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Who are the U.S. supporting in Somalia?
by Philip Greaves
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has congratulated Somalia on its transition of government, speaking in Washington-”What has been accomplished has exceeded what many thought was possible. And it’s taken a lot of hard work and a lot of sacrifice, first and foremost from the people of Somalia,”Speaking at the United Nations in New York September 26. “Now we have to help in the next phase for the people of Somalia, and we look forward, on behalf of the United States, to doing everything we can to make it a success.”
The secretary has outlined three key areas the US will continue its support in Somalia, Firstly, Security, “As more areas are liberated from al-Shabaab, the government will need to establish police forces and courts,” Secondly the US will focus on stabilisation, Clinton said- “more than 2 million people in Somalia still need lifesaving humanitarian assistance. Many more face hunger and malnutrition and can’t get basic services, such as clean water and adequate electricity. And the former combatants, who are defecting from al-Shabaab will need to be reintegrated into local communities.” Finally Clinton urged the new Somali government in reforming and constructing “a cabinet of people who will work to promote the interests of the Somali people and respond to their needs and maintain the confidence of international donors so future collaboration can continue.” Clinton emphasized the need to “So we look to the government to build transparent and accountable institutions.” I have a feeling those words may come back to haunt the Secretary of State.
Fire Congress, Vote Out Incumbents
Joel S. Hirschhorn
For politicians to do what is right, first citizens must do what is right.
Of all the many, many stupid things that most Americans do, nothing is more insane than the ritual every two years of reelecting incumbent members of Congress. Countless opinion polls find that the public has incredibly low levels of positive regard for Congress. Just one in 10 Americans approves of the job Congress is doing, according to a Gallup poll released a few weeks ago, tying the branch's lowest approval rating in 38 years.
Yet this year as in past years, unless Americans take back control of their country, voters will again reelect nearly all incumbents. Often, some incumbents do not even have any significant opposition. For example, in the 2000 election cycle, out of 435 House seats, 64 members had no major-party opponent, and in 2008 every House race in Arkansas was uncontested by a major party according to the Center for Voting and Democracy. Political redesign of congressional districts, gerrymandering, is widely done to ensure reelection of incumbents or one party.
Lakota Sioux Nation Leaves America
by Stephen Lendman
America betrayed them and all Native Peoples. Throughout US history and earlier, genocide was policy.
Historian Ward Churchill explained four centuries of systematic slaughter. It went on from 1492 - 1892. It continues today against Native culture.
Churchill estimated around 100 million Native People throughout the Americas "hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases."
Pressure Builds for Full-Scale War on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Rhetoric hides intent. Turkey wants safe zones, and perhaps a no-fly zone. Britain and France both said no options are ruled out, including a no-fly zone. Ahead of US November elections, Washington is more low key, but not entirely.
Obama stresses he's open to all options. On September 27, Hillary Clinton met openly with Assad opponents at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. She did also privately with so-called Friends of Syria.
She announced millions of dollars more aid. She claimed it's mostly for humanitarian purposes. America does nothing that way. Everything it does has ulterior motives.
Washington will also supply more communication equipment. It "includ(es) satellite-linked computers, telephones, and cameras, as well as training for" opposition elements and supporters, she said.
Julian Assange Declared Enemy of the State
by Stephen Lendman
America is Exhibit A on how democracies aren't supposed to work. Of course, the US isn't one now and never was.
Contrary to popular myth, it wasn't established as one. America's founders had other ideas. From May to September 1787, 55 self-serving wheeler-dealers met in Philadelphia. Today we'd call them a Wall Street crowd. What they designed fell far short of common beliefs.
Duplicitous politicians, bankers, lawyers, and merchants created a document serving them. Its Preamble gave it away, saying: "We the people of the United States….do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America."
In fact, "the people" were left out then and now. The ones they meant were themselves and other privileged elites. Only white male property owners mattered. They alone were enfranchised. At the time, they comprised less than 15% of the electorate.
Aipac: Israel’s Agent Feeling Squeezed?
Franklin P. Lamb
The American Israel public affairs committee (AIPAC) has seen headier days according to US congressional staffers forced to work regularly with the pro-Zionist agent of Israel. The grip of fear and the lock on Congress that the Israel first organization has long touted in its service to Israel may be weakening against a backdrop of American Jews rejecting the increasing rants of Prime Minister Netanyahu that are driving many Jews to distance themselves from him, from AIPAC, from other Arabphobic US Zionist organizations, and from Israel.
AIPAC tells some Congressional aids that fund raising is hurting and it can’t keep promises it made to certain candidates that it would arrange “indirect” funding for their current election campaigns. This at the same time Netanyahu is increasingly becoming the butt of jokes across the Israeli and American political spectrum. Several in his cabinet and member s of the US Congress reportedly consider him an embarrassment. A perception likely added to by his recent General Assembly cartoon gimmick and his repeated Nazi style arm and hand gestures that were widely distributed by the main stream American media outlets especially Reuters, AP and even the Zionist Drudge Report.
An Infinite Enemy
by philbobaggins01
The US air force has released documents under a Freedom of Information Act revealing they investigated one of their own analysts to determine whether she had also released documents to Wikileaks.
One might not be surprised by the investigation, or the suspicion, the analyst was reported to have shown sympathy for Bradley Manning, and had expressed she wanted to leave the air force. The report is detailed and a lot of information on the “subject” were correlated, interviews were held and eventually the air force dropped the case without charge.
Judge Stays Terry Williams' Execution
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed Terry's fight for life. He was scheduled to die on October 3. Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge M. Teresa Sarmina spared him for now. More on her ruling and what's next below.
Terry was raised violently. His mother abused him physically and emotionally. She beat him mercilessly for any reason. She used fists, belts, extension cords, switches, anything she could get her hands on.
His siblings got similar treatment. His clemency petition recounted one incident his half-sister Theresa described:
"One time my mother poured hot boiling water on me when I was a toddler. I remember being in the hospital after my mother burnt me. The nurses would put white towels on the floor and try to help me walk."
"I would look behind me and see my own bloody footprints on the towels. For a long time after I got out of the hospital, layers of skin would peel off my feet when my mother bathed me."
International Warlords are Coercing Mankind
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD
And here is the dilemma we face as a civilization. We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals, nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible. It is better to be an outcast, a stranger in one’s own country, than an outcast from one’s self. It is better to see what is about to befall us and to resist than to retreat into the fantasies embraced by a nation of the blind.
(Chris Hedges - author of Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (“How to Think”, Common Dreams, 7/9/2012).
The NDAA and Obama’s secret ‘Kill List’—are you on it?
By Larry Pinkney
“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government . . .”—United States Declaration of Independence
“Still, there seems to be a special viciousness that accompanies the current assault on human rights, in this country and in the world.”—Howard Zinn
The corporate owned government of the United States, now headed by President Barack Obama, has under the rubric of waging a so-called war against ‘terrorism,’ launched a perpetual terrorist war against the liberties and human rights of everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and around the world. The U.S. police state is no longer merely coming, it has arrived.
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