By Webster Tarpley.
Awareness is growing around the world that the Wikileaks-Julian Assange theater of the absurd is radically inauthentic – a psyop. Wikileaks and its impaired boss represent a classic form of limited hangout or self-exposure, a kind of lurid striptease in which the front organization releases doctored and pre-selected materials provided by the intelligence agency with the intent of harming, not the CIA, nor the UK, nor the Israelis, but rather such classic CIA enemies’ list figures as Putin, Berlusconi, Karzai, Qaddafi, Rodriguez de Kirchner, etc. In Tunisia, derogatory …

By the Editor.
It has begun. Using slashed public spending as a precursor and an excuse, the corporate whores in Whitehall are dismantling the NHS piece by piece and handing it to the private healthcare industry.
This from The UK Independent:
Under the proposals published in Health and Social Care Bill yesterday:
* GPs will become responsible for “buying” care from hospitals and will form consortiums to do so.
* Every hospital will be given independence from the Department of Health and will be allowed to fail and will be taken over by private operators …

By Paddy McGuffin.
Human rights campaigners slammed revelations today that British troops were being trained in the use of attack drones by Israeli forces as “shameful.”
The use of the pilotless craft by Israel during its recent assault on Gaza has been roundly condemned by human rights organisations.
Campaigners warned that the drones had been used in “extra-judicial” killings and “serious human rights abuses by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza.”
The Ministry of Defence has placed a £1 billion order for a consignment of Watchkeeper UAV 450 drones, manufactured by Israeli arms firm …

By Stephen M. Walt.
The toppling of the Tunisian regime led by Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali has led a lot of smart people  — including my FP colleague Marc Lynch — to suggest that this might be the catalyst for a wave of democratization throughout the Arab world. The basic idea is that events in Tunisia will have a powerful demonstration effect (magnified by various forms of new media), leading other unhappy masses to rise up and challenge the stultifying dictatorships in places like Egypt or Syria. The obvious analogy (though …

By Johannes Stern.
Discussion on the recent events in Tunisia can be heard in the streets of the Egyptian capital Cairo. In the course of demonstrations against the dictatorship of Ben Ali dozens of predominately young Tunisians have been killed by the Tunisian police and army. Anger over the brutality of the Ben Ali regime is widespread in the Egyptian capital.
“A government that kills its people, rather than creates jobs, has no right to exist”, declared Ahmed, as he wove his taxi through the overcrowded streets of Cairo. “The protesters are …

By Robert Fisk.
Bloodshed, tears, but no democracy. Bloody turmoil won’t necessarily presage the dawn of democracy
The end of the age of dictators in the Arab world? Certainly they are shaking in their boots across the Middle East, the well-heeled sheiks and emirs, and the kings, including one very old one in Saudi Arabia and a young one in Jordan, and presidents – another very old one in Egypt and a young one in Syria – because Tunisia wasn’t meant to happen. Food price riots in Algeria, too, and demonstrations against …

By Chris Hedges.
Power does not rest with the electorate. It does not reside with either of the two major political parties. It is not represented by the press. It is not arbitrated by a judiciary that protects us from predators. Power rests with corporations. And corporations gain very lucrative profits from war, even wars we have no chance of winning. All polite appeals to the formal systems of power will not end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must physically obstruct the war machine or accept a role as …

A fragile ceasefire holds in Gaza, but it can’t last. Amira Hass – an Israeli journalist who lived there for three years – reports on the unbearable tension of life inside the strip.
“Get away from the window, you’re crazy!” screamed Kauthar. She was terrified to find her daughter standing on the couch by the window, observing the street from the seventh floor. The window had bars. She was afraid not that the girl might fall, but that she would be struck by fire from a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). A …

By Jerry White, 8 January 2011.
President Obama’s choice of William Daley for the post of White House chief of staff is a clear signal to corporate America that his administration will dedicate the next two years to accommodating the wishes of big business for reduced regulations and taxes for corporations and austerity measures for the working class.
In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression—with workers facing long-term unemployment and rising personal bankruptcies, hunger and poverty—the president has picked a multi-millionaire banking executive from JPMorgan Chase for …

By the Editor.
Dear John,
As a long-time reader of yours and fellow truth-seeker I feel compelled to reach out to you in light of the Wikileaks saga, and your very public role in it.
Anybody who has read or watched any of your works knows that you are acutely aware of the ills of globalisation, propaganda & disinformation, war, and the elite which feeds off it. I must admit then, that I was sorely disappointed to learn of your public support of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. As an investigative journalist …