The Psychic Dangers of Infected Minds (With a Lie this Large)

Brief: The emergence in 2020 of the Coronavirus (or Covid-19) and the putative dire implications for us all of its unchecked spread and virulence caught most people on the planet off guard. For a variety of reasons, this development signalled an epochal turning point for the global political economy, for our society and humanity. Greg Maybury gets ‘up close and personal’ with the virus, reflecting more so on the ‘popular delusions and madness of crowds’ attending it. In this context, he offers a more off-piste perspective of the forces driving us to a destination almost certainly will not be to our liking.

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The Psychic Dangers of Infected Minds (With a Lie this Large)

The Psychic Dangers of Infected Minds (With a Lie this Large)

Brief: The emergence in 2020 of the Coronavirus (or Covid-19) and the putative dire implications for us all of its unchecked spread and virulence caught most people on the planet off guard. For a variety of reasons, this development signalled an epochal turning point for the global political economy, for our society and humanity. Greg Maybury gets ‘up close and personal’ with the virus, reflecting more so on the ‘popular delusions and madness of crowds’ attending it. In this context, he offers a more off-piste perspective of the forces driving us to a destination almost certainly will not be to our liking.

read more
Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control

Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control

Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant overlords in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the disinformation, myth-making, fake news wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”

read more
The Divine Right of Dark-hearted Despots (Then and Now)

The Divine Right of Dark-hearted Despots (Then and Now)

Brief: With everything that is transpiring in Washington as we speak, it is clear that America’s foreign policy agents provocateurs du jour are looking for their next big fix, a reality underscored by the fact they also have Iran in their sights, with the blowback in Ukraine and Syria still a work in progress. Regime change — the wrecking ball in the foreign policy toolbox — continues to permeate the rarefied atmosphere of the Imperial Capitol, with Venezuela on the D.C.-based Democracy Busters dance-card. It seems though that with every successive effort by the U.S. and its proxies to destabilize countries and dethrone their elected leaders, they pay less attention to disguising their real motives and covering their tracks, and more attention to ignoring their failures and downplaying their disasters. That this reality should awaken more folks to the hollowness of America’s much-touted rep as a “force for good in the world” is a given for those of us with a more clear-eyed view of how much chaos, destruction, and geopolitical instability this default policy prescription engenders. Greg Maybury invites one and all to re-arrange the furniture in their geopolitical living room, and consider the following: nothing is going to change in the execution of U.S foreign and national security policy, until everything does.

read more
The ‘Kosher Nostra’ Nation

The ‘Kosher Nostra’ Nation

Brief: Having now called an election in April, it seems clear Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s rationale for the early poll is to avert possible indictment for alleged corruption. Always something of a political ‘chancer’ whom few would accuse of lacking chutzpah, even for the estimable “Bibi” this is an audacious gamble. Either way, win or lose (and we might opine, guilty or innocent), very little is likely to change for the better in the way the state of Israel comports itself on the international stage. With that in mind, this is as good a time as any to take a deeper look at this increasingly militarily aggressive and geopolitically opportunistic nation, which like its current leader, has long been a law unto itself. Australian writer Greg Maybury pays a visit of sorts to the Wailing Wall.

read more
Of Fake News and History Suborned (In War and Peace)

Of Fake News and History Suborned (In War and Peace)

Brief: The gulf dividing established institutions—governments, political parties, academia, the judiciary, legislature, bureaucracies, the national security state, think-tanks, lobby groups, and especially the mainstream media—and those within and across the broader body politic, particularly those who’d challenge the chokehold such institutions seek to impose on the information and knowledge that forms the foundation of our political discourse as well as that of the official historical record, is expanding at a rate of knots. With a focus on one man who saw it all coming, it’s time to reflect on the backstory of this bourgeoning, perilous impasse, and what the implications might be for geopolitical stability and security, and indeed, the future of humanity.

read more
The ‘Crucifixion’ of the Black Messiah

The ‘Crucifixion’ of the Black Messiah

On this the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, a soon-to-be-published book provides us the most comprehensive account of this event, the shock of which reverberated across America and the world. More than that, the anniversary gives us all ample reason to reflect on the man and his impact, and where America is at present in the context of the main pursuits to which he devoted his life: racial equality, justice, liberty, truth, freedom, and peace. Oh, and a slice of the American Dream.

read more
From Great Wars, Come Great Consequences

From Great Wars, Come Great Consequences

Brief: With all the talk about a third world war, it isn’t just instructive but essential to understand the real origins and causes of the first two. Like the proposition it was Germany’s militarism and imperial ambition under Kaiser Wilhelm that kindled the First World War in 1914, the notion that the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was an aberrant manifestation of the economic, social, and political chaos prevailing in post-War Germany is one we still teach our kids in school, and embrace without question in our public discourse. Both of these doctrines — to this day perpetuated by the custodians of the historical record on behalf of the Anglo-American-Zionist establishment — are the most enduring deceits and existentially dangerous delusions infecting the Western body politic. There seems no better time to begin appreciating the implications for humanity of preserving them. To underscore this, it’s sufficient to grasp that the power elite mindsets, societal developments, economic conditions, and the broad geopolitical goals and objectives that marked the prelude to these cataclysmic events uncannily parallel so many of those unfolding now. As we will see, this is not simply a matter of history tripping over itself once again!

read more
With Friends Like These (Who Needs Allies?)

With Friends Like These (Who Needs Allies?)

The Brief: By and large, the Australian-U.S. alliance is considered by the majority of people on both sides of the Pacific Pond to be mutually beneficial, indeed essential. But behind this pact, like as with so many countries with economic, strategic and/or military ties to the empire du jour, there is a downside, one rarely acknowledged — and when it is, often rejected — in public or media discourse. More Australians though are beginning to question its value, a mindset reinforced in no small measure by the increasingly heavy-handed influence the U.S. seeks to exert in global affairs, exemplified as much by its well-documented interference in the affairs of other countries and its propensity for imposing its frequently self-serving economic and strategic agenda on the international community. Along with examining why Australia might benefit from re-assessing the oft-presumed benefits of this partnership, and from there, seeking a more independent pathway, we will also reveal some of the past history of this complex, and for the U.S. in the ongoing pursuit of its hegemonic ambition, sure to be an increasingly vital, geopolitical partnership.

read more
The Rise and Rise of the Regime Renovators (Another Splendid Little Coup)

The Rise and Rise of the Regime Renovators (Another Splendid Little Coup)

For those Americans au fait with their country’s fondness for engineering coups, ousting democratically elected leaders, and interfering in the political affairs of other nations – to all intents the perennial bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy — Iran is a well-documented exemplar. Given the supreme ironies inherent in the political imbroglio in the U.S. attending Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, along with America’s resolve to seek once again regime change in Russia’s ally Iran, it’s timely we revisit this slice of history. Doing so presents us an opportunity to view the so-called ‘Russia-gate’ furore, the Iran regime change ambitions, and the increasingly bloody war in Syria – itself an ally of both Russia and Iran — within a broader, more nuanced historical context. From there we might derive a more informed perspective on the contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist and the hegemonic forces that have fashioned it. And attending that deeper perspective should be a sure sign of the existential dangers for civilization and humanity at large of allowing our leaders in the West to continue down this path unchallenged, one that is as well-worn as it’s fraught with peril.

read more
Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part Two

Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part Two

Brief: With the anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War (SDW) between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Jordan now upon us, it’s timely to take another look at the origins and causes of that pivotal war, and with that examine in some detail the deliberate attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) during that conflict on the US naval reconnaissance ship the USS Liberty, with the loss of 34 lives and scores of casualties. To this day, despite irrefutable evidence it was a deliberate attack, the official explanation is that it was a case of “mistaken identity”. Along with showcasing one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. military history — and from there seek a measure of recognition, justice, redress and closure for the survivors and their families — it presents us an opportunity to place into broader, now ever more urgent relief, the history of America’s increasingly contentious and counterproductive relationship with Israel in addition to probing the role of both nations in events unfolding in and across the Greater Middle East. It moreover, invites us to reexamine the largely unexplored role played in these events by one of America’s most psychopathic and criminally inclined of Oval Officeholders. On all counts, author Phillip Nelson’s new book – to be released this week – Remember the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, provides us ample context and perspective within which to contemplate all of this and more.

read more
Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part One

Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part One

Brief: With the impending anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War (SDW) between Israel and the Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Jordan), it’s timely to take another look at the origins and causes of that pivotal war, and with that examine in some detail the deliberate attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) during that conflict on the US naval reconnaissance ship the USS Liberty, with the loss of 34 lives and scores of casualties. To this day, despite irrefutable evidence it was a deliberate attack, the official explanation is that it was a case of “mistaken identity”. Along with showcasing one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. military history, it presents us an opportunity to place into broader, more urgent relief, the history of America’s increasingly contentious relationship with Israel in addition to probing the role of both nations in events unfolding in and across the Greater Middle East. It moreover, crucially invites us to reexamine the largely unexplored role played in these events by one of America’s most psychopathic and criminally inclined of Oval Officeholders, one whose political ascendancy and tenure may have been the most consequential of all. As our narrative herein will eventually reveal, had things gone the way they were planned, it almost certainly would’ve triggered the most cataclysmic consequences of all for the human race. On all counts, author Phillip Nelson’s soon to be published book Remember the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, provides us ample context and perspective within which to contemplate all of this and more.

read more
The Praetorian Bodyguards (Of the Empire’s Liars)

The Praetorian Bodyguards (Of the Empire’s Liars)

Brief: The response from the mainstream media to Wikileaks revelations of CIA surveillance and hacking – against the backdrop of the MSM and Beltway fuelled brouhaha over fake news, alleged Russian spying and interference in U.S elections, and general animus towards Moscow – is further evidence the Fourth Estate is irretrievably beholden to the Deep State and the ruling classes du jour. It in turn underscores the MSM’s ever present grip on the broader American political psyche. That it was ever thus has been obvious for decades to all but the most deluded afficionados of life, liberty, democracy, privacy, freedom, the rule of law, the pursuit of happiness, and the American way. With this in mind, it’s time to take a deep breath for an even deeper dive into the cess-pool that is the collective press-pool.

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The Great American Perpetual Motion War Machine

The Great American Perpetual Motion War Machine

Brief: The so-called ‘military-industrial complex’ ushered in by the passing of the 1947 National Security Act is a luxury America and the world can no longer afford. The unprecedented threat posed by the over-privileged belligerents infecting U.S. military doctrine with their unbridled hegemonic ambition is redolent of that of the British Empire in the years leading up to the Great War in 1914. With Donald Trump advocating massive upgrades of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and full-spectrum dominance likely to remain integral to American foreign and national security policy making, we ponder the past, the here and now, and an unthinkable, yet, still avoidable future.

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The Werewolves of Washington

The Werewolves of Washington

The death of Fidel Castro offers us an ideal opportunity to reflect not just on the profound geopolitical import of Cuban-American relations. In the process we acquire a timely insight into how badly the Washington establishment gets it all so demonstrably and disastrously wrong. As we enter unmapped terrain in U.S. foreign policy, Greg Maybury looks at that relationship and what lessons might be learned, and why all things Cuba and Castro still infuriate U.S. political elites on both sides of the political divide.

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Of Privilege, Plunder and Immoral Reward

Of Privilege, Plunder and Immoral Reward

Brief: The outcome of the 2016 presidential election will keep pundits across the political spectrum looking to explain the rise to the Oval Office of the most improbable candidate in American political history for some time to come. This will especially be the case for those who either never saw it coming or decried its possibility however remote that might have seemed. But there is one single factor that stands out as the root cause, and it has little to do with Donald Trump: Neoliberalism. Greg Maybury asks: Could this be the beginning of the end of the increasingly anti-democratic, rapacious, anti-social, and destructive ideology that infuses this now utterly discredited doctrine of privilege, plunder and immoral reward?

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A Clean Break from Israel (What America Needs Most)

A Clean Break from Israel (What America Needs Most)

Brief: America’s interminable meddling and interventions in the Middle East has wreaked havoc upon the region. Although the U.S. was the principal curator of the chaos, it seems gradually more people are recognizing it’s the region’s resident hegemon Israel that’s been the real driver of the turmoil and violence that defines the region. Greg Maybury reports on what is arguably the most portentous geopolitical issue of our time.

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Chilcot’s Can of Worms – Anatomy of a Catastrophe

Chilcot’s Can of Worms – Anatomy of a Catastrophe

The release of the Chilcot Report in the UK reopened the can of worms that was the Iraq War, providing us an opportunity for reconsidering the rationale behind the decision and why all those responsible should be held accountable. Of greater import, with the fallout of the invasion still resonating across the Greater Middle East — exacerbated by even more ill-judged incursions into the region under president Obama such as in Libya and Syria — the Chilcot findings call into question U.S. foreign and national security policy, not just in the region but in broader spheres of influence on the geopolitical scene.

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A Last Best Hope (The Obama Promise)

A Last Best Hope (The Obama Promise)

Brief: After Barack Obama’s hope-fuelled triumph in 2008, it was clear millions of Americans were looking forward to moving in a wholly new direction. As we near the final year of his tenure, and with these expectations in mind, now is as good a time as any to look at some of the factors likely to shape his legacy. To this end, we scrutinise a presidency that promised so much to so many. 

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Anarchists Amok in The Era of Normalcy

Anarchists Amok in The Era of Normalcy

  Greg Maybury () is a freelance writer based in Australia. His main areas of interest are American history and politics in general, with a special focus on economic, financial, national security, military, and geopolitical affairs. For 6+ years he has regularly...

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The Monkey Trial and the Human Error

The Monkey Trial and the Human Error

'It can be personally gratifying for one to have a small cult following of course; but it should be incumbent upon one to avoid—if only for reasons of personal health, safety and future well being—any utterances, movements or actions that might inadvertently incite...

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Once Upon a Paranoid Time (In America) — Part One

Once Upon a Paranoid Time (In America) — Part One

Brief: For too long the domain of the ‘time-rich’ whack job, in an age of growing paranoia and suspicion, along with increasing, self-evident government, corporate and institutional secrecy and subterfuge, it’s perhaps time to ‘rehab’ the brand of the much-maligned “conspiracy theory”, and go in to bat on behalf of its many practitioners. In this first instalment of an epic 3 parter, we secure the perimeter, don our Comalco hat, pull the blinds, bolt the doors, and embark on what might turn out to be a quixotic quest. Yet desperate times call for desperate measures.

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The Gangbanksters of Grab-it-All Street

The Gangbanksters of Grab-it-All Street

Brief: As so often happens at pivotal crisis points in America’s history, in the fallout from the Great Financial Trainwreck (aka the Global Financial Crisis or GFC), of 2008-09 there was and continues to be much righteous indignation, hand-wringing, finger-pointing, existential angst and ardent analysis and reflection by all and sundry about everything from why it wasn’t foreseen, how it could get so bad so quickly, who might be held accountable, how it might have been prevented, and what should be done to avoid it in the future. Putting aside for the moment whether any lessons have been learned from the financial markets’ near-death experience, or for that matter whether any progress has been made in coming up with answers to these questions, many stunning revelations and insights have come to light as a consequence. Greg Maybury offers a few for posterity.

read more

Inside the Submissive Void — Propaganda, Censorship, Power, and Control

Brief: The use of propaganda and censorship is more frequently associated with totalitarian, corrupt and/or despotic regimes, not modern democracies in the West. Yet the history of how western governments and their ever-vigilant overlords in the media, financial, and business spheres have controlled the political narrative of the time via these means is a long, storied and ruinous one, going back well before 1914. Along with serving the contemporaneous political objectives of its perpetrators as contrived, such activities often continue to inform our understanding, and cement our interpretation, of history. If as the saying goes, “history repeats itself”, we need look no further as to the main reason why. In this wide-ranging ‘safari’ into the disinformation, myth-making, fake news wilderness—aka The Big Shill—Greg Maybury concludes that “It’s the narrative, stupid!”

read more

The Divine Right of Dark-hearted Despots (Then and Now)

Brief: With everything that is transpiring in Washington as we speak, it is clear that America’s foreign policy agents provocateurs du jour are looking for their next big fix, a reality underscored by the fact they also have Iran in their sights, with the blowback in Ukraine and Syria still a work in progress. Regime change — the wrecking ball in the foreign policy toolbox — continues to permeate the rarefied atmosphere of the Imperial Capitol, with Venezuela on the D.C.-based Democracy Busters dance-card. It seems though that with every successive effort by the U.S. and its proxies to destabilize countries and dethrone their elected leaders, they pay less attention to disguising their real motives and covering their tracks, and more attention to ignoring their failures and downplaying their disasters. That this reality should awaken more folks to the hollowness of America’s much-touted rep as a “force for good in the world” is a given for those of us with a more clear-eyed view of how much chaos, destruction, and geopolitical instability this default policy prescription engenders. Greg Maybury invites one and all to re-arrange the furniture in their geopolitical living room, and consider the following: nothing is going to change in the execution of U.S foreign and national security policy, until everything does.

read more

The ‘Kosher Nostra’ Nation

Brief: Having now called an election in April, it seems clear Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s rationale for the early poll is to avert possible indictment for alleged corruption. Always something of a political ‘chancer’ whom few would accuse of lacking chutzpah, even for the estimable “Bibi” this is an audacious gamble. Either way, win or lose (and we might opine, guilty or innocent), very little is likely to change for the better in the way the state of Israel comports itself on the international stage. With that in mind, this is as good a time as any to take a deeper look at this increasingly militarily aggressive and geopolitically opportunistic nation, which like its current leader, has long been a law unto itself. Australian writer Greg Maybury pays a visit of sorts to the Wailing Wall.

read more

Of Fake News and History Suborned (In War and Peace)

Brief: The gulf dividing established institutions—governments, political parties, academia, the judiciary, legislature, bureaucracies, the national security state, think-tanks, lobby groups, and especially the mainstream media—and those within and across the broader body politic, particularly those who’d challenge the chokehold such institutions seek to impose on the information and knowledge that forms the foundation of our political discourse as well as that of the official historical record, is expanding at a rate of knots. With a focus on one man who saw it all coming, it’s time to reflect on the backstory of this bourgeoning, perilous impasse, and what the implications might be for geopolitical stability and security, and indeed, the future of humanity.

read more

The ‘Crucifixion’ of the Black Messiah

On this the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, a soon-to-be-published book provides us the most comprehensive account of this event, the shock of which reverberated across America and the world. More than that, the anniversary gives us all ample reason to reflect on the man and his impact, and where America is at present in the context of the main pursuits to which he devoted his life: racial equality, justice, liberty, truth, freedom, and peace. Oh, and a slice of the American Dream.

read more

All Fire and Fury in Ukraine

The still decidedly volatile situation in Ukraine – resulting from another in that long line of US inspired regime changes that have done so much to destabilize the geopolitical landscape over the past few decades – is worth revisiting for a number of reasons. With...

read more

From Great Wars, Come Great Consequences

Brief: With all the talk about a third world war, it isn’t just instructive but essential to understand the real origins and causes of the first two. Like the proposition it was Germany’s militarism and imperial ambition under Kaiser Wilhelm that kindled the First World War in 1914, the notion that the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis was an aberrant manifestation of the economic, social, and political chaos prevailing in post-War Germany is one we still teach our kids in school, and embrace without question in our public discourse. Both of these doctrines — to this day perpetuated by the custodians of the historical record on behalf of the Anglo-American-Zionist establishment — are the most enduring deceits and existentially dangerous delusions infecting the Western body politic. There seems no better time to begin appreciating the implications for humanity of preserving them. To underscore this, it’s sufficient to grasp that the power elite mindsets, societal developments, economic conditions, and the broad geopolitical goals and objectives that marked the prelude to these cataclysmic events uncannily parallel so many of those unfolding now. As we will see, this is not simply a matter of history tripping over itself once again!

read more

With Friends Like These (Who Needs Allies?)

The Brief: By and large, the Australian-U.S. alliance is considered by the majority of people on both sides of the Pacific Pond to be mutually beneficial, indeed essential. But behind this pact, like as with so many countries with economic, strategic and/or military ties to the empire du jour, there is a downside, one rarely acknowledged — and when it is, often rejected — in public or media discourse. More Australians though are beginning to question its value, a mindset reinforced in no small measure by the increasingly heavy-handed influence the U.S. seeks to exert in global affairs, exemplified as much by its well-documented interference in the affairs of other countries and its propensity for imposing its frequently self-serving economic and strategic agenda on the international community. Along with examining why Australia might benefit from re-assessing the oft-presumed benefits of this partnership, and from there, seeking a more independent pathway, we will also reveal some of the past history of this complex, and for the U.S. in the ongoing pursuit of its hegemonic ambition, sure to be an increasingly vital, geopolitical partnership.

read more

The Rise and Rise of the Regime Renovators (Another Splendid Little Coup)

For those Americans au fait with their country’s fondness for engineering coups, ousting democratically elected leaders, and interfering in the political affairs of other nations – to all intents the perennial bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy — Iran is a well-documented exemplar. Given the supreme ironies inherent in the political imbroglio in the U.S. attending Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential elections, along with America’s resolve to seek once again regime change in Russia’s ally Iran, it’s timely we revisit this slice of history. Doing so presents us an opportunity to view the so-called ‘Russia-gate’ furore, the Iran regime change ambitions, and the increasingly bloody war in Syria – itself an ally of both Russia and Iran — within a broader, more nuanced historical context. From there we might derive a more informed perspective on the contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist and the hegemonic forces that have fashioned it. And attending that deeper perspective should be a sure sign of the existential dangers for civilization and humanity at large of allowing our leaders in the West to continue down this path unchallenged, one that is as well-worn as it’s fraught with peril.

read more

Of Treachery, Treason, Terror, Truth, and Liberty Forsaken (An American Tale) — Part Two

Brief: With the anniversary of the 1967 Six Day War (SDW) between Israel and the Arab states of Egypt, Syria, Jordan now upon us, it’s timely to take another look at the origins and causes of that pivotal war, and with that examine in some detail the deliberate attack by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) during that conflict on the US naval reconnaissance ship the USS Liberty, with the loss of 34 lives and scores of casualties. To this day, despite irrefutable evidence it was a deliberate attack, the official explanation is that it was a case of “mistaken identity”. Along with showcasing one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. military history — and from there seek a measure of recognition, justice, redress and closure for the survivors and their families — it presents us an opportunity to place into broader, now ever more urgent relief, the history of America’s increasingly contentious and counterproductive relationship with Israel in addition to probing the role of both nations in events unfolding in and across the Greater Middle East. It moreover, invites us to reexamine the largely unexplored role played in these events by one of America’s most psychopathic and criminally inclined of Oval Officeholders. On all counts, author Phillip Nelson’s new book – to be released this week – Remember the Liberty: Almost Sunk by Treason on the High Seas, provides us ample context and perspective within which to contemplate all of this and more.

read more