Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday announced $45 million in additional aid for Syrian opposition activists, the latest U.S. push for influence in a civil war that's raged beyond the international community's control.

Clinton announced the new aid package before meeting with visiting Syrian dissidents on the margins of this week's U.N. General Assembly, where world leaders sounded bleaker than ever about the prospects for a negotiated political resolution to the 18-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

U.S. humanitarian aid for Syria now will total more than $132 million this year, though Syrian rebels are more interested in weapons and military training than in the American promises of more "nonlethal assistance." Of the $45 million pledged Friday, $30 million is earmarked for humanitarian assistance and $15 million for radios, training and other technical support for opposition activists.

The U.S. government has refused to directly arm or fund the so-called Free Syrian Army, a loose confederation of rebel militias, largely out of fear that the assistance would make its way to Islamist extremist groups that have joined the battle to unseat Assad.

U.S. policy is in a "really tough spot," said Joseph Holliday, a Washington-based researcher at the Institute for the Study of War who specializes in the Syrian conflict. While the administration's instincts to withhold direct aid from rebel fighters is understandable, he said, that strategy is backfiring.

"The irony of our fear of supplying Islamist groups is that the others who are arming the opposition - the Saudis, the Qataris, the Turks - are doing just that, providing weapons and ammunition to Islamists," Holliday said. "Our lack of giving support is actually leading to the Islamicization of the opposition."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently taken to the American airwaves to warn about the danger that a nuclear Iran poses to the world. Netanyahu's fear-mongering rhetoric should come as no surprise to those who remember his infamous 1992 wolf-crying comments about Iran being "three to five years away from acquiring a nuclear weapon"; or his testimony before Congress in the lead up to the Iraq war, in which Netanyahu showed an almost superhuman capacity to shamelessly lie to the American public in a successful effort to drag them into war. When Americans consider Benjamin Netanyahu's current plea to attack Iran, they must not forget the eerily similar lies and purposefully deceptive intelligence that Netanyahu and his government gave to American officials about Saddam Hussein's mythical "Weapons of Mass Destruction". The video below shows some highlights from Netanyahu's September 12, 2002 testimony before the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight.


In the video, Netanyahu tells Congress, "There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing to the development of nuclear weapons. No question whatsoever.... Two decades ago it was possible to thwart Saddam's nuclear ambitions by bombing a single instillation, but today nothing less than dismantling his regime will do."In his testimony, Netanyahu repeatedly said there was "no question" Saddam was working to increase his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. He also fanatically said, "Every indication we have is that he is pursuing, pursuing with abandon, pursuing with every ounce of effort the establishment of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons."

When questioned about why the 250 international inspectors found "no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq," Netanyahu falsely told the Congressional body that Saddam was burying these nuclear centrifuges in tunnels. One can not watch Netanyahu's testimony and conclude anything other than these two fundamental truths: 1. Netanyahu's testimony was perjurious, and 2, The Israeli intelligence provided to the US government was a purposeful deception to get America to attack Iraq.

Some eighty-five years ago a man whose books would change our perspective of the world forever was struck by a sniper while serving as a volunteer infantryman on the Catalonian front at the peak of the Spanish Civil War. His name was George Orwell.

He wrote a famous diary called Homage to Catalonia describing his experiences fighting alongside partisan government forces resisting the fascist takeover of the country. That seminal work would eventually flower into Animal Farm and 1984, which today we can easily read as documentaries of our current plight beneath the heel of the new world orderista.

The war stripped away many illusions that led Orwell to this personal crusade against Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Orwell quickly discovered that hard-line communists Stalin sent to stiffen the ranks of the resistance were in reality no better than the fascists in both their methods and ideology. Were he alive today, Orwell would wring his hands at the plight of Catalonians, finding themselves once again crushed by ruthless foreign invaders and looters.

I am speaking of the EU imposed austerity measures which have wrenched the entire Spanish economy to a shuddering standstill. Catalonia, which accounts for a fifth of Spain's total GDP, has responded by rekindling the spirit of independence. The province is already semi-detached but its unfortunate destiny marks it as the Spanish Tibet - lashed to Madrid, tossed some morsels of quasi-self determination but its people denied the sovereign freedom to make their own choices.

Mitt Romney hasn't divulged many details about what kind of agriculture policy he'd pursue as president. (Sound familiar?) But all signs suggest that he'd follow the agribiz party line. As Wayne Barrett showed in a recent Nation piece (my comment here), Romney has ties to agribusiness giant Monsanto that date to the '70s, when GMO seeds were an R&D project, not a business model. According to Barrett, Romney, then a young Bain consultant, helped nudge Monsanto on its path away from disgraced industrial chemical concern toward its current status as world-beating agribiz player. Then there's the agribiz execs and shills the GOP nominee tapped for his campaign's Agriculture Advisory Committee.

But guess what? In the privacy of his campaign jet, the beleaguered presidential contender apparently eats organic, reports the Today show's Peter Alexander:

And, while I've never been invited up front, sources close to the campaign tell me the shelves are stocked with a wide variety of healthy fare. Kashi cereals, hummus, pita as well as organic applesauce. Everything's organic, I'm told, including the ingredients to Romney's favorite, peanut butter and honey sandwiches.

For all those who may, despite Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu's compelling argument at the UN yesterday, feel themselves teetering on the brink of falling for the foul-smelling propaganda about Iran and its "nuclear threat" to the world, there are a few things I'd like you to consider.

In the last 6 years or so, there have been literally dozens of official reports and comments about Iran's nuclear program, and virtually all of them have stated that there is no evidence that Iran is planning to develop a nuclear weapon. The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly stated that there is no evidence that Iran has diverted uranium to a weapons program. In addition, the true power in Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei, issued a Fatwa against nuclear weapons in 2005.

What Iran is doing is attempting to achieve a 'nuclear capability' involving nuclear power plants, medical reactors, etc. The problem for Israel (or so Netanyahu claims on behalf of all Israelis), is that once Iran achieves this 'nuclear capability' there is little to stop them from using that capability to ultimately produce a nuclear weapon, if they choose to do so.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad condemned the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians and other world nations, and said the Zionists' biggest crime is that they attribute themselves to the Jewish community who are peace-seeking people.

The occupation of Palestine is only the small portion of the crimes committed by the Zionist regime and their biggest crime is that they attribute themselves to the Jewish community, President Ahmadinejad said in a meeting with the leaders of the International Jewish Anti-Zionism Network in New York.

Referring to the fact that the Zionists are trying to attribute their ugly measures to the Jews, he noted that the Jews are peace-seeking people and favor broader friendship in the world like others followers of the divine religions such as Muslims, Christians and others.

Spokesman for the International Jewish Anti-Zionism Network, David Weiss, for his part said that there are a large number of Jews in the world who are against the notion of Zionism and establishing a Zionist state.

The California man behind a crudely produced anti-Islamic video that has inflamed parts of the Middle East has been declared a flight risk and detained by a federal court judge.

Citing a lengthy pattern of deception, US central district chief magistrate judge Suzanne Segal said Nakoula Basseley Nakoula should be held after officials said he violated his probation from a 2010 check fraud conviction.

"The court has a lack of trust in this defendant at this time," Segal said.

Nakoula had eight probation violations, including lying to his probation officers and using aliases, and he might face new charges that carry a maximum two-year prison term, authorities said.

After his 2010 conviction, Nakoula was sentenced to 21 months in prison and was barred from using computers or the internet for five years without approval from his probation officer.

The euro is an extreme - and dangerous - example of game theory

Since the 1970s, game theory has led macroeconomists to emphasise the importance of 'commitment', a strategy that aims to enhance long-term economic outcomes by restricting policymakers' discretion. The idea seems counterintuitive: How can less produce more?

While not historically accurate, one of the best examples of a strategic commitment is provided by the legend of Hernán Cortés, according to which, in his quest to conquer Mexico, he decided to burn the ships that had brought his expedition from Spain. At first, this might seem like a crazy move: Why intentionally destroy the only possible way out in case of defeat? Cortés allegedly did it to motivate his troops. With no escape route, soldiers were highly motivated to win.

Israeli prime minister's explicitness is unlikely to endear him to the Obama administration, but it was certainly memorable

Binyamin Netanyahu's cartoon nuclear bomb certainly grabbed attention, but not necessarily the kind he wanted. No doubt it was intended as a bold and graphic way of presenting the Iranian nuclear threat, but much of the initial response - on Twitter, at least - was ridicule.

In his speech to the UN general assembly, the Israeli prime minister adopted the persona of an elementary school science teacher talking to a particularly dim class to explain Iran's nuclear programme and the point at which it must be stopped.

Having incessantly talked about "red lines" for the past few weeks, he literally drew one across the bomb to illustrate the point at which the international community should take decisive action. Netanyahu set his literal red line at the 90% threshold of uranium enrichment, a point which he said could be reached by next spring or summer.