How NOT to be a patriotic American, i.e., One who believes anything claimed as fact by the so-called "mainstream media" …particularly regarding current foreign affairs.

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                               Published by Stephen Lendman at October 9, 2017

How to Succeed in Western Media Without Really Trying

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman)

Most important is loyalty to monied interests, war-profiteers, and the imperial state – serving as their press agents, abandoning fundamental journalistic principles, learning how to lie well, along with leaving honesty and integrity at home when heading for work.

Julian Assange offered his own recommended strategy for success. It’s simple, he said. Blame Russia for everything.

“You can do it” – without really trying.

“1) Pick random globally newsworthy event.
Russian press will also be reporting it by definition.

2) Write story: Russian state secretly behind globally newsworthy event as proved by their press reporting it.

3) Profit!”

Bashing Russia works, the bandwagon effect when everybody does it, following the same script.

Saying it makes it so. Repeating it ad nauseam works best. Lying is simpler than truth-telling – no evidence needed, no sources required.

Citing the usual unnamed ones works fine. Who’ll check? Lying pays well in America and other Western countries, truth-tellers shunted, contradicting the official narrative not tolerated.

Western major media are deplorable, truth-telling a lost art in their publications and broadcasts. The fourth estate, dominated by corporate giants, feature disinformation, fake news and advocacy instead of what legitimate journalism is supposed to be.

It’s shocking how low major media reporting has sunk. It’s biased, sensationalist, irresponsible rubbish, what Project Censored calls “junk food news.”

Major media are in cahoots with other powerful interests, government and private. Free and open societies are threatened when propagandists pose as journalists, letting fiction substitute for facts, stifling the free flow of content, shutting out dissent, working as paid liars, what famed journalist George Seldes called “prostitutes of the press.”

Imperial wars are called liberating ones, humanitarian intervention and responsibility to protect. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good.

Beneficial social justice is considered heresy. The marketplace works best, we’re told, so let it. Patriotism means going along with what harms our welfare.

Independent journalism is the only legitimate kind, notably digital democracy, threatened by administration efforts to control Internet content.

Facebook, Twitter and other social media are willing accomplices. So are Google and other search engines, censoring and suppressing content, flagrantly violating the most vital of all constitutional rights – media and speech freedom. 

During pre-television days, noted journalist and author AJ Liebling once said “(p)eople everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.”

HL Mencken called US journalism “predominantly paltry and worthless. Its pretensions are enormous, but its achievements are insignificant.”

He explained why major media sanitize news, filtering out unwanted content, saying:
“The most dangerous (person) to any government is (anyone) able to think things out for himself (or herself), without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.”

“Almost inevitably (they come) to the conclusion that the government…is dishonest, insane, and intolerable…”

The state of Western media today is too deplorable to fix. Independent sources provide the only reliable news, information and analysis, no others.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home – Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

 

Stephen Lendman, like Paul Craig Roberts, seeks truths that are hidden to us by our government and the mainstream media who report govenment lies without doing any research of their own ...thus meriting PCR's term "prestitutes." Stephen Lendman's writings differ from PCR's only in his use of many short paragraphs. Read what he says here. He argues that Friday's massacre in Paris has all the features of a false flag attack.

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Stephen Lendman Asks Legitimate Questions About French Attacks

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November 14, 2015 | Guest Contributions | Original Here         Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Stephen Lendman Asks Legitimate Questions About French Attacks

Blowback or False Flag in Paris?

by Stephen Lendman

It’s too soon to know for sure. Given French complicity with ongoing US state terror throughout the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere, odds strongly favor the latter.

Multiple likely well-planned Friday night attacks in Paris had a disturbing aroma to them – including France’s knee-jerk police state reaction. More on this below. Here’s what happened.

At least seven apparently well-coordinated attacks occurred, gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide belts killing over 150 victims. Many others were injured. Stade de France stadium was struck during a football (soccer) match between France and Germany.
So was the Bataclan theater during a concert, restaurants full of patrons, a cinema, and pedestrians on Bichat Street, the Avenue de la Republique and Boulevard Beaumarchais.

Reports indicated other Paris locations were attacked, including the Forum des Halles shopping area attracting an estimated 150,000 daily visitors.

The predictable aftermath so far includes French President Francois Hollande declaring a state of emergency – effectively suspending constitutional rights under martial law.

“Two decisions will be taken,” Hollande announced. “The state of emergency will be decreed, which means several places will be closed off, and traffic will be limited in certain areas.”

“The state of emergency will apply across the country. The second decision I have taken is to close the borders, so that the people who have committed these crimes can be apprehended.” 

“We know where this attack came from. We must show compassion and solidarity, but we must also show we are united. There is much to fear, but we must face these fears as a nation that knows how to muster its forces and will confront the terrorists.”

Heavily armed French soldiers were deployed around key Parisian locations. Five metro lines were shut. Orly airport flights were suspended. All city schools and universities were closed.

De facto martial law legitimizes repressive police state powers. Constitutional protections are suspended. Following the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, a no-fly zone was ordered over a 3.5 mile radius of the incident.

Swat teams conducted pre-dawn raids throughout the greater area. Residents were terrorized. Helicopters patrolled overhead. Police and FBI operatives were everywhere. Managed news misinformation substituted for accurate reporting.

Post-9/11, Bush claimed unconstitutional “unitary executive” authority to govern extrajudicially in the name of national security. 

He declared (phony) war on terror and hot war on Afghanistan. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Donbass and Yemen followed. Police state laws were enacted – still in force. Repressive National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives were announced.

Hollande cancelled his G-20 summit participation, scheduled for November 15 and 16 in Turkey. It’s unclear if Obama will attend. The world’s leading perpetrator of state terrorism offered France “full support,” duplicitously saying America shares the bonds of “liberte, egalite and fraternite.”

US post-9/11 knee-jerk reaction blamed bin Laden and Al Qaeda for the attack – the mother of all Big Lies, we now know.

ISIS was automatically blamed for the Paris attacks – despite no evidence so far establishing responsibility. Official statements, actions and media hype created an atmosphere of fear, a likely public willingness to sacrifice freedom for so-called security, a rationale for harsh measures to try stemming the human refugee flood caused by US-led imperial wars, and a desire for revenge. 

Perhaps the stage is set for escalated Western wars OF terror instead of unity to battle the scourge of ISIS and likeminded groups. Were Friday attacks state-sponsored terrorism – a carefully staged false flag for whatever may follow?

Herman Goering once explained how easy it is to get people to go along with “the bidding of the leaders…All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country,” he said.

Friday Paris attacks were either blowback for Western wars on Islam or a state-sponsored false flag. Odds strongly favor the latter. Sordid Western history of false flags for subsequent planned events suggests it.

On September 20, 2001, George Bush lied to Congress and the public, claiming America was attacked because we are “a beacon of freedom.” The attackers were “evil. This is civilization’s fight.” He suppressed Washington’s direct responsibility for what happened, perhaps complicit with Israel’s Mossad.

The aftermath of 9/11 is clear – endless US-led imperial wars, a phony Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), an assault on fundamental human and civil rights, police state harshness replacing them, an America unfit to live in.

Will France and other European countries become more belligerent and repressive than already in response to Friday’s incident? 

Were Washington and perhaps Israel’s dirty hands involved in what happened? Daesh (ISIS/ISIL/IS) is such an easy target to blame. It’s simple getting most people to believe it unquestionably. 

The Big Lie repeated often enough works the same way every time. ISIS is the new “Enemy Number One.” Its creation by Washington and use as proxy foot soldiers is suppressed. 

Was Friday’s Paris incident prelude to something similar planned for New York, Washington, and/or other US cities?

Hype Following Friday’s Likely Paris False Flag

by Stephen Lendman

Unsurprisingly, Western media ignored what has all the earmarks of a well-planned false flag – Washington perhaps complicit with France. 

Maybe Israel was involved to justify its reign of terror on Palestine. The usual suspects were blamed (ISIS terrorists, of course) before the dust settled – the clearest indication of a Big Lie. 

A joint FBI/Department of Homeland Security statement said “(w)e will not hesitate to adjust our security posture, as appropriate, to protect the American people.” Expect harsher police repression ahead.

The New York Times headlined “Hollande Blames ISIS for ‘Act of War’ on Paris.” It cited “(n)ews agencies quot(ing) (Paris police chief) Michel Cadot saying “all the assailants involved in shootings and bombings were believed to be dead.” Dead men tell no tales!

Other Times articles and commentaries hyped terrorism in Paris, fingers pointing one way, ignoring the most likely explanation for what happened. Other Western media reported the same way. 

Washington Post: “French president calls Paris attacks ‘act of war’ by Islamic State.”

“It is horror,” he said, declaring a nationwide state of emergency, ask(ing) for military reinforcements,” and closing France’s borders, blocking entry for refugees fleeing war zones – ones France bears responsibility for with America and other rogue partners.

“We are going to lead a war which will be pitiless,” Hollande blustered.

Wall Street Journal: “Hollande Blames ISIS for Paris Attacks.”

The latest from Reuters headlined “Islamic State claims responsibility.” It cited an unverified “official statement” saying “its fighters strapped with suicide bombing belts and carrying machine guns carried out the attacks in various locations in the heart of the capital which were carefully studied” – without further elaboration.

AP News headlined “France Blames IS for Paris Terror Strikes, Vows to Hit Back.”

France’s Le Figaro headlined “War in the heart of Paris” – on a black background with images of victims on stretchers.

Le Monde headlined “Francois Hollande: ‘An act of war’ committed by ‘armed terrorist(s).’ “

London’s Guardian hyped Hollande claiming what happened was an “act of war.”

BBC: “Paris attacks were ‘act of war by IS.’

London’s Guardian hyped Hollande’s “act of war” bluster. Prime Minister David Cameron will “chair an emergency meeting of government ministers and security officials to discuss the British response.”

An unnamed police official was cited, suggesting Britain will elevate the threat of homeland terrorism to the highest level. 

Chicago Tribune editors called what happened “terrorist attacks carried out against innocent civilians in France by forces of evil. Again,” referring to last January’s Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket incidents – duplicitously adding:

“(T)his attack on France was another attack on the West, on America, on the ideals of liberty, democracy and decency that bind us together.”

America, France and rogue Western partners deplore high-minded principles they claim to support. Endless wars of aggression and likely false flags like Friday’s incident highlight their real agenda.

Obama reacted as expected, ignoring his high crimes against peace in numerous US-instigated war theaters, guilty of horrific state terrorism – hyping “an attack on all humanity and the universal values that we share…The American people draw strength from the French people’s commitment to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.”  

“We are reminded in this time of tragedy that the bonds of liberte and egalite and fraternite are not only values that the French people care so deeply about, but they are values that we share.”

While murdering, brutalizing, mass imprisoning and torturing Palestinians daily, Netanyahu blustered similar hype, saying Israel stands “shoulder-to-shoulder” with France in the “war against terrorism.”

He sent “condolences on behalf of the Israeli people to the families of the victims” while collectively punishing an entire Palestinian population viciously – waging war without mercy against defenseless civilians.

A separate article called what happened Friday a likely well-planned false flag. Automatically blaming it on ISIS before the dust settled is the clearest indication so far.

Ignore headlined hype. What follows matters most – likely greater US-led war OF terror than already ongoing, perhaps including loss of remaining freedoms. 

Does full-blown tyranny loom in the name of defending national security? Expect nothing positive in the aftermath of Friday’s attacks.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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The neoconservatives who now run U.S. foreign policy, like "Dr. Strangelove," want to start a nuclear attack on Russia ...likely bringing on the extinction of us human beings, or at least those in the northern hemisphere. Certainly all Americans and Europeans would oppose this ...unless "reliable sources" assure us that Russia is about to attack us. Who are these reliable sources? Why the neocons who have taken over Washington and it's European vassals, all of which are lying through their teeth -- pure propaganda. The "mainstream media?" They repeat this propaganda or lose their jobs. This leaves the human race only one chance: put aside your cognitive dissonances and watch what Russia has been saying on Russia Today (RT) or Sputnik News. Hint: you will find out that Russia wants peace more than anything. So, dear readers, if you take this advice our children and grandchildren may yet live to thank us.

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Truth is a Crime Against The State — Paul Craig Roberts

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June 28, 2015 | Original Here                                            Go here to sign up to receive email notice of this news letter

Truth Is A Crime Against The State

Paul Craig Roberts

The entire Western edifice rests on lies. There is no other foundation. Just lies.

This makes truth an enemy. Enemies have to be suppressed, and thus truth has to be suppressed.

Truth comes from foreign news sources, such as RT, and from Internet sites, such as this one.

Thus, Washington and its vassals are busy at work closing down independent media.

Washington and its vassals have redefined propaganda. Truth is propaganda if it is told by countries, such as Russia and China, that have independent foreign policies.

Propaganda is truth if told by Washington and its puppets, such as the EU Observer.

The EU Observer, little doubt following Washington’s orders, has denounced RT and Sputnik News for “broadcasting fabrications and hate speech from their bureaus in European Union cities.”

Often I appear on both RT and Sputnik. In my opinion both are too restrained in their reporting, fearful, of course, of being shut down, than full truth requires. I have never heard a word of hate speech or propaganda on either. Washington’s propaganda, perhaps, but not the Russian government’s.

In other words, the way Washington has the news world rigged, not even independent news sites can speak completely clearly.

The Western presstitutes have succeeded in creating a false reality for insouciant Americans and also for much of the European Union population.

A sizable percentage of these insouciant peoples believe that Russia invaded Ukranine and that Russia is threatening to invade the Baltic States and Poland. This belief exists despite all intelligence of all Western governments reporting that there is no sign of any Russian forces that would be required for invasion.

The “Russian invasion,” like “Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections,” like “Assad of Syria’s use of chemical weapons against his own people,” like “Iranian nukes,” never existed but nevertheless became the reality in the Western media. The insouciant Western peoples believe in non-existent occurrencies.

In other words, just to state the obvious noncontroversial fact, the Western “news” media is a propaganda ministry from which no truth emerges.

Thus, the Western World is ruled by propaganda. Truth is excluded. Fox “news,” CNN, the NY Times, Washington Post, and all the rest of the most accomplished liars in world history, repeat constantly the same lies. For Washington, of course, and the military/security complex.

War is the only possible outcome of propaganda in behalf of war. When the irresponsible Western media brings Armageddon to you, you can thank the New York Times and the rest of the presstitutes for the destruction of yourself and all your hopes for yourself and your children.

Stephen Lendman, who comprises a good chunk of the remaining moral conscience of the West, explains the situation:

EU Bashes “Russian Propaganda”   

by Stephen Lendman

Western major media march to the same drummer – dutifully regurgitating managed news misinformation garbage, willfully burying hard truths on issues mattering most.

Alternative sources beholden to truth and full disclosure operate by different standards – engendering ire among Western nations wanting their high crimes suppressed – bashing sources revealing them.

The EU Observer (EUO) claims independent credentials while supporting policies responsible news sources denounce.

Independently reporting hard truths isn’t its long suit. Its editor, Lisbeth Kirk, is the wife of former Danish European Parliament member Jens-Peter Bonde. Human Rights Watch’s European and Central Asian advocacy director Veronika Szente Goldston calls its journalists “the most in-your-face in Brussels.”

EUO irresponsibly bashed Russia’s Sputnik News and RT International – two reputable sources for news, information and analysis – polar opposite Western media propaganda.

It shamelessly called their reporting valued by growing millions “broadcasting fabrications and hate speech from their bureaus in EU cities.”

It touted plans by EU officials to counter what they called “use and misuse of communications tools…play(ing) an important role in the dramatic political, economic and security-related developments (in) Eastern (European countries) over the past 18 months.”

It drafted a nine-page “action plan” intended to convey “positive” messages. It’ll increase funding to blast out Europe’s view of things more effectively.

It wants EU policies promoted in former Russian republics the old-fashioned way – by repeating Big Lies often enough until most people believe them.

A new EU foreign service cell called East StratComTeam operating by September will run things – functioning as a European ministry of propaganda.

It’ll “develop dedicated communication material on priority issues…put at the disposal of the EU’s political leadership, press services, EU delegations and EU member states.”

Material circulated in Russia and other EU countries aims to let news consumers “easily understand that political and economic reforms promoted by the EU can, over time, have a positive impact on their daily lives” – even though precisely the opposite is true.

It wants so-called benefits Europeans enjoy explained to people continent-wide. Will millions of unemployed, underemployed and impoverished people buy what’s plainly untrue from their own experience?

Sputnik News, RT, US independent sources like the Progressive Radio Network and numerous others steadily gain audience strength at the expense of scoundrel media people abandon for good reason.

Growing numbers want truth and full disclosure on things affecting their lives and welfare. Politicians in Western countries want ordinary people treated like mushrooms – well-watered and in the dark.

RT’s editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said “the European Union is diligently trying to stifle the alternative voice of RT, at a time when in Europe there are hundreds of newspapers, television channels and radio stations, which set out only one point of view on what is happening in the world.”

The BBC is Fox News with an English accent. US so-called public radio and broadcasting are no different – telling listeners and viewers everything except what they most need to know.

Simonyan explained “Britain (has) an entire army brigade of 1,500 men…whose tasks include the fight against Russia on social networks. NATO has a task force aimed at countering Russian influence throughout the world.” 

“Only recently, Deutsche Welle launched a 24-hour television channel in English to counter RT. At the same time, nearly all the major Western media, including the BBC, DW and Euronews have long disseminated their information in the Russian language, while Radio Liberty, funded directly by the US government, broadcasts in Russian.”

“(I)f after all this, the EU still complains that they are losing the ‘information war’ against Russia, perhaps it’s time to realize that” growing numbers of people are fed up with being lied to. 

People want reliable sources of news, information and analysis unavailable through mainstream Western sources using propagandists masquerading as journalists.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. 

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PBS Is Dead. Long Live Press TV!

Blogger's Note: There is no way this video will ever be found on YouTube, so I couldn't find a way to embed it. Rather I present only a single frame of this stunning set of interviews of three American patriots by Judy Woodruff's counterpart in Tehran. Please link to it here. If for any reason it doesn't play, please read the transcript.

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'America wages wars for profit'

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Thu Nov 11, 2010 2:38PM

Interview with Stephen Lendman, writer and radio host from Chicago; Bill Jones with the Executive Intelligence Review from Washington; and Jeff Gates, US attorney and author from California
Again, here's the link.

Former US President George W. Bush has in his book said that by going to war in Iraq, the US has saved British lives as it stopped possible terrorist attacks.

What he did not reveal was that the Iraq war created much terrorism inside the country as many sources say the war has led to the deaths of over a million Iraqi lives.

To discuss the issue, Press TV had an interview with Stephen Lendman, writer and radio host from Chicago, Bill Jones with the Executive Intelligence Review from Washington and Jeff Gates, US attorney and author from California. The following is the transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Lendman, Bush has boasted about giving the okay on water-boarding alleged terrorist suspects in American custody. Both the current president and attorney general have said that water-boarding is torture. Where exactly does that leave Bush?

Stephen Lendman: Well, water-boarding is absolutely torture. Torture is illegal under international law and the US law. All treaties, Geneva, the UN Convention against Torture 1984, the US War Crimes Act, and the international treaties that America has signed before Geneva treaties, under the supremacy cause of the US constitution. They are automatically US law. The UN charter I might add as well.

Torture is illegal. Unequivocally illegal at all times and under all circumstances with no allowed exceptions. Water-boarding is torture. I've written about it. I do a lot of writing. I've written about water-boarding. Water-boarding simulates drowning but it's worse than that. It literally endangers the lives of the people submitted to it. For example, I've written about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the supposed 9/11 mastermind who I think had nothing whatsoever to do with it. He was water-boarded 186 times. Now just imagine that. That means maybe 186 times he thought he was going to die. Besides all the other tortures inflicted on him for many years. 9/11, I have discussed it on my program, I have written about it. I don't have a smoking gun to prove it, but I think my own government is responsible for 9/11.

My own belief is that it literally was a co-effort between the CIA and the Israeli Mossad. It had nothing to do with the people they blamed it on.

Press TV: We definitely need to do a program looking into 9/11 again, but, getting back to the situation that we are looking at right now, you said in all cases that water-boarding is torture. Now George W. Bush has said that he would ask his legal advisers. And they said that it was absolutely no torture. Do you think he is lying or his advisers told him something wrong? What do you think is going on here?

Stephen Lendman: Well, his advisers told him what he wanted to hear. That's the way the system works. One of them was the infamous John Yoo. He wrote two torture memos authorizing torture which basically as Donald Rumsfeld, former Defense Secretary, put it, "We can do anything to anybody short of causing organ failure. In other words, if you don kill them, you can inflict anything on them, any amount of pain, any amount of discomfort. You can call it torture, you can call it whatever you want. As long as we don't kill them, it's legal. Well, sorry. International law says it's illegal.

Now lawyers like John Yoo [, he] absolutely knows that when he wrote torture memos authorizing these procedures to be committed. John Yoo is complicit with George Bush, Rumsfeld and everyone else in the administration, administering torture.

Press TV: Mr. Jones, Bush seems to have no remorse for the loss of lives which have taken place based on a fabrication of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction. What do you think about this? He was not apologetic. He was basically not saying that he was sorry that he went to war, but said that he would do the same thing again.

Bill Jones: Well, I think basically Bush is a fool. He was placed into office because he was the son of a president by people who were more powerful and more intelligent than him. And he was basically a stooge for them. And he has proven that gross ignorance in the fact that he can come out and say the things he is saying now. I think he did it because of the tremendous defeat of the Obama administration in the latest elections. He probably thought time was right to stick his head up. He has been in hiding for quite a while, reviled by many people as the worst president we have ever had. But now he feels that he can come out and try and speak in his defense. The issue of the 9/11 is of course that he's tallying the whole time as the reason, I'm in agreement with the former speaker, although you have to look at the Saudi and British role in that development, but it was used in the same way that the Reich Stag fire was used by the Nazis. Whoever may have perpetrated it, it was used to turn up and down the thinking in the United States that these kinds of things that occurred post-9/11 would have been unthinkable, illegal and immoral prior to that period, but because of the so-called emergency laws that were put in, Bush was able, at the instigation of Cheney and other people in control, to move in the direction of what was really, what I would consider, a fascist policy.

Press TV: Mr. Gates, Under the international law, Bush's admission that he authorized acts that amount to torture are enough to trigger Washington's obligations to investigate his admissions and if substantiated, to prosecute him. Do you think that will happen?

Jeff Gates: Probably not, for the same reason that he became president to begin with. If you watch the president's election closely, in effect, he preempted that in the primary of 2000 when this syndicate raised about 50 million dollars in about a six week period. It then had a brand name of politicians to put into office, who a national security column says were a classic asset. An asset of someone with the profile of sufficient debts, but you know if you place them in a time and place and circumstance, by which you have considered an influx, the behavior consistent with that …he could be charged with war crimes …He could probably be charged with … we know that he had facts in front of him that he did not make his decision on instead based on his belief. He came to office as a Christian Zionist not unlike Harry Truman who recognized Israel over … one or two close advisors. You fast forward it to 2000 and you bring in another Christian Zionist into the Presidency, recovering alcoholic, out of source with his dad and a long range of dysfunctions and that's what made him a classic asset. No wonder you can blame him but you also blame a whole series of previous presidents that set this up. But I think this misses the point. The point is how do we continue to do this presidency after presidency. And how do we as Americans end up … called guilt by association. How destruction and self-deceit commit America to war, as we were truly deceived to go to war. If you look back at all that intelligence it doesn't go to Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld; those are faces on a far more systemic and frankly more sinister phenomenon.

All of this traces back to … notion of Zionism. I as a lawyer call it trans-generation organized crime…

The attitude in the US and the Middle East has not changed with the shift from the Republicans to the Democrats, it is only the same policies with a different face on the same problem.

Press TV: Mr. Lendman, the US is a signatory to the UN Convention against Torture. What exactly has happened? Why hasn't the UN gotten involved and do you expect that perhaps the UN would play a role in this and get involved, being that the US is a signatory to this [UN convention]?

Stephen Lendman: Not at all, the US was instrumental in setting up the UN in the 1940s after the World War II. And of course we have a Security Council with a veto. America can veto all the other countries of the world combined. It could be the whole world going one way and America going the other way. And as long as you have a UN run like that, the UN is literally a tool of US policy.

And the US is the only country that has egregiously used that veto. Once in a blue moon, another country does. Only four others can do it besides the US. But America has egregiously used the veto power. So the UN can do absolutely nothing to stop America. An important point for people to know is America may have two major parties but America is a one-party state. It doesn't matter whether Democrats are in power or the Republicans. It's referred to as the money party or the property party. And Barack Obama is merely George Bush's third term. Bill Clinton was worse than Ronald Reagan. George Bush was worse than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, believe it or not, is worse than George Bush. It's hard to believe. But he's worse than George Bush. He is smoother but before his term runs out, people will catch on. They are catching on now slowly. I think he'd be a one-term president. But the policies are seamless. The wars are planned in advance. The pretexts come about after the plans are made.

We went to war with Afghanistan four weeks after 9/11. It takes months to plan a war like that. The plan to go to war with Iraq was already conceived. The blueprint was written. It was on the shelf ready to take out. The only decision was which country we go to war with first. They picked Afghanistan. Iraq and Afghanistan of course had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. They didn't threaten the US. George Bush lied. Everybody else in the administration lied. I agree George Bush was a tool. Obama is a tool. And it doesn't matter whether it's Obama or whoever comes after him. It's the system that needs to be indicted.

Press TV: If what you are saying is true, where are the American people in the middle of this? If nothing really changes and it's the system that is consistent and as you said is getting worse. Are the American people not informed about this? Why isn't there a lot being said about this in general, this perspective that you have just brought out? Why no analyses are being made?

Stephen Lendman: It's such an important point. I have read about it and talked about it on my radio program. People get more informed all the time. The problem is even though the majority are not… the majority get the news and information from TV which means the cable channels, CNN, FOX, the broadcast channels; the CBS the NBC. They lie, they do not inform. They produce managed news not real news and information. They bring on a host, they bring on pundits and they lie. They misinform, they censor. But even people who do know what's going on, most of them are indifferent. They have their own lives. They worry about nonsensical things like shopping, like the latest films, the latest fashions. That's crazy but that's what they think about. And they say, "Well I need to go to work, I need to support my family." They worry about these things. So in France, you see strikes, a million, two or three million people come out on the streets day after day after day after day. None of us in America [is doing the same]. We are having our liberty stolen. We are having our wealth stolen. And people are just indifferent to the possibility that some day what they think is a country that is free will turn out to be … a police state. And all the benefits are gone, and when they finally awaken to that it will be too late.

Press TV: Mr. Jones, in the light of what Mr. Lendman has said, there are human rights organizations that try to keep a tab on things. For example, according to the Amnesty International, Bush's admittance to knowing and approving water-boarding makes him accountable. What would it take in the United States for someone like Bush to be held accountable?

Bill Jones: Well, it will probably take a general mass uprising which could indeed occur at certain points. The problem with the American people is that they are concerned about what's going on. They were concerned when they elected Barack Obama because they elected Barack Obama because he wasn't George Bush. But Barack Obama was much more George Bush than people thought, which is why his popularity now has gone down the tubes rapidly, putting him in a position, I think the latest polls proved it, that his popularity is worse than Bush's.

The real problem is the lack of leadership. I would say the cowardice of what leadership is in this country. I will give you an example. Barack Obama has basically through Nancy Pelosi horsewhipped the Congress into accepting a policy that most of them probably admitted was wrong. Namely, to spend over one trillion dollars in bailing out Wall Street when our cities were falling apart, when our bridges were coming down, when there are all kinds of infrastructures that needed money. This trillion dollars plus went to Wall Street to bail out the bankers and the people suffered. Most of the congressmen who were hearing from their districts on what the problems were knew that that was a wrong policy but they were too cowardly...

Press TV: Let me interrupt you there. If you say that basically the leaders in the US right now do not have the courage to do what they basically should do, they are cowards, then who is really running the show? If they are bowing obviously to some higher power, who do you think is behind the show in Washington?

Bill Jones: Well, primarily the ones who have been running the show during the Obama administration have been really the Wall Street banks. It's not just only the Wall Street banks. It's really the London banks, because Obama's policy has been to try and save the bankrupt financial system with the trillions and trillions of dollars of debt that cannot be paid instead of moving in the direction of, say, creating a new financial system and agreements between governments.

A lot of things could have been done to resolve this economic crisis. But the bankers were telling Geithner and Larry Summers "you've got to save Wall Street, whatever it's going to cost. Give them what they need." And then Bernanke and Geithner went to the president and said, "OK, give them what they want."

Press TV: Based on what you have said, would you say that it is not only Bush that is implicit in what he has said but the whole system has been implicit in basically allowing this to happen. Would you say that is true?

Bill Jones: It's fundamental corruption in the system which is ruled by the money that a lot of these people need in order to win their election. That is the case with Congress. The rule in Congress is "Go along to get along." That's once these guys get into the Congress and will see what happens to these Tea Party and all these other wild people who have been elected now... When word comes down, you want a position in the committee; you want a position in this and that. You have to follow the rules here.

And it's all about the money. Now if somebody opposes that… they could do it, if they mobilized the people, if they went to the people and said "we cannot allow this to happen." But nobody, up in to this point, in the US Congress, has shown the guts to try and do that. And that is, like I said, a problem of leadership. If anybody would do that, they would gain the immediate support from the American population who are totally disgusted with the way that Washington works.
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Press TV: Being that you have said, that it is a corrupt system, where does it go from here? And, basically, what happened to the so-called justice that the US said it stood for?

Stephen Lendman: Well, America says a lot of things, but what it does and what it says go in two different paths. Who runs America? It is very clear who runs America. Corporate America runs the country. Bankers [are] in the lead [of] really what is called the fire sector, finance, real state, insurance led by the big Wall Street banks. And of course the Federal Reserve is not federal. It is owned by the banks. The Wall Street banks have a controlling interest. They decide the way the country will be run, including waging wars. One reason for waging wars is they are so profitable. Not just to the defense contractors, [but also] to the big banks, to technology companies, all companies that supply goods and services including private contractors that have every incentive to want America to be in war.

America has a prominent war agenda, we just need to find new enemies, and if they don't exist, we need to create them. It is the system that is broken and corrupted, and I agree. Unless there is a mass uprising, that is nowhere in sight, this will not change. It will only get worse.

GHN/HJL/MB/AKM