What? What?? Whaaaaat?!?!?!

No, this can’t be. According to an article appearing in one of Israel’s biggest mainstream news outlets–Haaretz–Israeli Military Intelligence is AT THIS VERY MOMENT trying to “figure out” what went wrong in 1954 with something known as the “Lavon Affair”, described by the news outlet as a “sabotage operation” by Israel in “bombing theaters, post offices and U.S. and British institutions, and making it seem as though Egypt was behind the bombings”.

Ohhhh, this simply can’t be, or as the character Vizzini infamously said over and over again in that adorable movie the Princess Bride– “INCONCEIVABLE”. Israel–the apple of God’s eye–deliberately bomb American buildings with the intention of blaming it on her Arab enemies in order to achieve a desired political outcome? Deliberately put innocent civilian life in jeopardy with an overt act of state terrorism?

She would NEVER do something like this, and especially not to her bestest buddy in da whole-wide woyld, America. After all, the Jews are God’s chosen people, and something like this would be a sin and they–the Jewish people–don’t sin.
In a word–INCONCEIVABLE. Read all

British Army tells its soldiers to 'bribe' the Taleban -With Bags of Gold (Who's Gold do you think they are using ??)

Afpak quagmire is ever more ridicolous:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6919516.ece

Interesting that Talebans wants gold. They must have realized that our funny money is toilet paper. If I were you, I would take the lesson and buy gold a.s.a.p. like there is no tomorrow (in fact I already bought it from a couple of years).

More: The Karzai government is "structured like a criminal syndicate", extracting money from the people in the form of bribes, stolen customs revenues and imprisoning people for ransom. "Afghans see us [the International Security Assistance Force] as being the enforcement mechanism for the mafia. That's why people get driven towards the Taliban – it's the only way to express your outrage at this stuff."
-- Unnamed US official*

More: Afghanistan: 12 killed in attempted assassination of occupation force general - Times Online [UK]

"The head of the French Army in Afghanistan survived a Taleban rocket attack on a crowded market yesterday that killed 12 people and wounded 38. Brigadier-General Marcel Druart was meeting tribal elders in Kapisa, 30 miles (50km) outside Kabul, when rockets hit a bazaar nearby.

Witnesses said that the rockets landed within 200 metres (655ft) of the government building in Tagab Valley where the meeting was being held. The attack came a day after more than 700 French troops and 100 Afghan soldiers began an offensive in the
area." (11/17/09)

More: Why the Afghan Surge Will Fail - Foreign Policy in Focus November 13, 2009

A record 49 million Americans faced hunger in 2008

By Barry Grey WSWS - 17 November 2009

A yearly survey on hunger released Monday by the United States Department of Agriculture reported that a record 49.1 million Americans in 17 million households lacked dependable access to adequate food in 2008.

The government reported a sharp rise both in what it calls “food insecurity” and “very low food security,” i.e., outright hunger, noting that the rates recorded last year in both categories were the highest since the Agriculture Department began its annual surveys in 1995.

Those suffering food insecurity in 2008 made up 16.4 percent of the US population. Of these, 12.1 million adults and 5.2 million children lived in households with very low food security.

The report’s chief author, Mark Nord, pointed out that most families with a scarcity of food contain at least one adult with a full-time job. This is a reflection of the assault on both jobs and wages carried out by the American corporate elite in response to the financial crisis. Since the beginning of the financial crisis in the summer of 2007, big business has sought to place the burden of the financial breakdown on the working class, a process that has accelerated under the Obama administration.

Corporations, taking their lead from the Obama administration’s assault on auto workers at General Motors and Chrysler, have been systematically shedding jobs and slashing wages, benefits and work hours, utilizing the crisis precipitated by Wall Street to effect a permanent reduction in working class living standards and an intensification of the rate of exploitation of labor.

The result is a social catastrophe with no parallel since the Great Depression.
The Agriculture Department report pointed out that just half of the households in which food is scarce have incomes at or below the official poverty level, while most of the rest survive on something less than twice that level.

This only demonstrates the fraudulent nature of the official poverty level, which excludes tens of millions who live in poverty. The real poverty level in the US is likely double the official estimate for 2008 of 13.2 percent, itself an increase from 12.5 percent in 2007. According to the US Census Bureau, there were 39.8 million people in the US in poverty in 2008, up from 37.3 million the previous year. The real figure is likely in the range of 70 million to 80 million, at least a quarter of the population.

The US Census Bureau announced last September that real median household income in the United States fell 3.6 percent between 2007 and 2008. That trend has undoubtedly accelerated this year.

The official jobless rate in December of 2008 was 7.2 percent. The rate for October of this year was 10.2 percent. This means the hunger epidemic reported on Monday significantly underestimates the current situation.

President Obama on Monday issued a perfunctory statement in response to the Agriculture Department report. Released from Beijing, where Obama is meeting with Chinese leaders, the statement called the report “unsettling.” It referred to “many communities across our nation where food stamp applications are surging and food pantry shelves are emptying.”

Obama focused his concern to the impact of growing hunger on children, noting that “there were more than 500,000 families in which a child experienced hunger multiple times over the course of the year.” He said nothing about adults who are suffering from inadequate nutrition.

In fact, the Agriculture Department report stated that nearly 17 million children—more than one in five across the US—were living in households where food ran short, up from slightly more than 12 million the year before. The report also noted than the number of children who experienced outright hunger rose from about 700,000 to nearly 1.1 million.

Obama placed the greatest emphasis not on the human tragedy of such levels of hunger, but rather on its implications for “our future competitiveness as a nation,” i.e., the global competitive position of American capitalism.
He made a pro forma reference to restoring “job growth,” and touted his administration’s sponsorship of a measure signed into law last month that “invests $85 million in new strategies to prevent children from experiencing hunger in the summer.” This paltry allocation goes toward maintaining school lunch programs during the summer vacation.

It is a drop in the bucket compared to the trillions of dollars—estimated by one government agency at up to $23.7 trillion—which the government has made available to bail out the banks. And it pales in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars in bonuses that will be handed out to bank executives next month.
Obama concluded his brief remarks by reiterating that providing children with the “healthy meals they need to grow and succeed” is necessary to “keep America competitive in the decades to come.”

The Agriculture Department reported that among people of all ages, nearly 15 percent (17 million households) last year did not consistently have adequate food, compared with 11 percent in 2007. This is the greatest decline in access to food during a single year in the history of the annual survey.

Of this 15 percent, 5.7 percent (6.7 million households) experienced “very low food security”—meaning food intake of one or more family members was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times during the year because the household lacked money. The figure for this category was up from 4.1 percent in 2007.

The report also noted that food insecurity had increased from 1999 to 2007, that is, during the bumper years on Wall Street before rampant speculation and fraud precipitated the near-meltdown of the US and world financial system.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a briefing to reporters said, “It’s no secret. Poverty, unemployment, these are all factors.” He acknowledged that “there could be additional increases” in the figures for 2009, due out a year from now.

The report indicated the inadequacy of existing government food programs. Just more than half of those surveyed who reported they had experienced food shortages said they had, in the previous month, participated in one of the government’s largest anti-hunger programs and nutrition programs—food stamps, subsidized school lunches, or WIC, the nutrition program for women with babies or young children.

In 2008, people in 4.8 million households used private food pantries, up from 3.9 million in 2007, an increase of 23 percent. Some 625,000 households resorted to soup kitchens, nearly 90,000 more than the previous year... Read all

Officials: Major Hasan Sought War Crimes Prosecution of U.S. Soldiers

CLG 16 Nov 2009
Major Nidal Malik Hasan's military superiors repeatedly ignored or rebuffed his efforts to open criminal prosecutions of soldiers he claimed had confessed to war crimes during psychiatric counseling, according to investigative reports circulated among federal law enforcement officials.

On Nov. 4, the day after his last attempt to raise the issue, he [allegedly] took extra target practice at Stan's shooting range in nearby Florence, Texas and then closed a safe deposit box he had at a Bank of America branch in Killeen, according to the reports... Investigators believe Hasan's frustration over the failure of the Army to pursue what he [and the whole world] regarded as criminal acts by U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan may have helped to trigger the shootings. Read all

New Evidence Jack Straw Guilty On Torture - A Smoking Gun

By Ambassador Craig Murray 16 Nov 2009

Finally I have indisputable documentary evidence that the British government had a positive policy of using intelligence from torture in the War on Terror, and that the policy was personally directed by Jack Straw.

Here are the minutes of the meeting at which I was told this. All references to the CIA and MI6 have been literally cut out, but the meaning is till perfectly unmistakeable particularly given the heading of the minute. And here is the absolute smoking gun of Jack Straw's involvement. Straw has been lying about this for five years. He dismissed my evidence on this to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights as "Entirely untrue". Read all