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Obama’s Meaningless New Year’s Gesture
by Stephen Lendman
Obama exhibits con man duplicity in his role as a convenient imperial front man - selected for this reason, serving wealth and power interests exclusively.
The reliable Saker calls him “exceptionally weak and even clueless.” He performs the role assigned him, his public actions and comments carefully scripted - an agenda based on deceit and contempt for fundamental rights everyone deserves.
A shameless NYT New Year’s eve editorial headlined “Obama’s Trickle of Mercy,” saying he commuted scores of mostly illicit drug related sentences on grounds of “justice and fairness” - along with pardoning two individuals for financial crimes.
On the one hand, Times editors called his actions “drops in very large bucket.” A “few dozen grants” ignore “9,000 applications for commutations that have not been acted on.”
Libya 2.0 Ahead?
by Stephen Lendman
In 2011, US-led NATO ravaged and destroyed Africa’s most prosperous country - Jamahiriya “government of the popular masses by themselves for themselves.”
“(T)he People (served) as president” through democratic committees and congresses - polar opposite America’s sham system, run exclusively by and for powerful monied interests.
Gaddafi shared his nation’s oil wealth with all Libyans, providing generous rights and benefits ordinary Americans can’t imagine. His independence marked him for regime change. Libya today is a cauldron of endless violence and chaos, a testimony to the kind of dystopian harshness following US interventions.
Russia’s Awesome Military Power
by Stephen Lendman
Russia’s military is a formidable force to be reckoned with, matching America’s best at a small fraction of the cost, using its resources judiciously, prompting US Air Forces in Europe commander General Frank Forenc to call its qualitative and quantitative capability “alarming.”
Its competency is exceptional, using powerful state-of-the-art weapons with precision accuracy, including from hundreds of miles away.
They’re able to launch them from aerial, ground, sea and subsurface locations, maybe space, with ability to destroy what’s aimed at.
Pentagon commanders are forced to admit respect, perhaps with second thoughts on ever confronting a force equalling or exceeding its own capability.
Russia’s effective Syrian anti-terrorism enters its fourth month this week, devastating ISIS positions, facilities, operations and personnel - Putin proving his longterm commitment to combat a common scourge. He wants ISIS and other takfiri terrorists groups battled abroad, preventing them from gaining a foothold on Russian territory, his main reason for getting involved, intent on staying the course, no matter the duration.
Israeli Inflicted Holy Land Horrors
by Stephen Lendman
Palestinians are suffering, not celebrating new year festivities. State-sponsored terror haunts them throughout the holiday period and all other times of year without respite.
Daily reports are grim. Palestine’s Health Ministry reported 142 Palestinians extrajudicially killed since October 1, including 27 children and seven women, perhaps several others before midnight December 31 - many more in the new year.
Israel’s killing machine never rests. Over 15,600 Palestinians were injured, around 10,000 others harmed from toxic tear gas inhalation, thousands from live fire, thousands more arbitrarily arrested. Police state viciousness continues round-the-clock daily without letup.
Grim New Year Tidings
by Stephen Lendman
The new year traditionally is a time for hope and change, a new beginning, a shift from policies causing so much harm to many millions worldwide - nameless, faceless victims of imperial ruthlessness.
New Year’s day and each successive ones assure more of the same, business as usual - a continued menu of endless imperial wars, neoliberal harshness, government serving elitist interests exclusively, and harsh crackdowns on nonbelievers, America heading toward full-blown tyranny in the name of combating terrorism - the greatest hoax in modern times.
The larger issue is whether humanity can survive the ravages of US-led pure evil - the greatest threat it ever faced in world history, power-crazed lunatics in Washington willing to risk destroying planet earth to own it.Instead of sounding the alarm and urging a call to action, presstitutes masquerading as journalists support what demands condemnation. Ordinary people are manipulated by bread, circuses, and daily misinformation - mindless of the dangers they face, indifferent to the risk of ending life on earth, ignorant of the pure evil Washington represents, complicit with its rogue partners.
Each new year begins with the threat of US-launched nuclear war, the unthinkable possibility able to kill us all. Power-crazed lunatics make ruthless choices.
International Monetary Fund’s Rogues Gallery Crooks, Rapists and Swindlers
James Petras
Introduction
The IMF is the leading international monetary agency whose public purpose is to maintain the stability of the global financial system through loans linked to proposals designed to enhance economic recovery and growth.
In fact, the IMF has been under the control of the US and Western European states and its policies have been designed to further the expansion, domination and profits of their leading multi-national corporations and financial institutions.
The US and European states practice a division of powers: The executive directors of the IMF are Europeans; their counterparts in the World Bank (WB) are from the US.
The executive directors of the IMF and WB operate in close consultation with their governments and especially the Treasury Departments in deciding priorities, deciding what countries will receive loans, under what terms and how much.
Christmas, the system and I
Mohammed Mesbahi
You and I constitute the very system that we blame for the world’s problems, which is starkly illustrated at Christmas when we rob our fragile earth on the high streets in the name of Jesus. What better way to celebrate the birth of Christ this year than to unite under the banner of freedom and justice, and peacefully demonstrate for an end to hunger and poverty across the world.
When disappointed with our politicians and distressed by the problems within our society, we come under the impression that there is a kind of rotten system out there. Without hesitation, we criticise and blame the system. In truth, however, there is no such thing as ‘the system’ but only you and I in our insular and complacent way of life in which we do almost nothing to change the world situation with each passing day. The moment we look at the world and say ‘what a rotten system’, we misperceive the reality and create a division between ourselves and humanity’s problems. How strange it is to observe the phenomenon of one’s own mind separating itself from the rest of mankind, and then naming the system as something different from who we are when it is, in reality, the result of our mutual creation.
Turkey Concealed Its Oil Smuggling Complicit with ISIS
by Stephen Lendman
Russian UN envoy Vitaly Churkin accused Washington and Turkey of failing to inform the Security Council about ISIS trafficking in stolen Syrian and Iraqi oil.
It’s required under SC Res. 2199, unanimously passed in February 2015, requiring “Member States to take steps to prevent terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria from benefiting from trade in oil, antiquities and hostages, and from receiving donations.”
Churkin said Russia “got serious complaints” about SC Res. 2199 violations. “(T)he Americans had to provide (required) information, and of course Turkey…should have reported any illegal (oil and other banned) trade going on there. They didn’t do it.”“We've just been to the Pentagon and two several star generals were telling us about (US-led) coalition actions. I asked them a very simple question.”
“You've been flying there for a year. We’ve been there for two months and already provided many photos showing that oil is smuggled through the Turkish border.”
Turkish Whistleblower Faces Possible Treason Charge
by Stephen Lendman
Just societies would praise Turkish Republican People’s Party (CHP) opposition member Eren Erdem as a national hero.
Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a fascist police state, one of the world’s vilest.
James Petras nailed him cold, explaining his “long and ignoble history of betraying political associates, trading partners and military allies; of pledging friendship and then bombing his ‘friends’ and murdering citizens; of negotiating ‘in good faith’ and then killing rivals; of playing democrat then behaving like an ordinary demagogic dictator.”
A Crisis Worse than ISIS? Bail-Ins Begin
by Ellen Brown
While the mainstream media focus on ISIS extremists, a threat that has gone virtually unreported is that your life savings could be wiped out in a massive derivatives collapse. Bank bail-ins have begun in Europe, and the infrastructure is in place in the US. Poverty also kills.
At the end of November, an Italian pensioner hanged himself after his entire €100,000 savings were confiscated in a bank “rescue” scheme. He left a suicide note blaming the bank, where he had been a customer for 50 years and had invested in bank-issued bonds. But he might better have blamed the EU and the G20’s Financial Stability Board, which have imposed an “Orderly Resolution” regime that keeps insolvent banks afloat by confiscating the savings of investors and depositors. Some 130,000 shareholders and junior bond holders suffered losses in the “rescue.”
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