The "other half" of Amb. Freeman's very recent public utterances.
The interviewer Malsin was very competent in asking the right questions

By Jared Malsin

New York – When it comes to the normally stultified American debate on Middle East issues, Charles Freeman, the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is one of the most outspoken US officials.

His pronouncements, by his own admission, break established taboos against criticism of Israel, against skepticism about the two-state solution, against supporting engagement with Hamas. And the central taboo, he argues, which underpins the others, prohibits discussion of the role of right wing organizations lobbying for Israel, such as AIPAC.

Another "FACT" Buster:

By Mehdi Hasan–

Our ex-prime minister is still the best Bliar in the business.

I’m knackered and sleepy, hungry from all the Ramadan fasting and — officially — on vacation. But I couldn’t go to bed without commenting on Tony Blair’s new book, A Journey, extracts of which have been published online here.

Much of the instant attention from the chattering classes in the Westminster village has been on the Gordon Brown (GB) chapter, and on Martin Kettle’s pre-publication interview with Tony Blair (TB) in the Guardian, in which the latter says he always believed GB would be a “disaster” as prime minister.

Loud noises from Washington about a US pull-out from Iraq are a poor disguise for America’s determination to keep waging war. And the same sort of spin is at work here in Britain

Forest fires have flared up again in Russia, this time in the south, forcing hundreds of people to leave their homes. 20 villages in the region of Volgograd have been affected so far. Temperatures here have topped 40 degrees celsius in recent days.

This is a local disaster with potentially global consequences.

Officials now say Russia’s embargo on the export of wheat will not be lifted before next year’s harvest.

Ambassador Charles W. (“Chas”) Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)

Remarks to staff of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and, separately, to members of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs –

You have asked me to speak to current American policies in the Middle East, with an emphasis on the prospects for peace in the Holy Land. You have further suggested that I touch on the relationship of the Gulf Arabs, especially Saudi Arabia, to this. It is both an honor and a challenge to address this subject in this capital / at this ministry.

While the democratically elected government of Palestine is left out of "Peace" negotiations between Israel and Palestine, yes they still call it "Peace negotiations", the Jordanian and Egyptian governments have been invited to partner the negotiations as has been going on every two years, with no results. The name of the game is: “Waltz Me Around Again, Willie.” Have these men no shame ?

--Debbie Menon

Salem-News.Com

President Obama with leaders of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Jordan & Egypt, White House Photo, Pete Souza, 9/1/10

Remarks by President Obama, President Mubarak, His Majesty King Abdullah, Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas Before Working Dinner?. East Room 7:05 P.M. EDT

Here’s a news flash for Tel Aviv: it’s not a sign of respect when the bulk of humanity views you as psychopathic.

The concerns of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are misplaced. The legitimacy of Israel is no longer threatened. It’s already lost. Long gone. Kaput.

Nation states are shared states of mind. The mindset in Iceland differs from India. Israel is the most unlike of all. Founded by extremists and terrorists, it’s been downhill ever since.

Psychopaths want to be loved. That’s why they’re so charming, albeit only superficially. They’re also pathological liars, egocentric, callous and remorseless.

By Alan Hart — My Catbird Seat

I never thought a day could come when I would agree with anything stated by Moshe Arens (three times an Israeli minister of defense, a one-time foreign minister, a former ambassador to the U.S. and, in my opinion, Zionism’s in-Israel equivalent of Richard “Prince of Darkness” Perle in America). But the day came.

On 31 August, in article for Ha’aretz with the headline Blame game on the horizon. Arens wrote the following about the nakedness of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as he was making his final preparations for the start of direct negotiations in Washington DC.

Any serious effort to understand the extraordinary influence of the Zionist power configuration over US foreign policy must examine the presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government andlocal Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders.

There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix).

A YouTube video of Maidhc Ó Cathail’s article on the “radical Muslims” behind the South Park controversy shows just how easy it is to foster Islamophobia in America…

Like the contrived Danish cartoon controversy, the much-hyped Times Square car bomb incident provided an ideal opportunity for those who seek to make Islam look bad in the eyes of the world.

Before the arrest of Faisal “The Fizzler”...

Go here to view and read the the full article:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/09/view-video-how-to-foster-islamophobia...

History is subjective, though it was never meant to be. Real history has never been in danger as it is today. World War II wasn’t the “clean war” we purport it to be but as dirty as World War I. Everything in its aftermath has required a mythology, from misrepresenting, not only the war but the bases of our remaining conflict, what we call the “war or terror.” Hollywood is a major tool in this process. No, Italians didn’t start organized crime but partnered with Jewish crime organizations long in existence as “junior brothers.” Is Osama bin Laden a terrorist mastermind running the world from a cave in Pakistan or is he a long dead former CIA asset and Al Qaeda a dream created by military and intelligence groups?

Well, THIS is scary!!!

Everything taking place today viz a viz Israel and the Jewish people is about turning back the clock and undoing history. While the rest of the world has moved forward, they are a people who have remained frozen in time, back when a jealous, vindictive God supposedly promised them the world and everything with it. As such, they are holding on to a lottery ticket they say has all the winning numbers on it, even though it is for a lottery that does not exist, and they are out to collect every cent of what they say is theirs.

By Gus Bridi (Sabbah Report)

“There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.”- Newt Gingrich

Has Lebanon officially become more tolerant and progressive than the United States?

Let’s talk about Lebanon’s Ground Zero and you can decide for yourself.

One must first understand what “Ground Zero” means to most Lebanese.

Antiwar.com radio

Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.

"There would have been no aggression and blood if not the rearmament of Georgia two years ago; we had been telling this to our partners, including to our European friends; and everyone kept silence; and how did it all ended? It led up to the war. This rearmament continues today," Putin said.

This is Russia's escape clause in the flawed 6-point ceasefire agreement which Sarkozy screwed up while he was so busy looking in the mirror at himself on the world stage.

By Alan Hart for My Catbird Seat

Short answer. Iran’s President Ahmadinejad did NOT call for Israeli Jews to be annihilated. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel’s Shas party, HAS called, more than once, for the Palestinians (and, in fact, all Arabs) to be exterminated.

As reported by the mainstream Western media, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. What that meant, it was asserted, was the destruction, the driving into the sea, of Israel’s Jews.

This superlative op-ed, which I read at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29abunimah.html, provides ample evidence to justify my great respect for Ali Abunimah. He’s fearless, uncompromising, articulate, knowledgeable in both historical and current facts, and right: right for our America, right for Palestine, and, yes, right even for Israel, if only it were capable of regaining its sanity and applying norms of morality, law and justice commonly accepted by the community of man. If right were to take hold and to prevail in our country, Ali Abunimah would be on the evening news as an analyst/commentator every night, every channel.

Thanks to the New York Times for (unexpectedly, to be sure) offering space to him.

– Robert H. Stiver
Pearl City, Hawaii

By Mike Whitney ( Information Clearing House)

– Robert Herz was forced to resign from his job as chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) because he insisted that the banks assign a fair value to their assets. That’s not what you’ll read in the papers, but it’s true just the same. Herz was a major proponent of mark-to-market accounting, a simple means of determining the value of a bond or security by comparing the price of similar assets sold at market. In other words, Herz is a defender of universally-accepted accounting principles, which is why he was terminated, er, I mean, resigned. According to the Wall Street Journal:

By Gordon Duff

IS THE SILENCE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE COMPLICITY IN WAR CRIMES?

I am not against war. I am a combat veteran. I sit on my tail, watch TV, go to restaurants and have fond delusional memories about Vietnam. In my bedroom closet, I have a trash bag. It is never opened, it has been there for years. It has, along with other “military mementos,” a small green “government issued” address book. Marines, long ago, scrawled their names in it. Half of them never came back from Vietnam, never had children, grandchildren, got to finish college or even high school. Many, maybe most, had never had sex, owned a car or traveled more than 50 miles from home.

By Stuart Littlewood

The Palestinians’ champion – their White Knight – is preparing to ride forth next week and do battle at the negotiating table with the racist regime’s Black Knight and his minder, the Great Satan.

The rules of chivalry don’t apply, so the outcome is not in doubt.

However, the White Knight is not quite as white or brave as he seems. Eager to do his lord’s bidding, Mahmoud Abbas is a willing fall guy. On this occasion Obama has imperiously snapped his fingers and announced he wants direct talks started “well before” the Black Knight (aka Israeli prime minister Netanyahu) ends the partial freeze on illegal settlements in a month’s time.

And, by the way, US mid-term elections are coming up in two months’ time and Obama has to look good.

So Abbas jumped.

Dr. Lawrence Davidson
We invaded a country and overthrew its dictator. Americans might take pride in that accomplishment if it were not for the fact that we did so on false pretenses. In other words, we initiated war on the basis of lies rather than actual self-defense. Such an action constitutes the most serious of international crimes. It is the one for which the Nazi leaders were tried at Nuremberg.

Bishop Donald R.Corder
Now we are faced with reports of Zionist participation in blowing up the World Trade Center on 9/11. Articles are circulated throughout the Internet and alternative media channels, elaborating upon the Israeli government’s fabrication of intelligence and the subsequent war in Iraq, the subsequent execution of their rightful sovereign Saddam Hussein and murdering of hundreds of thousand of Iraqi civilians

Interviewer Peter B. Collins

LINK TO PETER B. COLLINS INTERVIEW

"THE WORLD ACCORDING TO DUFF"

MyCatbirdSeat –

Remarkable in its sense of human sensibilities and awareness. This poem reaches beyond the understanding of most westerners, who have been fed on the poison of the White Man’s burden, but it will, someday, when it is all over, be treasured as an everlasting gem of light, a spark in the period of the darkest darkness.

William Blake, another poet of Universal humanitarian dimensions was once imprisoned for his poetry in the narrow cell of his own culture.

–MCS

Watch the video here:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/the-capture-of-saddam-hussein-by-rich...

By Gilad Atzmon –

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon:

Living in a world dominated by relentless Zionist lobbying, I am far from being captivated by the current state of Western democracy. I am not impressed at all by the lethal enthusiasm to democratize the World in the name of ‘moral interventionism’.

I am sickened by the murderous zeal that led the USA and Britain into a criminal war that left already more than 1.5 million Iraqi fatalities….

By Alan Hart (My Catbird Seat)

I have written and often say that very many if not most Jews do not want to know the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel. (An essential element of the truth being that Israel was created, mainly, by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing).

Read the full article and more here:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/do-most-israelis-and-many-other-jews-...

by Bishop Donald R. Corder
Senator William J. Fulbright fought to force the American Zionist Council to register as agents of a foreign government. The Council eluded registration by reorganizing as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC has since become what Fulbright most feared: a foreign agent dominating American foreign policy while disguised as a domestic lobby.

By Stephen J. Sniegoski (My Catbird Seat)

The mainstream media acclaim Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement as the best book on neoconservatism—the definitive account—and portray its author, Justin Vaïsse, a French specialist on American foreign policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as a veritable Alexis de Tocqueville for his masterly insights.

The mainstream’s high praise of this book, however, would seem to be due in large part to its minimization of two taboo issues—neoconservatism’s Jewish nature and its focus on Israel. Where the book breaks through what was heretofore largely blacked-out in the mainstream media is its discussion of the major role played by the neoconservatives in bringing about the war on Iraq.

READ THE FULL REVIEW HERE:

"Despite the fact that Obama and the Europeans act like Abbas is the head of a Palestine government, he represents almost no one but a largely corrupt cabal armed and financed by the Americans and the European Union"

By Stephen J. Sniegoski

The mainstream media acclaim Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement as the best book on neoconservatism—the definitive account—and portray its author, Justin Vaïsse, a French specialist on American foreign policy and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as a veritable Alexis de Tocqueville for his masterly insights. The mainstream’s high praise of this book, however, would seem to be due in large part to its minimization of two taboo issues—neoconservatism’s Jewish nature and its focus on Israel. Where the book breaks through what was heretofore largely blacked-out in the mainstream media is its discussion of the major role played by the neoconservatives in bringing about the war on Iraq.

Israeli intelligence steps up its activity in the U.S. — and gets away with it.

FOR OUR FRIENDS WHO STILL DON’T GET IT

How can a nation like the United States be duped into two wars and total bankruptcy? It would be one thing if the “truth” about 9/11 was internet conspiracy theory. This isn’t the case. It was all right there in everyone’s living room. They fooled us once and then fooled us again and again. Yes, America has some tail to kick but this time, maybe we should make sure our boot goes up the right rear end for a change.

Greta Berlin for Free Gaza Team:

Excerpts:

Two years ago today, 44 people from 17 countries were on the Mediterranian heading toward Gaza. We were in two dilapidated fishing boats, the seas were rough, most of us were seasick, and all of us were worried that Israeli military warships would prevent us from getting into the illegally blockaded port of Gaza.

We successfully went in four more times, taking in another 100+ witnesses, European members of Parliament, charity workers from the Gulf, doctors, activists who stayed to work in Gaza, and Palestinians who just wanted to go home and visit. We brought out 38 Palestinians, including students who had visas to attend universities, yet Israel would not allow them to leave.

Read the Full Story here:

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (www.peacepeople.com)

Dear BBC Panorama Team

I write to you regarding your programme of 16th August, 2010, about The Freedom Flotilla and particularly the killings of unarmed civilians by Israeli Navy Seals on the ship MV “Mavi Marmara’, on 3lst May, 2010.

I have been campaigning for the rights of Palestinians for over ten years. I have visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories many times. I was part of the Freedom Flotilla in May on the MV ‘Rachel Corrie’, my third journey on a Free Gaza boat. I am deeply disappointed at the misrepresentation, lack of truth, and bias displayed by your programme.

By Medea Benjamin (opednews.com)
With the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, the administration, the military and the media are trying to put a positive spin on this grim chapter of U.S. history. It would certainly give some comfort to the grieving families of the over 4,400 soldiers killed in Iraq if their sacrifices had left Iraq a better place or made America safer. But the bitter truth is that the U.S. intervention has been an utter disaster for both Iraq and the United States.

By Bob Nichols – Veterans Today

(San Francisco) Many people are asking if Iran can build a nuclear weapon. The answer is No, they cannot. Iran does not have the tools or material to do so. Some 40 countries would probably like to build a reactor, though, according to the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. A reactor is the first step to a nuclear weapon.

But, the President of the US, politicians in Israel and other important people say Iran “might” be able to build a weapon in a few years. So what? I might like to jump over the moon too; but, it ain’t gonna happen.

“Antiwar.com” — Jeffrey Goldberg’s current cover story in The Atlantic, “The Point of No Return,” achieved massive distribution across a broad spectrum of old and new media in the United States. Some observers – including Glenn Greenwald in “How Propagandists Function” – noted how well the methodology and message of Goldberg’s piece serves the Israeli government’s efforts to push U.S. military action against Iran. Gareth Porter views it as part of an overarching strategy to keep the U.S. from restoring productive relations with Iran. A huge trove of newly declassified documents subpoenaed during a Senate investigation reveals how Israel’s lobby pitched, promoted, and paid to have content placed in America’s top news magazines with overseas funding.

By James Petras

Two elections in Latin America this fall will have decisive importance in the direction of economic and foreign policy for the coming decade.

Venezuelan legislative elections on September 26 will determine whether President Chavez can secure the two-thirds majority needed to proceed with his democratic socialist agenda without the procedural obstructionism of an increasingly hardline Right.

Brazil the most powerful and dynamic industrial and agro-export economy in the region, faces Presidential elections on October 3rd.

In both countries, the electorate is highly polarized, though in Brazil not along a socialist-capitalist axis.

Read the Full Story Here:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/brazil-and-venezuela-two-turning-poin...

WHISTLEBLOWER OR “KAPO QUEEN,” AMERICAN CENSORSHIP IN HIGH GEAR

“I am in favor of the Zionist state. I would gladly kill Arabs, even slaughter them. I can’t allow Arab lovers to ruin the perfect life I lead.”….Eden Abergil

By Debbie Menon

President Barack Obama on Friday backed the construction of a proposed mosque and Muslim cultural center, then retracted. No surprise there, to retract or weasel out, has become the norm for any American in a position of influence, including the President, the General or anyone speaking against Zionist interests in America.
“As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country,” Obama said to applause at an event attended by diplomats from Islamic countries and members of the U.S. Muslim community. “That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances,” he said.

Wells Cathedral in Somerset. Its timepiece was installed in the late 1380s.

The mechanism on the Clock, at Wells Cathedral in Somerset, will be set manually for the last time next week, following the retirement of the last member of a family who has maintained it for almost a century.

Russia Today interviews Grant F. Smith, Director of Institute for Research on Middle Eastern Policy Files declassified in America have revealed covert public relations and lobbying activities of Israel in the U.S. The National Archive made the documents public following a Senate investigation. They suggest Israel has been trying to shape media coverage of issues...

FOR MORE CONTINUE HERE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/declassified-massive-israeli-manipula...

his year's federal deficit will exceed $1.3 trillion, Congress' official budget analysts projected Thursday in a report underscoring election year perils both parties face as they struggle to balance conflicting demands to trim budget shortfalls, spark the economy and cut taxes.

No worries, the money they lent do not really exist anyway.

The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places. Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back.

NY Times “German 9/11 mosque” article plagued by false statements, Islamophobia

Not everybody “got” the ambivalent humor of my Build a Mega-Mosque on Ground Zero proposal. So I’m returning to straightfaced seriousness — all outrage and no wit. Below is today’s letter to the New York Times ombudsman.
-KB

CONTINUE READING HERE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/the-kevin-barrett-show-2/

(San Francisco) – Russia is burning down this summer. The smoke is engulfing Moscow and the European Union. Embassies are emptying.

What’s the deal?

Thousands of forest fires are burning all over Russia. More importantly, the nuclear weapons factories and reactors around Mayak and the former Soviet Union’s Uranium Project are going up in smoke. The smoke is toxic and radioactive in every possible sense of the words.

By Stuart Littlewood

Littlewood calls on Hamas – indeed, on all Palestinians – to hone their long-neglected public relations strategy, arguing that “whoever rules in Palestine will never win any battles with Israel or the US without a proper media set-up and an effective communications strategy”.

In the five years since I became interested in the Palestinians, only two things of positive note have happened in the occupied territories.

The Palestinians held full and fair elections in 2006 to establish themselves as a democracy – and much good it did them.

The CIA translated and maintained in its voluminous files an article from the Milan newspaper Il Mondo that described the joint actions of the CIA and “the American Jewish Lobby” to purge Arabists from the Italian intelligence service (SISMI) and counter-terrorism service (SISDE) in the early 1980s.

The article, once stamped “For Official Use Only” and dated January 8, 1982, states that “a mass defection among the [intelligence] professionals” affected “the most delicate of the intelligence agencies.”

The article states that among the blows to SISMI and SISDE they “came with the recent influx of CIA personnel here, both before and after the arrival of the new U.S. ambassador to Rome, Maxwell Rabb (a member of the very powerful American Jewish lobby who has business connections in Israel).” The article continues by stating that “Italy’s capacity for foreign penetration (and ‘foreign’ for Italy in this delicate context means primarily the Middle East)” declined.

By Franklin Lamb

Part XI of a series on securing civil rights for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon “Palestinian guests in Lebanon are working with total freedom. First of all we do not refer to them as “refugees”. They are our brothers who are suffering and in a very difficult situation that they did not cause [...]

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/lebanon-scatters-a-little-chicken-fee...

By Tim King of Salem-News.Com
If Iran is attacked, a large percentage of Americans will have nothing to do with it.

Artwork by the amazing Carlos Latuff & Jame-Jam. Carlos is a friend of Salem-News.com located in Rio de Janeiro. To see more of his work, visit: Latuff Gallery

(SALEM, Ore.) – Want to see the end of the world as we know it? If you do, you are in luck, because your chance to see the future of your kids and grandkids go up in smoke is nearing, and if the republicans and Israelis’ have anything to say about it, the grand final act will be here before you know it.

Kourosh Ziabari (Salem-News.Com)

The three countries stressed the importance of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and underlined the inalienable right of the NPT member states to use the nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

(TEHRAN) - The Trilateral Summit of the presidents of three Persian-speaking countries of Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan wrapped up on 5 August in Tehran and recorded another unforgettable event in the memory of the three brother nations.

By Ken O’Keefe
If you Haven’t Seen It, Check out the BBC Panorama’s “Death in the Med” program (watch video below) and You’ll be Treated to First Class Propaganda as Only the BBC Can Deliver

I am one of the passengers/witnesses interviewed for this program and I am very much aware of BBC’s role in justifying war and covering up Israeli crimes. I am in no way naive about this; to the contrary my motivation for the interview lay largely in the all too likely opportunity to expose the BBC.

By Samira Quraishy

As Russia prepares to deliver fuel for Iran’s nuclear reactors, it is worth casting a reviewer’s eye over the potential for further conflict in the Middle East. In one corner we have the Zionist state of Israel and its somewhat reluctant – although faithful-ally, the United States. In the other corner we have Iran, Lebanon and Syria and their various proxies.

An animated interview of John Perkins, author of ‘HoodWinked’ and ‘Confessions Of An Economic Hitman’

John Perkins has seen the signs of today’s economic meltdown before.
The subprime mortgage fiascos, the banking industry collapse, the rising tide of unemployment, the shuttering of small businesses across the landscape are all too familiar symptoms of a far greater disease.

WATCH THE 2 MINUTE INTERVIEW AND READ MORE HERE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/economic-hitmen-by-john-perkins/

STEALING AMERICA’S FREEDOMS LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT…

It’s 2010 and a few members of congress have noted that we have a corruption problem in Afghanistan. Over a period of 9 years. $2.4 trillion dollars has been stolen with a dozen enquiries, dozens of reports, audits, all saying the same thing. The “war on terror” was more “pickpocketing” and not so much “Osama bin Waldo.” It’s 2010 and reports are trickling in that, just maybe, terrorist mastermind Osama has been dead for years and years. More reports tell us, finally, that he never ran a terror organization at all. For years, all those threats from a dead man. What a pack of fools we are.

By Maidhc Ó Cathail
Who’s keeping the terror myth alive?

In the trigger-happy post-9/11 world, the favoured way to instigate a war is to demand that the designated “evildoer” prove a negative.

Iraq was invaded because it couldn’t prove that it didn’t have WMDs. Iran is under constant threat of attack unless it can demonstrate that it’s not seeking nuclear weapons. And now Pakistan is being chastised for allegedly harbouring Osama bin Laden—who in all probability has been dead and buried for eight years.

By Hillel Koren

No reason for the sale was mentioned in the report to the SEC.

In another blow to Israeli shares, the Harvard Management Company notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday that it had sold all its holdings in Israeli companies during the second quarter of 2010. No reason for the sale was mentioned. The Harvard Management Company manages Harvard University’s endowment.

by Glenn Greenwald (source: Salon Magazine)

Jeffrey Goldberg, in the new cover story in The Atlantic, on an Israeli attack on Iran:

Israel has twice before successfully attacked and destroyed an enemy’s nuclear program. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed the Iraqi reactor at Osirak, halting — forever, as it turned out — Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions; and in 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. An attack on Iran, then, would be unprecedented only in scope and complexity.

Good news! Israel can successfully end a country’s nuclear program by bombing them, as proven by its 1981 attack on Iraq, which, says Goldberg, halted “forever, as it turned out — Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions.”

Dr. Fredrick Toben
The materialism that still physically sustains the western democracies is exhausting itself. This is so evident by the number of countries where US troops are stationed. This physical overreach has a negative impact on the US itself, one being that its physical infrastructure is falling apart.

The 1,000 sq km around the Mayak bomb factory is one of the most contaminated areas on Earth because the Mayak Uranium Project manufactured the most poisonous substances on Earth for the most lethal weapons on Earth.

Manufacturing thermonuclear weapons is a really nasty business. As far as Weapons of Mass Destruction goes, there are the real McCoy.

As of 8/15/2010 all personnel in Russia and the European Union are advised to evacuate immediately. I repeat. This is not a drill. If you can’t leave, get your kids out. It may be too late already.

It’s an honor to be attacked by the left and the right

Attacked by left, smeared by the right – I must be doing something right. That, at least, is what I’m led to believe by the two most recent polemics directed at your humble servant. The first, from the pages of the Daily Caller – the right-wing answer to the Huffington Post – is really a study in the damage that public school has done to our youth: the incoherence is palpable. Entitled “Sun Tzu versus Justin Raimondo,” the piece, by one Kerry Patton, takes on my most recent appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Freedom Watch” program, albeit through a tangled thicket of tortured prose, to wit:

“While many conservatives and libertarians argue similar points of interest, they oftentimes are arguing the same message.”

ISRAEL’S PRE-ELECTION ATTEMPT TO DEFLECT A NEW 9/11 INVESTIGATION

There never were plans for a mosque at “ground zero.” The entire story is made up by a public relations agency working with the Israeli government and the GOP. There are plans for an Islamic center in an old Burlington Coat Factory store blocks away. That far down the island of Manhattan, a couple blocks away is “across town.” The idea that Israel is financing the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy when Mossad agents were arrested, dancing in the streets on 9/11, is an obscenity.

By James Petras

The capitalist state, with Democratic President Obama in the lead, has transferred billions to big capital via direct bailouts, virtual interest free loans, tax cuts and by pressuring labor to accept lower wages and health and pension givebacks. The White House plan for ‘recovery’ has worked beyond expectations – corporate profits have recovered; “only” the vast majority of workers have fallen deeper into crises.

CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/crisis-what-crisis-profits-soar/

AS I OFTEN SAY, “IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE NEWS, MAKE UP YOUR OWN….EVERYONE ELSE DOES”

When Nelson Mandela stood to greet the thousands of people gathered to watch the world cup final in South Africa, everyone stood to show respect to the man whose moral authority and stardom is unrivalled and uncontested. One wonders how Mandela came to represent moral and human integrity in our age and how he was treated by a racist government before he defeated it. What were the accusations levelled at him during the different stages of his struggle?

Racists accused Mandela of ‘terrorism’, and was asked to abandon ‘violence’, but he continued his fight against apartheid having become convinced, after the massacre in the poor black township of Sharpeville (March 21, 1960), that the white minority and their western allies will not peacefully give up authority and its privileges.

By Ray McGovern,

“Information Clearing House” – I guess I was naïve in thinking that The Atlantic and its American-Israeli writer Jeffrey Goldberg might shy away from arguing for yet another war — this one with Iran — while the cauldrons are still boiling in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It’s worth remembering how Goldberg helped to make the case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq. For instance, on Oct. 3, 2002, as America’s war fever was building, Goldberg wrote in Slate, the online magazine:

“The [Bush] administration is planning … to launch what many people would undoubtedly call a short-sighted and inexcusable act of aggression. In five years, however, I believe that the coming invasion of Iraq will be remembered as an act of profound morality.”

In the name of profanity they go to fight the pious puritans of Persia and the warrior monks of Lebanon. The Masters could overlook Iranian nuclear reactors, it is their belief in God they can’t tolerate.

1. Crying Wolf

By Jeff Gates

Treason in Plain Sight

The same two Senators who insisted that the U.S. invade Iraq on false intelligence are now marketing Pakistan as the next in a series of “plausible” Evil Doers.

Their complicity runs deep. The consistency of their conduct confirms that what we see again unfolding is treason—ongoing in plain sight and, to date, with legal impunity.

With transparency, that impunity will end. With exposure, accountability will follow. The Founders made treason a capital crime for good reason.

Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman, an outspoken Jewish Zionist, have long been political partners and fellow travelers. Along with Senator Jon Kyl, a Christian Zionist from Arizona, they co-sponsored the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998.

Wake Up America!

Some might recall the enemies list that President Richard Nixon kept in his desk. The list was appended to a memo that asked “how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies?” Named were a number of journalists who had criticized Nixon’s administration as well as celebrities like actors Gregory Peck and Paul Newman and athletes like Joe Namath. Nixon was clearly on to something because in today’s America we have a new enemies list, one that is updated annually to make sure that nary a single malefactor is overlooked. It is the US State Department’s Country Reports on Terrorism, which was unveiled last week in its 2009 version at a briefing conducted by Ambassador Daniel Benjamin , Foggy Bottom’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

Steve Amsel – Desertpeace
Palestinian-American professor threatened by Israeli authorities

My Associate, Mazin Qumsiyeh, had his day in court today….. again….
Just days before his appearance he called the ongoing harassment of himself and other activists a blatant attempt by Israeli authorities to stifle dissent, and to silence those who would dare to speak out publicly against Israeli policies in the West Bank.

A few weeks ago the Methodist Church’s annual conference did a very courageous and praiseworthy thing. It voted to boycott products from Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine, regarded as illegal under international law, and to encourage Methodists across Britain to do the same.

“The decision is a response to a call from a group of Palestinian Christians, a growing number of Jewish organizations, both inside Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches,” said the press release.

“The commission has already ruled that confessions made by Khadr which were clearly obtained through coercion, abuse and torture will be admitted as evidence against him. Prior to the commencement of Khadr’s ”trial,” the commission ruled in another case that the sentence imposed on a Sudanese detainee Ibrahim al-Qosi — convicted as part of a plea bargain of the dastardly crime of being Osama bin Laden’s ”cook” — will be kept secret until he is released. What kind of country has secret sentences?”

CONTINUE READING:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/the-omar-khadr-travesty-by-glenn-gree...

European disdain for the United States is centuries old, of course. But over the course of decades of traveling in the U.K. and on the continent, I have never gotten the sense that I got on a recently completed three-week trip to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the Black Sea. America is no longer admired, imitated, or feared. We remain—for now—a safe haven for dollars (of which there are too many in the world). But we increasingly are seen less as a model or as an empire than as a cautionary tale of national neglect and decline.

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi – (CASMII | Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention)

The United States and Iran have reached a critical juncture, facing the alternative of further tension and escalating conflict spiraling toward military confrontation, or dialogue, diplomatic engagement and reciprocal compromise.

In light of the recent slew of sanctions after sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and others, it seems that chariots are blazing down the fork in the road toward more conflict. However, there is a glimmer of hope for a diplomatic solution in the form of a “double swap”.

CONTINUE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/us-iran-double-swap-points-to-peace/

By Rami G. Khouri

So, this week in Beirut, when I read reports that US President Barack Obama had briefed journalists on Wednesday about US-Iranian issues, especially the possibility of resuming nuclear negotiations, I juxtaposed that against the realities and sentiments I encountered in Iran a few weeks ago. The balance sheet was mixed.

Anthony Lawson

How long can we allow the maniacs who are driving us to the brink of World War Three to stay in power? We’d better do something soon, or we will all be done for.

My special thanks to Gilad Atzmon, whose reading of the “Israeli Peace Manifesto” helps to point up the gulf between what they say and what they do.

CONTINUE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/double-vendetta-%e2%80%94-the-insanit...

By Dr. Franklin Lamb

Part X of a series on securing Civil Rights for Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon

The State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (NIR) is part of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s panoply of 16 agencies, which comprise the US Intelligence Community (IC). According to Congressional sources consulted below, NIR and Israel have been working longer hours than most members of Lebanon’s Parliament, carefully analyzing the language of the main draft proposals concerning elementary civil rights for Palestinian Refugees. The proposals are currently scheduled for an August 17, 2010 Parliamentary vote and the US-Israel plan is to allow nothing to be enacted into law that would actually benefit Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees.

By Antoine Raffoul

Until recently, we had never heard of the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP). After some research on the subject of the One-State vs the Two-State solution, we discovered a long Study published by the ATFP in 2009 entitled “What’s Wrong With The One-State Agenda“. It made for interesting reading and shed some light on the people behind the ATFP which claim “to promote an end to the conflict in the Middle East through a negotiated agreement that provides for two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace and security”.

By Dr. Alan Sabrosky* for My Catbird Seat

As the US edges toward an unprovoked and utterly needless war with Iran, some remarks by an eminent and experienced observer of that part of the world caught my attention. First, he noted that Israel and the US realize that the next war will burn much of the Middle East and may well spell the end of Israel.

Second, he remarked that Every week Israel becomes weaker vis a vis the “resistance axis” and at what point does Israel decide to bring down the house and start again if it can survive with enough military power (backed by the US) to remake the region.

Continue reading:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/israel%e2%80%99s-pillars-of-samson-no...

It is not “conspiracy theory” to suggest that leaders of nations betray their people into wars. It is undeniable fact. Falk, in this poem reminds us of the betrayal of the century.

All poetry is an investigation or an inquiry, and the best evokes or reminds. It prods the soul, and the awareness of humanity and God which resides therein. The harder the probe, the better, more effective the poetry.

IRAQ WAR BEGINS by RICHARD FALK [Poetry Video]

Jeffrey Rudolph – Informed Comment

Can You Pass the Terrorism Quiz?

Misconceptions about terrorism, regularly promoted by the mainstream media, have facilitated harmful US government actions—two wars, domestic legislation that curtailed civil liberties, excessive national security spending. That basic, factual information about terrorism is so rarely reported thus serves to reinforce the power of those who benefit from a fearful population.

strong>“Unfortunately, even if you believe that Israel is a necessary retreat for threatened Jewry, the use of the Holocaust as a justification for Israel and its policies is a grave strategic mistake. For by underpinning its continued existence on preventing a second Holocaust, the defenders of Israel invite some of their adversaries to call into doubt the first Holocaust”

Tikun Olam- Richardsilverstein.com

In the realm of the impossible is the following statement from Abe Foxman upon learning that Fareed Zacharia, noted Newsweek columnist and Muslim-American, would be returning an ADL award and honorarium in protest of the ADL’s position opposing the Cordoba House Muslim Cultural Center near Ground Zero:

“I am not only saddened but stunned and somewhat speechless by your decision to return the ADL Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize, you accepted in 2005,” ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said in a letter to Zakaria. “As someone I greatly respect for engaging in discussion and dialogue with an open mind I would have expected you to reach out to me before coming to judgment.”

Neocons are supporting an Israeli attack on Iran in the hope that the U.S. would be drawn into the ensuing conflict. “If the Israelis bomb now, American public opinion will probably be with them,” writes neocon Reuel Marc Gerecht.

“Perhaps decisively so.” Reuel Marc Gerecht’s screed justifying an Israeli bombing attack on Iran coincides with the opening of the new Israel lobby campaign marked by the introduction of House resolution 1553 expressing full support for such an Israeli attack.

What is important to understand about this campaign is that the aim of Gerecht and of the right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu is to support an attack by Israel so that the United States can be drawn into direct, full-scale war with Iran.

PHONY TERRORIST LEADER BEING “BRANDED” BY ASSOCIATED PRESS, THE “VOICE OF ISRAEL”

Adnan Shukrijumah, 35 formerly of Brooklyn, New York and Miami Beach is more likely to carry the real name Levine or Goldstein. The “legend,” intelligence jargon for a false background constructed for an imaginary person, created for Shukrijumah is paper thin. An FBI Agent named Brian LeBlanc in an “exclusive interview” with the Associated Press warned the world of this new “bin Laden” clone.

By Stuart Littlewood

Millions would love to see the present crop of war criminals dangling from lamp-posts.

But somebody called “Ellie” writing on Medialens has put a damper on this happy prospect. She explained the difficulties in bringing the scum to book. One of the things the British government wants to do, she said, is “stop the possibility of private prosecutions for (international) crimes committed by foreign nationals, so that friendly war criminals can continue to sup tea in Buckingham Palace”.

Unfortunately crimes that can supposedly be tackled under universal jurisdiction are limited and don’t include waging a war of aggression (although they do include war crimes in general), “so we can’t get anywhere with this charge (e.g. against Bush) in a domestic court”.

Tony Blair must be prosecuted, not indulged like his mentor Peter Mandelson. Both have produced self-serving memoirs for which they have been paid fortunes.

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger writes about the “paramount war crime” defined by the Nuremberg judges in 1946 and its relevance to the case of Tony Blair, whose shared responsibility for the Iraq invasion resulted in the deaths of more than a million people. New developments in international and domestic political attitudes towards war crimes mean that Blair is now ‘Britain’s Kissinger’.

New Yorkers Turn Out to Support U.S. Boat Sailing to Break Gaza Blockade.

More than 400 New Yorkers crowded into the Marco Polo Marina on 23 rd Street at the FDR Drive last night for a sunset cruise around Manhattan to support the U.S. Boat to Gaza.

Michael Leon at Veterans Today and Greta Berlin at witnessgaza.com

Will there be another Massacre in the Mediterranean; does Israel dare?
They said it couldn’t be done, that Americans couldn’t raise money fast enough to buy a boat to join Freedom Flotilla 2 in the fall. But never underestimate American determination in the face of Israeli intransigence and brutality. The launch of the US Boat to Gaza began last night in New York, and Free Gaza was there to participate.

Listen to Col. Ann Wright’s eloquent speech at witnessgaza.com.

And this is just a beginning, as witnessgaza.com gets ready to go live for events across the US and across Europe.

By Justin Raimondo – Antiwar.com

I often make reference to “the War Party” in this space: it’s a convenient shorthand, one that evokes an image of something sinister, even Satanic, and this serves my rhetorical purposes well. But if we unpack the concept, and look for examples in real life, what we find is a little more prosaic than Satan with a sword.

Speaking of real life, I’ve been on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch show twice, of late (the second show has yet to be aired), and in both cases I was matched up with someone we might reasonably describe as a charter member of the War Party.

By Vincent Bugliosi – Veterans Today

The Legal Framework for the Prosecution

“That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution.”
—Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1765

“No living Homo sapiens is above the law.”
—(Notwithstanding our good friends and legal ancestors across the water, this is a fact that requires no citation.)

By GWYNNE DYER | Arab News

When Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking American officer, was asked recently on NBC’s Meet The Press show whether the United States has a military plan for an attack on Iran, he replied simply: “We do.”

General staffs are supposed to plan for even the most unlikely future contingencies. Right down to the 1930s, for example, the United States maintained and annually updated plans for the invasion of Canada — and the Canadian military made plans to pre-empt the invasion. But what the planning process will have revealed, in this case, is that there is no way for the United States to win a nonnuclear war with Iran.

Posted By Philip Giraldi On August 4, 2010 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized |

THE Israeli massacre of nine activists on the Freedom Flotilla could in time to be a game-changer with regard to the siege of Gaza. International attention has focused on the humanitarian crisis there and on the sheer brutality of Israel’s enforcement of the blockade.

Dear Friends,

We have disturbing and urgent news. Our new executive director, Philip Giraldi, and other former U.S. intelligence officers have just published an extremely important analysis warning that Israel may plan to attack Israel as early as this month (full-length article below).

They detail the evidence for this possibility and warn that such an action would quite likely drag the United States into yet another tragic, needless, and disastrous quagmire. It would be a war that Israel would begin and the United States would have to finish.

Fortunately, they also describe actions that President Obama could take to prevent this.

1. We urge you to circulate this information widely.

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: War With Iran

War talk

We write to alert you to the likelihood that Israel will attack Iran as early as this month. This would likely lead to a wider war.

Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that U.S. troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel.

This can be stopped, but only if you move quickly to pre-empt an Israeli attack by publicly condemning such a move before it happens.

Veterans Today
ISRAEL TO USE IRANIAN AND PAKISTANI DUPES IN DIRTY NUKE PLOY

By Alison Weir Special to Salem-News.com

Critical analysis from one of the nation's leading voices on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Alison Weir
Alison Weir

(SACRAMENTO) - The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the world’s major sources of instability. Americans are directly connected to this conflict, and increasingly imperiled by its devastation.

It is the goal of If Americans Knew to provide full and accurate information on this critical issue, and on our power – and duty – to bring a resolution.

By Michael Leon – Editor – Veterans Today

EDITORS NOTE: Veterans Today condemns State Sponsored “Hitler Youth” of Israel — Vicious and bigoted forcing non-Zionist peoples out of their homes for Zionist Settlers to move in.

LIVE VIDEO : ETHNIC CLEANSING IN ISRAEL

NEW HITLER YOUTH ENFORCES ETHNIC CLEANSING
U.S. Taxpayers left paying ”Trail of Tears” bill as President Obama Responds by Doing Nothing!

Continue Reading

AMERICA-HIJACKED.COM

Must listen interview with former Republican Congressman Paul Findlay:

Findley speaks out about the Israeli lobby and its manipulation of US foreign policy in the Middle East, resulting in thousands of American deaths and tens of thousands of Muslim deaths

http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio.cfm/shows/CNI:-Jerusalem-Ca...

Paul Findley in following youtube with nearly 3 million views :

Continue Reading

The death of five Israeli servicemen in a helicopter crash in Romania this week raised scarcely a headline.

There was a Nato-Israeli exercise in progress. Well, that's OK then. Now imagine the death of five Hamas fighters in a helicopter crash in Romania this week. We'd still be investigating this extraordinary phenomenon. Now mark you, I'm not comparing Israel and Hamas. Israel is the country that justifiably slaughtered more than 1,300 Palestinians in Gaza 19 months ago – more than 300 of them children – while the vicious, blood-sucking and terrorist Hamas killed 13 Israelis (three of them soldiers who actually shot each other by mistake).

The Rising Tide of Barbarism

Introduction

Western societies and states are moving inexorably toward conditions resembling barbarism; structural changes are reversing decades of social welfare and subjecting labor, natural resources and the wealth of nations to raw exploitation, pillage and plunder, driving living standards downward and provoking unprecedented levels of discontent.

We will proceed by outlining the economic political and military processes driving this process of decay and decomposition and follow with an account of the mass popular responses to their own deteriorating conditions. The deep structural changes accompanying the rise of barbarism become the basis for considering the prospects for socialism in the 21st century.

The Rising Tide of Barbarism

america-hijacked.com

By Gerd Appenzeller
Indiscretions like those currently from WikiLeaks and the newspapers that reprinted portions of the text therefore have but one goal in mind: to make the truth known.

Translated By Ron Argentati

Edited by Gheanna Emelia

Germany – der Tagesspiegel – Original Article (German)

From Vietnam to Afghanistan: You can’t wage war against the truth. And you shouldn’t, because it’s not truth that’s endangering national security.

Is Israel a strategic asset or liability for the United States?

Interesting question. We must thank the Nixon Center for asking it. In my view, there are many reasons for Americans to wish the Jewish state well. Under current circumstances, strategic advantage for the United States is not one of them. If we were to reverse the question, however, and to ask whether the United States is a strategic asset or liability for Israel, there would be no doubt about the answer.

Special to My Catbird Seat

Defenders of Israel right or wrong continue to assert that the absence of peace is all the fault of the Palestinians.

I missed this. After the Israelis came out with their lame investigation saying that they would indict several officers and soldiers in four cases arising from the Gaza conflict of ’08-’09, a fairminded South African columnist, Allister Sparks, published an important piece a few days ago, calling on South African rabbis to apologize to Judge Richard Goldstone for slamming Goldstone’s report last year.

Far from being the effect of the ‘invisible hand of the market’, the crisis of the euro is the product of a strategy carefully designed by Christina Rohmer and the White House Council of Economic Advisers. It is a matter of saving the American economy by forcing the European capitals to take refuge behind the US, and ultimately placing the Euro Zone economies under US control via the IMF and the European Union.

January 17, 2010
Israel: Global NATO’s 29th Member
Rick Rozoff
Extending Article 5 protection, hitherto limited to full member states, to Israel was being advocated with the inescapable implication that a coalition of most of the world’s most powerful military nations, led by the self-designated world’s sole military superpower, would retaliate against Iran if it responded to an Israeli first strike attack.
"1994 was the same year that the North Atlantic bloc launched the Partnership for Peace (PfP)....Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia – became full NATO members in the decade ending last year after passing through the PfP."

OVER 200,000 AMERICAN JEWS TRAINED AND ONLY 4,000 SERVE

According to the Department of Defense, only 4000 Jews serve in the American military. Over 200,000 American Jews have been trained at US expense by the IDF in Israel but only a handful defend Israel in the current wars in the military of the country of their birth, the United States of America. 40% of the world’s Jews live in Israel. 40% of the world’s Jews live in the United States with 2.2 million residing in New York City alone. If any nation has been the homeland of the Jews, it has been the United States.

Salem-News.Com

We hope the impact will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the war in Afghanistan and modern warfare in general. - Wikileaks

(SALEM, Ore.) – WikiLeaks has done it again; over 90,000 documents from the war in Afghanistan have been released to the public. Wikileaks called, The Afghan War Diary (AWD), “An extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.

“The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail.”

The man is clever. Like an illusionist, he has diverted their attention by offering them his private life as a spectacle and in posing in celebrity magazines, to the point of making them overlook his political history.

Let the sense of this article be fully understood: it is not to reproach Mr Sarkozy with his links of family, friends and professional contacts, but to reproach him with having hidden his links from the French people who believed that they were electing a free man.

To understand how a man in whom all agree they see an agent of the United States and Israel has been able to become the head of the Gaullist party, then the President of the French Republic, one must go back in time. Far back. We must follow a long digression during which we shall introduce the protagonists who are today taking their revenge.

By Stuart Littlewood

Israelis wanted for war crimes can sleep easier thanks to their friends and admirers in the British Establishment.

Yes, our brand-new coalition government intends providing a safe haven for the vilest of criminals.

Paul J. Balles argues that the continued presence of 1,000 American military bases outside the USA nearly two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union is a symptom of the arrogance of power that threatens local communities and ultimately the USA itself.

”What is America doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? It’s called 'nation building'. What business is it of America to be building other’s nations? It's really none of their business. It's nothing more than the arrogance of power.”

When a national police association accuses its government of what amounts to treason it is time to sit up and pay attention.

Michael O'Boyce, President of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), said at its annual conference in Limerick, at the end of April, 2010, that the Irish Government had been 'corrupted' and had been 'bought' by developers and bankers. (A garda is an Irish policeman, gardaí in the plural.)

Mr. O'Boyce, speaking on behalf of the country's 11,000 gardaí, charged government ministers with sacrificing the country to protect 'wealthy cronies' who had bankrolled the leading government party, Fianna Fáil. Such criticism of a serving government by its police force is unprecedented in Irish history and extremely rare in any western democracy.

Stuart Littlewood reviews Norman Finkelstein’s book, This Time We Went Too Far, which “pulls together the facts surrounding Israel's blitzkrieg on Gaza” and “plots the long lead-up and the reverberating aftermath”. Painstakingly researched and written in an easy-flowing style, it is “a valuable working document for anyone engaged in the struggle or just wishing to learn the truth”.

By Stephen M. Walt – Foreign Policy

Via Ben Smith at Politico, we learn that the usual suspects have started yet another organization whose objective is to promote a hard-right, Likudnik agenda in the Middle East. The new group apparently intends to go after anyone who thinks U.S. Middle East policy has been less than totally successful in recent years, and who is willing to think for themselves (and U.S. interests), instead of reflexively echoing the positions favored by AIPAC and other groups in the “status quo” lobby.

by Aijaz Zaka Syed

I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare had India and Pakistan’s leaders in mind when he wrote those immortal lines in As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

No matter who is in power in Delhi or Islamabad, the script of the carefully choreographed diplomatic spectacle never seems to change. From their famous encounter at Tashkent to the tense handshakes at Simla and Agra, and from Vajpayee’s historic bus trip to Lahore to the bitterness of Kargil, the more the narrative changes, the more it remains the same.

- Snopes.com toes the militarists’ line -

Snopes.com, officially known as the Urban Legends Reference Pages, has since its humble inception in 1995 come to be regarded as one of the most trusted debunkers of conspiracy theories on the internet. Described by one of its many fans – it apparently has over 6 million visitors per month – as “the grand-daddy of all fact-checking sites,” Snopes is downright cavalier, however, in its attitude to facts surrounding Israel’s role in the 9/11 attacks.

Special for My Catbird Seat

“The Gaza invasion marked the climax of Israel’s descent into barbarism”

Quite simply, this is a cracker of a book and very timely.

In explaining how Israel’s war on Gaza in 2008/9 was not the defensive action it is always painted, Norman Finkelstein recalls the 1947 UN partition of historic Palestine and remembers how, in 1957, US President Eisenhower forced Israel to withdraw from Gaza by threatening sanctions and in the 1967 war Israel re-occupied it.

The book then takes us through the warm-up for the 2008/9 war and the subsequent whitewash.

Continue Reading

By Haitham Sabbah

Olympia, WA– The Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors has decided to boycott Israeli goods at their two locations in Olympia, Washington. At a July 15th meeting packed with Co-op members, the Board reached this consensus. The Co-op becomes the first US grocery store to publicly join the international grassroots movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel for its human rights abuses.

Co-op board member Rob Richards explained, “My hope is that by being the first in the US to adopt the boycott we act as a catalyst for other co-ops to join in. Each additional organizational entity that joins may have a very small effect on the big picture, but drop by drop fills the tub.”

The Guardian reports that the prominent Greek reporter and blogger Socratis Giolas was allegedly murdered by the Sect of Revolutionaries terror group, after being shot 16 times in front of his pregnant wife. "The 37-year-old radio chief is the first journalist to be killed in the country since newspaper publisher Nikos Monferatos was gunned down by the infamous 17 November terror group in 1985. Giolas, who was also a frequent blogger, posting reports on popular online newsblog Troktiko, sought to illuminate Greece's seamier underside. The shooting came days before he was due to release an investigative series on corruption, colleagues said

OUR UNREPORTED ”COLD WAR” WITH ISRAEL

9/11 was like Pearl Harbor to America, uniting many, awakening bitter skepticism in a few. Where Pearl Harbor began America’s official role in crushing the Fascist juggernaut that threatened to dominate the world, 9/11 had quite the opposite effect. America’s response to 9/11 was oppression at home and a tirade of frenzied phobic reactions around the world. No American institution suffered more than the military. The team of Cheney and Rumsfeld, together since the disastrous Nixon years, began a process of purging America’s military of talent and leadership, instead building a force to serve a sinister agenda of religious heresy and extremist politics.

Fidel Castro: In substance, Obama intends to mislead the world talking about a world free of nuclear weapons that would be replaced with other extremely destructive weapons designed to terrorize the leaders of other States and to accomplish the new strategy of complete impunity.

Clear, radical and out of the zone vibrations must inspire the creativity that will be necessary to sufficiently wound the beast of Zion through BDS financial confrontations sufficient to deter their continued designs for the Nation of Palestine, ongoing genocide of its people along with their culture; and subjugation of the Arab Nations.

By Mark Perry - Foreign Policy

For the first time in half a decade, rock legends Pink Floyd reunited for a benefit concert in England to raise money for young Palestinians, MSNBC reported Tuesday.

Feuding PINK FLOYD stars DAVID GILMOUR and ROGER WATERS put their differences aside on Saturday (10Jul10) to perform together at a the Hoping Foundation awareness benefit in England.

The two rockers hit the stage at Kiddington Hall in Oxfordshire, England to the amazement of guests in attendance. It was the first time the duo had shared a stage since Pink Floyd’s Live 8 appearance in 2005.

The former bandmates, who were accompanied by Guy Pratt and Waters’ son Harry, among others, played Floyd favourites:

“Wish You Were Here”

“Comfortably Numb”

“Another Brick in the Wall”

By William A. Cook

By Justin Raimondo

We’re in the midst of a spy scare, one of those periodic bouts of paranoia that spreads, like a virus, from Washington on outward. This time, it’s alleged Russian spies, but the scare is already becoming a generalized fear, permeating official Washington and the “mainstream” media like a poisonous fog. Check out Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan), a member of the House intelligence committee, Fran Townsend, CNN’s “national security correspondent,” and CNN anchor Suzanne Malveaux in the “Situation Room,” bloviating oh-so-knowledgably about this latest “threat”:

“MALVEAUX: Well, Congressman, I want you to weigh in on this. How concerned are you that this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to spying inside of the United States?

In an interview on the Council for the National Interest internet radio program “Jerusalem Calling,” MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, author of The Fateful Triangle and other books on Israel-Palestine, said that he opposes boycotting Israel.

In a July 8th interview with new CNI President Alison Weir, Dr. Chomsky at first denied that he opposed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement, calling this an “internet rumor.”

However, when Weir said she had heard him say that he opposed boycott during a lecture at the University of California Berkeley several years ago, Chomsky admitted that he had opposed boycotting Israel then and said that he still did so now. He said that he felt that activists should instead only divest from American companies.

Andy Worthington

The Guantanamo Files: The Story of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison. In Andy Worthington’s The Guantanamo Files, the whole story of the Cuban camp emerges as a ghastly experiment in which the terrorist suspects became guinea pigs in a vast experiment of methods to crack the human soul. [This] is a powerful, essential and long-overdue piece of research, providing the first real Who’s Who of those held at the Cuban base. –Stephen Grey, New Statesman