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The Leveson Inquiry into the British press - oh, what a lovely game

John Pilger
johnpilger.com
Sun, 03 Jun 2012 07:16 UTC
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Rupert Murdoch: Perception manager
Rupert Murdoch is a bad man. His son James is also bad. Rebekah Brooks is allegedly bad. The News of the World was very bad; it hacked phones and pilloried people. British prime ministers grovelled before this iniquity. David Cameron even sent text messages to Brooks signed "LOL", and they all had parties in the Cotswolds with Jeremy Clarkson. Nods and winks were duly exchanged on the BSkyB deal.

Shock, horror.

Offering glimpses of the power and petty gangsterism of the British tabloid press, the inquiry conducted by Lord Leveson has, I suspect, shocked few people. As the soap has rolled on, bemusement has given way to boredom. Tony Blair was allowed to whine about the Daily Mail's treatment of his wife until he and the inquiry's amoral smugness protecting him were exposed by a member of the public, David Lawley-Wakelin, who shouted, "Excuse me, this man should be arrested for war crimes." His Lordship duly apologised to the war criminal and the truth-teller was seen off.

Why Murdoch should complain about the British establishment has always mystified me. His interrogation, if that is the word, by Robert Jay QC, was a series of verbal marshmallows that Murdoch promptly spat out. When he described one of his own rambling, self-satisfied questions as "subtle", Jay received this deft dismissal from Murdoch: "I'm afraid I don't have much subtlety in me."
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USA

A Tipping Point for Israel

Philip Giraldi
AntiWar.com
Thu, 10 May 2012 07:11 UTC
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A tipping point is where physical momentum, inclined in one direction, reverses its course, stabilizes, and then begins to move the opposite way. Those of us who have been arguing for a sane United States foreign policy in the Middle East have well understood that the odds on shifting the prevailing narrative have been heavily against us thanks to the overwhelming resources possessed by a powerful domestic lobby. Ten years ago in America, it was impossible to place even a letter in a mainstream newspaper or magazine that was in any way critical of Israel. Apart from Pat Buchanan, no one on television provided a critique of Israel and its policies. In the U.S. media, Israel was ever the beleaguered little democracy surrounded by savage Arabs.

But then, all of a sudden, the conspiracy of silence began to break down. It began with the revisionist history of the antecedents of the Iraq War as that conflict continued to drag on. Many began attributing Washington's initiation of the fighting, at least in part, to Israeli interests. Philip Zelikow, chief counsel for the 9/11 Commission Report, famously noted in March 2004 that the war was "to protect Israel," surely an exaggeration but containing more than a kernel of truth. Many also began to observe that the agitation for a new war with Iran was following the same pattern, with supporters of Israel leading the charge.
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Attention

A warning to muslims: Sunni Vs Shia - The War Your Enemies Want

MrAsgharbukhari
YouTube
Sun, 03 Jun 2012 06:58 UTC

Comment: The commentator makes a very important point in the following video: agitators in the western military-security complex (particularly the US, EU and Israeli governments) have been proactively importing the conditions for civil war into countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria and Lebanon in order to destabilize their governments and obliterate civil society, thereby fostering the 'Clash of Civilizations' they desperately need for conducting the 'Global War on Terror' and suppressing dissent of all peoples against their global police state agenda. In the muslim world, they do this by capitalising on differences between different religious sects and beliefs, supplying them with agents provocateurs and weapons. One only needs to look at the history of MI6 and later CIA and Mossad involvement in co-opting and subverting the Muslim Brotherhood...


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Pirates

U.S. Secret Team and Israel Developed Iran Worm

Siobhan Gorman
Wall Street Journal
Sun, 03 Jun 2012 06:29 UTC
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The U.S. is pursuing a wide-ranging, high-tech campaign against Iran's nuclear program that includes the cybersabotage project known as Stuxnet, which was developed by the Central Intelligence Agency in conjunction with Idaho National Laboratory, the Israeli government, and other U.S. agencies, according to people familiar with the efforts.

The covert CIA effort also includes persistent drone surveillance and cyberspying on Iranian scientists, they said.

The U.S. strategy to use technologically advanced measures against Iran illustrates how the Internet and other remote-access capabilities are facilitating spy operations deep inside denied territories.

"It's part of a larger campaign," said a former U.S. official familiar with the efforts. "It's a preferable alternative to airstrikes."


Comment: No, it's a prelude to airstrikes.

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Yoda

Best of the Web: Bush Convicted of War Crimes at Tribunal: Interview with US prosecutor Francis Boyle


Real News Network
Mon, 28 May 2012 06:06 UTC
Francis Boyle: Judgement at Indonesian hearing may help push case at ICC; Obama is also in violation for not pursuing indictment.

Francis Boyle is a Professor of Law at the University of llinois School of Law, where he currently teaches courses on Public International Law and International Human Rights. He was a part of the prosecutionteam that tried former US President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisors in absentia in Malaysia.

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USA

Making the world safe for corporate greed: American drone attacks kill 12 in Pakistan


The Guardian
Sun, 03 Jun 2012 05:07 UTC
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© SS Mirza/AFP/GettyA Pakistani protest against US drone strikes. The latest two attacks have killed 12 people.
Ten more people have been killed by a US drone strike against suspected militants in Pakistan, with the aircraft firing its missiles into a mourning gathering for one of two fighters killed in a similar attack the previous day.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan on Sunday morning.

At the time of the attack, suspected militants were gathered to offer condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another American unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who died in the Sunday morning attack. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead were foreigners and the rest were Pakistani.
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USA

US Claims 'No Interest' in Assange


Russia Today
Fri, 01 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
Julian Assange, WikiLeaks
© Agence France-Presse/Torsten BlackwoodActivist demands the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
The US has no interest in Julian Assange, insists America's ambassador to Australia. The statement comes as the WikiLeaks founder grasps his last chance before extradition to Sweden, which he fears will pave the way for further rendition to the US.

­The US ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey Bleich, rejected as "an invention" claims that Washington was preparing a warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange, an Australian national currently under house arrest in Britain, over WikiLeaks' role in publishing thousands of secret US diplomatic cables last year.

"There is no such thing as a secret warrant. Period. They don't exist," Bleich told the Australian national public broadcaster ABC on Thursday. "It's not something that the US cares about. It's not interested in it."

Meanwhile, the website "Justice for Assange" claims exactly the opposite.

"Stratfor [the global intelligence company] emails have revealed that a sealed indictment has been issued by a secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, for Julian Assange," says the message. "The email is dated 26 January 2011. This means that there has likely been a sealed extradition order for over a year, which will be activated (unsealed) against Assange in Sweden, Australia and the UK when the US Government gives the order."
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Vader

Best of the Web: Cleaning Up Obama's "Dark Side"

Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
Wed, 30 May 2012 14:30 UTC
obama
© Unknown
Obama's handlers, with the able assistance of the New York Times, paint a presidential portrait that "reconciles the old, imagined Obama with Dick Cheney's 'dark side.'" The president routinely violates international law and subverts the U.S. Constitution but, we are told, he does so with a keen sense of moral obligation. His millions of victims should be pleased.

"The Times report is yet another attempt to compartmentalize the escalating aggression against civilized norms of international behavior by the U.S. and its allies."

It took two teams to script the 6,000-word psycho-drama headlined Secret 'Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will, in the May 29 New York Times. Reporters Jo Becker and Scott Shane got the byline, but the real content - the intended message - was provided by "three dozen current and former advisors" to the president whose 'insights' shaped the production. This symbiosis of State content-provider and corporate media packager passes for probing journalism in the United States. The public is left with the impression (in the advertising sense of the word) of a president who deploys armadas of drones - but with a conscience - a man of "deep reserve" who "approves lethal action without hand-wringing," yet is determined "to align the fight against Al Qaeda with American values." In case the god-fearing are not convinced that Barack Hussein Obama is a sufficiently Christian soldier, the president's counterterrorism advisor, John Brennan, a 25-year veteran of the CIA, acts as a "priest whose blessing has become indispensable to Mr. Obama."
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Eye 1

Best of the Web: Veteran Force Vaccinated After Arrest At Bilderberg 2012

Alex Thomas
The Intel Hub
Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:00 UTC
An exclusive interview with a U.S. veteran who was arrested on Thursday May 31st, at the 2012 Bilderberg 2012 meetings.

This veteran was apparently forcefully vaccinated and intimated by Fairfax County Police who were trying to scare protesters of the global power structure.

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Chess

US to move majority of warships to Asia-Pacific - but "this is not about China"


RT
Sat, 02 Jun 2012 17:09 UTC
aircraft carrier
© AFP Photo/Lee Jin-manUS fighters taking off from the flight deck of the Nimitz-class USS George Washington for joint military exercises between the US and South Korea in South Korea's East Sea.
The US is set to reposition its Navy fleet with the majority of its warships to be assigned to the Asia-Pacific by 2020. But this military strategy has nothing to do with US-Chinese rivalry in the region, the defense secretary assures.

­The US would reposition its Navy so that 60 per cent of its warships would be assigned to the Asia-Pacificregion by 2020, compared to about 50 per cent now, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told senior civilian and military leaders from about 30 Asia-Pacific nations at an annual security forum in Singapore.

"Some view the increased emphasis by the United States on the Asia-Pacific region as some kind of challenge to China. I reject that view entirely," he said. "Our effort to renew and intensify our involvement in Asia is fully compatible... with the development and growth of China. Indeed, increased US involvement in this region will benefit China as it advances our shared security and prosperity for the future."

But in laying out core US principles in the region, Panetta made clear Washington opposed any attempt by Beijing to make unilateral moves in its push for territorial rights in the oil-rich South China Sea.

Comment: Interesting. For the sake of argument, suppose for a moment that Panetta is telling the truth and this has nothing to do with China. That leaves the question about the real reason for the move unanswered.

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