The New Dark Age

23 May, 2011 — Information Clearing House

Killing Our Way To Defeat
Obama’s Private Killing Machine
By Frontline – PBS
They’re known as “JSOC” — Joint Special Operations Command. They report directly to the president and, “operate worldwide based on the legal (or extra-legal) premises of classified presidential directive.” John Nagl, a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. Petraeus, described JSOC’s kill/capture campaign to FRONTLINE as “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28166.htm

An Absent Future…
By Layla Anwar
You who used to love taking long strolls, are now a prisoner of four walls, afraid to venture…is it going to be sticky bombs, the silencer gun, or a kidnapping ?
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28177.htm

11 Principles of Domination
Complex But Clear US Foreign Policies
By Jack D. Douglas
I’ve heard Congress people and others say repeatedly that the U.S. has no real or clear foreign policy for the Middle East.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28171.htm

Saying No to Permanent Global War
By Dennis Kucinich
Congress must protect the American people from the over-reach of any Chief Executive who is enamored with unilateralism, pre-emption, first strike and the power to prosecute war without Constitutional or statutory proscriptions.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28170.htm

Israeli Right Mocks Obama’s Rapid Submission To Netanyahu
By Saleh Naami
Lauded by settlers and derided by commentators, the US president’s AIPAC speech is portrayed as a victory for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28167.htm

Obama and the Israel Lobby
By Glenn Greenwald
A former AIPAC spokesman demanded that Obama take a renewed public pledge of devotion to Israel, and circulated to the media statements of condemnation from numerous “pro-Israel” Democrats in Congress.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28169.htm

The President Goes AIPACing
By Lawrence Davidson
The lobbies act like jealous gods who need to hear the prayers of their devotees said again and again. I am loyal, I am yours, forever, forever. Deviation means blasphemy and blasphemy means that the gods will bestow their cash blessings on someone else come the next election cycle.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28174.htm

Why Liberal Sellouts Attack Prophets Like Cornel West
By Chris Hedges
To accept that Obama is, as West said, a mascot for Wall Street means having to challenge some frightening monoliths of power and give up the comfortable illusion that the Democratic Party or liberal institutions can be instruments for genuine reform.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28168.htm

Dominique Strauss-Kahn: The Colonial Predator Legacy
By James Petras
The attempted rape and sexual abuse of an African cleaning woman by the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) embodies, in microcosm, the entire historical and contemporary legacy of colonial neo-colonial relations.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28175.htm

The U.S.: Where Europe Comes to Slum
By Harold Meyerson
Its leading companies are investing in the U.S. because they can do things here they would never think of doing at home.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28173.htm

In case you missed it
Welcome to Debtors’ Prison, 2011 Edition
By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG
More than a third of all U.S. states allow borrowers who can’t or won’t pay to be jailed.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28176.htm

10 Steps to Defeat the Corporatocracy
By Bruce E. Levine
Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a “corporatocracy,” in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article28172.htm

17 Iraqis, 2 U.S. occupation force soldiers killed in wave of bombings:
At least 17 Iraqis and two U.S. soldiers were killed Sunday in a wave of explosions, mostly in Baghdad, including a suicide bombing attack against police, security sources and the U.S. military said.
lat.ms/mJk78x

14 killed in 16-hour siege of Pakistan’s Mehran airbase;
Taliban’s 16-hour brazen siege of Pakistan Navy’s key Mehran airbase here came to an end after the elite commandos backed by hundreds of paramilitary personnel and helicopters shot dead four heavily armed militants after an intense battle, while two escaped.
bit.ly/kk8KRR

Extrajudicial Killing: :
US Attack Kills 7 People In Pakistan::
The attack took place on the outskirts of Mir Ali, some 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of the district where US officials want Pakistan to launch an offensive against networks fighting in Afghanistan.
bit.ly/iVwIEU

Pakistan sit-in protests drone strikes:
The Daily Times reported thousands of people from various political and religious groups took part in the Sunday protest called by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (Movement for Justice) party.
bit.ly/jZd2no

Drone strikes ‘suicide bombing factories’: Imran:
“It is not Pakistan’s war, this is America’s war. This war has killed thousands of innocent Pakistanis, women and children,” TI Chief Imran Khan told the gathering of around 7,000 supporters.
thenews.com.pk/NewsDetail.aspx?ID=15932

Reports say Mullah Omar killed:
Xinhua quoted an Afghan security official as saying, “It is correct that Mullah has been killed” in Pakistan.
bit.ly/jwSPkZ

Taliban deny leader Mullah Omar killed:
The Taliban said the report of his death was a propaganda spoof, created by the “occupation forces.”
en.rian.ru/world/20110523/164177889.html

Mullah Omar mystery: Afghan official says ISI took him away:
Amid reports on Afghan TV that Mullah Mohammad Omar has been killed in Pakistan, the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) has said that there was information that the elusive one-eyed Taliban leader was taken by Pakistan’s intelligence agency Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) into its custody
bit.ly/m3O9hc

Pakistan turns to China for naval base:
Pakistan has asked China to build a naval base at its south-western port of Gwadar and expects the Chinese navy to maintain a regular presence there, a plan likely to alarm both India and the US.
www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/3914bd36-8467-11e0-afcb-00144feabdc0.html

4 NATO occupation force soldiers killed in Afghan blast:
The international military alliance says the blast happened Monday but does not provide further details or the troopers’ nationalities. NATO typically waits for national authorities to announce casualties before giving specifics.
www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/05/23/nato-deaths-afghanistan-blast.html

Three Afghan police killed in suicide attack on HQ:
Suicide attackers armed with rifles and disguised in police uniforms Sunday stormed a traffic police headquarters in eastern Afghanistan and killed three officers, officials said.
www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/three-afghan-police-killed-suicide-attack-hq

Syrian death toll mounts as funeral attendees killed:
The opposition put the Friday death toll at 44 and Saturday’s fatalities at 11, while the government said the figures were 17 and three. These fatalities could boost the overall figure to 875-900 over nine weeks of unrest if estimates given by human rights groups are correct.
www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2011/0523/1224297548531.html

At least two killed, 25 injured in Yemen clashes:
The violence erupted when security forces attempted to storm the house of Sheikh Sadiq al-Ahmar, the leader of the Hashid tribe to which Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh belongs, in the capital Sana’a.
bit.ly/k6lF5m

Mission creep:
France and NATO to deploy helicopters in Libya: source:
Twelve helicopters were shipped to Libya on French helicopter carrier Tonnerre on May 17, daily Le Figaro reported earlier, to help break a military stalemate three months into an uprising against Gaddafi’s four-decade rule.
nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/9501566/france-and-nato-to-deploy-helicopters-in-libya-source/

McKinney blasts U.S. on Libya TV:
Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney went on Libyan state TV over the weekend to condemn U.S. policy in the region, CNN reported.
www.ajc.com/news/cnn-mckinney-blasts-u-954720.html

US ‘disappointed’ as Yemen’s Saleh blocks Gulf plan:
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has thwarted a Gulf bid to end four months of deadly protests, refusing to sign up to a plan for his departure from office, in a move that “deeply disappointed” Washington.
uk.news.yahoo.com/us-disappointed-yemens-saleh-blocks-gulf-plan-131834003.html

How Bahrain is oppressing its Shia majority:
Bahrain’s parliament once gave me a standing ovation, now I’ve been banned from the kingdom – both for pursuing human rights
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/22/bahrain-change-view-human-rights

Moroccan police beat up protesters:
Protesters calling for more rights and economic benefits dispersed by police in Rabat and Casablanca.
english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/05/2011522204645915126.html

Erekat: Netanyahu must accept Obama peace guidelines for talks to resume:
Chief negotiator Palestinians share the same principles laid out by U.S. President, including 1967 borders as basis for future Palestinian state.
bit.ly/lioVDX

Netanyahu and the One-state Solution:
Israel’s unwillingness to compromise on key issues might annul a two-state solution, making only power-sharing viable.
english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011522124514911313.html

Barack Obama agrees to form joint national security body with UK:
Barack Obama will announce during his first state visit to Britain this week that the White House is to open up its highly secretive national security council to Downing Street in a move that appears to show the US still values the transatlantic “special relationship”.
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/23/barack-obama-security-board-with-uk

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,455,590″
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’s War On Iraq: 4,772
icasualties.org/oif/

Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 2,469

Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan
Total Cost of Wars Since 2001
$1,198,465,051,559
www.costofwar.com/