Collateral damage is nothing more than a euphemism for state-sponsored mass murder. It is the term given to people killed in military actions who were “not intentionally targeted.” In reality, this is pure propaganda. It has always been morally just to protect innocent people against aggressors. But, on the other hand, it has never been moral, nor has it ever been necessary, to bomb cities filled with innocent people.

Balfour Declaration
Statement issued by the British government in 1917, which is often seen as the initiation of the process leading to the establishment of the State of Israel.
Issuing of the statement is believed to have been motivated just as much by British interests, as by the sympathy for the Zionist cause. At the eve of the World War I Britain needed the support from the World Jewry, which had been neutral, and which represented a large part of the population of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The declaration was drafted with the help of US President, Woodrow Wilson, who was a strong supporter of Zionism.

Pipeline-Istan: Everything You Need to Know About Oil, Gas, Russia, China, Iran, Afghanistan and Obama

AlterNet

By Pepe Escobar, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on May 13, 2009, Printed on May 13, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/139983/

U.S.'s Blatant State Terrorism

By Harold Pinter
Winner Of The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005 - 12/07/05

Why Iranians Love and Loathe Ahmadinejad and Think Nuclear Technology's Their Right
By Hooman Majd, AlterNet
Posted on December 18, 2008, Printed on December 18, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/113104/

Edito's note: Hooman Majd describes himself as one of the few people in the world who is both fully Iranian and completely American. Majd, raised in the U.S., is a distant relative of former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, and his ability to navigate between American and Iranian culture as an insider gives him a unique perspective on two countries in conflict.

Censoring the word "censored"? Sadly, not a joke from a late-night comedy show. The New Yorker magazine staff recently censored the word "censored" in my November 2 ad for www.USMediaAndIsrael.com, a blog that looks at how the New York Times and other corporate media stifle their coverage of Israel.

In addition to my brief story, I also share a copy of the home-drawn political cartoon that the New York Times had censored, plus the backstory of how it came to be.

DID the NY Times censor content critical of U.S. media's relations with Israel? Judge for yourself at http://www.usmediaandisrael.com/?p=274

“I don’t even call it violence when it’s in self defense; I call it intelligence”
-Malcom X

Why is the word “terrorism” so readily applied to individuals or groups who use homemade bombs, but not to states using nuclear and other internationally prohibited weapons to ensure submission to the oppressor? Israel, the United States and Britain should top the list of terrorism-exporting states for their use of armed attacks against non-combatants in Palestine, Iraq, Sudan and other parts of the world. But “terrorism” is a political term used by the colonizer to discredit those who resist?as the Afrikaaners and Nazis named the Black and French freedom fighters, respectively.

Afghanistan, Another Untold Story

Only Leaves Out 9-11 Being an Inside Job

by Michael Parenti
December 7, 2008
GlobalResearch.com

Author's website: www.michaelparenti.org.

Barack Obama is on record as advocating a military escalation in Afghanistan. Before sinking any deeper into that quagmire, we might do well to learn something about recent Afghan history and the role played by the United States.

self-explanitory photo attached

A QUESTION:

For someone who is, as I am, as you probably are, an "ordinary" citizen (as in, not in a position of influence, power), isn't there a common law suit that one can file to compel those in power to do their job? When the lawmakers are lawless, who enforces laws? Or, the example most infuriatingly to hand, (and not that Wikipedia is the be-all and end all, but surely it indicates widespread social acceptance) if this is in wikipedia, meaning, if EVERYONE KNOWS THEY HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS, why are we still giving aid to Israel?!?

This week, the United States and Israel kicked off a major air-defense exercise that will test scenarios including coordinated missile barrages launched from Iran or from Syria, as well as shorter-range rocket attacks by Hezbollah or Hamas.... Brig. Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of the Israel Air Force’s Air Defense Division, said in a press conference that the exercise was not related to Iran’s continued missile tests and enrichment of nuclear fuel. “It is a carefully designed exercise that has been taking place for years.” But Ha’aretz describes the drill as “preparation for a faceoff with Iran.”...

As part of the contingent of 1,000 U.S. troops taking part in the exercise, the Ohio Army National Guard’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and high-yield Explosive Enhanced Response Force will take part; the Guardsmen have been training with the Israeli Home Front Command as part of the exercise.

…Then a new king came to power in Egypt…“Look,” he said to his people, “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us. Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, for if war breaks out they will join with our enemies, fight against us and then leave the country.”

–Book of Exodus

“Understand this–that Terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with…it can’t be reasoned with…It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and it absolutely will not stop, EVER, until you are dead…”

–“Reese” speaking to “Sarah Conner” in “The Terminator”

This video is mandatory viewing to all supporters of the war(s).

The plan to de-dollarise the oil market, discussed both in public and in secret for at least two years and widely denied yesterday by the usual suspects – Saudi Arabia being, as expected, the first among them – reflects a growing resentment in the Middle East, Europe and in China at America's decades-long political as well as economic world dominance.

The Lockerbie bomber has defied prosecutors and his American victims’ families by publishing more documents as part of his internet campaign to clear his name.

Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi said he did not want to further upset those “profoundly affected” by the atrocity, in which 270 people were killed.

But he argued that the furore surrounding his release showed it was in the “wider public interest” to publish the documents, which formed part of his second appeal against his conviction.

Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring.

A 19-year-old Jordanian citizen accused of trying to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper told a federal magistrate this morning at his first court appearance that he understands the charges against him.

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, who was provided a court-appointed attorney, is charged with trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction. He is expected to enter a plea at a later hearing.

Smadi was arrested Thursday after he parked a vehicle laden with government-supplied fake explosives in the underground parking garage of Fountain Place, a 60-story tower at Ross Avenue at Field Street, authorities said.

“There are many historical events, similar historical events. Why is this one in particular so important to you?... During World War II, 60 million people were killed. Why are we just focusing on this special group alone?”

In my opinion, we have several important agendas in front of us. The Secretary- General and the UN General Assembly can take the lead by undertaking necessary measures for the fulfillment of our shared goals on the basis of:

When the government killed all the pigs in Egypt this spring — in what public health experts said was a misguided attempt to combat swine flu — it was warned the city would be overwhelmed with trash.

The pigs used to eat tons of organic waste. Now the pigs are gone and the rotting food piles up on the streets of middle-class neighborhoods like Heliopolis and in the poor streets of communities like Imbaba.

Basically, the Kremlin had a “Secret” undisclosed meeting with Israel’s prime minister. One can conclude that this was not for some sweet Russian vodka but one can only guess.

Surprisingly, within the next few days Russia announces that it will not include Iran in the Caspian Sea talks which Iran has participated in since 2001. Hmmm…that must have been some damn good vodka!

Iran is prepared to allocate a budget for a probe into Israel's largely clandestine nuclear industry, Tehran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says.

"Israel will not cooperate in any matter with this resolution which is only aiming at reinforcing political hostilities and lines of division in the Middle East region."

Jack Straw has admitted for the first time that trade and oil deals with Libya played 'a very big part' in the handling of the Lockerbie bomber's case.

The Justice Secretary said trade was a major influence on his decision to include Abdelbaset Al Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya signed two years ago, just as BP was seeking a multi-billion pound deal there.

The admission casts grave doubt on Gordon Brown's claim this week that there had been 'no conspiracy, no cover-up, no double-dealing, no deal on oil'.

The New Great Game is not only focused on the face-off between the United States and strategic competitors Russia and China - with Pipelineistan as a defining element.

The full spectrum dominance doctrine requires the control of the Pentagon-coined "arc of instability" from the Horn of Africa to western China. The cover story is the former "global war on terror", now "overseas contingency operations" under the management of President Barack Obama's administration.

A senior Tory peer pressed the Scottish justice minister to free the Lockerbie bomber because letting him die in jail would cause serious damage to British business interests.

The Anglo-US-Israeli axis continues to market the murdering of Muslims civilians as the result of self-defence, through its media outlets. Any impartial observer seeing the carnage in Iraq, Lebanon and now in Gaza would conclude differently, because it is obvious who is being terrorised and slaughtered.

“I can’t tell one [Arab] from another. Wrapped in those bed sheets they all look the same to me,” says the U.S Ambassador in the 1986 movie, “Hostage”.

Well-known media critic Jack Shaheen writes in his new book, “In Hollywood’s films, they certainly do [look alike].Pause and visualize the reel Arab. What do you see? Black beard, headdress, dark sunglasses. In the background-alimousine, harem maidens, oil wells, camels. Or perhaps he is brandishing an automatic weapon, crazy hate in his eyesand Allah on his lips. Can you see him?”

Of all the outside-the mainstream notions I've posited on this blog, the one that annoys the most people is my suggestion that the CIA recruited young Barack Obama during his days at Occidental College. I would further suggest that the Agency link runs in the family. I believe that, at an earlier time, the Agency (or some other branch of the intelligence community) may have recruited his mother, Ann Dunham.

Border Policemen have filmed themselves abusing and humiliating Palestinians in videos they have posted on YouTube over the past year.

In one clip uploaded to the video sharing website an Arab youth is shown in arid terrain, slapping himself, while a voice is heard instructing him to say “I love you, Border Police,” and “I will f**k you, Palestine,” in Arabic. The victim is forced to respond to everything he is ordered to do, to the raucous laughter of the cameraman and his friends, all Border Policemen.

In June,only 2 months ago,during Mr.Obama’s speech in Cairo the President dropped the most explosive words which pertained to Israel and Palestine:
“Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

Only last week Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai said, “These settlements were established by Israeli governments and approved by them.” Yishai then added that “the people of Israel should know this settlement is legal.”

Here’s the ironically stinging part of the affair -
President Obama stated that the United States will not accept the Israeli settlements.
America is funding Israel.
Israel is continuing to expand the settlements.

The latest United Nations anti-Israel report was written solely “to appease the Arab-controlled Human Rights Council,” Aharon Leshno Yaar, Israel’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, claimed on Saturday.

He spoke with The Jerusalem Post by phone, a day after UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay submitted a report on what she termed “grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip.”

Deserts have a way of reclaiming whatever is built upon them. In the case of Dubai, the global financial implosion has sent that process into overdrive. After six years of frenzied expansion, during which the emirate's population grew at 7% annually and nearly $600 billion went into construction (the world's tallest building! the world's largest shopping mall! the biggest man-made island! an indoor ski resort!), reality has come rushing into view.

Here’s Krikorian, directly quoted. Hang on to your seats…

“From my opinion, if I’m some of the current members of Congress, I’d be very very worried about the information that’s going to come out of this. There are current members of Congress that she has implicated in bribery, espionage. It’s not good. It’s crazy, it’s absolutely crazy. For people in power situations in the United States, who know about this information, if they don’t take action against it, in my opinion, it’s negligence.

Almost 19 years to the day after Saddam Hussein’s legions invaded Kuwait – and less than 18 years since the US coalition liberated it – the Croesus-rich emirate is still demanding reparations from Baghdad as if the dictator of Iraq was still alive. Only last week, the Kuwaitis were accusing the Iraqis of encroaching on their unmarked border while insisting at the United Nations that Iraq must continue to pay 5 percent of its oil revenues to Kuwait as invasion reparations.

“A state which forcibly subjugates a people to colonial or alien domination is committing an unlawful act as defined by international law, and the subject people, in the exercise of its inherent right of self-defense, may fight to defend and attain its right to self-determination.“
[UN Charter art. 51]

Self Defense,scorned and unsavory,has been left helpless against international charges of terrorism,hate and insurrection.
Yet we see that resistance,in the history of many nations, against a foreign force which violates a country’s sovereignty has always been a moral obligation and right inextricably related to the human right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The passionate support for Israel expressed on talkback and comment sections of websites, internet chat forums, blogs, Twitter and Facebook may not be all that it seems.

Israel's foreign ministry is reported to be establishing a special undercover team of paid workers whose job it will be to surf the internet 24 hours a day spreading positive news about Israel.

Internet-savvy Israeli youngsters, mainly recent graduates and demobilized soldiers with language skills, are being recruited to pose as ordinary surfers while they provide the government's line on the Middle East conflict.

Following protests by Israel, the Netherlands will reevaluate its funding of an organization that alleged that Israeli troops used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza.

Acting on instructions from the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, Harry Knei-Tal, met last week with the director-general of the Dutch Foreign Ministry and complained about the Dutch embassy’s funding of Breaking the Silence.

Settlers rampaged in the West Bank for a second straight day on Tuesday, cutting down some 40 olive trees belonging to Palestinian farmers in the village of Burin, said Mayor Ali Eid.

The Israel Defense Forces said it received reports of the rampage, but by the time troops arrived, the settlers had fled.

The new CIA director, Leon Panetta, has just informed the US Congress he canceled a secret operation to assassinate al-Qaida leaders. Panetta said the campaign was authorized soon after 9/11 by the Bush White House, but had not yet become operational in 2009.

I respect Panetta, but his claim is not credible. The US has been trying to kill al-Qaida personnel (real and imagined) since the Clinton administration. These efforts continue today under President Barack Obama.

Does Panetta mean that CIA and its masters in the White House sat on their hands and delayed this CIA project to kill senior al-Qaida cadres for eight long years? Sounds unbelievable. It also sounds illegal.

A report from an Israeli advocacy group based on what it says is the testimony of several unnamed Israeli soldiers accuses the Israeli military of intentionally putting Palestinian civilians at risk during its recent operation in Gaza.

The report, released Wednesday from a group called "Breaking the Silence" -- which includes former Israeli soldiers -- has been dismissed by the Israeli military as slanderous.

In the 110-page report, the group said some of the 26 soldiers interviewed said they used Palestinians as human shields during the military's more than two-week long ground operation in Gaza earlier this year.

Israel: Bahraini officials make first historic visit
Tel Aviv, 3 July (AKI) - Senior Bahraini officials have made an historic visit to Israel to meet a group of Bahraini detainees that were arrested with other activists this week when they tried to enter the Gaza Strip to deliver aid, the country's official news agency BNA said on Friday.
BNA said the detainees were freed by Israeli authorities after Bahrain's efforts to free them.
"The efforts resulted in the approval of the Israeli authorities to hand over detainees to the representatives of the Kingdom of Bahrain. As a result, the ministry of foreign affairs in cooperation with the ministry of interior sent a mission to Ben Gurion Airport to receive the Bahrainis detained," said BNA.

The oil syndicates union warned foreign companies on Thursday which obtained investment licenses against signing them, considering these licenses as illegal, according to the union’s chairman.

Apart from the consequence of the invasion, Iraqi Christians, especially those in Mosul, came under attacks unleashed by the Salafi militants as well as the Al-Qaeda.
These Salafi groups did not appear over night in the Arab countries. Some regional governments have been funding these groups primarily to target Shia Muslims and those Sunnis who rose up against extremism.
Therefore, it is no wonder to see that the holy Shia sites including Askariya shrine and Imam Musa al-Kadhim shrine as well as churches became the targets of such groups. Interestingly, many of these regional governments are very close allies of the West, especially the US.

President Obama’s masterfully written, artfully delivered recent speech in Cairo was filled with precisely what the Muslim world had been waiting to hear: an intelligent, respectful American leader calling for normalized relations with the Muslim world, including former "bêtes noires" Iran and Syria, cooperation, and genuine US support for democracy and human rights.

But the Muslim world was not as charmed by Obama’s silver-tongued oratory as many Americans have been. The general response was, "actions speak louder than words. Where are the actions?"

One can honestly and correctly say that Benjamin Netanyahu is the first American Prime Minister of Israel. Yes, he was born in Israel and holds Israeli citizenship, but he spent his formative years as a youth growing up in the United States. From that alone, one would expect him to be a team player, rather than the team’s bully.

Note: This essay is more appropriately titled something like "Send This to Everyone Who Still Believes that We Need Torture to Keep Us Safe". But if I used that title, no one who supports torture would read it.

John Bolton is a man obsessed with war in the middle east and, in particular, with Iran. Indeed, it seems that promoting a war with Iran has become his full time job. As early as 2003, he was quoted by the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz saying he has “no doubt America will attack Iraq and that it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran and North Korea afterward.”

In his recent WSJ Op-Ed piece, Mr. Bolton argues that no matter what the outcome of the upcoming Iranian election, the need for an Israeli attack will grow. He goes on to justify a bombing of Iran as the only logical action left for the Israeli’s.

America’s wars are all wars of choice. The more than one million dead Iraqis are not al-Qaeda. Neither are Iraq’s four million refugees. Yet, Obama says Iraqis are better off now, with their country in ruins and a fifth of their population lost, because they are rid of Saddam Hussein, a secular ruler.

No one has a good tally of the dead and refugees America has produced in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, declared Obama, "The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America’s goals and our need to work together."

In his first 100 days, Obama managed to create two million Pakistani refugees. It took Israel 60 years to create 3.5 million Palestinian refugees.

Repudiated at the polls, they're back – in a new liberal guise

The significance of your visit to Saudi Arabia shall not be lost upon anyone. King Abdullah has worked tirelessly for peace, and he has received the full support of 22 Arab countries for the peace plan he presented at the Arab summit in Beirut in 2002. The Arab Peace Initiative, offering Israel fully normalized relations with all Arab countries in exchange for withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967, has been endorsed by the United States and the international community as a key gateway on the road to peace.

WELCOME to Saudi Arabia, the country that has kept its friendship with the United States of America over the decades since that historic meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, spanning over 12 American presidents and four Saudi kings.

Welcome to an Arab world full of hope in your presidency; and welcome to the world of Islam where hearts and minds expect a better understanding of “them” by the type of person you are, Mr. President.

President Barack Obama was supported by minorities who needed a savior,by many whites who yearned for closure due to passed history, and by AIPAC – the most vile lobby in all of the United States of America.

He has worked with the Iraqi security forces identifying the members of the militia, operating with them on raids. And he has come face to face with some of his son's killers. And he asked them why.

"They said, 'We had orders to kill. For each person we killed they gave us $10,000,' " Abu Wissam says. "Their families are still defending them, saying our sons didn't do anything."

he Egyptian Authorities blocked on Sunday the European Hope Convoy, filled with medical aid, from crossing into the Gaza Strip despite all preparations and calls on Egypt to facilitate the entry of the convoy into the besieged and impoverished coastal region.

The Egyptian authorities only allowed some members of the convoy and some said to cross into Gaza , but the European Campaign to End the Siege said that is insufficient and would not enable Gaza hospitals to treat the patients, especially those injured during the three-week Israel offensive earlier this year.

Nearly 160 peace activists and workers of non-governmental organizations from different European countries were about to enter Gaza after the Egyptian authorities stamped their passports, but then were not allowed through.

A group of European aid workers and medics have begun a hunger strike near the Gaza Strip after Egypt denied them entry to the coastal territory.
The nine activists, five British citizens, three Belgians and one Greek, staged a sit-in opposite the Rafah terminal to protest against Egypt's decision, AFP reported on Wednesday.

It's not enough that the Egyptian Pharaonic tribe has decided to give away the Rafah border,allow Israel to build a new outlying settlement to prevent Gazans from entering Egypt - now they will not allow Medics inside...