There is a new normal in America: our government may shut down, but our wars continue. Congress may not be able to pass a budget, but the U.S. military can still launch commando raids in Libya and Somalia, the Afghan War can still be prosecuted, Italy can be garrisoned by American troops (putting the “empire” back in Rome), Africa can be used as an imperial playground (as in the late nineteenth century “scramble for Africa,” but with the U.S. and China doing the scrambling this time around), and the military-industrial complex can still dominate the world’s arms trade.
Category: Head Stories
Paris (AFP) – France and Mexico have angrily demanded prompt explanations from the United States after new spying allegations leaked by former US security contractor Edward Snowden. The reports published in French daily Le Monde and German weekly Der Spiegel claim that the US National Security Agency (NSA) secretly monitored tens of millions of phone calls in France and hacked into former Mexican President Felipe Calderon’s email account. They come on top of revelations already leaked by Snowden and published in June that the US had a vast, secret programme called PRISM to monitor Internet users, which French prosecutors are already investigating. French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was “deeply shocked” by the revelations — the same word used by Interior Minister Manuel Valls — and demanded an explanation from US authorities.
US policy on Syria could be described as «a comedy of errors» if the consequences for human suffering were not so brutal. Having largely created a quagmire of terrorism and lawlessness in Syria through covert insurgency operations over the past two and half years, the US government looks like a hapless Doctor Frankenstein who has lost control of the beast, or should we say beasts… The creation from the laboratory of American regime change has many forms, from savage death squads on the ground to effete exile political groups ensconced in five-star Persian Gulf hotels.
Earlier this month, National Security Agency (NSA) head Keith Alexander admitted that he had lied to the U.S. Congress and the American people in an attempt to justify the NSA’s growing surveillance of U.S. citizens.[1] In June, while attempting to defend the secret NSA programs revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden, Alexander claimed that over 50 terrorist plots had been thwarted though collection of the phone and internet records of American citizens. Alexander said that his agency had provided Congress with 54 specific cases in which the programs helped disrupt terror plots in the U.S. and around the world.[2] Just a few weeks before the “54 plots” claim, Alexander had testified to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee that NSA spying on American citizens had played a critical role in thwarting “dozens” of terrorist attacks.[3] Alexander spent the next three months declaring that the NSA’s spying on Americans was preventing terrorism and another 9/11.
Other Constitutional Provisions … and The Declaration of Independence In addition to the trampling of the Bill of Rights, the government has also trashed the separation of powers enshrined in the main body of the Constitution. The government is also engaging in activities which the Founding Fathers fought against, such as taxation without representation (here and here), cronyism, deference to central banks, etc. As thethe preamble to the Declaration of Independence shows, the American government is still carrying out many of the acts the Founding Fathers found most offensive: He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
The Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist One Percenters A friend sent me the following entitled “The most honest three minutes of television EVER”: http://www.safeshare.tv/w/UAGOcLSuLX. A young woman asks a panel “Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world?” One panelist says “Diversity and opportunity”, another says “Freedom, freedom” but the third says “It isn’t” and explains why in “The most honest three and a half minutes of television EVER”. As a person who has been immensely inspired by the best and brightest of America I must agree with the dissident panelist.
Why Western Political and Financial Elites Absolutely Hate Vladimir Putin The latest tensions between the EU and Russia over Greenpeace’s stunt in the Arctic only confirmed a fact which nobody really bothers denying anymore: Western political and financial elites absolutely hate Vladimir Putin and they are appalled at Russia’s behavior, both inside Russia and on the international scene. This tension was quite visible on the faces of Obama and Putin at the G8 summit in Lough Erne where both leaders looked absolutely disgusted with each other. Things got even worse when Putin did something quite unheard of in the Russian diplomatic history: he publicly said that Kerry was dishonest and even called him a liar. While tensions have reached some sort of climax over the Syrian issue, problems between Russia and the USA are really nothing new. A quick look at the recent past will show that the western corporate media has been engaged
The final days of empire give ample employment and power to the feckless, the insane and the idiotic. These politicians and court propagandists, hired to be the public faces on the sinking ship, mask the real work of the crew, which is systematically robbing the passengers as the vessel goes down. The mandarins of power stand in the wheelhouse barking ridiculous orders and seeing how fast they can gun the engines. They fight like children over the ship’s wheel as the vessel heads full speed into a giant ice field. They wander the decks giving pompous speeches. They shout that the SS America is the greatest ship ever built. They insist that it has the most advanced technology and embodies the highest virtues. And then, with abrupt and unexpected fury, down we will go into the frigid waters.
There are reports that some third countries are training Syrian rebels to use chemical weapons in Afghanistan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. The intention is to put the skill to use in new false flag actions in Syria, he explained. The suspected training happened in Afghan territories not under control of the government in Kabul, Lavrov said. “Some reports indicate that [Al-Qaeda-linked radical] Al-Nusra Front is planning to smuggle toxic compounds and relevant specialists into Iraqi territory to stage terrorist attacks there this time,” Lavrov said. The Russian minister, who spoke after meeting his Kuwaiti counterpart Mohammad Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah, warned against any possible provocations in Syria related to the ongoing process of its chemical weapons disarmament.
The United States steps into the new fiscal year without a budget approved by Congress. According to Government Accountability Office, the national debt has grown to record high $16, 7 trillion or 73% of GDP (it exceeded this level only in the days of WWII). The figure is much higher according to informal sources (independent researchers like, for instance, James Douglas «Jim» Hamilton, an American econometrician currently teaching at University of California, San Diego). If the debt ceiling is not raised urgently, then the US may step into a new financial crisis, as President Obama warned. US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew told the congressmen in a letter the country may go bankrupt on October 17, the default may take place by the end of October – the middle of November when the money flows get exhausted as Douglas W. Elmendorf, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, points out.