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How we know what we know about Syria
By Michael Collins
Obama administration support for Syrian rebels is based on a United Nations authorized report from November 2011. In that document, Syria is accused of committing "crimes against humanity." The report's co-author is a board member at a Washington, D.C. based think tank that just happens to have the former chairman of ExxonMobil, a consultant for the Saudi Binladin Group, and a former CIA executive on its board of directors.
Much of the U.S. and European press on the so-called civil war originates from a tiny organization in the United Kingdom called the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (the Observatory). The one man operation is run by a longtime opponent of Syrian Bashar Hafez al-Assad.
For the most part, this is how we know what we know about Syria.
High Stakes in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
The region's fate hangs in the balance. Perhaps much more. The potential ugly reality is chilling.
Make no mistake. Washington orchestrated months of bloodbath. Obama officials bear full responsibility. They were last year against Libya. They are currently as violence wracks the country.
The battle for Aleppo now rages. Syrian forces are going all out to free the city from Western sponsored death squads. They're battling thousands of hired killers.
They're in neighborhoods. They use human shields. They target pro-Assad loyalists. They murder them. Washington's strategy dictates it. Wrongfully blaming Assad advances the ball closer to war.
Self-immolations speak of Israel's bankruptcy
Kourosh Ziabari
In the past weeks, the streets of Tel Aviv have been witness to desperate people setting themselves on fire in protest at the growing social and economic inequalities and the rising cost of living in Israel.
Almost one year after 400,000 Israelis filled Tel Aviv’s Rothschild Boulevard in protest at the increasing economic difficulties, a wave of civil unrest and upsurges is again encompassing the state. The latest victim of the protests was the 57-year-old Moshe Silman, a disabled war veteran who sustained severe injuries after setting himself ablaze at a bus stop near Tel Aviv on July 14.
The death of Silman ignited widespread anger and frustration among the Israelis who have poured into the streets of Tel Aviv en masse since early July to call on the government to meet their socioeconomic demands in the light of the unprecedented recession and economic crisis in Europe.
Preventing More Middle East Wars Tops All Priorities
by Stephen Lendman
Washington's dirty hands control regional belligerence. Longstanding policy unleashed a regional bloodbath.
It advances America's imperium. Willing partners include NATO and Middle East allies. They're serial killers for their own self-interest.
Post-9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya were ravaged. Destroying Syria is underway. Expect Iran and other targeted states to follow.
A previous article discussed Canadian psychiatrist Robert Hare. He describes psychopathic behavior clinically. Administration and congressional leaders exhibit prominent features.
They're amoral, unethical, deceitful, and manipulative. They breach social and legal standards. They suffer no remorse. They're callously unconcerned about others. They're indifferent to human suffering.
War Without Mercy on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Western media misreport what's happening in Syria and why. Propaganda substitutes for truth and full disclosure.
Syrians are struggling to prevent Western conquest, exploitation, and control. They're fighting for their lives to stay free.
At issue isn't whether Assad's government is democratic, despotic or anything in between. Its sovereign independence made it vulnerable.
Washington tolerates no governments it doesn't control. Replacing them with puppet regimes is policy. Whether Assad can hold out and prevail isn't known. Most Syrians depend on him.
The longer conflict persists, the greater his support. Who else can Syrians turn to for help? They want no part of becoming another pro-Western vassal state. They know the daily horrors Afghans, Iraqis and Libyans face.
Greenland ice sheet undergoes worst surface melt in 132 years
from Ecological Internet
Given dramatic Greenland ice sheet melt and historic U.S. drought's threat to global food supply, Ecological Internet renews calls for urgent measures to avoid global ecosystem collapse, achieve sustainable development, and sustain global ecosystems and the biosphere
(Madison, WI) - Nearly the entire massive ice sheet that blankets Greenland suddenly started melting this month, even its coldest places. In just a few days, the amount of thawed ice sheet surface skyrocketed from 40 percent to 97 percent. This continues the shocking heating and melting of the Arctic, which is severely impacting the Northern hemisphere's weather - including contributing to America's dramatic drought and heat wave - through changes in the jet and gulf streams.
Weill, separate banking from investment banking, repeal enabling acts for era of greed
The Godfather unregulated banking, Sanford I Weill, just endorsed restoring the most fundamental provision of the Glass-Steagal Act - separating banks from risky investment activity, a cardinal principal of banking regulation from the Great Depression through the end of the Clinton administration (Weill Calls for Splitting up the Big Banks, NYT, July 26), If he's serious, Weill should also demand a repeal of Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, that bipartisan legislation that allowed derivatives to function without regulation. A turnaround by some masters of finance should not obscure the history described below (thepeoplesvoice.org, April 14, 2009). It's a toxic brew of the greed that motivate the ultra rich and their minions.
Huge majorities in both houses of Congress voted for legislation to allow the biggest bank heist of all time. But this time, it was the banks pulling the heist.
The Rise of the Police State and the Absence of Mass Opposition
James Petras and Robin Eastman Abaya
Introduction
One of the most significant political developments in recent US history has been the virtually unchallenged rise of the police state. Despite the vast expansion of the police powers of the Executive Branch of government, the extraordinary growth of an entire panoply of repressive agencies, with hundreds of thousands of personnel, and enormous public and secret budgets and the vast scope of police state surveillance, including the acknowledged monitoring of over 40 million US citizens and residents, no mass pro-democracy movement has emerged to confront the powers and prerogatives or even protest the investigations of the police state.
Austerity, Adjustment, and Social Genocide: Political Language and the European Debt Crisis
By: Andrew Gavin Marshall
Angela Merkel, Jose Manuel Barroso, and Mario Monti: Europe’s champions
of austerity and adjustment
The following is a sample analysis from my upcoming book on the global economic crisis and global resistance movements. Please consider donating to The People’s Book Project to help support the effort to finish this book.
Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
- George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
Political language functions through euphemism, by employing soft-sounding or simply meaningless words to describe otherwise monstrous and vicious policies and objectives. In the European debt crisis, political language employed by politicians, economists, technocrats and bankers is designed to make policies which create poverty and exploitation appear to be logical and reasonable. The language employed includes the words and phrases: fiscal austerity/consolidation, structural adjustment/reform, labour flexibility, competitiveness, and growth. To understand political language, one must translate it. This requires four steps: first, you look at the rhetoric itself as inherently meaningless; second, you examine the policies that are taken; third, you look at the effects of the policies. Finally, if the effects do not match the rhetoric, yet the same policies are pursued time and time again, one must translate the effects as the truemeaning of the rhetoric. Thus, the rhetoric has meaning, but not at face value.
Approaching Financial Abyss
Stephen Lendman
An ocean of liquidity and institutionalized fraud alone keep dysfunctional economies from imploding.
Conditions look increasingly grim. Political solutions resolve nothing. On July 20, Der Spiegel headlined "Merkel Is Driving Europe into the Abyss." It quoted the Financial daily Handelsblatt saying:
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel has managed once again to get a parliamentary majority. But who cares? No one."
"Regardless of whether the vote passes with or without the opposition, more questions than answers remain. Since the financial crisis began two years ago, euro-zone leaders have passed one aid package after the next, increasing Germany's liability. Little has come of it. The situation in the debt-ridden countries has not improved."
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