The New Dark Age

7 February 2012 — Information Clearing House

US Iran Policy in ‘Lockstep’ with Israel?
By Dave Lindorff
The most appalling thing of all was hearing the US president say on national TV that he is operating US policy towards Iran in “lockstep” with the pipsqueak nation of Israel–an apartheid country currently being run by a bunch of corrupt, neofascist, genocidal war-mongers and religious fanatics. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30463.htm

Israelis Should be Afraid of Their Leaders, not Iran
By Gideon Levy
Some of the people reading these lines will not live through the winter; some of them may not die a natural death.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30465.htm

Arab League Report Shows that Syria Has Been Mischaracterized
By Washington’s Blog
While the Western media act like the Syrian government is wantonly and indiscriminately killing its own people without provocation, an independent investigation has found a different reality on the ground. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30462.htm

From Washington this looks like Syria’s ‘Benghazi moment’
By Robert Fisk
The West has been so deluged with stories and lectures and think-tank nonsense about the ghastly Iran and the unfaithful Iraq and the vicious Syria and the frightened Lebanon that it is almost impossible to snap off these delusional pictures and realise that Assad is not alone. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30466.htm

How About an International Award for Hypocrisy
By Alan Hart
If there was such an award, the statements of European and American leaders in the immediate aftermath of Russia and China’s veto of the Security Council resolution to end the killing in Syria suggest two most obvious nominees for it. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30470.htm

US Says Russia/China UN Veto
“Disgusting”, “Shameful”, “Deplorable”, “a Travesty” . . . Really?”
By Arab Studies Institute
 
A Quick Listing of The United States’ Record of Veto Use at the United Nations (UN): 1972-2011 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30468.htm

Top Official: Drone Critics are Al Qaeda Enablers
By Glenn Greenwald
At least according to some “senior” Obama official, those who report critically on the civilian-killing, rescuer-and-funeral-targeting American drone attacks (i.e., those who “malign these efforts”) are either supporters of or useful idiots for Al Qaeda. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30464.htm

Erasing History In Afghanistan
By Kevin Sieff
Officials think they have found a way to teach Afghan history without widening the fractures between long-quarreling ethnic and political groups: leave out the past four decades. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30461.htm

Anniversaries From ‘Unhistory’
By Noam Chomsky
The events we fail to commemorate say as much about our national narrative as those we acknowledge. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30460.htm

Dark History in Latin America and the Struggle for Justice
By Cyril Mychalejko
Elliott Abrams, a former high level State Department official during the 1980s, testified last week that the Reagan administration knew that Argentina’s military junta was systematically stealing babies from murdered and jailed democracy activists and giving them to right-wing families friendly to the regime. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30471.htm

This is What Imperialism Does to Men
By Che Guevara
“In our condition as colonial slaves, we could not observe: that “Western Civilization” disguises behind its showy facade a picture of hyenas and jackals.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30459.htm

The Right’s Stupidity Spreads, Enabled by a Too-polite Left
By George Monbiot
Conservativism may be the refuge of the dim. But the room for rightwing ideas is made by those too timid to properly object. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30467.htm

The Economics of Incarceration
By Nile Bowie
For every 100,000 Americans, 743 citizens sit behind bars. Presently, the prison population in America consists of more than six million people, a number exceeding the amount of prisoners held in the gulags of the former Soviet Union at any point in its history. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30469.htm

55 killed in northern Yemen violence: — Dozens were killed in deadly clashes in northern Yemen as Sunni Muslim Salafists try to force back advancing Shia militants, witnesses said. http://bit.ly/w740zK

25 killed in Syria civil war: activists: At least 21 “civilians” and four soldiers were killed on Tuesday in violence across Syria, the majority of them in the flashpoint central city of Homs, activists said. http://yhoo.it/x0J3fV

Russian FM: Syria’s Assad willing to accept expanded Arab League mission: After talks in Damascus, Sergei Lavrov also says Assad had assured him he was ‘completely committed’ to seeking an end to violence by all sides. http://bit.ly/zHuDMB

Gulf countries to expel Syrian ambassadors: The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) decided Tuesday to expel Syrian ambassadors from their countries in protest at the continued government crackdown on pro-democracy activists, Doha-based broadcaster Al Jazeera reported. http://bit.ly/zvsXBu

US should mull arming Syrian opposition, says senator: Senior Republican senator John McCain urged the United States Tuesday to consider arming the opposition fighting the forces of Syria‘s President Bashar al-Assad. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/1181573/1/.html

Lebanese security officials seize suspicious cargo from US, Brazil: Lebanon’s security officials say a suspicious cargo containing huge amounts of US dollars, guns, special passports and credit cards have been seized upon arrival in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, from the US and Brazil. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/225422.html

Engineering Consent For An Attack On Iran
US Prof. Tells Newsweek Israel Must Attack Iran – Now:
Prof. Ferguson maintains that whether he likes it or not, President Barack Obama will comes to Israel‘s defense if it attacks Iran in an attempt to slow down its nuclear development, if not destroy its nuclear facilities altogether. http://bit.ly/w6MQIL

Engineering Consent For An Attack On Iran
Israel and Iran on the Eve of Destruction in a New Six-Day War: There are plenty of arguments against an Israeli attack on Iran. And all of them are bad. http://bit.ly/yBLy84

Israel faces Turkey airfield question on Iran issue: Airfields located in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria were essential for Israeli aircraft but that it was unlikely these countries would provide permission for Tel Aviv to use their airfields. http://bit.ly/xhSqf5

Clinton meets Israeli FM amid Iran crisis: The Israeli foreign minister is also meeting with members of the US Congress during his visit http://bit.ly/yGRxff

Obama Declares “Threat” From Iran a National Emergency: Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f23uQr7TIMo&feature=player_embedded

Iran calls new US sanctions ‘psychological war’: Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said “When they impose sanctions on our central bank even though we have no transactions with them, it shows … they think they are able to put pressure on our people. create concerns and social discontent,” he added. http://bit.ly/yYu7AU

Iran defaults on payments to Indian rice traders: Iranian buyers have defaulted on payments for about 200,000 tonnes of rice from their top supplier India, exporters and rice millers said on Tuesday, a sign of the mounting pressure on Tehran from a new wave of Western sanctions. http://bit.ly/wVH0bp

15 Pakistani militants killed in Upper Orakzai: Pak Security forces pounded militant hideouts with jet fighters, killing at least 15 and injuring eight militants in different areas of Upper Orakzai. http://bit.ly/vZJL7R

Afghan security guard kills 5 colleagues, police: An Afghan security guard killed three colleagues and two police in southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the provincial authorities said on Tuesday http://reut.rs/xdEIYc

67% Favor Ending U.S. Combat Role in Afghanistan by Next Year: A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of Likely U.S. Voters favor ending the U.S. combat military mission in Afghanistan by the middle of next year. Just 22% are opposed to ending combat actions by then. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure. http://bit.ly/xcD1pq

Seven killed in Libyan refugee camp: Killings at a Tripoli refugee camp highlight ongoing persecution of black Libyans. http://aje.me/yNcgXT

U.S. Planning to Slash Iraq Embassy Staff by Up to Half: Less than two months after American troops left, the State Department is preparing to slash by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence it had planned for Iraq, a sharp sign of declining American influence in the country. http://nyti.ms/ABOfPg

UK: Government ‘may sanction nerve-agent use on rioters’, scientists fear: Leading neuroscientists believe that the UK Government may be about to sanction the development of nerve agents for British police that would be banned in warfare under an international treaty on chemical weapons. http://ind.pn/yLxrji

UK: Germans jailed for possessing documents useful to terrorism.
The documents they were carrying were electronic copies of Inspire magazine, an English publication launched by al-Qaeda in the Arabian http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16910536

2 U.S. Citizens Barred From Returning to US: A Muslim civil rights group wants the Justice Department to investigate the tactics of FBI agents in Portland after two Libyan-Americans from Oregon were barred from returning to the United States. http://abcn.ws/wJz1we

FBI warns of threat from anti-government extremists: – Anti-government extremists opposed to taxes and regulations pose a growing threat to local law enforcement officers in the United States, the FBI warned on Monday. http://bit.ly/ypsWlx

24-hour general strike under way in Greece:
A 24-hour general strike is under way in Greece against the Cabinet’s austerity policy. Railway and maritime traffic has come to a halt, and public transport disruptions have been reported. http://english.ruvr.ru/2012/02/07/65492796.html

Old Mortgages Rise from the Dead, Haunt Homeowners: Depositions from “affidavit slaves” depict a surreal, assembly-line world in which the banks and their partner firms hired hair stylists, fast-food kids and Wal-Mart floor workers, paying them $10 an hour, to pose as bank vice presidents, assistant secretaries and corporate attorneys. http://reut.rs/w7QBAj