The popular conception of the police state, derived mainly from works of science fiction,
revolves heavily around the deployment of exotic technologies for keeping the populace firmly under the thumb of an authoritarian government. Perhaps it is the frequency with which these devices are presented to us in fictionalized form that prevents many from noticing that this technology is not the stuff of sci-fi fantasy, but increasingly a part of our everyday lives.

Jack Cover, a NASA researcher, began development on the taser which was completed in 1974, although not widely adopted by police departments until the last decade. Since its inception as a standard police implement the taser has courted controversy, with critics blaming the weapon for as many as 515 American deaths since 2001. It has also been denounced by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, Amnesty International, and other organizations as a potential weapon of terror.

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett, introducing and presenting the taser, the use and implementation of this ‘pain technology’ in other settings, including airplanes, airports as the front line of the police state and a testing ground for new police state technology, and how the police, TSA and other law enforcement agents are being actively recruited and encouraged to be as aggressive as possible in dealing with the public, and aided in doing so by the federal government, the courts, and the upper ranks of their own departments.

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*The Transcript for this video is available at Corbett Report: Click Here

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Antiwar.com – Your Best Source for Antiwar News?

Launched in 1995, Antiwar.com describes itself as a site “devoted to the cause of non-interventionism� whose “initial project was to fight against intervention in the Balkans under the Clinton presidency.� Explaining their “key role� in the battle for public opinion during that seminal “humanitarian intervention,� the editors write:

Our goal was not only to inform but also to mobilize informed citizens in concerted action to stop the war. The war at home was an information war: an attempt by the government to both limit and shape the information that Americans had. It was, above all, a propaganda war, one in which the American government and its allies in the media were bombing and strafing their own people with hi-tech lies.

Read more È

‘Lockheed Martin Goes to Bat for’ …Who?

Yesterday Justin Elliott at Salon reported on an international media-lobbying intrigue involving Bahrain, a Lockheed Martin executive and the Washington Times:

A top executive at Lockheed Martin recently worked with lobbyists for Bahrain to place an op-ed defending the nation’s embattled regime in the Washington Times — but the newspaper did not reveal the role of the regime’s lobbyists to its readers. Hence, they did not know that the pro-Bahrain opinion column they were reading was published at the behest of … Bahrain, an oil-rich kingdom of 1.2 million people that has been rocked by popular protests since early 2011.

The episode is a glimpse into the usually hidden world of how Washington’s op-ed pages, which are prized real estate for those with interests before the U.S. government, are shaped. It also shows how Lockheed gave an assist to a major client — Bahrain has bought hundreds of millions of dollars of weapons from the company over the years —as it faces widespread criticism for human rights abuses against pro-democracy protesters.

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The story is worth reading. Just remember this is an itsy bitsy tiny little case; only one example of many more similar cases occurring regularly. Hello? Think about our Congress and over 400 lobby-able crooks in it. Think about our government providing perks and access to ‘select’ reporters for being good pet boys. Think about dime-a-dozen plentiful retired generals linking their MIC bosses to the mighty purchaser Pentagon…on a daily basis hundreds of prostitution transactions like the one with the Washington Times. Come to think of it, one major difference between the examples I’m providing and prostitution in the true sense of the term is that usually the American public is at the center of services and transactions provided. That is, the services and products offered are their hard-earned dollars, their liberties, their security, their gullibly misplaced trust… Read more È

Hall of Fame & Hall of Shame on Syria Reporting

Have you noticed how it’s been all quiet on the Western MSM War Propaganda front? As more and more alternative news outlets are increasing their reporting on the real situation in Syria, as even the puppet Arab League is issuing observations contradicting previously reported ‘un-sourced and undocumented’ atrocities and a made-up huge death-toll caused by Assad’s regime, the mainstream media and corporate-funded NGO news fronts have been decreasing their Syria coverage. It is almost as if they’ve gotten ‘a black-eye’ and gone in hiding. Rest assured, there won’t be any retraction on previously publicized, that is, intensely, un-sourced, un-confirmed, un-documented, fictional death toll numbers and imaginary scenarios.

Let’s take a look at a few recent reports starting with an excellent piece at Asia Times today [All Emphasis Mine]: Read more È

One of the greatest problems in talking about the police state is that all such discussion of the subject is hampered by the lack of a clear-cut definition. Given the public’s own ignorance of the true nature and function of a police state, story after story after story of intolerable levels of official oppression, secret illegal surveillance, and increasingly sophisticated technology for tracking, apprehending, incapacitating and even killing dissenters can be dismissed because these stories are reported one at a time, in a contextless and therefore meaningless way that invites the interpretation that these stories are only warnings of what is to come instead of sign posts of a reality that is already here.

Those who seek to sow discord amongst the potential opposition to the growing control of the state over every aspect of the public’s lives can confuse and distract those opponents by engaging them in endless dialogues fretting about what a police state is, and whether our society is becoming one. Distracted in this way, the public can be tricked into believing that the police state is some imaginary future possibility, one that will only be realized when menacing troops in brown shirts, red arm bands and jack boots goose step people into internment camps against their will.

This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett, presenting the police state as a present reality rather than a future possibility, the distraction of the public by design, the need to look at the decades-long history documenting the step by step construction of our current system in order to recognize, understand and acknowledge our current police state status, and finally, the real key to dismantling our current police state.

Watch the Preview Here:

Watch the Full Video Report Here:

*The Transcript for this video is available at Corbett Report: Click Here

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MSM News, 6 Months Late: “Obama Secretly Preparing for Syria Intervention�

This morning I woke up to the following news headlines. Let me correct myself: This morning I found the US media and their quasi extension reporting on stale, at least 6-month old US operations on Syria. Now, that’s much better. I think it is safe to assume that the media has been given a ‘green light’ by the White House and Pentagon to report on long-ongoing war preparations, aka ‘intervention’ plans, on Syria while making it sound as fresh-new-recent. Let’s read together:

Obama Administration Secretly Preparing Options for Aiding the Syrian Opposition

As the violence in Syria spirals out of control, top officials in President Barack Obama‘s administration are quietly preparing options for how to assist the Syrian opposition, including gaming out the unlikely option of setting up a no-fly zone in Syria and preparing for another major diplomatic initiative.

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And here is the almost comical egregious part:

After several weeks of having no top-level administration meetings to discuss the Syria crisis, the National Security Council (NSC) has begun an informal, quiet interagency process to create and collect options for aiding the Syrian opposition, two administration officials confirmed to The Cable.

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Right! According to these ‘reporters’, up until now our imperialistic hawks have been sitting on their butts and doing absolutely nothing on Syria’s months-long prewar crisis! Just read the following by MSM’s favorite source WINEP, and please try not to laugh: Read more È

It is the Genocide Season-Bring on the Invasion!

I’ve been waiting; waiting for the ‘G’ word on Syria, and here it is, arriving right on time, as expected:

Arab League Observer: Assad Committing Genocide in Syria

A member of the Arab League observer team in Damascus told Al Arabiya broadcaster Monday that “what’s happening in Syria is genocide.”"This is a regime is taking revenge on its people,” Mostashar Mahgoub told the channel by telephone.

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It is impossible not to recall the US media-marketed and sold false reports of invading Iraqi troops throwing babies out of incubators in Kuwait in August 1990 — reports that were used to build public support and urgency for the 1991 Gulf War. These claims were part of an elaborate propaganda effort by the Washington PR consultancy Hill & Knowlton hired by the Kuwaiti government. Let’s watch the stellar performance choreographed by our government producers-directors: Read more È

Peter B. Collins Podcast Show Interview

Cutting through the disinformation and spin, Sibel Edmonds and Pepe Escobar reveal back stories about the conflict in Syria that are not reported in the mainstream media.

Edmonds has deep sources in Turkey, Iran, Syria, and the US policy community, and has broken a number of recent developments at Boiling Frogs Post.  Pepe Escobar has also done great enterprise reporting and analysis at Asia Times.  Together, they add a great deal of information about the players who are fighting the Assad regime, the increasingly shrill calls for Assad’s removal from Washington and Paris, and recent reports of likely NATO-aligned fighters assembling near the Jordan-Syria border. 

Escobar sees this as a proxy battle between US/NATO/Israel and a growing alliance between Russia and China, with all eyes on the oil and gas reserves of the Caspian basin.  We discuss Turkey’s role in some depth, and its desire to crush the Kurds of northern Iraq and southern Turkey; we talk about Iran’s intentions toward Syria and Iraq after the US withdrawal, and Iran’s own “Kurdish problem�.  Escobar predicts that 2012 will be a year of “creative destruction�, and sees a return to pre-9/11 dynamics in the region.  He also describes the House of Saud as the international center of the counter-revolution in response to the “Arab Spring�. 

Edmonds, who lived in Iran at the start of the Islamic revolution, talks about Iran’s interests and Jordan’s billions of dollars in US military aid since 2007.  It’s best to look at a map of the region as you listen, so you can appreciate the geographical and resource ties of the various neighbors.

Listen to the interview here @ the Peter B. Collins Show: Click Here

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I am looking at a fully-packed schedule for today. Peter and I will be interviewing Pepe Escobar on Syria-Turkey-Jordan. I am scheduled for an interview-analysis session with Russia Today. I have several phone calls scheduled with my sources on the latest developments in Syria. And there are tons of topics/issues/cases I want to cover and talk about that have to wait until things calm down a bit … which almost never happens.

Let’s start with Jordan. Last week we broke the story on reported US-NATO troops and operations in Jordan- on the Jordanian-Syrian border. Follow-ups to our report were carried out by only a few select international news organizations. Pepe Escobar had an excellent article on that (see here).

Today I received this report on the generous financial aid granted to Jordan by the United States.

US to Provide Jordan with $660 Million in Aid in 2012

AMMAN, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) — The United States will provide Jordan with 660 million U.S. dollars in 2012 as economic and military assistance, Jordan’s ministry of planning and international cooperation said Tuesday…The U.S. assistance to Jordan from 2007 to 2011 reached 2.4 billion, according to the ministry.
…

You see, Jordan is fairly dependent on US generosity, aka military-financial aid. And as expected, that dependency tends to ‘color’ a lot of things. Come to think of it, almost every member of the so-called Arab League appears to have similar dependencies: US financial-military aid and support to maintain and sustain their regimes’ existence. Hello, you remember our atrocious Bahrain regime, no? Oh well, they too are part of this ‘Arab League.’ So basically, these dependent puppet dictator regimes are now in charge of determining Syria’s level of dictatorship and soon–to-come final destiny. Ironic, no? Okay, I’ll have more on this when I reach the ‘calm’ period…

Next, I want you to monitor the Antiwar.Com website for a while. This once-upon-a-time excellent website has been going through tremendous not so pretty changes. Coincidentally, these changes coincide with recent mysterious appearances of their donor angels. What I want you to look for and keep tabs on: Read more È

Turkey’s Sudden 180 Degree Turn on Syria

In the last few years a commonly and frequently used catch phrase among US policy makers and movers and shakers of the think tank industry when it comes to their ‘vision’ for the new Middle East has been ‘Moderate Islam.’ However, there is a literal and rational definition of ‘Moderately Islamic Government,’ then there is the real meaning, interpretation, implications and application of the term meant and used by the US and its Western extension when it comes to the New World Order. In a recent excellent analysis Professor James Petras sums up the US Empire’s new vehicle of choice for its global order in the Muslim world today:

“Moderate� Islamists have become the Empire’s ‘contraceptive of choice’ against any chance the massive Arab peoples’ revolt might give birth to substantive egalitarian social changes and bring those brutal pro- western officials, responsible for so many crimes against humanity, to justice .

The West and their client officials in the military and police have agreed to a kind of “power-sharing’ with the moderate/respectable (read ‘reactionary’) Islamist parties. The Islamists would be responsible for imposing orthodox economic policies and re-establishing ‘order’ (i.e. bolstering the existing one) in partnership with pro-multinational bank economists and pro US-EU generals and security officials.

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The most frequently cited example by the ruling Western elites for their ideal ‘Moderate Islamic’ government has been the AKP government of Turkey, in power since 2001. The AK Party portrays itself as a liberal conservative party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market economy and Turkish membership in the European Union. In 2005, the AK Party was granted observer membership in the European People’s Party.

Dr. Petras’ description of Western-Chosen and Western-Favored ‘Moderate Islamic Government’ fits Turkey’s AKP leadership to a T. This Western role model for the Muslim ‘Arab world’ has suavely maintained popular support by maintaining a balance between an illusionary Islamic stand and rhetoric, a for-show-only tough stand on Israel, and carrying out its  daily US-NATO dictated to-do list and behind-the-scenes appeasement of its Western masters in the military and financial fields.

Turkey’s recent and sudden change of position on Syria is an excellent example illustrating the real meaning of Western Ideal Islamic government. Just check the headlines on developments in Syria-Turkey relations in the last few months, and you’ll see what is meant by a Western-Approved Moderate Islamic government, aka submissive puppy state governing under the banner of Islam and Allah for show while fully performing for their Western puppy-masters.

I reported on the ongoing joint US-NATO secret training camp in the US Air Force base in Incirlik, Turkey, which began operations in April- May 2011 to organize and expand the dissident base in Syria. I broke that story on November 21, here at Boiling Frogs Post, based on information provided to me by multiple sources including highly credible insiders in Turkey and government insiders here in the US. Of course the story is still completely blacked out by the US media until further notice from their government masters. However, you’ll find no shortage of daily news on Turkey’s toughly-spoken threats, viciously imposed sanctions, and its harboring of Free Syrian Army-Rebels.

What you won’t find in the Western media is the almost intimate relationship between Syria and Turkey as recent as a year ago. That context would bring about obvious questions, and questions would enforce critical thinking, and critical thinking is one thing our masters and their media extensions don’t want you to get into. So I’ll take it upon myself to provide you with a brief background on how things were between the two nations until Western Masters snapped their fingers for their favorite moderately Islamic government in Turkey.

In May 2010, during President Assad’s visit to Turkey, the Turkish President made the following statement during a press conference: Read more È