*LIES STILL BEING PUSHED FOR WAR WITH IRAN
* ** *Yesterday, on the Persian new year, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that if the USA or Israel should attack Iran, they can expect a counterattack <http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/03/20-3>. * *Last month, US mass media headlined, using unnamed sources as they so often do in their essential National Security State <http://luvnews.info/NatSec.htm> role, that Iran had refused to cooperate with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. Gareth Porter shows we were lied to <http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=107146>, in fact Iran cooperated, but sadly, most Americans believe the lie mass media shouted, and repeated, and repeated. * *One is reminded of the "weapons of mass destruction" pushed by the mass media in 2003, ignoring US weapons inspector Scott Ritter and UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, both of whom had combed Iraq looking for weapons, with teams of experts. This massive lie "justified" the illegal invasion of Iraq resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. * *At /LUV News/, we ran several articles by Blix and Ritter saying there were no weapons of mass destruction, even as corporate media were ridiculing these two for exposing their deceit.** It's happening again.* *Our mass media never notice the hypocrisy. What would happen if Iran demanded to send its nuclear experts into American nuclear facilities, expecting to see everything? What in hell could we do with the ten thousand nuclear warheads we already have, as President Obama spends a fortune "modernizing" this arsenal? What if Iran asked to go into Israel's facilities to look at their hundreds of nuclear warheads? Don't hold your breath waiting for our mass media to notice anything amiss, their job is to cover up even the most obvious inconvenient information.* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *BIZARRE MASS MEDIA AND GOVERNMENT HYPOCRISY * ** *Glenn Greenwald goes into mass media hypocrisy <http://www.salon.com/2012/03/20/ironies_in_american_justice_and_political_cheerleading/singleton/> this morning, with blockbuster exposé after exposé, beginning with a challenge to MSNBC's Chuck todd, who said President Bush cannot be tried for his crimes because his lawyers told him torture was okay. Greenwald's response: "I'd like to ask Chuck Todd: if Bush had John Yoo write a memo opining that it was perfectly legal for Bush to deploy hit squads within the U.S. to assassinate American citizens without any due process, would it be wrong to investigate and prosecute that, too, on the ground that everyone had permission slips from a DOJ lawyer and that's just what lawyers do? "The current President has, of course, obtained his own DOJ permission slip to assassinate American citizens without due process. Since that permission slip is too secret for us to see, we do not know whether the authorized assassination power is confined to foreign soil or extends to the U.S., although once one embraces the Bush-Cheney-Yoo theory that the entire world is a 'battlefield,' there is no coherent way to limit those asserted powers to foreign soil." There's much more, including the fact that alleged mass murderer Sgt. Robert Bales is being treated much better than was alleged whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning. * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *THE TV ROLE IN OUR CORRUPT ELECTIONS * ** *One of the magnificent scams which dominate our election process, is the way candidates are required to spend millions of dollars to the corporations which control our public airwaves, largely done in secret. It is essential to the control of government by transnational corporations into polluting, defense cheating, bankstering and other criminal activity. These corporations give the massive bribes to the politicians running for office, after ensuring they will kneel and kiss butt on command, then get it back in their media operations largely influenced by investments into the same criminal activities held by media owners, media board members, and advertisers, resulting in control of government at no cost to the controllers. Anyone standing for the public interest, such as the candidates we've featured in /LUV News/ articles (Rocky Anderson, Jill Stein, Stewart Alexander, etc.) is not allowed exposure by the mass media gatekeepers. One recalls that billionaire Ross Perot was denied campaign spots on network TV though willing to pay top dollar, obviously because media owners did not want interference with their Republocrat monopoly scam. If a person is seen on TV, they might, after all, pick up some votes. /Pro Publica/ has a story this morning <http://www.propublica.org/article/if-tv-stations-wont-post-their-data-on-political-ads-we-will> about their attempt to get information about who is paying for the TV ads out to the public. You would think those who run the country would allow this tiny bit of transparency, but they are dragging their feet as though the world will end should they disclose who's giving all the millions to rent the White House and Congress, together with state and local governments. * ** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **I have believed since the coup overthrew democracy in Honduras that the Obama regime was responsible. They did immediately pretend to politically oppose it, even as they continued to send weapons to the coup leaders, as the rest of the world condemned the coup and embargoed such aid. In these matters, phony excuses are made under the pretense that the coup takes place without the consent of the Empire, as in the two overthrows of Haitian democracy under President Aristide. The enabling corporate media never say a discouraging word, as though blind and deaf, keeping the masses from suspecting that anything is amiss. The magnificent Laura Carlsen brings us up to date with what Obama has created in Honduras, on behalf of the ruling Forces of Greed --Jack ** **When Engagement Becomes Complicity** **** **Honduras and the Obama Administration <http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/20/obama-clinton-and-honduras/> ** ** ** **** **by LAURA CARLSEN** **** **** **U.S. Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Honduras on March 6 with a double mission: to quell talk of drug legalization and reinforce the U.S.-sponsored drug war in Central America, and to bolster the presidency of Porfirio Lobo.** **The Honduran government issued a statement that during the one-hour closed-door conversation between Biden and Lobo, the vice president "reiterated the U.S. commitment to intensify aid to the government and people of Honduras, and exalted the efforts undertaken and implemented over the past two years by President Lobo."** **In a March 1 press briefing, U.S. National Security Advisor Tony Blinken cited "the tremendous leadership President Lobo has displayed in advancing national reconciliation and democratic and constitutional order."** **You'd think they were talking about a different country from the one we visited just weeks before on a fact-finding mission on violence against women.** **What we found was a nation submerged in violence and lawlessness, a president incapable or unwilling to do much about it, and a justice system in shambles.** ******Two-Year Slide** **The crisis in human rights and governance in Honduras has become apparent to the world and is a fact of daily life within the country. In the two years since Lobo came to power in elections boycotted by the opposition, Honduras catapulted into the top spot in the world for per capita homicides --- the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime's (UNODC) Global Homicide Survey found an official murder rate of 82 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2010. There were 120 political assassinations in the country in 2010-2011. In the region of Bajo Aguan, where peasants are defending their land from large developers, 42 peasants have been murdered, and alongside 18 journalists, 62 members of the LGBT community, and 72 human rights activists have been killed since 2009. The Honduran Center for Women's Rights reports that femicides have more than doubled and that more than one woman a day was murdered in 2011.** **An Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on the Honduran coup found at least seven deaths, harassment of opposition members, disproportionate use of force by security forces, thousands of illegal detentions, systematic violations of political rights and freedom of expression, sexual violence, and other crimes, with almost no investigation or prosecution.** **Despite the fact that security forces perpetrated many of these crimes, the response of the Honduran government --- with the support of the United States --- has been to beef up military presence. One of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, Honduras increased its military expenditure from $63 million in 2005 to $160 million in 2010. The Lobo government justifies the militarization saying that its own police forces can't be relied on. He told us in a meeting, "We're working on cleaning up the police but it's going to take some years. The corruption is deep."** **The impunity with which common criminals, powerful transnational interests, and elements of the state violate the most basic principles of society with government complicity or indifference derives from the fact that the government itself is erected on the violation of those principles. The crisis in human rights and violence---as deep as it is---is but a symptom of a greater evil. When the 2009 coup was allowed to conserve power and seal itself off from prosecution, it immediately undermined governance, rule of law, and the social compact. Honduras' constitutional crisis has now become a prolonged social and political crisis.** ******A Coup for Criminals** **The coup d'état on June 28, 2009 was not only a criminal act. It was an act designed to benefit criminals.** **When members of the armed forces kidnapped democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya and took him to Costa Rica in his pajamas, they destroyed the the fragile democracy built since the era of military dictatorships. None of the convoluted discussions of what the president had supposedly done to deserve forcible removal changed the fact that the millennium's first coup d'état had taken place in the Americas. The OAS and every major diplomatic body in the world immediately realized that Honduras had become the symbol and the reality of the world's new battles for democracy.** **What many people don't know is that the unraveling of the story is more tragic than the coup itself---and holds even greater lessons for global governance.. To make a long story short, the Honduran coup regime incredibly survived international embargos and diplomatic negotiations that in the end only served to extend its grasp on illegitimate power. The disturbing suspicion that the U.S. government, the historic godfather of the region, had given its blessing to the new regime became certainty when the State Department negotiated an agreement that paved the way for coup-sponsored elections without assuring the return of the elected government.** **Porfirio Lobo came to power, and a nation pummeled by poverty splintered into an ungoverned free-for-all characterized by political polarization, a surge in crime, and widespread land grabs. Honduras is not a failed state. It's a violated state.** **Crime---common crime, organized crime, state crime, and corporate crime---has thrived since the coup. Drug trafficking in the country has increased. The most recent U.S. International Narcotics report calculates that 79 percent of cocaine smuggling flights from South America use landing strips in Honduras. Reports that Mexican kingpin El Chapo Guzman and others use Honduras as a hideout surface frequently. Militarization of the country has taken place alongside the spread of organized crime---a phenomenon that should provoke some reflection. But the Honduran and U.S. governments have been too busy promoting the drug war to pay attention to the correlation between militarization and organized crime.** **Land grabs to transfer land and resources from small-scale farmers, indigenous peoples, and poor urban residents into the hands of large-scale developers and megaprojects have generated violence throughout the country. Many of the testimonies of violence and sexual abuse that we heard from Honduran women regarded conflicts over land, where the regime actively supports wealthy interests against poor people in illegal land occupations for tourism, mining, and infrastructure projects, such as palm oil magnate Miguel Facusse's actions in Bajo Aguan.** **The lack of investigation and prosecution for crimes --- and the evidence that state forces are involved in human rights violations against opposition and "undesirable" sectors --- creates a paradise for criminals and a hell for the majority of citizens.** ******U.S. Engagement or Complicity?** **U.S. responsibility for what happened after the coup is a question that deserves far more analysis and soul-searching. By choosing not to support a return to democratic order and political healing before presidential elections, the United States helped deliver a serious blow to the Honduran political system and society. The United States has a tremendous responsibility for the disastrous situation, and the urgent question is what to do about it.** **Biden stressed U.S. programs to vet police and justice officials. When we met with U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kubriskie, she insisted that continuing to fund Honduran security forces would eventually lead to reform by "engaging" with government forces.** **But even if that did happen, in the meantime those government forces are murdering, raping, beating, and detaining Hondurans --- with U.S. aid.** **When does engagement become complicity? Citizen groups and members of the U.S. Congress have come to the conclusion that the line was crossed some time ago. So far, more than 60 members of Congress have signed a letter circulated by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) to cut off aid to the Honduran military and police, claiming that the funding of these institutions fuels the abuse.** **There's no excuse for spending U.S. taxpayer dollars on security assistance to Honduras as human rights violations pile up. No amount of money poured into these programs will change the systemic corruption and human rights violations until there's a real political commitment to justice and reconciliation. And that does not appear to exist under the current regime.** **Laura Carlsen is the director of the Americas Program based in Mexico City. She is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion, forthcoming from AK Press.** **** **http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/20/obama-clinton-and-honduras/** **** ** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *If you wish to be removed from this list, please let us know* ** *To join the Liberty Underground news service email libertyuv@hotmail.comwith "join" for a subject* ** *You may also join our talk group athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/ <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/>if you would like to participate* ** *email: libert...@hotmail.com* ** *Tell your friends about /LUV News/ because some people just don't get it* [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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