1. “Why U.S. Leaders Deceive Their Own People
Professor John Mearsheimer’s latest book, Why Leaders Lie, provides a number of intriguing insights and surprising conclusions. Perhaps his most unexpected conclusion is that leaders lie to foreign leaders far less frequently than is generally assumed. Indeed, he contends that leaders lie to their own people more than they do to foreign counterparts. He does, however, concede that less blatant forms of deception, such as “spinning” and “concealment” are pervasive in international politics.
Two other conclusions ought to be deeply troubling to populations in democratic countries, and especially so to Americans. One is that officials in democratic political systems are more likely to deceive their own people—even engaging in outright lies—than officials in autocratic systems. His reasoning on that point is solid, and he provides compelling evidence to support his case. Mearsheimer’s thesis is that democratic leaders are much more dependent than autocrats on public support for foreign policy initiatives, especially when an initiative includes going to war. If the available evidence is weak that a major security threat exists, but political leaders believe that taking military action is in the national interest, a powerful incentive exists to inflate the threat to gain badly needed public support.
A second, related part of his thesis is that political leaders are much more inclined to lie involving wars of choice rather than wars of necessity. Again, there are ample historical examples supporting his argument.”
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-skeptics/why-us-leaders-deceive-their-own-people-5563
2. “Why Do the Police Have Tanks? The Strange and Dangerous Militarization of the US Police Force
Some 40,000 of these raids take place every year, and are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they’re sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. And as demonstrated by the case of Aiyana Mo’nay Stanley-Jones, these raids have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries.
3. “Federal court orders immediate end to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy; Pentagon plans to comply”
4. “Rejection by African Union of ICC’s Qaddafi arrest warrant reveals ICC as hoax
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25530
