Who Was Osama? Who Is Obama?

By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 2, 2012

While the President and Commander in Chief of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama “celebrates” the first anniversary of the alleged death of bin Laden, the substantive issue as to WHO WAS OSAMA BIN LADEN remains unheralded. (Remarks by President Obama in Address to the Nation from Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, see video at foot of article)

Through lies and fabrications, president Obama`s carefully scripted speech upholds a world of total fantasy, in which “bad guys” are lurking and “plotting acts of terror” Islamic “jihadists” are said to be threatening Western civilization.

Each and every statement in Obama’s May 1st speech at Bagram Air Force base regarding the role of Al Qaeda is a fabrication:

Reform, Revolution or Radical Transformation?

By NoCureForThat.org

Military-Industrial Journalism

Andy Coulson, one of those arrested in the Murdoch scandal, moved from Editor of News of the World to Aide to UK PM David Cameron

By Robert C. Koehler

Rupert Murdoch’s specialty has been the practice of journalism in cynical mockery of our desire for knowledge.

Suddenly it’s clear to everyone.

Hacking a missing teenager’s cell phone? Deleting calls, interfering with the desperate search for her whereabouts? Tapping the phones of terrorist victims, dead soldiers? What kind of newsroom culture could possibly value the intimate tidbits of unbearable worry and sorrow thus obtained? What kind of organization would call it “news”?

Ex-CIA Robert Steele on Spying, Blogging and the Restoration of Open Society (64 min video)

Keynote address at the 2007 Gnomedex conference by former intelligence officer Robert D. Steele who holds multiple advanced degrees. Though extracted portions of this speech show him encouraging bloggers to step up their work, his main concern is that the intelligence community needs to rely more on open sources of information rather than clandestine sources.

Egypt and Iran After Mubarak

By Brian Downing

The remarkable rising against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has roused interest throughout the world. Interest is especially keen in Iran, where official statements and propaganda have been aimed at the so-called Arab Street for many years now. Egyptians did not need a foreign agit-prop campaign to know Mubarak was brutal and corrupt, that he had acquiesced to various US and Israeli policies, and that their futures were not bright. Nonetheless, Iran will seek to take advantage of the new situation, and interaction between the two countries will be critical for years to come.

The Conflict With Sunni-Arab States
For decades now, there has been a low-level conflict between Iran and several Sunni-Arab states. The origin of the conflict goes back centuries and involves both sectarian and geopolitical elements. Its more immediate cause was Ayatollah Khomeini’s call for Islamic revolution in 1979 and Iraq’s invasion the following year, which was backed by many Sunni Arab states.

Corexit? Phosgene gas? What Else? Now over 30 mass kills around the globe

Continual updates posted at Food Freedom’s Mass Kills page

By Rady Ananda
COTO Report

WTF is happening? Are some of these mass die-offs a result of Corexit sprayed in the Gulf of Mexico last year and now making its way up the coast and over to England? Corexit can’t explain all the mass die-offs. We have one report from Russian intelligence that Phosgene Gas was sprayed in Arkansas, resulting in those die-offs. But what about New Zealand? And Ontario? Have the psychopaths gone on a murderous rampage around the globe?

2011: A Brave New Dystopia

By Chris Hedges
TruthDig

The two greatest visions of a future dystopia were George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” The debate, between those who watched our descent towards corporate totalitarianism, was who was right. Would we be, as Orwell wrote, dominated by a repressive surveillance and security state that used crude and violent forms of control? Or would we be, as Huxley envisioned, entranced by entertainment and spectacle, captivated by technology and seduced by profligate consumption to embrace our own oppression? It turns out Orwell and Huxley were both right. Huxley saw the first stage of our enslavement. Orwell saw the second.

Senate votes to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’

The 65-31 vote means gays and lesbians will be able to serve openly in the military without punishment after President Obama signs the bill.

By Lisa Mascaro and Michael Muskal
Los Angeles Times

The Senate voted to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military, approving a bill that repeals the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” on Saturday.

The 65-31 vote came after an earlier procedural vote that brought the milestone in gay rights to the Senate floor. It also fulfilled a campaign promise by President Obama, who has been under attack from liberals in his own party for seeking compromises with Republicans on economic and tax issues during the lame-duck congressional session.

Confronting the ‘futuristic’ branding of geoengineering

By Rady Ananda

Lately, we’ve seen a massive marketing make-over of environmental modification (ENMOD) programs. What has been a clandestine and hostile military application now is promoted as a “futuristic” solution to corporate pollution.  Debunking mass media’s mischaracterization of geoengineering as “futuristic” is in order.  Below we take a closer look at those organizations planting such disinformation and offer sources on the harmful effects of geoengineering.

Peddling War to Children

By Robert C. Koehler

In the gap between a boy’s passionate fantasies and the smell of dead bodies in a mass grave marches . . . America’s Army.

“He wonders if God is punishing him because before he joined the Army he thought of war as something fun and exciting.”

We couldn’t wage our current wars without the all-volunteer military whose recruitment goals get fed every year by idealistic young people, who continue, despite all counter-evidence bursting off the front pages, to buy into the romance and excitement of war and armed do-goodism that the recruiters, with the help of a vast “militainment” industry, peddle like so many Joe Camels.

Death Squads, Porn, Hashish and Killing for Kicks: It’s Not Just a Few Bad Apples

By Dubhaltach
FireDogLake

Guess what? Having done the El Salvador option in El Salvador and in Irak it seems that the death squad option is now being well and truly being exercised by some American troops in Afghanistan. Surely you’re not surprised?

Reflections on an Anniversary

By Robert C. Koehler

“Everything feels obscene,” a friend said seven years ago, when we carpet-bombed Baghdad, launching the invasion. It still does, but in a dull, chronic, “used to it” way — outrage mixed, these last few years, with “hope,” smearing the war effort with a thick, national ambivalence.

Is it still going on? Well, yeah, with a grinding pointlessness that’s not worth talking about or even debating anymore. The smorgasbord of justifications has been permanently shut down: the 9/11 tie-in, the WMD, “another Munich,” democracy for the Middle East. No one’s hawking Freedom Fries anymore. The war in Iraq simply continues because a war in motion, especially when it’s not really a war, when there isn’t an enemy with whom to negotiate, is incapable of just, you know, stopping. When we don’t really have a mission, completing it is difficult indeed.

“Jeopardizing U.S. Standing” – the Petraeus Controversy

Michael Collins

Leaks from a recent top level briefing by General David Petraeus are causing quite a controversy.  The general pointed out that, “Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the region.”  Mark Perry reported this on March 13 in  Foreign Policy.  Perry said, “No previous CENTCOM commander had ever expressed himself on what is essentially a political issue… ”

When I read a statement like that, it’s like hearing the opening music for The Twilight Zone.   What on earth is Perry talking about?  Every CENTCOM commander, from General Tommy Franks, through Petraeus, has endorsed the continuation of the Iraq war and occupation.  That’s as essentially political as you can get.

Opium, Rape and the American Way

By Chris Hedges

The warlords we champion in Afghanistan are as venal, as opposed to the rights of women and basic democratic freedoms, and as heavily involved in opium trafficking as the Taliban. The moral lines we draw between us and our adversaries are fictional. The uplifting narratives used to justify the war in Afghanistan are pathetic attempts to redeem acts of senseless brutality.