Pepe Escobar

The Panopticon was the ultimate surveillance system - a tower surrounded by cells, a pre-Orwellian example of "architecture of oppression". [It] was not originally conceived for the surveillance of a prison, but for a factory crammed with landless peasants on forced labor...

The judgment of Daniel "Pentagon Papers" Ellsberg is definitive; "There has not been in American history a more important leak than Edward Snowden's release of NSA material". And that includes the release of the Pentagon Papers themselves. Here is the 12-minute video by The Guardian where Snowden details his motives.

By now, everything swirling around the US National Security Agency (NSA) points to a black box in a black hole. The black box is the NSA headquarters itself in Fort Meade, Maryland. The black hole is an area that would include the suburbs of Virginia's Fairfax County near the CIA but mostly the intersection of the Baltimore Parkway and Maryland Route 32.

There one finds a business park a mile away from the NSA which Michael Hayden, a former NSA director (1999-2005) told Salon's Tim Shorrock is "the largest concentration of cyber power on the planet". [1] Hayden coined it "Digital Blackwater".

Here is a decent round up of key questions still not answered about the black hole. But when it comes to how a 29-year old IT wizard with little formal education has been able to access a batch of ultra-sensitive secrets of the US intelligence-national security complex, that's a no-brainer; it's all about the gung-ho privatization of spying - referred to by a mountain of euphemisms of the "contractor reliance" kind. In fact the bulk of the hardware and software used by the dizzying network of 16 US intelligence agencies is privatized.

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Gilad Atzmon

Professor Richard A. Falk, UN Special
Rapporteur on "the situation of human
rights in the Palestinian territories occu-
pied since 1967."

I was amused and proud to see my latest book The Wandering Who? held aloft by Israeli chief Sayan Hilllel Neuer at the UN’s Human Right Council. The book was presented as ‘exhibit B’ in a farcical self-appointed Talmudic kangaroo court against the great Professor Richard Falk who lent his name, amongst many other leading humanists and intellectuals, in support of my work.

Infamous Hasbara spin-doctor Neuer doesn’t like Falk, this is clear. Along the years Zionists have developed a collective anathema towards humanists and humanism. Neuer Insisted that The Wandering Who? is ‘Anti-Semitic.’ In order to support his ridiculous claim, he recruited Ali Abunimah, the man who single-handedly managed to reduce the Intifada to an electronic blog.

So here is some bad news Neuer better take into consideration: 24 hours before Abunimah published his peculiar ‘interpretation’ of my thoughts, he was foolish enough to admit to Professor Norton Mezvinsky that he actually had not read The Wandering Who or “anything else by Atzmon.” How embarrassing. At the time, Professor Mezvinsky, gave me his full consent to publicise Abunimah’s confession.

In his relatively short intellectual career, Abunimah has managed to produce some of the most mind-boggling statements in the history of contemporary intellectual exchanges. I guess that Neuer could do with the support of someone who is familiar with my work or at least clever enough to hide his ignorance.

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Anonymous
(161719)

[xymphora] - Can you imagine what the American 'left' would be saying if the NSA revelations had occurred on Bush's watch? Since Barry - the most progressive man who ever walked the planet - is behind it, everything is fine. This is why Barry was such a brilliant choice for President. The right, except for that tiny fringe that is truly libertarian, is torn between thinking the revelations are a Chinese government plot to weaken the United States, and thinking that real (i.e., white) Americans have nothing to hide and need all of the unconstitutional outrages the NSA can muster to save real Americans from those scary Mooooooslims under their beds.

Has anyone noticed that the American government has never successfully used its spying to uncover a real terrorist plot? They completely missed the Boston bombing with the Russians repeatedly begging the Americans to look into Tamerlan (of course, why would you look into your own employee?). The only terrorist plots the American government ever finds are the ones set up by the FBI, and they don't even stop all of those (Oklahoma City). [The Null Device]

I live in a country generally assumed to be a dictatorship. One of the Arab spring countries. I have lived through curfews and have seen the outcomes of the sort of surveillance now being revealed in the US. People here talking about curfews aren't realizing what that actually FEELS like. It isn't about having to go inside, and the practicality of that. It's about creating the feeling that everyone, everything is watching.

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Stephen Lendman

America's dark side threatens everyone.

Whistleblowing reflects doing the right thing. It exposes wrongdoing. It does so because it matters. Edward Joseph Snowden follows a noble tradition. Others before him established it. Daniel Ellsberg called his NSA leak the most important in US history. More on him below.

Expressions of patriotism can reflect good or ill. Samuel Johnson said it’s the last refuge of a scoundrel. Thomas Paine called dissent its highest form. So did Howard Zinn. According to Machiavelli:

"When the safety of one's country wholly depends on the decision to be taken, no attention should be paid either to justice or injustice, to kindness or cruelty, or to its being praiseworthy or ignominious."

Tolstoy said:

"In our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering; and…consequently, this feeling should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men."

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Deniz Erkmen

When There Is No Other Way But Resistance! - A Personal Account Of The Early Days Of #Occupygezi

Tarihinde Yayımlandı: This is a piece -her personal story- written by my dear friend Deniz Erkmen on the recent Social Protest Movement (Occupy Gezi). If you are still curious about what is happenning in Istanbul (well by now it is whole Turkey) please keep reading! Thank you so much for your support!

At home in Istanbul, grading student papers while trying to follow a continuous facebook updates of events, I am getting more and more anxious to leave. It is impossible to concentrate. I read few lines from the paper, stop and think “do I have vinegar at home”?

I read a few more lines, stop and wonder “does the pharmacy sell gas masks?” Not able to sit any longer, I call, text and facebook message a few friends; a marine biologist first, a graduate student in history second, then a film director and an environmental engineer… Everyone is planning to head to the Taksim square. I pack some vinegar and a bandanna into my backpack; I make sure I wear sneakers so I can run fast and I leave home not quite sure what is ahead of me.

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Eric Peters

Kevin Bailey, 22, got into a fatal shootout with Solon, Ohio cops the other day. It all began over a minor traffic violation – failure to signal before changing lanes. Once he had Bailey pulled over, the cop claimed he “smelled marijuana” – and it went bad from there. Bailey took off, ran off the road and – as the cops closed in on him, fired his gun at the cops. The cops were better shots and Bailey was killed at the scene.

Natürlich, the cops are portrayed as “heroic” – and have been exonerated of any wrongdoing.

Arguably, it was actually heroic – if foolishly so – for Bailey to have attempted to get away from the costumed enforcers who ultimately killed him. This will shock some readers, no doubt. Having been conditioned from youth to reflexively kowtow to authority (however constituted) they instinctively side with authority whenever there is a confrontation. But, consider: What was Bailey’s initial crime? Had he done anything to justify being waylaid by costumed enforcers? Oh, yes – a “law” was (allegedly) ignored. But who did Bailey harm by not using his turn signal before changing lanes? Obviously, the answer is – no one. Yet this was – is – sufficient pretext for costumed enforcers to begin a “harass and collect” traffic stop. (Which, by the way, now entitles the costumed enforcers to forcibly take a DNA sample as well as perform a strip search. Before you have been convicted of anything. The Supreme Court has ruled both measures to be “constitutional.” See here and here.)

If we lived in a free country – one in which people were free to go about their business without being stopped and fleeced at gunpoint by costumed agents of the state – Bailey would never have been stopped in the first place.

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Thomas Gaist

Former CIA employee Edward Joseph Snowden announced on Sunday that he is the source of recent leaks to the Guardian and Washington Post exposing systematic police-state surveillance conducted under the Obama administration by the National Security Agency.

Snowden, who is 29 years old and has served as an undercover intelligence employee, referred to the massive surveillance program as an “architecture of oppression” with virtually limitless aims: “They are intent on making every conversation and every form of behaviour in the world known to them.”

The leaks have uncovered a government spying program that includes the accumulation of detailed phone records on nearly every individual in the United States, as well as a program of Internet spying involving the close collaboration of major tech companies, including Microsoft and Google.

In an interview with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald (available online here), Snowden detailed the vast spying capabilities assembled by US government agencies: “The NSA has built an infrastructure that allows it to intercept almost everything. With this capability, the vast majority of human communications are automatically ingested without targeting.”

“The NSA specifically targets the communications of everyone… I sitting at my desk certainly had the authority to wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president if I had a personal email.”

“I don’t want to live a society that does these sort of things,” Snowden said. “I do not want to live in a world where everything I do and say is recorded. That is not something I am willing to support or live under.”

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Stephen Lendman

Avraham Shalom, Ami Ayalon, Yaakov Peri, Yuval Diskin,
Avi Dichter and Carmi Gillon (Sony/Allstar Picture Library)

It doesn't surprise. On June 8, Haaretz headlined "What was the Israeli involvement in collecting US communications intel for NSA?" More on that below.

On April 3, 2012, James Bamford headlined "Shady Companies with Ties to Israel Wiretap for US for the NSA." He said NSA chief General Keith Alexander's "having a busy year." He's "cutting ribbons at secret bases and bringing to life the agency’s greatly expanded eavesdropping network." "In January he dedicated the new $358 million CAPT Joseph J. Rochefort Building at NSA Hawaii, and in March he unveiled the 604,000-square-foot John Whitelaw Building at NSA Georgia." It's for around "4,000 earphone-clad intercept operators, analysts and other specialists, many of them employed by private contractors." Spies "R" Us defines US policy. NSA's "mammoth 1-million-square-foot, $2 billion Utah Data Center is far more sweeping."

It's located at Camp Williams. It's a Utah National Guard training facility. Once fully operational, says Bamford, it'll "become, in effect, the NSA Cloud." It'll receive data from NSA satellites, overseas listening posts, and nationwide multiple telecom facility monitoring rooms. What's planned is an unprecedented global spy network. NSA operatives and hackers will harvest around 2.1 million gigabytes of data per hour. It'll do so on the world's most powerful computer. It's called the Titan Supercomputer. It can handle over 20,000 trillion calculations per second or 20 petaflops. One petaflop = one quadrillion instructions per second. Supercomputer power will be used to collect and analyze foreign and domestic communications from all possible sources.

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Stephen Lendman

Fascism wasn’t vanquished. It was transplanted to America. It’s visible in plain sight.

On June 5, London's Guardian reported part of it. "NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily," it headlined.

On June 6, a follow-up article headlined "NSA taps in to systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and others, secret files reveal."

The Washington Post followed with its own report. It said the NSA and FBI "are tapping directly into the central servers of nine US Internet companies, extracting audio, video, photographs, e-mails, documents and connection logs that enable analysts to trace a person’s movements and contacts over time."

Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Paltalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple, and other online companies willingly cooperate with lawless government spying. Doing so, in part, reflects old news. Institutional spying on Americans is longstanding. Previous articles discussed it. More on the Guardian articles below.

According to retired NSA/US Air Force/Naval Intelligence/Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence analyst-turned whistleblower Russell Tice: What's ongoing "is much larger and more systemic than anything anyone has ever suspected or imagined."

It's been widely known for years. Little was revealed publicly. Pervasive spying is much worse than suspected. Other media reports followed London's Guardian revelations. Few people knew before. Many more do now. A firestorm of public anger is needed to have any chance to stop it. Nothing less stands a chance. What follows remains to be seen. Based on post-9/11 extremism, expect worse ahead, not better.

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Gilad Atzmon

Syria uprising nears 2-year anniversary: Free Syrian Army
fighters talk to Syrian army soldiers (not pictured) who want
to defect in Aleppo. (Maysun/European Pressphoto Agency)

In the last week we have been following British and French’s desperate attempts to push for a military intervention in Syria. It is far from being a secret that both British and French government are dominated by the Jewish Lobby. In Britain it is the ultra Zionist CFI (Conservative Friends of Israel) - apparently 80% of Britain’s conservative MPs are members of the pro Israeli Lobby. In France the situation is even more devastating, the entire political system is hijacked by the forceful CRIF.

But in case anyone fails to grasp why the Jewish Lobby is pushing for an immediate intervention, Debka, an Israeli news outlet provides the answer. Seemingly, the Syrian army is winning on all fronts. Israel’s military and geo-political calculations are proved to be wrong.

According to Debka, “the battle for Damascus is over”. The Syrian army had virtually “regained control of the city in an epic victory”. The rebels, largely mercenaries, have lost the battle they “can’t do much more than fire sporadically. They can no longer launch raids, or pose threats to the city centre, the airport or the big Syrian air base nearby.

"The Russian and Iranian transports constantly bringing replenishments for keeping the Syrian army fighting can again land at Damascus airport after months of rebel siege.”

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Stephen Lendman

Their ideal world isn't fit to live in. They may end up destroying it in the process. They want one world government. They want unchallenged global dominance. It's hard imagining a more malevolent force.

On June 5, the London Evening Standard headlined "No minutes, no press conferences - just the world's power brokers chewing the fat on the issues of the day. It's the Bilderberg conference - and it's coming to a suburb near you."

On June 6, it convened. It continues through June 9.

It's a rite of spring. A previous article said British political economist Will Hutton calls attendees the "high priests of globalization." Powerful movers and shakers have their own agenda. They're up to no good. They meet annually face-to-face. They conspire, collude and collaborate against populist interests. Their's alone matter. According to Bilderberg Meetings.org:

■ "Founded in 1954, Bilderberg is an annual conference designed to foster dialogue between Europe and North America."
■ "Every year, between 120 -150 political leaders and experts from industry, finance, academia and the media are invited to take part in the conference."
■ "About two thirds of the participants come from Europe and the rest from North America; one third from politics and government and the rest from other fields."
■ "The conference is a forum for informal, off-the-record discussions about megatrends and the major issues facing the world."
■ "Thanks to the private nature of the conference, the participants are not bound by the conventions of office or by pre-agreed positions."
■ "As such, they can take time to listen, reflect and gather insights. There is no detailed agenda, no resolutions are proposed, no votes are taken, and no policy statements are issued."
■ "The 61st Bilderberg meeting will take place at the beginning of June 2013 in the UK."

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Stephen Lendman

Barak Obama, Susan Rice & Samantha Power (A. Wong/Getty)

Obama's cabinet, national security team, and other close advisors reflect a virtual rogues gallery of scoundrels. Susan Rice as National Security Advisor and Samantha Power as UN envoy are on board in new capacities. Rice shifts from UN ambassador to the White House. A previous article quoted the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity saying "she belongs in the big house, not in the White House."

Given her notion of humanitarian intervention, Power belongs there with her. On June 5, Obama announced both appointments. He was right calling Power "a relentless advocate for American interests and values." He was wrong saying doing so reflects "building partnerships on behalf of democracy and human rights." He called Power "an indispensable member of my national security team." He stopped short of explaining her imperial role. Senate confirmation is required.

Expect it to be rubber-stamp. Democrats control the body. Based on John McCain's comment, Republicans aren't likely to object. He called her "well-qualified for this important position." He urged swift confirmation. Other notable neocons praised her nomination. Former Senator Joe Lieberman said he's "very encouraged by the president's appointment." Alan Dershowitz called her "a perfect choice." Uberhawk Max Boot said she's "a very capable and principled advocate of humanitarian intervention." He stopped short of explaining the mass death and destruction it causes. The Islamophobic Anti-Defamation League said "(W)e are heartened that the US will be represented by an individual whose moral resolve and fierce pragmatism will serve our country well."

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Stephen Lendman

Barak Obama, Susan Rice & Samantha Power (A. Wong/Getty)

Previous articles discussed her. Calling her controversial stops short of accurately characterizing her. Moral depravity explains best.

Vishay Prashad calls her the "queen of interventionist hawks." South African journalist Getahune Bekele said she's a "consummate ally of grubby despots." Ray McGovern says she believes "hawkishness" is "safer" for career advancement than "thoughtful diplomacy." Reuters called her "sharp-tongued." Others condemn her bloody hands. Banality of evil describes her. Death and destruction don't bother her. She was quoted once saying, "The only thing we have to do is look the other way."

Reports suggest humanitarian warmonger Samantha Power will replace her as UN ambassador. Senate confirmation is needed. She and Rice played leading roles in urging "humanitarian war" on Libya.

Genocidal slaughter followed. Africa's most developed nation was ravaged. So-called responsibility to protect is code language for show no mercy. When America intervenes, with or without NATO partners, death, destruction, resource theft, exploitation and human misery follow.

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William Blum

Washington’s sanctions against Iran are a wonder to behold, seriously hampering Tehran’s ability to conduct international commerce, make payments, receive money, import, export, invest, travel … you name the hardship and the United States is trying to impose it on the government and the people of Iran. In early May a bipartisan bill was introduced in Congress aimed at stopping Iran from gaining access to its billions of dollars in euros kept in overseas banks – money that represents up to a third of Tehran’s total hard-currency holdings. In addition, Congress is looking to crack down on a weakness in current sanctions law that allows Iran to replenish its hard-currency accounts by acquiring gold through overseas markets.

Washington has as well closed down Iran’s media operations in the United States, is putting great pressure on Pakistan to cancel their project to build a pipeline to import natural gas from Iran, and punished countless international companies for doing business with Iran.

After a plane crash in Iran in 2011, the Washington Post reported: “Plane crashes are common in Iran, which for decades has been prevented from buying spare parts for its aging fleet by sanctions imposed by the United States.”[1]

There are many more examples of the sanctions of mass destruction.

All this to force Iran to abandon any program that might conceivably lead someday to a nuclear weapon, thus depriving Israel of being the only nuclear power in the Middle East. The United States doesn’t actually say this. It instead says, explicitly or implicitly, that a nuclear Iran would be a danger to attack the US or Israel, without giving any reason why Iran would act so suicidal; at the same time Washington ignores repeated statements from various Israeli and American officials that they have no such fear.

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Pepe Escobar

Is this the Turkish Spring? No, at least not yet. Is Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the new Mubarak? No, at least not yet.

History keeps warning us it takes just a spark to light a political bonfire. The recent spark in Istanbul was provided by a small group of very young environmentalists organizing a peaceful sit-in, Occupy-style, in Taksim Square to protest the planned destruction of one of the city center's few remaining public green spaces, Gezi park.

Gezi park's destruction follows a globally tested neoliberalism racket; it will be replaced by a simulacrum - in this case a replica of the Ottoman Artillery Barracks - housing, what else, yet another shopping mall. It's crucial to note that the mayor of Istanbul, also from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), owns a retail chain that will make a killing out of the mall. And the man holding the contract for this "redevelopment" is no less than Erdoğan's son-in-law.

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Gilad Atzmon

Here you will find the London Declaration on Antisemitism and here a great analytical deconstruction by Stuart Littlewood.

The declaration doesn't leave much room for doubt, Israel and its Lobby are in a state of panic. The London Statement is a clear attempt to stop discussion on issues to do with Jewish past, the Holocaust, the Jewish State and its Jewish nature.

Interestingly enough, the declaration provides us with an insight into Zionist projection. Far from being a universal statement, the declaration is primarily concerned with anti-Jewish discrimination. The declaration is a brutal and crude attempt to interfere with freedom of expression that is still regarded by some as a precious human value.

The declaration is full with logical flaws. Here is one example. Though Israel defines itself as the Jewish State, the declaration calls to stop those who “target the State of Israel as a Jewish collectivity” (1). I guess that the meaning of it is simple. Israel is happy to define itself as a Jewish State but it doesn't like to be defined as such by others.

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Stephen Lendman

On June 3, trial proceedings began. They'll last well into summer. What's ongoing reflects much more than Manning alone. We're all in this together. Freedom in America is on trial. Post-9/11, it's been on the chopping block for elimination. Convicting Manning of anything compromises what too important to lose. He deserves praise, not prosecution. His fate is ours. That's what's fundamentally at stake. Everyone stands to win or lose with him.

In his February plea statement, he said

[he wanted to] "spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general as it related to Iraq and Afghanistan." [Americans have a right to know the] "true costs of war," he stressed. He called war logs given WikiLeaks "some of the most important documents of our time." [He chose ones he believed] "wouldn't cause harm to the United States." [Washington's] "obsessed with capturing and killing people," [he said.]

He was sickened by the "Collateral Murder" video he saw. US helicopter pilots gunned down innocent civilians. They murdered anyone trying to help them. Manning called doing so "bloodlust." He exposed lawlessness. He reflects justifiable resistance.

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Jon Rappoport

In the 1950s, before television had numbed minds and turned them into jelly, there was a growing sense of: the Individual versus the Corporate State. Something needed to be done. People were fitting into slots. They were surrendering their lives in increasing numbers. They were carving away their own idiosyncrasies and their independent ideas. Collectivism wasn’t merely a Soviet paradigm. It was spreading like a fungus at every level of American life. It might fly a political banner here and there, but on the whole it was a social phenomenon and nightmare.

Television then added fuel to the fire. Under the control of psyops experts, it became, as the 1950s droned on, the facile barrel of a weapon: “What’s important is the group, the family, peers. Conform. Give in. Bathe in the great belonging…”

Recognize that every message television imparts is a proxy, a fabrication, a simulacrum, an imitation of life one step removed. It isn’t people talking in a park or on a street corner or in a saloon or a barber shop or a meeting hall or a church.

It’s happening on a screen, and that makes it both fake and more real than real. Therefore, the argument that television can impart important values, if “directed properly,” is specious from the ground up. Television tells lies in its very being. And because it appears to supersede the real, it hypnotizes. When this medium also broadcasts words and images of belonging and the need to belong, it’s engaged in revolutionary social engineering. The very opposite of living as a strong, independent, and powerful individual is the cloying need to belong. And the latter is what television ceaselessly promotes.

This is no accident. After World War 2, psychological-warfare operatives turned their attention to two long-term strategies: inculcating negative stereotypes of distant populations, to rationalize covert military plans to conquer and build an empire for America; and disseminating the unparalleled joys of disappearing into a group existence.

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Naomi Spencer

After 1,100 days in prison, Army private Bradley Manning faced a military court martial Monday. Day one of the trial, like the months’ long series of pre-trial hearings before it, was characterized by government secrecy, vindictiveness and lies.

Manning, accused of leaking some 700,000 military and diplomatic files to whistleblower organization WikiLeaks, faces a possible life sentence if convicted on 20 charges, the most serious of which is “aiding the enemy” under the Espionage Act. The Obama administration prosecutors argue that Manning knowingly provided intelligence information to al Qaeda because anyone, including terrorists, could access it on the WikiLeaks web site.

In a statement before military judge Colonel Denise Lind in February, Manning explained that he transmitted the material in order to expose the crimes of the US government and military being carried out in the name of the American people. His aim, he said, was to spark “worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms.”

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Stephen Lendman

Rami Hamdallah appointed [annointed] as prime minister
of the so-called Palestinian Authority by Mahmoud Abbas,
the current illegitimate president. - He did so lawlessly.

Democracies let people choose. On January 25, 2006, Palestinians overwhelmingly chose Hamas PLC representatives.

They elected them as their legitimate government. Institutionalized Fatah corruption defeated them. Ismail Haniyah is Palestine's rightful prime minister.

Abbas serves illegitimately as Palestine's president. Israel rigged his 2005 election. He was anointed, not elected. His term expired in January 2009. He refuses to call new elections. He's a longtime Israeli collaborator. He's well compensated for doing so. He betrays his own people in the process. Why they tolerate him they'll have to explain.

In June 2007, he illegitimately appointed Salam Fayyad prime minister. In May 2009, he reappointed him. In January 2006 elections, his Third Way party got 2.4% of the vote. Palestinians overwhelmingly rejected him. They did so for good reason.

Earlier he did economic research for the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. He's a former IMF and World Bank official. Until 2001, he was IMF's man in Palestine. His assignment was exploitation, not public service. He's beholden to monied interests. They own him. He collaborated at the expense of vital Palestinian needs. He did so throughout his tenure. They consistently go begging. Wealth and power alone matter.

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