Pages: << 1 ... 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 ... 1271 >>
Obama Plans More War
by Stephen Lendman
On January 5, Obama held a first ever administration Pentagon news conference. Its thinly veiled hawkishness explained his 2012 military agenda.
Its Asia/Pacific region policy challenges China and Russia. Its Middle East presence stresses confrontation and belligerency. Globally it plans relying increasingly on naval and air power. It also stresses destabilization, confrontation, and war when other methods don't turn independent states into client ones.
He stressed counterbalancing China and Iran. Undeclared strategy includes confrontation and belligerency. Mindful of Republican opposition to defense cuts, he said America will "avoid repeating the mistakes of the past when our military was left ill-prepared for the future. As commander-in-chief, I will not let that happen again. Not on my watch."
Claiming nuclear weapons proliferation, he pointed fingers at Iran. In response, he said "(w)e're going to stay vigilant.....In addition, investments in counterterrorism, intelligence, and cyberwarfare" will be emphasized.
Systematic West Bank Settler Violence
by Stephen Lendman
B'Tselem's been on the story for years. Settler violence is longstanding, troubling, and largely without accountability.
Since September 2000 alone (the beginning of the second Intifada), the toll includes 50 Palestinians killed. Since December 1987 (the first Intifada's onset), it's 115, besides many more injured, including children.
Palestinian Children Detained Oppressively in Isolation
by Stephen Lendman
"Israel Spurns All International Laws with Impunity"
DCI/Palestine "is a national section of the international non-government child rights organisation and movement (dedicated) to promoting and protecting the rights of Palestinian children," according to international law principles.
On December 28, it submitted a complaint to several UN authorities titled, "The use of solitary confinement on Palestinian children held in Israeli detention." It's specifically for five children held at Al Jalame and Petah Tikva interrogation centers in Israel.
Their cases follow 29 others since February 2008. At both facilities, "solitary confinement is routinely used."
Though no universally agreed on definition exists, the Istanbul Statement on the Use and Effects of Solitary Confinement defines it as physically isolating prisoners in cells for 22 to 24 hours daily. Human contact is minimized, including quantitative and qualitative stimuli.
Money Power Runs America
by Stephen Lendman
Wall Street does it by controlling money, credit and debt, as well as manipulating markets for private enrichment. House and Senate millionaires do it their way for greater wealth, privilege, power and status.
New Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) figures show it. More on them below. New York Times writer Eric Lichtblau commented in his article headlined, "Economic Downturn Took a Detour at Capitol Hill," saying:
In 1991, Representative Ed Pastor (D. AR) entered Congress with around $100,000 in savings and as much debt owed banks. Now he's a millionaire, one of 250 in Congress.
Shooting the Messenger in Syria
by Stephen Lendman
At issue is discrediting Sudanese General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi. He's Arab League observer mission head in Syria. More on him below.
The phrase "shooting the messenger" is centuries old. Shakespeare wrote "Don't shoot the messenger" in Henry IV, part two. In Antony and Cleopatra, she reacted to Antony jilting her by threatening to treat the messenger's eyes as balls.
Crisis Conditions Grip Eurozone
by Stephen Lendman
From inception, the euro system was doomed to fail. In the 1990s, Progressive Radio News Hour regular Bob Chapman predicted it.
So didn't British economist/euro expert Bernard Connolly before its January 1999 introduction. His 1995 book titled, "The Rotten Heart of Europe: The Dirty War for Europe's Money" explained the risks in detail enough to understand.
More recently, he said troubled Eurozone countries can't cut their way to recovery. Austerity is a hairbrained disastrous policy. So is the "malignant lunacy of monetary union," combining 17 dissimilar countries under one monetary/fiscal system.
Proposed FCC Media Consolidation Rules
by Stephen Lendman
In October 2007, then FCC chairman Kevin Martin proposed lifting the 1975 media cross-ownership rule. It forbid owning a newspaper and television or radio station in the same city even though conglomerates like Rupert Murdock's News Corp. and the (Chicago) Tribune Company already did.
On November 13, he expanded his earlier plan, claiming changes would only allow cross ownership "in the largest markets where there exists competition and numerous voices."
At the time, Free Press.net's policy director Ben Scott said:
From now on … Our Biggest Mistake is Believing We Are Free
Bob Alexander
On December 17, 2007 Senator Christopher Dodd spoke on the Senate floor against George W. Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping and telecom company amnesty compromise, “Clear, first-hand whistleblower documentary evidence [states] that for year on end every e-mail, every text message, and every phone call … hundreds of millions of private, domestic communications … have been copied in their entirety by AT&T and knowingly diverted wholesale … into a secret room controlled exclusively by the NSA.”
Then Senator Barack Obama announced he supported the amnesty "compromise" saying, “So I support the compromise, but do so with a firm pledge that as President, I will carefully monitor the program, review the report by the Inspectors General, and work with the Congress to take any additional steps I deem necessary to protect the lives -- and the liberty -- of the American people.”
Political Tyranny of the Few and the Mankind
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D.
By nature, politicians are problematic. They are constantly in conflict with the self, not knowing except pretending to be something they are not - an actor on stage - a puppet to entertain others, you will hardly find a man of politics with living conscious and discarding pretension and cynicism, and more obliged to public good.
The people’s revolution in America, Europe and across the globe called “Occupy Movement” has articulated inspiration from the struggle of the Egyptian people against the authoritarian tyranny at Tahrir Square to emerge as a force of courage and imagination for New Thinking and Change uniting the humanity as ONE against the tyranny of the few bankers, corporate warlords, billionaires, politicians and blood sucking draculas of the so called democracy who have never known homelessness, nor experienced poverty, unemployment and being outcastes in an overwhelming man-made class system of the few.
American Duplicity and Emerging New Arab Middle East
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D.
Discard cynicism and wickedness but be conscious that some contemporary politicians and monsters of history are often the two sides of the same picture enriched with perversion and treacherous escape from the facts of real life. They exhibit individualistic absolutism and despotic intents to gain irrational favors. This week, Newt Gingrich, the former US Speaker and if the political number game is relevant, the leading Republican candidate for the 2012 US Presidential Election, made extremely irresponsible remarks while talking to a Jewish cable TV host. Again on Saturday, the night of December 10, in the ABC televised election debate from Des Moines, Iowa State, Gingrich and four others candidates except Ron Paul (Senator from Texas) reiterated the falsified and deliberately misleading facts of the human history that Palestinians are “an invented people” and they should not be allowed to reclaim Palestine as they continue to make “murderous attacks against Israel.” They allege that “West Bank or other parts of the occupied territories are part of Israel.” All of these candidates are well briefed by the Jewish lobbyists / US official interests. Gingrich claims to be a historian to assert that “Palestinians” are no different than any other Arabs. It seems that some of these Republican candidates may have defied the record of history, honest logic and previous American active engagements in addressing the true aspirations of the people of Palestine who have been deprived of their promised national freedom and establishment of an Independent State of Palestine existing side by side with Israel. Gingrich and others cannot pretend to be ignorant but certainly to appease the powerful Washington political lobbyists and Jewish financiers support, they are using ignorance as an excuse to disregard and challenge the American history, official policies and global commitments.
<< 1 ... 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 ... 1271 >>
