by Rick Rozoff

At its summit in Lisbon, Portugal last November the North Atlantic Treaty Organization adopted its first strategic concept for the 21st century, one in keeping with its expansion into not only a pan-European but a self-styled international military force.

In addition to subordinating all of Europe to a U.S.-dominated interceptor missile system, complementing the new U.S. Cyber Command in waging cyberwarfare defensive and offensive, and erasing whatever distinction remained between NATO and European Union military functions on the continent and globally, the world’s only military bloc endorsed the nearly ten-year-old war in Afghanistan as its prime mission and affirmed its commitment to ongoing operations in the Balkans.

by Mike Whitney

The collapse in housing prices is gaining pace proving that the Fed’s bond purchasing program (QE2) has been an utter failure. While liquidity sloshes around in the equities markets, the distress on Main Street is more excruciating than ever. The release of the Case-Shiller index of property values on Tuesday, confirmed analysts worst fears, that the decline in prices is accelerating on the downside further weakening household balance sheets, wiping out precious home equity, and thrusting working class families back into the red.

According to Bloomberg :

by Washington’s Blog

MSNBC reports that plutonium has been found in soil around the Fukushima plant:

The Tokyo Electric Power Co., which operates the plant, said it found three radioactive isotopes of plutonium — plutonium 238, 239 and 240 — in five locations outside the plant in soil tests on March 21-22.

NHK tv notes that a giant crane fell over and probably crushed spent fuel rods at in Fukushima reactor number 3, which contain a plutonium-uranium mix.

CNN points out:

Plutonium can be a serious health hazard if inhaled or ingested, but external exposure poses little health risk, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

by Paul Craig Roberts

Obama’s speech showed a person more capable of DoubleSpeak and DoubleThink than Big Brother and the denizens of George Orwell’s 1984.

How does a person as totally absurd as Obama expect to be taken seriously?

What does the world think? Obama has been using air strikes and drones against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and probably Somalia. In his March 28 speech, Obama justified his air strikes against Libya on the grounds that the embattled ruler, Gadhafi, was using air strikes to put down a rebellion.

by Tom Burghardt

Not since AT&T whistleblower Marc Klein’s 2006 revelations that U.S. telecommunications giants were secretly collaborating with the government to spy on Americans, has a story driven home the point that we are confronted by a daunting set of invisible enemies: the security and intelligence firms constellating the dark skies of the National Security State.

As echoes from last month’s disclosures by the cyber-guerrilla collective Anonymous continue to reverberate, leaked HBGary emails and documents are providing tantalizing insight into just how little daylight there is between private companies and the government.

Libyan operation continues as hundreds die and thousands flee

Coalition forces leave Colonel Gaddafi’s air defense in tatters, but on the ground tensions remain high; according to reports, at least 114 people have been killed in the first four days of the operation while 300,000 have already fled the country.

Saturday was marked by the rebels gaining control over Ajdabiya – a key gateway to the oil reserves in the country’s east. Unconfirmed reports also claim the rebels have advanced beyond Ajdabiya, toward the town of Brega.

by Diana Johnstone

Reason Number One: Regime change.

This was announced as the real objective the moment French president Nicolas Sarkozy took the extraordinary step of recognizing the rebels in Benghazi as “the only legitimate representative of the Libyan people”. This recognition was an extraordinary violation of all diplomatic practice and principles. It meant non-recognition of the existing Libyan government and its institutions, which, contrary to the magical notions surrounding the word “dictator”, cannot be reduced to the personality of one strongman. A major European nation, France, swept aside all those institutions to proclaim that an obscure group of rebels in a traditionally rebellious part of Libya constituted the North African nation’s legitimate government.

89.5% of German respondents do not believe the official story of 9/11.

NEW YORK, March 23, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A December 2010 poll conducted by the prestigious Emnid Institute, and reported in the German magazine “Welt der Wunder,” revealed that 89.5% of German respondents do not believe the official story of 9/11.

The issue is heating up in America as well, and will soon be heard in court.

Top Secret Military Specialist April Gallop saw disturbing things up close that have not been reported in the media.

by Prof. John Kozy

The Supreme Court’s First Amendment opinions result not from interpreting the First Amendment but from deliberately and insidiously changing its diction in ways that make the Amendment unrecognizable. The Court’s arguments in these opinions are pure cant and do nothing but turn the Justices’ personal opinions into law. This practice has enabled the Court to act as an oligarchy that has usurped the Constitution and ruled the nation without ever have been elected or given the authority to do so.

Reading the First Amendment makes one wonder how the Supreme Court could have turned its clear and unambiguous words into a mishmash of ambiguity.

by Devon DB

The World is engulfed in wars, now in Libya, where the US and its allies have begun bombing a soveriegn country, as well as in the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While there are those who condemn the use of violence on all sides and stress the need for dialogue, it seems that world leaders do not realize just how inhumane war is.

Wars are detrimental to everyone involved.