At last night's GOP Debate, there was a lot of big talk about Iran and the dangers of them acquiring a nuclear weapon and what we must do to counter it. As well as a lot of talk about Cuba and the need for sanctions and a travel embargo to stick around. Much of the rhetoric coming from the GOP candidates makes you wonder, if they're living in the past, and refuse to acknowledge that the world has changed. Ret. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson discusses.

"If they actually believe this in their heart of hearts then they're idiots."

Mandatory military custody would reduce, if not eliminate, the role of federal courts in terrorism cases. Since 9/11, the shaky, untested military commissions have convicted only six people on terror-related charges, compared with more than 400 in the civilian courts.

“Violence begets violence, hatred begets hatred, terrorism begets terrorism,” so rings the prophetic knell of the Reverend Wright to his congregation one of whom happened to be our current President Barack Obama. Would that he had listened, for if any man was ever elected to the office of President to change the world, this was the man and he has failed.

“But what about democracies? Well, the truth is that they too are run by political and economic elites whose interests are rarely the same as the general public. That is why, when the government uses the term “national interest,” one should always be suspicious’....by Dr. Lawrence Davidson

Europe’s hidden billions: Cohesion for a reason

A Roman Catholic priest who founded an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center has been sentenced to one day in prison for tax fraud and ordered to pay nearly $3.9million in restitution and fines.

The Israel Lobby is so powerful because it deliberately set out to establish control over key elements in the United States. It has demonstrated a number of times that politicians who are perceived as being unfriendly to Israel will face serious problems

On October 6, 1976, anti-Castro terrorists murdered seventy-three people on Cubana Flight 455 off Barbados.

Declassified letters and reports (like below from FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley to Henry Kissenger) show that the United States Government knew of the plot beforehand and not only that: they knew exactly who was involved almost four months before the bombing.

For over three decades the US government has protected the terrorists. This outrage continues under the Obama Administration and undermines whatever moral authority the United States retains in the persecution of its war in Iraq – a “part-time hobby” war with no end in sight.

Palestinian witnesses said they saw the captain shoot Iman twice in the head, walk away, turn back and fire a stream of bullets into her body. On the tape, Capt R then “clarifies” to the soldiers under his command why he killed Iman: “This is commander. Anything that’s mobile, that moves in the [security] zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, needs to be killed.”

HAVANA – Fidel Castro is showcasing a theory long popular both among the far left and far right: that the shadowy Bilderberg Group has become a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.

The 84-year-old former Cuban president published an article Wednesday that used three of the only eight pages in the Communist Party newspaper Granma to quote — largely verbatim — from a 2006 book by Lithuanian-born writer Daniel Estulin.

Estulin's work, "The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club," argues that the international group largely runs the world. It has held a secretive annual forum of prominent politicians, thinkers and businessmen since it was founded in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland.

Barack Obama's pledge to shut down Guantanamo Bay will not be honoured until at least a year after the President's self-imposed deadline – and may not be completed in his first administration.

The man in charge of the seven prison camps at the US naval base in Cuba is yet to receive direct orders to begin the transfer of prisoners so he can close the detention facilities.

By James Petras

The capitalist state, with Democratic President Obama in the lead, has transferred billions to big capital via direct bailouts, virtual interest free loans, tax cuts and by pressuring labor to accept lower wages and health and pension givebacks. The White House plan for ‘recovery’ has worked beyond expectations – corporate profits have recovered; “only” the vast majority of workers have fallen deeper into crises.

CONTINUE READING THE FULL ARTICLE:

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/08/crisis-what-crisis-profits-soar/

The revolutionary leader revealed that he believes the US and Israel may launch a nuclear attack on Iran, as the dispute about the Tehran government's own nuclear programme continues.

"If war breaks out the current social order will suddenly disappear and the price will be infinitely greater," Mr Castro said.

The veteran politician added that nuclear war would change the world order and that it is up to Cuba and other nations to persuade Barack Obama not to attack Iran or North Korea.

Airport body scanners reveal all, but what about when it's your kid?

People are concerned about privacy, delayed flights, health effects. - Now there's another concern. What about kids? Do they have to go through this, too? And what are parents' rights?

On July 4, I said that neither the United States nor Iran would give in: “one, prevented by the pride of the powerful, and the other because it has the capacity and the will to fight oppression, as we have seen so many times before in the history of mankind.”

In nearly every war, one party wishes to avoid it and, sometimes, the two parties do. This time it will happen although one of the parties does not wish it. That was the case of the two World Wars of 1914 and 1939, only 25 years one from the other.

Accused war-criminal Omar Khadr has fired his American lawyers less than a week before his military-commission pre-trial hearings are slated to resume in Guantanamo Bay, one of his despondent attorneys said Wednesday.

Khadr, via a motion terminating his U.S. counsel and filed by his lawyers with the commission, said that he would either represent himself or boycott his trial.

"We have worked our hearts out on the case and were just eagerly looking forward to what we had planned to do," one of the lawyers, Barry Coburn, told The Canadian Press.

Prosecutors allege Khadr threw a hand grenade that killed Sgt. Chris Speer in Afghanistan in July 2002 when he was 15 years old. He faces a maximum life sentence on conviction.

===

Israel agreed to sell South Africa nuclear weapons.

More than that, it makes any aid America gives Israel illegal. If Israel is nuclear, which is now official, and in violation of international treaties, just as with Iraq and Iran, then America has to demand inspections and disarmament. There is no choice. This is the law. Law for Iran, law for Iraq is also law for Israel. Israel has expected this day for years.

Gazprom Neft Seeks Expansion Into Cuba, Iran
30 June 2010
Reuters
Gazprom Neft is looking to expand its foreign operations into oil-rich Cuba and Iran, which are both hindered by trade sanctions, CEO Alexander Dyukov said Tuesday.
The company is actively seeking to increase its resource base to meet an ambitious oil output goal of 100,000 million metric tons a year by 2020, up from about 60,000 million.
"Gazprom Neft wants to join Petronas' project in Cuba," Dyukov said during the company's annual shareholders' meeting.

*hyperlinks live at source*

Dr. David Ray Griffin walks readers through the “emperor has no clothes” obvious facts that US war in Afghanistan is illegal. In addition, Dr. Griffin explains, documents, and proves that all 9/11-related “reasons” are also all lies. The first part of Dr. Griffin’s lecture on this topic concludes the part one article. Additional parts are here on Dr. Griffin's website.

My explanation, documentation, and proof that current US wars are as close to lawful as a baseball pitch ten feet over everyone’s head is close to a strike is in this academic paper:

Open proposal to higher education

My citizen appeal with comprehensive aspects of unlawful wars and unconstitutional policies:

Government by dicts

By Rich Wiles

Through the recent murderous events in international waters Israel has once again shown its true colours and its total disregard for humanity. From the global reaction over the last week it seems that, for once, a huge majority of people around the world have seen these attacks in a clear light. Let us call a massacre a massacre. Whilst these atrocities have clearly appalled millions of people, the inhumanity of the Zionist regime should have come as no surprise, for this is nothing new.

Among the war-on-terror spending legacies for troops at Guantanamo Bay: a $249,000 abandoned volleyball court and an unused $296,000 go-kart track.

December 2009 issue of Culture Wars magazine – Ken Freeland

The hegemonic influence of Zionist-Israeli forces over America’s foreign policy, particularly Middle East policy, is a phenomenon without historical precedent. While right-wing radicals, with their focus on patriotism and constitutional values, set off early alarms about this perceived foreign domination,the Left pretty much slept through its insidious ascent to power. [...]
Continue Reading

http://mycatbirdseat.com/2010/06/review-of-zionism-militarism-and-the-...

*hyperlinks and video live at source*

David Degraw has written an outstanding comprehensive explanation of what’s really happening in the US economy. He’s given me permission to reprint it here. I also recommend his site "For Our Economy" for citizen grass-roots activism for economic justice.

The revival of popular revolutionary movements begins by rejecting complicity with the new middle class rulers presiding over the new phase of state-private capitalist expansion.

Latin America’s current relations with the US as well as its present political and economic configuration can best be understood in the context of large scale changes over the past twenty years and the relative stability of the past five years.

There have been recent reports that Iran has enabled the travel of al-Qaeda leaders to Afghanistan and Pakistan where they will be able to confront and kill American soldiers. If you think you have heard the story before, you have, in another context. In the earlier rendition it was Saddam Hussein who was hand-in-glove with al-Qaeda, helping the group in its nefarious planning to attack the United States and kill Americans. Saddam, who was in reality only a threat to his own people, was on the receiving end of a barrage of fabricated information claiming that he was secretly developing weapons of mass destruction and clandestinely dealing with the terrorists who were responsible for 9/11. Or so the story goes.

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
13 March 1962

A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in several forms...We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful....

ORIGINAL PDF HERE.

HTML version HERE

They are scenes of tediousness rather than of terror or torture.

But the shackles and barbed wire imply the threat behind the boredom, as these never-before-seen images of life inside the prison at Guantanamo Bay show.

"Must we go to such extremes? ... I beg of you to resign. Get out of this country. You don't deserve respect," he wrote. The younger Almeida was briefly jailed in November when after petitioning the government for permission to travel to the United States for medical care.

I POSTED THIS ARTICLE BECAUSE OF THE ABOVE LINE. MORE THAN A SIMPLE ERROR, IT LOOKS LIKE A DELIBERATE EDIT OF INFORMATION THAT WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW. "When..." what? WHAT DID HE DO AFTER PETITIONING TO GO TO THE US? SOMETHING IS FISHY HERE, AND I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT WAS TAKEN OUT OF THE ABOVE QUOTE THAT WOULD HAVE HURT THE "INTENT" OF THE STORY.

Ending the U.S. Travel Ban Should Be First Step in Normalizing Relations with Cuba

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said a recent statement by the U.S. secretary of state on ties with Iran was “a clear threat” against his country and Bolivia, the EFE news agency said on Monday.

Hillary Clinton said on Monday that “if people want to flirt with Iran, they should take a look at what the consequences might well be for them.” She expressed hope that they would “think twice” before doing so.

“Clinton’s statements are, above all a threat to Bolivia and Venezuela, as well as the whole Bolivarian Alliance,” the agency quoted the Venezuelan leader as saying at a summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of our America (ALBA)...

The updated trade paperback's new information completes the story of how the top secret plan of John and Robert Kennedy to stage a coup against Fidel Castro on December 1, 1963 -- with the help of Cuban Army Commander Juan Almeida -- was used by three powerful Mafia bosses to murder JFK.

Documented from the National Archives for the first time is Watergate burglar Bernard Barker's decades-long work for the Mafia, even as Barker aided the CIA with the coup plan. This let Barker sell out the coup plan to his mob bosses and help to assassinate JFK in a way that forced top US officials to withhold key information from the Warren Commission and the press, to prevent a nuclear confrontation with Russia.

This legacy of secrecy also allowed two men who confessed their roles in JFK's murder to be involved in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, in 1968. The trade paperback also contains important new information about the FBI informant who obtained the JFK assassination confession of godfather Carlos Marcello, which the Bureau kept secret for twenty years.

A US army major suspected of shooting colleagues at the Fort Hood military base in Texas last week will face 13 initial murder charges.
Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was shot by police and remains in hospital. He has refused to speak to investigators.

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
13 March 1962

....A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in several forms....

...We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government....

On October 6, 1976, anti-Castro terrorists murdered seventy-three people on Cubana Flight 455 off Barbados.

Declassified letters and reports (like below from FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley to Henry Kissenger) show that the United States Government knew of the plot beforehand and not only that: they knew exactly who was involved almost four months before the bombing.

For over three decades the US government has protected the terrorists. This outrage continues under the Obama Administration and undermines whatever moral authority the United States retains in the persecution of its war in Iraq – a “part-time hobby” war with no end in sight.

Yesterday, Microsoft MSN (Spain) featured a montage photo of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and the ex president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, wearing king's crowns, accompanied by the colourful title, "When power corrupts: Striving to be kings." The Venezuelan government and a grassroots technology movement here are both promoting the use and creation of open source (free) software, so it's no surprise that software tyrant, Microsoft, is lambasting Chavez.

Havana. June 11, 2009
And when will Miami’s terrorist nest be cleared out?
JEAN-GUY ALLARD
• DESPITE being denounced and calls from Venezuela for his extradition, Luis Posada Carriles, the most dangerous terrorist in the hemisphere, is still conspiring to murder with his accomplices without any intervention from the U.S. legal authorities.
Miami continues to have a strong nucleus of right extremists from various Latin American countries, who consider this city and the United States as a sanctuary for their activities, given that hundreds of fugitives, presidents and henchmen of dictatorial regimes have found a safe refuge there over the years.

Local authorities first said the projectile was live and unstable, but Eglin Air Force Base later said it was a telemetry missile that carried no explosives. Still, the MacDill Air Force Base Bomb Squad inspected and dismantled the missile after Salomon returned to port on Monday evening in Madeira Beach, near St. Petersburg.

President-elect Obama has pledged to close the infamous military prison in Cuba. So why are people trying to give him the right to start all over again?

"I confess that many times I have meditated on the dramatic story of John F. Kennedy. It was my fate to live through the era when he was the greatest and most dangerous adversary of the Revolution. It was something that didn’t play a part in his calculations. He saw himself as the representative of a new generation of Americans who were confronting the old-style, dirty politics of men of the sort of Nixon whom he had defeated with a tremendous display of political talent."

link to article -
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13443

At the centre of the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago over April 17-19, was the only country from the hemisphere not present — Cuba.

Speaking at the opening session, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega noted that while a large majority of the heads of states of the Americas were present, “there are two major absentees”.

The first was “Cuba, whose crime has been to fight for its independence, for the sovereignty of the peoples; lending solidarity, without conditions, to our peoples, and for that it is being sanctioned, for that it is being punished, for that it is being excluded.”

The second was the nation of Puerto Rico, which continues to be an official colony of the United States — denied independence.

BBC News Spanish judges have agreed to consider charging six former US officials with providing legal justification for alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay.

Christian Science Monitor | Feb 17, 2009 | Sara Miller Llana

Caracas, Venezuela - With a clear popular victory Sunday in his bid to end term limits, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has injected new vigor into his controversial "21st-century socialism" movement and secured his role at a time when the economy is starting to falter.

"He is going to take advantage of this moment, saying the people voted for socialism," says Ricardo Sucre, a political analyst in Caracas. "He is going to say this gives him the authorization to take more power and advance his project."

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has demanded the United States unconditionally return the Guantanamo Bay military base to Cuba in an article published on the CubaDebate website.

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has demanded the United States unconditionally return the Guantanamo Bay military base to Cuba in an article published on the CubaDebate website.

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.