Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations

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Democracy Now!
March 31, 2009

Seymour Hersh: Secret US Forces Carried Out Assassinations in a Dozen Counties, Including in Latin America

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh created a stir earlier this month when he said the Bush administration ran an “executive assassination ring” that reported directly to Vice President Dick Cheney. “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or to the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving,” Hersh said. Seymour Hersh joins us to explain. [includes rush transcript]

Seymour Hersh on “Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace”

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Democracy Now!
March 31, 2009

Seymour Hersh on “Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace”

In the latest issue of The New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh looks at Syria’s emerging role in the politics of Middle East peace. He also reveals new details on the behind-the-scenes dealings of the Bush administration and the then-incoming Obama camp during the Israeli attack on Gaza. The article is called “Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace.” [includes rush transcript]

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AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. His piece in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine is called “Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace.”

Sy, you begin, “When the Israelis’ controversial twenty-two-day military campaign in Gaza ended, on January 18th, it also seemed to end the promising [peace] talks between Israel and Syria.” What were those talks?

World Depression: Regional Wars and the Decline of the US Empire, Part I by Prof. James Petras

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by Prof. James Petras
Global Research, March 30, 2009

Introduction

All the idols of capitalism over the past three decades crashed. The assumptions and presumptions, paradigm and prognosis of indefinite progress under liberal free market capitalism have been tested and have failed. We are living the end of an entire epoch: Experts everywhere witness the collapse of the US and world financial system, the absence of credit for trade and the lack of financing for investment. A world depression, in which upward of a quarter of the world’s labor force will be unemployed, is looming. The biggest decline in trade in recent world history – down 40% year to year – defines the future. The immanent bankruptcies of the biggest manufacturing companies in the capitalist world haunt Western political leaders. The ‘market’ as a mechanism for allocating resources and the government of the US as the ‘leader’ of the global economy have been discredited. (Financial Times, March 9, 2009) All the assumptions about ‘self-stabilizing markets’ are demonstrably false and outmoded. The rejection of public intervention in the market and the advocacy of supply-side economics have been discredited even in the eyes of their practitioners. Even official circles recognize that ‘inequality of income’ contributed to the onset of the economic crash and should be corrected. Planning, public ownership, nationalization are on the agenda while socialist alternatives have become almost respectable.

With the onset of the depression, all the shibboleths of the past decade are discarded: As export-oriented growth strategies fail, import substitution policies emerge. As the world economy ‘de-globalizes’ and capital is ‘repatriated’ to save near bankrupt head offices – national ownership is proposed. As trillions of dollars/Euros/yen in assets are destroyed and devalued, massive layoffs extend unemployment everywhere. Fear, anxiety and uncertainty stalk the offices of state, financial directorships, the office suites the factories, and the streets…

George Galloway moves to Plan B using a video link + Full Speech

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Updated: April 1, 2009 Added full speech; see below

currentsituation

A Federal Court upheld a decision to block outspoken British MP George Galloway from entering Canada, but organizers of his speaking tour had a back-up plan Monday. He appeared in Toronto via video link.

Mosaic News – 3/30/09: World News From The Middle East

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Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute

“Arab summit opens in presence of Sudan’s Bashir,” Abu Dhabi TV, UAE
“Israel Threatens to Toughen Measures On Hamas Prisoners,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Global Economic Crisis Hurting Israeli Companies,” IBA TV, Israel
“Turkey ruling party wins, but opposition makes gains,” Dubai TV, UAE
“Baghdad Clashes Over Sahwa Chief Arrest,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“An Improvished Baghdad Neighborhood,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“The Mothers of Iraqi Casualties,” Al-Iraqiya TV, Iraq
“Weapons Found in Abu Ghraib,” Alsumaria TV, Iraq
“Dubai Hosts Arabian Horse Competition,” Baghdad TV, Iraq
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Mosaic News – 3/30/09: World News Fro…“, posted with vodpod

Israel only listens to its own + Under attack: how medics died trying to help Gaza’s casualties

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Warning

These videos may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

TheRealNews

More at http://therealnews.com/t/in…

Nissenbaum: Israel’s skepticism of UN means it will probably only examine reports from its own soldiers

[Note: TRRN replaced their 1st video]

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Under attack: how medics died trying to help Gaza’s casualties

by Clancy Chassay
guardian.co.uk
Monday 23 March 2009 15.55 GMT

Medical staff and ambulance drivers who attempted to assist casualties of the Israeli invasion of Gaza have told the Guardian that they were attacked by Israeli forces while trying to carry out their job.

The offensive left 16 medics dead. Nearly all of them were killed by Israeli fire while trying to save lives, and many more were wounded. According to the World Health Organisation, more than half of Gaza’s 27 hospitals were damaged by Israeli bombs. Two clinics were completely destroyed and 44 others received damage.

Dr Moawa Hassenein, the head of Gaza’s Red Crescent ambulance teams, said it was the worst assault he had seen on ambulance workers: “I have never seen anything like what happened … Never in all my years have I seen this many health workers and facilities targeted in this way.”

[…]

video: Under attack: how medics died trying to help Gaza’s casualties | World news | guardian.co.uk.

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More coverage and video reports: Gaza war crimes investigation | World news | guardian.co.uk

Cut to pieces: the Palestinian family drinking tea in their courtyard

Palestinian brothers: Israel used us as human shields in Gaza war

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Propaganda Alert

Israeli army discounts soldiers’ stories of Gaza misconduct | JTA – Jewish & Israel News

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Focus on Gaza: White Phosphorous

Terror in the Holy Land + Israeli T-shirts mock Gaza killings

IDF killed civilians in Gaza under lax rules of engagement

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

NATO’s Sixty Year Legacy: Threat Of Nuclear War In Europe by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
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Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/38340
March 31, 2009

Since its birth the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has envisioned the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations.

One of the fundamental purposes for the creation of NATO in 1949 was to introduce the permanent stationing of nuclear weapons in Europe.

In a Europe that, in 1949, had no nuclear nation and no atomic bombs of its own.

Whether the United States after the devastating display of its new weapon over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 deployed atomic bombs in Europe prior to 1949 will perhaps never be revealed, though reports claim that in 1948 Washington endorsed the deployment in Great Britain of B-29 strategic bombers capable of carrying bombs with nuclear warheads.

What is certain is that after the founding of NATO on April 4, 1949 US nuclear weapons were stationed in several member countries and that several hundred remain on the continent to this day.

Geithner’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’: The Entire Global Financial System is at Risk by F. William Engdahl

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by F. William Engdahl
Global Research, March 30, 2009

When the Solution to the Financial Crisis becomes the Cause

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has unveiled his long-awaited plan to put the US banking system back in order. In doing so, he has refused to tell the ‘dirty little secret’ of the present financial crisis. By refusing to do so, he is trying to save de facto bankrupt US banks that threaten to bring the entire global system down in a new more devastating phase of wealth destruction.

The Geithner Plan, his so-called Public-Private Partnership Investment Program or PPPIP, as we have noted previously is designed not to restore a healthy lending system which would funnel credit to business and consumers. Rather it is yet another intricate scheme to pour even more hundreds of billions directly to the leading banks and Wall Street firms responsible for the current mess in world credit markets without demanding they change their business model. Yet, one might say, won’t this eventually help the problem by getting the banks back to health?

Geithner’s Oligarchs + G20 – Make or Break?

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TheRealNews

Engdahl: Obama must confront the oligarchical power of Wall Street to solve crisis

Obama’s Attack on the Middle Class By Paul Craig Roberts

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By Paul Craig Roberts
March 30, 2009 “Information Clearing House”

Obama and his public relations team have made it appear that his trillion dollars in higher taxes will fall only on “the rich.” Obama stresses that his tax increase is only for the richest 5 percent of Americans while the other 95 percent receive a tax cut.

The fact of the matter is that the income differences within the top
5% are far wider than the differences between the lower tax brackets and the “rich” American in the 96th percentile.

For Obama, being “rich” begins with $250,000 in annual income, the bottom rung of the top 5 percent. Compare this “rich” income to that of, for example, Hank Paulson, President George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary when he was the head of Goldman Sachs.

In 2005 Paulson was paid $38.3 million in salary, stock and options. That is 153 times the annual income of the “rich” $250,000 person.

Despite his massive income, Paulson himself was not among the super rich of that year, when a dozen hedge fund operators made $1,000 million. The hedge fund honchos incomes were 26 times greater than Paulson’s and 4,000 times greater than the “rich” man’s or family’s $250,000.

For most Americans, a $250,000 income would be a godsend, but envy can make us blind. A $250,000 income is not one that will support a rich lifestyle. Moreover, many people prefer lesser incomes to the years of education, long work hours and stress of personal liability that are associated with many $250,000 incomes. In truth, those with $250,000 gross incomes have more in common with those at the lower end of the income distribution than with the rich. A $250,000 income is ten times greater than a $25,000 income, not hundreds or thousands of times greater. On an after-tax basis, the difference shrinks to about
6 times.

It’s a bird…It’s a plane…No, it’s Spitzer to the Rescue By Mike Whitney

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By Mike Whitney
March 30, 2009 “Information Clearing House”

If Obama is serious about restoring confidence in the markets, he should replace current SEC chief Mary Schapiro with Eliot Spitzer. That would send a message to the world that the president is through messing around. Schapiro is another Wall Street toady who believes that the markets can regulate themselves. As the head of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, she stood by while the financial giants increased their leverage to unsustainable levels and spread their derivatives-contagion to every part of the system. Schapiro also missed the Madoff scandal, the auction-rate bond fraud, the blow up at Lehman Brothers, and the mortgage meltdown. She was blindsided at every turn. Her dismal performance as a private-sector regulator proves that she’s the wrong person for the job. Even the far-right Wall Street Journal has lambasted Schapiro. In an article titled “Obama’s pick to head SEC has record of being a Regulator with a Light Touch” the WSJ relays this revealing anecdote:

“The Financial Services Institute, a trade group, was meeting, and Ms. Schapiro addressed the crowd about Finra’s efforts to fight frauds aimed at senior citizens. Frank Congemi, a financial adviser, asked what Finra was doing to regulate “packaged products” such as complex mortgage securities. Mr. Congemi says that Ms. Schapiro replied: “We have rating agencies that rate them.” The credit-rating agencies, by this time, were being heavily criticized for having given triple-A ratings to mortgage bonds that became unsalable as foreclosures rose.

Mr. Congemi says that at the May 7 meeting he retorted: “What is that going to do to markets and people’s trust when these things go to zero?” He says Ms. Schapiro replied that she couldn’t answer hypothetical questions.” (Wall Street Journal, Obama’s pick to head SEC has record of being a Regulator with a Light Touch”)

This story sums up Schapiro’s laissez faire attitude perfectly; plenty of posturing and rhetoric with zero enforcement, another empty gourd.  She’s doomed to follow in the footsteps of her feckless predecessor, Christopher Cox, who stuck his head in the sand while the 5 biggest investment banks levered up to 30 to 1 and brought the whole global house of cards crashing to earth. Schapiro will undoubtedly torpedo any effort to police the markets or to bring charges against any of the Wall Street Godfathers.

And what is the SEC up to now? Where are the regulators and what steps have been taken to clean up Wall Street?

Michael Hudson: The Way We Were and What We Are Becoming

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Bonnie Faulkner
Guns and Butter
http://www.kpfa.org
March 4, 2009

“The Way We Were and What We Are Becoming” with financial economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson.  We begin with an analysis of the continuing bailout of insurance giant AIG and Monday’s stock market selloff; price and debt deflation; the two sectors of the economy; two definitions of ‘free markets’; the classical economists; revolution from the right and the former Soviet states; the threat of war; IMF/World Bank resurgence; the dollar versus the euro; analogies to Rome, neo-feudalism.

Listen: http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/48892

Download this clip (mp3, 10.28 megabytes)

see

Economic Meltdown: The “Dollar Glut” is What Finances America’s Global Military Build-up by Prof. Michael Hudson

How the Scam Works by Michael Hudson

A Farm for the Future (must-see)

The Real AIG Conspiracy by Prof. Michael Hudson

Credit As A Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis by Richard C. Cook (videos)

Orwellian Doublethink: “Nationalize the banks.” “Free Markets.” by Prof. Michael Hudson

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

Economic Meltdown: The “Dollar Glut” is What Finances America’s Global Military Build-up by Prof. Michael Hudson

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by Prof. Michael Hudson
Global Research, March 29, 2009

I am traveling in Europe for three weeks to discuss the global financial crisis with government officials, politicians and labor leaders. What is most remarkable is how differently the financial problem is perceived over here. It’s like being in another economic universe, not just another continent.

The U.S. media are silent about the most important topic policy makers are discussing here (and I suspect in Asia too): how to protect their countries from three inter-related dynamics: (1) the surplus dollars pouring into the rest of the world for yet further financial speculation and corporate takeovers; (2) the fact that central banks are obliged to recycle these dollar inflows to buy U.S. Treasury bonds to finance the federal U.S. budget deficit; and most important (but most suppressed in the U.S. media, (3) the military character of the U.S. payments deficit and the domestic federal budget deficit.

5 Years by Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan for Congress

by Cindy Sheehan
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Featured Writer
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
March 31, 2009

This Saturday on April 04th, my son Casey (and at least 11 other Americans and hundreds of Iraqis) will have been dead for five years. Casey, a humvee mechanic, was killed on 04/04/04 in Sadr City, Baghdad in combat after he had been there for only five days.

Five years have passed in the blink of an eye, and besides missing Casey so much our lives have changed about as dramatically as they could have, as has life of our country.

We just passed the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq with very tepid opposition and President “Change You Can Believe In” is following the path in the Middle East that was blazed by his predecessor, George Bush. Obama’s surge in Afghanistan and on the Afghan/Pakistan border guaran-damn-tees that there will be many more “Caseys” and the people of Afghanistan should not be made subject to more “help” from The Empire.

Bankrupting the world By Jerry Mazza

By Jerry Mazza
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Online Journal
www.jerrymazza.com
March 31, 2009

The so-called Public Private Partnership Investment Program (PPPIP) introduced last Monday, by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner not only stands to bankrupt America but the global financial system as well. This is the worst yet of the bailouts, a swindle if ever there was one, which will cause President Obama’s approval rating to plummet. In fact, count me among those coming to the president’s aid. I really don’t think he understands what this means.

Consider Geithner as the face, the voice though not the brain, for this program which advocates turning over the keys to the banking system to a bunch of hedge fund sharks, and all at taxpayer’s expense. The cost could more likely end up being $6 trillion than the $1 trillion in starter money. In fact, it’s more likely that the dastardly plan was launched like a missile from jolly old London, which is in line to lose big if their offshore hedge fund empire is shut down.