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America’s Moral Degeneracy

On May 31, 2010, the Israeli right-wing government sent armed military troops to illegally board in international waters Gaza aid ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief. The Israelis murdered 8 Turkish citizens and one US citizen in cold blood. Many others were wounded by the forces of “the only democracy in the Middle East.”
Despite the murder of its citizen, Washington immediately took the side of the crazed Israeli government. The Turks had a different response. The prime minister of Turkey, Erdogan, said that the next aid ships would be protected by the Turkish navy. But Washington got hold of its puppet and paid him to shut up. Once upon a time, the Turks were a fierce people. Today they are Washington’s puppets.
We have witnessed this during the past week. The Turkish government is permitting the Islamists from outside Syria, organized by the CIA and Israel, to attack Syria from Turkish territory. On several occasions a mortar shell has, according to news reports if you believe them, fallen just inside the Turkey border. The Turkish military has used the excuse to launch artillery barrages into Syria.
People who with good cause no longer believe the US and western media or the US and western governments think that the mortar shells were fired by US or Israeli operatives, or by the “rebels” they support, in order to give Turkey the excuse to start a NATO war with Syria. A UN sanctioned NATO invasion or air strikes, as in Libya, has been blocked by the Russians and Chinese. But if Syria and Turkey get into a war, NATO must come to the aid of its NATO member, Turkey.
Once again we see that Muslims are easily dominated and slaughtered by Western countries, because Muslim countries are incapable of supporting one another. Instead of supporting one another, Muslim governments accept payoffs to support instead the Christian/Zionist forces of the Western bloc.
Washington knows this, which is one reason why Washington began its assertion of world hegemony in the Muslim Middle East.
In the West, the Ministry of Propaganda continues to talk about the “Syrian revolt.” There is no revolt. What has happened is that the US and Israel have equipped with weapons and sent into Syria Islamists who wish to overthrow the secular Syrian government. Washington knows that if the Syrian government can be destroyed, the country will dissolve into warring factions like Iraq and Libya.
America’s European and Japanese puppet states are, of course, part of Washington’s operation. There will be no complaints from them. But why is the rest of the world content for Washington to interfere in the sovereign affairs of nations to the point of invading, sending in drones and assassination teams, and murdering vast numbers of citizens in seven countries?
Does this acquiescence mean that the world has accepted Washington’s claim that it is the indispensable country with the right to rule the world?
Why, for example, do Russia and Venezuela permit the US government to fund their political opposition?
The one party American state has no political opposition. But imagine if it did. Would Washington tolerate the funding of its opposition by Russia or Venezuela? Obviously not. Those running against America with foreign money would be arrested and imprisoned, but not in Venezuela or Russia, countries where, apparently, treason is legal.
On October 8, Hugo Chavez defeated his American-financed opponent, Henrique Capriles, 54% to 44%.
This would be an amazing margin of victory in a US presidential election. However, in his previous reelection Chavez won by 27%. Obviously, Washington’s money and the propaganda activities of the US-financed Non-Governmental Organizations succeeded in swaying Venezuelans and reducing Chavez’s margin of victory to 10%. Washington’s interference is a massive barrier to leadership in other countries. Fully 44% of the Venezuelan people were too brainwashed or too stupid to vote for their own country’s candidate and voted instead for Washington’s candidate.
It is extraordinary that 44% of the Venezuelan voters voted to become an American puppet state, like Turkey, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, the Baltics, Scandinavia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Mexico, Belgium, Taiwan, Colombia, Pakistan, Yemen. Probably, I have left out a few.
As a high government official once told me, “Empire costs us a great deal of money.”
Washington has to pay its puppets to represent Washington instead of their own peoples.
Washington in its hubris forgets that its rule is purchased and not loved. Washington’s puppets have sold their integrity and that of their countries for filthy lucre. When the money runs out, so does the empire.
By then the American people will be as corrupted as the foreign “leaders.” In his review of The United States And Torture, edited by Marjorie Cohn (New York University Press, 2011) in the Fall 2012 Independent Review, Anthony Gregory writes:
“In Reagan’s America, a common theme in Cold War rhetoric was that the Soviets tortured people and detained them without cause, extracted phony confessions through cruel violence, and did the unspeakable to detainees who were helpless against the full, heartless weight of the Communist state. As much as any other evil, torture differentiated the bad guys, the Commies, from the good guys, the American people and their government. However imperfect the U.S. system might be, it had civilized standards that the enemy rejected.”
By 2005, a year after torture photos from Abu Ghraib were leaked, polls of Americans showed that 38% had succumbed to the propaganda that torture was justified in some circumstances. After four more years of neoconservative advocacy of torture, an Associated Press poll reported in 2009 that 52% of Americans approved of torture.
Torture apparently was an instrument of US cold war policy. Torture was taught to Latin American militaries by the US School of the Americas, which operated in Panama and subsequently at Fort Benning, Georgia. However, this was a clandestine operation. It awaited the neoconservative Bush regime for US Department of Justice (sic) attorneys, graduates of the best law schools, to write legal memos justifying torture despite US statutory and international laws prohibiting torture, and for both the president and vice president of the United States to openly acknowledge and justify torture. Some of the criminals who wrote these memos are now teaching in prestigious law schools. One was appointed to the federal judiciary and sits as a judge sentencing others for their offenses.
We can conclude with Anthony Gregory that it is not only foreign political regimes that are corrupted by Washington’s evil, but also Americans themselves. “Nothing better demonstrates the moral degeneracy of American political culture than the U.S. torture state.”
Washington still masquerades wearing the white hat, and most of the rest of the world is paid to go along with the masquerade.
Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Contributed by Paul Craig Roberts of Institute for Political Economy.
About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Visit his web site at the Institute for Political Economy.
This article has been posted with permission from Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.
Copyright Paul Craig Roberts 2012. Read More

Living woman reported dead in central Sweden

A family in southern Sweden was deeply concerned after receiving letters from local authorities about their elderly mother, who had mistakenly been reported dead.’My family thinks I’m crazy’: Swedish My Little Pony fan (7 Oct 12)
Factory worker sacked for rolling up his pants (2 Oct 12)
Police find airport ‘bomb’ to be board game (1 Oct 12)

The woman was reported dead by authorities in the town of Bors, who later admitted to the mix-up with the elderly womans details.But this wasnt admitted until after the family received letters explaining that the womans house had to be cleared out within two weeks, and another provided information about changes at the elderly home.This hit us hard. We have been deeply concerned about it. Many thoughts going through our heads, weve been lying awake at night thinking about it, said the womans son to the local Bors Tidning (BT) newspaper.Luckily, my sister takes care of mothers accounts, so the letter went to the billing address. The letter didn’t go to mother, which was a real stroke of luck. I dont dare to imagine the consequences had that happened.Administration manager Lars Nordin described the situation as horrible and unfortunate.We have to solve this so the woman can feel safe. There has been some mistake when the town reported the personal identity number (personnummer) and the apartment number to us. Were working on finding out why we were given the wrong information, he told the paper.Meanwhile, the womans son is putting the news behind him:What has happened has happened and you have to hope that procedures will be made that prevent a it from happening again, the womans son told the paper.TT/The Local/ogFollow The Local on Twitter Read More

Chinese author Mo Yan awarded Nobel lit prize

The 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded to Chinese author Mo Yan, the Swedish Academy announced on Thursday.Seven hot names in the Nobel Literature race (10 Oct 12)
Two Americans share 2012 Nobel for chemistry (10 Oct 12)
Nobel Laureate visits inspire Rinkeby teenagers’ dreams (10 Oct 12)

Yan is an author who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and the contemporary, the Academy’s Permanent Secretary Peter Englund said in a short announcement shortly after 1pm in Stockholm.”Through a mixture of fantasy and reality, historical and social perspectives, Mo Yan has created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel Garca Mrquez,” the Swedish Academy said of Yan in its official biography.Among Yan’s works are “Falling Rain on a Spring Night”, “Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out”, and “Red Sorghum”.”I’m overjoyed, but I’m a little frightened also,” Yan said on the telephone, the Academy’s Gran Malmqvist told the Aftonbladet newspaper.This is the first time a Chinese national and the second time a Chinese-born writer has won the prize, after Gao Xingian, who received French citizenship in 1997, was honoured in 2000.Mo Yan, 57, is perhaps best-known abroad for his 1987 novella “Red Sorghum”, a tale of the brutal violence that plagued the eastern China countryside — where he grew up — during the 1920s and 30s.The story was later made into an acclaimed film by leading Chinese director Zhang Yimou, and won the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival in 1988.Following the announcement, the Nobel Foundation said the Swedish Academy recommend Yan’s novel “The Garlic Ballads”, published in English in 1995. Ahead of the announcement, Swedish betting company Unibet had Yan as one of the favourites to win the 2012 literature prize, with 6.5 to 1 odds.Born in 1955 in the Shandong province in northeastern China, Yan’s given name was Guan Moye. His pen name, Mo Yan, means “don’t speak” in Chinese.Yan has published novels, short stories and essays on various topics, and despite his social criticism is seen in his homeland as one of the foremost contemporary authors, the Nobel committee noted.In his writing Mo Yan draws on his youthful experiences and on settings in the province of his birth.Both Yan’s parents were farmers and he left school at the age of 12 during the Cultural Revolution to work in the fields and then at a factory.In 1976 he joined the People’s Liberation Army and shortly thereafter started studying literature and writing. His first short story was published in a literary journal in 1981, although his breakthrough came a few years later with the novella “Touming de hong luobo” (1986, published in French as “Le radis de cristal” in 1993).Mo Yan has authored other acclaimed works including “Big Breasts and Wide Hips”, “Republic of Wine” and “Life and Death are Wearing Me Out”.He has also written dozens of other novels, novellas, and short stories, generally eschewing contemporary issues and instead looking back at China’s tumultuous 20th century in tales often infused with politics and a dark, cynical sense of humour.The backdrops for his various works have included the 1911 revolution that toppled China’s last imperial dynasty, Japan’s brutal wartime invasion, newly Communist China’s failed land-reform policies of the 1950s and the madness of Mao Zedong’s 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.Last year, the literature prize went to Swedish poet Tomas Transtrmer in what is traditionally one of the most-watched announcements of the Nobel season, following the prizes for medicine, physics and chemistry earlier this week.The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday, with the field of possible winners wide open, followed by the Economics Prize on Monday, wrapping up the Nobel season.As tradition dictates, the laureates will receive their prizes at formal ceremonies in Stockholm and Oslo on December 10th, the anniversary of the death of prize creator Alfred Nobel in 1896.Because of the economic crisis, the Nobel Foundation has slashed the prize sum to eight million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) per award, down from the 10 million kronor awarded since 2001.AFP/The LocalFollow The Local on Twitter Read More

TeliaSonera deal in Nepal raises new questions

Nordic telecom firm TeliaSonera has been hit with new revelations about suspicious business practices in Asia, this time stemming from a complex deal with a firm tied to the former ruling family in Nepal.TeliaSonera CEO ‘forced’ to leave post early: report (10 Oct 12)
TeliaSonera Uzbek deal prompts bribery probe (26 Sep 12)
TeliaSonera under fire over Uzbek bribe claims (20 Sep 12)

According to Swedish business magazine Veckans Affrer, the 4.2 billion kronor ($624 million) TeliaSonera paid in 2008 for its stake in Nepalese telecom operator Ncell ended up with a company controlled by to Raj Bahadur Singh, the son-in-law of the deposed king.The money was funneled through a number of shell companies in several countries, including Kazakhstan and Cyprus, the magazine reports.The magazine describes Bahadur Singh’s 2004 acquisition of Ncell as a “confiscation” whereby he took over the company from two other shareholders just prior to Ncell being awarded licences to operate mobile phone networks in the country.Authorities have recently launched a probe into TeliaSonera’s purchase of Ncell and its ties to the king’s son-in-law stemming from suspicions of bribery, corruption, and tax fraud, according to Vekans Affrer.However, TeliaSonera claimed the report contained “a number of errors and speculation”, claiming Ncell was bought through Visor, an established investment firm in Kazakhstan.”We were not able to review the material before it was published so we’re now reviewing the article,” company spokesperson Thomas Jnsson told the TT news agency.The revelations are the latest in a string of reports which have raised questions about deals struck abroad by TeliaSonera, in which the Swedish state has the largest ownership stake.Swedish prosecutors recently launched a corruption investigation into a deal forged between TeliaSonera and a company in Uzbekistan with links to the family of the former Soviet republic’s authoritarian president.Telecoms consultant Bengt Nordstrm explained that TeliaSonera has likely sought to do business with questionable regimes for from its home region because of the allure of higher profits.”In the west, mobile phone penetration is over 100 percent and there is a lot of competition,” he told the TT news agency.”That they instead look to emerging markets is a trend that’s been ongoing for the last ten years.”According to Nordstrm, most companies conclude that the upside of new profits outweigh the downsides of having ties to governments which have come under fire for corruption or rights abuses.He explained that the Swedish government has previously viewed the export of technology to non-democratic countries as a first step in democratic development.”The [Swedish] state, as an owner of Telia, acts and thinks today, and considering the media’s treatment of Telia, may decide that they can no longer be owners of operations east of Finland and south of the Alps,” said Nordstrm.TT/The Local/dlFollow The Local on Twitter Read More

‘Difficult’ asylum seekers put in Swedish prison

“Desperate” asylum seekers awaiting deportation from Sweden have been placed in a prison after the Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket) deemed them too hard to handle.Refugees often left to find their own housing (10 Oct 12)
Syrians largest asylum seeker group in Sweden (6 Oct 12)
New plan to ease refugee housing problems (18 Sep 12)

A special section of the Skogome prison in Gothenburg has been opened to house asylum seekers who have been denied refugee status in Sweden and are set to be deported.”Those we’ve taken from the Migration Board are those they can’t deal with because they are too complicated; they are acting up or desperate,” Christer Isaksson, head of security with the Swedish Prison and Probation Service (Kriminalvrden), told Sveriges Radio (SR).Previously, rejected asylum seekers have been housed in remand centres where they were often isolated and had limited access to telephones or visitors.The facility opening up at the Gothenburg prison, which is expected to have space for seven people, was touted as an improvement by prison officials.But the Migration Board’s decision to hand responsibility for rejected asylum seekers to the Swedish prison system doesn’t sit well with officials at human rights group Amnesty.”It’s not right for people who haven’t been convicted or suspected of a crime to be placed in a prison environment,” Amnesty’s Madelaine Seidlitz told SR.Migration officials contend, however, that they are unable to guarantee the safety of the individuals to be housed in the prison.TT/The Local/dlFollow The Local on Twitter Read More

Swedish astronomers in giant star death find

Swedish scientists in a team of international astronomers have discovered a spiral of matter around a dying giant star, indicating the way our own sun will end its days. Sweden to blast fresh blood into space (11 Feb 12)
Swede signs up to Virgin Galactic space flight (18 Feb 10)
Space tourism to take off in Kiruna (12 Dec 09)

First it gets rid of all the matter; death throes that go on for approximately one billion years. Then all that is left is the core of the star. That makes it a so called white dwarf, said Hans Olofsson, head of the Onsala space observatory near Gothenburg, to news agency TT. Olofsson is one of the scientists behind the study, which will be published in Nature, but the discovery was made by using the very powerful Alma telescope in Chile. The dying giant is called R Sculptoris, and like other stars in the final phase of its life, it is hurling out large amounts of matter into space. This matter becomes the raw material for future stars, and is what life on planet Earth initially formed form, according to scientists. The spiral structure, thought to have been created by another star which circles E Sculptoris, can be found in the matter that the dying giant is hurling into space. Scientists call this discovery remarkable as it is the first time that anyone have been able to see such a spiral three dimensionally.The find also indicates what the process of our own suns demise will be like in six or seven billion years. Read More

Spotify on Samsung smart TVs in Europe

South Korean electronics giant Samsung will be the first to offer the Swedish music streaming service Spotify’s catalogue on its smart TVs across Europe, the company said Wednesday.Swedish service launches ‘Spotify for TV’ (4 Sep 12)
Skype-founders launch Spotify rival in Sweden (4 Jul 12)
Spotify launches its services Down Under (22 May 12)

Spotify said on Wednesday that it would offer customers an application they could download for Samsung’s smart TVs in 12 European countries, including Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and Sweden.According to Samsung, Spotify will complete their existing selection of apps, being the first really big and specialized music app on the Smart Hub. “You will no longer have to connect your tablet or your computer with the sound system. Everything will be right there on your telly,” said Jenny Fisher-Toivo, Nordic Product Manager TV p Samsung Electronics Nordic.Spotify’s three non-European markets — the US, Australia and New Zealand — would not have access to the service.”People no longer need to fuss about connecting cables from their laptop or tablet to Hi-Fi equipment,” said Dan Saunders, director of content services for Samsung Electronics Europe.Founded in 2006 by Swedes Daniel Ek, then in his twenties, and Martin Lorentzon, the service first launched in 2008 in Sweden and says it has since become the world’s largest streaming service.It claims to have a catalogue of “more than 18 million songs”, “more than
15 million active users and more than four million paying customers.”AFP/The LocalFollow The Local on Twitter Read More