Stephen Lendman

Time magazine's May 28 cover features "King Bibi: He's conquered Israel. But will Netanyahu make peace - or war?"

Managing editor Richard Stengel titled his profile "Bibi's Choice." Readers got him sanitized, not accurately presented. Omitted was what they most need to know.

Time included, America's scoundrel media feature managed news and information. Truth and full disclosure are excluded and prohibited.

Netanyahu heads Israel's worst ever government. Bipartisan MKs are racist, hardline rogues. What little opposition exists is weak-kneed. Most go along to get along.

Netanyahu exceeds the worst of Ariel Sharon and previous hardline leaders. He's an embarrassment to democratic governance.

Israel is more hypocrisy than democracy. Few benefit. Most don't. Arab citizens are entirely denied. Arundhati Roy calls India a "limbless, headless, soulless torso left bleeding under the butcher's clever with a flag driven deep into her mutilated heart."

Netanyahu's Israel replicates it. Rogue government rules. Official policies reflect belligerence, violence, racist hate, exploitation, occupation harshness, neoliberal rapaciousness, and war when Israel chooses.

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Ellen Brown

The Social Security program…represents our commitment as a society to the belief that workers should not live in dread that a disability, death, or old age could leave them or their families destitute.
– President Jimmy Carter, December 20, 1977.

[This law] assures the elderly that America will always keep the promises made in troubled times a half century ago…[The Social Security Amendments of 1983 are] a monument to the spirit of compassion and commitment that unites us as a people.
– President Ronald Reagan, April 20, 1983

So said Presidents Carter and Regan, but that was before 1996, when Congress voted to allow federal agencies to offset portions of Social Security payments to collect debts owed to those agencies. (31 U.S.C. §3716). Now we read of horror stories like this:

I’m a 68 year old grandma of 2 young grandchildren. I went to college to upgrade my employment status in 1998 or 1999. I finished in 2000 and at that time had a student loan balance of about 3500.00.

Could not find a job and had to request forbearance to carry me. Over the years I forgot about the loan, dealt with poor health, had brain surgery in 2006 and the collection agents decided to collect for the loan in 2008.

At no time during the 6-7 year gap did anyone remind me or let me know that I could make a minimum payment on the loan. Now that I am on Social Security (have been since I was 62), they have decided to garnishee my SS check to the tune of 15%.

I have not been employed since 2004 and have the two dependents...I don’t dispute that I owed them the $3500.00 but am wondering why they let it build up to somewhere around $17,000/20,000 before they attempted to collect.

Her debt went from $3500 to over $17,000 in 10 years?! How could that be?

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Ellen Brown

Written for Alternet as part of a five-part series titled “New Economic Visions”.

According to both the Mayan and Hindu calendars, 2012 (or something very close) marks the transition from an age of darkness, violence and greed to one of enlightenment, justice, and peace. It’s hard to see that change just yet in the events relayed in the major media, but a shift does seem to be happening behind the scenes; and this is particularly true in the once-boring world of banking.

In the dark age of Kali Yuga, money rules; and it is through banks that the moneyed interests have gotten their power. Banking in an age of greed is fraught with usury, fraud, and gaming the system for private ends. But there is another way to do banking, the neighborly approach of George Bailey in the classic movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Rather than feeding off the community, banking can feed the community and local economy.

Today the massive too-big-to-fail banks are hardly doing George Bailey-style loans at all. They are not interested in community lending. They are doing their own proprietary trading—trading for their own accounts—which generally means speculating against local interests. They engage in high-frequency program trading that creams profits off the top of stock market trades; speculation in commodities that drives up commodity prices; leveraged buyouts with borrowed money that can result in mass layoffs and factory closures; and investment in foreign companies that compete against our local companies.

We can’t do much to stop them. They’ve got the power, especially at the federal level. But we can quietly set up an alternative model, and that’s what is happening on various local fronts.

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Keith Jones

"No to austerity for the people to finance the prosperity of
the rich," reads the middle of the three hand-made placards
in the foreground of this photo

More than 100,000 people took to the streets of Montreal yesterday to mark the 100th day since the beginning of the Quebec student strike and to denounce the Quebec Liberal government’s Bill 78.

Adopted in less than 24 hours late last week, Bill 78 criminalizes the student strike by outlawing picket lines anywhere in the vicinity of the province’s universities and CEGEPs (pre-university and technical colleges) and by threatening teachers with criminal prosecution and massive fines if they make any accommodations to striking students or fail to perform all of their normal functions.

Bill 78 also places sweeping restrictions on the right to demonstrate anywhere—and over any issue—in Canada’s second most populous province. Any demonstration of more than 50 people is illegal unless demonstration organizers submit to police in writing more than eight hours in advance the route and duration of the protest and abide by any changes requested by the police. Demonstration organizers are also legally compelled to assist the authorities in ensuring that protesters do not transgress the police-prescribed protest route.

The same day the Liberals rammed Bill 78 through the National Assembly, Montreal’s municipal government, meeting in special session, adopted its own emergency bylaw compelling police authorization for demonstration-routes and making it illegal to wear any form of face covering—including face-paint, a nijab, or a scarf—while participating in a demonstration.

Quebec’s corporate elite has strongly supported Bill 78, just as it has the government’s insistence that its plan to raise university tuitions by 82 percent over the next seven years is non-negotiable.

The huge turnout for Tuesday’s demonstration is testimony to the widespread support for the students and recognition that Bill 78 constitutes a sweeping attack on the democratic rights of all.

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Stephen Lendman

Ziad Jilani was a dedicated, loving father and husband.

A new initiative called "Killing Without Consequence" wants justice for Ziad Jilani. Border guard Maxim Vinogradov murdered him with impunity. More on that below.

Systemic Israeli crimes against humanity include neighborhood incursions, unprovoked violence, air, ground and sea attacks, and killing with impunity.

Daily offenses are commonplace. Rule of law principles are spurned. Palestinian lives don't matter. They're murdered in cold blood. Accountability is denied.

In 2010, B'Tselem's report titled "Void of Responsibility: Israeli Military Policy not to investigate Killings of Palestinians by Soldiers" discussed it. Incriminating evidence was presented.

Throughout the Territories, liberation and justice protests occur regularly. Israeli security forces attack them with tear gas, rubber bullets, extended-range gas canisters, other weapons, and live fire. Deaths result. Evidence shows cold-blooded murder.

Numerous other incidents occur. Fishermen are attacked at sea. Border and checkpoint confrontations cause deaths. Along Gaza's border, farmers are shot in their fields. Children are used for target practice. Soldiers have license to kill.

"The vast majority of these cases have never been investigated." Most others are whitewashed. Guilty soldiers, police, and settlers are absolved.

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Stephen Lendman

9/11 was the defining event of our time. Multiple wars followed. More are planned. America's business is war - permanent, destructive, lawless ones. Global terror wars rage, another on truth, democratic values, rule of law principles, social justice, and freedom. Debunking the official 9/11 lie is a vital first step to ending the global nightmare threatening humanity if it continues. As a result, joining the struggle against what's too unacceptable to tolerate is essential. There is no alternative or time to waste, given the stakes.

Building 7 Collapse: Textbook Implosion: The removal of a tall building
with minimal damage to surrounding structures is an engineering feat. The
collapse of Building 7 had all of the important features of an engineered,
or controlled, demolition.

Consensus 9/11 seeks "best evidence" proof to dispel official story falsehoods. It's founded on:

(1) The opinions of respected authorities, based on professional experience, descriptive studies, and reports of expert committees.
(2) Physical data in the form of photographs, videotapes, court testimony, witness reports, and FOIA releases.
(3) Direct rather than circumstantial evidence.

Determining "best evidence" depends on "integrating individual professional expertise with the best available documentary and scientific evidence."

Simplified Delphi methodology is followed. It's often used "where published information is inadequate or non-existent." As a result, experts use "best evidence" to determine truth.

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Sonali Kolhatkar & Mariam Rawi

Amnesty International Advertisement for the
NATO summit in Chicago

This article was written for AlterNet in July 8, 2009

Waging war does not lead to the liberation of women anywhere -- even if you call soldiers "peacekeeping forces."

Years ago, following the initial military success of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the temporary fall of the Taliban, the people of Afghanistan were promised that the occupying armies would rebuild the country and improve life for the Afghan people.

Today, eight years after the U.S. entered Kabul, there are still piles of garbage in the streets. There is no running water. There is only intermittent electricity in the cities, and none in the countryside. Afghans live under the constant threat of military violence.

The U.S. invasion has been a failure, and increasing the U.S. troop presence will not undo the destruction the war has brought to the daily lives of Afghans.

As humanitarians and as feminists, it is the welfare of the civilian population in Afghanistan that concerns us most deeply. That is why it was so discouraging to learn that the Feminist Majority Foundation has lent its good name -- and the good name of feminism in general -- to advocate for further troop escalation and war.

On its foundation web site, the first stated objective of the Feminist Majority Foundation's "Campaign for Afghan Women and Girls" is to "expand peacekeeping forces."

First of all, coalition troops are combat forces and are there to fight a war, not to preserve peace. Not even the Pentagon uses that language to describe U.S. forces there. More importantly, the tired claim that one of the chief objectives of the military occupation of Afghanistan is to liberate Afghan women is not only absurd, it is offensive.

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Bill Van Auken

American troops on a mission in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, last
fall. Under a new plan, elite units will soon play a bigger role.

NATO concluded its two-day summit in Chicago Monday with a formal ratification of the Obama administration’s plans for a phased drawdown of occupation forces from Afghanistan over the next two and a half years, while laying the groundwork for a continued US-led military presence in the country through 2024 and beyond.

US President Barack Obama used the summit to send two conflicting messages. The first, that “the Afghan war as we understand it is over,” is directed at placating the overwhelming opposition among the American people to the US military’s presence in Afghanistan in advance of the 2012 presidential election. The second was aimed at Washington’s NATO allies and centered on the appeal for them to support American plans to keep troops and bases in the country at least through 2024. This he referred to as the US and NATO “painting a vision” for Afghanistan’s future.

This “vision” includes the continued occupation of the country by upwards of 20,000 US troops and pursuit of Washington’s efforts to turn Afghanistan as a US base on the edge of oil-rich Central Asia. While re-branded as “trainers” and “advisers,” rather than combat forces, these troops are to include substantial numbers of special operations squads, backed by US air power, that will continue the night raids and bombardments that have claimed large numbers of civilian casualties and provoked the hatred and anger of the Afghan people.

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Reham Alhelsi

Oyoun Qarra massacre, 6:30 am on 20.05.1990

Abdil Rahim, Ziyad, Zayid, Sleiman, Omar, Zaky and Yousif carried their small lunch bags with a few bread loaves, a tomato and a sardine can, and said goodbye to their families in the early hours of Sunday 20.05.1990. It was very early in the morning, the sun hadn’t risen yet, and the refugee camps were engulfed in total darkness. The usually busy and noisy narrow roads and alleys were empty and quiet. The children were still asleep and dreaming of the toy and the colouring book their fathers will bring them back from work. The young women were still asleep and dreaming of the ring and the necklace their fiancés would buy so they could finally marry. The wives sat near their sleeping children and dreamt of the meat their husbands might bring back from work so they could cook a decent meal for the family. The mothers sat in the darkness, watching their children leave to work, and prayed that they reach their working place safe, find a job for the day and get paid so they can repair the leaking roof before the next winter. As they watched them disappear in the darkness, they prayed that their children come back safe to their homes and to their families. The roads and alleys of the refugee camps were quiet and empty, except for the sounds of the marching Israeli occupation soldiers, patrolling the open-air prisons, and holding the entire Palestinian population hostage to occupation and oppression. The roads and alleys of the refugee camps were quiet and empty except for the footsteps of the workers, heading to work in the early hours of the morning, hoping to find work that day, and thinking of their children, their mothers, their wives, their fiancés and hoping to be able to bring back toys, colouring books, food, a necklace and ring and enough money to fix the roof before the next winter.

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Stephen Lendman

Obama Signed Executive Order Declaring War On Iran

When insanity becomes policy, the issue is survival.

Congressional hawks want war. Bipartisan support backs it. Moderates outnumber hotheads. At issue is for how long. Saber rattling, fear mongering, and bogus accusations persisted for years. Now it's showing up in legislation. More on that below.

Possibly a false flag will ignite another Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) for "the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States."

At high-anxiety times, options often dwindle to war. Knee-jerk congressional support authorizes it with no formal declaration. The Constitution's Article 1, Section 8 mandates it.

It hasn't been declared since December 8, 1941. Why bother when presidential diktats send Americans to war with no congressional opposition.

Threats don't exist so they're invented. False flag attacks masquerade as real ones. Body counts rise exponentially. Buildings and other facilities topple like tenpins.

When people realize they've been had, it's too late. They never learn. No matter how often they're fooled, they're easily deceived again. Once a damn fool, always one. Relying on scoundrel media for news and information makes it easy.

Television is worst of all. Print managed news also omits what people most need to know and distorts the rest.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Ironic, isn’t it? - The United States, the “indispensable nation,” now stands before us as the likely candidate whose government will be responsible for the collapse of the West.

The US financial system and, probably, the financial system of Europe, like the police, no longer serves a useful social purpose.

In the US the police have proven themselves to be a greater threat to public safety than private sector criminals. I just googled “police brutality” and up came 183,000,000 results. (Here are two recent brutal assaults, one deadly, by police on hapless individuals: 1 and 2 )

The cost to society of the private financial system is even higher. Writing in CounterPunch, Rob Urie reports that two years ago Andrew Haldane, executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank of England (the UK’s version of the Federal Reserve) said that the financial crisis, now four years old, will in the end cost the world economy between $60 trillion and $200 trillion in lost GDP. If Urie’s report is correct, this is an astonishing admission from a member of the ruling elite.

Try to get your mind around these figures. The US GDP, the largest in the world, is about 15 trillion. What Haldane is telling us is that the financial crisis will end up costing the world lost real income between 4 and 13 times the size of the current Gross Domestic Product of the United States. This could turn out to be an optimistic forecast.

In the end, the financial crisis could destroy Western civilization.

Even if Urie’s report (or Haldane’s calculation) is incorrect, the obvious large economic loss from the financial crisis is still unprecedented. The enormous cost of the financial crisis has one single source–financial deregulation. Financial deregulation is likely to prove to be the mistake that destroys Western civilization. While we quake in our boots from fear of “Muslim terrorists,” it is financial deregulation that is destroying us, with help from jobs offshoring. Keep in mind that Haldane is a member of the ruling elite, not a critic of the system like myself, Gerald Celente, Michael Hudson, Pam Martins, and Nomi Prins. (This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of critics.)

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Gilad Atzmon

The Dictator - A Film Review

On the face of it, Baron Cohen’s The Dictator is a horrid film. It is vulgar, it isn’t funny and if it has five good jokes in it, they appear in the two minute official trailer. In short, save your time and money – unless of course, you are interested in Jewish identity politics and neurosis.

Similar to Cohen’s previous work, The Dictator is, once again, a glimpse into Cohen’s own tribal morbidity. After all, the person and the spirit behind this embarrassing comedy is a proud self-loving character who never misses an opportunity to express his intimate affinity to his people, their unique comic talent and their beloved Jewish state. But let’s face it, Cohen isn’t alone, after all, he has created The Dictator together with a Hollywood studio. So, it’s reasonable to say that what we see here is just one more Hollywood-orchestrated effort to vilify the Arab, the Muslim and the Orient.

I guess that Arab rulers, regimes and politics are an ideal subject for a satirical take, still, one may wonder what exactly does Sacha Baron Cohen know about the Arab World? As far as the film can tell, not much. Instead, Cohen projects his own Zionist and tribal symptoms onto the people of Arabia and their leaders.

In the film, Cohen plays 'General Hafez Aladeen,' the Arab ruler of the oil-rich North African rogue state Wadiya. On the face of it, he is the satirical version of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, but in reality, Aladeen’s actions are no less than a vast amplification of the crimes committed by Israel and its war criminals such as Shimon Peres, Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni.

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Stephen Lendman

In May 1948, Israel's independence was Palestine's Nakba. In June 1967, Jerusalem Day for Jews was Nakba 2.0 for Palestinians.

In 1948, Israelis stole 78% of historic Palestine. In 1967, they took the rest. In the process, they deprived Palestinians of their historic capital even though the UN declared Jerusalem an international city.

Israel transformed Jerusalem from a multi-cultural, multi-religious metropolis into a predominantly Jewish one. On July 30, 1980, the Knesset introduced the Jerusalem Law. It annexed the city as Israel's unified capital.

On March 1, 1980, Security Council Resolution 465 declared that:

"all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant (Fourth Geneva) violation....and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East."

On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that "Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development (and) have been established in breach of international law."

Israel spurns international law and UN resolutions unfavorable to its interests with impunity. As a result, Palestinians have suffered grievously for decades.

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Stephen Lendman

Photo: A protester sits in front of Chicago police officers on State Street during a NATO summit demonstration in downtown Chicago, Saturday, May 19, 2012. Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the summit, where delegations from about 60 countries will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.

Through Monday, downtown residents live in occupied Chicago.

Secret Service agents, NORTHCOM and National Guard forces, as well as thousands of state and local police seem everywhere.

Getting around feels hazardous. Anyone may be stopped, searched, interrogated, even arrested.

Residents were advised to hunker down and stay out of harm's way as best as possible. For many, it's not easy. More on a city under siege below.

NATO is the world's first global war-making alliance. Largely a US imperial tool, it's a killing machine. Its 28 members and dozens of partner states comprise about one-third of the world's nations.

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Glen Ford

The administration imposed the most draconian police state legal structures in U.S. history before summoning the heads of NATO to Chicago. NATO accounts for 70 percent of military spending on the planet – combining the capacities of yesterday’s imperialists and the current superpower. “The Black man in the White House is seen, ironically, as the last best hope of the old colonial racial order and the rule of capital.”

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Stephen Lendman

A $100 million NATO invasion is coming. Low intensity conflict may follow. The "City of Broad Shoulders" may get more than it bargained for. Nelson Algren once called Chicago the "City on the Make." NATO's May 20/21 "on the make" invasion isn't welcome. Chicago NATO.org announced an Obama-hosted "diplomatic summit." Thousands plan protests against it.

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Paul Craig Roberts

In response to the question in the title I can report that most of my readers are. Almost everyone got the point of the last column. They see the absurdity of the government’s claim that the identity of the tough, macho Navy Seals, who allegedly murdered Osama bin Laden, has to be kept secret in order to protect our fierce warriors from reprisals from Muslim terrorists, while those government officials responsible for the torture and deaths of large numbers of Muslims can walk around, identity known, unprotected and safe.

After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story
ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to
believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show
you how deep the rabbit hole goes. ~ Morpheus, The Matrix

A few members of Congress are also awake, but not very many. Indeed, we are losing two of the most aware–Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. Kucinich was redistricted in order to get rid of his independent voice. He carried 75% of the votes from that part of his old district that was included in his new one, but the new voters lacked the intelligence to vote for him. Ron Paul, in our time of tribulation, tried for the Republican presidential nomination on a platform of saving the US Constitution, but those who voted in Republican primaries weren’t interested in saving the US Constitution.

Now we are down to US Rep. Walter Jones. Initially, Jones was a member of the warmonger crowd. He was angered when the French government cast doubt on the George W. Bush regime’s reasons for the need for war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Jones said at that time that he was renaming French Fries “Freedom Fries.”

Jones unplugged from the Matrix and has been sentient for some time. Recently the tyrant Obama and the government operative Panetta, a political whore who has been in a variety of government positions and is currently Secretary of Warmongering, announced publicly that, the US Constitution notwithstanding, the executive branch no longer needed the authority of Congress to go to war. In our globalist existence, the authority for the US to initiate hostilities against another country comes from the UN, declared Obama and Panetta. If the executive branch can persuade or bribe the UN to give a war OK, Congress is no longer relevant.

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Gilad Atzmon

Description of Images on Edward Said Mural

Our solidarity with Palestine can now become a true force of genuine empathy. We don’t now just put ourselves in the shoes of the Palestinians, we actually wear them. We all strive for the same liberty. We are one.

Postcolonial, feminist and gay studies share many similarities to the extent that some academics regard these fields as theoretically and ideologically complementary. These fields of study are primarily concerned with politics, the structure of hegemony, the oppressed and the mechanism that brings about injustice. It is only natural then, that these realms of thought, primarily concerned with prejudice and injustice, would become key instruments in our understanding of Zionism and Israeli oppression.

Without questioning the intellectual validity and the theoretical substance of the postcolonial spectrum of thought, it is clear that some contemporary leading trends within this realm of studies emphasize the role of ‘White male’ and the ‘phallus’ as being at the core of contemporary Western society’s malaise. So the next question is almost inevitable –Where does it leave the ‘White male’? Or more anecdotally, am I, a person who happens to be wrapped in pale skin and is also attached to a white phallic organ, do I bear responsibility for centuries of European genocides? Would my responsibility lessen once I decide to chop my male organ off? Am I, or any other White male, left with any authentic ethical role? Or are we biologically doomed to be the epitome of every wrongdoing of the Western society for generations? The astute postcolonial theorist may suggest that ‘Masculinity’, ‘Whiteness’ and the ‘Phallus’ are mere symbolic representations rather than ‘things in themselves’.

Some postcolonial and feminist theoreticians would argue that imperialism, like patriarchy is, after all, a ‘phallo-centric’, ‘supremacist’, ‘White’ ideology that subjugates and dominates its subjects. This is an interesting and even intriguing statement, yet I am not so sure that it is valid or at all relevant to our understanding of Zionism and the crimes committed by the Jewish state. Zionism and Israel are clearly supremacist ideologies, yet is AIPAC’s push for a war against Iran ‘phallo-centric’? Is the Zionist appetite for Palestinian land ‘patriarchal’, or inspired by any form of ‘phallic’ enthusiasm or even ‘Whiteness’? Is the ‘War against Terror’ that left about one and a half million fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, ‘phallicly’ orientated or is it the White male again?

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Yves Smith

Barack Obama swept into office on a tide of giddy enthusiasm. His “Hope and Change” was a pledge to reverse Bush era policies, including socialism for the rich, adventurism in the Middle East, and attacks on civil liberties. He announced his intention to serve as a transformational leader, invoking Abraham Lincoln, FDR and Ronald Reagan as role models. Despite the frigid temperatures, people poured into Washington, DC to hear his inauguration speech, wanting to be part of a remarkable passage.

It wasn’t simply that Obama was the first black president, but also that the economic devastation of the financial crisis opened up a historic opportunity to remake the social contract, to punish the reckless and greedy, no matter how lofty, and to build new foundations and safeguards for ordinary citizens. Obama, with his youthful vigor, his technocratic command of policy details, his “no drama” steadiness, his mastery of oratory, seemed uniquely suited to this time of need. His personal history of repeatedly breaking new ground fed optimism that he could do so for the nation as a whole.

Those times of heady promise are now a cruel memory. Again and again, Obama has shown his true colors. It isn’t simply that Obama lied. Politicians lie. But there are norms for political lying. The depth and dependability of Obama’s misrepresentations constitute a difference in kind.

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Stephen Lendman

A trip to the Middle East made by Ziyad Yaghi (left) and
Omar Aly Hassan was the focus of terrorism-related char-
ges against the two North Carolina men.

Post-9/11, America declared war on Islam. Wars rage abroad. At home, innocent victims are wrongfully charged, prosecuted, convicted by intimidated and pressured juries, and imprisoned.

Ziyad's one of many hundreds serving long prison terms in America's gulag. His crime is being Muslim in America at the wrong time.

On July 27, 2009, dozens of heavily armed Swat and hostage rescue team members arrested seven North Carolina men on terrorist-related charges.

A same day Justice Department press release cited Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons, Zakariya and Dylan, Hysen Sherifi, Anes Subasic, Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, and Ziyad Yaghi.

Charges claimed "conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to murder, kidnap, main and injure persons abroad," despite no plot, no crime, or intention to commit one.

Allegations only were provided. Precise details were omitted. Spurious accusations also suggested wanting to attack US Marines at Quantico, VA.

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