William Blum

"And on the most exalted throne in the world sits nothing but a man's arse." Montaigne

If there's anyone out there who is not already thoroughly cynical about those on the board of directors of the planet, the latest chapter in the saga of the bombing of PanAm 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland might just be enough to push them over the edge.

Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the only person ever convicted for the December 21, 1988 bombing, was released from his Scottish imprisonment August 21 supposedly because of his terminal cancer and sent home to Libya, where he received a hero's welcome. President Obama said that the jubilant welcome Megrahi received was "highly objectionable". His White House spokesman Robert Gibbs added that the welcoming scenes in Libya were "outrageous and disgusting". British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "angry and repulsed", while his foreign secretary, David Miliband, termed the celebratory images "deeply upsetting." Miliband warned: "How the Libyan government handles itself in the next few days will be very significant in the way the world views Libya's reentry into the civilized community of nations." 1

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by chycho

There is a very good possibility that the World War III option is an attempt to control the Internet by eliminating Net Neutrality and online free speech. It appears that the boundaries set between countries through treaties are vanishing due to the exponential dissemination of information through the Net. This is in conflict with the wishes of the oligarchy who are willing to do anything to maintain control. After all, it is, in large part, our technological evolution that is bringing about our socioeconomic metamorphosis that we see manifesting itself as a global financial crisis.

Click to enlarge - source.

The attack on the Internet use to be just three-pronged; bandwidth throttling by ISP’s, Internet censorship by governments, and the oligarchy trying to prevent Network Neutrality. However, as of this year, we can now add a new category to this list, autocratic control over the Internet.

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Fred Jerome

Einstein on Zionism and Israel: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East By Fred Jerome, St. Martin’s Press, May 2009

Countless books and articles have been written about the life of the great physicist and thinker Albert Einstein, and since his death in 1955, a near consensus has existed that Einstein was a staunch supporter of the state of Israel.

Veteran journalist Fred Jerome uses hundreds of pages of Einstein’s own letters, articles and interviews — many published for the first time — to refute this thesis.

It is well known that Einstein, a German Jew, witnessed European anti-Semitism firsthand and spoke out against both prejudice and Nazism. These experiences convinced Einstein to support Zionism and a Jewish homeland. After gaining immense fame for his scientific breakthroughs, he was offered the presidency of Israel in 1952 after the death of the country’s first president, Chaim Weizmann.

In reality, while Einstein was sympathetic to the Zionist cause, he repeatedly warned that a “narrow nationalism” may arise if a Jewish-only state was founded and peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians was not achieved. Instead, Einstein advocated Cultural Zionism — the creation of Jewish cultural and educational centers within a bi-national state with equal rights for both Arabs and Jews.

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Najwa Sheikh Ahmed

The month of Ramadan has come this year to the people of Gaza along with the new school year reminding them of the hard living conditions they had to live due to the crushing blockade that Israel imposed on Gaza for the third year. A blockade that do not allow even for the basic needs such as medications, flour, building materials, papers, books and stationary for the new school year 2009/2010 to enter Gaza.

With such deteriorating living and financial conditions the people of Gaza have lost the taste of the joyful Ramadan nights, where they used to go to the markets to buy and to select from the various goods available especially in this holly month, and children found themselves unable to have the regular Ramadan Fanous (lamp) due the high price of these special toys and they were satisfied with home made one of tanks and bottles of Cola or juice.

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by Stephen Lendman

In August 2009, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published a special report titled: "Locked In: The Humanitarian Impact of Two Years of Blockade on the Gaza Strip." It focuses on import and export restrictions, the travel ban on "livelihoods, food security, education, health, shelter, energy and water, and sanitation." It explains how violence and human rights abuses increase the suffering of 1.5 million people.

Following Hamas' January 2006 electoral victory, all outside aid was cut off. Sanctions and an economic embargo were imposed, and the democratically elected government was falsely accused of being a terrorist organization and isolated. Stepped up repression followed as well as IDF attacks, killings, targeted assassinations, property destruction, and more. Gazans have been imprisoned ever since. In silence, the world community sanctions Israeli crimes and shares guilt for their commission.

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Daniel Schulman

Drunken brawls, prostitutes, hazing and humiliation, taking vodka shots out of buttcracks— no, the perpetrators of these Animal House-like antics aren't some depraved frat brothers. They are the private security contractors guarding Camp Sullivan, otherwise known as the US Embassy in Kabul.

These allegations, and many more, are contained in a letter sent to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday by the Project on Government Oversight, which has been investigating the embassy security contract held by ArmorGroup North America (a subsidiary of Wackenhut, which is in turn owned by the security behemoth G4S). The contractor was the subject of a congressional probe earlier this summer that found serious lapses in the company's handling of the embassy security contract, which internal State Department documents said left the embassy compound "in jeopardy." Nevertheless, the government opted to extend the company's 5-year, $189 million contract for another year.

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John S. Hatch

Henry Kissinger once referred to military service people as ‘dumb, stupid animals to be used’ as tools of foreign policy. One wonders if this man of no regrets nevertheless wishes he had not vocalized what in fact has been the position of successive US governments including the present one? Madeleine Albright, after famously stating that the undisputed deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to hunger and easily preventable diseases during the post Gulf War I sanctions ‘were worth it’ later admitted that the statement did not have a nice ring to it. But Herr Doktor doesn’t apologise. Not for millions of deaths in Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. Not for Agent Orange. Not for Operation Phoenix. Not for demanding more death in Iraq. But could his swinish assertion be true?

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Eric S. Margolis

An election held under the guns of a foreign occupation army cannot be called legitimate or democratic. That’s a basic tenet of international law.

Nevertheless, the US and its NATO allies have been lauding last week’s faux presidential elections in Afghanistan as both a sign of growing support for Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed government and the birth of democracy in Afghanistan.

In reality, the carefully stage-managed vote in Afghanistan for candidates chosen by Western powers is unlikely to bring either peace or democracy to this wretched nation that has suffered thirty years of non-stop war.

On the contrary, American generals have intensified warnings that the military situation in Afghanistan is rapidly “deteriorating” and are calling for yet more troops in addition to the recent major manpower increase authorized by President Barack Obama. Sixty-eight thousand US combat troops, 40,000 NATO soldiers, and 75,000 mercenaries are apparently not enough. Welcome to Vietnam Mission Creep, Part II.

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