A Lie Exposed

by Jerry White, WSWS

Four months after the passage of Obama’s health care legislation—hailed by most of the media and the entire liberal establishment as the most progressive social reform since the 1960s—the reactionary implications of the measure are emerging ever more clearly.

The centerpiece of the plan, the White House claimed, was the extension of coverage to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and the containment of costs that were making medical care unaffordable for average citizens. Cost-cutting and the implementation of “efficiencies” would not affect the quality of care, the president claimed. Moreover, those already insured would be able to keep their doctors and medical plans.

As the World Socialist Web Site explained, these claims were false. The purpose of the legislation was to slash health care costs for US corporations and the government by reducing coverage and rationing care for millions of Americans.

Money Laundering and the Global Drug Trade Fueled by Capitalist Elites

by Tom Burghardt, Global Research

When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) “registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military … carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.,” it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked “private,” packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.

But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, “Wachovia’s Drug Habit,” reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, “with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.,” Wachovia and Bank of America.

The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, “the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history.”

“A sum” Bloomberg averred, equal to one-third of Mexico’s current gross domestic product.”

Since 2006, some 22,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence. Thousands more have been wounded, countless others “disappeared,” torture and illegal imprisonment is rampant.

Shock wave and bubble: the untruth about the Cheonan

by Hilary Keenan, 21st Centrury Socialism

Only a small coterie in the USA and South Korea know for sure what really happened to the South Korean warship. But, unreported in the Western media, the ‘proof’ that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea has been thoroughly discredited.

As is often the case following a negotiated outcome, both sides claimed victory. After the final text on the sinking of the South Korean corvette was agreed by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council on 9th July, the Whitehouse issued a statement which asserted:

Today’s UN Security Council Presidential statement condemns the attack by North Korea on the Cheonan and warns North Korea that the international community will not tolerate such aggressive behavior against the Republic of Korea.  The unanimous statement, reflecting the shared view of the 5 members of the Six-Party Talks, constitutes an endorsement of the findings of the Joint Investigative Group that established North Korea’s responsibility for the attack.

But the UNSC Presidential statement did no such thing. It did not condemn ‘the attack by North Korea’ or ‘warn North Korea’, because it did not name the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) as the culprit. And it did not endorse the findings of the Joint Investigative Group which was appointed by the government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea). The wording of the statement on this matter was much more cautious:

In view of the findings of the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation Group led by the ROK with the participation of five nations, which concluded that the DPRK was responsible for sinking the Cheonan, the Security Council expresses its deep concern.

Following which, the UNSC statement added:

The Security Council takes note of the responses from other relevant parties, including from the DPRK, which has stated that it had nothing to do with the incident…

The Security Council welcomes the restraint shown by the ROK and stresses the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in northeast Asia as a whole.

Internal AU Reports Acknowledge Indiscriminate Targeting of Somali Civilians

AU Major Insists All Civilians Actually Killed By ‘Extremists’

by Jason Ditz, AntiWar

The large numbers of civilians being killed by African Union troops in their attempted occupation of Somalia are damaging their image, internal African Union reports are cautioning.

Obama’s War on the Internet: The Ministry of Truth

by Philip Giraldi, Capaign for Liberty

The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet café it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification.