Peace and Justice Post

The Pentagon’s New Power Elite

By Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com, Aug. 3, 2011

Somewhere on this planet an American commando is carrying out a mission.  Now, say that 70 times and you’re done… for the day.  Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret force within the U.S. military is undertaking operations in a majority of the world’s countries.  This new Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed, until now.

After a U.S. Navy SEAL put a bullet in Osama bin Laden’s chest and another in his head, one of the most secretive black-ops units in the American military suddenly found its mission in the public spotlight.  It was atypical.  While it’s well known that U.S. Special Operations forces are deployed in the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, and it’s increasingly apparent that such units operate in murkier conflict zones like Yemen and Somalia, the full extent of their worldwide war has remained deeply in the shadows.

Continues >>

Where did the Federal Reserve get $16.1 trillion to lend? The Fed created it out of thin air with a stroke of a computer entry.

by Paul Craig Roberts, Foreign  Policy Journal, August 3, 2011

The United States Government and its presstitute media have wasted time and energy creating hysteria over a non-existent “debt ceiling crisis.”

After reading the “news” in the Ministry of Propaganda and witnessing the stupidity of the US government, the rest of the world is struck dumbfounded by the immaturity of the “world’s only superpower.”

What kind of superpower is it, the world wonders, that is willing to go to the eleventh hour to convince the world, which holds its banking reserves in US Treasury debt, that the US government will default on the debt?

Every country in the world now worries about the judgment and sanity of the country with the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Continues >>

Tags: barack obama, gallup survey, protestant christians

New data from polling firm Gallup shows that out of all the religious groups in the U.S., Muslims are most likely to reject violence, followed by the non-religious atheists and agnostics.

Through interviews with 2,482 Americans, Gallup found that 78 percent of Muslims believe violence which kills civilians is never justified, whereas just 38 percent of Protestant Christians and 39 percent of Catholics agreed with that sentiment. Fifty-six percent of atheists answered similarly.

Continues >>

By Hiyam Noir, MWC News, Aug 2, 2011

Was Israel behind the assassination of the young Iranian academic Dariush Rezaeinejad? On July 23, the 35 year old elite – researcher Rezaienejad, died after being shot in the throat, in front of his wife and daughter outside his daughter’s kindergarten in the eastern parts of Tehran. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack .

On November 29,2010, in separate locations in Tehran, two other Iranian academics were targeted by unidentified terrorists.

Explosives were attached to vehicles of Professor Fereydoun Abbasi and Dr.Majid Shahriari. Shahriari was  killed immediately,while Abbasi and his wife survived with injuries.

Continues >>

Violence in the key Syrian city of Hama continued apace on Wednesday, with another 45 civilian protesters slain as military forces captured the town center, and the four day toll of the massacres in the city exceeded 200.

Reports from protesters said that the vast majority of those slain today were killed by machine gun fire, which has been reported firing randomly into crowds. Five of those killed today, however, apparently were killed while trying to flee the city.

Hama has been the site of some of the largest protests against the Assad regime, with hundreds of thousands marching in the city on some days. The site of those protests was the Orontes Square, which the military seized today.

Though the Assad government has repeatedly resorted to killings in the face of these protests, it has been extremely counterproductive so far, with the largest marches coming in response to violent crackdowns. With the Hama massacres among the most violent yet, what follows may be much, much bigger.

by Johan Galtung, Foreign Policy Journal, August 3, 2011

TRANSCEND Media Service — Anders Breivik was driven by a calling to save Christianity, catholic essentially, from a European civil war with Islam. The message said: Islam enters Europe on roads paved by multiculturalism, built by social democrats like the Workers’ Youth League at Utöya, the scene of killings. The calling goes on: dialogue with an implacable, fanatic enemy is impossible. Violence against government quarters, and massacre of young supporters, however regrettable, was necessary. Norway, Europe needed a wake-up call to return to their “origins.”

These crazy articles of faith found an evil terrorist carrier? The above words serve as a road sign: “No further thinking needed.” However, it is not the way to handle a catastrophe – only a lazy, easy, way out. We have to ask searching questions.

Is there something to it? What does this remind us of? How do we prevent a repeat?

Continues >>

Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman condemned Breivik’s ideology, but he is still an enabler of Islamophobia.

Ali Abunimah, Al Jazeera, Aug. 2, 2011

In a Washington Post op-ed last week, Abraham Foxman, the National Director of the Anti Defamation League, likened the hateful ideology that inspired Anders Behring Breivik to massacre 77 innocent people in Norway to the “deadly” anti-Semitism that infected Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.

This is a parallel that I, and many others who have been observing with alarm the rise of anti-Muslim incitement in the US and Europe, have made frequently.

Does this mean that Foxman – head of one of the most hardline and influential pro-Israel lobby groups – has found common ground with the Palestine solidarity movement?

Continues >>

A small flotilla carrying human rights and peace activists to Israel-blockaded Gaza was itself blockaded in Greece after intense diplomatic pressure from Washington and Tel Aviv. But the Israeli news media continues to heap ridicule on the passengers. Two of them, retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright and Israeli-born Hagit Borer, respond.

By Ann Wright and Hagit Borer, Consortium News, August 1, 2011

Being, so to speak, of the “flotilla folk” ourselves, we read with some interest Roz Rothstein and Roberta Seid’s idle speculations in the Jerusalem Post on who our shipmates might have been, for idle speculations they certainly are, the writers having never contacted any of us.

In fact, at least when it comes to the American-flagged boat, The Audacity of Hope, we are not nearly as much of a mystery as one might imagine. Our biographies are all publicly posted at www.ustogaza.org,.

A perusal of our stories would reveal, among other things, that 58 percent of us are women and that our median age is 60.

Similar demographic patterns existed on other boats as well. Many are retired people; most with modest means. We are people willing to spend our savings to fly to Athens and stay there for weeks, doubled or tripled up in hotel rooms, waiting to sail to Gaza.

Continues >>

by Dr. K R Bolton, Foreign Policy Journal, July 29, 2011

The news media has had a field day in headlining Anders Breivik’s actions as those of someone from the “far Right,” and as actions that are a consequence of Rightist ideology. Yet Breivik is an avid Zionist whose motives were predicated on Islamophobia. His ideological influences are libertarian and “neo-conservative.” He was playing his part, albeit as a loose cannon, in the “clash of civilizations.”

Although the news media has focused on his previous membership in the Progressive Party, his ideological commitment is to Zionism. Why then did not the news media headline Breivik’s atrocity as being that of a “Zionist,” and as a “stanch supporter of Israel”? As is often the case, the fictional “far Right” connection is a red herring. Headlines could have read “Zionist extremist on shooting spree,” “Israel supporter massacres youngsters at Labour camp in Norway,” and the like.

Continues >>

By Amira Hass, ZNet, Aug. 2, 2011

“A financial crisis in the Palestinian Authority” – that is a convenient description of the situation where, on the eve of Ramadan, the Ramallah government is (again) unable to pay the full salaries of its 150,000 public sector employees. This is a short, but very inaccurate description, however. The crisis, says economist Raja Khalidi, is in the status quo that Israel has enjoyed since the Oslo Accords: Israel is in control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – and Palestinian society and the donor countries finance the cost of this domination.

The low salaries in the Palestinian enclaves (on average, less than NIS 2,000 per month) and the PA’s large-scale withholding of wages is not some Icelandic story: These – just like the cost of housing in Israel, our tycoons and the state’s wealth vs. citizens’ miserable salaries – are all linked to the comprehensive economical regime that has been designed by Israeli governments between the river and the sea. It is further evidence of the Israeli crisis, even if for pragmatic reasons it is not talked about in the tent camps.

Continues >>