Side to Side

By Chris Pratt
COTO Report

We live in a country where corruption and secrecy are so pervasive, so systemic, so evil and so vast that even progressive thinkers are becoming overwhelmed, discouraged and desperate for some positive energy (including me).

It is easy to see why. There is not a facet of our lives that has not been touched by one of these organizations or concepts and in a negative way: FDA, EPA, FBI, CIA, NSA, UFOs, DOD, Homeland Security, NASA, the Fed, IMF, World Bank, WTO, BIS, CFR, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Carlyle Group, Skull and Bones, Free Masons, Illuminati, globalization, 9/11, war, terrorism, military industrial complex, Patriot Act, NDAA, destruction of the constitution, loss of Habeas Corpus, rendition, torture, indefinite detention, loss of civil liberties, “kill lists,” HAARP, chemtrails, predatory capitalism, nuclear, coal, oil, fracking, pollution, global warming, and on.

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:

Jew or Genital?

A Story in Three Pieces

By Volaar

 I should have suspected that the future would not be anything like it had been promised to us in 1977.  During a compulsory sex education course one of our football coaches had the indubitable privilege of referring to our nether regions as, “gentiles.” 

The unclassified Zelikow torture memo as evidence of crimes

By Michael Collins

“My colleagues were entitled to ignore my views,” he [Zelikow] continued. “They did more than that: The [2006] White House attempted to collect and destroy all copies of my memo. I expect that one or two are still at least in the State Department’s archives.” Phillip D. Zelikow, State Department Counselor, 2005-2007, to Congress, May 13, 2009

Former legal counsel to the Department of State, Phillip Zelikow, produced a convincing and elegant argument for the immediate cessation of anything that looked like torture in February 2006. The government declassified the memo last week and National Security Archive released it on April 3.

The failure to follow Zelikow’s clear statement of the law, withholding the memo without justification, and the failure to prosecute those responsible for the previous acts represent evidence of crimes.

Zelikow’s memo

The Obama-nation

By Volaar

The “Honorable Michael B. Mukasey?”  At this juncture I could express shock, disbelief and horror at such a thought after reading former FBI Special Agent Colleen Rowley’s article available via Information Clearinghouse and also at the Huffington Post.  But I won’t.

Rowley takes exception that such a relic from the Bush Administration could be called upon by any academic institution, let alone one involved in the training of professional attorneys, to speak on the subject of ethics and the implementation of unethical, often illegal, policies.

A Momentum of Cynicism

By Robert C. Koehler

“But no matter how futile, repulsive or dysfunctional war may be,” Barbara Ehrenreich wrote in her book Blood Rites, “it persists.”

A fascinating story in the New York Times just after Christmas showed this persistence unfolding before our very eyes.

The sale of arms to Iraq (remember Iraq?) — $11 billion worth of almost everything, fighter jets, battle tanks, cannons, armored personnel carriers, armor and helmets, even sport utility vehicles — is going to move forward even though it makes little sense from multiple points of view, including U.S. geopolitical interests. As far as I can tell, the sale is going to go through because “war persists” — or something persists, a force invisible to reporters and beyond the control of diplomats (at least those who speak on the record).

Fast, Furious and Outrageous

By Volaar

Wayne Madsen has learned from his contacts within the Beltway intelligence community that Jared Lee Loughner is an “MK-ULTRA” programmed assassin and that US District Judge John Roll and Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords were targetted for assassination.  The reason for the decision to target Judge Roll and Congresswoman Giffords has to do with their knowledge

Torture Victims Sue George W. Bush in B.C. Provincial Court

By Center for Constitutional Rights

Hearing Date Set for January after Justice of the Peace Accepts Information Submitted on Behalf of Four Men Allegedly Tortured Under Bush’s Order and Consent

On October 20, as former U.S. president George W. Bush visited Surrey, British Columbia as a paid speaker at a regional economic summit, a Justice of the Peace in the British Columbia provincial court in Surrey accepted the sworn information submitted on behalf of four men who allege they were tortured under Bush’s command. The information, laid pursuant to section 504 of the Canadian criminal code, includes four counts of inflicting torture, contrary to section 269.1 of the code. The court set a hearing date for January 9, 2012.

Beyond the Nation-State

By Robert C. Koehler

Is there such a thing as a relaxed nation — one that isn’t, you know, obsessed with its borders and sense of identity?

We can easily see how absurd it all is when we read about the hikers recently released from prison in Iran, where they were held in cruelly restricted confinement for more than two years because they had inadvertently strayed across the border, out of U.S.-occupied Iraq. The inhuman nature of Iran’s response — the trumped up charges of espionage against the two young men, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, and their companion, Sarah Shourd, who was imprisoned for over a year — were gleefully obvious to the American media . . . because they were Americans, and Iran is part of the Axis of Evil.

However, the hikers, upon their release last week, strayed across another border as well, and in so doing belied the concept of good nations and bad ones.

Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest

By Ralph Lopez
Daily KOS

Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office.   The 7th Circuit made the ruling in the case of two American contractors who were tortured by the US military in Iraq after uncovering a smuggling ring within an Iraqi security company.  The company was under contract to the Department of Defense.   The company was assisting Iraqi insurgent groups in the “mass acquisition” of American weapons.  The ruling comes as Rumsfeld begins his book tour with a visit to Boston on Monday, September 26, and as new, uncensored photos of Abu Ghraib spark fresh outrage across Internet.  Awareness is growing that Bush-era crimes went far beyond mere waterboarding.

Torture Room, Abu Ghraib

Should Canadian authorities arrest Dick Cheney for war crimes when he comes to Vancouver?

Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson seeks Dick Cheney’s arrest
By Carlito Pablo
The Straight

Ex–vice president Dick Cheney may receive a rude welcome in Vancouver.

Dick Cheney is coming to town on September 26 to promote his book In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir. But Vancouver lawyer Gail Davidson has other plans for one of the most controversial figures of the modern era, a powerful man who publicly admitted having allowed torture.

The cofounder of the international group Lawyers Against the War wants the government of Canada either to bar the former U.S. vice president from entering the country or, if he’s allowed in, to arrest and prosecute him for torture, war offences, and crimes against humanity. And if Canada isn’t keen on punishing the ex–vice president to former president George W. Bush, Davidson argues, then it should extradite Cheney to a country that is willing and able to prosecute him.

US contractor can sue Donald Rumsfeld for alleged Iraq torture, judge rules

By Associated Press in Washington
Guardian.co.uk

An American former military contractor who claims he was imprisoned and tortured by the US army in Iraq has been allowed by a judge to sue the former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld personally for damages.

The man, an army veteran whose identity has been withheld, worked as a translator for the US marines in the volatile Anbar province when he was detained for nine months at Camp Cropper, a US military facility near Baghdad airport dedicated to holding “high-value” detainees.

Splitting the Sky gears up for another attempt to arrest GWBush in Surrey, BC

Mohawk Peace activist and author John Boncore (aka Splitting The Sky), the man who attempted a citizen’s arrest of former U.S. President George W. Bush (a self-admitted war criminal) in Calgary, Alberta in March of 2009 but was instead arrested himself, is leading a campaign vowing to perform a citizen’s arrest of Bush when he and former U.S. President and war criminal Bill Clinton visit Surrey, British Columbia on October 20, 2011.

Civil Liberties under Obama: Glenn Greenwald speech

At Socialism 2011 in Chicago on July 3, Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald spoke about civil liberties in the age of Obama. Filmed, edited and posted by Kevin Gosztola.

Transcribed below:

The West Is Trapped in Its Own Propaganda

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Global Research

One of the wishes that readers often express to me came true today (May 11). I was on the mainstream media. It was a program with a worldwide reach–the BBC World Service. There were others on the program as well, and the topic was Hillary Clinton’s remarks (May 10) about the lack of democracy and human rights in China.

I startled the program’s host when I compared Hillary’s remarks to the pot calling the kettle black. I was somewhat taken aback myself by the British BBC program host’s rush to America’s defense and wondered about it as the program continued. Surely, he had heard about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo detainees, CIA secret torture prisons sprinkled around the world, invasion and destruction of Iraq on the basis of lies and deceptions, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya. Surely, he was aware of Hillary’s hypocrisy as she demonized China but turned a blind eye to Israel, Mubarak, Bahrain and the Saudis. China’s record is not perfect, but is it this bad? Why wasn’t the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs criticizing America’s human rights abuses and rigged elections? How come China minds its own business and we don’t?

Wikileaks Guantánamo files: Torture, kidnapping kids, elderly and others

By David Leigh, James Ball, Ian Cobain and Jason Burke
The Guardian UK

• Innocent people interrogated for years on slimmest pretexts
• Children, elderly and mentally ill among those wrongfully held
• 172 prisoners remain, some with no prospect of trial or release
• Interactive guide to all 779 detainees

More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America’s controversial prison camp in Cuba.

The Democrats’ False Flag Candidate

By Numerian
The Agonist

This is a political crime of deception, an enormous bait and switch, in which liberals and quite a few independents were misled by a serial liar who purposely characterized himself as a reformer…

Did you receive your email from Barack Obama yet? If you are a Democrat, or on his campaign mailing list, the president has promised you are going to be the first to know when he formally launches his reelection campaign. It could be any moment now; apparently the White House is waiting for a slow news day when Libya and Fukushima and Congressional budget negotiations aren’t dominating the media agenda. Once the news is out, you are expected as a loyal Obama supporter to start sending in campaign donations and begin attending campaign organization meetings.

The problem is, if you are a liberal, the chances are pretty high that you haven’t forgotten that the White House thinks of you as “fucking retarded”.

Barack “I’d kill for a peace prize” Obama

By William Blum
Anti Empire Report

Is anyone keeping count?

I am. Libya makes six.

Six countries that Barack H. Obama has waged war against in his 26 months in office. (To anyone who disputes that dropping bombs on a populated land is act of war, I would ask what they think of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.)

America’s first black president now invades Africa.

Bradley Manning Now “Catatonic”; Obama ENOUGH!

By Ralph Lopez

March 09, 2011 “War Is A Crime” — As Obama’s crime of the destruction of Bradley Manning continues to unfold before our very eyes, Manning friend David House now tells us that over 8 months in isolation with movement and sleep restrictions placed on him have been having their intended effect. House has told MSNBC that by the end of January Manning appeared “catatonic” and that he had “severe problems communicating,” with it having taken House nearly 45 minutes on a recent visit to engage in any meaningful way (video below.) House said Manning’s demeanor was as “if he had just woken up and didn’t know what was going on around him.” Manning was “utterly exhausted physically and mentally…it was difficult to have any kind of social engagement.”

Also, a full month after Congressman Dennis Kucinich formally requested a visit, the Army has stalled on the request.

All for the crime of reporting war crimes and criminal behavior even among the highest-ranking military officials in Iraq.

Libyan Revolution Enters Critical Phase – the Battle for Tripoli

France grants official recognition to rebel Libyan National Council Mar 10
Official from French president’s office says France will send ambassador to Benghazi and receive Libyan envoy in Paris; announcement follows meet between Sarkozy and officials from Libyan National Council.
Battles rage over Libyan cities Mar 10 08:03 GMT
Forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi pound Az-Zawiyah and Ras Lanuf as world debates imposition of a no-fly zone.
New air raids hit Libyan oil city Mar 9 23:37 GMT
Strategic city of Ras Lanuf comes under heavy shelling by government forces, with reports of deaths and injuries. Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have launched new air raids on the oil city of Ras Lanuf and are closing in on the western town of Az Zawiyah. See video at article
Founding statement of the Interim Transitional National Council
The Council emphasised that the most important role is the one played by the youth. They were the base of foundation of the revolution and the focal power for the Libyan to reach where they stand today to be able to demand the termination of the dictatorial regime. 7:40pm March 9 The Libyan regime has offered a nearly $500,000 bounty for the capture of the chairman of the opposition National Council, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, according to state TV.
Arab Countries May Back No-Fly Zone for Libya Within Days, Ambassador Says Mar 9 12:01 EST
The Arab League feels a “sense of urgency” over violence in Libya and may call this week for a no-fly zone to shield civilians and rebels from further attacks by Muammar Qaddafi’s forces, the Arab League’s ambassador in Washington said.
Libya oil tanks seen as ‘time bomb’ Mar 9 11:02 GMT
Desperate Gaddafi might hit oil facilities in an attempt to fend off encroaching rebels, sparking a human catastrophe.