The early bird gets the worm and someone like US president Barack Obama who grew up in the tropics in Hawaii and Indonesia would know it far better than his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin from Leningrad. The alacrity with which Obama scrambled to take early lead in the propaganda war over Moscow on Ukraine almost makes it appear he was expecting such a horrendous tragedy to happen. So far he has had no phone conversation with Putin - not even to ascertain some facts first.

That is, unlike Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and the two most affected statesmen here in the tragedy of the ill-fated Malaysian plane - Dutch prime minister Mark Rutt and Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak. Rutt, in fact, already twice discussed the tragedy with Putin and they have agreed on the latter's suggestion for an "independent, open and fair investigation" into the tragic event in Donetsk by the International Civil Aviation Organization with the participation of "all the parties concerned", and pending that, to demand "an immediate and unconditional ceasefire" in eastern Ukraine.

Nearly all of the highest-profile domestic terrorism plots in the United States since 9/11 featured the "direct involvement" of government agents or informants, a new report says.

Some of the controversial "sting" operations "were proposed or led by informants", bordering on entrapment by law enforcement. Yet the courtroom obstacles to proving entrapment are significant, one of the reasons the stings persist.

The lengthy report, released on Monday by Human Rights Watch, raises questions about the US criminal justice system's ability to respect civil rights and due process in post-9/11 terrorism cases. It portrays a system that features not just the sting operations but secret evidence, anonymous juries, extensive pretrial detentions and convictions significantly removed from actual plots.

"In some cases the FBI may have created terrorists out of law-abiding individuals by suggesting the idea of taking terrorist action or encouraging the target to act," the report alleges.

"What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else." - Author Tom Clancy

Call it what you will - taxes, penalties, fees, fines, regulations, tariffs, tickets, permits, surcharges, tolls, asset forfeitures, foreclosures, etc. - but the only word that truly describes the constant bilking of the American taxpayer by the government and its corporate partners is theft.

We're operating in a topsy-turvy Sherwood Forest where instead of Robin Hood and his merry band of thieves stealing from the rich to feed the poor, you've got the government and its merry band of corporate thieves stealing from the poor to fatten the wallets of the rich. In this way, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. All the while, the American Dream of peace, prosperity, and liberty has turned into a nightmare of endless wars, debilitating debt, and outright tyranny.

What Americans don't seem to comprehend is that if the government can arbitrarily take away your property, without your having much say about it, you have no true rights. You're nothing more than a serf or a slave.

In this way, the police state with all of its trappings - from surveillance cameras, militarized police, SWAT team raids, truancy and zero tolerance policies, asset forfeiture laws, privatized prisons and red light cameras to Sting Ray guns, fusion centers, drones, black boxes, hollow-point bullets, detention centers, speed traps and abundance of laws criminalizing otherwise legitimate conduct - is little more than a front for a high-dollar covert operation aimed at laundering as much money as possible through government agencies and into the bank accounts of corporations.

The rationalizations for the American police state are many. There's the so-called threat of terrorism, the ongoing Drug War, the influx of illegal immigrants, the threat of civil unrest in the face of economic collapse, etc. However, these rationalizations are merely excuses for the growth of a government behemoth, one which works hand in hand with corporations to profit from a society kept under lockdown and in fear at all times.

In a September 2006 article for The Electronic Intifada, I defined the Israeli policy towards the Gaza Strip as an incremental genocide.

Israel's present assault on Gaza alas indicates that this policy continues unabated. The term is important since it appropriately locates Israel's barbaric action - then and now - within a wider historical context.

This context should be insisted upon, since the Israeli propaganda machine attempts again and again to narrate its policies as out of context and turns the pretext it found for every new wave of destruction into the main justification for another spree of indiscriminate slaughter in the killing fields of Palestine.

The Ukrainian military on Monday renewed its assault on this rebel-held city, even as international investigators in the region were trying to secure the remains of those killed in the shootdown last week of a Malaysia Airlines airliner.


In Washington, President Obama demanded Monday that Russia use its influence to compel pro-Russian separatists to allow the investigators full access to the victims and the crash site.


Noting that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has declared a demilitarized zone around the crash site near the Russian border, Obama said the rebels who control the area are continuing to block an investigation, are removing evidence from the scene and are mishandling the remains of passengers and crew among the 298 people who were killed when the plane was shot down Thursday over eastern Ukraine.

Investigators have been hampered by limited access

Outrage grew Saturday over the rebel hold on the site of the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crash that killed 298 people in eastern Ukraine, with European leaders calling for Russian President Vladimir Putin to do more to use his influence to get them to hand over the site.

Days after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed, killing 298 people, concerns are growing that rebel fighters are blocking access to the site and tampering with evidence.

World leaders and the rebels themselves have called for a transparent, credible investigation into the downing. But two days after the disaster, there has been little progress, with the site disorderly and investigations hampered by its location in separatist-held territory amid heavy fighting in other parts of the east.

Malaysia's transport minister, Liow Tiang Lai, expressed deep concern about the security of the site and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he was "disgusted" by images showing rebels walking around with victims' personal items.


"Mr. Putin must now take his responsibility," Mr. Rutte said, adding he had an intense conversation with the Russian leader by phone. "It's time for him to do what the world is expecting him to do."


One hundred and ninety-three Dutch citizens died on the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight, which the U.S. says was likely downed by a missile fired by Russian-aided separatists. New U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that Moscow likely provided separatists in eastern Ukraine with sophisticated antiaircraft systems in recent days, matching evidence put forward by Ukraine.



"The West has successfully put itself in a position to dictate 'political correctness' in international discourse," China exclaims via a Global Times editorial on MH17 on Monday, "those unwilling to work with Western interests will often find themselves in a tough position."

China's first public statement that "The Western rush to judge Russia is not based on evidence or logic," comes on the heels of Vladimir Putin's address last night jabbing the West "no one should not have the right to use this tragedy to achieve selfish political objectives."

China appears to have crossed the line, siding very clearly with Russia as they conclude, "It is yet another example of the power of Western opinion as a political tool."

As Time reports, On July 18, shortly after Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 crashed over eastern Ukraine, extinguishing 298 lives, China's Xinhua state news agency cautioned against making snap judgments...

The one-sided accusation is not surprising in light of their long-time stance on the crisis in eastern Ukraine, and their attitude towards Russia's absorption of Crimea in March. But without convincing evidence, jumping to a conclusion will only heighten regional tension and is not conducive to finding out the truth.

Russian President Vladimir Putin late Thursday said it is Ukraine that bears the responsibility as the tragedy occurred over its territory. The tragedy, Putin said, could have been avoided should Ukraine's eastern regions be in peace.

On July 21, the People's Daily, the Chinese Communist Party's mouthpiece, ran a piece still cautioning that "no proof has been found so far to clarify the cause or identify the perpetrator."

The Russian military detected a Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jet gaining height towards the MH17 Boeing on the day of the catastrophe. Kiev must explain why the military jet was tracking the passenger airplane, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

"A Ukraine Air Force military jet was detected gaining height, its distance from the Malaysian Boeing was 3 to 5km," said the head of the Main Operations Directorate of the HQ of Russia's military forces, Lieutenant-General Andrey Kartopolov speaking at a media conference in Moscow on Monday.

"[We] would like to get an explanation as to why the military jet was flying along a civil aviation corridor at almost the same time and at the same level as a passenger plane," he stated.

"The SU-25 fighter jet can gain an altitude of 10km, according to its specification," he added. "It's equipped with air-to-air R-60 missiles that can hit a target at a distance up to 12km, up to 5km for sure."

The presence of the Ukrainian military jet can be confirmed by video shots made by the Rostov monitoring center, Kartopolov stated.

At the moment of the MH17 crash an American satellite was flying over the area of eastern Ukraine, according to Russia's Defense Ministry. It urged the US to publish the space photos and data captured by it.

In addition, MH17 crashed within the operating zone of the Ukrainian army's self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air 'Buk' missile systems, the Russian general said.

The tragic Malaysian MH17 flight crash must not be politicised and the international experts on the scene should be able to carry out their work in complete safety, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

"There are already representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk working there, as well as representatives of the emergencies ministry of Ukraine and others. But this is not enough," Putin said officially commenting on the tragic event on Sunday.

"This task force is not enough," Putin emphasized. "We need more, we need a fully representative group of experts to be working at the site under the guidance of ICAO, the relevant international commission."

"We must do everything to provide security for the international experts on the site of the tragedy," Putin stressed, adding that Russia will also do everything in its power to help shift the Ukrainian conflict from a military phase into a political discussion.

"We need to do everything to provide its [ICAO commission's] safety, to provide the humanitarian corridors necessary for its work," Putin added.

"In the meantime, nobody should and has no right to use this tragedy to achieve their 'narrowly selfish' political goals," Putin stated.

"We repeatedly called upon all conflicting sides to stop the bloodshed immediately and sit down at the negotiating table," the President reminded. "I can say with confidence that if military operations were not resumed on June 28 in eastern Ukraine, this tragedy wouldn't have happened."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has one last chance to show he is serious about helping rescuers recover the bodies of the victims of the crash of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, the Dutch prime minister said on Saturday.

More than half the passengers aboard the flight, which crashed near a village in eastern Ukraine, were Dutch citizens, and images of recognizably Dutch personal belongings and passports strewn across the crash site have shocked the Dutch public.