by James Petras Ph.D.

AFRICOM despite its assigned role as a vehicle for spreading imperial influence, has been more successful in destroying countries rather than in gaining resources and power bases. The war against Somalia, displacing and killing millions and costing hundreds of millions of dollars, enters its twentieth year, with no victory in sight. Apart from the longest standing US neo-colony, Liberia,there is no country willing to allow AFRICOM to set up headquarters. Most significantly AFRICOM was unprepared for the overthrow of key client regimes in Tunisia and Egypt – important “partners” in patrolling the North African Mediterranean, the Arabian coast and the Red Sea. Despite Libya’s collaboration with AFRICOM, especially in “anti-terrorist” intelligence operations, Washington mistakenly believed that an easy victory by its “rebel” clients might lead to a more docile regime, offering more in the way of a military base, headquarters and a cheap source of oil. Today the US depends as much on African petroleum as its suppliers in the Middle East.

by Joel S. Hirschhorn

 

How do the powerful keep the US population dumb and distracted?  A key tactic has been using methodologies that produce totally misleading underestimates of key economic factors.  First we learned that official unemployment figures are too low by a factor of two.  Now, understand that the official rate of inflation hitting consumers is even more inaccurate.  You will hear about a low inflation rate of less than 3 percent.  In reality, it is closer to 10 percent, according to the highly regarded analysis by John Williams.

 

It is difficult for any one of us to have first hand evidence that unemployment nationally is really much higher than what the government says, even though most of us know people who are out of work or taking part time work out of sheer necessity.  But when it comes to rising prices hitting our pockets, credit cards and checkbooks we have a much clearer sense of what is really happening.  Gasoline prices have jumped more than 10 percent in recent weeks and for most of us is about a dollar more a gallon than a year ago or so.  Some experts are predicting that $4 gas will soon hit most of the nation and, even worse, that $5 gas may hit us this summer.

 

Food prices are also jumping like a frog on crack cocaine.  Many of them are masked by smaller weight packaging.  Health care costs, especially insurance premiums and drugs, have also hit many Americans substantially and painfully.  High inflation especially hits hard those people who have seen their incomes decline.  Those on Social Security receiving no cost-of-living increase have every right to be angry.

 

The federal government is manipulating statistics to intentionally get a low number for inflation as well as unemployment in order to mask just how awful and unfair the economy really is.  Political leaders in both major parties use this propaganda strategy, as if there are simply too few intelligent Americans to see through the lies.  Sadly, they seem to be correct.  And the mass media push the propaganda strategy by continually hyping and spreading the intentionally false data.

 

“We have inflation now.  If you go to the shop, whether it’s groceries, or education or insurance or health care, prices are going up for everything.  The government lies about it in the US,” said Jim Rogers back in June, 2010.  It has only gotten worse.

by Eric Larsen Ph.D.

What a complete, unmitigated disaster 9/11 and the ten awful years following it have been—ten years of murder, crime, lawlessness, deceit, stupidity, and blindness that are only now meliorated, at long last, by the publication of Dr. Judy Wood’s unique, revelatory, and unequivocally welcome book, Where Did the Towers Go? The Evidence of Directed Free-Energy Technology on 9/11.

Allow me to make full disclosure now, so that those (and, believe me, there are many) who will choose not to read further can quit right away and save time.

I, me, Eric Larsen, wrote the Foreword to Dr. Wood’s book. I wrote it partly because I have known for many years about Dr. Wood’s research; partly because I have followed the website that Dr. Wood has maintained (http://www.drjudywood.com/); and partly because I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to write that Foreword.

It wasn’t just an opportunity but a high honor. To give an idea of how great an honor it was, here is the first line of what I wrote:

The book you now hold in your hands is the most important book of the twenty-first century.

Let me go further and quote the two sentences also , since the same obligation pertains now as did when I wrote them—the obligation for me to explain why I said so unqualified a thing and what I meant by it. Here’s what I meant, and still do:

Where Did the Towers Go? is a work, assuming that its content and message are properly and fairly heeded, that offers a starting point from which those who genuinely want to do it can begin, first, to rein in and then, perhaps, even end the wanton criminality and destructiveness of a set of American policies that took as their justification and starting point the horrific events of September 11, 2001.

As everyone knows, 9/11 has been “the justification and starting point” for all manner of destruction, loss, crime, and horror. Without 9/11, there would have been no “Patriot Act,” no abuse of FISA and stripping away of privacy rights, no Military Commissions Act of 2006 with its setting aside of Habeas Corpus, no implementation of Northcom and deployment of our own military forces on domestic American soil (for use against who, you might ask?), and no trashing of Bill of Rights and Constitutional guarantees, no programmatic and precedent-setting weakening and eliminating of right and guarantees so that the very concepts of “citizenship” and “freedom” have been emptied out to the point where setting up concentration camps inside the U.S. is now legal and not a one of us would have any recourse whatsoever if it were decided that we should be thrown into a cell in one of them and forgotten forever.[1]

Without 9/11, there would never have been any fake and opportunistic “Global War on Terror,” would never have been Guantanamo as we know it now, never have been official programs of torture or fake demonizing of Islam in order to justify wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Somalia, or to justify overt plans for the murder of U.S. citizens living in places like, say, Yemen.

There’s more, much more. The complete list of atrocities, crimes, and inhumanities triggered by or justified by 9/11 could fill whole chapters, even books. By using 9/11 as propaganda—by using it as trigger, excuse, justification, or catalyst—the U.S. has betrayed itself, its principles, and its people, and has made itself the world’s most dangerous enemy of all mankind and also of Earth herself.

How can it conceivably be, given these facts, that we, a nation of people who presumably have minds of our own—how can it be that we have done nothing to stop this hideous parade of monstrosities and horrors? In the Foreword to Dr. Wood’s book, I wrote:

It is now almost a decade since 9/11 took place, and in all that time no unassailable, permanent, or, in pragmatic terms, politically influential progress has been made in determining exactly and irrefutably what took place on that day—or what did not take place.

We—that is, we the potential resistance or opposition to U.S. criminal policy—have been spinning our wheels for a complete decade. There are a lot of reasons for this wheel-spinning, including various programs of very skillful and extraordinarily devious cover-up after cover-up after cover-up of the central question of what did happen on 9/11. For, as long as that central question remains unanswered, or for as long as that question can be caused to remain obfuscated, blurred, muddled-up, in doubt—as long as that situation continues, the wheels will continue to spin and people won’t quite know what to do. Dr. Wood is very well aware of this fact. Her own way of putting it is that before accusing someone of a crime, you’ve got to know what crime they committed. In her Author’s Preface, she writes:

You cannot convict someone of a crime if you don’t even know what crime to charge them with. If you accuse someone of murder using a gun, you’d better be sure the body has a bullet hole in it.

by Kourosh Ziabari in Iran

 

George Katsiaficas is a renowned university professor, sociologist, author and activist. He is a visiting American Professor of Humanities and Sociology at Chonnam National University, Gwangju, South Korea where he teaches and does research on the 1980s and 1990s East Asian uprisings.

Katsiaficas has a Ph.D. of sociology from the University of California, San Diego. Since 1990, he has taught sociology at the Wentworth Institute of Technology's Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. During the period between 2006 and 2008, he was an Associate in Research at the Harvard University and Korea Institute.

He specializes in social movements, Asian politics, the U.S. foreign policy, comparative and historical studies and has written numerous books in these fields.

In 2003, he won the American Political Science Association's Special Award for Outstanding Service and in 2008, received the Fulbright Senior Scholar Research Fellowship.

Among his major books are "The Battle of Seattle" by the New York's Soft Skull Press, "Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party" by New York's Routledge Press and "South Korean Democracy: Legacy of the Gwangju Uprising" by London's Routledge Press.

What follows is the complete text of interview with Dr. George Katsiaficas on the recent uprising in the Arab world, its impacts on the international developments and its implications for the United States and its European allies.

Kourosh Ziabari: After Tunisia and Egypt in which the revolutionary forces and people on the ground succeeded in ousting the U.S.-backed puppets, several other Arab nations joined them and staged massive street demonstrations to call for civil liberties, improved living conditions, freedom and democratic governments. Now the whole Arab world is in a state of turmoil and unrest and the U.S.-backed dictators are facing the bitter reality that their autocracies are about to fail and collapse. What factors led to the extension of anti-government protests to the whole Arab world? Can we interpret this collective uprising a result of the explosion of strong pan-Arabist sentiments?

George Katsiaficas: No one could have predicted that the suicide of a vegetable vendor in rural Tunisia would unleash long pent-up frustrations on such a scale. If we take a long historical view, the Arab world went into a steep decline after Europeans discovered how to round Africa and established direct trade with the East. While oil has provided a huge stimulus for recovery in the 20th century, its effects have been drastically mitigated by elite corruption. The Arab people are finally awakening from a long slumber. The masses of ordinary Arabs today know in their hearts that they are more intelligent than their rulers. They know that they could all live better lives if they could get rid of the corrupt and often stupid elites trampling on their freedoms and hogging the money that rightfully belongs to everybody.

by William Blum

Amidst all the stirring political upheavals in North Africa and the Middle East the name "Marshall Plan" keeps being repeated by political figures and media around the world as the key to rebuilding the economies of those societies to complement the political advances, which hopefully will be somewhat progressive. But caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware.

During my years of writing and speaking about the harm and injustice inflicted upon the world by unending United States interventions, I've often been met with resentment from those who accuse me of chronicling only the negative side of US foreign policy and ignoring the many positive sides. When I ask the person to give me some examples of what s/he thinks show the virtuous face of America's dealings with the world in modern times, one of the things mentioned — almost without exception — is The Marshall Plan. This is usually described along the lines of: "After World War II, the United States unselfishly built up Europe economically, including our wartime enemies, and allowed them to compete with us." Even those today who are very cynical about US foreign policy, who are quick to question the White House's motives in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, have little problem in accepting this picture of an altruistic America of the period 1948-1952. But let's have a look at the Marshall Plan outside the official and popular versions.

by Andre Vltchek

As several revolts shook recently big part of Arab world, as Hosni Mubarak stepped down and the leaders of Bahrain and Libya could not think about anything better than to order bloody crack down against their own people, the world (read Western governments, media and academia) were watching with increasing doze of discomfort.

Protests seem to be engulfing almost all countries in the region from Morocco and Tunis to Jordan, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.   

Staunch ally of the West – Saudis – feel suddenly 'vulnerable', even 'encircled'. No wonder – millions of the poor from all over the region are now marching and fighting for social justice or for justice in general. And there is hardly a place in the world with more striking inequalities than in this kingdom based on Wahabi conservative Islam, historically close ally of British imperialism. As is well known, Saudi Arabia is bathing in oil – that dark liquid which is both blessing and curse - enriching elites while helping to maintain apartheid between the natives and exploited migrant workers.

For decades, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt (or more precisely their rulers and 'elites') – all of them served Western interests with zeal and efficiency. Now they are expecting helping hand, support in this complex and 'dangerous times'.

While the White House was sending conflicting reports to its allies, well-disciplined mass media and academia rose immediately to the challenge and invented 'the best role model for the Arab world' – Indonesia.

After all, Indonesia is home to more Muslims than any other nation on earth. It is rich in natural resources and after 1998 it holds multi-party elections. Its economy is growing at more than 6% a year and there seem to be no popular uprisings or calls for revolution. Both President Obama and Foreign Secretary Clinton sang praises to Indonesian model during their visits to Jakarta.

Indonesia is a staunch ally of the West: 'a bumper zone against rising China', good god-fearing country where the Communist Party and atheism are banned and business and the Almighty appear to be working in unison for the benefit of the few. It performed extremely effective surgery on behalf of the West in 1965/66 – murdering millions of Communists, progressive leaders, teachers, intellectuals and members of Chinese minority. It can be, therefore, trusted.

Writing for CNN, Ann Marie Murphy - an associate professor at the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, and an associate fellow at the Asia Society - argued:

 "Since Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak resigned in the face of widespread demonstrations, attention has shifted to what comes next. Fears have been raised that Egypt's transition may follow the Iranian path, where the Shah's overthrow led to a repressive Islamic regime that turned away from the West and became a source of regional instability. Indonesia provides a better analogy for Egypt than Iran. Over the past decade Indonesia, home of the world's largest community of Muslims, has made a successful transition to democracy that clearly refutes the proposition that Islam and democracy are incompatible…"

Second, they helped me realize the importance of always having a political life outside the university. Instead of putting all my energy into my teaching and research, I was anchored in a community project and connected to people who weren't preoccupied with publishing marginally relevant research in marginally relevant academic journals. Although I had to publish scholarly articles for my first six years as an assistant professor, once I got tenure and job security I immediately returned to community organizing and ignored the pseudo-intellectual pretensions that dominate in most of the so-called scholarly world in the social sciences and humanities. I had developed respect for rigorous and relevant scholarship but had come to realize how little of it there was in my fields in the contemporary academy.

by Ramzy Baroud

 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his supporters in the Fatah party want us to believe that dramatic changes are underway in the occupied Palestinian territories.

This is part of a strategy intended to offset any public dissatisfaction with the self-designated Palestinian leadership in the West Bank. The PA hopes the ‘news’ will create enough distraction to help it survive the current climate of major public-regime showdowns engulfing the Middle East.

Anticipating a potential popular uprising in the occupied territories - which could result in a major revamping of the current power, to the disadvantage of Abbas - the PA is now taking preventive measures.

First, there was the resignation of the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Ereka on February 12. Erekat was clearly implicated in negotiating, if not squandering, Palestinian rights in successive meetings with Israeli and American officials. This was revealed through nearly 1,600 leaked documents, which Aljazeera and the Guardian termed the ‘Palestine Papers’.

Erekat was hardly representing himself, as he readily gave away much territory, including most of Jerusalem. He also agreed to a symbolic return of Palestinian refugees to their land, now part of today’s Israel. By keeping his post, the entire PA ‘peace process’ apparatus would have remained ineffective at best, and at worst entirely self-seeking, showing no regard whatsoever for Palestinian rights.

With Erekat’s exit, the PA hopes to retain a margin of credibility among Palestinians.

Gilad Atzmon is an outstandingly charming man. He is often described by music critics as one of the finest contemporary jazz saxophonists. But Atzmon is more than just a musician: for those who follow events in the Middle East, he is considered to be one of the most credible voices amongst Israeli opponents. In the last decade he has relentlessly exposed and denounced barbarian Israeli policies. Just before his departure on a European Spring Tour, “The Tide Has Changed “, with his band the Orient House Ensemble, he spoke to Silvia Cattori.

Silvia Cattori: As a jazz musician, what brought you to use your pen as a weapon against the country where you were born and against your people?

  Gilad Atzmon: For many years my music and writings were not integrated at all. I became a musician when I was seventeen and I took it up as a profession when I was twenty four. Though I was not involved with, or interested in politics when I lived in Israel, I was very much against Israel’s imperial wars. I identified somehow with the left, but later, when I started to grasp what the Israeli left was all about, I could not find myself in agreement with anything it claimed to believe in, and that is when I realised the crime that was taking place in Palestine.

For me the Oslo Accord was the end of it because I realised that Israel was not aiming towards reconciliation, or even integration in the region, and that it completely dismissed the Palestinian cause. I understood then that I had to leave Israel. It wasn’t even a political decision — I just didn’t want to be part of the Israeli crime anymore. In 1994 I moved to the UK and I studied philosophy.

In 2001, at the time of the second Intifada, I began to understand that Israel was the ultimate aggressor and was also the biggest threat to world peace. I realised the extent of the involvement and the role of world Jewry as I analysed the relationships between Israel and the Jewish State, between Israel and the Jewish people around the world, and between Jews and Jewishness.

by Roy S. Carson (vheadline.com)

All this mattered little to Washington, whose policies have only verified Lord Palmerston’s assertion that “there are no permanent allies…only permanent interests”. Henry Kissinger eventually took Egypt out of the whole Middle East equation, and others followed in his lead, ensuring that Egypt could never act in a way that disturbed Israeli interests. Ironically, it was also Washington that jumped on the opportunity to chase Mubarak - but not his regime - out of power. Soon after Mubarak’s newly appointed vice president read the short statement of Mubarak’s departure, Obama elatedly read his own statement. When he announced that the Egyptian people would settle for nothing less than ‘genuine democracy’, he sounded like one of the guys in the Tahrir square in Cairo, not the leader of the very country that had defended Mubarak’s reign and defined the former president as a ‘moderate’ and a good friend. “No permanent allies,” indeed.

by Franklin Lamb Ph.D. at Shatila Refugee Camp, Beirut

Virtually all opponents of Palestinian civil rights frequently claimed that tawtin would ruin Lebanon. This was arguably the main reason that there was a broad-based consensus in support of the parliamentary decision of August 17, 2011 to do essentially nothing to enact relief for Lebanon's quarter million Palestinian refugees.

The Mubarak administration at the beginning of the protests had expelled the al-Jazeera news network, and began a random campaign against all journalists, the result of the government believing that the media inflamed the call for revolution and the overthrow of Mubarak. There were about 140 cases of assault and harassment of journalists during the 18-day protest, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Ahmad Mohamad Mahmoud, an Egyptian journalist, was killed by sniper fire, probably by pro-Mubarak supporters. Among American reporters physically assaulted were CNN's Anderson Cooper and photojournalist Dana Smillie, who was seriously wounded by what appeared to be a dozen BB-size pellets. Journalists displayed "admirable levels of courage as they—initially as individuals and small groups, and eventually in droves—made statements and took actions that exposed them to immense personal and professional risk," according to the CPJ.

by Jan Lundberg

The scene of several million deaths at the hands of Spaniard invaders, Cerro Rico ("rich hill") is just above the city of Potosí in Bolivia. In May 2010, I noted significant amounts of plastic debris all over the mountainside, but I couldn't guess the source. The answer, from my local driver, is that the miners working in the mountain constantly use plastic bags for their daily coca supplies. Chewing the leaves provides stamina and curbs hunger.

It is ironic that the seemingly harmless but unsightly plastic serves as a relatively new source of devastation to the health of the community and the ecosystem. For anyone to dismiss this concern as irrelevant compared to the poor miners' work conditions of yesterday and today is to let off the petroleum corporations and everyone down the line participating in a long-term tragedy affecting future generations.