Andy Worthington

For nine and a half years — almost as long as the “war on terror” has been providing an excuse for paranoia about Muslims in general — the case of US citizen Jose Padilla has demonstrated, to those willing to pay attention, that something has gone horribly wrong in the United States of America.

A former gang member and a convert to Islam, Padilla was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, in connection with an alleged “dirty bomb plot” that never existed, on May 8, 2002, as he returned from Pakistan. Held for a month as a material witness, he was then designated an “enemy combatant” by President George W. Bush, and held in complete isolation in a military brig for the next three and half years — a process that also involved prolonged sensory deprivation. According to the psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty, who spent 22 hours with Padilla in 2006, “What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being’s mind.”

In November 2005, fearing that Padilla might successfully challenge the government’s argument that it had the right to hold a US citizen indefinitely without charge or trial on the US mainland, and subject him to torture, the Bush administration suddenly indicted Padilla on charges of conspiracy “to murder, kidnap and maim people overseas,” and transferred him out of the brig. However, the injustice did not come to an end, as the courts then took over.

The charges against Padilla were based on the Bush administration’s claim that, along with alleged facilitators Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, he was part of a Florida-based plot to aid Islamic extremists in holy wars abroad, and his trial took place in the summer of 2007. However, the judge, Marcia Cooke, refused to allow Padilla or his lawyers to make any mention of what had happened in the three and a half years that he was held in a legal black hole.

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William Blum

In his September 22 address at the United Nations, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad mentioned the Nazi Holocaust just twice:

"Some European countries still use the Holocaust, after six decades, as the excuse to pay fines or ransom to the Zionists."

"They threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military action."

That was it.

By the term "questions the Holocaust" the Iranian president has made clear repeatedly over the years what he's referring to. He has commented about the peculiarity and injustice of a tragedy which took place in Europe resulting in a state for the Jews in the Middle East instead of in Europe. Why are the Palestinians paying a price for a German crime? he asks. And he has questioned the figure of six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany, as have many historians and others of all political stripes who think the total was probably less. This has nothing to do with the Holocaust not taking place.

But, as usual, the Western media pretends that it doesn't understand.

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Christoph Dreier

Allocating hundreds of billions more in public funds to cover the potential losses of banks across the euro zone - a coordinated plan to “recapitalize” the banks - this points to a policy of pushing Europe over the edge.

European stock markets fell sharply Tuesday and the euro hit new lows for the year amid reports of an impending default of the Greek economy and fears of a rapidly developing recession and renewed banking crisis on both sides of the Atlantic. Asian markets were also generally lower for the day.

Major European banks with heavy exposure to the debt of ailing euro zone countries such as Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal suffered heavy losses. The Franco-Belgian bank Dexia lost 37 percent at one point following rumours of an imminent crash of the bank.

US stock exchanges, sharply lower for most of the day, pivoted in the final hour of trading to close with substantial gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 360 points in the last 30 minutes to end the day with a gain of 153 points. The rally was evidently triggered by an article posted on the Financial Times web site reporting that euro zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels were moving toward a coordinated plan to “recapitalize,” i.e., bail out, the European banks.

Earlier in the day, one analyst had noted, "Dexia's problems stress the point that for euro zone leaders the Greek crisis is less about Greece and more about the potential for it to spark a much more widespread banking and economic disaster."

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Stephen Lendman

[Class Warfare? Yes, this is class warfare. But it is class warfare by the 1% against the other 99%. Specifically, it is the looting of the country by the top 1% through fraud. As Warren Buffet – one of America’s most successful capitalists and defenders of capitalism – points out: "There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning." ZeroHedge]

Imagine winning 106 Pulitzer Prizes awarded for excellence in journalism, more than any other broadsheet, for delivering managed, not real news, information and opinion.

Imagine doing it since 1851. Imagine being called the "newspaper of record," producing "All the News That's Fit to Print."

Imagine an establishment publication representing wealth and power, backing corporate interests, cheerleading imperial wars, ducking uncomfortable issues too sensitive to report, and functioning as an unofficial ministry of information and propaganda.

Imagine relying on it for real information and analysis at a time it's vanishing except online.

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Compiled by Samuel Dowell

Netanyahu, a master of deception, is using every gimmick possible to keep knowledge of Israel’s injustice towards the Palestinians from the American public. He says that Israel would like to be the first to recognize Palestine. He is not being sincere. His "wish" may come true however, and soon. But if not, there will be a Palestinian State at some point anyway, in spite of Netanyahu and people like him.

“I tend to believe things that a son says to his father in private. To this end, we should go back to 2009, to the words revealed by the father, Benzion Netanyahu, regarding the conduct of his son, Benjamin. With the consent of his son, the prime minister, the father gave an interview to Amit Segal on Channel 2 News, and this is what he said about the Bar-Ilan speech advocating the establishment of a Palestinian state: "He [the prime minister] doesn't support it. He supports it under conditions that they [the Arabs] will never accept. That's what I heard from him, not from myself. He proposed the conditions. They will never accept those conditions, not one of them," said Netanyahu Sr.” [One of those conditions was acceptance of a “Jewish” State.] [1]

The Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the State of Israel as part of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Recognition of a Jewish State is a new demand that did not come up during years of negotiations in the 1990s or in peace treaties reached with Egypt and Jordan.

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From Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine

Palestinian leaders on both sides of the Green Line have warned against rising mass terror by Jewish religious fanatics against Muslim holy places.

The warnings came hours after suspected Jewish terrorists torched a mosque at the village of Tuba Zangariya in the Upper Galilee .

Eyewitnesses reported that around 1:00 o'clock a.m. (after midnight Sunday), suspected Jewish terrorists stormed the main mosque at the village, and set it on fire, apparently using an inflammable substance. The entire interior of the mosque went up in flames, causing heavy damage.

Quranic texts and other religious books were burned. Before leaving, the perpetrators scrawled racist anti-Islam graffiti on the walls.

Ahmed Teibi, an Arab lawmaker in the Israeli Knesset, described the burning of the mosque as "a clear-cut terrorist act."

"This is not an isolated incident, this is not an aberration, it is not thunder on a clear day. This is a natural outcome of the systematic incitement against the Arab community. The poisoned incitement against our community by many rabbis and the Nazi-like edicts issued by some rabbinic councils, which forbid Jews from renting homes and apartments to Arabs have finally produced this.

"This grave deterioration must be stopped immediately. We hold the government of Israel solely responsible. We are talking about a racist, fascist and extremist government whose policies and practices have made this crime inevitable.

"Why is it that the racist rabbi of Safad has not been arrested? Why is it that not a single Jewish terrorist responsible for mosque torching has been arrested."

Teibi added that the best response to the terrorist act was rehabilitating the mosque as soon as possible and exercising a measure of self-restraint.

"This is the most appropriate response to these racists and fascists."

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An Interview with William T. Hathaway

Rather than sheepishly obeying in hopes of avoiding more punishment, we need to actively resist and take back the power that's been usurped from us. This struggle won't be comfortable, but it will be meaningful.

"I used to be a war criminal, now I'm an anti-war criminal. The government awarded me medals for the first crime, now they're trying to imprison me for the second," says ex-Green Beret William T. Hathaway. "I'm a war criminal not because I committed atrocities. I didn't, and most soldiers don't. But the US government's invasions of Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were war crimes. The United Nations Charter clearly forbids aggressive attacks on other countries. That's exactly what those invasions were. Every GI who participates in that has to share some of the blame.

"I'm an anti-war criminal because I'm part of a group of domestic insurgents who are helping soldiers to desert, destroying computer systems, trashing recruiting offices, burning military equipment, and sabotaging defense contractors. We've become criminals for peace out of despair. Obama's morphing into a war president has convinced the only way to bring peace now is to bring the system down. We're defying the Patriot Act and working underground in secret cells to undermine the US military empire. So it's not surprising that the government's trying to lock us up."

In addition to his activism, Hathaway has authored four books and a series of articles about waging peace. His first book, A World of Hurt, won a Rinehart Foundation Award for its portrayal of the psychological roots of war: the emotional blockage and need for patriarchal approval that draw men to the military. His second book, CD-Ring, is a young-adult novel about a boy learning the need for peaceful communication. The third, Summer Snow, tells of an American warrior in Central Asia who falls in love with a Sufi Muslim and learns from her an alternative to the military mentality.

His latest book, Radical Peace: People Refusing War, presents the experiences of war resisters, deserters, and activists in the USA, Europe, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It's a journey along diverse paths of nonviolence, the true stories of people working for peace in unconventional ways. The book has aroused controversy. Conservative critic Joanne Eddington described it as, "Loathsome ... further evidence that the hatred of America is reaching hysterical dimensions." On the other side of the political spectrum, Noam Chomsky described it as, "A book that captures such complexities and depths of human existence, even apart from the immediate message."

Hathaway is currently an adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. ld Is Possible interviewed him from there via e-mail.

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Stephen Lendman

In his book "Overcoming Zionism," Joel Kovel called Israel "a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses" led by terrorists posing as democrats. Throughout its history, Israeli policy toward Arabs has been corrosive, destructive, racist, extremist, undemocratic and hateful. It's leaders chose violence, not peaceful coexistence; confrontation, not diplomacy; and strength through militarism, intimidation, and naked aggression.

For over 63 years, Palestinians paid the price. They've suffered brutally at the hands of "God's chosen people," believing Jewish exceptionalism renders Muslim Arabs inferior legitimate enemies and terrorists for wanting to live free in peace on their own land in their own country.

Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir once explained that Israel's 1982 Lebanon war was launched because there was a "terrible danger....not so much a military one as a political one," so a pretext was invented to preemptively attack when no threat or justification existed. [The same goes for Palestine. This is the way the Israelis do business.]

On October 2, [The Palestine Telegraph reported that] Israeli planes bombed an area east of Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Medical emergency spokesman Adham Abu Silmiyia said Israeli warplanes fired a missile, injuring three Palestinians. Israel said militants were targeted, providing no proof. They were nonviolent civilians.

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Adnan Al-Daini

Iraqi women farmers unload wheat in this Diyala
Province village. The Iraqi government is trying
to develop more drought-resistant varieties.

Is there no end to the suffering of the country of my birth, Iraq, and its people?

In my early teens in Iraq, in the late fifties and early sixties, I used to accompany my father to farms to buy wheat grain for our own consumption, and a few sacks more to sell in the village to make some profit.  I remember the discussions between my father and the small farmers regarding the quality of the grain, and whether the dough would stick (hounta khabbaza) to the walls of the clay oven in which my mother baked the bread.  This particular quality is essential to prevent it falling into the hot embers at the bottom of the oven. The farmers used to assure us of the quality, giving a little history of how the grains had been improved by knowledge sharing between farmers, with the best quality seed being adopted. 

The system had an inbuilt informal ability to improve the quality of the wheat grain.  This method of sharing expertise and the use of knowledge passed through the generations were applied to every aspect of farming and fruit orchards to improve the quality and quantity of the produce. 

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Stephen Lendman

Inmates inside the Los Angeles Men's Central Jail waiting
to be transferred to another jail. (J. Emilio Flores / NYT)

Prison is hell everywhere. America is no different in, by far, the world's largest gulag. Inmates are treated worse than subhumans.

Torture is commonly used. It not just at Guantanamo and similar offshore hellholes. It happens across America in federal, state and local prisons where inmates are terrorized by dogs, shocked with cattle prods, burned by toxic chemicals, harmed by stun guns, beaten, stripped naked, raped, and abused in other ways.

In July 2008, the Southern California ACLU (ACLU/SC) released a "Report on Mental Health Issues at Los Angeles County Jail." It discussed how confinement in overcrowded conditions produces an epidemic of unaddressed mental health issues. It also addressed excessive staff abuse, including beatings, compounded by the stress of overcrowding and deputy or inmate-on-inmate violence. A previous article discussed it, accessed through this link.

On September 28, New York Times writer Jennifer Medina headlined, "Report Details Wide Abuse in Los Angeles Jail System," saying: According to an ACLU/SC report, "(o)ne inmate said he was forced to walk down a hallway naked after sheriff's deputies accused him of stealing a piece of mail." Another said "deputies....slammed his head into a wall and repeatedly punched him in the chest" for protesting guard treatment of a mentally ill prisoner. As a result of daily abuse, the ACLU/SC will "file (suit) in Federal District Court here on Wednesday. The Los Angeles County jail system, the nation's largest, is also (the) most troubled, according to lawyers, advocates and former law enforcement officials."

Retired LA office FBI official Tom Parker called the "situation, the length of time it has been going on, the volume of complaints, and the egregious nature much, much worse than anything (he's) ever seen." "They are abusing inmates with impunity, and the worst part is that they think they can get away with it."

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Roy Ratcliffe

During 2005 in Britain, a group of influential writers published a book entitled ‘Free Expression is No Offence’. It was published by PEN, an organisation which declared it;; ‘champions freedom of expression everywhere and the right of writers, artists and indeed anyone to say whatever they feel without fear of persecution or penalty‘. The editors and contributors to this volume, were energised to put pen to paper in order to defend the hard won enlightenment right to free speech. The catalyst for their essays was a government proposal to restrict criticism of religious forms of belief. The government were at the planning stage of creating an offence of ‘Incitement to religious hatred‘. More recently, in August 2011, two young men were convicted and jailed for suggesting on face book that a riot should take place. A riot did not take place and the two youngsters in question did not turn up at the proposed venue. No crime had actually been committed except a newly contrived crime of thinking and writing words someone didn‘t like.

So something is happening to the principle of free expression in the UK. In the 21st century, the ‘establishment’ in England (right wing and liberal) had clearly lost its grip on the economy and now seemed bent on losing its grip on rationality. Not two months after the above ‘reactionary’ punishment, apparently a solidarity movement in the UK decided to refuse its members the right to think or say anything which denied any aspect of the received Holocaust’ narrative or diminish the importance of it. Let me declare my own position on this insidious and dangerous precedent of outlawing free expression. I have taught holocaust studies and that I think those who deny the main outlines of the genocide perpetrated against Jews, Socialists, Trade Unionists, gypsies, Slavs and Jehovah’s Witnesses by the Nazi’s are wrong. However, although I may disagree with everything such revisionist writers suggest, I will defend, and others also ought to defend, their right to express their views. Why? Because to turn the clock back to previous centuries of mind control where those in power decide what is acceptable and what is to be outlawed and criminalised, is a far more retrograde step than the expression of any view considered offensive, by no matter whom. Let me explain why I think this might be so.

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Stephen Lendman

Angry New Yorkers organized an initiative called "Occupy Wall Street." Beginning September 17, they called for "tak(ing) the bull by the horns," referring to the familiar New York financial district symbol.

Its web site statement said:

"The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%."

Saying

"I am sick and tired of being sick and tired,"

civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer's epitaph said it her way.

Today, we're all sick and tired of corrupted officials letting Wall Street crooks steal public wealth at the expense of millions ripped off to enrich them lavishly.

Occupy Wall Street activists are angry about "profit over and above all else." Because of political Washington collusion, it dominates public policy in America.

Comparing their initiative to Arab Spring uprisings, they said:

"On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months."

"Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants."

One of many protester signs read:

"The corrupt fear us. The honest support us. The heroic join us."

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