From Sabra and Shatila to Homs and Damascus.

Christof Lehmann – nsnbc. Disclaimer and Fair Warning. Before you continue reading this article I must warn you. I must warn you because it is an article that contains graphic images that have not been sanitized according to the European Media´s Ethical Guidelines. Guidelines that were in part designed with the intention to sale war, Hollywood Style, with embedded journalists, smiling politicians who shake hands, pictures of a tank from afar, to keep You placid and calm; to prevent you from having a “human response” to reality; to prevent that you become outraged and vent your outrage there, where it ought to be vented rather than after a soccer game.

I must warn you, because this article contains strong opinions. It contains strong opinions because when perversions of power and violence have reached a certain measure, not to voice strong opinions, not to act on them, and not to encourage others to act on them too is equivalent to having been perverted.

I must warn you, because if it is your intention to consume this article without reacting on it you may find yourself insulted. You may find yourself insulted because by implication I am calling you a pervert. I must also warn you because the responsibility for your lack of actions as well as the responsibility for any of your actions rests entirely within yourself.

From Sabra and Shatila to Homs and Damascus. How could I ever forget Lebanon in 1982. The sight of tortured and murdered human beings in the streets, of raped and murdered girls, of maimed infants, entire families littering the houses and streets, to be piled up and used for hand-grenade target practice by drugged Lebanese militiamen, under the supervision and command responsibility of Israel´s Minister of ?Defense? Ariel Sharon. The madness of drugged armed men in a frenzy, my resistance, fears, hopes to survive that were turned into blind hatred, carelessness about my own life, and the wish I had never been born because living with the fact that I was absolutely powerless to stop the perversion seemed harder than to provoke to be murdered. The difficult return to feeling content with being a human being. The feeling content with being a human being because I knew that I could and would do all that is possible for me to do to prevent similar outrages.

Why would I ever expect that I could trust a United Nations that so utterly and completely has delivered us in Sabra and Shatila into the hands of perversion. Everything about the United Nations lack of action, from not protecting unarmed civilian Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila to dismissing the case at the ICC was a portrayal of and a valuable lesson on the deepest nature of the United Nations.

The perversions that have been brought upon the people of Syria by a perverted crime cartel. A perverted crime cartel that is so complex, so deep-rooted within Western political, economic, intelligence and military power systems as well as in the United Nations, that it is difficult to identify who the worst war criminals are. In fact it is so difficult to identify the true heart of darkness within this network of inter-penetrating perverted systems that I have developed a propensity towards merely calling it “IT”, “The System”, and that dissociation comes at a price.

The dissociation comes at the price of the fear of feeling powerless again because I did not do enough to identify the source and direction of the danger. It is a strong response, an unpleasant one, but one that reminds me about what it is that makes me content with being alive and content with being a human being. I can not guaranty that I can change anything but I will not cease trying because I know that I could not live with the certainty that I have become perverted.

The UN-NATO Declaration; The Secret Pact for Global Full Spectrum Dominance Must Not Stand. When the Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Kyi-Moon and the Secretary General of NATO signed the UN-NATO declaration in 2008, and kept it as secret as possible for several years, it was because with it, the UN became a de-facto, contractually bound instrument of US foreign policy. Simultaneously NATO became the de-facto sovereign military apparatus of the United Nations. A US controlled NATO is now the de-facto military force that can be used to overrule nations sovereignty if a US Administration or a sufficient number of NATO member states deem, that NATO must act on behalf of the United Nations because it has the responsibility to protect civilian populations. At the recent, 25th NATO Summit in Chicago NATO declared the intervention in Libya as a “model for future interventions”. It declared the systematic destruction of Libyan civilian infrastructure such as the Man Made River, the use of cluster bombs in civilian populated areas in Brega, the use of fuel air bombs in Bani Walid as air campaign of unprecedented precision so as to limit collateral damage. Moreover, it described the intervention in Libya, the massacres on black African Libyans, the massacre on over 10.000 Tawergha and the internal displacement of 5-10.000 Tawergha as “teachable moment” and “model for future interventions” based on the United Nations / NATO´s “responsibility to protect”. The international community of sovereign nations, peace movements, political activists, scholars, citizens, You and I. We can not let this outrage stand and claim not to be perverted. To act as if there was no need to act is to consent with war crimes, with murder, massacres and tyranny.

Amnesty – The Targeted Perversion of Your Best Intentions. It is understandable that it is difficult for You to acquire truthful information. You are systematically targeted by main stream media. You are systematically targeted with disinformation. You are also systematically targeted so that your empathy, your altruism and everything that makes you “human” is systematically perverted.

You feel empathy, you feel solidarity when Amnesty accuses NATO of 55 documented cases of war crimes in Libya. What you most likely have not been told is that the director of Amnesty International USA also acts as adviser to Hillary Clinton and the State Department. As adviser on State/NGO relations. In less euphemistic language this translates into this. Amnesty documents 55 cases of war crimes in Libya to cover over the other 10.000 plus war crimes that have been committed. You give a donation to Amnesty the next time you meet one of their Pacers in town, and hurray – you feel human and Hillary, Amnesty and other perverted war criminals and their “Göbbels Like Spin Doctors and Sale Out´s” are laughing about you – “How dumb can you be”. This must not stand. This can not stand, and unless you become truly outraged about those who pervert your best intentions and humanity and act upon it you have lost your humanity to them and you have become perverted.

The Creation of Terror to Create a Pretext for making Use of “The Responsibility to Protect”. The USA and EU, together with the Iznogood Clan of want to be Emirs of Syria and the GCC have for months provided massive material support for terrorist organizations to destabilize Syria. Simultaneously you have been led to believe that the Syrian government is brutally coming down on the “peaceful opposition and peaceful protesters” in Syria.

The fact is that the peaceful opposition in Syria has just taken part in free and fair elections, and that the peaceful opposition in Syria now is taking up political responsibility and offices in Syria. Their demands, the demands of the real Syrian Oppositions are demand towards the USA, EU, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, demands towards the Libyan government that created a law, that talking positive about Ghadafi is to be punished with life imprisonment, and demands towards other supposed “Friends of Syria” ” to butt out and to withdraw their weasels and bloodhounds“. So who are these Friends of Syria and their weasels and bloodhounds, whom you are led to believe that they are the “Syrian Opposition”?

They are the Al Qaeda Associated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group with 18.000 plus fighters. They are the Saudi Arabian backed Al Qaeda Omar Brigade. They are the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, financed by Qatar, trained and stationed in Turkey. They are the Jordanian, Saudi, Iraqi, Egyptian, and other countries hirelings and mercenaries who are recruited by Turkish and NATO Intelligence in Amman, Jordan. They are those murderers who are financed by the US Administration and the Pentagon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Saad Hariri´s Future Movement in Lebanon, Walid Jumblatt of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon – Stooges of the USA and Israel who have betrayed the Arab World, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon together with Israel since the civil war in Lebanon. They are the ones that are trained and supervised by US American Special Operations Forces out of Ft. Bragg North Carolina. They are French Mercenaries, British SAS teams. They are those whom you are led to believe that they are “the Free Syrian Army” and the “Peaceful Syrian Opposition”.

You are being misled. Lied to. Your humanity is being taken advantage of to facilitate murder, ma ham, massacres in Your name and unless you do not care about the fact that your humanity is abused to facilitate this perversion in your name it is time that you stand up and say – NOT IN MY NAME.

And what is done in your name ? In the name of Your Humanity ? I plead to you that you take a close look at reality. Yesterday another massacre has been committed. This time the terrorist groups whom your tax money and your government sponsors and whom they unleash in your name have targeted Syrian families with children. Do you for one moment believe that the very people who are doing this to Syrians in your name would hesitate to do the same to you, your children?

Moreover, this and other incidents will be abused by Your government to try to convince you that you have to agree with them when they are sending NATO troops with UN mandate into Syria to protect Syrians. Under the guise of Human Rights, of protecting Civilians, of Freedom and Democracy it is your government, that is turning Syria into a gigantic Sabra and Shatila.

I expect you to be prepared and call the lie a lie. And I expect that you do it openly so others can hear you. I expect you to stand up, to organize, to join protests, and to say NOT IN MY NAME. I expect that you are taking steps so that war criminals and murderers are placed behind bars.

I expect from you that you become outraged. I expect from you that you act, and I expect from you that you take responsibility for your own humanity. Unless you do so, we really have nothing human in common.

Dr. Christof Lehmann

IN DEUTSCHER ÜBERSETZUNG BEI:  HINTER DER FICHTE

Von Sabra und Shatila nach Homs und Damaskus

The Houla Massacre: Another Volley in a War To Put Washington More Firmly in The Driver’s Seat in SyriaThe Houla Massacre: Another Volley in a War To Put Washington More Firmly in The Driver’s Seat in Syria

The Houla Massacre: Another Volley in a War To Put Washington More Firmly in The Driver’s Seat in Syria.

By Stephen Gowans – The 4th Media. Syrian government forces may or may not have been responsible for the killing of 108 civilians at Houla.

Witness accounts point to militias that may have been acting independently of the Syrian government.

One account describes the killings as avenging a rebel sectarian attack on an Alawite village.

All the same, no witness account has been independently verified.

The events are, in the words of a UN monitor, “murky”.

The US government, nevertheless, has reached far beyond the evidence to blame the Syrian government for the atrocity, a brazenly hypocritical public relations assault on Syria.

In light of the serial massacre of hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan civilians, including children, by US drone strikes, the US government has no credibility as a self-appointed champion of the innocent.

Examining the conflict with reference to US foreign policy goals, and the objectives of other parties, it is likely that the Assad government’s opponents are depending on armed conflict and the exploitation of the public relations opportunities the conflict provides to meet their goal of regime change.

Damascus, on the other hand, has more to gain from working out a modus vivende with its internal opposition than trying to win a shooting war with armed rebels that have the backing of the formidable diplomatic and material resources of the United States and wealthy Gulf petro-monarchies.

Goals

In the Syria conflict, the goal of:

• Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf Cooperation Council Sunni petro-monarchies is to replace Syria’s Alawite-dominated state with a Sunni leadership;

• The United States and its Western allies is to force the Russia-allying, Iran-supported, Hezbollah-backing economic and Arab nationalist Syrian Ba’athist regime to relinquish control of the Syrian state. Ultimately, Washington would like to see a satellite regime in Damascus that ousts Russia from its naval base on the Mediterranean, breaks ties with Iran, cuts support to Hezbollah, accepts Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, and opens its economy to US corporations and investors. Whether Washington can realize all these ambitions is unclear, but they do appear to be ambitions the US state embraces;

• The Sunni Islamists and al-Qaeda is to overthrow the Assad government, which they think of variously as “atheist” and “heretical”;

• The exile opposition and Free Syrian Army is to replace Assad as local rulers, courting US backing by professing commitment to Wall Street and State Department interests;

• The Syrian Ba’athist government is to survive in the face of determined opposition and with few allies.

In light of these goals, it is very unlikely that the opposition forces arrayed against the Syrian government are sincerely committed to the Annan peace plan. Since the plan seeks to find an accommodation between the Syrian government and its internal opposition without calling for the government’s dissolution, it fails to satisfy the opposition goal of regime change.

The plan does, however, promise a pathway to the Syrian government’s goal of political survival, and therefore it is Damascus, of all parties described above, that is likely to have the greatest commitment to making the plan work.

On the other hand, being committed to Assad’s overthrow, and not accommodation with him, the opposition is more likely to favor rhetorical commitment to the plan while continuing to pursue its regime change goal through armed struggle, relying on material, diplomatic, and moral support from the US and its allies.

This thrusts Damascus onto the horns of a dilemma. If it fails to respond to opposition attacks it puts its survival at risk. If it does respond, it is accused of violating the peace plan.

Houla

Atrocities being accustomed events in war, it was highly likely that one would eventually arise that Washington and Europe could take advantage of. Pinning blame for an atrocity on the Syrian government would allow Washington to escalate pressure on the Ba’athists, embarrass their supporters into withdrawing or weakening support, and strengthen public backing of stepped up intervention in Syria.

The events surrounding the Houla massacre are, in the words of UN monitors, “murky”, and the identity of those who carried out the killings of 108 civilians, many at close-range, remains unclear.

Witness testimony, none of which has been independently verified, points to “pro-government militias” as the culprits, which may mean loosely organized sectarian gunmen acting independently of Damascus.

One witness told The Wall Street Journal that “the attacks…might have been to avenge a rebel assault on a nearby Alawite village a day earlier.” [1]

While Syrian forces had been engaged in combat with armed rebels in the area, UN monitors found that fewer than 20 people were killed by government artillery fire. [2] And “rebel fighters,” according to The Wall Street Journal, “admitted putting up a stronger fight with government forces…than had been claimed initially. That fighting appeared to be what the government blamed for its artillery barrage.” [3]

Despite the event’s “murkiness” and evidence that it was possibly related to Alawite gunmen avenging an earlier sectarian attack, Washington blamed the massacre directly on Damascus, squeezing in a denunciation of Iran at the same time.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the Houla events an “absolutely indefensible, vile, despicable massacre against innocent children, women, shot at point-blank range by regime thugs,“ adding that the perpetrators were “aided and abetted by the Iranians, who were actually bragging about it over the weekend.” [4]

What the Iranians had actually done was point out that they have provided military aid to Syria, what the US and Gulf monarchies provide to the rebels trying to overthrow the Assad government.

Neither Nuland, nor her fellow compatriot practitioners of Goebbels’s art, have worked themselves up into high dudgeon over the 175 children and 828 civilians killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan since 2004 [5] — absolutely indefensible, vile, despicable killings of innocent children, women, killed from the safe distance of a Nevada warehouse by US regime thugs brandishing computer joy-sticks. And in the case of these killings there was no murkiness about who the killers actually were.

US atrocities don’t mitigate the Houla massacre, nor excuse the Syrian government if it was involved. The killings were indeed indefensible, vile, and despicable. But there are two points here.

Unlike the case of the far greater number of civilians blasted away by the United States, it is unclear whether Damascus was involved in the Houla killings. It may have been. But the evidence is hardly compelling and points just as strongly to perpetrators acting independently of the government.

The US track record is littered with indefensible, vile, despicable killings of innocent children and women by US forces—on a far greater scale than happened at Houla. Were there strong evidence that Damascus pulled the trigger, Washington’s denunciation of the Assad government would be manifestly hypocritical. But in the absence of such evidence, Washington’s apportioning of blame for the atrocity to the Syrian government is not only hypocritical but blatantly political—another volley in a war to put Washington more firmly in the driver’s seat in Syria.

Stephen Gowans

Endnote
1. Nour Malas and Jay Solomon, “Syria crisis deepens divisions”, The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2012.

2. Nour Malas and Joe Lauria, “Western nations expel Syrian diplomats”, The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2012.

3. Malas and Solomon

4. Malas and Lauria

5. “Obama terror drones: CIA tactics in Pakistan include targeting rescuers and funerals”, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/February 4, 2012 cited in Seumas Milne, “America’s murderous drone campaign is fuelling terror”, The Guardian (UK), May 29, 2012.

 

US Media Soldier and Propagandist: Charlie Custer’s Attacks on Yang Rui Funded by The Soros-Qatar Cabal

By Yoichi Shimatsu. – Custer’s Last Stand – Bloggers have described Beijing’s media brawl between CCTV Dialogue anchor Yang Rui and Charlie Custer, editor of ChinaGeeks, as a “flame war” between two hot-headed individuals.

Thecontroversy is hardly a personal matter when taking into account the agenda and insider connections of Custer’s employer and paymaster, Link Media/Link TV. Ample evidence and the back story, in fact, reveal Link Media Inc. connections with intelligence services.

Whatever prompted “Custer’s last stand”, his personal record does not indicate that he’s a shagadelic spy like Austin Powers, but just that he’s a “useful idiot” for media higher-ups who need suicide bloggers to make exploding noises to impress their government funders.

Charlie’s an English teacher from Harbin (according to Yang Rui’s blog) and, looking over the past two week’s unsightly mess, Custer has failed to become the next Jared Cohen, the State Department’s online brat who fomented the Jasmine Revolution.

Custer, the news commentator under a woollen cap, is listed as a regular contributing expert to LinkAsia, which produces a news program on DirecTV satellite in the United States. His reports for LinkAsia half-hour news program include:

- “Killings Expose China’s Hatred of the Wealthy”

- “Press Controls Tighten Over Beijing News (and) Times”

- “Fired Up Over China’s Limits on Fun TV”

- “China Faces Real Name Use on Sina Weibo”

- “The Saga of Wang Lijun”

- “Sina Silences Rumors While Angry Artist Speaks Out”

- “Rumors Abound on Chinese Internet”

- “Beijing Gears Up for an Atheist Christmas”

The last-cited story is a bit puzzling as a critique of China, since Macy’s also celebrates and cashes in on atheist Christmas shopping binges. As for hatred of the wealthy in China, was it not Deng Xiaoping who said: “To get rich is glorious”? Tragic end to Fun TV? “Supergirl” should have quit when it was ahead, instead of reeking of rigor mortis like “American Idol”.

Whatever the merits of his negative reporting, in his eyes there’s not a lot of good news emanating from one of the world’s cleanest capitals located in the world’s fastest-rising economy, when a cup of coffee is affordable to just about anyone and where poverty is diminishing, as opposed to cities like Athens, London, Sendai and Detroit.

Here again, as with Melissa Chan, balance didn’t have to be tossed out the window since it was never there in the first place.

If Beijing is really such a repressive and miserable hellhole, Ms Chan should be thankful to be in “free” Doha, which has the world’s highest per-capita income, surplus funds to donate weapons to Syrian rebels, peacefully governed under sharia law, and where not even a National People’s Congress exists to disturb an absolute monarchy.

Collect the dole and shut up – Qatar’s not a bad deal compared with China, where people actually have to work for pay – with the only hitch being you have to a Qatari citizen or an Al Jazeera staffer to qualify.

Al Jazeera feed and Soros cash. Notably, Link TV is the carrier for Al Jazeera channel in the U.S. The placement fees from Al Jazeera and ads from its fleet of royalty-owned corporations like Qatar Air, Qatar gas and Qatar Foundation contribute to Link Media’s $8.56 million in annual revenues.

Could the cash from the Gulf State be influencing Link TV’s editorial policy? A quick look at Link’s programming schedule reveals a gusto for the Arab Spring, which was jointly sponsored by the U.S. State Department and the Emirate of Qatar. (Non-Arabic speakers should note: The definition of an “emir” is “military commander of the jihad.”)

Link Media Inc., which is registered in San Francisco as a not-for-profit organization, receives grants from:

- Open Society Institute (OSI), funded by billionaire George Soros

- Luce Foundation, a Republican Party dominated group that funds conservative causes (The late Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life, was an ardent supporter of  the Chiang Kai-shek regime in Taiwan, who funded the infamous “China Lobby” that promoted the “Two-China policy” and also backed repressive dictatorships in South Korea and South Vietnam.)

- Parsa Community Foundation, created by Iranian exiles, many of them supporters of the Shah

- Attar Supporting Organization, which promotes Muslim causes in the Caucasus

- other of its supporting foundations have reputedly served as conduits for funding from the CIA.

The Link operations are headed by its president Kim Spencer, who earlier co-founded Internews Network. Another co-founder of Internews is his wife, Evelyn Messinger, head of Internews Interactive who also served as the first Electronic Media Director for the Soros Foundation.

LinkAsia contributors besides Custer include: David Bandurski, head of the China Media Project at University of Hong Kong whose programs have received Soros funding; Pakistani Wajahat Khan, Shorenstein fellow at Kennedy School of Government; Cindy Sui, with BBC, AFP, SCMP and Central News Agency (Taiwan); and one of its advisers is Minky Worden, a program director with Human Right Watch.

Media Soldiers and Propagandists. A brief look at the background of Spencer and Messinger during their years at Internews offers insights into media operations on behalf of Western intelligence agencies. The statements in quotes are from its own publicity materials.

In 1994 “Internews launches the three-year Media Development Program to support the institutional and economic development of print and broadcast media in Russia. MDP grants support the first legal resource center for media in Russia.”

“With Sarajevo under siege by the Yugoslav National Army, Internews and the Soros Foundation  run the Balkan Media Network, an early version of an electronic bulletin board and email system that connects 250 independent media organizations as well as ordinary citizens in the former Yugoslavia with the rest of the world.”

In August 2000 “The American Iranian Council and Internews sponsor a historic reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where members of the Iranian parliament meet with Members of the US Congress for the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.”

In December 2004 “Independent media help lay the groundwork for Ukraine’ Orange Revolution, one of several ‘color revolutions’ in the region, including Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution.”

“Internews has developed special programs for training journalists how to report on conflict (Reporting for Peace ['a special training program for journalists who work in regions of conflict']). Meanwhile, Internews has expanded its activities into Africa, Asia and the Middle East.”

Its hefty budget for media-prompted subversion came from  the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) under the USAID, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) as well as intelligence-related branches of NATO members France, Germany, Canada, Britain and Greece.

Wired Magazine noted in 1995: “The organization’s peculiar funding cycle follows a flow chart that might raise a few eyebrows among current American non-profits toiling hard for a few tax dollars.

Although born and bred a nonprofit, Internews funds for-profit TV enterprises half a world away, thanks to multimillion-dollar contracts from the Agency for International Development (USAID), effectively the US government’s foreign aid bank.

Along with this generous funding comes grants from more than a dozen foundations, including one handsomely endowed by financier-philanthropist George Soros.

Over the last few years, no other nonprofit, developing, post-Soviet media organization has garnered more American aid dollars than Internews.”

Democracy for hire, or subversion for corporate takeovers of foreign assets? For those who are curious about why the White House and George Soros are allied with jihadist Qatar the answer is: control over energy and banking of petrodollars.

Four-Letter Expletives. Aside from the spooky side of media, let’s discuss rhetorical style for a minute. The cast of operatives from Soros and the shadowy arms of the State Department need to improve its presentation, especially during heated debates.

The outrage expressed in reaction to anti-foreign comments was cheap melodrama. Crying like an injury faker in a football match does not win sympathy in the media arena; it only proves that you’re a boy not a man.

As a journalist friend said about the tweet barrage against Yang Rui “They can dish out abuse, but they can’t take it.” The terms used by Custer’s friends over blogs and tweets frequently included expletives describing the male sex organ and excrement; while one particularly hate-filled tweet advocated the strategic placement of a fist.

These vulgar remarks only reflect the mindset of teenage hoodlums or prison guards in Guantanamo. My advice to overgrown adolescents who lack a basic sense of decency: Keep your fisting to yourself.

One parting shot: Charlie Custer did everyone a service by speaking his mind, though he should have done it with more tact, considering the image of what’s been called (by Americans) The Ugly American abroad.

Should his work visa be revoked? That’s up to the Chinese bureau that enforces press standards for foreign journalists and also the applicant Link TV, which is not in a great position right now to defend press privileges.

Should he be allowed to stay on a tourist visa?

What he’s done may constitute a failing in press standards, but Custer hasn’t committed a crime to be denied visitor entry, at least not one that I know of.

Then again, does he really want to stay in Beijing?

Like Melissa Chan, he seems to love life in the capital, but why then did he never have anything good to say about the place? It’s up to him, since he’s lucky enough to be free to explain himself to officials and choose what to do, compared to billions of poor people who can never afford the price of an air ticket.

Yoichi Shimatsu

Yoichi Shimatsu is former editor of the Japan Times Weekly and an occasional guest speaker on the Dialogue program.

The Soros-made “New World Order”: The Division of India, Russia, Indonesia, and China into Smaller, Weak Nations

The Soros-Made “New World Order” Takes Shape at the UN

By Wayne Madsen – Via The 4Th Media. Major multinational corporations and the financial and non-governmental organization network of George Soros have taken effective control of a number of United Nations functions within the UN Secretariat and within the organization’s specialized agencies. The goal of this alliance is to re-draw the map of the world for the benefit of the global elites and the “top 1 percent.”

The United Nations, which once prided itself on transparency, has now become a bureaucratic behemoth where decisions are made in closed door meetings attended by diplomats, mostly from English-speaking Western countries; corporate representatives; NGO officials tied to Soros and other entities like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations; and current and former CIA officers, some of whom act under U.S. State Department cover. It is a fact of life that today a number of UN agencies and elements are funded by private money.

Although South Korean Ban Ki-moon is the Secretary General of the UN, his most important deputies represent the interests of NATO and its allies. The Undersecretary General for Political Affairs is B. Lynn Pascoe, a former U.S. ambassador to Indonesia and Malaysia and is thought by many UN staffers to have links to the CIA. The Undersecretary General for Safety and Security is Gregory Starr, a former Director of the U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service who is also thought to have close links to the CIA.

The Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Planning and Policy Coordination is Robert Orr, the former Director of Global and Multilateral Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council on which the CIA is represented. The Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is Anthony Lake, a former U.S. National Security Adviser.

The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations is Herve Ladsous of France who has served as French ambassador to Indonesia and China and who is a pro-NATO Atlanticist.

Perhaps no where is the Soros and CIA influence felt more than in the UN Development Program (UNDP), which is headed by Helen Clark, a former Prime Minister of New Zealand. However, Soros’s operatives are heavily present in every UN agency except for Peacekeeping Operations but it, too, is an ultimate target for the multi-billionaire Hungarian Jew who once cooperated with the Nazi occupation forces in wartime Hungary.

Soros is very close to former UN Deputy Secretary General and UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown of Great Britain. While UN Deputy Secretary General, Malloch Brown, now Lord Malloch Brown, resided rent-free at Soros’s estate in Westchester County, New York. The UN’s Global Compact is a brainchild former Secretary General Kofi Annan, who is now charged with easing the government of Bashar al Assad from power in Syria.

Pushing the Global Compact, Malloch Brown, while UNDP administrator, invited multinational corporations to “use their purchasing power to help develop small and medium-sized enterprises across the developing world.” The Global Compact essentially gives multinational corporations a say in how projects in developing countries are carried out.

The UN has been holding a number of closed-door meetings and seminars at which the partition of UN member states has been discussed. Most of the meetings have been held under the direction of the UN Interagency Framework for Coordination on Preventive Action (the Framework Team or FT). The FT brings together representatives from a number of alphabet soup UN offices and specialized agencies, including:

DESA – Department of Economic and Social Affairs

DPA – Department of Political Affairs

DPKO – Department of Peacekeeping Operations

DOCO – UN Development Operations Coordination Office

EOSG – Executive Office of the Secretary General

FAO – Food and Agricultural Organization

ILO – International Labor Organization

OCHA – Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

OHCHR – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

OSAPG – Office of the Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide

PBSO – Peacebuilding Support Office

UNDP – UN Development Program

UNESCO – UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization

UNHABITAT – UN Center for Human Settlements

UNICEF – UN Children’s Fund

UN WOMEN – UN Entity for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

UNHCR – UN High Commissioner for Refugees

UNEP – UN Environment Program

UNDEF – UN Democracy Fund

UNFPA – UN Population Fund

WFP – World Food Program

WHO – World Health Organization

World Bank

IMF – International Monetary Fund

DPI – Department of Public Information

OSAA (Office of the Special Advisor on Africa)

DDA – Department for Disarmament Affairs

UNODC- UN office on Drugs and Crime

Much of the work of the FT is carried out under the direction of an American, Gay Rosemblum-Kumar. She heads up the Conflict Management Capacity-Building Project and the Peacebuilding Portal. While the names of these groups appear benign, they are at the center of a global plan by Soros, his NGOs, the CIA, and the global bankers to redraw the map of the world to suit the needs of multinational corporations and the United States and NATO.

Many FT meetings include speeches by Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who has encouraged international R2P (responsibility to protect) intervention in Libya, Sudan, Syria, and other countries. The FT also relies on a professional trainer in “Conversation” and “Non-violent Communications” (NVC). He has overseen “outsourcing transition,” i.e., informing employees of their lay-offs and “benefits” packages at Merrill Lynch, Charles Schwab, and Bank of New York Mellon. From advising companies on how to inform employees that their jobs are finished, the individual in question now advises the UN on how to tell entire countries that they are “finished.”

The FT also advances the work of President Obama’s “information czar” Cass Sunstein; his wife Samantha Power of the U.S. National Security Council; and Gene Sharp, the Albert Einstein Institution’s developer of the “themed revolution” concept.

The FT has also trained certain activists around the world, particularly in developing and other countries with pro-western governments, to use “the system” to effect change and has advised them “not to protest against their government.” The entire FT operation at the UN is bankrolled with Soros money.

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the FT’s work is aimed at dividing existing nation-states into smaller entities. At a recent FT meeting titled “Nepal in Transition,” it was clear what strategy is being employed to carry out such divisions. The division of Nepal, with the ultimate goal being the marginalization of the powerful Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), foresees “identity federalism,” the first step before actual secession of federal components.

A number of Nepalese political parties and movements recently signed an agreement that would create an “identity-based” federal republic in Nepal.

The UN’s chief promoter of the strategy is Ian Martin, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General who has headed UN missions in Nepal and, most recently, in Nepal. Under the UN plan, Nepal would be transformed into a polyglot federal republic based on indigenous groups, nationalities, castes such as the Dalit, and Muslims.

Martin has been involved in creating “federal” structures in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Libya. The latter has seen the eastern province of Cyrenaica, with its capital in Benghazi, proclaim its autonomy from Tripoli.

Some UN participants in the talks on Nepal spoke of the need to “eliminate” the Maoists in Nepal. Robert O. Blake, the Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, and who has been linked to the CIA, participated in the Nepal conference. Blake reportedly helped engineer the February 2012 coup in Maldives that drove President Mohamed Nasheed, ironically a Soros favorite, from power.

The coup, which ushered into power a pro-Islamic government said to be backed by former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, could set the stage for a Maldives comprised of autonomous atolls, with the United States able to acquire military bases in certain southern atolls as part of its encirclement of China policy.

Sri Lanka is also a target for the identity federalism engineers. During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama received large campaign donations from front groups for the Tamil Tigers, a guerrilla force that favors an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka and which is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.

As a way of thanking the Tigers for their support, the Obama administration, Soros, and the International Peace Institute of Norway (which has been called a front for NATO, Soros, and the CIA and which supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE] during their long civil war against the Sri Lankan government) have been pushing for a federal system in Sri Lanka that would create a Sinhalese, Tamil, and Muslim federation, with secession following.

A number of Norwegians are quietly pushing the identity federalism solution, some of whom, particularly Professor Johan Galtung, are Soros favorites..

To augment its identity federalism initiatives, Soros NGOs are also involved in creating a number of “partition studies” programs at major universities with international relations programs.

Myanmar is also a target for the identity federalists and partition specialists. The UN and Soros goal is to split Myanmar into various ethnic-based nations. Some of these nations would then provide the United States with military bases from which it can engage in intelligence, insurgency, and other operations in southern China. The human rights issue in Myanmar and China has been used by Soros as a tool to gain influence in both nations.

The ultimate goal of the EU / US / Japan / Australia / Canada / New Zealand / Soros alliance is the division of India, Russia, Indonesia, and China into smaller nations.
Wayne MADSEN, Strategic Culture Foundation

US-Administration Terror Cartel Screws Us Both Ways – The Death Porn Re-Election Campaign of Obama has begun.

By Christof Lehmann – nsnbc. In a report published on Tuesday, the New York Times stated that US-President Obama, since he has come to office, has assumed an “unprecedented role in personally overseeing a shadow war against Al-Qaeda, including making final decisions whether to place individuals on a “kill-list”"

One has to give it to the propaganda experts at the White House and their extended reach into US-Main Stream Media. One could hardly have twisted reality in a more convoluted way to cover over the US-Administrations unprecedented utilization of and cooperation with terrorist organizations. The main criminal has his Thanatos sexed-up and public support as  “hero” and protector of US citizens and the “free world” boosted, while covering over the fact that he is most likely to be “the” US-President who has an unprecedented record of cooperating and utilizing international terrorist organizations.

Death is Sexy and Sex sales – If the population has been made war-horny enough it sales every lye. The sad side of the story is that most US / Western Citizens are so indoctrinated that one is tempted to say to them: “You Bozos, You buy it every time !” while another, almost equally large part of the populous finds gratification in being “intellectual enough to understand the perversion” without doing anything about it. So which of the two groups do you belong to ? Sorry – No ill intention meant – just frustration over your placidity in the face of murder.

So here´s a little wake up call for those who are drooling and dripping from sexual fantasies about Obama´s sexed-up Thanatos.

One of the really sexy operations would be that of the killing of Osama bin Laden ? Sorry to say that the guy had been dead and buried for almost ten years already, so, unless you also are suffering from necrophilia.. ?

A large part of the other “heroic homicides” are to be counted under the category of unmanned drone attacks in Pakistan – Afghanistan – Yemen – Somalia. Wedding-parties ?Or Al-Qaeda ? It´s your guess. If you find the fact that Obama personally ordered the hoopla mutilation of young brides, the bursting of young grooms into unrecognizable BBQ-Ready pieces of flesh that smell of guts and cordite sexy go on buying into the New York Times propaganda narratives.

The fact that he is violating the territorial integrity of a sovereign nation, crimes against peace and other kinky stuff, committing a crime that falls under the category of “Nuremberg Principles” is of course extremely sexy too. I mean, Nazi´s were hanged and your hero is getting away with it ! Wrap a US – UN – NATO flag around you and hoopla, you are a member of the sexiest hooligan club world wide. Full Spectrum Global Perversion. To secure yourself a full body orgasm – think about that Obama “personally decides whether to attack a terror suspect when the suspect´s family is present”.

The one good thing about the last point is, that if Obama ever has his own personal Nuremberg Process we don´t have to waste millions of taxpayer money to clarify questions about command responsibility.

Now here is an irony. The name of the press secretary of the White House is Jay “Carney”. Does that remind you of the Latin root “carne” too ? Well when “Carney” was asked about a report according to which it is policy to count all men of military age in a strike zone as militants unless there is intelligence to the contrary, he replied that ” Obama takes his responsibility enormously seriously, and that is why he has pursued the fight against ((“brides, grooms, little boys and babies to exterminate those pests”)) Al-Qaeda.

See “that” is almost so sexy that it is too much already. But don´t come prematurely, it´s getting better yet.

The best death wish sex is always accompanied by twisted mind games and small, delicate and evil twists. While he is getting away with making clowns believe that he is a anti-al-qaeda super-hero he keeps a perfect poker-face while he is installing the chief Al-Qaeda terrorist Belhadj as Military Governor of the liberated Tripoli and Commander of the Free Syrian Army.

Ok, I understand, this is too much, you may come now. Was is good, dear ?

Christof Lehmann

30.05.2012

BREAKING NEWS: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister: Russia Will Not Allow the Security Council to Authorize a Military Intervention in Syria

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister: Russia Will Not Allow the Security Council to Authorize a Military Intervention in Syria.

Gatilov : We Are Categorically against Any Intervention in Syrian Conflict from the Outside

Russia reiterated its rejection for any proposals at the UN Security Council authorizing military intervention in Syria.

Gennady Gatilov, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, said in press statements to the Russian Interfax News Agency: “We have always said that we are categorically against any intervention in the Syrian conflict from the outside, as this would only worsen the situation and would lead to unpredictable consequences both for Syria itself and the region on the whole.”

Gatilov underscored that Russia calls for broader international discussion on settling standoff in Syria and Kofi Annan’s, the UN Envoy to Syria, six-point plan.

Gatilov added that Russia thinks any new UN Security Council pressure measures on Syria are premature, asserting that Russia will veto initiatives on foreign military interference in Syrian situation in UN Security Council.

Gatilov declared that Russia does not exclude a new mechanism for supervising the implementation of Annan’s plan, citing the necessity for allowing Anna’s plan implementation the needed opportunity, calling on all foreign players, including the western ones, to put pressure on opposition.

The Politics of Language and the Language of Political Regression

By James Petras. – Jamespetras.  Capitalism and its defenders maintain dominance through the ‘material resources’ at their command, especially the state apparatus, and their productive, financial and commercial enterprises, as well as through the manipulation of popular consciousness via ideologues, journalists, academics and publicists who fabricate the arguments and the language to frame the issues of the day.

Today material conditions for the vast majority of working people have sharply deteriorated as the capitalist class shifts the entire burden of the crisis and the recovery of their profits onto the backs of wage and salaried classes. One of the striking aspects of this sustained and on-going roll-back of living standards is the absence of a major social upheaval so far. Greece and Spain, with over 50% unemployment among its 16-24 year olds and nearly 25% general unemployment, have experienced a dozen general strikes and numerous multi-million person national protests; but these have failed to produce any real change in regime or policies. The mass firings and painful salary, wage, pension and social services cuts continue. In other countries, like Italy, France and England, protests and discontent find expression in the electoral arena, with incumbents voted out and replaced by the traditional opposition. Yet throughout the social turmoil and profound socio-economic erosion of living and working conditions, the dominant ideology informing the movements, trade unions and political opposition is reformist: Issuing calls to defend existing social benefits, increase public spending and investments and expand the role of the state where private sector activity has failed to invest or employ. In other words, the left proposes to conserve a past when capitalism was harnessed to the welfare state.

The problem is that this ‘capitalism of the past’ is gone and a new more virulent and intransigent capitalism has emerged forging a new worldwide framework and a powerful entrenched state apparatus immune to all calls for ‘reform’ and reorientation. The confusion, frustration and misdirection of mass popular opposition is, in part, due to the adoption by leftist writers, journalists and academics of the concepts and language espoused by its capitalist adversaries: language designed to obfuscate the true social relations of brutal exploitation, the central role of the ruling classes in reversing social gains and the profound links between the capitalist class and the state. Capitalist publicists, academics and journalists have elaborated a whole litany of concepts and terms which perpetuate capitalist rule and distract its critics and victims from the perpetrators of their steep slide toward mass impoverishment.

Even as they formulate their critiques and denunciations, the critics of capitalism use the language and concepts of its apologists. Insofar as the language of capitalism has entered the general parlance of the left, the capitalist class has established hegemony or dominance over its erstwhile adversaries. Worse, the left, by combining some of the basic concepts of capitalism with sharp criticism, creates illusions about the possibility of reforming ‘the market’ to serve popular ends. This fails to identify the principle social forces that must be ousted from the commanding heights of the economy and the imperative to dismantle the class-dominated state. While the left denounces the capitalist crisis and state bailouts, its own poverty of thought undermines the development of mass political action. In this context the ‘language’ of obfuscation becomes a ‘material force’ – a vehicle of capitalist power, whose primary use is to disorient and disarm its anti-capitalist and working class adversaries. It does so by co-opting its intellectual critics through the use of terms, conceptual framework and language which dominate the discussion of the capitalist crisis.

Key Euphemisms at the Service of the Capitalist Offensive

Euphemisms have a double meaning: What terms connote and what they really mean. Euphemistic conceptions under capitalism connote a favorable reality or acceptable behavior and activity totally dissociated from the aggrandizement of elite wealth and concentration of power and privilege. Euphemisms disguise the drive of power elites to impose class-specific measures and to repress without being properly identified, held responsible and opposed by mass popular action.

The most common euphemism is the term ‘market’, which is endowed with human characteristics and powers. As such, we are told ‘the market demands wage cuts’ disassociated from the capitalist class. Markets, the exchange of commodities or the buying and selling of goods, have existed for thousands of years in different social systems in highly differentiated contexts. These have been global, national, regional and local. They involve different socio-economic actors, and comprise very different economic units, which range from giant state-promoted trading-houses to semi-subsistence peasant villages and town squares. ‘Markets’ existed in all complex societies: slave, feudal, mercantile and early and late competitive, monopoly industrial and finance capitalist societies.

When discussing and analyzing ‘markets’ and to make sense of the transactions (who benefits and who loses), one must clearly identify the principle social classes dominating economic transactions. To write in general about ‘markets’ is deceptive because markets do not exist independent of the social relations defining what is produced and sold, how it is produced and what class configurations shape the behavior of producers, sellers and labor. Today’s market reality is defined by giant multi-national banks and corporations, which dominate the labor and commodity markets. To write of ‘markets’ as if they operated in a sphere above and beyond brutal class inequalities is to hide the essence of contemporary class relations.

Fundamental to any understanding, but left out of contemporary discussion, is the unchallenged power of the capitalist owners of the means of production and distribution, the capitalist ownership of advertising, the capitalist bankers who provide or deny credit and the capitalist-appointed state officials who ‘regulate’ or deregulate exchange relations. The outcomes of their policies are attributed to euphemistic ‘market’ demands which seem to be divorced from the brutal reality. Therefore, as the propagandists imply, to go against ‘the market’ is to oppose the exchange of goods: This is clearly nonsense. In contrast, to identify capitalist demands on labor, including reductions in wages, welfare and safety, is to confront a specific exploitative form of market behavior where capitalists seek to earn higher profits against the interests and welfare majority of wage and salaried workers.

By conflating exploitative market relations under capitalism with markets in general, the ideologues achieve several results: They disguise the principle role of capitalists while evoking an institution with positive connotations, that is, a ‘market’ where people purchase consumer goods and ‘socialize’ with friends and acquaintances. In other words, when ‘the market’, which is portrayed as a friend and benefactor of society, imposes painful policies presumably it is for the welfare of the community. At least that is what the business propagandists want the public to believe by marketing their virtuous image of the ‘market’; they mask private capital’s predatory behavior as it chases greater profits.

One of the most common euphemisms thrown about in the midst of this economic crisis is ‘austerity’, a term used to cover-up the harsh realities of draconian cutbacks in wages, salaries, pensions and public welfare and the sharp increase in regressive taxes (VAT). ‘Austerity’ measures mean policies to protect and even increase state subsidies to businesses, and create higher profits for capital and greater inequalities between the top 10% and the bottom 90%. ‘Austerity’ implies self-discipline, simplicity, thrift, saving, responsibility, limits on luxuries and spending, avoidance of immediate gratification for future security – a kind of collective Calvinism. It connotes shared sacrifice today for the future welfare of all.

However, in practice ‘austerity’ describes policies that are designed by the financial elite to implement class-specific reductions in the standard of living and social services (such as health and education) available for workers and salaried employees. It means public funds can be diverted to an even greater extent to pay high interest rates to wealthy bondholders while subjecting public policy to the dictates of the overlords of finance capital.

Rather than talking of ‘austerity’, with its connotation of stern self-discipline, leftist critics should clearly describe ruling class policies against the working and salaried classes, which increase inequalities and concentrate even more wealth and power at the top. ‘Austerity’ policies are therefore an expression of how the ruling classes use the state to shift the burden of the cost of their economic crisis onto labor.

The ideologues of the ruling classes co-opted concepts and terms, which the left originally used to advance improvements in living standards and turned them on their heads. Two of these euphemisms, co-opted from the left, are ‘reform’ and ‘structural adjustment’. ‘Reform’, for many centuries, referred to changes, which lessened inequalities and increased popular representation. ‘Reforms’ were positive changes enhancing public welfare and constraining the abuse of power by oligarchic or plutocratic regimes. Over the past three decades, however, leading academic economists, journalists and international banking officials have subverted the meaning of ‘reform’ into its opposite: it now refers to the elimination of labor rights, the end of public regulation of capital and the curtailment of public subsidies making food and fuel affordable to the poor. In today’s capitalist vocabulary ‘reform’ means reversing progressive changes and restoring the privileges of private monopolies. ‘Reform’ means ending job security and facilitating massive layoffs of workers by lowering or eliminating mandatory severance pay. ‘Reform’ no longer means positive social changes; it now means reversing those hard fought changes and restoring the unrestrained power of capital. It means a return to capital’s earlier and most brutal phase, before labor organizations existed and when class struggle was suppressed. Hence ‘reform’ now means restoring privileges, power and profit for the rich.

In a similar fashion, the linguistic courtesans of the economic profession have co-opted the term ‘structural’ as in ‘structural adjustment’ to service the unbridled power of capital. As late as the 1970’s ‘structural’ change referred to the redistribution of land from the big landlords to the landless; a shift in power from plutocrats to popular classes. ‘Structures’ referred to the organization of concentrated private power in the state and economy. Today, however, ‘structure’ refers to the public institutions and public policies, which grew out of labor and citizen struggles to provide social security, for protecting the welfare, health and retirement of workers. ‘Structural changes’ now are the euphemism for smashing those public institutions, ending the constraints on capital’s predatory behavior and destroying labor’s capacity to negotiate, struggle or preserve its social advances.

The term ‘adjustment’, as in ‘structural adjustment’ (SA), is itself a bland euphemism implying fine-tuning , the careful modulation of public institutions and policies back to health and balance. But, in reality, ‘structural adjustment’ represents a frontal attack on the public sector and a wholesale dismantling of protective legislation and public agencies organized to protect labor, the environment and consumers. ‘Structural adjustment’ masks a systematic assault on the people’s living standards for the benefit of the capitalist class.

The capitalist class has cultivated a crop of economists and journalists who peddle brutal policies in bland, evasive and deceptive language in order to neutralize popular opposition. Unfortunately, many of their ‘leftist’ critics tend to rely on the same terminology.

Given the widespread corruption of language so pervasive in contemporary discussions about the crisis of capitalism the left should stop relying on this deceptive set of euphemisms co-opted by the ruling class. It is frustrating to see how easily the following terms enter our discourse:

Market discipline – The euphemism ‘discipline’ connotes serious, conscientious strength of character in the face of challenges as opposed to irresponsible, escapist behavior. In reality, when paired with ‘market’, it refers to capitalists taking advantage of unemployed workers and using their political influence and power lay-off masses workers and intimidate those remaining employees into greater exploitation and overwork, thereby producing more profit for less pay. It also covers the capacity of capitalist overlords to raise their rate of profit by slashing the social costs of production, such as worker and environmental protection, health coverage and pensions.

‘Market shock’ – This refers to capitalists engaging in brutal massive, abrupt firings, cuts in wages and slashing of health plans and pensions in order to improve stock quotations, augment profits and secure bigger bonuses for the bosses. By linking the bland, neutral term, ‘market’ to ‘shock’, the apologists of capital disguise the identity of those responsible for these measures, their brutal consequences and the immense benefits enjoyed by the elite.

‘Market Demands’ – This euphemistic phrase is designed to anthropomorphize an economic category, to diffuse criticism away from real flesh and blood power-holders, their class interests and their despotic strangle-hold over labor. Instead of ‘market demands’, the phrase should read: ‘the capitalist class commands the workers to sacrifice their own wages and health to secure more profit for the multi-national corporations’ – a clear concept more likely to arouse the ire of those adversely affected.

‘Free Enterprise’ – An euphemism spliced together from two real concepts: private enterprise for private profit and free competition. By eliminating the underlying image of private gain for the few against the interests of the many, the apologists of capital have invented a concept that emphasizes individual virtues of ‘enterprise’ and ‘freedom’ as opposed to the real economic vices of greed and exploitation.

‘Free Market’ – A euphemism implying free, fair and equal competition in unregulated markets glossing over the reality of market domination by monopolies and oligopolies dependent on massive state bailouts in times of capitalist crisis. ‘Free’ refers specifically to the absence of public regulations and state intervention to defend workers safety as well as consumer and environmental protection. In other words, ‘freedom’ masks the wanton destruction of the civic order by private capitalists through their unbridled exercise of economic and political power. ‘Free market’ is the euphemism for the absolute rule of capitalists over the rights and livelihood of millions of citizens, in essence, a true denial of freedom.

‘Economic Recovery’ – This euphemistic phrase means the recovery of profits by the major corporations. It disguises the total absence of recovery of living standards for the working and middle classes, the reversal of social benefits and the economic losses of mortgage holders, debtors, the long-term unemployed and bankrupted small business owners. What is glossed over in the term ‘economic recovery’ is how mass immiseration became a key condition for the recovery of corporate profits.

‘Privatization’ – This describes the transfer of public enterprises, usually the profitable ones, to well-connected, large scale private capitalists at prices well below their real value, leading to the loss of public services, stable public employment and higher costs to consumers as the new private owners jack up prices and lay-off workers – all in the name of another euphemism, ‘efficiency’.

‘Efficiency’ – Efficiency here refers only to the balance sheets of an enterprise; it does not reflect the heavy costs of ‘privatization’ borne by related sectors of the economy. For example, ‘privatization’ of transport adds costs to upstream and downstream businesses by making them less competitive compared with competitors in other countries; ‘privatization’ eliminates services in regions that are less profitable, leading to local economic collapse and isolation from national markets. Frequently, public officials, who are aligned with private capitalists, will deliberately disinvest in public enterprises and appoint incompetent political cronies as part of patronage politics, in order to degrade services and foment public discontent. This creates a public opinion favorable to ‘privatizing’ the enterprise. In other words ‘privatization’ is not a result of the inherent inefficiencies of public enterprises, as the capitalist ideologues like to argue, but a deliberate political act designed to enhance private capital gain at the cost of public welfare.

Conclusion

Language, concepts and euphemisms are important weapons in the class struggle ‘from above’ designed by capitalist journalists and economists to maximize the wealth and power of capital. To the degree that progressive and leftist critics adopt these euphemisms and their frame of reference, their own critiques and the alternatives they propose are limited by the rhetoric of capital. Putting ‘quotation marks’ around the euphemisms may be a mark of disapproval but this does nothing to advance a different analytical framework necessary for successful class struggle ‘from below’. Equally important, it side-steps the need for a fundamental break with the capitalist system including its corrupted language and deceptive concepts. Capitalists have overturned the most fundamental gains of the working class and we are falling back toward the absolute rule of capital. This must raise anew the issue of a socialist transformation of the state, economy and class structure. An integral part of that process must be the complete rejection of the euphemisms used by capitalist ideologues and their systematic replacement by terms and concepts that truly reflect the harsh reality, that clearly identify the perpetrators of this decline and that define the social agencies for political transformation.

WAR ON IRAN: US Launches New Computer Virus “Weapon of Mass Destruction”

By Finnian Cunningham – The 4Th Media. The US-led economic war on Iran has been dangerously ratcheted up with the launching of a powerful new computer virus targeting the Islamic Republic’s nuclear research facilities and other vital commercial sectors, including the oil and banking industries.

Previously, the Iranian economy and scientific research centres have been hacked with the computer malware or virus known as Stuxnet. That sabotage of Iranian facilities is widely believed to have been the work of American and Israeli military agencies.

Now an even more destructive virus appears to have been unleashed. The so-called Flame malware is said by internet security experts to be 20 times more disruptive to computer systems than Stuxnet. Compared with Stuxnet, which inflicted serious Iranian technical damage nearly two years ago, the latest malware can be seen as virtual weapon of mass destruction.

Again, American and closely collaborative Israeli military agencies are believed to have launched the latest salvo of cyber missiles.

Iranian and Syrian computer systems are reported to be among the main targets of Flame. Although other countries have this week also reported malfunctions from the Flame virus, including Austria, Hong Kong Hungary and United Arab Emirates, precedent would point to its origin as US intelligence, with the motive of adding yet more economic pain on Iran.

Independent internet security firms say that there is no obvious commercial motive for the malware, for example reports of blackmail attempts, and that the most likely instigator of the virus are “state agencies”.

Over the past year, the US has been stepping up bilateral economic sanctions on Iran, aimed at crippling the country’s central banking and oil sectors that are the backbone of the national economy.

Next month, the US and the European Union are set to tighten the economic embargo on Iran even further with new sanctions lined up to hit the country’s international oil trade – some 80 per cent of Iran’s national revenues derive from oil and gas sectors.

Moreover, the US, Britain and France, together with Germany and Israel, have been twisting the pressure on Iran at the resumed P5 + 1 talks this month over its nuclear programme, demanding that the country rescind its legal right to enrich uranium.

Tehran has steadfastly refused to suspend its uranium enrichment facilities, which it says it is legally entitled to as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and which are solely for civilian applications, such as energy production and medical radioisotopes.

The evidence certainly points to “regime change” being the thinly veiled objective of the Western powers and that the nuclear issue is a manufactured controversy with which to browbeat Iran. But the war of words goes way beyond browbeating. The US-led international campaign against Iran is tantamount to an all-out covert war, a war that is criminal in its conduct on several counts.

Military threats, invasion of Iranian territory with unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, financial and economic sanctions, and now intensified computer virus attacks on Iran’s telecommunications. This is all but a war of aggression without troops on the ground.

With mainstream news media becoming ever more servile to Western government foreign policy agenda, it is important to remind ourselves of realistic legal and moral perspective here.

Can you imagine how the US, Britain, France or Israel would react if Iran were to shut down their computer systems because it objected to their unlawfully persistent arsenals of actual weapons of mass destruction? Such an Iranian cyber attack would be met with ferocious retaliation or at best would be considered reprehensible, but such a move by Iran would certainly have a lot more legal and moral right than the Western campaign of belligerence towards Tehran.

The panoply of aggression towards Iran is emanating from Western powers that have murderous blood on their hands from the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, among other places, and this campaign is based on a repetition of outlandish allegations over “weapons of mass destruction”. The latest sabotage of Iranian society through computer malware should be seen, and roundly denounced, as yet another war crime by US allies that is pushing the world ever closer to escalation of war.

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New Computer Virus hits Iran & West Bank in Unprecedented Cyber Attack.