Army Officer Says it's Time to Stop Lying about 'Progress' in Afghanistan

Source: Natural News

It doesn't happen often, but when it does, it's refreshing and extremely worthy of praise: A ranking military member with credibility, who has much to lose by speaking out, steps forward to tell some hard truths about what's really going on in a war that has become the nation's longest in history.

He may not think of himself as one, but Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis is a hero in the eyes of many, because he has the intestinal fortitude to tell the American people what our senior military and civilian leaders have chosen to ignore - namely, that the words "progress" and "Afghanistan," in a military sense, don't belong in the same sentence.

Davis, a four-combat-tour veteran who has offered up a better strategy for Afghanistan in the past, says in a recently published assessment of his latest tour in 2011 that, after more than a decade of war, he "witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level" in the U.S. and NATO effort to beat back the Taliban-led insurgency and develop even basic-level governmental services for the people.

10 Most Influential People in Alternative Media (2011)

Source: Activist Post

Many readers will expect to see Matt Drudge or Arianna Huffington on this list.  Although they both indeed have leading Internet news websites that cover some fringe stories and report on systematic injustices more so than the mainstream media, they primarily aggregate mainline news.  Therefore, they are excluded from our "alternative media" label.

The criteria we've chosen to base these rankings of the most influential alternative media figures are the following;

• people that have the courage to seek the truth no matter where the information leads them; 
• those with the courage to question 9/11; 
• those who don't buy into the false left-right political paradigm;
• those who are grounded in peace and liberty;
• those with the communication skills and platform to affect real change.

Significantly, each of the people who made our list is clearly driven by unyielding passion. Despite some natural disagreements, they each provide a unique bridge to forbidden knowledge and they all deserve high praise for their efforts and commitment to inform the public. Sincerely, it is very encouraging to have so many talented voices leading the stampede for truth, liberty, justice, and peace.

ACTA: The Corporate Usurpation of the Internet

Source: NileBowie

In the wake of a public outcry against internet regulation bills such as SOPA and PIPA, representatives of the EU have signed a new and far more threatening legislation yesterday in Tokyo. Spearheaded by the governments of the United States and Japan and constructed largely in the absence of public awareness, the measures of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) dramatically alter current international legal framework, while introducing the first substantial processes of global internet governance. With complete contempt towards the democratic process, the negotiations of the treaty were exclusively held between industry representatives and government officials, while excluding elected representatives and members of the press from their hearings. 

Under the guise of protecting intellectual property rights, the treaty introduces measures that would allow the private sector to enforce sweeping central authority over internet content. The ACTA abolishes all legal oversight involving the removal of content and allows copyright holders to force ISPs to remove material from the internet, something that presently requires a court order. ISPs would then be faced with legal liabilities if they chose not to remove content. Theoretically, personal blogs can be removed for using company logos without permission or simply linking to copy written material; users could be criminalized, barred from accessing the internet and even imprisoned for sharing copyrighted material. Ultimately, these implications would be starkly detrimental toward the internet as a medium for free speech.

US-Funded Tunisian President Prepares to Withdraw Recognition of Syrian Government

Source: Land Destroyer Report
Tony Cartalucci

Reuters reported, "Tunisia "to withdraw recognition" of Syria government," and specifically that newly appointed Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki made the announcement on his Facebook page. Reuters also notes "Tunisia's decision to sever ties with Damascus carries moral weight because the north African country's revolution last year started off the "Arab Spring" upheavals which later spread throughout the Middle East, including to Syria." What Reuters of course fails to mention is that the "Arab Spring" was engineered years in advance, planned, funded, and directed by the US State Department, with Moncef Marzouki a direct recipient on record of such support which ultimately paved his way from obscurity to now president of the North African nation.

The US Put Moncef Marzouki of Tunisia into Power

Last December, the BBC hailed Tunisia's assembly and their election of a new president in their article, "Tunisian activist, Moncef Marzouki, named president." What the BBC predictably failed to mention was that Marzouki's organization, the Tunisian League for Human Rights, was a US National Endowment for Democracy and George Soros Open Society-funded International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) member organization.

Photo: Tunisia's new "president," Moncef Marzouki, a veteran Western collaborator whose last two decades of political activity have been supported and subsidized by the US government and US corporate-financier funded foundations. 

It was earlier reported in "Soros Celebrates the Fall of Tunisia," that Marzouki was named "interim-president" of Tunisia and that the myriad of NGOs and opposition organizations that worked with him to overthrow the government of Tunisia were fully subsidized and backed by the US government and US corporate-funded foundations.

US Presidential Candidates Owned by Corporations

Source: RT


The United States Supreme court's passing of Citizens United has changed the political game. Citizens United allows corporations to pump endless quantities of money into political campaigns and prohibiting any American from doing so would be an obstruction of the first amendment. Chris Hedges, columnist with Truth Dig, tells us why he thinks voting is a dying practice.

Empire, Power and People with Andrew Gavin Marshall - Episode 5

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
Andrew Gavin Marshall

Fiscal Austerity or Social Genocide?

 

In light of the current global economic crisis, there is a question that should be asked and discussed in regards to what our leaders are telling us is required to solve the crisis: what is fiscal austerity? We are told that “fiscal austerity” measures are required to create economic growth and prosperity, that there will be pain for a while, but it’s all for the ‘greater good’ of the economy. This episode breaks down these measures into what the specific policies of “austerity” are, what justifications are given for each one, and what the actual effect upon the population each measure has. Through this analysis, it becomes clear that when we are told, “fiscal austerity”, we should hear, “social genocide.”

NATO: Murdering Afghan Civilians

Source: The Nation

The UN mission in Afghanistan has reported that a record number of civilians were killed in the war-torn, foreign-occupied country in 2011, marking the fifth consecutive year the death toll has risen. 

In its annual report, the mission revealed that 3,021 civilians were killed in 2011, up eight percent from 2010. 

The report differed from the assessment of NATO forces that the year was “remarkably successful.”

It is expected that NATO would try to sell it as such, for it is preparing to withdraw combat troops from the region and hand over responsibility for security to the Afghan government. 

The first question, raised even by the UN report, is who is doing the killing. The report blames the Taliban for 450 deaths. However, though the report acknowledges that the International Security Assistance Force has been responsible for civilian deaths, it does its best to defend them, stating that it has reduced the number of deaths over the last two years. Most of the deaths attributed to NATO were due to air attacks – as widely reported – over even weddings and funerals. These deaths have provoked even the propped-up regime in Kabul to protest.

The report noted that the geographic distribution of casualties had shifted, as the conflict lessened in intensity in the south and increased in the southeast, east and north. This also showed that the resistance to foreign occupation has spread all over the country. 

It is unfortunate that the only sources of information about casualties, civilian and military alike, are the US and the UN. It is therefore of significance that Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Pakistan has not asked the USA to apologise for the Salalah incident, in which 26 Pakistani soldiers lost their lives. 

Though the UN has been forced to report NATO excesses against Afghan civilians, Pakistan’s rulers seem to have learnt nothing, and are working to restore NATO supply lines through Pakistan.

Iranian Hostage Crisis: Reloaded

Source: Activist Post
Jack Mullen

Without Osama Bin Laden to play the role of Orwell’s 1984 elusive bad guy, Emanuel Goldstein, the New World Order master controllers have elevated “bad country” Iran to the position of most feared enemy. 

Iran and North Korea are special nations reserved for global theatre operations, carried out by global masters and their intelligence mafias, to be bogeyman; scaring and scapegoating false flag events, supporting a global agenda. Iran was used previously in a false flag hostage situation for the purpose of putting religious fanatic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in control of Iran, and ensuring Ronald Reagan -- and, more importantly, his Vice President, George Herbert Walker Bush, -- would defeat incumbent Jimmy Carter in the 1982 Presidential election. The 1982 false flag event was called the "Iran Hostage Crisis." 

In 2012, Iran is again holding hostages; this time Israel and Western nations including the United States, but it is called the “Iranian Nuclear Crisis” -- where Israel and the West are held hostage to the fiction that Iran is building nuclear weapons to bomb Israel and the West. In this “reloaded” version of the hostage crisis, the false flag event will be used to bolster support for the failing presidency of Obama and to commit sovereign nation suicide as Iran and its resources are transferred to the globalists hoping to usher in a New World Government. 

Additionally, if possible, Iran may actually retaliate against their global masters and cause World War III, something that would also fit the agenda of the New World Puppeteers.  

Syria: White House Preaches Peace as Pentagon Prepares for War

Source: RT

The White House is saying “no” to arming opposition and other military involvement in the Syrian conflict – for the moment. Pentagon and US Central Command launched a review of US military capabilities in case that “no” turns a “yes.”

­The backdoor for military action was ajar with State Department, spokesman Victoria Nuland saying that US never takes any option off the table, even though they “don't think more arms into Syria is the answer." It appears the Pentagon has a similar view, as it has reportedly launched a full-scale review of its available military might.

Two senior administration officials told CNN that “options are being prepared in the event President Barack Obama was to call for them.” Support for opposition groups and outright military strikes are among the options being looked at.

This type of planning exercise is typical for the Pentagon, which would not want to be in the position of not having options for the president, if and when they are asked for, both officials told CNN. One of them called the effort a “scoping exercise,” with Pentagon looking into what capabilities are available given other US military commitments in the region.

Is U.S.-China Collision Inevitable?

Source: Daily Times
S P Seth

As part of a new resolve to play a more assertive role, the US has reinforced and strengthened its strategic ties with Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Australia and Japan.

It is pertinent to remember that wars have often been caused by miscalculation rather than deliberation. And this is even more so when an emerging power is staking its claims impinging on the existing superpower’s perceived interests and/or seen to be threatening its regional allies. This is how the two World Wars started.

Even as Iran has come centre-stage of another likely military conflict in the Middle East with the US and its western allies determined to force it to forgo its nuclear programme, the Asia-Pacific region is emerging as another potential trouble spot pitting China against the US. With the US now disengaged from Iraq, and in the process of military withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, it has dawned on Washington that China has strengthened its role in the Asia-Pacific and is slowly, but steadily, working to push it out of the region. China regards the Asia-Pacific as its strategic space and the US as an external power. The US has decided to hit back by declaring that it is not going anywhere and, indeed, will beef up its military presence in the region. Straddling both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, the US considers itself a legitimate Pacific country.