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An Obama Presidency: More of the Same - Only Worse (Part 1)
By Larry Pinkney
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board
If the masses of people in this nation knew or had known the pertinent facts pertaining to the war mongering “we can fight the war better,” pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery tongued Barack Obama, it is doubtful they would have been so thoroughly bamboozled and hoodwinked to their own detriment and that of the world. Wall Street and the corporate media, however, have, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, engaged in a relentless, ruthless, and absolutely unprecedented campaign of corporate branding and marketing on behalf of Barack Obama, with the peoples of the United States as their targets.
Assuming that the corporate Wall Street elite and its concomitant opinion-forming, omission, and misinformation machinery of the U.S. corporate media successfully installs their favorite choice - Democratic Party Republicrat Barack Obama - as the first colored President of the U.S. Empire, the majority of people in the United States are in for a rude awakening in the form of increased economic austerity, internal political repression, deepened racial disharmony, external U.S. military adventurism, and an endless stream of misleading disinformation from the corporate government. The peoples of the world will face intensified imperialistic and military assault and attempts at U.S. hegemony. This time, however, the imperialism of the U.S. Empire will be conveniently spearheaded, condoned and rationalized by its newest and most potent weapon: the dangerously double-talking “Emperor” in black face - Barack Obama. Moreover, in one fell and foul swoop, the corporate / military elite of the U.S. Empire intends to utilize Barack Obama as the “messiah” (created by none other than corporate America and its corporate media) to neutralize and destroy the ongoing Black liberation struggle for justice and equality in this nation, and in people’s liberation struggles throughout the world.
Washington Abuses Indian Diplomat
by Stephen Lendman
India's New York consular official was targeted. Devyani Khobragade is Deputy Consul General. On December 12, US marshals abused her.
They arrested, handcuffed, detained, and strip-searched her multiple times. India's government had to post a $250,000 bond for her release.
She's charged with visa fraud and failing to pay her Indian maid proper wages. True or false doesn't justify treating her abusively.
Doing so compromised her diplomatic immunity. Her lawyer, Daniel Arshack, said she'll plead not guilty.
Her diplomatic status protects her from prosecution, he said. Regardless of pending charges, she deserved respect.
Under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, she should have enjoyed full diplomatic immunity. Host countries are obligated to provide it.
It grants foreign officials free movement and travel. It requires treating them respectfully. All appropriate steps must be taken. Article 29 states:
"The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity."
The Enduring Power of Zionism’s Propaganda Lies
By Alan Hart
Evidence that the mainstream media is not prepared to balance Zionism’s propaganda lies with the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel was on display in the BBC’s obituary tribute to David Coleman who died at the age of 87 on 21 December. The face and voice of BBC Television’s sports coverage for the best part of half a century, he was in Munich for the 1972 Olympics where, according to the commentary of the BBC’s tribute to him, “Arab gunmen held hostages and then killed the Israeli athletes.”
The truth about the killing of the nine Israeli athletes who were taken hostage by Fatah’s Black September terrorists after they had killed one is as summarised in Chapter 8 of Volume Three of the American edition of my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, which is subtitled Conflict Without End? Here now is that summary which contains some context and runs to two and a half book pages.
Making War, Not Peace in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
On January 22, so-called Geneva II peace talks begin in Montreux, Switzerland. On January 24, they'll continue in Geneva.
They're dead on arrival before beginning. Radicalized elements dominate anti-Assad forces. They reject peace.
So does Washington. Syria is Obama's war. US-supported death squads wage it. Obama didn't target Syria to quit. He wants Assad ousted.
New Iran Sanctions Bill
by Stephen Lendman
Last July, House members overwhelmingly passed new Iranian sanctions. A companion Senate bill didn't follow. Members of both parties want one.
On December 19, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez (D. NJ) headlined his press release: "Twenty-Seven Senators Introduce the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act (NWFI)."
Fiddling around while Syria burns
Michael Collins
The rebels with power don't want to attend the peace conference or can't for political reasons and the rebels that can attend lack any power.
Syria is a swirling cauldron of battles and tragedies as the thirty-day countdown begins for the January 22, 2013 United States-Russia sponsored peace talks in Montreux, Switzerland. (Image)
Syrian government sources reported between 80 and 100 killed in Adra, an industrial town northwest of Damascus. Al Qaeda aligned Al Nusra rebels and the Saudi sponsored Islamic front entered the town on December 12 after a series of defeats in the surrounding area. Reports indicate that Christian and Druze Syrians were singled out. According to local workers, rebels infiltrated factories then began shooting workers. Workers staged a protest on December 20 demanding a response by the United Nations and support from the International Labor Organization.
Battles between the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and rebels heated up in Aleppo, Syria's largest city, and the mountainous Qalamoun region near the border with Lebanon.
US Death Squad Diplomacy in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Radicalized elements dominate anti-Assad aggression. Salafist extremists are heavily involved. They comprise Washington's main fighting force. They get active US support.
Al Qaeda, Al Nusra, and other groups hold territory in northern Syria. In November, the Islamic Front was created. Zahran Alloush heads it. His father, Mohammed, is a Salafist cleric.
Zahran controls about 50 brigades. He commands tens of thousands of fighters. Saudi Arabia funds them. They're waging US proxy war on Syria. Saudi analyst Jamal Khashoggi said: "For us in Saudi Arabia, the worst scenario is to let (Assad) survive. He has to go."
So-called moderate anti-government elements are weak by comparison to extremist ones. They're ineffective. They get little Western support. It's earmarked for US backed death squads.
The Changing Contours of US Imperial Intervention in World Conflicts
James Petras
Introduction
Following the Vietnam War, US imperial intervention passed through several phases: In the immediate aftermath, the US government faced a humiliating military defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese liberation forces and was under pressure from an American public sick and tired of war.Imperial military interventions, domestic espionage against opponents and usual practice of fomenting coups d’état (regime change) declined.
Slowly, under President Gerald Ford and, especially President ‘Jimmy’ Carter, an imperial revival emerged in the form of clandestine support for armed surrogates in Southern Africa – Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau--- and neo-liberal military dictatorships in Latin America. The first large-scale imperial intervention was launched during the second half of the Carter Presidency .It involved massive support for the Islamist uprising against the secular government of Afghanistan and a mercenary jihadist invasion sponsored by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US (1979). This was followed by direct US invasions in Grenada (1983) under President Reagan; Panama (1989) and Iraq (1991) under President Bush Sr. and Yugoslavia (1995 and 1999) under President Clinton.
Elie Wiesel's Anti-Iranian Agenda
by Stephen Lendman
Wiesel
On December 18, The New Times ran a full-page anti-Iranian ad. It did so disgracefully. On December 19, the Wall Street Journal published it.
It's an Elie Wiesel rant. It's hateful. It's racist. It's malicious misinformation. It's typical Wiesel. It's titled "Iran Must Not Be Allowed To Remain Nuclear." More on it below.
Wiesel is no humanitarian. He's a shameless self-promoter. He's a holocaust exploiter. He made a career as a pseudo-official spokesman.
Norman Finklestein calls him the "resident clown" of the holocaust circus. He described him as "vain, arrogant, gullible, naive about international affairs, (and defender of) the worst excesses of previous Israeli governments."
Chomsky calls him "one of the major frauds of our time." He's an apologist for Israel's worst crimes.
His "shameful subservience to the State of Israel (is) all the more grotesque in his case because of the pretense of saintliness," Chomsky explained.
A TALE OF TWO DIPLOMATS [2]
by Chuoong Hua
British diplomat Michael Easton with underage "ladyboy" on a Pattaya
Beach, Thailand street.
One diplomat is a 39-year old Indian woman who this week was hauled into a New York City jail, stripped, subjected to a humiliating “full body cavity search,” and charged with a convoluted visa fraud violation which could bring her a 10-year prison sentence.
The other “diplomat” isn’t really a diplomat but an official cover British Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6) working undercover in the British Embassy in Moscow who clearly is afforded more diplomatic protection than the proper Indian diplomat abused by American authorities this week.
Devyani Khobragade, the Indian deputy consul in New York. Michael Easton, a Second Secretary at the British embassy in Moscow. These two diplomatic figures couldn’t be more different. Ms. Khobragade apparently ran afoul of U.S. visa regulations that are as complicated as the U.S. tax code and may have made a simple error in bureaucratic procedural codes which caused this harsh American police state response.
How does this compare to British national Mr. Easton of the British Embassy in Moscow who has a background which strongly suggests he is part and parcel of a group of diplomatic passport-bearing foreign service corps employees who habitually exploit their status to engage in improper behavior with underage children in some of the world’s poorest countries?
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