by chycho

PBS Frontline - House of Saud (2005)

“Prince Muhammad bin Naif, assistant interior minister for security affairs, escaped an assassination attempt on Thursday night when a wanted terrorist blew himself up inside the prince's house.”

Read more »

Nathan Janes

Many people may not realize that when they turn on the television in their home, what they see as a constant flow of images is actually flickering. Although we do not see this consciously, the repetitive pattern of flickering images creates a state that is similar to hypnosis in the television viewer. Studies by researcher Herbert Krugman have shown that within 30 seconds of television viewing, brain waves switch from predominantly beta waves, indicating alert and conscious attention, to predominantly alpha waves, indicating an unfocused, receptive lack of attention. The brain's left hemisphere, which processes information logically and analytically, tunes out while the person is watching TV, while the right hemisphere of the brain, which processes information emotionally and non-critically, is allowed to function without hindrance. Due to this phenomenon, television transmits information, which is not actively thought about at the time of exposure, much like hypnosis. When viewing television, we do not consciously rationalize the information resonating within our unconscious depths at the time of transmission and the viewer becomes more open and suggestible.

Read more »

Shahid R. Siddiqi

The neo-cons led by with Dick Cheney, who at that time represented American oil interests, had visualized multiple advantages in colonizing Afghanistan much before 9/11 occurred. For controlling and moving oil and gas from Caspian Sea and Central Asia, whose deposits are considered critical to future global supply but which could not be transported to a seaport for lack of pipelines, Afghanistan was indispensable. So was Pakistan.

Besides, this colonization could serve several other geo-political interests. From there America could contain and infiltrate Iran, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China and Pakistan and deny China the use of Gawadar port and Pakistani Baluchistan’s land corridor for transporting its oil and industrial raw material. It could install India as its proxy regional power to control the rise of Jehadis and Chinese influence once it leaves and use Afghanistan to launch operations for denuclearizing Pakistan, Balkanizing it in the process. --Nine-eleven was accordingly orchestrated, Al Qaeda blamed, Afghanistan attacked and the Taliban overthrown. Behind the façade of threat to American security and the war on terror, Afghanistan’s occupation began.

Read more »

dci-pal.org

Amira Al Karrem (15), Tel Al-Hawa, Gaza, filed a War crimes
complaint yesterday against Israel at ICC, The Hague (Netherlands).
During "Cast Lead" israeli operation this winter, she spend 60 hours,
wounded, alone, without food and medical treatment. Her father,
brother, and sister were killed befor her eyes.

As of 7, February 2009, DCI-Palestine has confirmed the deaths of 304 children, and is investigating a further 96 reports of child fatalities. This means that as many as 400 children could have been killed in Operation Cast Lead.

On Wednesday, 14 January 2009, at around 5:00pm, 14-year-old Amira was on the first floor of her home in Tel al-Hawa in southern Gaza City. She was with her father, brother Ala (13) and sister Ismat (15) when Israeli tanks entered their neighbourhood: “We were very scared,” recalls Amira.

At approximately 6:30pm, Amira’s father, who is the muezzin (person who leads the call to prayer) for the mosque next door left the house to call the Isha (night) prayer. He quickly returned home, and shortly after put the children to bed amidst the sound of nearby shelling and gunfire.

Read more »

Giuseppe Abatangelo

In order to master the art of politics, you must attain the ability to control your environment. This is priority number one, and remains true regardless of how a particular social position is both defined, and used. You are a player, nothing more and nothing less. A player on a stage, just as Shakespeare wrote... and whom or what you allow to control the actions of your character, will indefinitely dictate this life completely.

Governments are not meant to play nanny, neither with benevolence nor malicious intent. Behavioral control belongs solely to each individual with respect to his or her immediate sphere of influence. A rather elusive truth to begin to consider is it not? A truth to break the camels back, and inadvertently thrust our imagination into a spiral of reason. Therefore just like Alice, if you fall into the rabbit hole it will be one wild ride trying to get out.

Read more »

Tom Eley

Obama won the support of millions of voters by campaigning against the pervasive abuse of democratic rights under the Bush administration. In office, he has sought again and again—from extraordinary rendition to military commissions trials to the formation of the new Pentagon "cyber command"—to place the same policies on a quasi—legal and firmer institutional footing.

The Obama administration disclosed on August 27 that it will carry on Bush administration policies that allowed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to seize and search international travelers' laptop computers, cellular phones, cameras, and other electronic devices, even in the absence of suspicion of criminal activity.

Two DHS directives made public Thursday formalize operational practices established by the Bush administration to carry out searches of the personal digital instruments of travelers, US citizens or not, passing across US borders. By proclaiming that agents can confiscate any digital device that may contain "information," even without suspicion of criminal activity, the directives amount to an open repudiation of the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Read more »

Paul J. Balles

[Paul J. Balles considers Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s latest ruse, launched last week in talks with European leaders and in off-the-record briefings to gullible and sycophantic news editors: concede a temporary hold on illegal settlements built on stolen lands in exchange for agreement to trample or desecrate Iran.]

Israeli maxim: Occupy a country and then make the people pay a price to get part of it back. When they object, accuse them of refusing to take advantage of opportunities for peace.

Havah Nagilah provides the background music for Binyamin Netanyahu's latest dance to America and Europe.

One of the problems with Israel seems to be that they can never do something because it's the right thing to do. They usually have to bargain for something in exchange. --Here's the way Netanyahu put it: “The continuation of unilateral withdrawal without receiving anything must stop. In business, there are no free lunches, and this also is true with politics. There can be no free withdrawals.”

Read more »

Sara Robinson

In the current issue of The Nation (which also featured a cover story co-authored by our own Bob Borosage), Chris Bowers pointed out a structural truth that lies at the heart of both American political parties. In the Age of Reagan, it came to pass that the GOP consolidated itself as the party of people who are white and Christian. Everybody else—black, brown, women, gays, immigrants, urban dwellers, non-Christians, you name it— found themselves on the receiving end of conservative scapegoating so often that they eventually decamped and aggregated in the other party. At this point, it's statistically true that If you are either not white or not Christian, then you are (with varying degrees of certainty, depending on what you identify as) far more likely to be a Democrat.

Read more »