Internet intelligence firm Renesys reported on its blog that starting at 3:35 UTC yesterday, approximately two-thirds of all Syrian networks became unreachable from the global Internet. Over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table.

This image shows the current state (green: reachable, red: unreachable) of each network prefix in the Middle East this morning, visualized as a packed Hilbert-curve representation. The size of the colored area is proportional to each country's Internet presence, so you can see that Syria's Internet (red block near the top center) is a little smaller than that of Kuwait.

The network prefixes that remain reachable include those belonging to the Syrian government, although many government websites are slow to respond or down. The Oil Ministry is up, for example, and Syrian Telecom's official page, but the Ministry of Education is down, as is the Damascus city government page, and the Syrian Customs website.

The networks that are not reachable include, substantially, all of the prefixes reserved for SyriaTel's 3G mobile data networks, and smaller downstream ISPs including Sawa, INET, and Runnet.

News is filtering out of Syria very slowly. If Egypt and Libya's Internet outages are any guide, one might conclude that events on the street in Syria are reaching a tipping point.

Syria has been banning social media services in the last few months, but this is the full time there has been a widespread Internet outage.

The move comes as protests have intensified in the troubled nation. 34 people were killed Friday after security forces opened fire. The uprising, which began in late January, has been focused on ousting Bashar Al-Assad from his role as President of Syria. Al-Assad ascended to the presidency in 2000 after his father’s 29-year rule.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shut down Internet services during the Egyptian revolution so protesters couldn’t easily organize. It didn’t quell the revolt though, and on February 11, Mubarak resigned.

By Mohamed Khodr* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

FOX's 3P Mission: Polarization, Propaganda, and Prejudice

"This is the soft war that seeks to isolate Israel by delegitimizing it...the battle ground is everywhere – the media, multinational organizations, NGOs. In this war, the aim is to make ISRAEL a pariah."
--Rupert Murdoch, .A.D.L. Speech upon receiving ADL's "International Leadership Award", October 13, 2010

"The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent. "
--Gore Vidal, novelist and critic

CAUTION: You Are About To Enter the "No Spin Zone."

No Corporation or Media mogul has had as much impact on the corruption and manipulation of minds, opinions, and attitudes in the U.S. and abroad than Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and Fox News Channel in particular.

This mogul has singlehandedly created a nation within a nation--the Fox Nation. A nation dedicated to the principle that the only deserving humanity for wealth, power, supremacy, and governance are mainly white Republicans, Corporate and Business tycoons, those who support militarism as the sole means of projecting America's power abroad, and those who blindly and unquestionably support Israel's hegemony, illegal occupation, the building of illegal settlements, and who identify its offensive militarism as self-defense. Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims are an offense to western civilization and thus are expendable collateral damage to the greater good of Israel which naturally translates to the greater good of the U.S.

Rupert Murdoch is the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation which owns vast holdings in newspapers, movie studios, television stations, cable and satellite stations, entertainment companies, book publishing, music, radio, and internet companies around the world..

In terms of revenue in 2010, News Corporation was second only to Walt Disney Company, with Time Warner and Viacom as third and fourth respectively.

With the exception of Rupert Murdoch the remaining three media conglomerates are run by Jewish Americans.

For his Zionist efforts Murdoch has received awards and high praise from Pro Israeli groups in the United States such as the Anti Defamation League which presented him with the "International Leadership Award" and the American Jewish Committee which presented him with the "AJC National Human Relations Award" on March 4, 2009.

The Jewish Commentary Magazine on October 14, 2010 published Murdoch's speech to the A.D.L. and made the following observation.

"Last night, Rupert Murdoch gave an extraordinary speech at an Anti-Defamation League dinner in which he revealed, yet again, that he is a true and selfless friend of the Jewish people and of Israel."

Not to be out done, Roger Ailes, Chairman and C.E.O. of Fox News and Fox News Channel was honored at a gala dinner by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. Former President Bill Clinton appeared on a video saluting "red-state Roger" for his concern for "the security for the State of Israel

Murdoch is also a staunch Republican Conservative who's unashamed to donate millions to Republican causes.

Murdoch's News Corporation donated $1 million to the Republican Governors Association in June 2010. Similarly he donated $1 million to the United States Chamber of Commerce, a staunch Republican organization. No one is investigating if such media donations to political organizations are ethical.

Thus it is a fact that Murdoch and News Corporation are propaganda patsies for Israel and the Republican Party.

Fox News Channel is the most popular and most influential cable network which for years has left CNN, MSNBC and other cable networks in the dust.

Fox Channel uses the following two slogans: "We Report, You Decide", and, "Fair and Balanced". In fact the channel is a weapon of mass deception that instills fear in a large segment of the U.S. population with lies and blasphemous bigoted hateful commentary. Goebbels would be proud in seeing an American "News" Channel implement his propaganda philosophy.

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

The best that can be said about Fox News Channel and its bigoted, racist, fear mongering hosts and pundits is that it is committing "Intellectual Terrorism" upon a nation devoid of intellectual curiosity, a passion for truth and civic involvement, a self absorbed populace distracted with consumerism, and devoid of all outrage at the crimes committed by its government and corporations here and abroad.

The three most popular Fox Channel hosts are Bill O'Rielly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck who share the same viewpoints, personality traits, and fear mongering propaganda.

All three have delusions of grandeur, absolutism of truth, are paranoid, self promoting salesmen of their books and products, hold hallucinatory conspiracy theories where Looney lefties, Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Islamic terrorists, Sharia Law, George Soros, and radical media outlets are collaborating and planning to overtake America and western civilization to establish a one world government run by radical Islamists.

Perhaps this quote by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich speaking to thousands of Evangelicals in a bid to build his base for a possible Presidential run is emblematic of the mindset of Fox News Channel, where he is a contributor, and the propaganda it pursues.

"I have two grandchildren - Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."

--Newt Gingrich, Politico 3/27/2011

However a most revealing study conducted by the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland showed the following results from surveying American's knowledge of current events based on their viewership of the cable networks Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.

Their conclusion as reported by the Iowa Independent, December 2, 2010:

"People who regularly watch Fox News are more likely to be incorrect on a wide range of major issues. But the audiences of MSNBC, PBS and National Public Radio are frequently better informed than most, according to a new study by the University of Maryland.

The study finds Fox News viewers to be the more likely to be incorrect with each incremental increase of exposure to Fox. The respondents who watched Fox News on a daily basis were at times twice as likely to be wrong as those who never watched Fox "

Rupert Murdoch, News Corporation, and Fox News Channel are the greatest threat to American democracy, unity, and stability. Al Qaeda's threat is a distant second to the daily propaganda drum beat for War, Hate, Incitement, and Prejudice. (W.H.I.P.)

FOX News is the WHIP against civilized behavior, the use of reason, logic, and rationality of thought and policy in our national discourse.

Shockingly, the second largest shareholder of News Corporation is the Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al-Saud (7% of shares) who obviously is unfazed by Fox's relentless attack on Islam, Muslims, Arabs, and Saudi Arabia. Like all Arab tyrants and business tycoons, fame, wealth, and glory far outweigh their devotion to faith and brethren.

SOURCES:

1. http://www.adl.org/PresRele/Mise_00/5873_00.htm

Rupert Murdoch's Speech to the A.D.L. (Anti-Defamation League).upon receiving the annual "ADL International Leadership Award"; October 13, 2010

2.http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.5018279/k.7184/AJC_Honors_Rupert_Murdoch.htm

Rupert Murdoch Speech upon Receiving the American Jewish Committee's Award; "AJC National Human Relations Award", March 4, 2009 (From Murdoch's Speech)

3. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0624-25.htm

Must Read: How Only 118 People sit on the Board of the 10 Largest Media Conglomerates as well as on Boards of other Companies: See examples

* Mohamed Khodr is a political activist who frequently writes on the plight of Palestinians living under the brutal occupation of Israel, U.S. Foreign Policy, Islam, and Arab politics.

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

One blogger put it this way:

"Let me get this straight. The US is broke, borrowing money from China, and we will be funding the BBC to broadcast in China?"

On March 20, the London Guardian's Ben Dowell broke the news, headlining, "BBC World Service to sign funding deal with US State Department," saying:

Britain's government funded BBC will "receive a 'significant" sum of money from the US government to help (circumvent) the blocking of TV and internet services in countries including Iran and China," as well as develop early warning software to more easily detect jamming.

According to Jim Egan, BBC's controller of strategy and business:

Effective software will help "monitor dips in traffic which act as an early warning of jamming, and can be more effective than relying on people contacting us and telling us they cannot access the services."

Proxy servers will also be used to misdirect web site blockers to countries other than where broadcasts emanate.

"China has become quite expert at blocking websites," said Egan, "and one could say it has become something of an export industry for them - a lot of countries are keen to follow suit. We have (also seen) evidence of Libya and Egypt blocking the internet and satellite signals in recent weeks.

Moreover, Egan said, anti-censorship software will likely need regular updating to counter new technologies developed to subvert it. Another BBC source called it "a bit of a game of cat and mouse," but didn't explain why foreign blocking occurs; namely, to prevent anti-government propaganda from being aired, a reason any nation might act defensively.

Funding also buys influence, assuring US propaganda an influential global outlet, complementing its Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Radio Marti (Radio y Television Marti), as well as America's mainstream media and other Western conduits, delivering managed, not real, news and information.

According to Institute of Economic Affairs director Mark Littlewood:

"The minute you actually start taking the money, there is bound to be a certain element of 'he who pays the piper calls the tune.' It is a strange arrangement, and I would worry that the more complicated we make (BBC), the less pure its message can be," already tainted by British funding and control. More on that below.

EU Parliamentary member Gerard Batten calls BBC "institutionally politically biased, certainly in favour of things like the European Union, mass immigration, and a whole other host of 'politically correct' ideas that I think it peddles to the public."

Accepting government funding from any source exposes BBC hypocrisy. In fact, "(t)he EU bans sponsorship of any news and current affairs TV programs across the EU," said Batten. "Now it would appear then, that if the US State Department is going to fund BBC that would appear to be in breach of the directive."

For BBC, an expected low six-figure sum (a starter amount perhaps to be generously increased with little fanfare), will be channelled through the World Service Trust (its charitable arm) to help reach people in targeted countries. The grant will help offset a 16% annual Foreign Office cut over three years affecting 650 jobs and regional operations.

On May 3, International Press Freedom Day, the formal announcement is expected, following "an increase in incidents of interference with World Service output across the globe," affecting BBC Persian television and its Arabic TV.

On March 22, Dowell headlined, "American anger at BBC World Service Trust's bid for US funding," saying:

Furious US responses followed the announcement. Even Voice of America officials were "deeply angry" at a time "Congress is embroiled in a delicate budgetary standoff with the Obama administration....One Washington source said the Broadcasting Board of Governors, (BBG)" in charge of distributing about $760 million annually to five US international broadcasters, "should receive the funding and not the BBC World Service Trust."

Of course, bankrolling propaganda through any source is reprehensible, especially when commercial outlets do it free, paid for by sponsors.

BBC's Long History as a Reliable Imperial Tool

Since founded in 1922, BBC has been as corrupted as its dominant counterparts. Moreover, it's been around longer than all of them, and it now operates for profit besides with UK government funding under its editorial control, firing anyone too critical of state policy.

Today, nothing's fundamentally changed since founder Lord Reith wrote the establishment saying, "They know they can trust us not to be really impartial." Neither he or his successors disappointed with rare exceptions, followed by staff changes to assure adherence to state policies, operating as a propaganda system for elitist interests.

Claiming "honesty (and) integrity (is) what the BBC stands for....free from political and commercial pressure" is untrue about an organization that from inception betrayed the public trust. Reith, in fact, operated as a strikebreaker, secretly wrote anti-union speeches for Torries, and refused air time to worker representatives.

Throughout its history, job applicants have been vetted to assure pro-government, pro-business credentials. No aberrant candidates are wanted. Whether on war and peace, Israel - Palestine, international intervention, targeted world leaders, or other domestic and foreign issues, neutral, fair and balanced reporting isn't tolerated. For nearly nine decades, serving wealth and power alone matters most, now with State Department funds for America like Britain.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Lawrence Davidson * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Part I

There is no doubt that Julian Assange, the head of the Wikileaks organization, and Bradley Manning, the soldier who allegedly leaked U.S. classified documents, are being singled out and made examples of by the Obama administration. Their suffering constitutes a message which goes like this: if you inform the public of what the United States government is doing, no matter how illegal and disgusting it might be, our police and intelligence agencies will track you down and turn your life into hell. We will do that to you whether we can prove you committed a crime or not (as in the case of Assange) and we will do it to you even if it runs counter to our own legal codes (as in the case of Manning).

That is why Julian Assange is hold up in a British home under virtual house arrest devoting most of his energy to avoiding extradition to Sweden on what is almost certainly an exaggerated charge of sexual misconduct. The Swedes are cooperating with Washington and if Assange is extradited there he may well end up in the U.S. where, despite having not been charged with a crime, various politicians and talking heads have called for "punishment" of the most draconian sort. And it is not just Assange. Most of those involved with Wikileaks have been reduced to fear and trembling. As Glenn Greenwald puts it, "all of them, to a person, no matter what their nationality is, the thing they fear most is ending up in the hands of American authorities and in the American...justice system." Greenwald notes the irony of it all. For the truth tellers, the land of the free has become a land of justice denied.

And, speaking of draconian punishment and justice denied, Bradley Manning who, for the past nine months, has been in incarcerated in the brig at Marine base in Quantico Virginia, is subject to treatment that is certainly cruel and unusual and thus illegal. He is in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. In the 24^th hour he is taken into another room where he can walk about shackled. This is for exercise. If he stops walking at any time during this hour he is immediately returned to his cell. Periodically he is put under constant surveillance because the military says he is potentially suicidal. How did he get that way? He was not suicidal upon his arrest. If in fact he is suicidal now it probably because the U.S. military has subjected him to conditions that drove him in that direction. The Commandant at Quantico has apparently seen fit to turn his brig into a stateside version of one of those infamous black hole detention facilities used by the CIA. The ones in which the Bush gang conducted "torture by proxy." At Quantico we have decided to torture Bradley Manning ourselves.

Sadly, all of this is being done on Barack Obama's watch. Yes, the President has defended Gay rights both in military and civilian society, and he has pushed for the employment of people with disabilities. However, when it comes to the federal government's actions in violation of its own laws, he has refused to interfere or punish. This has produced the most startling juxtapositions. The U.S. government can lie to its people and start a war on that basis that kills millions of people (the ultimate crime according to the Nuremberg trials) and Obama will not investigate and will not prosecute. He will in fact do worse than nothing, as when he put pressure on Spain to cancel its own investigation of crimes against international law under the Bush administration. But, if someone like Bradley Manning defies the American code of secrecy and reveals the truth, President Obama will allow him to be driven half mad and charged with "aiding the enemy" which carries the death penalty. But wait a minute. If your war is based on lies and manipulation and a good deal of official stupidity, it logically follows that the "enemy" is a contrived one. Under those circumstances does the charge of aiding such an enemy make any sense? Well, it makes sense if government secrecy has kept everyone mostly ignorant of the lies and other machinations. All of this makes you wonder how the man in the Oval Office sleeps at night.

Part II

And what about the rest of us? President Obama is not doing these things alone. What is happening to Julian Assange and Bradley Manning requires the cooperation or acquiescence of at least two additional groups.

1) The first group is made up of those employed to carry out the draconian measures now being practiced. You do not have to be familiar with the sociologist Max Weber to figure out how such people can do what they do, largely with impunity. They are mostly bureaucrats and bureaucracies have evolved so as to hide responsibility. President Harry Truman once reacted to this fact by putting a sign in his office that said "the buck stops here." In other words, buried in organizations with layers of authority, are anonymous millions who can always claim that they are "just following orders." And, as a number of psychological studies have shown, most of us do in fact "just follow orders" especially if we are enmeshed in a peer group which is doing likewise. To this might be added the fact that there is always a sub-group of order takers who get their adrenalin highs from hurting others (every combat platoon has one or more of these). They are the ubiquitous torturers, abusive prison guards, and lower echelon thugs that find employment with all governments, including Washington. They were particularly active under the Bush regime. To be sure there are laws against acting in a criminal fashion, even as a member of a government department. However, if your illegal actions are officially sanctioned, you are almost certain to get away with it. One will recall that the Bush gang, from top to bottom, is protected from prosecution by President Obama. Problems only develop when someone "blows the whistle" in a very public way. It is interesting that in such cases, more often than not, it is the "whistle blower who gets punished, and not the criminals. Assange and Manning are good examples of this.

2) The second group is the citizenry at large. Particularly in a democracy like the United States, these grossly inhumane acts by government officials are harder to carry on if the public knows about them and strongly objects. So there are two qualifiers here: a) if the public knows and b) if the public objects.

a) Secrecy, along with a less than aggressive media, is the way the American government attempts to assure that its own citizens do not know of its illegal doings. Until the age of the Internet this was relatively easy to do. Most of the privately owned media outlets are either whole heartedly conservative in outlook, and thus share the government's attitude toward secrecy, or they are scared of the legal complications and bad publicity the government can cause them. There have been times in recent history when some news companies have acted in aggressive ways to assert the public's right to know (one thinks of the Washington Post at the time of the Watergate scandal) but the present day is not one of them. This is demonstrated by the fact that there has been no concerted effort on the part of the American media to defend Julian Assange, much less Bradley Manning. The combination of a government addicted to secrecy and news businesses that are essentially castrated means that what the public knows is what the government and its media allies tell it. So, unless someone breaches the walls of this system, either by doing something incredibly stupid, such as torturing prisoners at Abu Gharib while being photographed, or something incredibly brave, such as making public thousands of incriminating government documents, the citizenry will know little.

b) However, there is the second factor and that is objecting if you do happen to learn that something is amiss. One cannot assume that such objection comes automatically. Most people are so engrossed in their private lives that they do not pay attention to what the government is doing, particularly what it is doing abroad. They are more than willing to give Washington the benefit of the doubt unless the media aggressively asserts otherwise. So, when Obama says he will not allow for an official investigation of the Bush gang is there a public outcry? No. For that matter, if Washington quietly dropped all the charges against Bradford Manning and Fox News failed to go ballistic over the issue, would their be a public outcry? No. In the absence of an aggressive media to stir the pot and keep the citizenry focused, the default position of the majority is always a local one. In other words, if it does not impact my life, I am not going to pay attention unless you make me do so.

Part III

It may well be that the U.S. government has already achieved its goal when it comes to Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. It has created an atmosphere of fear and trembling so as to reduce the probability that anyone else will soon come along and replicate their behavior. In this effort law and due process mean nothing to either the President, the men and women who carry out his orders, or the citizens who go about their daily affairs with only minimal awareness that these two individuals are being harassed and tortured in their country's name. It is a sad, but hardly unique, situation. It makes one nostalgic for those days in the 1960s when there was a another war based on lies, but also an aggressively skeptical media and a military draft that impacted lots of citizens' lives. It is no mistake that this combination, one that indeed got the American masses into the streets, is missing today.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

For me, as a journalist, the web offers the most interesting and often most reliable sources because they are shorn of the consensual bias, and a censorship by omission, that pervades broadcasting.—John Pilger

Today, increasing numbers of people have become fed up with lies, omissions and cover-ups by both governments and the mainstream media.

One reason for the current interest in WikiLeaks is the fascination of confidential and embarrassing secrets exposed.

What constitutes the mainstream media? Twenty years ago several journalists expressed concern that the number of major news sources in America had diminished to fifty.

Today, conglomerates have bought up most of those news sources; and the number of major news sources has been reduced to six! These six control all the news reported in America and much of what gets reported in the UK and Europe.

Rupert Murdoch, one of the world's biggest media moguls, owns outlets in Australia (The Mirror), England (News of the World, Sun and the Times, BSkyB), Asia (Star TV) and the USA (20th C. Fox and Fox TV).

Murdoch's News Corp. holdings now include a lion's share of the newspaper industry in Australia, plus about one-third of British newspapers; and in the U.S. he has film and TV interests, newspapers, book publishers, sports teams, and much more. In Asia he owns Star Television.

According to Britain’s Daily Telegraph, concerns about Murdoch's media control in the UK had ministers from Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg's party discussing ways to limit Murdoch.

Secretly recorded tapes revealed that ministers from Clegg's group criticized policy and vowed to block Rupert Murdoch's plans to expand his media empire.

Business Secretary Vince Cable, a key Clegg ally and member of the Liberal Democrat party, was stripped of responsibility for media competition issues after he was recorded boasting to undercover reporters that he had declared war on Murdoch.

Thousands of smaller media without the resources to get reportage directly rely on the major conglomerates for their news. Thus, small newspapers in Canton, Ohio or Exeter, England or Bahrain depend on the major news outlets for what they report.

This means they choose which news is important, which news they don't want reported, what kind of slant should be taken and who--among their owners and corporate advertisers--might be offended or pleased by what they report.

The recently revealed story of New York Times reporter David Rohde is an apparently justifiable example of press censorship.

In June 22, 2009, when news came that Rohde had escaped from his Taliban captors, few knew he had even been kidnapped, because for the seven months he and two Afghan colleagues were in the Taliban's hands, The Times kept that information under wraps.

Kelly McBride, who teaches ethics to journalists says she was "really astounded" by the media blackout. "It makes me wonder what else 40 international news organizations have agreed not to tell the public."

What does the reference to "alternative" media mean? It refers to newspapers, magazines, radio or television that cover news that doesn't get reported or is under-reported in the mainstream media.

A number of reliable alternative sites include news and commentary related to international issues as well as accurate and fair perspectives on the Middle East.

http://sabbah.biz/mt/

http://www.alternet.org/

http://www.antiwar.com/

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com

http://www.axisoflogic.com/

http://www.commondreams.org/

http://www.counterpunch.org/

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

http://mycatbirdseat.com/

http://www.onlinejournal.com/

http://www.redress.cc/

http://www.veteranstoday.com/

http://mirror.wikileaks.info/

In addition to websites that can be visited for their alternative views, a number of writers can be relied on to report accurately and provide revealing commentary avoided by mainstream media. To view articles, simply type their names into a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Some of the leading—always reliable--commentators include Robert Fisk, John Pilger, Gwynne Dyer, Mark Steele, Uri Avneri, Arundhate Roy, Alexander Cockburn, Ted Rall, Greg Palast, Robert Jensen, Mike Whitney, Alan Hart, Jeff Blankfort, Gilad Atzmon, Jonathan Cook, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Chris Hedges,  Ramzy Baroud, Franklin Lamb, James Petras, Debbie Mennon, Glenn Greenwald, Paul Craig Roberts, Stephen Zunes, Amy Goodman, Eric Margolis, Richard Falk, Jeff Gates, Stuart Littlewood and Gordon Duff.

It’s not too late to add a useful New Year’s resolution: get some news and views that you won’t find in the mainstream media.  Read a news commentary by each of these writers in 2011.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

By Paul J. Balles * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

The press is down on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange for all the wrong reasons.

They ought to be after Assange for giving governments reasons for censorship – just the opposite effect of the transparency he presumably wanted to promote.

What is the press after him for? Whatever happens to suit the politics or niche of their publication or network.

Scandal sheets are going after Assange for an alleged sexual offence in Sweden, where a couple of his consensual sex partners admitted that they wouldn't have pressed charges if Assange had willingly been tested for HIV.

The gossip sheets have been denigrating Assange for social ineptitude. Stories about his dictatorial rudeness seem to abound in these rumour mills.

A story appearing in one of the gossip sheets reports that an American journalist said: "Mr Assange was unusually rude, and when he offered him a copy of his recent, well-reviewed book, he said: ‘Don’t bother. I’d only throw it away.’ After that, he says Mr Assange ignored him, focusing intently on his girlfriend instead."

Another newspaper has been trying to bring Andy Coulson to book for his alleged role in the News of the World phone hacking affair but has no compunction in revealing nuggets of gossip and information to the world obtained illegally by WikiLeaks.

Other reporters have questioned Assange's belief in total openness, saying that national security is at risk and should be a consideration.

Some of those same newspapers enjoy adding that Assange "delights in asking politicians what they have to hide" but doesn't believe in total openness for himself.

The Daily Mail claims: "He preaches openness but demands privacy. He reveals 'secrets' but 99 per cent are prurient gossip. He's accused of rape but won't face his accusers. Why do the left worship the WikiLeaks 'god?"

The Jerusalem Post doesn't seem to think Assange is such a bad guy. None of the cables from WikiLeaks about Israel embarrassed or irritated Israelis.

Judith Levy asks: "How has Israel responded to the WikiLeaks information dump? Mostly with a shrug."

She adds: "What revelations there were about us are mostly positive, and they fall predominantly in the ‘Friends You Didn’t Know You Had’ category."

Could it be that those who send cables know that Israelis spy on everything? Diplomats don't dare expose uncomfortable truths about Israel.

Dutch Business Insider SAI, as might be expected, revealed concern about WikiLeaks that affect business.

"Two young Dutch hackers," they relate, "who attacked sites like Visa in protest at actions against WikiLeaks were arrested, and now one of them gave an interview."

The Wall Street Journal reports that "Bank of America Corporation, thought to be a potential target of WikiLeaks, became the latest US company to ban transactions of any type that we have reason to believe are intended for WikiLeaks."

Yahoo News claims: "Assange really didn't like last month's New York Times profile of him – so much so, apparently, that he opted against giving the Times an advanced look at the State Department cables his organization began publishing..."

Adds Yahoo: "It's not the first time Assange has cut off a news organization following a WikiLeaks profile that he didn't consider to be completely accurate."

Investigative historian and journalist Gareth Porter, writing in Counterpunch, revealed how Russians challenged the existence of a mystery missile the US claims Iran acquired from North Korea.

But readers of the two leading US newspapers never learned key facts about the document. According to Porter, WikiLeaks revealed how the press has been complicit in cover-ups by the government.

That alone should justify WikiLeaks’ efforts to expose cover-ups and promote transparency – even in the press.

* Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month.

By Anthony Lawson * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

There is a postmodern position that states "reality is a social construct". In other words, individuals and groups have their own realities and, according to the postmodernists, one reality is as true as another.

Certainly, there is more than one way to interpret things. It is because individuals see the world differently and, at least in the American cultural milieu, have such trouble reconciling those views, that US divorce rates run at about 50 per cent. Then there is the inescapable fact that nation states and rival ethnic communities periodically slaughter each other in an effort to disprove the postmodernist assertion that all realities are equal. Thus, we see the competition among groups to assert the reality of the powerful as triumphantly more real than all rivals.

It is hard to argue with the notion that there are many social, cultural and political "constructs", each a product of its place and time. However, the notion that all realities are equal can quickly take us into a kind of theatre of the absurd. If you want to see what this looks like, just take a close look at present day American politics.

Recent examples of private realities

Take the issue of climate change. John Shimkus is a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Illinois. He is presently campaigning for the chairmanship of the House Committee for Energy and Commerce.

Last year, during a congressional hearing, he asserted that there is no need to be concerned about global warming because after the biblical flood God promised Noah that he would "never again ... curse the ground because of man..." Shimkus sees this as "the infallible word of God, and that is the way it's going to be for his creation".

Well, this is an opinion for sure, but it is also John Shimkus's "reality". As such, is it the equal to the reality posited by the present scientific consultants of the Environmental Protection Agency?

How about the world of John Barton, a House member from Texas who has it in his head that carbon dioxide emissions are not impacting the climate? If someday this gas does have an effect on the environment, Barton tells us not to worry. We will find a way to live with it. After all, according to Barton, man is able to adapt to just about any environment.

Again, what is the worth of Barton's "reality"? Is it equal to the one posited by those scientists keeping track of greenhouse gases?

Finally, there is Darrell Issa, a Republican House member from California who soon will be the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Issa's obsession is climate data which, he is sure, has been manipulated by environmentalists seeking the ruin of capitalism. And, he is determined to use his committee's subpoena power to foil this plot.

Representative Issa has his own "reality". But, beyond his own head, just how real is it?

It is not only with issues such as climate change that American politicians are riding the wave of postmodernism. Foreign policy is also an arena of alternate realities. Texas Republican representative Louie Gohmert took the floor in the House of Representatives last month and stated the following, "I've been greatly concerned with the hypocrisy of this [Obama] administration telling Israel 'just let Palestinians build illegal settlements and take over areas that are not theirs. Just let 'em take over'."

Mr Gohmert has his world, his "reality", but I think we can say definitively that it is less real than that of a new born Palestinian babe in Hebron.

Then there are all those US politicians whose "reality" includes Iran's drive for an atomic bomb, and the reality of all US intelligence agency experts who say Iran is doing no such thing. Are they equal?

Americans are not the only ones subject to impaired or wholly false "realities". A recent report prepared for NATO by the International Council on Security and Development revealed that most Afghans in two hotly contested provinces, Helmand and Kandahar, "are completely unaware of the 11 September attacks on the United States and don't know they precipitated the foreign intervention now in its 10th year". The report concludes: "The lack of awareness of why we are there contributes to the high levels of negativity toward NATO military operations..."

These particular Afghan citizens live in a remote and technologically poor region of the world. This remoteness makes their outlook more understandable than that of all those "modern" Americans cited above.

But what about the world inside the heads of the people who prepared the NATO report? If we assume that their conclusions are an accurate picture of how they see reality in this case, we can only conclude that they too, like the Afghans, are suffering from an impaired worldview.

It would seem that somehow they have forgotten, or suppressed, the fact that when, after 11 September 2001, "President George W. Bush demanded that Mullah Omar ... turn over Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants or face the full brunt of US military might, Mullah Omar asked to negotiate, and Bush refused. Instead, the United States invaded Afghanistan..." The Taliban leader had asked the Bush administration for proof of bin Laden's involvement in the 9/11 attack and those in the White House, aided by the Pakistanis, could have probably supplied it. However, America's leaders did not bother.

This also is part of the picture that should be given to the remote peoples of Afghanistan so as to make their notion of what is real more complete. Thus, the reality of the Afghans of Helmand and Kandahar is different to that of the NATO commanders and their consultants.

Are they equal? And, are either truly real?

Israeli picture of Middle East reality

The above examples are from our immediate past, but there are similar ones in our immediate future.

For instance, we can look forward to a new Israeli "advocacy campaign" scheduled for Western Europe early in 2011. The Israeli Foreign Ministry under the leadership of the Avigdor Lieberman, a man whose notion of reality is quite openly racist, has instructed Israeli embassies in all major Western European capitals to hire "professional advocacy and public relations experts" as well as to recruit up to 1,000 local Zionists per country to promote Israel's official view of "reality" in the Middle East. This comes after a relatively successful effort by both Israel and the United States to suppress the picture of reality put forth in the UN's Goldstone report.

The Israeli picture of Middle East reality, and its role therein, has been eroding in the minds of many Westerners. That is why this effort is being made. The source of the erosion is the demonstrable difference between Israeli behaviour and Israel's publically promoted image of reality. As long as the gap between these two is a yawning one, the Israeli effort to restructure reality for the citizens of Europe is likely to be no more than a rear-guard action. On the other hand, one should not underestimate the impact of such efforts. Public relations campaigns, advertising, and the like obviously do work. They are capable of making you passionate about new cars and new clothes, and they are capable of making you a supporter of the invasion of Iraq because you are convinced that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are real.

Conclusion

We all live lives that are relatively local and, in terms of an understanding of outside (foreign) events, we rely on the reports of others. That means, except for our immediate experience, our realities are heavily influenced by our media environment. That environment might entail serious and objective research or it may consist of daily doses of Fox TV. In either case that, in part, is how the universe inside our heads comes about and it, in turn, motivates our behavior. The whole process can bring us down to earth or send us into the realm of fantasy.

In the end we are confronted with two problems. One is that there are people who do occasionally attain power whose private realities are fantasy driven. As noted above, the House of Representatives seems to have an increasing number of such people. The second problem is that, unlike the postmodernist claim that we are all living in equally valid private realities, most individual realities are not private at all. They are instead the artificial creations of a manipulated information environment brought to us by way of the government and its allied media. And both of these problems are sure to lead to on-going tragedy.

* Anthony Lawson (known professionally as Tony Lawson) is a retired international-prize-winning commercials director, cameraman, ad agency creative director and voice over. He used to be known for shooting humorous commercials, but doesn't find much to laugh about, with the way the world is going, these days.

By Lauren Indvik

A State Department official warned students at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs this week that discussing WikiLeaks on Facebook or Twitter could endanger their employment prospects.

The official, a former student of the school, called the career services office of his alma mater to advise students not to post links to WikiLeaks documents, nor to make comments on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as “engaging in these activities would call into question [a student's] ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government,” he was quoted as saying in an e-mail sent to students by the career services office on Tuesday.

The warning coincided with WikiLeaks’s release of thousands of secret U.S. embassy cables on Sunday, November 28. The site has since been plagued by multiple DDoS attacks, and termination of service notifications from its DNS provider, EveryDNS.net, its temporary website host, Amazon, and PayPal, which handled many of the donations the organization received.

Student Issandr El Amrani posted a copy of the e-mail on his blog on Thursday, the same day Senator Joseph Lieberman and other lawmakers proposed legislation that would hold those who publish the names of any U.S. intelligence sources “criminally accountable.” A full copy of the e-mail, which the career services office has since confirmed sending, is pasted below:

From: “Office of Career Services”

Date: November 30, 2010 15:26:53 EST:

Hi students,

We received a call today from a SIPA alumnus who is working at the State Department. He asked us to pass along the following information to anyone who will be applying for jobs in the federal government, since all would require a background investigation and in some instances a security clearance.

The documents released during the past few months through Wikileaks are still considered classified documents. He recommends that you DO NOT post links to these documents nor make comments on social media sites such as Facebook or through Twitter. Engaging in these activities would call into question your ability to deal with confidential information, which is part of most positions with the federal government.

Regards,

Office of Career Services

According to an e-mail sent by spokesperson Phillip J. Crowley to The Huffington Post, the warning does not, however, represent a formal policy position. “We have instructed State Department employees not to access the WikiLeaks site and download posted documents using an unclassified network since these documents are still classified. We condemn what Mr. Assange is doing, but have given no advice to anyone beyond the State Department to my knowledge,” he wrote.

Employees in the State Department are among the many government workers who were told by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget not to view the leaked documents without the required security clearance on Friday.

Although you may not be going for a job at the State Department any time soon, does the warning nevertheless make you wary of discussing WikiLeaks on public forums such as Facebook and Twitter?

[Mashable]

By Stephen Lendman * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

On November 28, WikiLeaks began releasing over 250,000 leaked State Department and US Embassy cables (many designated "secret"), dating from 1966 through end of February 2010. Their content ranges from embarrassing to important revelations about US spying on allies and the UN, ignoring corruption and human rights abuses in "client states," corporate lobbying, backroom dealmaking, disparagements of foreign leaders, and overall revealing a much different America than its public persona. Most of all, it offers more proof of a sham democracy, a lawless imperial state rampaging globally though little, if anything, of a smoking gun nature was disclosed.

Unsurprisingly, the London Guardian said the documents "reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material. Classified 'human intelligence directives' issued in the name of Hillary Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA."

Washington's "most controversial target was the leadership of the United Nations." One document requested "the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top UN officials and their staff and details of 'private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, (and) personal encryption keys."

Candid comments also revealed disparaging assessments of world leaders. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was called weak, describing her as "risk averse and rarely creative." Her Vice-Chancellor and Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, got even harsher treatment, described as incompetent, a man with an "exuberant personality" but little foreign policy experience.

Christopher Dell, US ambassador to Zimbabwe, called President Robert Mugabe "ruthless," "clever," and "to give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactician." He "will not go down without a fight....he will cling to power at all costs."

Elizabeth Dibble, US charge d'affaires in Rome, called Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi "feckless, vain, and ineffective as a modern European leader." Another document described him as a "physically and politically weak (leader whose) frequent late nights and penchant for partying hard mean he does not get sufficient rest," the implication being to do his job properly. Still another document said he appears "increasingly the mouthpiece of (Russian Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin" in Europe.

Der Spiegel reported more, including:

• America's disdain for Keynan President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga;
• Turkey's Prime Minster Recep Tayyip Erdogan was called an unreliable "fundamentalist," governing with "a cabal of incompetent advisors in a country....on a path to an Islamist future;"
• America must "endure the endless tirades of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek, who claims to have known that the Iraq war was the 'biggest mistake ever committed' and who advised the Americans to 'forget about democracy in Iraq,' " recommending a military coup once US forces leave; and
• Middle east cables "expose the superpower's weaknesses....the world power is often quickly reduced to becoming a plaything of diverse interests," including Arab leaders using their Washington ties to their own advantage.

Other documents expressed high level concerns about Pakistan's growing instability, a clandestine effort to combat Al Qaeda in Yemen, and shifting China/North Korean relations.

Grave fears were revealed about Pakistan's nuclear capability, officials warning of a potential economic collapse and risk of smuggling nuclear material to suspected terrorists.

Another cable discussed Afghan corruption, one alleging that vice president Zai Massoud was carrying $52 million in cash with him when he was stopped during a United Arab Emirates visit.

In still another, Secretary of State Clinton questioned the mental health of Argentina's president.

The Financial Times reported that "The leaks will reinforce suspicions that Israel is considering an attack on Iranian facilities. According to reports of the cables, Ehud Barak, the defense minister, warned in 2009 that the world had six to 18 months to deal with Iran's nuclear programme."

Israel, like Washington, is notorious for crying wolf. If an attack was planned, neither nation would announce it.

An expected revelation ahead is that America for years supported Turkey's Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an organization Washington and Ankara designated a terrorist group. Regional expert, Mehmet Yegin from the Center for American Studies at the USAK research organization, told the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet that "US support for the PKK could have been a result of Turkey's decision in 2003 not to allow the United States to enter Iraq through Turkish soil."

Still more cables about:

• a senior Politburo official orchestrating hacker attacks that forced Google to leave China;
• allegations about Russia giving Silvio Berlusconi lavish gifts and lucrative energy contracts;
• others about Russian intelligence using mafia bosses to conduct criminal operations, one cable describing "a virtual mafia state;"
• sharp Pentagon criticism of Britain's military in Afghanistan;
• inappropriate British royal family member comments about a UK law enforcement agency and a foreign country;
• criticism of UK Prime Minister David Cameron and requests for intelligence information on individual MPs;
• various corruption accusations;
• US Honduran ambassador Hugo Llorens calling the June 2009 coup "illegal and unconstitutional;"
• Russia offering Israel $1 billion for drone technologies, saying it would also cancel its sale of advanced S-300 missiles to Iran;
• harsh criticism of US embassy staff in the Caribbean, China, Russia and elsewhere;
• saying Afghan President Hamid Karzai is "driven by paranoia;"
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called another Hitler; so is Hugo Chavez, Saddam Hussein before his capture and hanging, and other leaders earlier so vilified to hype fear about them;
• various Arab leaders, including Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, urging Washington to bomb Iran to destroy its nuclear capability
• Saudi donors named as the biggest financiers of terror groups;
• discussion of a Washington/Yemen coverup over using US planes to bomb suspected Al Qaeda targets;
• a description of a rogue enriched uranium shipment causing a near "environmental disaster" in 2009;
• technical details of US/Russian secret nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva; and much more besides new material to be released.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange provided the documents to the London Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel, France's Le Monde, Spain's El Pais, and The New York Times.

Censorship - Standard New York Times Practice

After last July's "Afghan War Diaries" release, The Times collaborated with White House officials to sanitize it, clearing it in advance before publishing. Its Washington bureau chief, Dean Baquet, confirmed that he and two reporters (Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt) "did in fact (tell them) what we had," Obama officials "prais(ing) us for the way we handled it, giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information with care. And for being responsible."

Afterwards, editor Bill Keller wrote this to readers:

"The administration, while strongly condemning (the release), did not suggest (we not) write about them. On the contrary, in our discussions....while challenging some of (our) conclusions....thanked us for handling the documents with care (read sanitizing disturbing truths), and asked us to urge WikiLeaks to withhold information that could cost lives. We did pass along that message."

In addition, he concealed daily war crimes, including mass civilian deaths, many willfully committed. Also, Task Force 373, death squad assassins killing suspected insurgents, cold-blooded murder The Times suppresses, collaborating with imperial lawlessness.

Instead, it focused on "Pakistan's Double Game," a July 27 editorial "confirm(ing) a picture of Pakistani double-dealing that has been building for years," saying "If Mr. Obama cannot persuade Islamabad to cut its ties to, and then aggressively fight, the extremists in Pakistan, there is no hope of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan." The Times, of course, supports US imperial wars, including the Afghan and Iraq quagmires.

On November 29, The Times published "A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents," saying:

Released documents are either marked "secret," "noforn" (not to be shared with other countries' representatives), "secret/noforn," "confidential," or unclassified. "Most were not intended for public view, at least in the near term."

"The Times has taken care to exclude, in its articles and in supplementary material, in print and online, information that would endanger (read expose) confidential informants or compromise national security (read reveal Washington's imperial agenda). The Times redactions were shared with other news organizations and communicated to WikiLeaks, in the hope that they would similarly edit (read sanitize) the documents they planned to post online."

"After its own redactions, The Times sent Obama administration officials the cables it planned to post and invited them to challenge publication of any information that, in the official view, would harm the national interest (again reveal America's true agenda - global imperial destructiveness). After reviewing the cables, (officials) suggested additional redactions. The Times agreed to some, but not all."

The Times said it will post only about 100 cables, some redacted, others in full, "that illuminate aspects of American foreign policy," but will follow White House instructions in do doing.

The "newspaper of record," of course, is a longstanding imperial tool, the closest equivalent in America to an official ministry of information and propaganda, what Times editors and bosses know but won't say.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

THE PHONY PRESS, SEX, SIN AND WAR

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

President Ahmadinejad of Iran has asked for a UN investigation of 9/11. For this, he has been branded a "wingnut" and "evildoer" by the American press. However, the 9/11 Commission itself asked for a criminal investigation, saying it uncovered a conspiracy and was prevented from getting the truth. They were quickly silenced. 9 years later, top scientists from around the world, supported by engineers, architects, military and intelligence officials agree on one thing. What thing is that? We will never know. Reporting that "one thing" would be the last thing any member of the press would ever do. A day later, they would become unpaid bloggers and have their name on the "no fly" list. Do things like this happen? How long did CNN's Rick Sanchez last after pointing out that Jon Stewart's fanatic pro-Israel bias is a form of "bigotry?"

Let's take a second to look at Ahmadinejad. Nearly daily stories hit newspapers around the world, "Iran is 15 minutes from being a nuclear power." Ahmadinejad threatens to "wipe Israel off the map." "Ahmadinejad supports a new holocaust."

The press, of course, continually reviles Ahmadinejad as a terrorist and mass murderer. What he isn't, however, is a liar. Every time it comes down to checking on who is telling the truth, Ahmadinejad or the press, it turns out Ahmadinejad is telling the truth. How can this be possible?

Well, a couple of things come into play. First of all, the press purposefully distorts what is said. The press lies, lies consistently. There is no nuclear program in Iran, not a weapons program. There is no credible information that varies from this fact, yet the press continually takes a line here and a statement there, out of context, and tries to build a case for war. Why is the press doing this? The answer is simply, Israelis control the American press and want the United States to destroy Iran, not because it is a military threat. It is technically impossible for Iran to attack Israel, every military expert in the world knows that and all have said it.

That will never be reported either.

Why is Ahmadinejad reviled with such venom? The answer is simple. He is being made an example. Anyone who speaks up, disagrees with reality as defined by the media, not any government, mind you, but the media that tells those in every government what they can and can't say or think, risks destruction. There is a clear methodology here. Let's look at some issues the press doesn't like very much, starting with our favorite, the villain of all time, Mr. Adolf Hitler.

Hitler got his start, speaking up much like Ahmadinejad. After World War I, the Treaty of Versailles opened up Germany for abuse by financial criminals. However, it even started before that. Germany tried to quit the war in 1916 when it was winning. Britain and France refused, not on their own, but because the Rothschilds cut financial deals with them and promised to bring the United States into the war. 5 million more Europeans died along with nearly 200,000 Americans.

The Rothschilds got the Balfour Declaration, giving them a base to control Middle East oil, the Suez Canal and India, the things that the wars nearly a century later are being manipulated to bring about.

Communism took over Russia. Nearly every communist leader was Jewish and Zionist. Even today, every Russian "oligarch" is a Jew and Zionist. Hitler said that "communism' was the real Jewish religion. He believes he saved Germany from communism when he was elected chancellor. The country he took over had been economically destroyed through currency manipulation. A loaf of bread cost billions of Marks at one point. The currency was devalued by the Rothschilds supported by France and Britain, by force. Cash smuggled out of the country by the ton and reimbursed at full value, at gunpoint, stripping Germany clean, starvation, humiliation and, eventually, that nasty "right wing" government the world had so much trouble with, the Third Reich.

During the 1920s, when the French and British, really the Rothschilds, were destroying Germany, 80% of the property was foreclosed on and bought by, well, do we say it? Jews? Bought for pennies. This is the "billions" in property the Nazi's seized. Not a simple story when you get to hear all of it. An excuse, Auschwitz, Gaza, are there excuses for inhumanity?

This is all true. This is history. This will never be reported. Not only will this be kept secret but the fact that the Zionist groups that wanted Palestine settled by Jews supported Hitler and worked closely with him, not just in 1927 but as late as 1945. This is also historical fact, not conjecture.

So, lets go back to Ahmadinejad. Why would he have a "Holocaust Conference" in Tehran? Serious students of history that don't have to live off a university paycheck, telling the same myths and lies term after term all know what Ahmadinejad knows. They also know that there are some nasty secrets about the holocaust. The real reason, however, is to anger Israel. Why? Israel pretty much hates everyone, is arrogant, obnoxious and predatory.

Since Israel controls, not only the press but the world banking system, all major banks being "children" of the original Rothschilds banks, including and especially the Federal Reserve which controls the American economy, the idea that Israel may have "fictionalized" the holocaust in collusion with Josef Stalin of Russia, a mass murderer well beyond anything Hitler ever imagined, interested Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad never said there wasn't a holocaust. He simply asked for an honest and accurate historical assessment of the facts.

Israel went into a total panic. Israel was hiding a terrible secret about the holocaust. They still are. We don't know what it is, I won't even hazard a guess. We do know that millions were spent, tens of millions in bribe money to have laws passed suppressing any study of the holocaust. In 11 western nations, questioning the Israeli version, one that changes hourly it seems, is a crime.

So, what was Ahmadinejad's game? He was simply telling Israel that "he knew." Knew "what?" We don't know and may never find out but it is something horribly discrediting to Israel, so threatening that they would stage a nuclear attack to keep it secret. We all agree there were camps. We all agree the Nazis were bad. What could it be? It is something that Iran uses to blackmail Israel, that and the fact that China, a major military power, a massive nuclear power, quietly stands behind Iran. Nobody is supposed to know it. We all know it.

WHY SOME REALLY NEED TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT WWJD, WHAT JESUS WOULD REALLY DO...

Let's broaden things a bit. How do you tell if a Christian is a total phony or not? There is a standard question:

"Who was Mary Magdalene?"

If the answer you get uses the word "whore," you know you are dealing with someone whose religious education came from urban legends and comic books. If you are told she was an associate of Jesus cured of "demons" you have a student of the canon gospels. If you get a complex story of priest schools, a possible marriage of Jesus and Magdalene, Magdalene's own gospel, her sainthood and death in France, you may have a religious scholar on your hands.

Yet today, you can turn on your radio and hear dozens if not hundreds of radio stations, all blaring the same tune, "nuclear Armageddon...Obama the Muslim....Ground Zero Mosque.......family values....and how Magdalene was the "whore of Babylon."

The experts are all the same. Their name starts with Doctor." They have a degree in "Divinity Studies" from a college that can't be found on a satellite survey. What their 8 years of religious education and decades of bible study, some claim over 12 hours a day, they continue to harp on about Magdalene and her sins. Where did they get their ideas? From a Mel Gibson movie perhaps? Perhaps we could refer to the King James Version of the Bible as a reference:

Mt 27:56 Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee's children.
Mt 27:61 And there was Mary Magdalene, and the other Mary, sitting over against the sepulchre.
Mt 28:1 In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre.
Mr 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Mr 15:47 And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.
Mr 16:1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
Mr 16:9 Now when Jesus was risen early the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils.
Lu 8:2 And certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils,
Lu 24:10 It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
Joh 19:25 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.
Joh 20:1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
Joh 20:18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.

This is every biblical reference to Mary Magdalene, quoting the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. What do we prove? Do we prove that the religious education of most Americans is based on Hollywood films? Dozens of films have depicted Mary Magdalene as a whore. Why would the film industry do this? Who runs the film industry? If I answer my own question, will I lose my job?

Christian Zionism: The Tragedy & The Turning, Part 1 from WHTT on Vimeo.

This week, dozens of stories of 9 year old brides in Yemen hit the papers. In fact, stories of the sexual abuses of Islam fill the papers in Western Europe and America. Sex sells papers and there is nothing that the same ethnic group that owns both Hollywood and America's newspapers loves more than sex and that's money. Are we being unfair, perhaps even bigoted? Yes, perhaps we might be with some exceptions. One of these is that the other group constantly attacked is Christians. Hardly a day goes by without the poor old German pope's photo next to a headline describing child rape.

Do we see those same headlines in the same papers as stories about Israeli organ theft rings? Oh, you mean you don't know that Israel has a huge industry tied to the theft and trade of human organs? Perhaps you might think this was an urban legend, you might think that, had you ever seen it reported.

Has anyone ever seen a news story about Jewish law and how it applies to pedophiles? Nothing? Curious. One of the few to speak up is Reverend Ted Pike. Here is some of what he has to say:

This year, top Israeli Rabbi Moti Elon was indicted by police for sex crimes against minors. "Far from being the rabbi of an obscure Hasidic sect, the charismatic Elon is a high-profile leader, educator and media personality, representing the more mainstream religious Zionists and former head of the renowned HaKotel (Western Wall) Yeshiva. He comes from a family of high achievers in law, politics and academia that has drawn comparisons with the Kennedy clan."

In 2006, Elon was restricted by an organization of rabbis in his contact with students, after confessing to sexual relationships with male students. Yet he continued to act as the president of a Talmudic academy in Jerusalem and did not fully honor the agreement. One Ha'aretz commentary says Elon "managed to turn himself into almost a kind of saint" –a fate certainly to be envied by American religious figures turned pedophiles.

Dr. Aviad Hacohen, dean of the Sha'arei Mishpat College, in 2007 reported that "95% of sexual offenses in Jerusalem were performed by the religious and haredi." "Several years ago, I began looking into the issue on a data-based level," said Hacohen. "It turned out that the law enforcement authorities, both the police and the prosecutor's office, were aware of the data but refused to expose it based on sectorial affiliation in order to avoid branding a certain group in the population..."

Since the following article was written in 2006, cases of Jewish leadership figures in Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Judaism being involved in homosexuality or pedophilia scandals continue to mount not only in Israel, but in New York, where Ultra-Orthodox are strongest. The reason is simple: some of the very greatest rabbis who wrote the Talmud were pedophiles.

So, after a busy day reading the news, 9 year old brides in Yemen, women being stoned in Iran or the unending perfidies of the Catholic Church with its list of priest rape victims at 2 million and counting, reported much as though it were a sign counting "burgers sold" at a fast food restaurant, I find nothing in the "news" about such problems in the Jewish community, even though, as we read above, the scandals are real, pervasive and very noteworthy. I would think the arrest of Israel's top Rabbi for sex crimes would be reported.

It wasn't.

We are told daily, nearly hourly, the the Koran supports sex crimes and is unique among religious works for its "impurity." News networks in America actually encourage Koran burning, networks owned by Israeli's we admit, but American in some ways, at least some of the personnel are American citizens, still, at least. So, is there a problem in the Talmud that is being covered up, a problem that has driven the media to continually attack Islam while failing to look closer to home? Let's take a look:

R. Joseph said: Come and hear! A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition and if her deceased husband's brother cohabits with her, she becomes his. (Sanh. 55b)

A girl who is three years of age and one day may be betrothed by cohabitation. . . .(Yeb. 57b)

A maiden aged three years and a day may be acquired in marriage by coition, and if her deceased husband's brother cohabited with her she becomes his. (Sanh. 69a, 69b, also discussed in Yeb. 60b)

It was taught: R. Simeon b. Yohai stated: A proselyte who is under the age of three years and one day is permitted to marry a priest, for it is said, But all the women children that have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves, and Phineas (who was priest, the footnote says) surely was with them. (Yeb. 60b)

[The Talmud says such three year and a day old girls are] . . . fit for cohabitation. . . But all women children, that have not known man by lying with him, it must be concluded that Scripture speaks of one who is fit for cohabitation. (Footnote to Yeb. 60b)

Where, in our news, do we read that a 9 year old girl would be considered an "old maid" in the Talmud? Have we proven bias and bigotry? When is the last time Jon Stewart talked about sex with three year olds? His audience would love hearing about it and I am sure he has some good "one liners" he could use. Can you see his smirk as he describes the physiological aspects alone? You are saying it would be in bad taste, something he would never do. Have you really seen his show?

Let's imagine Jon Stewart, "How about those rabbi's, can't you just picture it? A 3 year old? Like King Kong with a yamaka putting a move on Barbie."

How about Howard Stern? He has hour after hour attacking the sexual ills of Islam. Can you imagine how popular he will be when he starts pulling in callers screaming about the Talmud and sex with three year olds or the sex crimes of the rabbis, even higher by percentage than priests.

Imagine where Howard Stern would go with this. I'd rather not. "What did the rabbi say to the kindergartener?"

Is an Islamophobe a bigot? Is a Jew who rants about the sins of sex and Islam not only a bigot but a hypocrite as well? Am I going to be fired for saying this?

It isn't just that members of the press, our congress and 95% of our military are corrupt, moderate to severe, along with being functionally delusional. They believe everyone else is even dumber. When 300 billion goes missing in Iraq, they don't think we know who got it and that they all got a piece of the action? How could this much money disappear, news stories covering it, GAO accounting docs proving it but nobody notices that there are no hearings, no grand jury, no indictments.

The new rule in Washington, "if you steal it, you keep it."

Years ago, congress was attacked for passing the Patriot Acts, laws filled with unconstitutional provisions, some already overturned even by our Hitleresque Supreme Court. Here we sit, a new broom in the White House, freedoms restored, or are they? Government police from unspecified agencies whose powers and mandates are clearly outside the scope of any law, can arrest and detain anyone and do, not only disregarding color, race or ethnicity but guilt or innocence also. Anyone can be arrested, detained, shipped anywhere in the world, tortured, raped, murdered. It is done every day.

Ask the press. You say they don't care?

Remember when we learned that Stan McChrystal and Dick Cheney were running death squads under something called the JSOC? Now, years later, we find that our death squads are still out there, some official, some simply making it up as they go along. If you want to throw a hand grenade under a school bus, go ahead. If you want to open fire on civilians from your helicopter, simply mouth a few military sounding phrases, hit the button and sent a few hundred pounds of depleted uranium into a residential neighborhood.

Then again, you can fly into Pakistan and kill a few of their troops at a border checkpoint like was done last week, seemingly on a whim. Who needs Pakistan anyway? Isn't Peru still with us, part of the remains of the old Bush/Cheney coalition of the willing, the blackmailed, the bought and paid for?

Now no more gasoline for trucking the opium crop to the heroin processing facilities south of Kandahar or to the airfields in Balochistan for shipment to Western Europe or North America. As the press about this? Oh, you are saying they know, have written stories about this but were told they won't be "embedded" anymore unless they tone down the "self righteousness."

Remember the torture controversy? How about this one, did you know that 95% of the "terrorists" arrested during the Bush administration were found "innocent?" How about Pat Tillman, the former football player who joined the Army but became disenchanted with what he was seeing in Afghanistan. The press said nothing when he died a "war hero." Then he suddenly became a victim of an innocent and childish accident, not at all dissimilar to the accidents the Kennedy brothers suffered back in the 1960s.

The press is still buying the "accident' story even though the closely grouped head shots that killed Tillman were a "one in 10 billion" accident.

Before the Army is done, Tillman will have shot himself in the head 4 times and then, as usual, disposed of the weapon. You don't want to know how many accidents like this the Army has. You don't have to worry, you'll never find out about it anyway.

The press is still falling all over themselves for eventually figuring out that Tillman wasn't killed by the Taliban. All they had to do was read the coroners report, you know the one, it said "murder" on it.

What is the news? Anymore, we might as well get press releases sent directly to our I-Phones and cut out the jokers in the middle. Can you imagine, millions of Americans have Islam explained to them by a former Mossad public relations officer named Wolf Blitzer. (Jerusalem Press/CNN)

I wouldn't trust Blitzer doing a weather report, certainly not sports scores.

Remember a week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu, former furniture salesman now running Israel, the "American hating" extremist, demanded that we release spy Jonathan Pollard?

Remember that Congressman Barney Frank immediately ran to his side?

The press reports that Pollard was jailed for life because he "gave Israel information on PLO locations, information America failed to share."

Not one word of this is true. OK, one word, there is a person named Jonathan Pollard. Thus far, this is the only thing the press reported properly.

Pollard never gave anyone anything, he sold it. Nothing went TO Israel, Pollard and the State of Israel were spying FOR the Soviet Union AGAINST the United States.

The information was: (this has been confirmed)

• The identities of all CIA agents and the full NOC list, agents of "non official cover" (A movie was made about this, Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible)
• Full NATO defense plans in case of Soviet Attack
• Full information including strategic vulnerability assessments on what would be needed to defeat the United States in a nuclear war
• Design specifics on all American nuclear weapons and delivery systems
• America's military and diplomatic codes

This information was sold by Pollard to controllers in Israel who then sold it to the Soviet Union. We have learned that because of this information a couple of things happened:

• The Soviet Union came close to a nuclear "first strike" on the United States
• Over 100 CIA agents were executed after extensive torture
• Over 1500 "intelligence assets" were rounded up, tortured and interrogated, then killed behind the Iron Curtain
• America lost all ability to use intelligence to defend itself from the Soviet Union
• America's strategic capabilities were diminished by over 50%, with many ‘capabilities' totally unviable
• 15 years of weapons research was lost
• Several weapons systems were totally compromised including our stealth aircraft and nuclear submarines

However, when Barney Frank and his furniture salesman buddy, the one who continually brags about how stupid Americans are and how he can get them to do anything he wants, publicly demanded this monster, Pollard, be set free, the press was silent. The furniture salesman was right, about the press anyway, he can get them to do anything he wants.

Netanyahu wasn't serious about Pollard, he simply brings it up, from time to time, when he has a need to humiliate the United States, reminding them how naive and gullible they are as a people and how corrupt their military and government are.

There are no worries about the press. In fact, even though military and intelligence sources have leaked, for years, how serious the Pollard disaster really was for America, the press loves telling the same old Israeli yarn, the poor country of holocaust victims trying to protect themselves from uncaring America, their "bestest friend" and ally that they have to keep on a "short leash."

Can we think of something else the press has overlooked? Back in 2007, the American economy imploded. Prior to that, America ran up trillions of dollars of secret debt. We call it secret because no news ever reported it or its consequences. Debt is the clearest indicator of economic health. The levels of debt during the Bush years, a president who took office with a budget surplus, reached beyond epidemic proportions yet nothing was ever reported, not in such a way as to make the public aware the nation was going bankrupt.

In 2007, America hit full default, totally broke, dead, gone, bankrupt. Savings disappeared, retirement systems collapsed, markets plummeted and "blue chip" stocks became worthless. How did the news respond? They claimed that a small non-profit called ACORN, a group that worked registering voters, had caused the collapse. Proving this, we were told, a Republican party operative trained at an Israeli intelligence school, had "debunked" the entire crisis.

ACORN did it. According to America's right wing, fronting for the pan-Israeli banking cartel, a few dozen $30,000 dollar home loans managed to run up $3,000,000,000,000 in debt. Maybe it was extra fees or ‘handling charges?'

Then we learned that none of this happened and that trillions of dollars were stolen by a series of "banks" tied to the Rothschilds, run by Israeli Americans and long involved in massive criminal fraud in full collusion with the Bush administration, coordinating wars, defense fraud, bilking the economy and suspending constitutional rights, in a concerted effort, Bush, Cheney, Israel, the Rothschilds and their creature, the Federal Reserve System, permanently sinking America in a "Pearl Harbor" that made 9/11 tame in comparison.

So, where are these people, the "coalition of corruption," the "banksters" and the corrupt politicians? How many are in jail? Thousands? Bernie Madoff only?

What did the American press have to say? Anything? A story here, one there.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

Taxpayers Funding Israeli Database Of American Citizens

By Gordon Duff* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Did you know that attending a meeting to organize a bake sale for new band uniforms can put you on a terrorist watch list? You don't have to join a peace group or protest oil drilling to be considered dangerous. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hired ITRR, the Instititute of Terrorism Research and Response, a Jerusalem based company owned by the Mossad and tied directly to the Israeli Ministry of Defense to track "dissidents" and "activists." In the process, they managed to find the most dangerous terrorist organization of all, the governor's own non-profit organization, one supporting school funding initiatives. From ITTR's website:

"All of the information ITRR's staff creates is sent to its monitoring center in Jerusalem, where it is analyzed"

Governments, states, cities and even rural towns, believing they are participating in a Homeland Security initiative, have contracted with this and other organizations under foreign control, read "Israeli," tracking organizations as diverse as the Tea Party and the Sierra Club. Reports submitted by ITTR showed them spying on nearly every organization they could find, no matter how innocent, patriotic or public minded. Organizations tied to Jewish causes, however, managed, somehow, to slip under the radar.

Those that were included are so comprehensive that it would be nearly impossible for an American to escape having confidential files, collected under government authority and financing, paid for by American taxpayers, held by Israeli intelligence agencies. In fact, databases include every organization, regardless of its membership or policies, with personal information on members being stored in databases in Israel.

Never has a nation funded a foreign spy organization's efforts to catalog potential intelligence assets, operatives and, at the same time, take over the job of watching themselves. This is one of the greatest intelligence coups in history. Combine this with control of America's airport security and total control of America's communications networks, everything, mobile, internet, even landlines....we might as well pull down the flag and roll over.

Governor Rendell expressed shock at the gross violation of constitutional rights involved in hiring this company, one that is said to be working for state and local governments across the United States. Rendell said he was "stunned" when he learned about the spying relationship, one he characterized as "ludicrous." From Governor Rendell's apology to the people of Pennsylvania at a capitol news conference this week:

"I am deeply embarrassed and I apologize to any of the groups who had this information disseminated on their right to peacefully protest"

As early as December 2001, not long after the 9/11 incident, Fox News investigated Israeli spying on the United States. However, not long after airing the Carl Cameron Report with Brit Hume as Host, not only did the show itself disappear but all transcripts as well, at least "almost all."

BRIT HUME, HOST: It has been more than 16 years since a civilian working for the Navy was charged with passing secrets to Israel. Jonathan Pollard pled guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage and is serving a life sentence.

At first, Israeli leaders claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but later took responsibility for his work. Now Fox News has learned some U.S. investigators believe that there are Israelis again very much engaged in spying in and on the U.S., who may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11. ...

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Since September 11, more than 60 Israelis have been arrested or detained, either under the new patriot anti-terrorism law, or for immigration violations. A handful of active Israeli military were among those detained, according to investigators, who say some of the detainees also failed polygraph questions when asked about alleged surveillance activities against and in the United States.

There is no indication that the Israelis were involved in the 9-11 attacks, but investigators suspect that they Israelis may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance, and not shared it. A highly placed investigator said there are "tie-ins." But when asked for details, he flatly refused to describe them, saying, "evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."

Numerous classified documents obtained by Fox News indicate that even prior to September 11, as many as 140 other Israelis had been detained or arrested in a secretive and sprawling investigation into suspected espionage by Israelis in the United States. Investigators from numerous government agencies are part of a working group that's been compiling evidence since the mid '90s. These documents detail hundreds of incidents in cities and towns across the country that investigators say, "may well be an organized intelligence gathering activity."

The first part of the investigation focuses on Israelis who say they are art students from the University of Jerusalem and Bazala Academy. They repeatedly made contact with U.S. government personnel, the report says, by saying they wanted to sell cheap art or handiwork. Documents say they, "targeted and penetrated military bases."

The DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, and even secret offices and unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel. The majority of those questioned, "stated they served in military intelligence, electronic surveillance intercept and or explosive ordinance units."

Why would Israelis spy in and on the U.S.?

A GAO investigation states: "According to a U.S. intelligence agency, the government of (Israel) conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. ...It aggressively collects military and industrial technology and the U.S. is a high priority target." The document concludes: "Israel possesses the resources and technical capability to achieve its collection objectives." (END VIDEO CLIP)

And in the days ahead, we'll take a look at the U.S. phone system and law enforcement's methods for wiretaps. And an investigation that both have been compromised by our friends overseas.

HUME: Carl, what about this question of advanced knowledge of what was going to happen on 9-11? How clear are investigators that some Israeli agents may have known something?

CAMERON: It's very explosive information, obviously, and there's a great deal of evidence that they say they have collected - none of it necessarily conclusive. It's more when they put it all together. A bigger question, they say, is how could they not have know?

These Fox News revelations from 2001, long dead and gone, buried in the archives never to be heard from again, tell a story, not of betrayal by a "friend" or "ally" but one of America's national obsession with memory loss, almost as though the "hard drive" meant to represent America's common sense was "wiped," reformatted after picking up a virus from opening one of those nasty emails we are all warned about. The virus, of course, is the mainstream news media itself.

The Pennsylvania spying story was never reported nationally. It couldn't be, there is a "blackout" on any news critical of Israel, real forced censorship, part of the official policy of the Obama administration, as it was of the Bush administration, cheerfully adhered to by media owned and operated by Israel itself.

The Fox News report of 2001, showing America's counter-terrorism organizations hot on the trail of Israel, was the last report of its kind on any major network. Not one word spoken of by Cameron or Hume has been repeated in nine long years. Not one lead has been followed up, not one more question asked, the entire thing, forgotten, forgiven, overlooked or perhaps something darker and more threatening.

* Gordon Duff is senior editor of Veterans Today.

Decmocracy Now! Interview With John Pilger:

John Pilger, award-winning investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. He began his career in journalism nearly half a century ago and has written close to a dozen books and made over fifty documentaries. He lives in London but is in the United States working on a forthcoming documentary about what he calls "the war on the media." It's called The War You Don't See.

TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: It's been a week since Rolling Stone published its article on General Stanley McChrystal that eventually led to him being fired by President Obama. In a piece called "The Runaway General," McChrystal and his top aides openly criticized the President and mocked several top officials. Joe Biden is nicknamed "Bite me." National Security Adviser General James Jones is described as a "clown." Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is called a "wounded animal."

Since the article came out, Rolling Stone and the reporter who broke the story, Michael Hastings, have come under attack in the mainstream media for violating the so-called "ground rules" of journalism. New York Times columnist David Brooks penned a column attacking Hastings for being a, quote, "product of the culture of exposure." Brooks wrote, quote, "The reporter essentially took run-of-the-mill complaining and turned it into a direct challenge to presidential authority." He goes on to write, "The exposure ethos, with its relentless emphasis on destroying privacy and exposing impurities, has chased good people from public life, undermined public faith in institutions and elevated the trivial over the important," he said.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera attacked Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings for publishing quotes McChrystal and his aides made at a bar.

GERALDO RIVERA: This is a situation where you have to put it in the context of war and warriors and honor and the penumbra of privacy that is presumed when it's not on the record specifically. When you're hanging out at a bar waiting for a plane or a train or an automobile and you're stuck together hours and hours, and you're drinking in a bar, or you're at an airport lounge, this is not an interview context. These guys, particularly the staffers who gave the most damning statements about the civilians in office, including the Vice President of the United States, these guys had no idea that they were being interviewed by this guy.

BILL O'REILLY: I'm not sure about that, Geraldo.

GERALDO RIVERA: This reporter—wait, hold on, Bill.

BILL O'REILLY: I'm not sure about that.

GERALDO RIVERA: This reporter from Rolling Stone, he was a rat in an eagle's nest.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that's Fox News. But other mainstream media outlets have also attacked Michael Hastings for writing the story. This is Lara Logan, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, being interviewed by Howard Kurtz on CNN.

HOWARD KURTZ: If you had been traveling with General McChrystal and heard these comments about Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Jim Jones, Richard Holbrooke, would you have reported them?

LARA LOGAN: Well, it really depends on the circumstances. It's hard to know here. Michael Hastings, if you believe him, says that there were no ground rules laid out. And, I mean, that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me, because if you look at the people around General McChrystal, if you look at his history, he was the Joint Special Operations commander. He has a history of not interacting with the media at all. And his chief of intelligence, Mike Flynn, is the same. I mean, I know these people. They never let their guard down like that. To me, something doesn't add up here. I just—I don't believe it.

HOWARD KURTZ: Washington Post quoted an unnamed senior military official as saying that Michael Hastings broke the off-the-record ground rules. But the person who said this was on background and wouldn't allow his name to be used. Is that fair?

LARA LOGAN: Well, it's Kryptonite right now. I mean, do you blame him? The commanding general in Afghanistan just lost his job. Who else is going to lose his job? Believe me, all the senior leadership in Afghanistan are waiting for the ax to fall. I've been speaking to some of them. They don't know who's going to stay and who's going to go. I mean, just the question is, really, is what General McChrystal and his aides are doing so egregious that they deserved to—I mean, to end a career like McChrystal's? I mean, Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Lara Logan, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, being interviewed on CNN. Meanwhile, both the Washington Post and ABC have published articles quoting anonymous military sources attacking Hastings's Rolling Stone article.

For more on the story, we're joined by the award-winning investigative journalist, documentary filmmaker John Pilger, began his career in journalism, oh, nearly half a century ago and has written close to a dozen books and made over fifty documentaries. He lives in London but is in the United States working on a forthcoming documentary about what he calls "the war on the media." It's called The War You Don't See.

We welcome John Pilger to Democracy Now! John, welcome. Talk about the war you don't see.

JOHN PILGER: Well, the war you don't see is expressed eloquently by the New York Times, that range of extraordinary media apologists that we've just seen. The reason we don't see the war on civilians, the war that has caused the most extraordinary devastation, human and cultural and structural devastation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is because of what is almost laughingly called the mainstream media. The one apology, not these apologies that we've seen this morning from Fox to CBS, right across the spectrum, to the New York Times this morning, the real apology that counted was the New York Times when it apologized to its readers for not showing us the war in—or the reasons that led up, rather, to the invasion of Iraq that produced this horrific war. I mean, these people now have become so embedded with the establishment, so embedded with authority, they're what Brecht called the spokesmen of the spokesmen. They're not journalists.

Brooks writes about a "culture of exposure." Excuse me, isn't that journalism? Are we so distant from what journalism ought to be, not simply an echo chamber for authority, that somebody in the New York Times can attack a journalist who's done his job? Hastings did a wonderful job. He caught out McChrystal, as he should have done. That's his job. In a country where the media is constitutionally freer, nominally, than any other country on earth, the disgrace of the recent carnage in the Middle East and in Afghanistan is largely down to the fact that the media didn't alert us. It didn't report it. It didn't question. It simply amplified and echoed authority. Hastings has proved—God bless him—that journalists still exist.

AMY GOODMAN: You know, it's interesting to read the first paragraph of Hastings's piece. He talks about, yes, this group in a French bar—and, by the way, Rolling Stone said, you should see what we didn't print, because in fact there were things they said that were off the record. But to say that Hastings violated the off-the-record rule, they said, was not the case. There was many things we didn't print. But right after they talked about the French—he talked about the French bar and McChrystal and his high officials in the bar, his aides, you know, dancing and singing the words "Afghanistan, Afghanistan," Hastings writes, "opposition to the war has already toppled the Dutch government, forced the resignation of Germany's president [and] sparked both Canada and the Netherlands to announce the withdrawal of their 4,500 troops. McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French, who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Afghanistan, from going all wobbly on him." But this is something most people in this country don't know, that the US, despite the US-led coalition, the NATO troops, is very much almost going this alone.

JOHN PILGER: Yes, it's going it alone in terms of the American people. And what journalism, like Hastings, does is represent the American people. A majority of the American people are now opposed to this colonial debacle in Afghanistan. I mean, I was very interested to read what President Obama said about Afghanistan, if I can find it. Yes, here it is. On February the 10th, 2007, quote, "It's time to admit that no amount of American lives can resolve the political disagreement [that lies] at the heart of someone else's civil war," unquote. That's what President Obama said before he became president. And unless the people of the United States, like the people of Europe, like most peoples in the world, understand that, that this is a long-running civil war, that it needs the kind of sympathy, if you like, for the people of Afghanistan—it certainly doesn't need this brutal imposition of a colonial force there.

Now, that happens to be a truth that the likes of Michael Hastings and others are expressing. But it's also a forbidden truth. And the moment you even glimpse that truth in the United States, the kind of barrage that—the grotesque sort of cartoon barrage of Fox, right up to the rather sneering barrage that comes from the New York Times, through to CBS and so on, the barrage against truth tellers becomes—Amy, we're dependent now on the few Hastings, but also on whistleblowers. The most important exposé was the Wikileaks exposé of the Apache attack on those journalists and children in Iraq. And here they are prosecuting the whistleblower, when in fact those responsible should be prosecuted. But that's verboten now.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to encourage people to go to our website at democracynow.org. We interviewed Julian Assange, who's on the run now, afraid that he will be picked, that he will be arrested. He's the founder of Wikileaks, and we played that 2007 video that someone within the military gave to Wikileaks, to Assange, to show the killing of civilians on the ground in Iraq. Astounding.

I wanted to go back to this comment of the CBS correspondent, of Lara Logan, who says, "Michael Hastings has never served his country the way McChrystal has." This is the reporter. You say that the media is not covering the war; it's promoting the war.

JOHN PILGER: Michael Hastings is serving his country. This country tells the rest of the world about its magnificent beginning, about its magnificent Constitution, about its magnificent freedoms. At the heart of those freedoms is the freedom of speech and the freedom of journalism. That is serving your country. That is serving humanity. The idea that you only serve your country by being part of a rapacious colonial force—and, you know, I'm not speaking rhetorically here. That's what is happening in Afghanistan. This is a civil war in which European and American forces have intervened. And we get a glimpse of that through the likes of the Hastings article. I really call on journalists, young journalists, to be inspired, if you like, by this Rolling Stone article, not to be put off by the apologists, not to be put off by those who serve their country embedded in the Green Zone in Baghdad, but to see journalism as something that is about truth telling and represents people and does serve one's country.

AMY GOODMAN: It's interesting you say this, as up in Toronto—we just came from Toronto yesterday—well, hundreds of people and a number of journalists have been beaten and arrested—

JOHN PILGER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —as they try to cover what's happening on the streets, the protests around the G8/G20 meetings, as they talk about protecting banks and promoting war—

JOHN PILGER: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: —in the summits.

JOHN PILGER: Yeah. Well, there is a war on journalism. There's long been a war on journalism. Journalism has always been—I mean, if you read, let's say, General Petraeus's counterinsurgency manual, which he put his name to in 2006, he makes it very clear. He said we're fighting wars of perception—and I paraphrase him—in which the news media is a major component. So, unless the news media is part of those wars of perception—that is, that not so much the enemy that is our objective; it's the people at home—then, you know, they're out. They're part of—they can easily become part of the enemy. And as we've seen in the numbers of journalists who have been killed in Iraq—more journalists have been killed in Iraq, mostly Iraqi journalists, than in any other war in the modern era—there is a war on this kind of truth telling. And we're seeing this—another form of this attack on truth telling by the likes of Fox and CBS and New York Times this morning. It embarrasses them. What Hastings has done deeply embarrasses these apologists.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, interestingly, it was Hastings himself that exposed the mainstream media. Just quoting from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, as Barrett Brown notes in Vanity Fair, "Hastings in 2008 did to the establishment media what he did to Gen. McChrystal—[he] exposed what they do and how they think by writing the truth—after he quite Newsweek (where he was the Baghdad correspondent) and wrote a damning exposé about how the media distorts war coverage. As Brown put it: 'Hastings ensured that he would never be trusted by the establishment media ever again.'"

JOHN PILGER: What a wonderful accolade! My goodness! That's a tremendous honor for him to bear.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we wrap up, I want to ask you about the coverage of the Gaza aid flotilla that was attacked by the Israeli commandos. You've come in from Britain to the United States—

JOHN PILGER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —to do this piece on the media.

JOHN PILGER: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Your assessment of the media's coverage?

JOHN PILGER: Well, it's very different. I mean, there was—I think things—I think the perception of Israel and Palestine has changed quite significantly in Europe, and there was horror at the murder of these people on the Turkish ship. And there was quick understanding, I felt, that how the Israelis manipulated the footage in order to suggest that the victims were actually assaulting those who attacked the flotilla.

The coverage here has been bathed in the usual euphemisms about Israel. It's always put into the passive voice. Israel really—the Israeli commandos never really killed anybody; it was a tragic event in which people died, and so on and so forth.

Having said that, I must say, Amy, since I've been in the United States, I see a—there's a shift that is in—both politically, but certainly in the media. Since Lebanon, since Israel's attack on Lebanon in 2006, since the attack on Gaza, Christmas 2008 and early 2009, and now this assault on the flotilla, Israel can't be covered up. It can't be apologized for as effectively anymore. And even in the New York Times, which has always been a stalwart in supporting the Israeli regime, the language is changing. And I think this again reflects a popular understanding and a popular disenchantment with the Middle East and the United States role in the Middle East, the apologies for one atrocity after the other, the lack of justice for the people in Palestine. So, I don't know whether I'm being optimistic or not, but there is a change. And where that change is going to, I don't know.

AMY GOODMAN: Are there any other key stories that you feel the media is missing or distorting?

JOHN PILGER: Well, I mean, one of the key stories is the devastation, the economic devastation, in people's lives, that it seems to me extraordinary. And this is true in Britain, as it is in the United States, that ordinary people have suffered since the collapse in September 2008 of significant parts of Wall Street, since the bubble burst. The idea that a president was elected as a man of the people—at least that's the way he presented himself—is still, I think, promoted by the media, whereas Obama has made clear that he has very much reinforced Wall Street, he has helped to rebuild Wall Street, his whole team is from Wall Street. He's reached into Goldman Sachs for his senior people. I think that that anger that I've felt in the United States over the last few years, that anger at a popular level, is still not expressed in the so-called mainstream media. I remember in the last year of George W. Bush, someone said that in one day 26,000 emails bombarded the White House, and almost all of them were hostile. That suggests to me a popular anger in this country that is often deflected into—down into cul-de-sacs, like the Tea Party movement. But the root of that anger—and that is a social injustice in people's lives, in the repossession of houses, the loss of jobs, a rather weak reform, if it is a reform, of the scandalous healthcare arrangements, none of these—this popular disenchantment, disaffection, is not expressed in the media.

AMY GOODMAN: John Pilger, I want to thank you very much for being with us. John Pilger here in the United States doing a film, The War You Don't See, as he covers the media's coverage of war. He's an award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker. Thank you so much.

By Maidhc Ó Cathail* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman.

Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the "global war on terror" which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it.

On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. Since then, he has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans suspected of terrorism. And now the senator from Connecticut wants to kill the Internet.

According to the bill he recently proposed in the Senate, the entire global internet is to be claimed as a "national asset" of the United States. If Congress passes the bill, the US President would be given the power to "kill" the internet in the event of a "national cyber-emergency." Supporters of the legislation say this is necessary to prevent a "cyber 9/11" - yet another myth from the fearmongers who brought us tales of "Iraqi WMD" and "Iranian nukes."

Lieberman's concerns about the internet are not new. The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which Lieberman chairs, released a report in 2008 titled "Violent Islamist Extremism, The Internet, and the Homegrown Terrorist Threat." The report claimed that groups like al-Qaeda use the internet to indoctrinate and recruit members, and to communicate with each other.

Immediately after the report was published, Lieberman asked Google, the parent company of You Tube, to "immediately remove content produced by Islamist terrorist organizations." That might sound like a reasonable request. However, as far as Lieberman is concerned, Hamas, Hezbollah and even the Iranian Revolutionary Guard are terrorist organizations.

It's hardly surprising that Lieberman's views on what constitute terrorism parallel those of Tel Aviv. As Mark Vogel, chairman of the largest pro-Israel Political Action Committee (PAC) in the United States, once said: "Joe Lieberman, without exception, no conditions ... is the No. 1 pro-Israel advocate and leader in Congress. There is nobody who does more on behalf of Israel than Joe Lieberman."

Lieberman has been well-rewarded for his patriotism – to another country. In the past six years, he has been the Senate's top recipient of political contributions from pro-Israel PACs with a staggering $1,226,956.

But what is it that bothers Lieberman so much about the internet? Could it be that it allows ordinary Americans access to facts which reveal exactly what kind of "friend" Israel has been to its overgenerous benefactor? Facts which they have been denied by the pro-Israel mainstream media.

How much faith would American voters have in the likes of Lieberman, who claims that the Jewish state is their greatest ally, if they knew that Israeli agents planted firebombs in American installations in Egypt in 1954 in an attempt to undermine relations between Nasser and the United States; that Israel murdered 34 American servicemen in a deliberate attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967; that Israeli espionage, most notably Jonathan Pollard's spying, has done tremendous damage to American interests; that five Mossad agents were filming and celebrating as the Twin Towers collapsed on September 11, 2001; that Tel Aviv and its accomplices in Washington were the source of the false pre-war intelligence on Iraq; and about countless other examples of treachery?

In his latest attempt to censor the internet, does Lieberman really want to protect the American people from imaginary cyber-terrorists? Or is he just trying to protect his treasonous cronies from the American people?

*Maidhc Ó Cathail is a widely published writer based in Japan.

By Yvonne Ridley* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Illustration By Pete Pasho: www.dollopsofirony.com

Anyone then, suspected of being linked to communism was arrested, interrogated and either imprisoned or forced to give names of others suspected of communist tendencies. And so the fear and intimidation spread like a great plague across the USA.

Names were blacklisted, careers and lives ruined as the authorities ruthlessly traded on peoples' fears, paranoia and weaknesses.

With little or no evidence people were found guilty and anyone daring to question any of the actions and the wild accusations also had suspicion cast upon them. But hey folks, that was back in the Fifties and various administrations resolved the same insane hysteria, hatred and fears would never again cast a dark shadow across the Land of the Free.

Sadly, the Salem-style witch hunts have returned, but the new villains are no longer communists. The Red Scare has been replaced by those who shout Viva Palestina!

From the very highest law-makers right down to ordinary John Doe there is an irrational fear so great that it holds many of them hostage in their homes, workplaces and schools.

Their vision has become so skewed they are unable to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

And so when they're told that heavily armed Israeli soldiers shoot peace activists at near point blank range because they are defending themselves, few dare to question.

When they see babies dying on the Gaza Strip because of lack of medical equipment because of the Israeli-enforced blockade, they remain silent.

And even fewer dare to criticize Israel.

Millions upon millions of Americans wake up frightened, go to sleep frightened while others feed on the hatred and bile spewed out by politicians, preachers, academics and the media who tell them Israel is good and Palestine is bad.

There are some politicians who want to see the heroic Americans who took part in the Viva Palestina convoys and the recent Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla prosecuted as terrorists.

Today I trolled through some of the pages in the American media and there, among the column inches, are stories that perfectly illustrate the Zionist Fear Factory in operation.

The Los Angeles Times reveals that UC Irvine has told its university students that the Muslim Student Union will be suspended for one year because it dared to criticize Israel and protested during a speech given by the Israeli Ambassador. So there you have it - freedom of speech is now banned.

The unprecedented action also sends out a chilling message to students across the USA who might consider demonstrating, rallying or protesting against the Zionist state and its supporters. Free speech, it seems, is a thing of the past in Barack Obama's America.

And should you be in any doubt, read a story about the latest decision to emerge from the US Supreme Court.

In a majority 6-3 ruling it becomes virtually impossible for anyone to put food into the mouths of malnourished babies in Gaza or to give money to a charity to do the humanitarian act for you.

Insane as it sounds, it is now a crime in America to work for peace and human rights in Gaza because the day-to-day running of The Strip is carried out by the democratically-elected Hamas government. Therefore it would be virtually impossibly to bypass Hamas to operate in Gaza.

In an astonishing McCarthy-like ruling any American who even offers advice to banned organizations like Hamas, including legal assistance and information on conflict resolution, will be prosecuted as terrorists. Be afraid, be very afraid ... this is happening in the USA, here and now.

Barack Obama's barmy administration reckons that even giving advice intended for peaceful purposes will amount to "material support" for terrorism. "The supreme court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists," said David Cole, a Georgetown university law professor who argued the case before the court. In the name of fighting terrorism, the court has said that the first amendment [on free speech] permits congress to make it a crime to work for peace and human rights. That is wrong."

The ruling is designed to intimidate Palestinian supporters and their fundraising activity. Some have already been prosecuted and jailed for raising cash for social groups dealing with issues such as housing and welfare in Gaza.

The government's case was enthusiastically argued in February by Elena Kagan, who is now the Obama administration's nominee to the supreme court. She said: "Hizb'Allah builds bombs. Hizb'Allah also builds homes. What Congress decided was when you help Hizb'Allah build homes, you are also helping Hizb'Allah build bombs. That's the entire theory behind the statute."
Well if that's the case an interesting legal situation looms on the horizon - unless all of this legislation is purely designed for Palestinian supporters.
A Congressional subcommittee, led by Representative John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, has uncovered evidence showing US tax dollars are funding the Taliban.
The source is a Pentagon-issued $2.1 billion dollar contract called Host Nation Trucking, which pays for the movement of food and supplies to some 200 American bases. It appears Afghan security firms have been extorting as much as $4 million a week and then funneling the spoils to warlords and the Taliban in return for a safe passage. In short, the US is financing the enemy and undermining international efforts to stabilize the country.

Hmm, isn't this material support for terrorism? I think we need to have the Commander in Chief charged with immediate affect.

* Yvonne Ridley is one of the founders of Viva Palestina and European President of the international Muslim Women's Union

Source: ICH

Why conceal the fact that the Shin Bet has a "hit list" and gives license to its commando units to carry out field executions? Anat Kam is finding out the price of speaking truth to power.

By Gila Svirsky* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

This story is a testament to the Internet. And to Anat Kam, the whistleblower, who is widely regarded in Israeli security circles as a traitor and will probably soon be charged with treason.

Anat (I'll use her first name, though I don't know her) is a 23-year old journalist who wrote for the popular Israeli portal Walla. Some months ago, Anat did the unthinkable: she passed on information that was decidedly newsworthy, but that the Shin Bet – Israel's security services – did not want outsiders to have. It was a"hit list" – the names of Palestinians living in the West Bank who were on the Shin Bet's "wanted" list. And it was a copy of the Shin Bet protocol stating that if these "wanted" figures are identified during the course of a military action, permission is granted to carry out "an interception". Nice language for execution without trial.

Reports are that Anat photocopied this classified information while serving in the IDF. She allegedly passed on this classified information to Uri Blau, a journalist, who published it months ago as a major scoop in Ha'aretz. Now Ha'aretz has whisked Uri away to London to protect him from the Israeli authorities, who would love to interrogate him about his informant. Meanwhile, Anat has been under house arrest and held incommunicado for at least three months.

This is a big story, but until today no Israeli newspapers could publish it because a judge issued a gag order at the Shin Bet's request. But go ask Henry Miller about banned books. Thanks to the ban and Israel's inability to control cyberspace, the story has taken on vastly greater proportions. Every news outlet in Israel – newspapers, radio, TV, news portals – has front-paged the story now that the gag order was lifted. It would never have received such widespread attention had the authorities not tried to hide it in the first place. And had the Internet not cloned the story through every webpage eager to expose state secrets.

This is not the first time the Israeli authorities have arrested suspects and held them incommunicado for extended periods. It happens to Palestinians all the time. The best known case of an Israeli is Mordechai Vanunu, who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear warfare capabilities 24 years ago and was tried behind closed doors. More recently, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Yaakov, an Israeli citizen now living in the U.S., was arrested on a visit to Israel in 2002, and a gag order placed on news of his month-long detention and interrogation. Yaakov, a key scientist in the development of Israel's nuclear weapons program, was suspected of divulging some of Israel's secrets, but eventually was released without charge.

So Israel has managed to draw widespread international attention to a story it wanted to hush up. But why conceal the fact that the Shin Bet has a "hit list" and gives license to its commando units to carry out field executions? After all, doesn't the U.S. do the same thing in its own so-called war against terror?

Israel, in my view, wanted to hide this information to avoid the legal and diplomatic ramifications of disclosures that its soldiers were once again breaking international law. Israel has been playing defense ever since the Gaza Campaign, trying to keep its senior politicians and officers out of European courts on charges of war crimes. Most recently (December 2009), opposition leader Zipi Livni cancelled a trip to London out of fear she would be arrested, thanks to universal jurisdiction of human rights violations. Similar arrest orders were deflected by other senior Israelis (Barak, Mofaz, and Almog). Publicity about a hit list and hit squads could only add fuel to the growing criticism of Israel and the fear among its leaders of being arrested on a visit to Europe. Not to mention the fact that Israel's own Supreme Court outlawed such unprovoked assassinations just months ago.

But really, isn't Israel still the "only democracy in the Middle East"? Concealing someone's arrest and the charges against her are clearly pages from the annals of dark regimes. And the broader context is the growing McCarthyite culture inside Israel – the silencing of its critics, the squirreling away of its whistleblowers. We see this in the hate campaign against Israeli human rights organizations, which has now reached a new peak – a bill before the Knesset that would severely hamper these organizations from receiving funds from foreign states, one of their only sources of support as the Israeli government is not about to fund human rights activity.

What's not to love about secrecy, lies, and human rights violations? Praise the whistleblowers and all those who turned on the Internet lights, making it impossible for the authorities to turn them off again.

* Gila Svirsky is a writer and an Israeli Jew peace and human rights activist.