Stephen Lendman's blog

Militarized Peacekeeping for Palestine?

by Stephen Lendman

So-called Blue Helmets stoke conflict. They don't preserve peace. They don't anywhere. They're imperial enforcers. They're human rights abusers.

Vulnerable people they control suffer horrifically. NATO's worse. It's a killing machine. It's mission is war, not peace. More on that below.

Israel Behind Egypt's Coup?

by Stephen Lendman

Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blames Israel for ousting Morsi. It wouldn't surprise. He claims he has proof. More on that below.

He's the last one to point fingers. He rules repressively. He's more despot than democrat. 

Obama's War on Yemen

by Stephen Lendman

Iraq war rules of engagement (ROE) were explicit. They ordered killing every military-aged Iraqi on sight. Afghanistan policy is similar. 

Drone wars reflect it. Baseless suspicion leaves innocent civilians vulnerable. Point and click death awaits them. There's no place to hide.

Police State Terror in Egypt

by Stephen Lendman

Protracted conflict continues. Reports suggest Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) plans to declare the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) a terrorist organization.

The Illusion of Israeli/Palestinian Peaceful Conflict Resolution

by Stephen Lendman

Peace talks are more pretense than real. They've been that way for decades. Initiatives were always stillborn. They reflect the greatest diplomatic scam of all time.

It's no different now. Peaceful conflict resolution's a convenient illusion. It's guaranteed. Chances for success are ZERO. Smart money knows but won't say.

Murarakism 2.0

by Stephen Lendman

February 11, 2011 marked the end of Mubarak's 30-year dictatorship. July 3, 2013 reflects its reincarnation.

Iron fist junta power's reinstated. Perhaps it'll be worse than before. For sure it is now. Violence continues daily. Many hundreds, perhaps thousands, died. Countless numbers were injured and arrested.

Al Jazeera America Set to Debut

by Stephen Lendman

On November 1, 1996, Al Jazeera began operating. It's headquartered in Doha. It's owned and operated by Qatar's monarchy. 

Chairman Hamad bin Thamer Al Thani's a distant cousin of Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.

Fear Grips Egypt

by Stephen Lendman

There's good reason to worry. Egypt's a virtual war zone. No end of confrontations loom. Junta officials say crackdowns will continue. Live fire's officially authorized.

Pro-Morsi supporters demand he be reinstated. They're defiant. They promise daily protests. EU officials said they'll review relations with Egypt. 

Egypt's Bloody Friday

by Stephen Lendman

Egypt's bloody crackdown continues. On Friday, scores more died. Some estimates say close to 200. More on that below.

On August 16, the Muslim Brotherhood's Ikhwanweb headlined "Statement: Friday of Rage," saying:

NSA Caught Red-Handed

by Stephen Lendman

It's a longstanding rogue agency. It always operated extrajudicially. It's worse than ever now. It's a power unto itself.

Obama claims "(w)e don’t have a domestic spying program. What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat."

Institutionalized US Spying: More Than NSA's Involved

by Stephen Lendman

Washington has 16 known US spy agencies. NSA and CIA are best known. Perhaps few Americans know much about the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

It calls itself "first in all-source defense intelligence to prevent strategic surprise and deliver a decision advantage to warfighters, defense planners, and policymakers." 

World Leaders Declare America and Israel Pariah States: A Fable

By Stephen Lendman

They're responsible for state-sponsored terrorism. They violate fundamental international law doing. It's no longer tolerated.

Victor Hugo once said, "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come."

Police State Egypt

by Stephen Lendman

Bloody Wednesday revealed state-sponsored police state harshness. Egypt exhibits classic characteristics.

Wikipedia calls a police state one "in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the population." 

Dispossessing East Jerusalem Palestinian Residents

by Stephen Lendman

Israel plans Judaizing Jerusalem entirely. It wants it exclusively Jewish. It's an international city. It's under a UN trusteeship. It doesn't matter.

Ethnic cleansing is official Israeli policy. Palestinian owned land is seized. Homes are demolished. Dispossessions follow.

Egypt's Bloody Wednesday

by Stephen Lendman

On January 30, 1972, Northern Ireland's Bogside Massacre was called Bloody Sunday. UK soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilian protesters and bystanders. They did so in cold blood.

Fourteen deaths resulted. So did numerous injuries. Reports said five civilians were shot in the back of the head.

Bradley Manning Addresses Sentencing Hearing

by Stephen Lendman

He's an American hero. He's no spy. He committed no crimes. He acted responsibly. He did the right thing. He deserves praise, not prosecution.

He exposed US war crimes. He fulfilled his legal obligation to do so. He's victimized unjustly. Police state injustice wants him imprisoned longterm. Systemic unfairness defines US policy.

Sham Peace Talks Resume

by Stephen Lendman

Why bother. Talks are doomed to fail. So did multiple previous rounds. Israel wants things its way. Demands masquerade as give and take.

According to one PLO official, "Israel will dodge, evade and propose unachievable demands to promote a conclusion that negotiations are futile, and so Israel will continue to steal lands as they are doing now."

Obama Appoints Spy Chief to Head NSA Investigation

by Stephen Lendman

The fix is in. You can't make this stuff up. It sounds like a bad film plot. It's true. Obama's reform assures business as usual. His promises aren't worth the paper they're written on.

He says one thing. He does another. It happens every time. He broke every major promise made. He's a serial liar. He governs lawlessly.

Egypt: Blood in the Streets

by Stephen Lendman

Junta power runs Egypt. Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) generals decide policy. Interim officials serve at their pleasure. 

On July 3, President Mohamed Morsi was ousted. Coup authority replaced him. It did illegitimately. His supporters want him reinstated. They've been camped out in Cairo for weeks. SCAF threatened to roust them.

America: Addicted to War

by Stephen Lendman

It's been that way from inception. America's history reflects violence. It's blood-drenched. It glorifies war. It does so in the name of peace.

America believes war is peace. It's part of the national culture. Eventually it's self-destructive. Today's super-weapons make the unthinkable possible.

NYPD Stop and Frisk Ruled Unconstitutional

by Stephen Lendman

Longstanding NYPD stop and frisk practices are flagrantly racist. They violate constitutional privacy rights. People of color are systematically targeted.

Hundreds of thousands of law abiding residents are persecuted. According to New York's ACLU, mostly minority "New Yorkers (were) subjected to police stops and interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002."

Will or Won't Obama Attack Syria?

by Stephen Lendman

US regime change plans are longstanding. War was planned years ago. US-supported proxy fighters wage it.

Obama didn't initiate conflict to end it. At issue now is what's next. Insurgent invaders are no match for Syria's superior military. Guerrilla fighting can continue interminably. 

Spinning the Israeli/Palestinian Peace Process

by Stephen Lendman

New York Times editors, correspondents and contributors do it as well as anyone. They deceive regular readers in the process.

Illusions substitute for facts. Pro-Israeli bias reflects longstanding Times policy. The worst of occupation harshness goes unreported. Settler violence is ignored. Palestinians are blamed for Israeli crimes.

Fukushima: Uncontainable

by Stephen Lendman

Japan's apocalypse continues. Emergency conditions persist. No end in sight looms. Fukushima's radioactive discharges can't be stopped. They continue. They're uncontainable. 

At issue is by far the worst environmental disaster in history. It's multiples worse than Chernobyl. It's an unprecedented catastrophe. It's reason enough to abolish nuclear power. 

Israeli Occupation Harshness Prevents Peace

by Stephen Lendman

The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is perhaps the longest one in modern times. It's festered for decades. Resolution's nowhere in sight. 

Multiple peace talk rounds don't work. They never did. They were orchestrated to fail. They're pretense. They're fake. Nothing's different this time.

Israeli Business As Usual

by Stephen Lendman

Hardline extremists run Israel. Netanyahu's the worst. He's lawless. He's unprincipled. He's duplicitous. 

So are other coalition partner members. They say one thing. They do another. Same old, same old is policy.

Larry Summers: Wall Street's Man

by Stephen Lendman

When his Fed chairmanship term ends in January, Bernanke's expected to step down. Wall Street wants Summers replacing him. It usually gets what it wants. More on that below.

Money power runs America. The Federal Reserve isn't federal. It's privately owned and controlled. Wall Street decides who runs it. 

EU a Key NSA Target

by Stephen Lendman

Previous articles discussed institutionalized NSA spying. It's a rogue agency. It's out-of-control. It operates lawlessly. It manufactures fake security threats. The only real ones are state-sponsored.

NSA subverts fundamental freedoms. It targets dissent. It wants whistleblowers silenced. It conducts espionage on allies. EU nations are prime targets.

Israeli Democracy: A Convenient Illusion

by Stephen Lendman

Israel's more hypocrisy than democracy. Rhetoric belies longstanding policy. Nothing ahead suggests change.

Democracy exists in name only. Arundhati Roy calls India a "limbless, headless, soulless torso left bleeding under the butcher's cleaver with a flag driven deep into her mutilated heart."

Obama Spurns NSA Spying Reform

by Stephen Lendman

Huey Long once said fascism will arrive "wrapped in an American flag." In "Friendly Fascism," Bertram Gross (1912 - 1997) called Ronald Reagan its prototype ruler. Gross didn't know Obama.