News, Video and Commentary Without the Censorship

Posts Tagged ‘obama’

source: Antiwar
by Jason Ditz, August 23, 2010

The Obama Administration’s policy of escalating drone strikes took another hit today, after the explosion from a drone attack against the house of “suspected militants” in North Waziristan also destroyed a neighboring house full of women and children.

The combined toll from the blast was 20 people killed, with at least four women and three children among the slain. At least 13 other civilians were also reported wounded, including a number of other children.

Pakistani intelligence officials say most of the “suspects” killed in the attacks were Afghans, but it is unclear how much evidence they had of wrongdoing. Large numbers of Afghan civilians have been living as refugees in the tribal areas since the 2001 US invasion.

The large numbers of civilians (700 in 2009 alone) killed in the US drone strikes has fueled considerable anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. When pressed during a previous visit Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shrugged off concerns about the civilians, saying only “there’s a war going on.”

The issue of a Mosque near Ground Zero should not be an issue at all as Muslims in my opinion have every right to build their house of worship anywhere they choose. I say that because I am an American. I was raised and educated that Americans have certain inalienable rights. The Mosque “issue” falls in line with the first of these rights-

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

This short paragraph should end all discussion and debate. A Mosque near Ground Zero needs not Mr. Obama’s endorsement, nor that of New York Mayor Bloomberg or any other government official.

The United States is comprised of practically every known nationality, each with their own religious beliefs and traditions. The 1st amendment guarantees all citizens the right to worship any deity from God to Buddha, without government interference or persecution.

The people who are protesting the Mosque, many who lost loved ones on 9/11, are Americans. They should understand that they really have no say as to the location under the 1st amendment. I understand to a point their issue of the Mosque so near Ground Zero. Their pain at the loss of loved ones is one that will never go away, but their hatred of Muslims is mis-guided.

Why do they feel so strongly about this issue? Why would anyone want to block any religious group from building a house of worship? One really only need to look across their living rooms to their televisons.

The feelings expressed by those against a Mosque are based on ideas which are a creation of the mainstream media courtesy of Washington. For the past 30 years the media has bombarded the public psyche with images of terrorist attacks by “radical Muslims”. These images have been burned into the mind’s of the public as what and who Muslims are. The people have come to believe that any one who is Muslim is a terrorist and a threat to national security. Rarely is there a mention in the media of a peaceful Muslim.

So the public becomes brainwashed by the media that anyone who is Muslim is bent on the destruction of the US and it’s allies. If anyone were to take the time to research Islam, they may discover that what the media is feeding them is a heaping spoonful of garbage. True there are those, the one’s who the corporate media push-‘radical Muslims’- who do wish to destroy the US and will use any means necessary to achieve this goal. These “radicals’ take the Qu’ran literally, just as many Christians have taken the Bible literally for thousands of years. Taken literally, the Bible and the Qu’ran give the reader the impression that certain actions are acceptable in the eyes of God. In a nut shell, taken literally both share many similarities and are dangerous.

The vast majority of Muslims do not condone the actions of those few “radicals’, yet they are lumped in with all who wish to destroy the western world. They are judged by their race and religion rather than their character and their deeds.

To protest against the Mosque is a right granted under the 1st amendment, but it is also the right of Muslims to worship how and where they see fit as they are citizens of the United States.

I see the media and Washington using this as just another diversion to distract the people away from the important issues. The wars, Iran, the economy, the borders, etc are the important issues that Washington and the media distract the public from. These are the issues that at the end of the day, are of the utmost importance. These are the keys to this nations survival.

When we as human beings stop our petty bickering and begin to recognize our fellow human beings as humans without labels, then we may be able to make some serious changes in our world.

NMC

source: Antiwar

by Jason Ditz, August 18, 2010

It was another of those great TV moments. Embedded reports filming as the “last” brigade of American troops in Iraq cross the border into Kuwait bringing over seven years of unhappy conflict to its final, conclusive end. America was, at last, at peace.

But like so many other great TV moments, this one was a scripted fantasy, a fake exit done purely for political gain by an increasingly unpopular president trying to look like he is keeping at least one campaign promise.

It was perhaps a different sort of scripted, mythical end to the Iraq War than the last one, the May 1, 2003 “Mission Accomplished” speech of President Bush, but it was no more real, as over 50,000 US troops remain on the ground in Iraq tonight.

The “end of the war” may bring some measure of relief to the American people, but it must be something of a sombre moment for those 50,000 troops, as they continue to go into combat operations with the bulk of the American public believing, because their president told them so, that the war is over and combat operations have ended.

Officials have been pretty straightforward about what really happened, not that it has been picked up by the media, which has preferred the more pleasant narrative of a decisive military victory. Instead, the US simply “redefined” the vast majority of its combat troops as “transitional troops,” then removed a brigade that they didn’t relabel, so they could claim that was the “last one.” Even this comes with the assumption that the State Department, and a new army of contractors, will take over for years after the military operations end, assuming they ever do.

And it worked, at least for now. All is right with the world and the war is over, at least so far as anyone could tell from the TV news shows. But as violence continues to rise across Iraq, and July saw the worst violence in over two years, it will likely be difficult for the Obama Administration to keep this war a secret for much longer.

I felt it might a good time to post this video. Naomi Wolf breaks down how the “land of the free” is slowly closing down. I highly recommend it.
source: NoMoreCensorship

“If you think we are living in scary times, your worst fears may be confirmed by reading Naomi Wolf’s newest book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. In it, Wolf proves the old axiom that history does repeat itself. Or more accurately, history occurs in patterns, and in order to understand where our country is today and where it is headed, we need to read the history books.”

source: uruknet.com

Philip Giraldi

The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet café it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification. When I used an internet connection at a Venice hotel, my passport was demanded as a precondition and the inner page, containing all my personal information, was scanned and a copy made for the Ministry of the Interior — which controls the police force. The copy is retained and linked to the transaction. For home computers, the IP address of the service used is similarly recorded for identification purposes. All records of each and every internet usage, to include credit information and keystrokes that register everything that is written or sent, is accessible to the government authorities on demand, not through the action of a court or an independent authority. That means that there is de facto no right to privacy and a government bureaucrat decides what can and cannot be “reviewed” by the authorities. Currently, the records are maintained for a period of six months but there is a drive to make the retention period even longer.

The excuses being given for the increasing government intervention into the internet are essentially two: first, that the anonymity of the internet has permitted criminal behavior, fraud, pornography, and libel. Second is the security argument, that managing the internet is an integral part of the “global war on terror” in that it is used by terrorists to plan their attacks requiring governments to control those who use it. The United States government takes the latter argument one step farther, claiming that the internet itself is a vulnerable “natural asset” that could be seized or damaged by terrorists and must be protected, making the case for a massive $100 billion program of cyberwarfare. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) argues that “violent Islamist extremists” rely on the internet to communicate and recruit and he has introduced a bill in the Senate that will empower the president to “kill” the internet in case of a national emergency.

But all of the arguments for intervention are essentially themselves fraudulent and are in reality being exploited by those who favor big government and state control. The anonymity and low cost nature of the internet means that it can be used to express views that are unpopular or unconventional, which is its strength. It is sometimes used for criminal behavior because it is a mechanism, not because there is something intrinsic in it that makes it a choice of wrongdoers. Before it existed, fraud was carried out through the postal service and over the telephone. Pornography circulated freely by other means. As for the security argument, the tiny number of actual terrorists who use the internet do so because it is there and it is accessible. If it did not exist, they would find other ways to communicate, just as they did in pre-internet days. In fact, intelligence sources report that internet use by terrorists is rare because of persistent government monitoring of the websites.

The real reason for controlling the internet is to restrict access to information, something every government seeks to do. If the American Departments of Defense and Homeland Security and Senator Lieberman have their way, new cybersecurity laws will enable Obama’s administration to take control of the internet in the event of a national crisis. How that national crisis might be defined would be up to the White House but there have been some precedents that suggest that the response would hardly be respectful of the Bill of Rights. Many countries already monitor and censor the internet on a regular basis, forbidding access to numerous sites that they consider to be subversive or immoral. During recent unrest, the governments of both Iran and China effectively shut down the internet by taking control of or blocking servers. Combined with switching off of cell phone transmitters, the steps proved effective in isolating dissidents. Could it happen here? Undoubtedly. Once the laws are in place a terrorist incident or something that could be plausibly described in those terms would be all that is needed to have government officials issue the order to bring the internet to a halt.

But the ability to control the internet technically is only part of the story. Laws are being passed that criminalize expressing one’s views on the internet, including both “hate crime” legislation and broadly drafted laws that make it a crime to support what the government describes loosely as terrorism in any way shape or form. Regular extra-legal government intrusion in the private lives of citizens is already a reality, particularly in the so-called Western Democracies that have the necessary technology and tech-savvy manpower to tap phones and invade computers. In Europe, draconian anti-terrorism laws enable security agencies to monitor phone calls and e-mails, in many cases without any judicial oversight. In Britain, the monitoring includes access to detailed internet records that are available for inspection by no less that 653 government agencies, most of which have nothing whatsoever to do with security or intelligence, all without any judicial review. In the United States, the Pentagon recently sought an internet and news “instant response capability” which it dubbed the Office of Strategic Influence and it has also seeded a number of retired military analysts into the major news networks to provide a pro-government slant on the war news. The State Department is also in the game, tasking young officers to engage presumed radicals in debate on their websites while the growing use of national security letters means that private communications sent through the internet can be accessed by Federal law enforcement agencies. The Patriot Act created national security letter does not require judicial oversight. More than 35,000 were issued by the FBI last year and the recipient of a letter commits a felony if he or she reveals the receipt of the document. In a recent case involving an internet provider in Philadelphia, a national security letter demanded all details of internet messages sent on a certain date, to include account information on clients with social security numbers and credit card references.

The danger is real. Most Americans who are critical of the actions of their own government rely on the internet for information that is uncensored and often provocative, including sites like Campaign for Liberty. As this article was being written, a story broke reporting that Wordpress host Blogetery had been shut down by United States authorities along with all 73,000 Blogetery-hosted blogs. The company’s ISP is claiming that it had to terminate Blogetery’s account immediately after being ordered to do so by law enforcement officials “due to material hosted on the server.” The extreme response implies a possible presumed terrorist connection, but it is important to note that no one was charged with any actual offense, revealing that the government can close down sites based only on suspicion. It is also likely only a matter of time before Obama’s internet warfare teams surface either at the Defense Department or at State. Deliberately overloading and attacking the internet to damage its credibility, witness the numerous sites that have been “hacked” and have had to cease or restrict their activities. But the moves afoot to create a legal framework to completely shut the internet down and thereby control the “message” are far more dangerous. American citizens who are concerned about maintaining their few remaining liberties should sound the alarm and tell the politicians that we don’t need more government abridgement of our First Amendment rights.

source: Investors.com
National Security: In his speech Thursday, President Obama assured us that our “southern border is more se cure today than at any time in the past 20 years.” So why is El Paso’s City Hall taking fire from Mexico?

The president made his pitch for “comprehensive immigration reform” by assuring us problems on the border were already taken care of, so the next course of action was a modified amnesty program for 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S.

But a funny thing happened on the same day he was urging Americans to go along: El Paso’s City Hall found itself in a war zone as gunfire from the Mexican side from either traffickers or the Mexican lawmen trying to fight them pocked the edifice. News reports said as many as seven bullets hit the building. No one was hit — this time.

It’s another sign of the horror in Mexico spilling onto the U.S. side.

Further down the border on the same day, 12 miles from Nogales, Ariz., 21 people were massacred in a fight between rival smuggling gangs over the right of way to bring their illegal immigrant “shipments” and narcotics into the U.S.

It all gives the president’s assurances to Americans that the border situation is being dealt with an aura of unreality.

Statistics can be cut a number of ways, and some areas do have better border security. But the fact that it’s uneven has left other areas — such as the Arizona border, more vulnerable as traffickers fight over the last remaining routes with intensity.

And dramatic events are happening across the border area anyway that suggest bottoms dropping out, with horrors unimaginable in the past becoming the new norm:

• The U.S. has lost control of actual U.S. territory to drug and migrant smugglers as much as 80 miles inland in Arizona. Any American who enters this area risks being shot dead.

• The Falcon Dam on Texas’ lower Rio Grande was targeted for destruction by a Mexican cartel to destroy a rival’s drug and alien-smuggling route. Had the foiled plot succeeded, 4 million people could have ended up downriver with mass casualties and deaths.

• Arizona now has the second-highest kidnapping rate in the world, behind only Mexico City, with nearly all of it due to drug and migrant smugglers and their quests for cash and territory.

• Mass graves have been discovered in New Mexico, believed by lawmen to be the work of cartels.

source: Intifada Newsletter

By Khalid Amayreh
Last week, 338 members of the US House of Representatives signed a petition calling on President Obama to veto any resolution by the United Nations denouncing the murderous Israeli raid on the Gaza freedom Flotilla on 31 May, in which 9 Turkish peace activists were brutally but needlessly killed.

“We urge you to continue to use US influence and, if necessary veto power, to prevent any biased or one-sided resolutions from passing.” The petition, sponsored by Ted Poe (R-TX) and Gary Peters (D-M) viewed the naked Israeli assault, which occurred in international waters, as an act of self-defense. “We believe that it is in the national security interests of the United States to unequivocally reiterate that the US stands behind its longtime fried and ally.”

A similar letter signed by 87 US senators was also sent to President Obama, urging him to uphold Israeli interests irrespective of any other consideration.

In fact, the two letters stopped short of demanding that the US back Israel right or wrong, even if that proves detrimental to American national interests, including national security.

In the final analysis, we are talking about a breed of unprincipled politicians who would have us believe that Israel makes no mistakes, does no wrongs, and commits no crimes.

This is an optimal embodiment of political whoredom in America. Nothing else can sufficiently describe the moral blindness plaguing the US government as a result of this rampant manipulation of American politics.

Congress is undoubtedly the citadel of Zionist power in the United States. After all, we are talking about a vicious, secretive clique that has succeeded in utilizing the most powerful country on earth in order to expedite the Nazi-like goals of Zionism, namely to annihilate the national existence of the Palestinian people by completing the process of swallowing up their ancestral homeland.

Congress does represent the core of political corruption in America where a few Jewish tycoons have thoroughly corrupted the American political discourse, by transforming most of America’s politicians into willing political whores without any modicum of moral conscience, readily bowing before Jewish money and Jewish pressure.

Congress is more than just blind and misguided when it comes to Israel. It is actually malicious and dishonest.

Having unhesitatingly backed every Israeli crime (Israel itself can be described as a huge crime against humanity) so consistently, so totally and so enthusiastically caricatures a body that is decidedly immoral, mendacious and nefarious.

Congress may occasionally come up with arguments justifying its total embrace of Israeli Nazism. However, most serious pundits know too well that these arguments are too superficial, bereft of truth, and void of substance.

I am quite sure that most of these senators and congressmen know deep in their hearts that Israel is a criminal state that murders innocent children and lies about the murder.

They know that Israel practices racism and apartheid in the most pornographic manner. They know that Israel deliberately and constantly breaks the rule of international law. They know that the modus operandi of Israeli policies is nearly totally incompatible with declared American ideals, such as the First Amendment freedoms and equality before the law. They should also know much more about the brutal ugliness of Zionism.

However, because of cheapness of character, moral cowardice and fear of standing up to the Zionist ghoul enslaving America, the American lawmakers just content themselves with being “yes-men and yes-women” in the service of the lobby. After all, when money appears, heads bow, as Saadi Shirazi said.

This clarion moral failure in upholding moral responsibility has already corroded and is corroding America’s moral standing throughout the world. True, America is still being viewed as an economic and military giant. But America is also increasingly being viewed as moral midget.

The robber barons of Israel have already succeeded in brining about the moral downfall of America. It is only a matter of time before they succeed in bringing about America’s final downfall.

Well, I know that many would think that I am indulging in hyperboles. None the less, it is amply clear that a country that either fervently supports or just keeps silent in the face of Nazi-like atrocities in Gaza has lost its moral compass.

And when a country does lose its moral compass, it is finished no matter how many years its demise is postponed. It doesn’t matter if the ultimate downfall occurs today or tomorrow or even the day after. The important thing is that it places itself on a sure track leading to self-destruction. Remember, the Soviet Union went down not for a dearth of missiles and tanks, but rather for the loss of a moral fabric.

I have no doubt that Israel and its tribal supporters in Washington are taking America to the moral abyss. In fact, the US is already languishing in an abyss of moral confusion as a result of the Zionist stranglehold on the American government.

Thanks to Zionist bullying and manipulation, the US was made to invade and occupy two sovereign countries, causing the death of hundreds of thousands of people, including many American young men and women.

Now, Israel’s firsters would like to see America declare war on a third Muslim country in order to enable Israel to retain nuclear supremacy in the Middle East.

In short, Israel and its tribal supporters are hell-bent on transforming the world’s estimated 1.6 billion Muslims into avowed enemies of the United States, all in order to enable Israel to arrogate more Palestinian land and liquidate the enduring and just Palestinian cause.

America can inflict a lot of damage on Muslims. However, a prolonged confrontation with the Muslims of the world would dissipate American power and squander American resources. This is how great empires meet their ultimate demise.

And America’s is looming.

Khalid Amayreh

About the Author: Khalid Amayreh is a Journalist living in Dura, Hebron District, West Bank, occupied Palestine . He has BA in journalism: University of Oklahoma , 1981 MA in journalism, University of Southern Illinois , 1983

source: CNN
The United States will donate $15 million to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, pending congressional authorization and appropriations, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday.

Speaking at the Schindler Factory Museum in Krakow, Poland, Clinton said the contribution will go to preserve the site of the concentration camp and “demonstrates America’s commitment to Holocaust education, remembrance and research,” the State Department said.

Some 1.1 million people perished at the Auschwitz-Berkenau concentration camp.

Because the camp was initially constructed as a temporary place, the buildings and other artifacts at Auschwitz-Birkenau are deteriorating, the State Department said.

If approved, the funding would be provided over five years starting in 2012.

The United States encouraged other nations to follow suit and contribute to the fund to preserve the site for future generations, the State Department said.

More than 1.3 million people visited the museum and memorial at Auschwitz-Berkenau in 2009.

Also Saturday, Poland and the United States amended their missile defense agreement, formally aligning with the Obama administration’s new plan to protect against attacks on the United States and its allies.

“This agreement marks an important step in our countries’ efforts to protect our NATO allies from the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction,” a joint statement from both governments said.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in April by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev cuts the total number of nuclear weapons held by the United States and Russia by about a third. Specifically, it fixes a ceiling for each country of 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 deployed nuclear delivery vehicles.

The United States abandoned the Nixon-era Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty under the Bush administration in 2001 and has been experimenting with missile defense systems extensively since then. While tests of short-range and sea-based systems have been largely effective, longer-range systems aimed at protecting the U.S. homeland have a mixed record of success.

The Obama administration scrapped the Bush administration’s plan for a European-based missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, proposing instead a more limited system aimed at defending against possible attacks from rogue states like Iran. Both proposals have drawn opposition from Russia.