Woman Murdered by Airport Goons
Becky Akers discusses the case of Carol Anne Gotbaum who was killed while being detained by cops at the Phoenix airport, how the government’s control over TSA and countless other entities results in waste and mismanagement, the benefits of free-market security and America’s descent into despotism.
Becky Akers has written many great articles for LewRockwell.com which can be found here.
Christian Science Monitor dug deep into their archives to find a very cool article from 1957. Here we are, 50 years later, and the weaponization of space continues to be a bone of contention between the United States and Russia.
A very interesting interview with Scott Horton.
Yes, Scott Horton of Antiwar.com and Antiwar Radio, not Scott Horton of Harper’s (who has an article linked on our site today).
A Bosnian Muslim man was apprehended Monday as he tried to enter the U.S. embassy in Vienna, Austria with an explosive-laden backpack. Another Bosnian was arrested later Monday, suspected of being an accomplice.
It is nothing short of a miracle that the suspects were actually identified as “Bosnians” as opposed to “former Yugoslavs” or some such rubbish (as was the case with ethnic Albanians charged in the plot to attack Fort Dix earlier this year). Satisfied with this nod to the obvious, however, neither the Austrian government nor the media covering the event are willing to go any further. So the Austrians publicly state they “can’t say anything at the moment about a possible motive.” Indeed, Austria’s top cop (“general manager for public security”) Eric Buxbaum said “It is too early to speak of an Islamist background,” while Doris Edelbacher, identified by the AP as chief spokeswoman for Austria’s federal counterterrorism office, is said to have “played down speculation… that the thwarted attack may have been motivated by radical Islamic ideology.”
Because, you see, the wannabe-bomber and his handler were Bosnian Muslims, and that just can’t happen. The two suspects are Muslims? Check. There’s a jihadist imam in Graz, preaching jihad and murder of infidels? Check. The backpack bomb is the kind of device routinely used to blow up Israelis? Check. A Muslim prayer book is found in the backpack? Check. They are from where? Well, then, they can’t possibly be jihadists. Call off the search, boys, motive unknown.
What on earth could possibly be a motive for a jihad-style attack by a Muslim on a U.S. embassy? Jihad? Of course not! Out of the question! Never! Must be because… they didn’t process his visa request fast enough! That’s it! Perhaps he should sue the American government for causing him undue hardship; he wouldn’t be the first.
Already the mainstream press is saying that the main suspect has “sought psychiatric help” in the past, trying to suggest he was just a nutcase. Maybe there is something to it; but on the other hand, the fact that he panicked, threw the bomb away and tried to run, instead of blowing himself up, suggest that “Asim C.” is not mentally ill. I’m not so sure about those trying to spin his inept attempt at martyrdom as anything but.
Today the Senate passed Bush’s war funding request by an overwhelming vote of 92-3.
Quite a coincidence about the five who didn’t vote: they are all running for President.
That’s right: the five absentions were Biden (D-DE), Clinton (D-NY), Dodd (D-CT), McCain (R-AZ), Obama (D-IL). They must have been out campaigning, but how convenient to pass on such a key vote.
Empire and Blowback
Chalmers Johnson, author of the indispensable Blowback trilogy, discusses the
economic costs of empire, his belief that Bush has decided against war with Iran, the failure of the American people and the structure of the Republic to prevent executive branch tyranny, Admiral Fallon’s dangerous insubordination for a good cause and the future of blowback against the United States, the secrecy of the national security state and Israel’s recent bombing of Syria.
MP3 here. (33:10)
Chalmers Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, a non-profit research and public affairs organization devoted to public education concerning Japan and international relations in the Pacific. He taught for thirty years, 1962-1992, at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses of the University of California and held endowed chairs in Asian politics at both of them. At Berkeley he served as chairman of the Center for Chinese Studies and as chairman of the Department of Political Science. His B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees in economics and political science are all from the University of California, Berkeley. He first visited Japan in 1953 as a U.S. Navy officer and has lived and worked there with his wife, the anthropologist Sheila K. Johnson, every year between 1961 and 1998.
Johnson has been honored with fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Guggenheim Foundation; and in 1976 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has written numerous articles and reviews and some sixteen books, including Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power on the Chinese revolution, An Instance of Treason on Japan’s most famous spy, Revolutionary Change on the theory of violent protest movements, and MITI and the Japanese Miracle on Japanese economic development. This last-named book laid the foundation for the “revisionist†school of writers on Japan, and because of it the Japanese press dubbed him the “Godfather of revisionism.â€
He was chairman of the academic advisory committee for the PBS television series “The Pacific Century,†and he played a prominent role in the PBS “Frontline†documentary “Losing the War with Japan.†Both won Emmy awards. His most recent books are Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000) and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic, which was published by Metropolitan in January 2004. Blowback won the 2001 American Book Award of the Before Columbus Foundation.
