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Afghanistan: Rationality Questions Insanity of War
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
“We Are Going to Lose the War in Afghanistan and it will Help Bankrupt us. One of our major strategic blunders in Afghanistan was not to have recognized that both Great Britain and the Soviet Union attempted to pacify Afghanistan using the same military methods as ours and failed disastrously. We seem to have learned nothing from Afghanistan's modern history -- to the extent that we even know what it is. Between 1849 and 1947…..” - (Chalmers Johnson. Dismantling the Empire - America’s Last Best Hope: 8/2010).
If you ask the American leaders and few of their seasonally hired European bootlickers - what are they doing in Afghanistan other than killing the innocents and bombing the silent historic graveyards? None of them can offer a rational explanation to justify the decade old warmongering and occupation of that poor and helpless nation. Their terminology of peace and security makes no sense, out of the nonsense. Obama administration is pushing President Hamid Karzai to sign a strategic agreement enabling the US troops to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely after its planned withdrawal in 2014. Ironically, Hamid Karzai lacks legitimacy and constitutional power to do that as his terms of presidency will expire during the summer of 2014.
Rigged Honduran Elections
by Stephen Lendman
In Honduras they're won the old-fashioned way. They're stolen.
On Sunday, presidential elections were held. Eight candidates participated. Two mattered most. Business as usual prevailed. Reports suggest fraud, intimidation and vote buying.
Activists defied state-sponsored violence. Both sides claimed victory. More on that below.
Adrienne Pine is an American University Professor of Anthropology. She's worked in Honduras. She's written about state-sponsored repression. She focuses on explaining Hondurans' longstanding struggle for justice
Obama’s ‘Big Prize’ to Earn Nobel Peace Prize
By Nicola Nasser*
Indeed, US President Barak Obama has gone a long way to earn his Nobel Peace Prize, which was prospectively and in advance awarded in 2009 to the 44th president of the United States while less than eight months in office.
However, Obama’s “big prize” to make him “feel that I deserve” the Nobel Prize as he had said then will be waiting for him until he ends the ongoing Israeli war on the Palestinian people and occupation of their land, at least since 1967.
This Israeli war lies at the heart of both the wars Obama inherited as well as those he has just averted and has been all along the source of regional wars, instability and insecurity as well as the source of the deep-rooted anti-Americanism in the Middle East.
Market Euphoria During Troubled Times
by Stephen Lendman
Major equity markets approach nosebleed levels. Experts disagree on whether bubble extremes approach. They're not unusual. They happen often.
The myth about markets reflecting reality is hokum. Keynes once warned about "enterprise becom(ing) the bubble on a whirlpool of (destructive) speculation." Hard times usually follows.
Easy credit fuels speculation. Euphoria follows. Greed trumps good sense. Folly pays a big price. This time is different talk proliferates. Momentum drives prices higher.
Stories of easy riches abound. Why miss out. Overvaluation leads to more of it. Fraudsters sell at the top. Greater fools buy at the wrong time. Hindsight is the best insight. Excess ends badly every time.
Monsanto, the TPP, and Global Food Dominance
by Ellen Brown
“Control oil and you control nations,” said US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. ”Control food and you control the people.”
Global food control has nearly been achieved, by reducing seed diversity with GMO (genetically modified) seeds that are distributed by only a few transnational corporations. But this agenda has been implemented at grave cost to our health; and if the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) passes, control over not just our food but our health, our environment and our financial system will be in the hands of transnational corporations.
Iran Nuclear Deal Bashing
by Stephen Lendman
"Now the really hard part begins," said John Kerry. The hardest part is getting Washington to stick to agreed on terms.
It's believing America negotiates in good faith. It's thinking longstanding US imperial aims changed. It's imagining decades of anti-Iranian sentiment will fade.
Critics wasted little time. Netanyahu was most outspoken. He called the Geneva deal "a historic mistake. Israel is not obligated by this agreement," he stressed.
He lied calling Iran the "most dangerous regime in the world." America and Israel are by far. They prioritize war. They deplore peace. They threaten humanity's survival.
NSA Infects 50,000 Computer Systems Worldwide
by Stephen Lendman
Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported it, headlining "NSA infected 50,000 computer networks with malicious software."
It cited leaked Edward Snowden information. His revelations are the gift that keeps on giving. Activists representing him keep important information coming.
It's vital. Everyone needs to know. Unchecked NSA spying threatens fundamental freedoms. They're fast disappearing.
Their on the chopping block for elimination. Police state lawlessness runs America. It's too great a threat to ignore.
According to NRC, NSA hacked over 50,000 computer networks. It installed malware. It facilitates surveillance.
It's "designed to steal sensitive information." Snowden provided documents prove it. A 2012 management presentation showed NSA uses "Computer Network Exploitation (CNE) in more than 50,000 locations."
It secretly infiltrates computer systems through malware. Belgian telecom provider Belgacom was hacked.
Pakistan: How to Revisit Political Darkness?
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.
Emerging naïve religious activism, daily sectarian bloodbaths and curfews depict lawlessness, degeneration and favorite perversion of the divided consciousness overwhelmed with sadism of underdeveloped sense of national unity and purpose. The Pakistani nation faces a crisis of identity and failed to understand who there were and where the history has pushed them to be? The political monsters called leaders with borrowed time and paid ballot boxes follow a foreign propelled agenda as pawns being used on a foreign dictated chess board to determine the future of Pakistan in chaos and more deaths, destruction of everything viewed as holistic and valuable. Pakistanis need no distance to travel searching for more enemies, they need to see the mirror, the enemies are within, not elsewhere. When people live in darkness for too long, they lose sense of rational thinking and direction. All and everything is fighting for survival of the fittest. No wonder, why educated and intellectually informed and conscientious Pakistan find no place to stand on their own in the political culture and reclaim lost human dignity and self respect as members of a valued Nation. The Law of Nature points out if you are respected within your family, you will be seen with dignity outside too. Are there any intelligent people left in the body of the nation to sort out what went wrong and why and how to change it into something normal and politically workable? Do contending sectarianism and widely pouring bloodshed of the innocent people make Pakistanis a better nation or a nation at the top of the cliff?
Israel's War on Palestinian Children
Israel's War on Palestinian Children
by Stephen Lendman
Israel is a serial human rights abuser. It's one of the world's worst. It's war on Palestinian children alone reflects it.
They're systematically abused unjustly. Up to 700 are arrested annually. Most are lawlessly charged with stone-throwing. Children young as five are terrorized. They're too young to know why.
They're abusively treated during arrests, transfers and interrogations. They're denied fundamental rights.
In 1991, Israel ratified the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). It didn't matter. It brazenly violates its provisions.
Article 37 states in part:
"No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."
ACLU v. Clapper
by Stephen Lendman
Clapper
On June 5, London's Guardian headlined "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily."
On June 6, a follow-up article headlined "NSA taps in to systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and others, secret files reveal."
Numerous reports followed based on information Edward Snowden revealed. He connected important dots for millions.
Institutionalized spying on Americans isn't new. It's longstanding. Little was revealed publicly. Too few people knew. It's far more invasive than most suspect. Core constitutional rights are violated.
On June 11, the ACLU filed suit. It challenged "the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's mass collection of Americans' phone records.
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