A Ugandan lady explains that Joseph Kony, the latest media boogeyman, left Uganda six years ago. People in Uganda know that something else is going on here...

This statement on the Middle East was dated 31st January, 1970, and was read on 3rd February, the day after Bertrand Russell's death, to an International Conference of Parliamentarians meeting in Cairo.

The latest phase of the undeclared war in the Middle East is based upon a profound miscalculation. The bombing raids deep into Egyptian territory will not persuade the civilian population to surrender, but will stiffen their resolve to resist. This is the lesson of all aerial bombardment.

The Vietnamese who have endured years of American heavy bombing have responded not by capitulation but by shooting down more enemy aircraft. In 1940 my own fellow countrymen resisted Hitler's bombing raids with unprecedented unity and determination. For this reason, the present Israeli attacks will fail in their essential purpose, but at the same time they must be condemned vigorously throughout the world.

The development of the crisis in the Middle East is both dangerous and instructive. For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to "reason" and has suggested "negotiations". This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression. The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate.

Unsconscious looking-glass resentment once made Richard Nixon's Chief of Staff Alexander Haig call British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington a "duplicitous bastard". The sick irony of Haig's petulant blart is that US foreign policy has always been one of deceitful cunning, evil mass-murder and global criminality, notoriously exemplified by President Nixon and Henry Kissinger. It continues unchanged with plutocrat-catamite Barack Obama.

Svelte houseboy-President Obama rents out his duplicitous-bastard talents to help corrupt Western corporate elites and their allies pauperize their own peoples and plunder vulnerable countries like Libya. Obama sells his crimes as promoting democracy and prosperity. His weird-familiar Hillary Clinton and her depleted-uranium blasted-heath sisters, Samantha Power and Susan Rice, provide back up.

These serial-child-killers try hard to outdo Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright, who notoriously argued that 500,000 needlessly dead Iraqi children represented "a price worth paying". They work overtime to hubble-bubble, toil-and-trouble virtual pretexts for diplomatic, economic and military aggression against countries the Western political and corporate elites want to control. Once the supreme war crime is consummated, their financial, military-industrial and other corporate carpet-bagger partners move in.

The New York Times' Scott Shane recently reported how Western multinational buzzard-corporations are now swooping on Libya while the country is still in conflict with its cities ruined and tens of thousands dead. Shane writes, "Entrepreneurs are abuzz about the business potential of a country with huge needs and the oil to pay for them, plus the competitive advantage of Libyan gratitude toward the United States and its NATO partners. A week before Colonel Qaddafi's death on Oct. 20, a delegation from 80 French companies arrived in Tripoli to meet officials of the Transitional National Council, the interim government. Last week, the new British defense minister, Philip Hammond, urged British companies to "pack their suitcases" and head to Tripoli. "

'80s sitcom heartthrob turned evangelical Kirk Cameron made his stance on gay rights, and gays in general, crystal clear in an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan last night. Survey says: definitely not pro! After Morgan broached the topic, Cameron deflected by making reference to Christine O'Donnell's gay-marriage-induced walkout of last summer, but the Growing Pains star eventually shared his views:

"I believe marriage was defined by God. Marriage is almost as old as dirt, and it was defined in the Garden between Adam and Eve. One man, one woman for life till death do you part. So I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage. And I don't think anyone else should either. So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don't."

FBI Director Robert Mueller repeatedly defers to Justice Dept. when questioned over killing Americans on U.S. soil.

(Washington) - At a time when states are struggling to reduce bloated prison populations and tight budgets, a private prison management company is offering to buy prisons in exchange for various considerations, including a controversial guarantee that the governments maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years.

The $250 million proposal, circulated by the Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America to prison officials in 48 states, has been blasted by some state officials who suggest such a program could pressure criminal justice officials to seek harsher sentences to maintain the contractually required occupancy rates.

"You don't want a prison system operating with the goal of maximizing profits," says Texas state Sen. John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat and advocate for reducing prison populations through less costly diversion programs. "The only thing worse is that this seeks to take advantage of some states' troubled financial position."

European Union countries have been accused of hypocrisy over imposing savage austerity measures on Greece while at the same time selling the highly indebted country over £1 billion of arms.

New official figures show that bailouts and an EU austerity programme aimed at reducing Greek living standards by 30 per cent have not dented lucrative arms sales to Greece.

In 2010, as Greece was plunged into crisis and the EU began a scheduled £200 billion in aid payments, European countries continued to sell aircraft, tanks, artillery and submarines to the Greek military.

In the same year, France concluded a £662 million military aircraft deal with Greece, a lucrative deal for the French arms industry that will be underwritten by EU bail-out funds.

Official German trade figures showed that in 2010 Germany, which has demanded draconian cuts to Greek social welfare spending, sold weaponry, including a submarine, worth £336 million to the impoverished southern Mediterranean country.

In October 2011, as the EU negotiated a second bail-out for Greece, Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor and Nicolas Sarkozy, the French President told the Greek government that all existing arms contracts must be honoured.

The US offered to give Israel advanced weaponry -- including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes -- in exchange for Israel's agreement not to attack Iranian nuclear sites, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Thursday.

President Obama reportedly made the offer during Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week.

Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year. The newspaper cited unnamed Western diplomatic and intelligence sources.

Netanyahu said Monday that sanctions against Iran had not worked, adding that "none of us can afford to wait much longer" in taking action against Iran's controversial nuclear program.

However, Netanyahu told FOX News Channel on Wednesday that he did not think war with Iran was inevitable. He added that the only way to deter Tehran was to advocate carrying out a serious military strike against the Islamic Republic.

"The paradox is that if they actually believe that they are going to face the military option, then you probably will not need the military option," Netanyahu said.

Let me be clear that this blogpost is not about sour grapes.

But the media cacophony on Syria has just become too shrill - reporters, too reluctant to raise obvious questions - to just sit back and let this one slide.

Especially when it is taking place under my nose at the place I have blogged for two and a half years. There's no other way to look at this: by refusing to publish all but one of my seven Syria articles, AOL-Huffington Post is censoring a viewpoint that challenges the dominant narratives on Syria in the mainstream media.

As all my articles were published without controversy in the period prior to AOL's purchase of the Huffington Post in early 2011, I can only surmise that AOL has established a new "editorial policy." In lieu of feedback from my editors as to why these articles remain unpublished, it isn't hard to conclude that the new company has altered course, and is more comfortable only nipping at the edges of the more irreverent blogosphere.

I have been blogging for the Huffington Post since September 2009, shortly after returning from a summer research tour through the Levant. Hanna Ingber, who recruited me as a blogger, was the founding World Editor of the Huffington Post. Hanna, who has since left the company, was particularly keen to have me write about my meetings and interviews with resistance groups Hezbollah and Hamas. I thought that was pretty ballsy for a US publication, online or not, and happily committed myself to bringing a fresh perspective on Mideast affairs to the pages of the Huffington Post.

Islamabad - Pakistan has charged Osama bin Laden's three widows with illegally entering and living in the country, the interior minister said Thursday.

The three women have been in Pakistani detention since May last year, when U.S. commandos raided the house where they, bin Laden and several of their children were staying. The commandos shot and killed bin Laden, and then buried his body at sea.

Rehman said the three had been charged in court, but he did not say when. It was unclear if they had a lawyer.

He said their children were free to leave Pakistan, but could stay with their mothers for the duration of the trial.

A Pakistani legal expert contacted about the case, Hashmat Habib, said the maximum punishment the women could receive was five years in jail. One of their relatives has reportedly visited Pakistan recently to urge authorities to let them leave the country. The decision to charge them could be a formal part of that process.