Retired four-star general and former Democratic Presidential candidate Wesley Clark criticizes the course of U.S. foreign policy in the wake of September 11, 2001.


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Wesley Clark discusses "A Time to Lead."

Wesley Clark sought the presidency during the 2004 elections, seeking to bring a less hawkish perspective to the White House. After the campaign, Clark did not end his crusade for what he sees as a better America, one that supports his vision of a responsible foreign policy. He believes that hard work, leadership and determination will ultimately turn the country around. - The Commonwealth Club

Wesley Clark is a retired four-star general of the United States Army. Clark was valedictorian of his class at West Point, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he earned a master's degree in economics, and later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the Army and the Department of Defense, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Israeli veterans' organization Breaking The Silence has documented numerous confessions over the last nine years.

These shocking admissions from Israeli soldiers document the maltreatment of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. The confessions prove that the immoral behavior seen in the disturbing images posted on Israeli soldiers' Instagram accounts, as revealed by The Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah are not the case of a few bad apples.

Here follows a selection of a few of the group's confessions.

"Beating some Arab to a pulp"

The practice of taking abusive pictures of Palestinians captives was confessed by several soldiers. For example, a staff sergeant from the Golani Brigade witnessed "people took photos of dead men." He mentioned:

a photo of my crew taken with a shirtless prisoner, wearing a Golani cap and everyone standing around him.

A staff sergeant from the paratroopers in Hebron confessed that photos are taken while someone [a Palestinian] is picked up for interrogation, blindfolded, hands tied, and he's placed in a post like that and..."

This documentary examines the little-known truth about how the worldwide diamond trade has funded wars across western and central Africa, leading to the deaths of millions of people.

By hiring long-time Obama spokesmen Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod, the cable news network clarifies its function

Last month, MSNBC's Al Sharpton conducted a spirited debate about whether Obama belongs on Mount Rushmore or instead deserves a separate monument to his greatness (just weeks before replacing frequent Obama critic Cenk Uygur as MSNBC host, Sharpton publicly vowed never to criticize Barack Obama under any circumstances: a vow he has faithfully maintained). Earlier that day on the same network, a solemn discussion was held, in response to complaints from MSNBC viewers, about whether it is permissible to ever allow Barack Obama's name to pass through one's lips without prefacing it with an honorific such as "President" or "the Honorable" or perhaps "His Excellency" (that really did happen).

Yesterday, Chris Matthews - who infamously confessed that listening to Obama (sorry: President Obama) gives him a "thrill going up his leg" - hosted another discussion, this one involving former Obama campaign aide and MSNBC contributor Joy Reid, about whether the Honorable President should be mounted on Mount Rushmore (Matthews restrained himself by explaining that "I'm not talking about Mt. Rushmore but perhaps the level right below it", but then shared this fantasy: "If [Obama] were hearing us talking about him maybe mounting Mount Rushmore, getting up there with the great presidents...what would he be thinking? 'That's exactly what I'm doing?'". A Pew poll found that in the week leading up to the 2012 election, MSNBC did not air a single story critical of the President or a single positive story about Romney - not a single one - even as Fox aired a few negative ones about Romney and a few positive ones about Obama. Meanwhile, Obama campaign aides who appeared on MSNBC were typically treated with greater deference than that shown to the British Queen when one of her most adoring subjects is in her presence for the first time.

Surveying this assembled data, one does not need to be a veteran cable news executive to see what MSNBC has been so sorely lacking: people who loyally defend President Obama. Thankfully, MSNBC is now boldly fixing that glaring problem; they began two weeks ago with this:

"Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs has become a contributor for MSNBC. Rachel Maddow introduced Gibbs as a new member of her network's stable in the final minutes before President Obama's State of the Union address on Tuesday night. . . . Gibbs was White House press secretary from 2009 to early 2011, when he left to become a senior campaign adviser for Obama's re-election."

I wonder: does someone who goes from being an Obama White House spokesman and Obama campaign official to being an MSNBC contributor even notice that they changed jobs?

But MSNBC wasn't content merely to hire Obama's former Press Secretary; today they did this:

"David Axelrod, the former White House senior advisor and senior strategist for President Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns, has joined NBC News and MSNBC as a senior political analyst, the networks announced today. . . . Like Gibbs, Axelrod will appear across the networks' programming."

Impressively, David Axelrod left the White House and actually managed to find the only place on earth arguably more devoted to Barack Obama. Finally, American citizens will now be able to hear what journalism has for too long so vindictively denied them: a vibrant debate between Gibbs and Axelrod on how great Obama really is.

The NDAA and indefinite detention, what does it all mean for Americans?

Amidst The Noise explains the background to the National Defense Authorization Act and why the 2012 and 2013 updates to this legislation are particularly concerning for U.S. citizens concerned about life, liberty and freedom.

For the first time ever, a senior US senator has publicly announced the number of victims of America's ever expanding drone war - and apparently it's even bigger than some independent researchers have suggested.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) put a number on the United States' growing tally of kills caused by Uncle Sam's arsenal of drones on Tuesday this week while speaking to constituents at the Easley Rotary Club in Easley, South Carolina.

"We've killed 4,700," the Council for Foreign Relations Sen. Graham told the crowd. "Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we're at war, and we've taken out some very senior members of Al-Qaeda."


The influential American lawmaker has gone on the record several times in recent months to defend the expanding role of drone warfare in America's foreign wars, but the actual number of casualties caused by the missile-equipped robots has gone largely unreported. In fact, neither the Executive nor Legislative branches of the US have formally offered as much as an estimate regarding the number of kills, and drone-strikes led by the Central Intelligence Agency have largely gone unconfirmed by the CIA, despite first-hand accounts from survivors of the attacks.

Everyone knows that AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is the most powerful lobby in Washington.

But starting next September 11th, a new group called AMPAC, the American Muslim Political Action Committee, will challenge AIPAC's stranglehold on American political life.

AMPAC will be forcefully announcing its presence with a "Million Muslim March" on the White House on September 11, 2013. The goal, announced at AMPAC's press conference in New York:

"We at AMPAC (American Muslim Political Action Committee) are planning a historic event for 9/11/13. One million Muslims will march to Washington D.C. and demand that our civil rights be protected by our government. We are demanding that laws be enacted protecting our First Amendment rights. We are asking President Obama to fulfill his promise from his first campaign for the Presidency of a transparent government. Lastly we are asking for the establishment of a real 9/11 Commission to reveal the truth to the American people."

On Tuesday, February 19, 2013, the United States Supreme Court slammed its door in the face of the last 9/11 family member seeking justice through the American legal system.

Ellen Mariani, whose husband Neil was murdered on September 11, 2001, had turned down more than a million dollars in government hush money to pursue the real 9/11 criminals in federal court.

After eleven years, two separate lawsuits, and an unbelievable series of encounters with corrupt lawyers and Israeli-American judges, Ellen Mariani has finally heard from the United States Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court's message is loud and clear: There will be no truth, and no justice, concerning 9/11... at least not in the US court system.

After a week-long on-site investigation, former National Security Agency officer Wayne Madsen is "100% certain" that 9/11 investigator and author Philip Marshall and his two children were killed in a black ops hit. Madsen's conclusion is that the cover story - an alleged murder-suicide - is transparently absurd.

Madsen stated his conclusions on yesterday's Kevin Barrett show. Among the evidence cited by Madsen:

*Neighbors' houses are "practically on top of" Marshall's house, so dozens of neighbors would have heard any gunshots that weren't muffled by a silencer...and Marshall's "patsy gun" did not have a silencer.

*The crime scene was illegally and surreptitiously cleaned up by professionals, including "a SUV, license undetermined, with an array of communication antennas bristling from the roof."

*Philip Marshall, who had expressed his fear of being harassed or silenced for his 9/11 revelations, never kept his doors open - but when the bodies were found, a side door Marshall never used was wide open.

Declassified documents show that Bush administration officials wanted Saddam Hussein out of Iraq and were ready to start a war in order to achieve it.

Just hours after the 9/11 attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met in the Pentagon with Air Force General Richard Myers, then vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other top aides. Notes taken by Rumsfeld aide Steve Cambone (and referred to pages 334 and 335 of the 9/11 Commission Report) show the secretary asked for the "best info fast..judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] @ same time - not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]." Rumsfeld also tasked Jim Haynes, the Pentagon's top lawyer, "to talk w/ PW [Paul Wolfowitz] for additional support [for the] connection w/ UBL." Other comments from the notes: "Need to move swiftly...go massive - sweep it all up things related and not."

Although the defense secretary had yet to be presented with any evidence linking the Iraqi leader to the World Trade Tower attacks, he was already considering whether the terrorist acts could be used as to justify a war on Iraq.