Exposing Lies of the Empire is a monumental work.

Some years back, I was approached to come up with a story that I’d really like to cover. There were many, but right away I was drawn to a story whose angle was completely marginalized in any media I had checked. I was interested to go to Zimbabwe and get a genuine impression from Zimbabweans of how they view the direction of their country under the government of Robert Mugabe. How they viewed the redistribution of land within the country.

In the case of theft, when the stolen property is recovered, the usually accepted, and rightful, custom is that the property be returned to its rightful owner(s).

Follow the Money

Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, based in Kiev, Ukraine.

In 2008, Mr. Pinchuk made a five-year, $29 million commitment to the Clinton Global Initiative, a wing of the foundation that coordinates charitable projects and funding for them but doesn’t handle the money. The pledge was to fund a program to train future Ukrainian leaders and professionals “to modernize Ukraine,” according to the Clinton Foundation.

It said that if Mr. Pinchuk was lobbying the State Department about Ukraine, “this cannot be seen as anything but a good thing.”

Oh certainly, all you have to do is take a brief look at Ukraine to see what a wonderful thing it has been.

“America’s last taboo” Edward Said.

Decades of failed peace talks have led nowhere; but do not lose hope just yet. Join Robert Foster as he attempts to host the first ever Middle East Peace Raps, using rhyme and reason to bring together Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, and a representative of Hamas. The picture would not be complete however, without a discussion of “America’s last taboo” (as Edward Said once referred to it): the USA’s role as Israel’s best – and only – buddy in the world (Ok, together with Australia). Featuring special cameos from prominent American Jewish scholar, Dr. Norman Finkelstein, and Palestinian rap legends, DAM, this is an episode for the ages. Join us as we bravely (or perhaps stupidly) take on one of the most bitter, divisive and controversial conflicts of our times: Israel & Palestine.

Our entire way of life can be ended in a single day

Seven former chiefs of defense staff have called for the British armed forces to be exempt from the European Convention on Human Rights, saying their inclusion in the legal framework is putting their effectiveness at risk.

June 1st the govt. votes on continuing the Patriot Act.

It is important for people to stand up for their freedoms. If we don't stand up we lose it all. We can't live in fear as the government wants us to, just so they can spy on every single person and everything we do. Understand this is not about fighting terrorism, this is about knowing everything about every single citizen.

Every citizen is considered guilty by the government and they spy on every thing we do and spend. John Oliver makes the conversation funny and shows how people are not concerned unless it involves pictures of dicks. Yes... I wrote that correctly.

Must watch video.

Chinese shipbuilders have completed three advanced nuclear-propelled submarines that can fire the latest vertically launched anti-ship missiles, local media reported

The age-old saying is true:

If we don’t learn history, we’re doomed to repeat it.

The single biggest historical secret which people haven’t yet learned is false flag terrorism.

In yet another example of politicized tainted unreliable junk science, psychology researchers are claiming that a new study suggests that being in the military and being deployed to war has no impact on committing suicide!

A kudo to President Obama. But just one.

If he manages to pull off an agreement with Iran on limiting that country's nuclear fuel enrichment program in the fact of determined resistance from Republicans, Neocons, the Israel Lobby and the warmongers in both the GOP and his own Democratic Party, he will have finally earned at least some small portion of the gold in his Nobel Peace medallion.

“We are a Left-wing government. If we have to choose between a default to the IMF or a default to our own people, it is a no-brainer,” said a senior official.

Greece is drawing up drastic plans to nationalise the country’s banking system and introduce a parallel currency to pay bills unless the eurozone takes steps to defuse the simmering crisis and soften its demands.

Sources close to the ruling Syriza party said the government is determined to keep public services running and pay pensions as funds run critically low. It may be forced to take the unprecedented step of missing a payment to the International Monetary Fund next week.

U.S and Tehran disagree over Sanctions lift.

Tehran accuses the U.S. of spinning the nuclear deal.

Iran was never in violation of the NPT.

Most importantly, we must think about (upholding) the International treaties.

International treaties are being held hostage by the west.

There has been a lot of interference inside Iran by Washington. The nuclear issue is just an excuse to undermine the Islamic Republic and has very little to do with anything else.

Russia is opposed to snap back inspections and phased out sanctions.

Russia is a UN Security Council member and is present in the negotiations.

A closer look at the details of the so-called framework accord to emerge from Lausanne shows that Iran falls short on both counts of sanctions removal and nuclear rights.

After investing so much political capital in achieving a nuclear deal, it is understandable that all sides of the stand-off would claim the Lausanne accord arrived at this week to be an “achievement”.

However, a closer look at the details of the so-called framework accord to emerge from Lausanne shows that Iran falls short on both counts of sanctions removal and nuclear rights.

A new DHS purchase order raises an eyebrow or two, given the heated and divided political and social climate at hand.

It is an axiom in mainstream analyses of the Middle East that Sunni and Shii Muslims overwhelmingly operate in society based on their sectarian identity and not much else, regardless of their location (Iraq, Syria, Yemen), profession, tribal or regional affiliations, or other economic and political factors.

Between 29 and 45 people were reported killed by an apparent air attack at the al Mazraq camp – some were said to have been burned beyond recognition. Depressingly, the victims also included children. Although the attack came shortly after Saudi Arabia had launched an aerial bombardment of Yemen, Yemen’s foreign minister, speaking from Riyadh, blamed artillery fired by the Houthi militia which stormed the country’s capital Sanaa late last year. A Saudi spokesman meanwhile said that rebels had been firing from a residential area in response to a question about the bombing.

April 5th marked the five year anniversary of WikiLeaks publication of theCollateral Murder Video. The footage of a secret US military video depicted an Apache helicopter killing Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists.

It was the most powerful radar of its kind in the world, they told Congress. So powerful it could detect a baseball over San Francisco from the other side of the country.

If North Korea launched a sneak attack, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar — SBX for short — would spot the incoming missiles, track them through space and guide U.S. rocket-interceptors to destroy them.

Crucially, the system would be able to distinguish between actual missiles and decoys.

SBX “represents a capability that is unmatched,” the director of the Missile Defense Agency told a Senate subcommittee in 2007.

In reality, the giant floating radar has been a $2.2-billion flop, a Los Angeles Times investigation found.

Although it can powerfully magnify distant objects, its field of vision is so narrow that it would be of little use against what experts consider the likeliest attack: a stream of missiles interspersed with decoys.

Though a final deal won’t be sealed until later this year, the framework agreement announced in Lausanne, Switzerland on Thursday between Iran and the P5+1 nations is having reverberations across the world—offering hope of rapprochement, peace, and better days ahead for those who support it and heckles and frowns from those who appear to think that a continued stalemate and endless sanctions, or possibly war, are the better path.

The US made an unholy mess of yet another country, was the first to run, and now everybody runs, except for Russian and Chinese forces who try to evacuate their nationals. Yet another major foreign policy success for Obama who had presented Yemen as the shining example of anti-terrorism done right

The US wasted $10 billion on missile defense projects which were doomed for failure from the beginning, due to a lack of analysis, a report by the Los Angeles Times says. Aside from the astronomical costs, the failures appear to also threaten US security.

As usual, western media are deliberately confusing in communicating on the latest Mid-East conflict which eventually led to the recent atrocious bombing of Yemen by the US-directed Saudi alliance, including Qatar and other Gulf monarchies. They are proxies, to be sure, for their Washington masters. My heart is bleeding for Yemen, a country of warm and generous people I got to know well, working with them in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Yemen, like Ukraine, is just another square on the geopolitical chess board which the exceptional nation aims to dominate.

It is certainly true, where ever the US and its NATO cronies put their heavy boots, they create lasting misery and chaos

The swell of anti-Russian propaganda, confrontation and attempted intimidation by NATO has increased, and if it continues to do so it is likely that Moscow will take action, thereby upping the stakes and the danger even more.

It’s a good one – but can it survive the US Congress?

Israel has been threatening to attack Iran unilaterally for years, including during these negotiations, and they are not above launching a provocation – one that will ignite a conflict that would envelope the entire Middle East and much of the world.

As I said in my last column, the US Congress is the catch, the fly in the ointment that could nix this deal and lead us down the path to another war in the Middle East. Nothing has been signed. What we have is a framework, one that will lead to a fuller agreement in June – if Congress doesn’t step in and stop it.

Russia’s active steps in boosting its air and missile defense capabilities are aimed against the potential threat of Prompt Global Strike which US “under certain conditions” might decide to carry out, says Russia’s Aerospace Defense Forces’ deputy chief.

The potential threat of Prompt Global Strike by the United States against the Russian Federation is one of the top challenges for the Aerospace Defense Forces, Major General Kirill Makarov told the Russian News Service radio.

In this regard an effective air and missile defense system remains one of Russia’s top priorities

A small airport in north-eastern Poland used by the CIA to fly in kidnapped detainees for torture at a nearby intelligence training camp has received over €30 million in EU funds.

The EU money is part of a larger €48.5 million sum to turn the former military airstrip into an international commercial airport known as Szymany.

The Brussels-executive has no oversight because the amounts taken from the European regional development fund are too small for it to have a direct stake.

It is instead administered and managed by regional authorities who diverted all the funds into a company they set up after obliging a local Polish-Israeli businessman, who had been instrumental in securing the EU grant, to hand over the airport’s lease.

Southampton University, after giving permission to hold a ground-breaking academic conference on International Law and the State of Israel, has been bullied into cancelling.

“The University claims that it does not have enough resources to mitigate the risks despite a clear statement from the Police confirming that they are able to deal with the protest and ensure the security of the event...."

The university must fulfill its legal obligation to protect free speech and academic discussion...

The closing of this multi-billion-dollar company can be one of the greatest BDS victories yet.

In June, 2010, when Israeli forces attacked unarmed aid ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, killing ten passengers (including one who died this year from injuries), dockworkers around the world refused to unload or load Israeli ships or cargo.

Based on the results in the US, we believe that if ten ports worldwide are closed to Zim, the company’s losses may cause it to close its doors. If Zim and the state of Israel are worried that this movement may become infectious, we can all be proud to spread the virus.

The Senate panel is scheduled to vote on April 14 on the legislation he co-authored with Corker demanding congressional review of an Iran agreement.

Israel lobby influences “the United States’ foreign policy by intervention with certain of their assets within the Senate,”

Harris said if you look at the people who are opposed to normalizing relationships with Iran and lifting the sanctions against the Islamic Republic, “you’ll find that among the biggest campaign contributors are usually AIPAC and other assets that Israel lobby dictates and controls.”

The West worked very hard to turn the Middle East into what it is now. It took centuries to transfigure this culturally deep and great part of the world into the horror show. But it is done!

There is nothing, absolutely nothing right in the Middle East these days. There seems to be no hope left, and no fervor. All that was pure was dragged through filth. All that was great here was stolen or smashed by the outsiders. Enthusiasm had been ridiculed, then drowned, or burned to ashes, or shattered by tanks and missiles.

The modern nation of Iran is also known throughout much of history as the ancient nation of Persia. This is the same Persia which overran the Spartans at Thermopylae; the same Persia which fell to the conquering Macedonian, Alexander the Great; the same Persia which fought the Romans and their successors the Byzantines for centuries for dominance in the Near East. This is also the same Persia which fell rather easily to the expanding Arab Muslim Empire led by the successors to Islam's founder, the Prophet Muhammad.

This page shows conflicts between the Arab nations (as a group), and Israel. As a rule, a legal state of war has existed between Israel and her Arab enemies since the beginning of the first war in 1948. Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, and Jordan made peace in 1994. The Palestine Authority, headed by Yassir Arafat and his Al-Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization negotiated a semi-peace, which, from mid-2000 on, has been destroyed through the “Al-Aqsa” Intifada violence. Other Palestinian groups, most notably Hamas, have been at war with Israel continuously. Although Israel and most Arab nations are technically in a continuous state of war, unless otherwise noted, specific outbreaks of fighting are considered to be separate wars.

The engine of American foreign policy has been fueled not by a devotion to any kind of morality, but rather by the necessity to serve other imperatives, which can be summarized as follows:
* making the world safe for American corporations;
* enhancing the financial statements of defense contractors at home who have contributed generously to members of congress;
* preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model;
* extending political and economic hegemony over as wide an area as possible, as befits a "great power."

All this can be summarized like so: the US made an unholy mess of yet another country, was the first to run, and now everybody runs, except for Russian and Chinese forces who try to evacuate their nationals. Yet another major foreign policy success for Obama who had presented Yemen as the shining example of anti-terrorism done right.

Throughout his tenure, he's waged one war after another at home and abroad.

From militarized killer cops, police state ruthlessness, and his kill list to drone murders and mass slaughter from 30,000 feet.

Though a final deal won't be sealed until later this year, the framework agreement announced in Lausanne, Switzerland on Thursday between Iran and the P5+1 nations is having reverberations across the world—offering hope of rapprochement, peace, and better days ahead for those who support it and heckles and frowns from those who appear to think that a continued stalemate and endless sanctions, or possibly war, are the better path.

How do you keep track of increasingly stealthy Russian, Chinese, and Iranian submarines? If you're the U.S. military, you build a robotic ghost ship to follow them around the high seas. In 2010, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, announced that they were building a 132-foot autonomous boat to track quiet, diesel-powered submarines. The program was dubbed Anti-submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel, or ACTUV.

The U.S.-spawned whirlwind of carnage and destruction has wrecked the societies of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, yet most Americans feel themselves blameless. “The people, the corporate media and the political system all accept that their government has the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations and that it is always right and moral in its claims.” They behave like zombified cogs in an imperial death machine.

Latin American countries should discuss removing all US military bases from their soil, a top official of integration organization UNASUR suggested

Training for unrest in America?

Even if your knowledge of the Vietnam War comes exclusively from Hollywood films and Texan textbooks that only refer to it as "that one the good guys lost," you've probably heard about the Viet Cong. They were a bunch of jungle-fighting guerrilla warriors who killed American boys via night-time ambushes and terrifying traps. Well, that's one side of the story.

Here's another: #8. We Weren't All Communists; We Just Wanted Independence, or Revenge......

Ukrainian lawmakers are set to remove the embattled country’s Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk over corruption charges.

The legislators will remove Yatsenyuk from his post through voting next week after a temporary investigative anti-corruption commission is established, Sergei Kaplin, the representative of the largest faction in the Ukrainian parliament, Petro Poroshenko Bloc, said on Friday.

The U.S.-spawned whirlwind of carnage and destruction has wrecked the societies of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia and Yemen, yet most Americans feel themselves blameless. “The people, the corporate media and the political system all accept that their government has the right to intervene in the affairs of other nations and that it is always right and moral in its claims.” They behave like zombified cogs in an imperial death machine.

Karl Rove may be a lot of things, but being sorry for the 2003 invasion of Iraq is not one of them.

A 32-year-old Iraq war veteran confronted Rove at the University of Connecticut this week, calling on the former senior advisor to President George W. Bush to apologize for the horrors of that war and its lingering effects both at home and abroad.

Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

Civilians suffer most in all wars. Yemen is no exception. Sanaa is becoming a ghost town.

One shopkeeper said "(t)here are very few people left here. Everyone has fled, and those who have stayed live alone without their families."

"So hardly anyone comes to buy anything anymore.Now I'm lucky if I make $20 a day."

Kiriakou tweeted Wednesday that the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) — a subagency of the US Department of Justice that is responsible for operation of all federal prisons, including the one Kiriakou served time in — said it was “inappropriate” for him to work at the Institute of Policy Studies, a social justice think tank located in Washington, given his stated desire to work for reform of the US prison system.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder affects 1 in 3 returning troops, and yet, only 40% of those will seek help. In this edition of Off The Grid, Jesse Ventura speaks with former marine & war correspondent David J. Morris, author of the new book “The Evil Hours.” The two discuss Morris’ own personal struggles with PTSD as well as our country’s misconception of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Stephen Lendman
RINF Alternative News

Civilians suffer most in all wars. Yemen is no exception. Sanaa is becoming a ghost town.

One shopkeeper said "(t)here are very few people left here. Everyone has fled, and those who have stayed live alone without their families."

"So hardly anyone comes to buy anything anymore.Now I'm lucky if I make $20 a day."

"How can I pay my rent or even my electricity bills? If the situation stays like this then I'm sure I'll be out of business within days."

For the record, Google has recently patented a wearable “nanoparticle phoresis” device with the World Intellectual Property Organization

He is the architect and very public face behind Saudi Arabia’s boldest military campaign in nearly 100 years. But Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s young, newly-minted defense minister, remains a virtually unknown figure at home and abroad.

One imagines that few would question that intra-Palestinian divisions and rivalries have exacted a heavy toll on a majority of the more than 3.8 million Palestinian refugees and their descendants who are registered with the United Nations. These refugees out of the current nearly 12 million Palestinians whose country was illegally occupied in 1948 and each of whom possess, under international law the Full Right of Return to their country.

With the end of the Obama presidency just around the corner, discussions of his administration’s foreign policy legacy are already well under way. But one central element of that policy has received little attention: the Obama administration’s dramatic acceleration of U.S. weapons exports.

SEC Rules Contractor KBR Used Confidentiality Agreements that can “Muzzle” Whistleblowers
One of the biggest U.S. government contractors has been exposed for using confidentiality agreements to “muzzle” its workers, particularly whistleblowers. KBR, formerly Kellogg Brown & Root, “prohibited employees who reported fraud from discussing the ‘subject matter’ of their allegations with anyone, including government auditors and investigators, without ‘specific authorization’ from the company. Employees were warned that if they violated the terms of the agreements, they could face “disciplinary action up to and including termination of employment,” according to Scott Higham of The Washington Post.

In last month’s Anti-Empire Report I brought you the latest adventure of US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki trying to defend the indefensible. She said then: “As a matter of longstanding policy, the United States does not support political transitions by non-constitutional means,” which prompted me to inform my readers: “If you know how to contact Ms. Psaki, tell her to have a look at my list of more than 50 governments the United States has attempted to overthrow since the end of the Second World War.”

WEBMASTER ADDITION: When the American Revolution started, the Continental Army gave themselves far less of a chance to succeed, and King George III gave them none at all. History shows that such early assumptions have as much connection to reality as human-caused global warming!