So Israeli fans of Madonna, who is starting her world tour in Tel Aviv in late May, have started a Facebook petition asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to postpone his planned attack of Iran until after May 29, so as not to spoil the concert.

So far there has been no official response from the Israeli government on the matter, but with increased tension brewing between far-right secularists in the coalition and far-right religious blocs, it seems the government can ill-afford to alienate a potentially significant Madonna-bloc by starting a concert-cancelling war of aggression.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is raising hell about the administration’s secrecy – demanding that they at least release the confidential memo that explains why the President has the right to order secret killings. But the Obama administration is stonewalling in the best Dick Cheney fashion. ‘

The following poster – entitled Liberty Drones – beautifully captures the depravity of Obama’s policy. (The artist, Tom Blanton, has a bunch of great art work at the PoliCulture page of his Flickr photos. Tom is also the mastermind of the Project for the New American Revolution).

It is sad when the battlelines for the defense of liberty have retreated so far that it is necessary to argue that it is imprudent to permit Presidents to secretly kill one’s fellow citizens.

Irena Briganti, Senior Vice President
Media Relations
Phone: 212-301-3608
Fax: 212-819-0816
E-Mail: irena.briganti@foxnews.com

Be respectful but be sure to convey your outrage at this matter, and state that you and many others will boycott the network if the show is taken off the air.

Very bad news.

Fox Business Channel has unceremoniously cancelled Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano.

Ratings were not an issue, since the show was one of the top-rated shows on Fox Business Channel. Since no reason was given, one can only assume it was the consistent antiwar, pro-freedom, and anti-establishment views.

Fox’s press release stated:

Currently one of the leading judicial analysts on television, Judge Napolitano will continue his role on both FOX Business and FOX News, providing key legal insights surrounding the growing intersection between Washington and Wall Street.

Freedom Watch will be replaced by re-airings of shows run earlier in the day.

“The main issue between Iraqis and the U.S. Embassy is that we have not seen, and do not know anything about, an agreement between the Iraqi government and the U.S.,” said Nahida al-Dayni, a lawmaker and member of Iraqiya, a largely Sunni bloc in Parliament.

Expressing a common sentiment among Iraqis, she added: “The U.S. had something on their mind when they made it so big. Perhaps they want to run the Middle East from Iraq, and their embassy will be a base for them here.”

Even as U.S. officials claim they’re “slash[ing] by as much as half the enormous diplomatic presence” in Iraq, the Associated Press reported less than two weeks ago preparations by the Obama administration for negotiations with Iraq for a new defense agreement that may include an expanded number of U.S. troops.

Hey, I’m no idiot. I know the news media is incredibly biased in favor of powerful institutions and especially the state. But I don’t think I was naive to actually expect some coverage of this news on the day it broke. I scoured the major news media – CNN, MSNBC, Fox, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, al Jazeera English, my twitter feed and even my RSS feed (both of which are filled with the kind of dissident material that could spark the interest of Homeland Security) – and nothing. Virtually no coverage.

The U.S. has supported terrorism (and conducted its own state terrorism) innumerable times in the past without appropriate coverage in the news media. But this story of Israeli support of the MEK isn’t about some obscure, chronically marginalized issue. We’re not talking about U.S. support for murderous Colombian paramilitaries, an issue that has never piqued the interest of Americans. The issue of the impending conflict with Iran, however contaminated by false statements and jingoistic war propaganda, has certainly received its fair share of coverage. This is a mainstream issue.

This is a situation where the U.S. government’s closest ally, receiving billions in annual aid and unmatched diplomatic cover, is cooperating with a group that the State Department itself characterizes as a terrorist organization, to conduct assassination programs against innocent people in a sovereign nation. Taken in isolation, this is bad enough. But this kind of behavior has the potential to destabilize a very precarious situation and possibly suck the United States into another war in the Middle East. And these facts have now been confirmed by U.S. officials. I can’t imagine a more headline-worthy revelation.

But the news media is so subservient to the U.S. government and the credibility of its allies that this momentous story isn’t just twisted or lied about like America’s other propaganda – it’s erased. Whitewashed. Never happened.

It may be more enlightening at first, for those dismissing my observation as wacky conspiracy, to think about al Jazeera instead of the mainstream news in America. During the Iraq war, al Jazeera was often turned to in order to get the hard-hitting stories that the U.S. media couldn’t and wouldn’t report. It was “alternative.” They’ve since evolved and have had lots of questionable coverage that unfortunately overlaps that in the U.S. media. But why would a news organization, based in the region in which these Israeli terrorist attacks have taken place, whitewash this story?

Consider the politics of the region. The Gulf Arab states for a long time have been on the side of Israel and the U.S. when it comes to the issue of Iran. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, etc. – fear Iranian influence in the region because it crowds out their own. The Saudi King, for example, not only has secretly urged the U.S. to attack Iran, but has a strong interest in seeing Iran further isolated by eliminating its one regional ally, Syria (which is why Saudi Arabia has reportedly funneled support to the rebel Free Syrian Army and why it supported the Arab League’s Security Council resolution for intervention in Syria). Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, would be going against the interests of its owner and government (one in the same) if it appropriately covered revelations about Israeli terrorism in Iran.

Virtually the same calculations exist for the American media. Washington consistently pushes misinformation about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program (despite a near-consensus on the part of the intelligence and military community that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely civilian in nature) and demonizes the Iranian leadership because Iran lies outside Washington’s sphere of influence in the world’s most geopolitically important region. The news media reflects the state’s interests, both because ruffling the feathers of their commanders in Washington is against their own interests and because of what I call the “culture of regurgitation” in American journalism (“if my government says it, I’ll say it too”).

The focus of the media today, aside from the painfully stale political horserace, was the bank’s mortgage settlement and Syria. Regarding the former, there was gratuitous praise heaped on the Obama administration for overseeing a $26 billion settlement from the nation’s five biggest banks for their role in the mortgage meltdown (this, of course, after having colluded with banks to screw millions of people and bilk the economy out of far more than $26 billion). Regarding the latter, as I write these words CNN is running a story about Iran’s alleged material support for Syria’s killing of civilians.

I’m going to maintain my naiveté for another 24 hours. Let’s see if Israeli terrorism against Iran gets any coverage tomorrow.

Hastings drew attention to this on his twitter account today:

mmhastings Folks, just heard from sources regarding LTC Daniel Davis.Pentagon smear campaign at work; beware of claims made by unnamed officials. 2/9/12 2:36 PM

The smear campaign is apparently well underway, as Pentagon officials announced an investigation of Davis is underway to determine whether “possible security violations” have taken place. They have also already made false statements to the press:

mmhastings Specifically, I’ve been told the last paragraph of this story is almost completely wrong: http://t.co/DE13gOfm 2/9/12 2:23 PM

The link Hastings provides leads to an article at msnbc.com entitled “Pentagon investigates colonel over critical report on US progress in Afghanistan.” The last paragraph he refers to is as follows:

Additionally, Pentagon and military officials claim that two years ago while he was stationed in Germany, Davis wrote a letter to Petraeus, advising Petraeus on how to fight and win a war against Iran. The officials say Davis also asked Petraeus to help him skip a rank and get promoted to brigadier general so he could help shape the strategy for a war against Iran.

As Hastings warns, we should skeptical of any statements about Davis made by unnamed officials. This is of course indicative of the extraordinary culture of deference and conformity embedded in the military and political spheres in this country. People on the inside must have a sense that such attacks will occur if they dissent.

Also, I find it terribly unlikely that the Pentagon is going forward with this unwarranted investigation and smear campaign against someone who actually told the truth about the Afghan war without the President’s knowing about it. Obama’s war on whistleblowers has been unprecedented, and apparently continues unabated.

Mohammad Daim Kakar, the director general of Afghanistan’s disaster assistance agency, confirmed that camp officials, parents and religious leaders in two of the camps in Kabul had reported the deaths of 21 children from the cold, as well as two elderly adults. The New York Times, quoting similar sources, found 22 cases of children under 5 who had died there as of last week, with a 23rd case reported on Sunday.

That’s a small glimpse of the living conditions in the country we’ve been tearing apart. But what’s more, if you read the story, is that the Afghan official basically called these bereaved villagers liars, accusing them of vying for more aid. And that’s the kind of government we’re propping up.

Wuterich received absolutely no jail time whatsoever. Instead, he got a pay cut and demotion for pleading guilty.

Now, everyone accused of even the most violent crimes deserves a lawyer — civil libertarians have unfortunately been forced to stridently argue this in recent years. But only the most brutal, sadistic, mass-murdering criminals seem to get a lawyer these days — at least up until you hit a certain station, and then no lawyer is necessary because no charges will ever be brought. Anyone else accused of applicable crimes is thrown in a hole or extrajudicially executed. This is why Puckett & Faraj seem to be a legitimate and symbolic target.

Having just escaped having to serve on a jury, I can tell you lawyers aren’t always the smartest people in the room. So it’s hardly surprising to see the twisted logic in the following tweet from Puckett & Faraj:

“Puckett Faraj cyber-attacked Friday by cowards for defending Frank Wuterich from the government the hackers seek to destroy – go figure.”

Several problems here. 1) Wuterich *is* the government. 2) Anonymous and other activists — remember Occupy Wall Street? — are angry specifically over the unequal treatment given government actors in government courts versus the rest of us. Glenn Greenwald just wrote an entire book about this. That is precisely what happened in the Wuterich case. 3) As is it literally deadly to fight against the ruling system head-on, it is from a position of self-preservation, not cowardice, that the apparatuses of state are attacked anonymously.

Should law firms who represent war criminals be so attacked? It depends. Let’s call it an iffy means to a just end, exercised on a key pillar of an oppressive system. All things are not equal.

“This may completely destroy the law firm,” admitted Puckett & Faraj’s business manager in an email.

Wuterich and his pals no doubt have a name for this. It’s called “collateral damage.”

lulz

– Stephen Walt

Young Americans for Liberty and the Future of Freedom Foundation are concluding this tour tomorrow at Ohio State University. The speakers are Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Hornberger, Bruce Fein, and Jack Hunter.

You can view the video from Tuesday’s presentation at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.