Univision Promoting War With Iran?

Source: RT

Description: In Univision documentary it is being alleged that Iran, Venezuela and Cuba are joining forces to plan attacks on the United States. According to the documentary the three countries are meeting in Mexico to plan terrorist attacks greater than 9/11 on the US. Some right-wing US lawmakers are taking these allegations seriously, or is it all propaganda? Jamal Abdi, policy director of the National Iranian American Council, joins us to sort through the evidence.

Editor's Note: Univision's war propaganda piece is a throw back to a similar absurdity titled, "Iranium" and featured the same gaggle of corporate-fascist puppet politicians that foisted the fraudulent "War on Terror" onto the American public.

If Americans are truly worried about state-sponsors of terrorism, they need look no further than their own US State Department who is currently helping relocate Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) in Iraq - a US State Department listed terrorist organization responsible for the death of both US troops and civilians, as well as a decades spanning campaign of terror against the people of Iran. Similar affiliations can be found throughout the US government including John McCain's consorting with Libyan terrorists on record having killed US troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Israel-US Largest-ever Missile Defense War Games

Source: Global Research
Yaakov Katz

US Navy commander in Israel to finalize missile drill  

Israel, US to hold largest ever missile defense exercise this spring; thousands of US soldiers will be deployed in Israel. Talkbacks (100) Israel is moving forward with plans to hold the largest-ever missile defense exercise in its history this spring amid Iranian efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. 

Last week, Lt.-Gen. Frank Gorenc, commander of the US’s Third Air Force based in Germany, visited Israel to finalize plans for the upcoming drill, expected to see the deployment of several thousand American soldiers in Israel. 

The drill, which is unprecedented in its size, will include the establishment of US command posts in Israel and IDF command posts at EUCOM headquarters in Germany – with the ultimate goal of establishing joint task forces in the event of a large-scale conflict in the Middle East. 

The US will also bring its THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) and shipbased Aegis ballistic missile defense systems to Israel to simulate the interception of missile salvos against Israel. 

The American systems will work in conjunction with Israel’s missile defense systems – the Arrow, Patriot and Iron Dome. 

Gorenc came to Israel for talks with Brig.-Gen. Doron Gavish, commander of the Air Force’s Air Defense Division. 

He toured one of the Iron Dome batteries in the South and the Israel Test Bed lab in Holon where the IAF holds its interception simulation exercises. 

The IAF is planning to deploy a fourth battery of the Iron Dome counter-rocket system in the coming months and is mulling the possibility of stationing it in Haifa to protect oil refineries located there. 

The Defense Ministry has allocated a budget to manufacture an additional three Iron Dome batteries by the end of 2012. IAF operational requirements call for the deployment of about a dozen batteries along Israel’s northern and southern borders.

The IAF is also moving forward with plans to deploy Rafael’s David’s Sling missile defense system, which is designed to defend against medium-range rockets and cruise missiles. Rafael recently completed a series of successful navigation and flight tests of the David’s Sling’s interceptor and plans to hold the first interception test by mid-2012.

Who Leads The Attack On Ron Paul?

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

Those with the most to lose: Warmongering corporate fascists.  

From the remorseless liars that brought America into the Iraq War, have kept the US mired in Afghanistan for now over a decade, oversaw the genocide in Libya wrought by NATO-backed Al Qaeda terrorists, and are attempting to incite war with both Syria and Iran, comes a frothing, if not entirely elementary attack against one of the few obstacles that stands in their way of perpetual war fought at America's expense but for their personal gain. That obstacle is Ron Paul and the Constitutional reawakening he has spurred.

Leading the charge is a slightly misfitting addition to the Neo-Conservative corporate-fascist propaganda machine, openly-homosexual warmongering "libertarian" James Kirchick. While Kirchick's sexual orientation really is a matter of his own personal business, the necessity of him making it a public issue and the fact that those he works for have used anti-homosexual rhetoric to manipulate the American political landscape for decades is already a display of undermining and astounding hypocrisy.

Photo: James Kirchick, of the Neo-Con corporate-fascist "Foundation for the Defense of Democracies" leads the attack on Ron Paul. Having previously worked for the US State Department funded Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL), he is no stranger to peddling propaganda.  

Kirchick's argument is based on the same tired, already addressed "newsletter" published in Ron Paul's name decades ago, and despite none of the articles cited by Kirchick actually even being written by Ron Paul, he still enjoys preceding each accusation with, "He says..." Kirchick's servile obedience to the Neo-Con agenda, which has cultivated and is directing Ron Paul's competition - Cain, Romney, Perry, and Gingrich - is fairly obvious to detect. However, it is now a matter of record that Kirchick literally sits, as a "fellow" within a Neo-Con corporate and US State Department-funded think-tank, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD).

The FDD features as its "executive team," the likes of James Woolsey and Clifford May while its "leadership council" includes Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Max Kampelman, Bill Kristol, and Senator Joseph Lieberman. Richard Perle, Eric Cantor, Gary Bauer, and Charles Krauthammer sit on the FDD's "board of advisors," while Reuel Marc Gerecht, Bill Roggio, and James Kirchick himself sit as FDD "fellows." Truly exemplary of everything that is wrong with America, and everything Ron Paul and the ideals he promotes aim at fixing, the FDD is a weed that needs to be pulled from America's political landscape. (For further reading regarding these names, please see "NED & Freedom House are run by Warmongering Imperialists," "Neo-Cons for Human Rights?" and to see a good example of FDD's contrived propaganda exposed and in action, "Neo-Con Infomercial: Iranium.")

Of course, despite a "Democratic" president sitting in the White House, America's foreign and domestic policy has been drawn up and carried out by corporate-fascists who hold sway over both sides of America's political aisle. "Obama's" military adventure in Libya, for instance, was not only supported by what Americans might call "Neo-Conservatives," but the war itself was drawn up by them in the first place. This indicates an overarching agenda that transcends presidencies and the perceived political ideologies they supposedly adhere to. The necessity then, to keep puppets like Bush or Obama in place is realized, as any truly independent, principled president would expose and disrupt this long running charade.

NATO's Al Qaeda Goes To Syria

Source: Voltairenet.org
Thierry Meyssan

Free Syrian Army commanded by Military Governor of Tripoli

In the wake of the "Arab Spring" and NATO interventions, both official and secret, Qatar seeks to impose Islamist leaders wherever possible. This strategy has led it not only to fund the Muslim Brotherhood and to hand Al-Jazeera over to them, but also to support Al Qaeda mercenaries, who will henceforth oversee the Free Syrian Army. However, this new scenario raises serious concerns in Israel and among the supporters of the "clash of civilizations."

The UN Security Council members are at loggerheads over the interpretation of the events that are rocking Syria. On one hand, France, the United Kingdom and the United States claim that a revolution has swept the country, in the aftermath of the "Arab Spring", and suffering a bloody crackdown. On the other hand, Russia’s and China’s take is that Syria is having to cope with armed gangs from abroad, which it is fighting awkwardly thereby causing collateral victims among the civilian population it seeks to protect.

The on-the-spot investigation undertaken by Voltaire Network validated the latter interpretation [1]. We have collected eyewitness testimonies from those who survived an armed attack by a foreign gangs. They describe them as being Iraqis, Jordanians or Libyans, recognizable by their accent, as well as Pashtun.

In recent months, a certain number of Arab newspapers, favorable to the Al-Assad administration, discussed the infiltration into Syria of 600 to 1,500 fighters from the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya (IFGL), rebranded Al Qaeda in Libya since November 2007. In late November 2011, the Libyan press reported the attempt by the Zintan militia to detain Abdel Hakim Belhaj, companion of Osama Bin Laden [2] and historic leader of Al Qaeda in Libya, who became military governor of Tripoli by the grace of NATO [3]. The scene took place at Tripoli airport, as he was leaving for Turkey. Finally, Turkish newspapers mentioned Mr. Belhaj’s presence at the Turkish-Syrian.

Such reports have been met with disbelief on the part of all those who regard Al Qaeda and NATO are irreconcilable enemies between whom no cooperation is possible. Instead, they reinforce the thesis which I have defended since the attacks of September 11, 2001, that Al Qaeda fighters are mercenaries of the service of the CIA [4].

North Korea: The Broad Geopolitical Implications of the Death of Kim Jong-il

Source: Global Research
Stephen Gowans
 

There are a few facts to keep in mind to understand what’s going on in the wake of the death this week of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

#1. US foreign policy vis-a-vis North Korea has always sought to force the latter’s collapse to pave the way for its absorption into the US-dominated South [1] — and did so well before Pyongyang began to work on nuclear weapons. US hostility toward North Korea has never been about nuclear weapons. On the contrary, North Korea’s nuclear weapons are a consequence of US hostility. US hostility, now in its seventh decade, is about what it has always been about: putting an end to what Washington mistakenly calls North Korea’s Marxist-Leninist system (Marxism-Leninism has been replaced by Juche ideology—a home-grown doctrine of self-reliance), its non-market system, and its self-directed economic development [2]. None of these offer much latitude for US profit-making at North Korea’s expense, and hence are singled out for demolition.

#2. North Korea only began to seek nuclear weapons after the United States announced in 1993 that it was retargeting some of its strategic nuclear missiles from the former Soviet Union to North Korea. Since then the country has only been able to develop its nuclear capability to a kindergarten level. [3] The plutonium devices it tested in 2006 and 2009 produced only one-tenth the power of the Hiroshima blast. There is no evidence it has miniaturized a warhead to fit atop a missile. And its missile program is plagued by problems. [4]

#3. North Korea is a military pipsqueak, whose personnel are deployed in large numbers to agriculture. The military budgets and weapons’ sophistication of its adversaries, the United States, South Korea and Japan, tower over its own. If the Pentagon’s budget is represented by the 6’ 9” basketball player Magic Johnson, North Korea’s military budget is 1”, about the height of a small mouse. South Korea’s is 4.5” and Japan’s 3.9”, multiple times larger than the North’s. [5]

#4. North Korea has no more military heft to mount a provocation against the United States than a mouse has to beat Magic Johnson on the basketball court. Nor has it the capability to wage a civil war against its southern compatriots and expect to win. North Korea is not an aggressive threat. “In the Obama analysis,” writes New York Times reporter David Sanger, “the North is receding into what the president’s top strategists have repeatedly called a ‘defensive crouch,’ trying to stave off the world with a barrage of missile and nuclear tests…Constantly on the brink of starvation, its military so broke that it cannot train its pilots, it has no illusions about becoming a great power in Asia. Its main goal is survival.” [6]

Frito-Lay Sued For Labeling its GMO-Filled Snacks As "All Natural"

Source: Food Freedom
Rady Ananda

Less than a year after Frito-Lay announced plans to make half their products without “any artificial or synthetic ingredients,” the $13 billion company was sued last week in federal court for fraudulently marketing the snacks that contain genetically modified ingredients.

Somehow, “artificial” and “synthetic” doesn’t include “genetically modified” in Frito’s mind.

In its April 2011 “Seed-to-Shelf” disclosure campaign, Frito-Lay promised to inform consumers about each individual snack’s ingredients, even setting up an app for smartphone users to swipe the product’s barcode and read about it. Ann Mukherjee, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, gushed:

“What better way to share the story behind Frito-Lay snacks than by giving consumers a look inside our Flavor Kitchen to see first-hand the all natural ingredients and real foods that inspire the products we make?”

Real foods?  All natural?  Even Monsanto defines genetically modified organisms as unnatural, which the lawsuit quoted:

“Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) – Plants or animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs.”

The World Health Organization agrees, defining GMOs as “organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.”

The lawsuit names only one plaintiff, Julie Gengo of Richmond, California, but includes all those who purchased Frito’s products which bear the “ALL NATURAL” label.  Last August, the law firm Milberg LLP invited potential litigants to contact them.

Though Gengo holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, she earns a living as an independent marketer for such organizations as Berkeley Playhouse/Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Vital Systems, Bay Area Green Tours, Oxfam America and Slow Money Northern California. She describes herself as “an ongoing environmental, and healthy foods advocate.”

In early 2009, she wrote Genetically Modified (GM) Foods – Another Reason to Buy Organic, warning people that Frito-Lay uses GMOs.  According to the complaint, since 2007, she regularly bought the company’s Tostitos and Sun Chips believing they were “all natural” as indicated in advertising and on the package.