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Can a Drone Murder?
By David Swanson
Tuesday's Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee hearing on drones was not your usual droning and yammering. Well, mostly it was, but not entirely. Of course, the White House refused to send any witnesses. Of course, most of the witnesses were your usual professorial fare. But there was also a witness with something to say. Farea Al-Muslimi came from Yemen. His village had just been hit by a drone strike last week. He described the effects -- all bad for the people of the village, for the people of Yemen, and for the United States and its mission to eliminate all the bad people in the world without turning any of the good people against it.
The usual droning and yammering that preceded and followed this testimony seemed more offensive than usual. One witness summarized the general position of pointless witnesses who accept all common wisdom and have no information or insights to contribute:
Did the FBI Just Bungle The Boston Bomb Plot, or Did It Actually Create It?
by the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee (LPAC)
For the past 20 years, the FBI has used informants and agent-provocateurs to induce Muslims and others to plan terrorist bombings, and in many cases it is known that the FBI actually supplied weapons, money, and explosives to individuals who otherwise would have had no capability of carrying out any sort of terrorist action on their own.
Dallas Morning News Claims Bush Never Lied
By David Swanson
George W. Bush should be given an indictment, not a library. An online email action is letting the Department of Justice know the facts about the former president. And the People's Response to the George W. Bush Library and Policy Institute is filling the streets of Dallas with protesters this week as five current or former presidents join in a celebration of Dubya's national service. I'll certainly be there.
I wish I were kidding about the following. The Dallas Morning News is refusing to take good money to publish the ad below because it suggests former president Bush lied about Iraq.
Of course it would be shocking to suggest that Bush might have lied. Who ever heard of such a thing?
Terrorists "R" Us
by Stephen Lendman
State-sponsored terrorism defines US policy. Doublespeak duplicity conceals it. Doublethink manipulates public opinion to ignore inconvenient truths.
Howard Zinn once asked: "How can you make war on terrorism if war is terrorism?" Waging war on terrorism "gives government a perpetual war and a perpetual atmosphere of repression."
"And it generates perpetual profits for corporations. But it's going to make the world a far more unstable and dangerous place."
"Terrorism replaced communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country, for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home."
Since WW II, "there has not been a more warlike nation in the world than the United States."
Zinn added that "(g)overnments are terrorists on an enormously large scale." None in world history match America. Waging war on humanity is official policy.
US law calls "international terrorism" activities involving:
(A) "violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State;"
Targeting Iran
by Stephen Lendman
Hostile US/Israeli rhetoric is longstanding. Obama and Netanyahu consider Iran an existential threat. Claiming it turns truth on its head.
AIPAC's no better. It calls Iran "the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and is racing toward a nuclear weapons capability."
"Through its proxy armies of Hizballah in southern Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Iranian regime is supporting terrorists that have carried out attacks on American troops and Israeli civilians."
Fact check: America and Israel are the world's most egregious human rights abusers and sponsors of state-sponsored terrorism.
Arab Leaders: Do They Ever Think of Future?
Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD
On April 22, most nations want to celebrate the Earth Day, but this symbolic celebration is fraught with perpetuated ignorance about the Planet Earth and its life-giving and life-maintaining role, value of Human Life, the origin of Man and Humanity and the purpose of life in relation to the earth and the greater Universe, most often obsessed with inhuman political indoctrination of basic human percepts. Many leaders of divided consciousness and perverted ego hold annual war celebrations as if wars were a product of human happiness and prosperity. Likewise, the Earth Day is fast losing its essence and purpose when there is too much planned killings and destruction of mankind in progress in the name of democracy and freedom.
"These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine in Common Sense - the clarion manifesto for the independence of America. Joseph Lewis (at the dedication of the Thomas Paine statue in Paris, January 29th, 1948), narrates that “a little more than half a century ago, the great Robert G. Ingersoll predicted, at the conclusion of his eloquent tribute to Thomas Paine, that "a few more years, a few more brave men, a few more rays of light," and mankind would venerate his memory. The few years have passed. The brave men have appeared, the light has broken through, and today is proof that mankind is beginning to pay homage to him who said, "Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are without regard to place or person. My country is the world; and my religion is to do good……this statue is to be both a symbol and a beacon, a symbol of the eternal principles of justice and humanity of which Thomas Paine was so preeminently a representative, and a beacon to guide mankind in the solution of the problems that menace their peace and happiness.”
Boston Bombing Suspect Charged
by Stephen Lendman
Unequivocal, verifiable evidence is absent. Reports are largely hearsay. Some later contradict earlier ones. Dzhokkar Tsarnaev faces unsubstantiated charges. America operates that way.
Authorities claim both brothers used pressure cookers packed with metal and ball bearings rigged to explode. How they fit in their back packs wasn't explained. Ones they wore weren't large enough.
Other disturbing questions remain unanswered. What possible motive did they have? What could they gain? What evidence suggests they had bomb-making expertise? Why didn't authorities intervene before marathon day?
FBI operatives monitored older brother Tamerlan for years. Suspicions alone should have warranted intervention. Most likely, there was no reason to do so. They were set up. They were convenient patsies. One brother's dead. The other's the living dead. Denying him judicial fairness is certain. He's guilty by accusation.
America's War on Islam 2.0
by Stephen Lendman
Waging war at home or abroad requires enemies. America creates them when none exist. Imperial strategy demands them. Post-9/11, Muslims were targeted for political advantage. Post-Boston bombings, America's war on Islam continues. Muslims are "war on terror" scapegoats. Washington's Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia wars rage. It's the wrong time to be Muslims in America. They're persecuted for their faith and ethnicity. At times it's for their activism, prominence, and/or charity
They're dehumanized, spied on, set up as patsies, hunted down, rounded up, held in detention, kept in isolation, denied bail, restricted in their right to counsel, tried on secret evidence, convicted on bogus charges, given long sentences, and treated harshly as political prisoners.
50 Years After MLK’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” What Can We Learn?
By Gary Corseri
It was April, 1963, and Martin Luther King, age 34, had five more years to live. And we have now had fifty years to answer his letter.
Seven to eight years before, he had come to national prominence as leader of the bus boycott staged by the black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama. The boycott had begun when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man… and that small act of courage and defiance had jump-started the modern Civil Rights Movement.
Raised in Atlanta, the son, grandson and great-grandson of ministers, King was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, and president of the Montgomery Improvement Association. Smart, hip, articulate, gutsy, idealistic and charismatic, at 27, he had led the boycott for over a year until the Supreme Court had ruled that Montgomery’s segregation laws violated the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, guaranteeing equal rights to all citizens. Now, President of the Atlanta-headquartered Southern Christian Leadership Conference, he sat in a jail cell in Birmingham, writing his thoughts on the margins of a newspaper, responding to eight white, Alabama clergymen who had criticized his “outsider” activism.
Hagel in Israel
by Stephen Lendman
On April 20, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel began a weeklong Middle East trip.
Planned stops include Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Republic (UAE).
Late Sunday morning, he arrived in Israel. Discussions will focus on Iran, Syria, and weapons sales to regional allies.
A major arms deal with Israel sends a "very clear signal" to Tehran, he said. Asked if it suggests a potential military strike, he told reporters:
"I don't think there's any question that's another very clear signal to Iran."
"Israel will make the decision that Israel must make to protect itself, to defend itself in a very dangerous, combustible region of the world."
"I think it's important that we keep our eye focused on the objective. And there is no daylight at all (between Washington and Israel) - that Iran is prevented from acquiring a nuclear capacity."
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