How Propaganda Targets Iran

Lawrence Davidson,  Consortiumnews.com, January 6, 2012

 

Dr Joseph Goebbels

America’s Founders saw press freedom as a key check on government dishonesty, but today’s media has become a powerful ally of official lies by funneling sophisticated propaganda especially in support of war, as Lawrence Davidson notes about the hysteria over Iran.

Winston Churchill once said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried from time to time.” He was right.

Democracy in its various manifestations is a flawed system, flawed by virtue of its roots. By definition it is the system where power flows from the people (or at least a supposed majority of the people), and as there are no perfect people, then … Well, the logic speaks for itself.

Many of democracy’s problems are common to all forms of governance. For instance, (a) the tendency of a political leader to mistake his or her own interests or that of his party, for the nation’s or community’s interests and (b) the corruptive influence of powerful subgroups or lobbies usually coming through the manipulation of money and other resources.

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Tony Blair and the £8million tax ‘mystery’

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair channelled millions of pounds through a complicated web of companies and paid just a fraction in tax, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

Tony Blair channelled millions of pounds through a complicated web of companies. Photo: Getty

 

By Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter, The Telegraph, Jan 7, 2012

Official accounts show a company set up by Mr Blair to manage his business affairs paid just £315,000 in tax last year on an income of more than £12 million. In that time, he employed 26 staff and paid them total wages of almost £2.3 million.

The accounts provide the strongest evidence yet of the huge sums generated by Mr Blair through his various activities since quitting Downing Street in June 2007.

He runs a business consultancy – Tony Blair Associates – which has deals with the governments of Kuwait and Kazakhstan among others and is a paid adviser to JP Morgan, an American investment bank, and to Zurich International, a global insurance company based in Switzerland. Mr Blair makes a further £100,000 a time from speeches and lectures while also presiding over a number of charities including a faith foundation.

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Ukraine: Security or Torturing Julia Timoshenko (text in Norwegian)

• 

  En tilhenger av tidligere statsminister Julia Timosjenko foran appelldomstolen i Kiev. Støttespillerne frykter at fengselsforholdene vil knekke Timoskjenko.FOTO: SERGEI CHUZAVKOV

►Kameraovervåkes døgnet rundt

Fengselsledelsen i Ukraina sier de utelukkende er opptatt av Julia Timosjenkos beste. Derfor hevder de at det av sikkerhetsmessige 
årsaker er nødvendig med kameraovervåking og opplyst celle 24 timer i døgnet.

steinar dyrnes, Aftenposten,  08.jan. 2012

- Videoovervåking er ikke forbudt i loven. For å gjennomføre videoovervåking må det være tilstrekkelig lys i cellene, sier Ivan Pervusjkin, lederen av fengslet som Timosjenko ble flyttet til dagen før nyttårsaften.

Lyser rett mot sengen

Men forsvareren til Julia Timosjenko er på ingen måte enig i at kameraovervåking og medfølgende lys 24 timer i døgnet er til hennes beste.

- Lyset er rettet rett mot sengen hun ligger på, sier advokaten hennes.

Han mener at hun nå soner under «umenneskelige forhold» og at lys i ansiktet gjør det umulig å sove uten medisinsk hjelp.

- Alt dette har bare ett mål: å knekke Julia Timosjenko psykisk og psykologisk, sier fforsvareren.

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Obama: Drones and Change

by Sean Fenley, Dissident Voice,  January 5th, 2012

[Obama] didn’t just embrace the Bush policies he kissed them on the lips and ran with them.

— Ret. United States Air Force Colonel, Morris Davis

        The buck stops here!

— Harry S. Truman

The Washington Post looks like it decided to do a bit of actual journalism recently — penning an extensive and informative article on the Obama infatuation with the mass-killing aerial drone. This former constitutional scholar does not seem to feel impeded — by either the Constitution or the Bill of Rights — in his love affair with and, indeed, his use and misuse of this harbinger (and indeed harvester) of death.

Obama is at present, in fact, leading the way in the history of United States presidents in his extensive reliance on the secret killing of individuals ostensibly in the interest of securing national security goals. Attorney Morris Davis, former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo, has raised serious doubts about the entire nature of the multi-fold and various drone assassination program.

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Iran, US and Israel announce new war games as tensions rise in the Gulf

Surge in military activity in the region comes amid threat of EU embargo on Iranian oil and possible closure of strait of Hormuz

• Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 6 January 2012 13.49 GMT

Iran’s navy conducting the Velayat-90 naval war games in the strait of Hormuz on New Year’s Day. Photograph: Mohsen Shandiz/Corbis

 

Tensions on the oil shipping lanes in the Gulf have escalated with the announcement of new naval exercises by Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards and news that Israel and the US are planning to carry out extensive joint manoeuvres in the region.

The naval commander for the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, said the drill in February would be “different compared to previous exercises held by the IRGC”. The Iranian navy finished 10 days of exercises in the Gulf on Monday, during which it tested a range of new missiles. It warned that Iran could close the strait of Hormuz, the narrowest point in the Gulf, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes.

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Arms Dealer Obama Will Win by Default

By Robert Scheer, opednews.com,  January 5, 2011

reprinted from truthdig.com

 Barack Obama will be re-elected not as a vindication of his policies but because the Republicans are incapable of providing a reasonable challenge to his flawed performance. On the central issue of our time–reining in the greed of the multinational corporations, led by the financial sector and the defense industry–a Republican presidential victor, with the possible exception of the now-sidelined Ron Paul, would do far less to challenge the kleptocracy of corporate-dominated governance.

 

As compared to front-runner Mitt Romney, who wants to derail even Obama’s tepid efforts at regulating Wall Street, and who seeks ever more wasteful increases in military spending, the incumbent president appears relatively enlightened, but that is cold comfort.

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Iraq: Began with Big Lies, Ending with Big Lies, Never Forget

Anti-Empire Report

by William Blum, Dissident Voice,  January 4th, 2012

“Most people don’t understand what they have been part of here,” said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. “We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them.”

“It is pretty exciting,” said another young American soldier in Iraq. “We are going down in the history books, you might say.”¹

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