Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System": The Big Things That Matter And The Little Things That Annoy

Rebel Newsflash: "Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System": The Big Things That Matter And The Little Things That Annoy (plus 35 more items)

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• "Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System": The Big Things That Matter And The Little Things That Annoy
• Explaining Murder: Israeli Hasbara in Full Swing
• Israel Lacking Allies and Friends
• Gantz or Galant? Who cares?
• Is Mexico's Drug War Doomed?
• Fear not
• Friday: 1 Iraqi Killed, 18 Wounded
• Grand Strategic Failure
• Novel Ideas
• The Georgia Syndrome
• A Cheap Price for the Release of an Israeli Spy
• U.S. Marshals Service Storing Naked Body Scanner Images
• The Weak Case for War with Iran
• Israel should have been a suspect in Harriri Assasination Investigation
• Homeless Bedouins Take On Israeli Forces
• UN Chief May Be Heading for Showdown with Israel
• COIN Thinking on a Larger Scale Might Work
• The Permanent War System Rolls On
• Hillary's Enemies List
• Blackwater: Can't Stop, Won't Stop
• The Curious Case of Omar Khadr
• Blowback, Somali Style
• White House Questions Suspension of Military Aid to Lebanon
• Rethinking the Antiwar Movement's Israel Campaign
• Folly, Left and Right
• The "Hearts and Minds" Guys
• Gaza's Great Tunnel Recession
• DebunkThis! Full Length
• Europe Gets It Right
• Thursday: 7 Iraqis Killed, 10 Wounded
• How WikiLeaks Could Use Its Power for Good
• The Man Gitmo Raised
• Obama spends billions on nuclear weapons
• It's Time to Get Tough on Iran
• Wednesday: 21 Iraqis Killed, 9 Wounded
• Smearing Bradley Manning

"Unregulated Greed has Destroyed the Capitalist System": The Big Things That Matter And The Little Things That Annoy Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:39 PM PDT I write about major problems:  the collapsing US economy, wars based on lies and deception, the police state based on "the war on terror" and other fabrications such as those orchestrated by corrupt police and prosecutors, who boost their performance reports by convicting the innocent, and so on.  America is a very distressing place. The fact that so many Americans are taken in by the lies told by "their" government makes America all the more depressing.

Explaining Murder: Israeli Hasbara in Full Swing Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:33 AM PDT The hasbara industry is in full swing at the moment as Benjamin Netanyahu's government pulls out all the stops to create a smokescreen to cover its crimes.  Leading from the front Mr Netanyahu sat in front of the Turkel Commission for four hours on Monday, although anyone hoping to hear anything of interest would have been disappointed. Mr Netanyahu only spoke in front of the public for ninety minutes of that time during which he regaled the committee with complaints about Hamas, Sderot and Gilad Shalit. He told the committee that Israel had a right to search for weapons on board the flotilla. (Israel has since announced that it found no weapons for Hamas. Did nine people really have to die so that Israel could confirm the certification the flotilla already had?) He further told them that there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza as a result of the blockade it was just a 'bogus rationale […] to break the blockade'. So there we are. The International Committee of the Red Cross was lying on 14 June when it said:

Israel Lacking Allies and Friends Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:11 AM PDT Oftentimes, Israelis and their supporters bury their heads in the sand, ignoring all that goes around them. Take the case, for one example, of a university professor who joyously lauded in a commentary in a leading American newspaper, The New York Times (which in turn was remiss in not checking) an "opinion poll" that claimed that 71 percent of Arab respondents have "no interest" in the Palestinian-Israeli "peace process." Probably sharing his enthusiasm, the paper headlined the column, "The Palestinians, Alone."

Gantz or Galant? Who cares? Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:04 AM PDT Benny Gantz or Yoav Galant, or perhaps Gadi Eizenkot? In the race for the next chief of staff, the mirror is reflecting identical faces. Look closely at these three officers, listen to their words, review their biographies. You won't find any differences, even if you use a microscope. They were born in the same era, are products of the same assembly line, have the same style of speech and employ the same cliches. One was in an elite naval commando unit, one in the paratroops, one in the Golani Brigade. What's the difference?

Is Mexico's Drug War Doomed? Posted: 13 Aug 2010 07:23 AM PDT The U.S. Department of Defense defines irregular warfare as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations." By this definition, Mexico is fighting an irregular war. The Mexican government's campaign against the drug cartels is far more than a law enforcement problem; the two sides are engaged in a violent struggle for influence over the Mexican population. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Fear not Posted: 13 Aug 2010 06:12 AM PDT So many people have sent and forwarded so many warnings of the forthcoming US-Israeli attack on Iran that it is hard to ignore them.  A piece written by a few ex-spooks warning of a new round of war is one of these messages.  In our view, spooks, ex or not, are not the most reliable people, and the CIA is not the best reference.  However, this item fits with the dire predictions of Fidel Castro.  It fits with the recent heating up of the Gaza and Lebanon borders.  It fits with the relocation of some American warships and accompanying Israeli U-boats to the shores of Iran.  Rumours of Israeli advance forces being placed in Azerbaijan and even Saudi Arabia are used as supportive evidence.  The Jewish state certainly wants to break Iran, just as Iraq was broken.

Friday: 1 Iraqi Killed, 18 Wounded Posted: 13 Aug 2010 05:34 AM PDT Due to the Ramadan holiday, fewer attacks were reported; however, at least one policeman was killed and 18 others were wounded in two separate attacks. Meanwhile, experts in Germany claim to have seen evidence of chemical weapons use by the Turkish military on Kurdish rebels. Three bombs targeting the Samarra home of an Awakening council member wounded 18 people.

Grand Strategic Failure Posted: 13 Aug 2010 03:41 AM PDT "When I asked [Charles Hill] why he had never written his own big book he only smiled," notes his former student Molly Worthen in her 2007 book about him, The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost. "There was no better way to get people to pay attention to ... your take on history, he explained, than to write ... beneath the byline of Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali. After all, who had ever heard of Charlie Hill?" But Hill, a former diplomat and senior advisor to a string of powerful men, wasn't being quite truthful with Worthen, and not only because he would soon publish an ambitious take on history under his own name.

Novel Ideas Posted: 13 Aug 2010 03:31 AM PDT Late on the morning of February 21, 1972, I listened at my desk in the U.S. Embassy Saigon as an Armed Forces Radio announced the arrival of President Richard Nixon in Beijing. I had been a Foreign Service "China watcher" through the horrendous years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, when Chairman Mao sent thousands of young Red Guards out to burn books and put an end to China's traditional culture. For more than two decades, American strategists considered themselves engaged in a colossal struggle against revolutionary communism, an ideology bent on destroying and replacing the established international state system of world order. Now here were Nixon and his chief advisor, Henry Kissinger, presenting themselves to the "Great Helmsman" of the People's Republic of China.

The Georgia Syndrome Posted: 13 Aug 2010 03:05 AM PDT Over the course of the last week, Russia has celebrated the second anniversary of its war with Georgia in typical style: A visit by President Dmitry Medvedev to the breakway province of Abkhazia, which Russia now recognizes as an independent country, and the announcement by a Russian general that the air force had stationed in Abkhazia the S-300, a highly sophisticated anti-aircraft system, to counter unspecified Georgian threats. While the Georgians, who tend to treat each new act of Russian provocation as a prelude to apocalypse, reacted with alarm, a State Department spokesman waved off the S-300 as old news. Barack Obama's administration has tried -- successfully, so far -- to strike a balance between defending Georgia and preserving the "reset" with Russia. But what will it do if Russia simply refuses to withdraw from territories seized in an illegal and unjust war?

A Cheap Price for the Release of an Israeli Spy Posted: 13 Aug 2010 03:01 AM PDT It would have been possible for the Libyan government to attain the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners who remain incarcerated under harsh verdicts from Israel in exchange for the Israeli squatter and military intelligence officer, Rafael "Rafram" Haddad from the Efrat squatter colony in the West Bank. Haddad is a yeshiva (an extremist religious school) student and resident of the Efrat squatter colony and a military police officer in the Israeli army. The Republic of Libya would have been able to play a honorable role in the exchange of Rafael Haddad with Israel, but Libya put its relations with the West and the US before in this deal, in a way which damaged Palestinian interests, but also the Lybian long-term interests. Nobody knows what Lybia got in return for this Israeli spy. The Haddad release operation looked very cheap when compared with several operations to release Israeli spies, soldiers and even bodies between Israel and the Palestinian resistance, Hezbollah, and other Arab countries between 1970 – 2008.

U.S. Marshals Service Storing Naked Body Scanner Images Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:12 AM PDT Remember last summer when the Transportation Security Administration claimed that images from naked body scanners cannot be saved or stored? Earlier this year, Infowars.com reported on a letter dated February 24, 2010 and signed by Gale D. Rossides, Acting Administrator of the TSA, that admits the machines routinely save and store images. "TSA requires AIT machines to have the capability to retain and export imagines (sic) only for testing, training, and evaluation purposes," Rossides wrote to Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The Weak Case for War with Iran Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:44 AM PDT Amid widespread skepticism that sanctions will stop Tehran's nuclear development and grudging, belated recognition that the Green Movement will not deliver a more pliable Iranian government, a growing number of commentators are asking the question, "What does President Obama do next on Iran?"

Israel should have been a suspect in Harriri Assasination Investigation Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:16 PM PDT Contrary to expectations, the footage, pictures and the analysis presented by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah would not hold water in any court and is thus not sufficient to indict Israel in the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Most of the so-called evidence was circumstantial. We didn't see anything that could directly link the Israelis to the Valentine's Day 2005 crime, which has radically reshaped Middle East politics.

Homeless Bedouins Take On Israeli Forces Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT A bruising battle of will is taking place between Israeli security forces and Palestinians recently made homeless after two Palestinian villages were razed and hundreds left homeless. During the last few weeks over a thousand heavily armed Israeli riot police, soldiers and police, at times accompanied by helicopters and bulldozers, have clashed with the expelled Palestinians and their supporters as the latter attempt to rebuild the villages.

UN Chief May Be Heading for Showdown with Israel Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT When the Israeli government gave its blessings to a U.N. panel of inquiry probing the military attack on a flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza last May, there was widespread speculation that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon may have struck a backdoor deal over its mandate. Asked at a press conference Monday whether he agreed to a secret understanding that the panel will not interview members of the Israeli security forces accused of killing nine Turkish civilians on board that ship, the secretary-general laboriously ducked the question.

COIN Thinking on a Larger Scale Might Work Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT After blasting away for years in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military had to relearn — the hard way — lessons that had been forgotten from the debacle in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan initially used heavy amounts of technology and firepower to wail away against enemy guerrilla forces, only to further alienate indigenous populations, already very unhappy with foreign occupation, by also killing many civilians. In guerrilla warfare, unlike conventional warfare between massed armies, winning popular support is key because the guerrillas emanate from, hide among, and get support from indigenous peoples.

The Permanent War System Rolls On Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT Two months ago, I wrote that the Obama administration and the U.S. command in Afghanistan faced an "Iraq 2006 moment" in the second half of 2010 – a collapse of domestic political support for a failed war paralleling the political crisis in Bush's Iraq War in 2006.  Now comes Republican Congressman Frank Wolf to make that parallel with 2006 eerily precise. Wolf published a letter to President Obama last week calling for the immediate establishment of an "Afghanistan-Pakistan Study Group."  It would be the son of the Iraq Study Group.  Wolf is the Congressman who authored the legislation in 2005 creating the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group to come up with fresh ideas for that failing war.  The Wolf proposal came nearly a year after American public had turned against the war decisively in January 2005, when support for the war fell to 39 percent.

Hillary's Enemies List Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT Some might recall the enemies list that President Richard Nixon kept in his desk.  The list was appended to a memo that asked "how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies?" Named were a number of journalists who had criticized Nixon's administration as well as celebrities like actors Gregory Peck and Paul Newman and athletes like Joe Namath.  Nixon was clearly on to something because in today's America we have a new enemies list, one that is updated annually to make sure that nary a single malefactor is overlooked.  It is the US State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism, which was unveiled last week in its 2009 version at a briefing conducted by Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, Foggy Bottom's Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

Blackwater: Can't Stop, Won't Stop Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT Blackwater (rebranded as Xe in an effort to escape the negative publicity associated with their former name), recently received a $100 million contract from the CIA to secure its bases in Afghanistan. The State Department also awarded them $120 million to provide security for new diplomatic buildings, including consulates outside Kabul, giving the firm a total of $220 million in new contracts in Afghanistan. This seems remarkable, given the extremely negative image Blackwater has throughout the world. That people even know about a private security company is a bad sign in itself. Not surprisingly, CIA Director Leon Panetta had to go on the offensive to defend the contracts. The contracts are certainly problematic. But the real issue is not Blackwater itself, but U.S. military grand strategy.

The Curious Case of Omar Khadr Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT As a child, I sometimes browsed magazines in my doctor's waiting room. One day while flipping through the pages I came across a photograph of a beaming young woman enjoying a picturesque view of a meadow. Underneath the photo in a small box was a message in black and white — issued, I thought, by a general who performed surgery in his spare time: "SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking by Pregnant Women May Result in Fetal Injury, Premature Birth, and Low Birth Weight."

Blowback, Somali Style Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT For the past year or so, Somalia has been in the headlines largely because of piracy.  Probably the most well known incident (in America, at least) was the April 2009 seizure of the Maersk Alabama when U.S. Navy SEALs (SEa, Air and Land) killed three pirates who were holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage (a fourth pirate was captured).  Now Somalia is in the news because fourteen people (at least half of whom are U.S. citizens) have been charged as part of a "deadly terror pipeline" to Somalia "providing money, personnel, and services to the foreign terrorist organization al-Shabaab." One concern raised by the four indictments in federal courts in Minnesota, Alabama, and California is the phenomena of homegrown radicalization.  In the aftermath of 9/11, we were largely concerned with foreign terrorists trying to get into the United States.  But the July 2005 London tube bombings raised the specter of terrorism originating from inside our borders.  According to Sean Joyce, the FBI's executive assistant director for the national security branch, terrorist organizations such as al-Shabaab radicalize and recruit U.S. citizens and others to train and fight with them.  One of the Minnesota indictments alleges that two Somali women made direct appeals for "financial contributions to support violent jihad in Somalia."

White House Questions Suspension of Military Aid to Lebanon Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT Several powerful members of Congress have worked to suspend U.S. military aid to Lebanon's military after a deadly skirmish on the Lebanese-Israeli border last week which left two Lebanese soldiers, a Lebanese journalist and one Israeli officer dead. Howard Berman, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced Monday that he had suspended U.S. military aid for Lebanon out of concern that weapons purchased with U.S. military aid might be used against Israel.

Rethinking the Antiwar Movement's Israel Campaign Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT Opposing Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians has been a central tenet of antiwar politics for so long that what I am about to say will probably come as a shock to readers of Antiwar.com. But it needs to be said. Antiwar activists and thinkers – those who are concerned about the destructive impact of Western intervention around the world – must start challenging fashionable anti-Israel sentiment. Because today, such sentiment is increasingly being used to rehabilitate Western moral authority in the Middle East and on the international stage more broadly.

Folly, Left and Right Posted: 12 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT Attacked by left, smeared by the right – I must be doing something right. That, at least, is what I'm led to believe by the two most recent polemics directed at your humble servant. The first, from the pages of the Daily Caller – the right-wing answer to the Huffington Post – is really a study in the damage that public school has done to our youth: the incoherence is palpable. Entitled "Sun Tzu versus Justin Raimondo," the piece, by one Kerry Patton, takes on my most recent appearance on Judge Andrew Napolitano's "Freedom Watch" program, albeit through a tangled thicket of tortured prose, to wit: "While many conservatives and libertarians argue similar points of interest, they oftentimes are arguing the same message."

The "Hearts and Minds" Guys Posted: 12 Aug 2010 04:00 PM PDT Today, there are nearly 100,000 U.S. soldiers hiking around the dusty villages of Afghanistan, battling a tenacious insurgency. Winning "hearts and minds" is once again the order of the day for the U.S. military. The war may have moved to the other end of Asia, but in thinking of the Afghanistan war, I find myself returning to the lessons I learned as a young man in Vietnam.

Gaza's Great Tunnel Recession Posted: 12 Aug 2010 04:00 PM PDT It's a clear sign that an industry is well established when cafes spring up to cater to the workforce. In the best of times, Café Abou el Nour relied on just this business model, supplying a place to rest and talk for the busy workers in Gaza's tunnel industry. The smuggling zone extends across both sides of the border separating Egypt and Gaza, and is split down the middle by a low Egyptian border fence outfitted with manned guard towers several hundred meters apart.

DebunkThis! Full Length Posted: 12 Aug 2010 12:00 PM PDT A show for debunkers to do their thing as well as for the choir to have a reference point. So many people find it hard to believe that we are being Poisoned, tested on, lied to, that plans are documented to control and contain us as well as kill us by the powers that be. That indeed conspiracies exist and that not everyone who speaks of this is a nut job or else you would have to call yourself a nut job. Whether its OJ, Michael Jackson or 911, everyone speaks of conspiracies. This show isn't about why they do what they do, it's about the fact that it has and is being done. This wont be a show covering hours worth of evidence. We will focus on an element or two to keep it simple and to the point.

Europe Gets It Right Posted: 12 Aug 2010 10:21 AM PDT The view of a failing Europe is en vogue, and for understandable reasons. The contours of crisis are glaring: bloated budgets, aging populations, declining military capabilities, and the fracturing of political solidarity over a range of issues from Russia and energy to enlargement and Turkey. Such is the conventional wisdom about a once too-comfortable Europe, now in decline, and yet amazingly still in the midst of its sacred five-week summer holiday.

Thursday: 7 Iraqis Killed, 10 Wounded Posted: 12 Aug 2010 09:34 AM PDT At least seven Iraqis were killed and 10 more were wounded increase its share of aid to victims of U.S. combat operations. in light violence. Shi'ite Iraqis began Ramadan fasting today. Also, the U.S. wants Iraq to An American contractor who was kidnapped and held by the League of the Righteous militant group spoke of his ordeal and warned of the group's growing influence.

How WikiLeaks Could Use Its Power for Good Posted: 12 Aug 2010 09:06 AM PDT Since WikiLeaks' massive Afghanistan document dump on July 25, the organization has rightly been critiqued for releasing the names of Afghan informants who shared information with the U.S. military, a move that endangers civilian lives. But WikiLeaks is not, as some have alleged, analogous to a criminal enterprise; nor are its actions inherently antithetical to security. On the contrary, the organization's tools actually have enormous potential to save civilian lives in conflict zones -- if standards can be created to use them properly. The Afghan War Diary, however, has demonstrated two things: that there are no clear standards for whistle-blower organizations like this today, and that there is an urgent need to fill the ethical vacuum if benefits are to be realized from the WikiLeaks model.

The Man Gitmo Raised Posted: 12 Aug 2010 08:54 AM PDT When I first met Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantánamo Bay, he was somewhere in the awkward gap between boy and man. He was broad-shouldered and lanky, but his face looked like a child's covered with acne. It was April 2006, and at that point the 19-year-old Canadian national had already been sitting in Guantánamo for nearly four years. This Thursday, his trial finally began.

Obama spends billions on nuclear weapons Posted: 12 Aug 2010 02:20 AM PDT Sixty-five years ago, scientists working in a secret city in northern New Mexico journeyed south to yet another secret location to test their "gadget." J. Robert Oppenheimer, head of the Manhattan Project, reacted to the atomic explosion that shattered the predawn desert silence by simply saying, "It worked."

It's Time to Get Tough on Iran Posted: 11 Aug 2010 07:45 AM PDT The media has recently been rife with speculation about the possibility of a U.S. or Israeli preventive strike on Iran's nuclear infrastructure -- from former CIA Director Michael Hayden's observation last month that the drift toward military action against Iran appears "inexorable" to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen's recent statement that the U.S. military has drawn up plans to attack the Islamic Republic. But, given recent developments in Iran, it is at least as likely that an increasingly belligerent Tehran will be the one that makes the move that sparks a conflict with the United States -- whether by an act of terrorism, by facilitating insurgent attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan, or by a military provocation in the Gulf or elsewhere -- unless Washington, acting with both caution and firmness, moves to avert such an eventuality.

Wednesday: 21 Iraqis Killed, 9 Wounded Posted: 11 Aug 2010 05:10 AM PDT At least 21 Iraqis were killed and nine more were wounded as Ramadan began for Sunni Muslims. Meanwhile, Iraq's top army officer, Lieutenant General Babakar Zebari, warned that the U.S. pullout is premature and asked politicians to find a way to fill the void after 2011. Ideally, he wants American troops to stay until 2020. Outgoing Ambassador Christopher Hill, however, is more hopeful and thinks the political deadlock over the premiership might break soon. Eight soldiers were killed and four more were wounded when they entered a booby-trapped building in Saidiya. Gunmen first entered the home, where they killed three people, then sent their children out to lure the soldiers back to the home.

Smearing Bradley Manning Posted: 10 Aug 2010 06:00 PM PDT The smear campaign against Bradley Manning took off the moment he was arrested, with professional snitch Adrian "I Have Asperger's Syndrome" Lamo detailing how he supposedly ensnared Manning in his web and adding that the young intelligence analyst was merely vying for "attention" by "vacuuming up" all the secret data he could just for the hell of it. The "patriotic" Lamo, who had been fined $60,000 for his hacking crimes — i.e. breaking into the Lexis-Nexis web site — may not have been paid for his snitching, but then again we don't know that, now do we? (Although one wonders how someone who lives in his parent's basement, as Lamo apparently does, managed to pay off such a hefty fine….).

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