The Struggle For Syria: Syrians Sacrificed On Alter of US Imperialism

Source: Al Jazeera
Joseph Massad

As the uprising proceeded in Tunisia last December and January and as it picked up in Egypt in January and February, developments seemed clear. Despite attempts to suppress the press, much of the news of what was unfolding reached national and international audiences immediately. The situation changed dramatically when the uprisings began in Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. While a quasi news blackout suppressed coverage of the ongoing popular revolt and its violent suppression in Bahrain by Bahraini and Saudi forces (and only intermittent coverage of Oman was allowed), we continued to get important updates from Yemen. It was in Libya where the lies and propaganda started from the first week of the revolt. It was there that international forces, extending from the Gulf to Europe to the US, took charge of propagandising against Gaddafi (that he used his forces to strafe demonstrators, that his forces received Viagra and raped hundreds of women, that he used “African” mercenaries against his own people, that he was preparing to use chemical weapons against his people, that he had already killed 50,000 Libyans, etc. – all proved to be lies that international observers and agencies finally exposed as baseless fabrications) and ultimately of overthrowing Gaddafi’s dictatorship under the guise of the popular uprising led by NATO forces who actually bombed and killed hundreds of Libyan civilians.

We have seen similar developments on the Syrian scene with much propaganda by the regime and its international enemies who also began to speak for the popular revolt, whether in the Gulf-controlled press and satellite television stations, or by the Western media, and the Western “representatives” of the Syrian demonstrators.

In the cases of Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen (not to mention Morocco, Jordan, Oman, and Saudi Arabia where less massive but substantial demonstrations have continued for months), the Arab League, under US instructions, made no move to intervene at all, while in the cases of Syria and Libya, following US instructions, the League moved swiftly. This is not the first time that the League moves against a member state to facilitate foreign invasions. The dress rehearsal for this was the Iraq situation in 1990/1991, when the Arab League (like the United Nations following the fall of the Soviet Union) became another arm of US imperial power. It was then that the League joined forces with US and European powers to invade the Gulf, which was the first step in legitimising the second American invasion in 2003 to unseat Saddam Hussein. Saddam was a brutal dictator that the US and France helped sponsor in the 1980s and who did their bidding when he invaded Iran, an invasion that led to the death of one million Iranians and four hundred thousand Iraqis. But Saddam was not fully obedient to imperial will and retained a measure of independence from US imperialism despite his valuable services to it. At the time, many cautioned the so-called Iraqi opposition in exile, which called for the invasion, that the US invasion would result in an imposition of a regime that is at least as bad as Saddam if not worse. The loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives and the total destruction of the country, the massive current repression and corruption of the American-installed regime, one would think, should be a cautionary tale to any Arab who seeks US help in overthrowing Arab dictators.

But if the story of Iraq is ignored, could anyone ignore the calamity that is hitting Libya as we speak under the guise of the new NATO-led government, and the first dose of violence and repression this government has unleashed on the Libyan people in the name of NATO democracy (more doses are in store of course)? Did the Libyan people revolt against the brutal dictatorship of Gaddafi to replace it with NATO-sponsored pillage and repression?

Corbett Report Radio - The Grand Chessboard with Michael Vail

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Tonight we talk to Michael Vail of StratRisks.com, a website examining the geopolitics behind the headlines of the mainstream media. We discuss the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ramp-up to war in Iran and the collapse of the Eurozone. We also take your calls.

Works Cited:

Why China is setting up military bases in PoK – Analysis
Link To:	stratrisks.com

Clinton Says U.S. Turning East As Asia-Pacific Region Becomes World’s ‘Center Of Gravity’
Link To:	stratrisks.com

Pentagon planning Cold War against China
Link To:	stratrisks.com

Intel Source: Israel Behind Deadly Explosion at Iran Missile Base
Link To:	stratrisks.com

New Reports Link N. Korean, Iranian Nuclear Programs
Link To:	stratrisks.com

CIA operations in Iran underway to take out Tehran bigs in mission to dismantle weapons program
Link To:	stratrisks.com

Big Media's Double Standards on Iran

Source: ConsortiumNews.com
Robert Parry

The mainstream U.S. press corps is again pounding the propaganda war drums, this time over dubious accusations of Iran’s secret work on a nuclear bomb. It is a pattern of bias that Robert Parry calls the U.S. media’s worst — and most dangerous – ethical violation.

Arguably, the most serious ethical crisis in U.S. journalism is the deep-seated bias about the Middle East that is displayed by major American news outlets, particularly the Washington Post and the New York Times.

When it comes to reporting on “designated enemies” in the Muslim world, the Post and the Times routinely jettison all sense of objectivity even when the stakes are as serious as war and peace, life and death. Propaganda wins out over balanced journalism.

We have seen this pattern with Iraq and its non-existent stockpiles of WMD; with the rush to judgment about Syria’s supposed guilt in the killing of Lebanese leader Rafik Hariri; with the false certainty about Libya’s role in the Lockerbie bombing; and many other examples of what everyone just “knows to be true” but often turns out isn’t. [For more on these cases, click here.]

The latest example of this ethical failing relates to reporting about Iran on such topics as the buffoonish plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and a new set of dubious allegations about Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

In these cases, U.S. mainstream news media happily marshals sources with histories of credibility problems; treats implausible scenarios with utmost respect; jettisons crucial context; and transforms the grays of ambiguity into black-and-white morality tales of good versus evil.

Then, behind these war drums of the U.S. press corps, the American people are marched toward confrontation and violence, while anyone who dares question the perceived wisdom of the Post, the Times and many other esteemed outlets is fair game for marginalization and ridicule.

An example of this propaganda passing as journalism has been the recent writings of Joby Warrick of the Washington Post about a vague but alarmist report produced by the new leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

On Monday, the Post put on its front page a story about Russian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko, a leading expert in the formation of nanodiamonds who spent several years assisting Iranians develop a domestic industry in these micro-diamonds that have many commercial uses.

But Warrick’s story is fraught with spooky shadows and scary music that suggest Danilenko is really part of an ongoing drive by Iranian authorities to overcome technological obstacles for a nuclear bomb. Just like in that spy thriller “Sum of All Fears,” a greedy ex-Soviet nuclear scientist is helping to build a rogue nuclear bomb.

China, the U.S. and The Next Cold War

Source: Corbett Report  and Global Research
James Corbett


TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

President Obama flew from this weekend’s APEC summit in Honolulu to Canberra, the Australian capital, to meet with Prime Minister Gillard on a range of bilateral issues. He is expected to give a speech on a “deepening of the alliance” between the two countries on Thursday, even as details begin to emerge about growing US/Australian military cooperation.

Diplomatic sources indicate that the plan for an increased American military presence in the region–including a marine task force of 2500 troops, more ships and nuclear-powered submarines, and a greater number of joint military exercises–have been conveyed to the other Asia-Pacific powers, including China.

The move comes as Secretary of State Clinton gave her own address to the APEC conference last weekend stressing that the Asia-Pacific region is becoming the world’s new “center of gravity.” Her remarks were interspersed with tough words for China regarding the valuation of its currency.

The increasing US military involvement in the region, combined with the tough talk on China’s economy, serve to highlight the growing turbulence in the region exemplified by China’s own increasing military presence in the South China Sea.

Now, Pentagon officials are warning of the early stages of a new Cold-War style era in US-Chinese relations, with one military official telling the Washington Times that the Pentagon’s new plan, known as The Air Sea Battle concept “is to China what the maritime strategy was to the Soviet Union.”

Eighty-Nine Seconds: Why The Media Hates Ron Paul

Source: AntiWar.com
Justin Raimondo

I was really looking forward to the Republican foreign policy debate, eagerly anticipating the clash I expected between Rep. Ron Paul’s anti-interventionist views and the rest of that warmongering crowd – but I didn’t count on the filtering tactics of CBS News. The televised debate went on for an hour, but Ron only got 89 seconds to make the case for peace. 

Paul’s supporters have consistently claimed the Texas congressman is being deliberately ignored by the “mainstream” media, and the amount of noise they’ve generated about this has been the subject of more than a few self-justifying media self-analyses, which usually conclude that, no, he’s getting what he deserves. Okay, fine, that’s debatable, although I have my own opinion on the subject: what isn’t debatable, however, is Paul’s rising level of support. 

According to a recent Bloomberg poll, among Republican voters in Iowa he’s currently in a four-way dead heat, a single point behind frontrunner and serial sex maniac Herman Cain. Among likely caucus voters who have already chosen a candidate, however, Paul is way out front, at a stunning 35 percent, leading “frontrunner” Mitt Romney by ten points. In financial terms, also, Paul is clearly in the top tier: he’s raised more money in a single hour than Newt Gingrich has managed to spend at Tiffany’s in a year, and spent more in Iowa than any of the others.

The shortchanging of Paul at the debate is inexplicable, in another sense, because giving him his due would have made for some good television. The contrast between Paul’s views and the rest of the pack would have provided more than a few dramatic examples of pandering, demagoguery, and exhibitionist blood lust in response to Paul’s provocative peace-mongering. 

What we got, instead, was a decidedly non-dramatic political advertisement for the media-anointed “frontrunners” – Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and the supposedly “surging” Newt Gingrich. The lame-streamers don’t care about good television – they just want to maintain their control of the process. With the Internet cutting into their audience share, and the history of the last decade or so cutting into their credibility, the mandarins of the “mainstream” media are making their last stand on the battlefield of presidential politics. 

Media bias is ideological, to a certain extent, but it’s also about economics. Sure, they’re cheerleaders for the President, and have been ever since the Democratic primaries of 2007-08. There’s a political motive behind giving the buffoonish Rick Perry an inordinate amount of airtime, and creating a media phenomenon out of the clueless Cain, and they aren’t even bothering to hide it very well. 

Yet it’s also about what they’re selling, and I’m not just talking about the advertisements. Remember, these are for-profit enterprises, not political entities; and they’re media companies, which means their product is a narrative, a story they’re telling their audience, which is hopefully buying into it and tuning in for more.

Netanyahu Makes Unprecedented Statement to Israeli Parliament

Source: DEBKAfile

A short statement was read out to the Knesset (Israel’s parliament by cabinet member Michael Eitan Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 16. It read: “Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu informed the full Knesset plenum that all options are on the table when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. The prime minister and the authorized bodies are acting to stop the nuclear armament of Iran. The efforts are ongoing and we will do everything possible to enlist states in the international community, “he continued “because the Iranian threat is adanger not only to the State of Israel but to world peace.”

The Knesset was due to devote a special session to the question of an attack on Iran.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this is the first statement of this nature the prime minister has ever delivered to Israel’s parliament. It was phrased notably in the present tense. “The authorized bodies” are thought to refer to the Israeli Defense Forces and its intelligence community.

Also worth noting is that Netanyahu sent a minister to read out his message. He himself absent from this key debate and so was the defense minister. For the first time too, there was no reference to sanctions which have figured hitherto in all Israeli official statements on the Iranian nuclear controversy.

The implication is that an operation against a nuclear Iran may be in the works. If so, a response from Tehran is to be expected shortly.

Earlier Wednesday, the supreme commander of Iran's armed forces Gen. Hassan Firouz-Abadi said Israel's cries of alarm about Iran's nuclear development bespeak shock and fear. But nothing will save the Zionist regime from its bitter fate – a hint at Iran's nuclear capability.

Firouz-Abadi said the massive explosion which killed Iran's missile chief Saturday "had nothing to do with Israel or America." It took place during "research on weapons that could strike Israel," adding that the blast had delayed by only two weeks the development of an undisclosed military "product."

The two statements together aroused lively speculation in the tense climate left by the latest nuclear watchdog agency's evidence of Iran's work on a nuclear weapon. Linking them might suggest that the Israeli prime minister had decided to refute the Iranian general's claim. By stating that "efforts are ongoing" to stop Iran's nuclear armament, he may have been implying that  the explosion at the Guards base Saturday was indeed a covert Israeli operation in line with those efforts.

Corbett Report Radio - Occupy Building 7

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Tonight on Corbett Report Radio we talk to Ted Walter of OccupyBuilding7.org, the latest idea from the Remember Building 7 campaign for raising awareness about WTC7, the third skyscraper to fall on 9/11. We also talk to Jamie Owens, an Australian living in Japan about the Fukushima crisis and why he continues to live in the country in the wake of the nuclear meltdowns.

Secrets Of Skull And Bones Blown Wide Open

Source: Infowars
Paul Joseph Watson

Daughter of Bonesman Charlotte Iserbyt lifts the veil on the mysterious secret society

In an exclusive Prison Planet.tv interview, Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education under Ronald Reagan, blows wide open the mystique behind the enigmatic Skull and Bones secret society, drawing on her father and grandfather’s first hand knowledge of the Yale fraternity as Bonesmen themselves to provide a revealing insight into the history of the organization.

As a former high-level education official, Iserbyt exposes how Skull and Bones was instrumental in changing education into a form of operant condition that more closely resembled animal training than real intellectual advancement, by implementing experimental psychology techniques brought over from Germany. The aim was to abolish free thinking and free will, molding each person into a “valueless cog of the state”.

She also lifts the lid on how “sensitivity training” is used to impose collectivist, Communist-style thought control, ensuring that people can be easily manipulated into forming their opinions based on group-think and that any shred of individuality or thinking that contradicts the status quo is frowned upon.

Iserbyt reveals the secret Skull and Bones member list that was supposed to remain private, and how it was connected to the effort by elites in America to build up the Soviet Union during the cold war. Iserbyt touches upon the research of Anthony Sutton to reveal how Bonesmen protected each other when they were faced with questions from the House Committee on Un-American Activities concerning their support for Communists.

Iserbyt relates how she and Sutton came to the conclusion that the men contained on the secret membership list were almost completely responsible for American foreign policy as well as education policy during the time they were in power.

Iserbyt also talks about her Skull and Bones grandfather clock which her father always ordered be set five minutes ahead of time to symbolize the fact that Bonesmen were always one step ahead of the rest of society.

'Snatch Squads' Caught On Camera At London Student Rally

Source: RiseAgainstState

A YouTube video shot during the November 9 student rally in London allegedly shows plainclothes police acting as agents provocateurs among the protesting crowds.

The video uploaded by the user "noshockdoc" shows two people who first engage in rough handling of one of the rally protesters. Then, reportedly, the same people are shown along with six others detaining someone behind a police cordon.

The media dubbed the November 9 march against tuition fees and education cuts one of the most intensively-policed events to take place in London. The force had 4,000 officers on duty on the day, and they were authorized to use rubber bullets if necessary. This was never needed, however. The Met reported that 24 arrests were made on the day.

Some of the protesters reported incidents of violence which they said had been caused by the security forces. "The police tried to provoke people to react violently, and some people had to act in self-defense against police attacks, but we all supported one another and prevented the police from causing a riot," one of the activists, identified only as 'Dan', told the Oxford University student newspaper Cherwell.

Syrian Suspense: 'Military intervention definitely on the table'

Source: Corbett Report and RT

The U.S. and its allies are more interested in regime change in Syria than a peaceful solution to the unrest – that’s according to the Kremlin. Russia’s Foreign Minister says Western countries are trying to stir-up Syria’s opposition to topple President Bashar al-Assad. Independent web journalist James Corbett thinks the Arab League suspension of Syria means the West is now much closer to achieving its goal of regime change in Damascus.

CIA Operations in Iran Underway

Source: NYDailyNews.com
Helen Kennedy
  
Explosions and assassinations at Iran nuke base pinned to Israel may have been CIA.

In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuke program.

In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.

Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander who headed Iran’s missile program. And the IRNA state news agency reported that scientists had discovered a new computer virus in their systems, a more sophisticated version of the Stuxnet worm deployed last year to foul up Iran’s centrifuges.

Iran said the army base explosion was an accident and the new Duqu virus was contained. But Israeli newspapers and some U.S. experts said it appeared to be more from an ongoing secret operation by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat.

The covert campaign encompasses a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and a similar explosion at another Iranian missile base two years ago both widely attributed to the Mossad.

“May there be more like it,” was all Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said when Army Radio asked about the new blast.

There was a third mysterious event: The son of a top Iranian hard-liner was found dead — a seeming suicide — in a Dubai hotel on Sunday. His father called it “suspicious” and linked to the base explosion, without elaborating.

Permanent US Military Presence in Australia

Source: Land Destroyer
Tony Cartalucci
Another "Obama policy" long-ago decided by corporate-fascist think-tanks. 

After months of assuring a skeptical and disgruntled Australian public that the US military would not be getting a permanent base in Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald has reported a "US Marine Base for Darwin." US President Barrack Obama is credited with the decision, one overtly declared to be in direct response to the rise of China. Despite Obama getting credit, however, one shadowy "institution" is overly ecstatic over the announcement, and while Australian Defense Minister Stephen Smith attempts to reassure the public that Australia will not have "US bases," this institution's "news blog" has already declared the decision as potentially the moment "where Australia fundamentally cast its lot in with the US," vis-a-vis China. This institution is particularly ecstatic because despite the media giving credit to Obama, it was their idea, one they've been promoting openly since at least June.

The Lowy Institution, which masquerades as an Australian think-tank, is in actuality funded and representative of the global-corporate-financier oligarchy. Described in detail in, "Globalists' Australian Nexus ," it was specifically noted as far back as June 2011 that the Lowy Institute was behind a call for establishing US military bases throughout Australia. The Australian specifically named the Lowy Institute as one of the unelected "planners" behind making "the case for US Bases." As in the recent Lowy Institute affirmation of this policy as Obama prepares to unveil their corporate-funded agenda in Darwin, Australia next Thursday, Lowy back in June also cited China and the inclusion of Australia in a more aggressive strategy being pursued by Wall Street and London to maintain their financial, economic, and strategic hegemony throughout Asia.

Gerald Celente's Gold Account Emptied by MF Global

Source: RT America

The recent bankruptcy of financial stalwart and Wall Street casino failure MF Global in the US, has claimed a new and unlikely victim. Following the company’s glorious collapse, Trends Research founder Gerald Celente had his own six figure gold investment account completely looted by chapter 11 trustees, and he is fighting to get it back.

The FED Under Fire: The Federal Reserve Is The Black Hole of American Democracy

Source: The Daily Bail

A short film by Lagan Sebert and Harry Hanbury of the American News Project featuring Ron Paul, Wlliam Greider, Dennis Kucinich, Darrell Issa and Alan Grayson. The Federal Reserve is one of the most powerful and secretive institutions in Washington, long considered beyond the reach of lawmakers. But now, as details emerge of how the Fed secretly doled out more than a trillion dollars during the financial crisis, a rare bipartisan movement in Congress demands that the Fed be held accountable.

USA's Nuclear Spending Higher Now than During Cold War

Source: Pravda.ru

An interactive map of military and civil nuclear objects of the United States has appeared online. The website has been created on the base of the data from the Pentagon and the organizations regulating the nuclear industry.

The map, based on the Google Maps technology, displays dozens of pins. The pins are divided into three categories. The red ones show the location of army bases where nuclear bombers, submarines and ICBM launch silos are deployed, Dni.ru said. The blue pins indicate the laboratories conducting research in the field of nuclear arms. The blue pins also indicate the nuclear test grounds that were used in the past. The group of the green pins is the largest: they indicate nuclear power plants in the country.

The Pentagon currently has 5,113 nuclear warheads at its disposal. The nukes can be launched any moment from the silos, submarines and strategic bombers. The number does not include 3,000 more nukes that expect utilization.

As Mother Jones reports, the map has been created to show the world that the United States is moving towards arms reduction in spite of the fact that the nation's nuclear spending now is higher than it was during the Cold War.

U.S. Politicians Are The Biggest Threat To World Peace In Human History

Source: The Excavator

The world is on the verge of World War III. There is no question about that.

Russian geopolitical analyst Konstantin Sivkov, Vice President of the Academy for Geopolitical Issues, says WWIII "has already begun" and that it "will take lives of hundreds of millions people worldwide."

U.S. politicians want to start World War III more than anyone else. They want to appear tough and they think attacking countries like Iraq and Iran without any reason is tough.

These are sick and sociopathic politicians who have a dangerous love affair with Israel and War.

Israel and War are for U.S. politicians what milk and cookies are for Santa Claus.

If Bibi and Israel says jump, U.S. politicians say "how high?" That is the nature of the special relationship between the U.S. Congress and Israel.

Some politicians are victims of Israeli and media brainwashing, and brainwashing by the CIA and Pentagon. Some are afraid to criticize Israel because they'll be called anti-Semitic and won't get re-elected.

So ignorance and cowardice are two big reasons why U.S. politicians say what they say.

Another reason is they are flat out criminals who are complicit in war crimes. They know the truth about 9/11 and want a world war because it serves their paymasters' agenda for global government.

Guys like Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor are 100 percent traitors and criminals who deserve the death penalty.

When Israeli war criminal Bibi Netanyahu spoke at the U.S. Congress back in May, U.S. congressmen treated him like a god from Mars. They sat there and allowed a foreign tyrant publicly disrespect a sitting American president.

Obama is a liar and a traitor, but still, the Office of the President is sacred and allowing a foreign war criminal like Bibi to disrespect it on the floor of the Congress amounts to treason.

Republican presidential candidates are the worst. They are calling for Hitlerian aggression against Iran without presenting any evidence that Iran represents a threat to America.

The Irrelevance of the Republican Party

Source: Infowars
Sartre

The first myth to dispense with is that the GOP is a conservative political party. The millions of registered Republican voters, that truly want a genuine conservative to lead this nation, are disappointed with every election cycle. The idiots that emerge as the standard-bearer of the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, are would be despots, wrapped in the flag of a failed empire. The comic performances in the arena of staged debates, just proves that the party of NeoCons, deserves trouncing into the ground of their blood stained soil. Only Ron Paul has the dignity and courage to claim the consent of the public and lead a revolution that dismantles centralized government. So why won’t rank and file Republicans demand that the Grand Old Party go to battle against the forces of the New World Order?

Who in the mug shots below will make a clear break from the tragic treasonous policies of the last three Republican administrations? Examine each, one at a time.

The Bout Enigma - Eyeopener Report

Source: Corbett Report and Boiling Frogs Post
James Corbett

Is the “Merchant of Death” a spy, a stooge, or a patsy?

Watch Full Video

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

When alleged arms dealer and so-called “Merchant of Death” Viktor Bout was convicted in a Manhattan federal court room earlier this month on charges of conspiracy to kill US citizens, the verdict came as a surprise to few who had been watching the case unfold. Since his apprehension in Thailand in 2008 in a DEA sting and his subsequent extradition to the US in 2010, few have doubted that prosecutors would convict Bout, who has been deemed one of the world’s most-wanted men since a series of reports by the UN Security Council beginning in 2000 accused him of arming dictators, fueling wars and enabling war crimes everywhere from Angola to Somalia to Liberia to Afghanistan.

The American media, perhaps unsurprisingly, never fails to mention “Lord of War,” the 2005 Nicolas Cage film which is said to be a fictionalized version of Bout’s own story, in attempting to describe Bout’s case.

The Incarceration Business: America's Private Prisons

Source: Global Research
Sherwood Ross

The latest report by the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU) is not likely to inspire politicians to shut down our private prisons when prison operators are pouring millions of dollars into their campaign coffers.

Jobbing out the incarceration business, said lawyer David Shapiro of the ACLU Prison Project “has been a bonanza for the private prison industry, which rakes in billions of dollars a year and dishes out multi-million dollar compensation packages to its top executives.”

And those top executives, in turn, between 1998 and 2000, for example, wrote over $1.2-million in checks to political candidates and political parties. And why not, when their firms have received such huge public subsidies as $68 billion in tax-free bonds to help them build?

Since the 1980s Reagan era shift to privatization, more than 150 private facilities—detention centers, jails, and prisons—-with a capacity of about 120,000 have been opened, and 7% of all U.S. adults inmates have been dumped in them.

“Abuse of prisoners, escapes, prison violence including prisoner-on-prisoner, prisoner-on-guard and vice versa, restricted and malfeasant health care, providing rotten food, and other prison management problems are characteristic of the private prison industry,” writes sociologist Margaret Rosenthal in “The Long Term View,” a journal published by the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover.  Rosenthal is Professor Emerita, School of Social Work, Salem State College, Mass.

“One study found 49% more prisoner-on-staff and 65% higher prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in private medium and minimum security prisons than in public ones,” Rosenthal writes. Example: at the Northeast Ohio Correction Center in Youngstown, operated by industry leader Corrections Corporation of America(CCA), in a period of just 14 months there were 13 stabbings, two murders and six escapes that ended in violence. Rosenthal said other sociologists have documented “many other examples of brutality and incompetence perpetrated in CCA-run facilities.”

Since private prisons prosper in proportion to the number of prisoners they house, “the suspicion remains that they may hold on to prisoners, particularly ones who are not troublesome as a means to earn extra money,” Rosenthal writes. Even when operators do not directly control discharge decisions, she notes, “by controlling record-keeping about prisoners’ behavior they can have a determining role in establishing when a prisoner is to be released or paroled.”

Israel Refuses to Tell US its Iran Intentions

Source: The Telegraph
Adrian Blomfield
  

Israel has refused to reassure President Barack Obama that it would warn him in advance of any pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear capabilities, raising fears that it may be planning a go-it-alone attack as early as next summer. 

The US leader was rebuffed last month when he demanded private guarantees that no strike would go ahead without White House notification, suggesting Israel no longer plans to "seek Washington's permission", sources said. The disclosure, made by insiders briefed on a top-secret meeting between America's most senior defence chief and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's hawkish prime minister, comes amid concerns that Iran's continuing progress towards nuclear weapons capability means the Jewish state has all but lost hope for a diplomatic solution.

On Tuesday, UN weapons inspectors released their most damning report to date into Iran's nuclear activities, saying for the first time that the Islamic republic appeared to be building a nuclear weapon. It was with that grave possiblity in mind that Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, flew into Israel last month on what was ostensibly a routine trip.

Officially, his brief was restricted to the Middle East peace process, but the most important part of his mission was a private meeting with Mr Netanyahu and the defence minister, Ehud Barak. Once all but a handful of trusted staff had left the room, Mr Panetta conveyed an urgent message from Barack Obama. The president, Mr Panetta said, wanted an unshakable guarantee that Israel would not carry out a unilateral military strike against Iran's nuclear installations without first seeking Washington's clearance.

The two Israelis were notably evasive in their response, according to sources both in Israel and the United States.

"They did not suggest that military action was being planned or was imminent, but neither did they give any assurances that Israel would first seek Washington's permission, or even inform the White House in advance that a mission was underway," one said. 

Alarmed by Mr Netanyahu's noncommittal response, Mr Obama reportedly ordered the US intelligence services to step up monitoring of Israel to glean clues of its intentions.