Talk Nation Radio: Carl Gibson on Shutting Down the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
https://soundcloud.com/davidcnswanson/talk-nation-radio-carl-gibson
Carl Gibson is currently engaged in a Green Jobs March from Philadelphia to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., as part of a campaign called ShutTheChamber.org. You can join the march virtually by uploading a photo on their website, or you can join in reality at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce across from the White House at 10 a.m. Friday, May 24th. Gibson is lead organizer of ShutTheChamber and cofounder of USUncut. He discusses the damage the U.S. Chamber does to our political system pushing environmental destruction, wars, and the plutocratic concentration of wealth. Gibson says that small businesses paying dues to local chambers that themselves have little in common with the U.S. Chamber end up funding assaults on small businesses, as the local chambers fund the state chambers which fund the U.S. Chamber -- an institution that also serves to funnel vast quantities of unaccountable corporate money into politics.
Total run time: 29:00
Host: David Swanson.
Producer: David Swanson.
Music by Duke Ellington.
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Armed Forces Day, Graterford State Prison: Veterans and Pennsylvania's Criminal Justice System
By John Grant
PREFACE
CITIZEN ACTIVISTS CONFER WITH US ATTORNEY URGING AN INDICTMENT AGAINST U.S. PRESIDENT, CIA DIRECTOR, AND OTHERS FOR WAR CRIMES
Austria warns against arms shipments to Syrian rebels
By EUBusiness
(VIENNA) - Austria has warned its 26 European Union partners in a letter against providing weapons for rebel movements in the Syrian conflict, said a press report to be published Tuesday.
The foreign ministry in Vienna confirmed late Monday that a document had been handed over to the European Union in Brussels, but did not give details.
Die Presse newspaper said that Austria believes arms shipments to the rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad would be "a violation of international law, the basic laws of the European Union" and "of the principles of the United Nations charter concerning non-intervention and the use of force".
They would also violate UN Security Council resolutions concerning Al-Qaeda, it said.
In the letter Austria warned that groups like the Al-Nusra Front, which is "close to the terror network", were acting among the rebels, Die Presse said.
Following a move by France and Britain, the Islamist group, which has become one of the most feared fighting forces in Syria's two-year-old conflict, will be subject to a global asset freeze from Tuesday.
European Union sanctions against Syria are up for renewal at the end of the month, with France and Britain pushing for a lifting of the arms embargo so the rebels can receive weapons.
Die Presse said the letter warned that a lifting of the arms embargo would also lead to an end of all sanctions which can only be extended unanimously by all 27 EU members.
Those who lift the embargo would then also be responsible for unfreezing Assad's foreign bank accounts, it said.
Finland, Sweden and Baltic nations Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are also opposed to lifting the embargo, while most other EU nations, including Germany and Spain, have so far failed to clarify their positions.
Connecticut Advances Conversion from War to Peace Economy
The Connecticut legislature has sent to the governor to sign a bill that would create a commission to develop a plan for, among other things:
"the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries with an emphasis on encouraging environmentally-sustainable and civilian product manufacturing. On or before December 1, 2014, the commission shall submit such report to the Governor and, in accordance with the provisions of section 11-4a, to the joint standing committee of the General Assembly having cognizance of matters relating to commerce."
The commission "shall Advise the General Assembly and the Department of Economic and Community Development on issues relating to the diversification or conversion of defense-related industries" among other things.
Obama's War on Free Expression
Obama's War on Free Expression
by Stephen Lendman
It's the most fundamental right. Without it all others are endangered. Obama's waging war to destroy it. He's done so throughout his tenure.
He targeted AP. He did so unjustifiably. A previous article discussed it.
Israel Heads Closer to War on Syria
Israel Heads Closer to War on Syria
by Stephen Lendman
Syria is Washington's war. It was planned years ago. It began in early 2011. No end of conflict looks near. Escalating it appears likely.
Israel's very much involved. It abhors peace and stability. Its history reflects belligerence. It’s a direct threat. It borders Syria.
Syria News May 22
Syrian and Hezbollah Fighters Push Qusayr Assault - NYTimes.com
Hezbollah sends new fighters to bloody Syria battle - Yahoo!7
Syria: Turning Point in the Battle of Qusayr - Al Akhbar English
VIDEO (Arabic): FSA Colonel: Shiite/ Alawite Villages Will be Wiped Out if Qusair Falls - YouTube
Syria: Main al-Nusra Front commander killed in Qusayr clashes - PressTV
Footage from rebels shows Iranian munitions in Syria - The Times of Israel
U.K. Pushes EU Blacklisting of Hezbollah Military Wing - WSJ.com
Tripoli braces for the worst as fighting enters fourth day - THE DAILY STAR
Baalbek residents back Hezbollah in Qusair fight - THE DAILY STAR
Israeli military chief issues stark warning after Syria, Israel trade fire across border - Fox News
Syrian army says captured Israeli Jeep is proof of aid to rebels - FRANCE 24
VIDEO: Israeli Jeep Used by FSA Terrorists Found in Qusayr by the Syrian Army - YouTube
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UN mediator: Syria government, rebels preparing for peace talks - NBC World News
Syria submits five names for possible peace talks - AFP
Syria Opposition Signals Tough Line on Peace Talks - ABC News
Syrian National Coalition to partake in 'Friends of Syria' talks - Ammon News
Iran wants in on Syria peace conference - AFP
Turkey's green light to Iran role in Syria talks a welcome step - todayszaman
Lavrov warns of hidden obstacles in upcoming conference on Syria - Russia Beyond The Headlines
Russia's Lavrov on Solving Syria through Diplomacy (Text of Interview) - Informed Comment
Armed, Bearded Syrians Flourish In Southern Turkey - al-monitor.com
Three Chemical Weapon Specialist Answer Questions About Chemical Weapons In Syria - Brown Moses Blog
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Tensions Rise as Barzani Closes Syrian-Iraqi Kurdistan Border - Al-Monitor
Barzani warns PYD over its Syria policy in deepening row - todayszaman
Border Arrests Reveal Disunity, Conflict Among Syrian Kurds - Al-Monitor
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
Final Push for Signers & Donors for NY Times Full Page Ad
by Debra Sweet The timing could not be better for our message to appear in The New York Times. We are making a major push today for $9,703 to place the ad immediately for publication on stand-by this week. President Obama will give a major speech Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington, reportedly about drones and Guantanamo.
President Obama loves leaks, despises whistleblowers
With the revelation that the Department of Justice secretly obtained two months of The Associated Press’ telephone records and used security badge access records to track James Rosen’s visits to the State Department, along with a warrant to search Rosen’s personal emails, there has been a rush in the mainstream media to declare the DOJ’s actions to be part of what they claim to be President Obama’s aggressive pursuit of those who would leak secret information to the press.
For example, The Washington Post describes the DOJ’s investigation of AP as “part of a pattern in which the Obama administration has pursued current and former government officials suspected of releasing secret material. Six officials have been prosecuted, more than under all previous administrations combined.”
Meanwhile, The New York Times states that the investigation “comes against a backdrop of an aggressive policy by the Obama administration to rein in leaks. Under President Obama, six current and former government officials have been indicted in leak-related cases so far, twice the number brought under all previous administrations combined.”
The New York Times and The Washington Post are propagating a false narrative, one that depicts Obama as some sort of crusader hell bent on plugging all leaks. The reality is the Obama administration has either authorized or acquiesced to the leak of information that is deemed politically beneficial, while relentlessly investigating and prosecuting those who reveal information that reflects poorly on his administration and the U.S. government.
It is ironic that The Washington Post and The New York Times claim that the Obama administration has aggressively pursued leakers seeing that both media sources have happily provided Obama administration officials with anonymity so they can leak classified information favorable to the President without consequence.
Somehow, The Washington Posts’ June 1, 2012, report on the Obama administration’s use of cyber warfare must have slipped through the cracks at the White House and the DOJ. The Washington Post reported that the U.S. and Israel were behind Stuxnet, the cyberattack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Prior to this report, there had been speculation that the U.S. and Israel were behind the attack, but no official confirmation. Confirmation was provided to The Washington Post by an official “speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the classified effort code-named Olympic Games.”
These cracks must be enormous to have let the three dozen current and former Obama administration officials who contributed to The New York Time’s expose on drones slip through them. On May 29, 2012, The New York Times revealed that Obama maintains a ‘Kill List’ and that he counts all military-age males killed in drone strikes as combatants unless proven innocent posthumously. Regarding the president’s indiscriminate counting method, one official “requested anonymity to speak about what is still a classified program.”
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has charged six whistle-blowers, a term apparently not in The New York Times’s or The Washington Post’s editorial vocabulary, under the Espionage Act. These six individuals have revealed government waste, fraud, and abuse, acts of aggression, torture and war crimes. Yet, it is those who have revealed the criminal activity that have suffered prosecution by the Obama administration while those who actually committed the crimes have gone unpunished.
On Feb. 22, 2012, in response to Obama’s deserved glowing praise of journalists in Syria, Jake Tapper asked White House press secretary Jay Carney, “How does that square with the fact that this administration has been so aggressively trying to stop aggressive journalism in the United States by using the Espionage Act to take whistle-blowers to court?”
The Obama administration has sent a clear message. Government officials and journalists who wish to work together to create news stories through the leak of classified information that portray the president and his administration in a positive light should have no fear. And to the journalists and whistle-blowers thinking about publishing that other kind of classified information, be prepared to have your emails read, your phones tapped without your knowledge and your life and career turned upside down.
Bachman is a professorial lecturer in Human Rights at the School of International Service at American University.
Antiwar.com Sues FBI After Secret Surveillance
Antiwar.com is taking the FBI to court.
The website’s founder and managing editor Eric Garris, along with longtime editorial director Justin Raimondo, filed a lawsuit in federal court today, demanding the release of records they believe the FBI is keeping on them and the 17-year-old online magazine.
Antiwar.com says this is one more example of post-9/11 government overreach, and a stark reminder that the First Amendment has been treated as little more than a speed bump on the road to a government surveillance state. The lawsuit is particularly timely, considering recent scandals in which the Department of Justice secretly seized months of journalists’ phone records at the Associated Press, and did the same and more to a FOX News reporter, while the IRS is acknowledging it singled out conservative groups that criticize the government for extra scrutiny.
Suddenly, the press is more aware than ever that the state has the ability to secretly monitor its activities, heretofore thought of as constitutionally protected from government interference and intimidation.
“Freedom of the press is a cornerstone of our democracy, whether it’s AP or Antiwar.com,” said Julia Harumi Mass, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, which is representing Antiwar.com in the case. “FBI surveillance of news organizations interferes with journalists’ ability to do their jobs as watchdogs that hold the government accountable.”
The suit was filed on Tuesday at the United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division. Both Garris and Raimondo live and work in the San Francisco Bay area.
Are Japanese Bonds Signaling Trouble?
Are Japanese Bonds Signaling Trouble?
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed the disconnect between soaring markets and troubled economies. Liquidity driven markets only skyrocket so long.
What can't go on forever, won't. No one's sure when. Eventually the music stops. When that happens, watch out. Signals provide clues.
The Reason for Hunger Strikes-from Northern Ireland to Guantanamo
By Ann Wright
I'm in Northern Ireland and yesterday on May 20, 2013, I spoke with several members of the Northern Ireland Parliament. With over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo on a 100 day hunger strike, the Obama administration would be wise to talk to some of them too--about the importance and legacy of hungerstrikes.
In 1981, Pat Sheehan was one of the Maze Prison hunger strikers-a hunger strike that brought huge international attention to the Northern Ireland "Troubles," with the goal of forcing the British government to treat those imprisoned as political prisoners, not criminals. Hunger strikers demanded the right to wear civilian clothes, the right to education and recreational opportunities, freedom from work obligations, and a set of other benefits not afforded to other inmates.Pat was on the hunger strike for 55 days and still alive when the hunger strike was called off by the prisoners.
Bobby Sands became the most famous of the 10 who died during the hunger strikes when he was elected to Parliament while on the hunger strike-Francis Hughes, Raymond McLeish, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, Michael Devine also died.
After one prisoner died from his lung punctured from a feeding tube through the throat, the British ended force feeding those on hunger strikes. The British government eventually granted most of the hunger strikers’ demands. Public opinion changed dramatically in favor of those imprisoned and on the hunger strike.
Now Pat Sheehan is a member of the Northern Ireland Parliament. The Good Friday Peace Accord brokered by the Clinton administration brought to a close, a violent chapter in British and Northern Ireland relationships. The Peace Accord allowed former political prisoners to become part of the political process.
One never knows the future of those who have been imprisoned for political crimes--after peace talks, many may become political leaders, like Gerry Adams and Pat Sheehan. No one can predict the future paths of those in Guantanamo, but one can be assured that the continued imprisonment of those cleared for release from Guantanamo is disastrous for the individual and for the United States.
President Obama would be wise to call former hunger striker and now Northern Ireland Parliamentarian Pat Sheehan!
About the Author: Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She also worked as a US diplomat for 16 years and served in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US government in 2003 in opposition to President Bush’s war on Iraq. In 2006, she was on a delegation to Guantanamo, Cuba to challenge the US prison at Guantanamo.
Tales in a Kabul Restaurant
By Kathy Kelly
Kabul--Since 2009, Voices for Creative Nonviolence has maintained a grim record we call the “The Afghan AtrocitiesUpdate” which gives the dates, locations, numbers and names of Afghan civilians killed by NATO forces. Even with details culled from news reports, these data can't help but merge into one large statistic, something about terrible pain that's worth caring about but that is happening very far away.
It’s one thing to chronicle sparse details about these U.S. led NATO attacks. It’s quite another to sit across from Afghan men as they try, having broken down in tears, to regain sufficient composure to finish telling us their stories. Last night, at a restaurant in Kabul, I and two friends from the Afghan Peace Volunteers met with five Pashtun men from Afghanistan’s northern and eastern provinces. The men had agreed to tell us about their experiences living in areas affected by regular drone attacks, aerial bombings and night raids. Each of them noted that they also fear Taliban threats and attacks. “What can we do,” they asked, “when both sides are targeting us?”
THE FIRST RESPONDER’S TALE
Jamaludeen, an emergency medical responder from Jalalabad, is a large man, with a serious yet kindly demeanor. He began our conversation by saying that he simply doesn’t understand how one human being can inflict so much harm on another. Last winter, NATO forces fired on his cousin, Rafiqullah, age 30, who was studying to be a pediatrics specialist.
"A suicide bomber had apparently blown himself up near the airport. My cousin and two other men were riding in a car on a road leading to the airport. It was 6:15 AM. When they'd realized that NATO helicopters and tanks were firing missiles, they had left their car and huddled on the roadside, but they were easily seen. A missile exploded near them, seriously wounding Rafiqullah and another passenger, while killing their driver, Hayatullah."
Hayatullah, our friend told us, was an older man, about 45 years old, who left behind a wife, two boys and one daughter.
Although badly wounded, Rafiqullah and his fellow passenger could still speak. A U.S. tank arrived and they began pleading with the NATO soldiers to take them to the hospital. “I am a doctor,” said Rafiqullah's fellow passenger, a medical student named Siraj Ahmad. “Please save me!” But the soldiers handcuffed the two wounded young men and awaited a decision about what to do next. Rafiqullah died there, by the side of the road. Still handcuffed, Siraj Ahmad was taken, not to a hospital, but to the airport, perhaps to await evacuation. That was where he died. He was aged 35 and had four daughters. Rafiqullah, aged 30, leaves three small girls behind.
And Jamaludeen knows that those girls, in one sense are lucky. Four years ago, he tried to bring first aid as an early responder to a wedding party attacked by NATO forces. Only he couldn’t, because there were no survivors. 54 people were killed, all of them (except for the bridegroom) women and children. “It was like hell,” said Dr. Jamaludeen. “I saw little shoes, covered with blood, along with pieces of clothing and musical instruments. It was very, very terrible to me. The NATO soldiers knew these people were not a threat.”
THE MANUAL LABORER'S TALE
Kocji, who makes a living doing manual laborer, is from a village of 400 families. His story took place three weeks ago. It started with a telephoned warning that Taliban forces had entered the Surkh Rod district of Jalalabad, which is where his village is located. That day, at about 10:00 p.m., NATO forces entered his village en masse. Some soldiers landed on rooftops and slid expertly to the ground on rope ladders. When they entered homes, they would lock women and children in one room while they beat the men, shouting questions as the women and children screamed to be released. On this raid, no one was killed, and no one was taken away. It turned out that NATO troops had acted on a false report and discovered their error quickly. False reports are a constant risk. - In any village some families will feud with each other, and NATO troops can be brought into those feuds, unwittingly and very easily, and sometimes with deadly consequences. Kocji objects to NATO forces ordering attacks without first asking more questions and trying to find out whether or not the report is valid. He’d been warned of a threat from one direction, but the threats actually come from all sides.
THE STUDENT’S TALE
Rizwad, a student from the Pech district of the Kunar province, spoke next.
Twenty-five days ago, between 3 and 4 a.m., twelve children were collecting firewood in the mountains not far from his village. The children were between 7 and 8 years old. Rizwad actually saw the fighter plane flying overhead towards the mountains. When it reached them, it fired on the twelve children, leaving no survivors. Rizwad’s 8 year old cousin, Nasrullah, a schoolboy in the third grade, was among the dead that morning.
The twelve children belonged to eight families from the same village. When the villagers found the bloodied and dismembered bodies of their children, they gathered together to demand from the provincial government some reason as to why NATO forces had killed them. “It was a mistake,” they were told.
"It is impossible for the people to talk with the U.S. military,” says Rizwad. “Our own government tries to calm us down by saying they will look into the matter."
THE FARMER’S TALE
Riazullah from Chapria Marnu spoke next. Fifteen days previously, three famers in Riazullah's area had been working to irrigate their wheat field. It was early afternoon, about 3:30 p.m. One of the men was only eighteen - he had been married for five months. The other two farmers were in their mid-forties. Their names were Shams Ulrahman, Khadeem and Miragah, and Miragah’s two little daughters were with them.
Eleven NATO tanks arrived. One tank fired missiles which killed the three men and the two little girls. “What can we do?” asked Riazullah. “We are caught between the Taliban and the internationals. Our local government does not help us.”
THE STORY OF U.S./NATO OCCUPATION
The world doesn't seem to ask many questions about Afghan civilians whose lives are cut short by NATO or Taliban forces. Genuinely concerned U.S. friends say they can't really make sense of our list - news stories merge into one large abstraction, into statistics, into "collateral damage," in a way that comparable (if much smaller and less frequent) attacks on U.S. civilians do not. People here in Afghanistan naturally don’t see themselves as a statistic; they wonder why the NATO soldiers treat civilians as battlefield foes at the slightest hint of opposition or danger; why the U.S. soldiers and drones kill unarmed suspects on anonymous tips when people around the world know suspects deserve safety and a trial, innocent until proven guilty.
“All of us keep asking why the internationals kill us,” said Jamaludeen. “One reason seems to be that they don’t differentiate between people. The soldiers fear any bearded Afghan who wears a turban and traditional clothes. But why would they kill children? It seems they have a mission. They are told to go and get the Taliban. When they go out in their planes and their tanks and their helicopters, they need to be killing, and then they can report that they have completed their mission.”
These are the stories being told here. NATO and its constituent nations may have other accounts to give of themselves, but they aren’t telling them very convincingly, or well. The stories told by bomb blasts or by shouting home-invading soldiers drown out other competing sentiments and seem to represent all that the U.S./NATO occupiers ever came here to say. We who live in countries that support NATO, that tolerate this occupation, bear responsibility to hear the tales told by Afghans who are trapped by our war of choice. These tales are part of our history now, and this history isn’t popular in Afghanistan. It doesn’t play well when the U.S. and NATO forces state that we came here because of terrorism, because of a toll in lost civilian lives already exceeded in Afghanistan during just the first three months of a decade-long war – that we came in pious concern over precious stories that should not be cut short.
Kathy Kelly, (kathy@vcnv.org), co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org She is living in Kabul for the month of May as a guest of the Afghan Peace Volunteers (http://ourjourneytosmile.com/blog/)
Photo caption: Twelve children killed in the Kunar province, April 2013
Photo credit: Namatullah Karyab for The New York Times
Reinventing Guatemalan History
Reinventing Guatemalan History
by Stephen Lendman
History reinventors support despots. Social democrats are vilified. Crimes of war, against humanity and genocide are sanitized. They're whitewashed. They disappear in plain sight.
Wall Street Journal columnist Mary O'Grady tried reinventing Guatemalan history. She failed. More on that below.
Supreme Court Colludes with Monsanto
Supreme Court Colludes with Monsanto
by Stephen Lendman
It's no surprise. Michael Parenti calls America's High Court its "autocratic branch."
It's notoriously pro-business. It's longstanding. In Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railway (1886), it granted corporations legal personhood.
Iran War Weekly - May 20, 2013
Iran War Weekly
May 20, 2013
Hello All – It’s official. After almost a year of no progress in negotiations between “the West” and Iran about Iran’s nuclear program, last week’s meetings in Istanbul confirmed that there would be, indeed, no progress until at least after Iran’s presidential election, which will take place on June 14th. Whatever the outcome of the election, it is likely that the post-election resumption of talks (if any) will take place in an international landscape greatly altered by the fighting in Syria.
Syria News May 21
Battle in Syria Pulls Hezbollah Further Into Assad’s War - NYTimes.com
Obama voices concern to Lebanon on Hezbollah role in Syria - Reuters
Syria Says the Army Restores Security and Stability to Most of al-Qseir in Homs- SANA, Syria
Senior Hizbullah Official Killed in Syria Fighting - Israel National News
FSA: Mustafa Badreddine Leading Hizbullah Operations in Qusayr — Naharnet
Hariri slams state inaction over Hezbollah role in Syria - THE DAILY STAR
Tensions over Syria convulse Lebanese city again, 5 killed - Reuters
Attacks kill 95 in Iraq, hint of Syrian spillover - Yahoo! News
Iraqi campaign boosts Iraq-Syria border security - Al-Shorfa
Tribal and Islamist clashes in Syria reveal deep divisions - The National
Syria's Raqa opposition chief kidnapped, NGO says - afp
Video shows Syrian Islamists flogging men over illegal marriage - Yahoo! News
VIDEO: Sharia in Syria - whipping of men - LiveLeak.com
VIDEO: Evidence Of Iranian Arms Provided To Syria In The Past 18 Months - Brown Moses Blog
VIDEO: Syria crisis: 'Iraqi Shia fighters' join regime in battle - BBC News
VIDEO: Syria's makeshift oil refineries: 'It is like hell' – guardian.co.uk
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Friends of Syria to push for peace conference - AFP
Russia: Assad foes must come to Syria meeting without conditions - Reuters
Syria top priority as Saudi crown prince visits Turkey - Alarabiya.net
William Hague hints at veto of Syria arms ban - FT.com
Syrian opposition meets in Madrid over conflict - AFP
Syria, Russia, and the S-300: Military and Technical Background - canadafreepress.co
VIDEO: The coalition of peaceful change forces welcomes peace initative for Syria - YouTube
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
CIA: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone
There's a contradiction built into every campaign promise about transparent government beyond the failure to keep the promises. Our government is, in significant portion, made up of secret operations, operations that include warmaking, kidnapping, torture, assassination, and infiltrating and overthrowing governments. A growing movement is ready to see that end.
The Central Intelligence Agency is central to our foreign policy, but there is nothing intelligent about it, and there is no good news to be found regarding it. Its drone wars are humanitarian and strategic disasters. The piles of cash it keeps delivering to Hamid Karzai fuel corruption, not democracy. Whose idea was it that secret piles of cash could create democracy? (Nobody's, of course, democracy being the furthest thing from U.S. goals.) Lavishing money on potential Russian spies and getting caught helps no one, and not getting caught would have helped no one. Even scandals that avoid mentioning the CIA, like Benghazigate, are CIA blowback and worse than we're being told.
We've moved from the war on Iraq, about which the CIA lied, and its accompanying atrocities serving as the primary recruiting tool for anti-U.S. terrorists, to the drone wars filling that role. We've moved from kidnapping and torture to kidnapping and torture under a president who, we like to fantasize, doesn't really mean it. But the slave-owners who founded this country knew very well what virtually anyone would do if you gave them power, and framed the Constitution so as not to give presidents powers like these.
There are shelves full in your local bookstore of books pointing out the CIA's outrageous incompetence. The brilliant idea to give Iran plans for a nuclear bomb in order to prevent Iran from ever developing a nuclear bomb is one of my favorites.
But books that examine the illegality, immorality, and anti-democratic nature of even what the CIA so ham-handedly intends to do are rarer. A new book called Dirty Wars, also coming out as a film in June, does a superb job. I wrote a review a while back. Another book, decades old now, might be re-titled "Dirty Wars The Prequel." I'm thinking of Douglas Valentine's The Phoenix Program. 
It you read The Phoenix Program about our (the CIA's and "special" forces') secret crimes in Eastern Asia and Dirty Wars about our secret crimes in Western Asia, and remember that similar efforts were focused on making life hell for millions of people in Latin America in between these twin catastrophes, and that some of those running Phoenix were brought away from similar sadistic pursuits in the Philippines, it becomes hard to play along with the continual pretense that each uncovered outrage is an aberration, that the ongoing focus of our government's foreign policy "isn't who we are."
Targeted murders with knives in Vietnam were justified with the same rhetoric that now justifies drone murders. The similarities include the failure of primary goals, the counterproductive blowback results, the breeding of corruption abroad and at home, the moral and political degradation, the erosion of democratic ways of thinking, and -- of course -- the racist arrogance and cultural ignorance that shape the programs and blind their participants to what they are engaged in. The primary difference between Phoenix and drone kills is that the drones don't suffer PTSD. The same, however, cannot be said for the drone pilots.
"The problem," wrote Valentine, "was one of using means which were antithetical to the desired end, of denying due process in order to create a democracy, of using terror and repression to foster freedom. When put into practice by soldiers taught to think in conventional military and moral terms, Contre Coup engendered transgressions on a massive scale. However, for those pressing the attack on VCI, the bloodbath was constructive, for indiscriminate air raids and artillery barrages obscured the shadow war being fought in urban back alleys and anonymous rural hamlets. The military shield allowed a CIA officer to sit behind a steel door in a room in the U.S. Embassy, insulated from human concern, skimming the Phoenix blacklist, selecting targets for assassination, distilling power from tragedy."
At some point, enough of us will recognize that government conducted behind a steel door can lead only to ever greater tragedy.
In an email that Valentine wrote for RootsAction.org on Monday, he wrote: "Through its bottomless black bag of unaccounted-for money, much of it generated by off-the-books proprietary companies and illegal activities like drug smuggling, the CIA spreads corruption around the world. This corruption undermines our own government and public officials. And the drone killings of innocent men, women, and children generate fierce resentment.. . .Tell your representative and senators right now that the CIA is the antithesis of democracy and needs to be abolished."
America: A Modern-Day Sparta
America: A Modern-Day Sparta
by Stephen Lendman
Permanent war is longstanding policy. America deplores peace. Throughout its history, it's waged war annually at home and/or abroad. Today it does so globally.
Giving peace a chance is loathed. Direct or proxy wars rage in multiple countries.
Guantanamo Force-Feeding Constitutes Torture
Guantanamo Force-Feeding Constitutes Torture
by Stephen Lendman
Guantanamo detention constitutes torture, abuse and ill-treatment. Long-term detention compounds it.
Force-feeding increases unconscionable pain and suffering. Doing so violates core rule of law principles.
Syria News May 20
Syrian Army, Hezbollah Move Into Rebel-Held Qusayr - NYTimes.com
Benjamin Netanyahu threatens more Israeli strikes on Syria - Telegraph
Syria ready to unleash missiles on Tel Aviv if attacked by Israel - The Sunday Times
VIDEO: Syrian TV coverage of Army's Military Operations to Retake the Key City of Qusayr - YouTube
VIDEO: Rebels film Qusayr under bombardment - YouTube
VIDEO: FSA Casualties in the Battle of Al-Qusayr - YouTube
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EU decision to lift Syrian oil sanctions boosts jihadist groups - guardian.co.uk
Al-Qaeda plunders Syria's oilfields - Independent.ie
VIDEO: The Telegraph visits the oil fields of Syria - YouTube
Syria: Jabhat al-Nusra split after leader's pledge of support for al-Qaeda - Telegraph
Jabhat al-Nusra - A Strategic Briefing - quilliamfoundation.org
VIDEO: Sharia in Syria - whipping of men - LiveLeak.com
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Time limits on Syria conference ‘counterproductive’ – Lavrov - The Voice of Russia
EU more viable model for Syrian Kurds than Iraq’s Kurdistan: PYD leader Salih Muslim - ekurd
Assad says no info on journalists missing in Syria - AFP
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies
Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies
by Stephen Lendman
Forget everything you learned about markets, economics and finance. Perhaps Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and other noted figures were wrong.
Central banks run today's world. Major ones matter most. Money printing madness controls everything. Love doesn't make the world go round. Liquidity-driven markets reflect the power of bankers to do it.
America Honors Its Worst
America Honors Its Worst
by Stephen Lendman
Presidential Medals of Freedom are awarded annually. They mock what they claim to represent. Many go to deplorable recipients.
Previous dishonorees include GHW Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates, Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair, Shimon Peres, Margaret Thatcher, Alvaro Uribe, Colin Powell, Madeleine Albright, and Alan Greenspan among others.
Why Obama Can & Should Close Guantanamo NOW
by Debra Sweet While promoting the message to Close Guantanamo that we are raising funds to publish in The New York Times, we have been hearing, especially in the Twitterverse, that people think, because Obama promised to close Guantanamo, and says that Congress is not allowing him to do that, the main problem is with Congress.
Syria News May 19
Syria's Assad says he won't leave before elections are held in his country - Yahoo! News
VIDEO: Interview: Bashar al-Assad on Syria and the international community – guardian.co.uk
Syrian army thwarts infiltration from Lebanon - AFP
Official: Gunmen abduct father of Syria deputy FM - AFP
Syrian opposition considers sacking its interim PM Hitto - McClatchy
Kurdish Youth Groups in Syria Blame Opposition Parties for Divisions - Rudaw
One Year After the Houla Massacre. New Report on Official vs. Real Truth - globalresearch.ca
Was The Attack In Saraqeb Chemical Weapons, Or Something Else (VIDEOS)? - Brown Moses Blog
VIDEO: Saudi cannibal rebel in Syria is interviewed, He ate the heart of a soldier - YouTube
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VIDEO: Turkish citizens blame government negligence for border town blasts - YouTube
Assad accuses Israel of providing intelligence to Syrian rebels - Haaretz Daily Newspaper
Tunisia to reopen its embassy in Syria - Medafrica Times
Lebanon arrests a network smuggling Syrian antiquities - Ya Libnan
Hackers target Saudi government websites - Al Jazeera English
To contact Bartolo email peaceloversingle@gmail.com
IRS Scandals: MoreThan Meets the Eye
IRS Scandal Headlines: More Than Meets the Eye
by Stephen Lendman
More than targeting political enemies is involved. More on than below. The practice is longstanding. Republican and Democrat administrations use the IRS abusively.
During the Coolidge administration, Republican Senator James Couzens investigated the IRS' predecessor - the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
