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Another 'Saigon': US Evacuates From Libya

Saturday July 26, 2014

One month ago today, President Obama was congratulating Libya on a "milestone" election -- even though the disintegration of the country after the 2011 US invasion was ongoing. 

Said Obama in June:

I congratulate the Libyan people on the conclusion of the elections for a new Council of Representatives, a milestone in their courageous efforts to transition from four decades of dictatorship toward a full democracy.

Today, the US announced it has evacuated all US personnel from Libya. They piled into vehicles and escaped to Tunisia.
read on...

What Does the U.S. Support When It Supports Israel?

Saturday July 26, 2014

According to the Congressional Budget Office, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $121 billion (current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance. Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance, although in the past Israel also received significant economic assistance.” 

Other special benefits also flow to the Israeli military. Each year, the U.S. pays for about 20 percent of Israel’s overall military spending, and the total places Israel as the 16th largest military spender in the world. “In 2007, the Bush Administration and the Israeli government agreed to a 10-year, $30 billion military aid package for the period from FY2009 to FY2018.” Obama has renewed that pledge.

The U.S. routinely supports Israel’s policies and avoids condemning Israel for its rights violations against Palestinians. It may never have done so. This week, for example, the U.S. cast the sole vote against the U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The vote was 29-1. A link to the full text of the resolution is here. (The texts vary slightly in different reports.)
read on...

‘Hard-Core Libertarian’ Austin Petersen's Advice for 'Soviet' Ron Paul

Friday July 25, 2014

Austin Petersen, who describes himself in the introduction to his Freedom Report Podcast as a “hard-core libertarian” who cares about “pure freedom,” is upset that Ron Paul wrote an editorial expressing skepticism regarding the US government’s and media’s line on the downing of a Malaysia Airlines flight in Ukraine.

Petersen, indeed, provides in his Wednesday podcast some advice for Paul: No more of that saying what you think stuff. If you do that, you might make some people uncomfortable, and the media might even run negative headlines!

Petersen’s advice brings to mind former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani challenging Paul to “withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean it,” when Paul discussed “blowback” from US foreign intervention during a 2007 presidential debate. By answering Giuliani with more education about the history of US foreign interventions and blowback instead of backing down, Paul, then a US House of Representatives member from Texas, took the limelight of the debate in a manner that strengthened his campaign and expanded his educational reach.
read on...

Ron Paul: 'I Don't Blame America, I Blame Neocons'

Friday July 25, 2014

Facing a tough but respectful grilling on Fox Business's The Independents over his recent comments on Ukraine and the apparent downing of a Malaysia Air plane, Ron Paul argues that the US government wants to blame Russia for the shoot-down while providing no evidence for its conclusion. Paul points out that the US claim that Russia was to blame for the disaster because they supply weapons to the rebels in east Ukraine is hypocritical because the US has armed oppositionists in Syria who went on to attack the US-backed government in Iraq.
read on...

Breedlove...or Strangelove?

Friday July 25, 2014

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Gen. Philip Breedlove, wants to light a torch under the rapidly reconstituting Cold War with Russia. According to the Times (UK), NATO's top military commander has plans to transform an old military base in Poland into a tip of the spear pointed at Russia.

At a briefing in Naples this week, Breedlove outlined his plan to supply the Multinational Corps Northeast, in Szczecin, Poland, with “pre-positioned supplies, pre-positioned capabilities and a basing area ready to rapidly accept follow-on forces," that would support a rapid deployment force of thousands of NATO troops into Russia. 

Gen. Breedlove has been pushing an increased NATO presence on Russia's borders to counter what he claims are Russia's "aggressive" actions in the region, stating last month that "we may need to add additional rotational forces to cover the sustained, persistent presence that we are now envisioning."

Although Ukraine is not a NATO member and therefore would not be subject to NATO's Article 5 mutual defense provisions, the Baltics are in NATO and have taken a very hard line against Russia. These countries, along with Poland, have faced a long and steady economic decline and dream of a NATO base on their soil to funnel western funds into their economies.
read on...

Ron Paul: What's So Bad About a Split-Up Ukraine?

Thursday July 24, 2014

In an in-depth commentary about the recent Malaysian Airlines crash, Dr. Paul makes the point that no one in western media or government wants us to ponder: if eastern Ukraine wants to be closer to Russia and western Ukraine wants to be aligned with the EU, why can't they just go their separate ways without outsider meddling?
read on...

9/11 Commission: 10th Anniversary of a Bootlicking National Disgrace

Wednesday July 23, 2014

Ten years ago, the 9/11 Commission released its report on the challenges to the nation. Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the chairman and vice chairman of the commission, have a platitude-laden piece this morning in USA Today: “The 'generational challenge' against terrorism we anticipated 10 years ago has entered a new and dangerous phase. America cannot afford to let down its guard.”

But the 9/11 Commission let down its guard for the American people long before they issued their final report.  The commissioners were content to be deceived by the Pentagon, CIA, and other federal agencies. When their inquiries were stonewalled, they groveled like lapdogs – vindicating the Bush administration’s selection of pliant tools for a commission whose report boosted the president’s reelection campaign.
read on...

Parallel Construction: Unconstitutional NSA Searches Deny Due Process

Wednesday July 23, 2014

The NSA sits at the nexus of violations of both the Fourth and Fifth Amendments with a legal dodge called Parallel Construction.

Parallel Construction is a technique used by law enforcement to hide the fact that evidence in a criminal case originated with the NSA. In its simplest form, the NSA collects information showing say a Mr. Anderson committed a crime. This happens most commonly in drug cases. The conclusive information is passed to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), who then works backwards from the conclusion to create an independent, "legal" body of evidence to use against Mr. Anderson.

Example: an NSA email intercept shows our Mr. Anderson received a Fedex package with drugs, which he hid under his bed. The DEA takes this info, and gets a search warrant for the Fedex data, which leads them to Mr. Anderson's apartment. A new legal warrant authorizes a search, and agents "find" the drugs under the bed right where the NSA said they were in the first place.

Some may call this little more than illegal evidence laundering.
read on...

On Malaysian Crash, Obama's Case Against Russia Disintegrates

Wednesday July 23, 2014

Tuesday the US government admitted it had been bluffing about its certainty that Russia was behind the downing of Malaysian Air Flight MH-17 over Ukraine. 

This dramatic turn of events started with State Department Spokeswoman Marie Harf claiming Monday that the State Department's certainty of Russian involvement in the apparent downing of the plane was primarily based on "social media" evidence.

That means with a likely budget of more than $100 billion, the US Intelligence Community is making decisions that may involve global nuclear war based on people's Tweets and YouTubes!

Asked in Monday's State Department briefing about US government evidence for its claims of Russian government involvement and separatist direct blame for the shooting down of the plane, Harf said:

You saw the Secretary yesterday speak very clearly about our assessment that this was an SA-11 fired from Russian-backed, separatist-controlled territory; that we know – we saw in social media afterwards, we saw videos, we saw photos of the pro-Russian separatists bragging about shooting down an aircraft.

She added:

Based on open information which is basically common sense, right – we know where it was fired from, we know who has this weapon

Who needs evidence — it's "common sense"! Right?
read on...

Kerry’s Latest Reckless Rush to Judgment

Monday July 21, 2014

Secretary of State John Kerry boasts that as a former prosecutor he knows he has a strong case against the eastern Ukrainian rebels and their backers in Russia in pinning last Thursday’s shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on them, even without the benefit of a formal investigation.

During his five rounds of appearances on Sunday talk shows, Kerry did what a judge might condemn as “prejudicing the case” or “poisoning the jury pool.” In effect, Kerry made a fair “trial” almost impossible, what a bar association might cite in beginning debarment proceedings against prosecutor Kerry.

But what Kerry did was actually much worse. He essentially dictated the outcome of an inquiry that risks pushing the world into a new and dangerous Cold War. With his didactic – all-tell-no-show – presentation of the “evidence,” Kerry made any objective assessment of the actual evidence nearly impossible, certainly for U.S. government investigators and even for many international officials whose jobs often depend on the goodwill of the United States.

If you were, say, a U.S. intelligence analyst sifting through the evidence and finding that some leads went off in a different direction, toward the Ukrainian army, for instance, you might hold back on your conclusions knowing that crossing senior officials who had already pronounced the verdict could be devastating to your career. It would make a lot more sense to just deep-six any contrary evidence.
read on...