Pages: << 1 ... 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 ... 1269 >>
by Stephen Lendman
The roots of what happened last Friday go back to CIA-recruited Mujahideen fighters battling Afghanistan’s Soviet occupiers. Ronald Reagan called them “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.”
They’re today’s Taliban, Al Qaeda, ISIS and other US created terrorist groups. A generation ago, GHW Bush’s Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz was involved in orchestrating multiple US premeditated Middle East wars to come - to redraw the region under Washington-controlled puppet regimes. He believed America could use its military might anywhere in the region unimpeded. “(W)e’ve got about five to 10 years to clean out those old Soviet client regimes,” he said.
His doctrine left no ambiguity, stating: “Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.”
by Stephen Lendman
Churchill once said: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” More recently, former Obama White House chief of staff/current Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said earlier: “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Post-9/11, America enacted the repressive USA Patriot Act, eviscerating Bill of Rights protections, the Homeland Security Act establishing a national Gestapo, along with various other police state laws and presidential diktats - destroying fundamental freedoms.
After January’s Charlie Hebdo/kosher market attacks, French lawmakers enacted legislation authorizing mass surveillance powers, similar to sweeping NSA spying on US citizens - permitting warrantless mass phone tapping and online communications monitoring.
by Stephen Lendman
The City of Light (La Ville Luniere) went dark repressively. A separate article discussed draconian measures imposed, explaining police state actions. The fading remnants of “liberte, egalite, (and) fraternite” disappeared in plain sight.
One of the world’s great tourist destinations no longer is safe to visit - not because of possible terrorist attacks, because police state authority replaced constitutional protections.
Expect more incidents like pre-dawn Wednesday morning. Heavily armed soldiers and police stormed Saint-Denis, a northern Paris suburb, hunting for alleged Friday attackers police chief Michael Cadot said were all killed. Heavy gunfire and explosions followed. Five summary arrests were made. Claims about an alleged female suicide bomber blowing herself up are unverified.
Eric Zuesse
On Wednesday November 18th, a Defense Department spokesman at a Pentagon press briefing was repeatedly asked by reporters whether there is any possibility of the U.S. working with Russia to defeat jihadists in Syria. And the answer was clearly no, each time:
Q: Is the U.S. military leadership there — either there or here in the Pentagon, as far as you know — prepared to fly side-by-side with the Russians.
COL. Steve WARREN: We right now have no plans to conduct coordinated operations with the Russians.
Q: Actually working together in combat flight operations, side-by-side with the Russians at this point?
COL. WARREN: Yeah, we're — right now, we have no plans to do that. … We're not coordinating with the Russians, we're not conducting operations with the Russians, nor are we planning to do any of those things.
by Stephen Lendman
Obama’s so-called war on ISIS is phony. US operations support its proxy foot soldiers, waging war on Syria to oust Assad, wanting his government replaced with a Western-controlled puppet regime.
Putin’s combat mission is the real thing, making a significant difference on the ground. A previous article explained Syrian forces liberated Kuweyres air base in the country’s north. The reliable Saker called it “a huge victory” after ISIS elements held it for two-and-a-half years. Their “best fighters” were deployed to maintain control, “resist(ing) with everything they had up to the last moment” before liberation. Earlier Syrian army successes “were limited in importance” compared to this victory - both “moral” and strategic, “chang(ing) the shape and dynamic of the front.”
by Stephen Lendman
America, its Western partners and Israel could never get away with unprecedented criminality over a longer duration, harming countless millions of defenseless victims, without scoundrel media support.
Daily drumbeat misinformation, Big Lies and coverup are priceless. Propaganda wars make hot ones possible. Enlisting public support is vital.
Western and most Israeli media are cesspools of official press release journalism, disgraceful rubbish, supporting their ruling regimes wholeheartedly, ignoring their high crimes, especially when truth and full disclosure are most needed - making it possible for these countries to operate lawlessly, get away with mass murder unaccountably, blaming victims for their ruthlessness.
Electronic and print media fail to observe fundamental journalistic ethics - truth and full disclosure without bias above all. The media’s fundamental role is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” as American humorist/reporter/writer Finley Peter Dunne once explained.
Not in America, European countries, Israel or most elsewhere. Nations permitting open, free and fair unbiased journalism are rare. Rubbish most often substitutes for explaining what’s most important to know, as well as holding culpable regimes and their officials accountable for their crimes.
by Stephen Lendman
False flag terrorist attacks serve imperial interests. Pre-9/11, Project for the New American Century (now the Foreign Policy Institute) neocons explained a “catastrophic and catalyzing event…like a new Pearl Harbor” was needed to advance US hegemonic aims.
Well documented post-9/11 horrors need no elaboration. Rules of engagement changed from rule of law observance to anything goes, still in force. America’s war on Islam continues, likely about to be revved up post-Paris attacks - the most significant false flag attack since 9/11. Are follow-up ones planned in other Western cities, maybe one or more US ones? Does Israel plan one internally to justify even greater terror war on Palestine?
Robert J. Burrowes
As expectations build for a global consensus to emerge from the United Nations climate conference in Paris, starting on 30 November 2015, that could agree to taking action to limit any rise in global temperature to 2 degrees celsius, I would like to explain why these expectations are misplaced. And what we can do about it. The essence of the problem is that most people and organisations are asking elites to take action on their behalf rather than taking action themselves. Not only is this a fearful and powerless approach, it reinforces the widespread delusions that elites have the power in this regard and that they are responsive to our pleas. Neither of these is true. We have the power and elites only respond when we create the circumstances that compel them to do so. And not otherwise. Hence, it is the action that we take, as individuals, communities and organisations, that generate the outcomes we want.
by Stephen Lendman
The Middle East Monitor (MEM) reported arrest warrants issued by Spain’s Supreme Court for Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials - complicit in the May 2010 Mavi Marmara humanitarian mission to Gaza massacre.
Israeli commandos murdered 10 individually selected Turkish activists on board, one succumbing in May 2014 after being in a coma for four years.
Many others on board were brutalized - the incident happening in international waters, Israel so far remaining unaccountable for one of its many high crimes. Arrest warrants were issued for Netanyahu and former top officials Ehud Barak (a former prime minister), Avigdor Lieberman, Eli Yishai and Benny Begin (former prime minister Menachem Begin’s son) - as well as current defense minister Moshe Ya’alon and Israeli Navy commander Eliezer Marom.
by Stephen Lendman
NATO Article 4 calls for members to “consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence, or security of any” is threatened.
Article 5 considers an armed attack (real or otherwise) against one or more members, an attack against all. Collective self-defense is called for - perhaps in the wake of the Paris incident all-out war on humanity, risking global escalation if confrontation is provoked with Russia or China.
Unleashing US-led NATO’s killing machine could become the war to end all wars, risking world peace and humanity’s survival.
Republican presidential aspirant Marco Rubio called for “invok(ing) (NATO’s) Article 5,” requiring all 28 Alliance nations to defend a member under (alleged) attack.
<< 1 ... 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 ... 1269 >>