asked?
"The answer is clear - bankruptcy and social collapse." He defended Kiev's decision to establish closer ties with Moscow.
Yanukovych called Tuesday's discussion with Putin "fruitful." It "resulted in the signing of documents thanks to (Putin's) political will."
"(T)alks were constructive and content-intensive." He and Putin focused on "practical work in all spheres."
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