Endless War – on the semi-periphery

No, Obama is not trying to shut down his Guantanamo Gulag

Posted on 2015/08/15 - 2015/08/15 by jd

Tariq Ba Odah

‘The administration of President Barack Obama urged a federal judge on Friday not to order the release of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who has been on hunger strike for more than eight years and is described by his lawyers as being at risk of imminent death.’
via AP: USA resists immediate release for Guantanamo hunger striker

and…

‘U.S. intelligence and military officials cleared him for release five years ago from the Guantanamo detention center…’
via Reuters: Detainees’ lawyers question Obama commitment to close Guantanamo

https://twitter.com/MazMHussain/status/632383003323428868

Video and photo (above) from Witness Against Torture

John Pilger: Why the Americans want to destroy Assange and why the Swedes are helping

Posted on 2015/08/13 - 2015/08/13 by jd

John Pilger writes: ‘…The Americans are pursuing Assange because WikiLeaks exposed their epic crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq: the wholesale killing of tens of thousands of civilians, which they covered up, and their contempt for sovereignty and international law, as demonstrated vividly in their leaked diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks continues to expose criminal activity by the US, having just published top secret US intercepts – US spies’ reports detailing private phone calls of the presidents of France and Germany, and other senior officials, relating to internal European political and economic affairs. None of this is illegal under the US Constitution.

[….]

Contrary to its 1960s reputation as a liberal bastion, Sweden has drawn so close to Washington that it has allowed secret CIA “renditions” – including the illegal deportation of refugees. The rendition and subsequent torture of two Egyptian political refugees in 2001 was condemned by the UN Committee against Torture, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch; the complicity and duplicity of the Swedish state are documented in successful civil litigation and in WikiLeaks cables. In the summer of 2010, Assange had flown to Sweden to talk about WikiLeaks revelations of the war in Afghanistan – in which Sweden had forces under US command.

“Documents released by WikiLeaks since Assange moved to England,” wrote Al Burke, editor of the online Nordic News Network, an authority on the multiple twists and dangers facing Assange, “clearly indicate that Sweden has consistently submitted to pressure from the United States in matters relating to civil rights. There is every reason for concern that if Assange were to be taken into custody by Swedish authorities, he could be turned over to the United States without due consideration of his legal rights.”…’

Source: Assange: the untold story of an epic struggle for justice

Assange, 3 out 4 charges to be dropped?

Posted on 2015/08/12 - 2015/08/12 by jd

CMNKULIUMAE2fUf

The only country that has come out looking worse than the USA for this witchhunt is Sweden.

‘In a few days time, unless something unexpected happens, Julian Assange will no longer be facing three of the four potential charges against him in respect of what happened in Sweden in August 2010.This is because of the Swedish law of limitation which for certain offences means that the suspect has to be charged within five years of the alleged incident….’
Source: Assange, the law of limitation, and the next eight days | Jack of Kent blog

Video: ‘Sweden, August 3, 2015: Sveriges Television (SVT) sits down with Thomas Olsson, attorney for Julian Assange, to discuss what is happening in the Assange case.’

Obama vs. Nixon, compared (2012 campaign)

Posted on 2015/08/08 by jd

Mike Flugennock cartoon from 2012…

CL46bAyW8AEvWzK.jpg-large

WikiLeaks release: Target Tokyo and the Five Eyes

Posted on 2015/07/31 - 2015/08/01 by jd

I think the most important phrase to understand in our Manning/Wikileaks/Snowden/etc era is…. Five Eyes. If one does not grasp it then one does not understand what is happening in the world today. imho.

Today’s publication also contains NSA reports from intercepts of senior Japanese government officials. Four of the reports are classified TOP SECRET. One of the reports is marked “REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, NZL“, meaning it has been formally authorised to be released to the United States’ “Five Eyes” intelligence partners: Australia, Canada, Great Britain and New Zealand.
[….]
The documents demonstrate intimate knowledge of internal Japanese deliberations on such issues as: agricultural imports and trade disputes; negotiating positions in the Doha Round of the World Trade Organization; Japanese technical development plans, climate change policy, nuclear and energy policy and carbon emissions schemes; correspondence with international bodies such as the International Energy Agency (IEA); strategy planning and draft talking points memoranda concerning the management of diplomatic relations with the United States and the European Union; and the content of a confidential Prime Ministerial briefing that took place at Shinzo Abe’s official residence.
via WikiLeaks – Target Tokyo.

How Dick Cheney Covered up himself on 9/11 – The New Yorker

Posted on 2015/07/28 - 2015/07/28 by jd

quote: ‘…While the photographs convey an atmosphere of crisis, their substance adds little to what is already known, from the 9/11 Commission report, Jane Mayer’s “The Dark Side,” and Bob Woodward’s “Bush at War.” Like all three of these accounts, the photos put Cheney at the center of events. Perhaps this is the reason that the National Archives took more than thirteen years to post them to Flickr, whereas photos of Bush making calls from Air Force One were released almost immediately. The Cheney photos might never have come out at all, were it not for a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Colette Neirouz Hanna, a producer who has worked on more than ten documentaries about the Bush Administration for “Frontline.”

It is striking how much information about September 11th still remains secret. Most significant, perhaps, are the twenty-eight sealed pages of the 9/11 Commission report. One congressman told Lawrence Wright that they contain information “about the Bush Administration and its relationship with the Saudis.” More than thirteen years after the attacks, they remain classified. So are large chunks of the F.B.I.’s meticulous reconstruction of the hijackers’ pasts, a table with more than three thousand items running from the September 1, 1968, birth of Mohammed Atta, in Egypt, to the September 12, 2001, discovery of Nawaf al-Hamzi’s car, at Dulles Airport. It is impossible to know what events were redacted from the chronology, but surely they would yield insights into how and why the attacks occurred, and how our systems of defense failed to intervene beforehand.

At the beginning of his Presidency, George W. Bush signed an executive order claiming that the White House has the authority to hold back the records of former Presidents indefinitely. This move was challenged in federal court and later reversed by President Obama. But the decision to withhold the Cheney photographs for thirteen years is evidence that little has changed.

via How Dick Cheney Looked on 9/11 – The New Yorker….’

Screen Shot 2015-07-28 at 11.00.51

Turkey Attacks the Syrian Kurds: Was approving air strikes America’s worst error in the Middle East since the Iraq War? – Patrick Cockburn

Posted on 2015/07/27 - 2015/07/27 by jd

Either Obama miscalculated and didn’t think the Turks would take advantage of the situation, or he let the Turks attack, thus betraying US allies in Syria (PKK).

Patrick Cockburn writes:

‘…the US was accused by Kurds of tolerating a renewed Turkish government assault on its Kurdish minority as the price for permission for US aircraft to use Turkey’s Incirlik air base against Isis jihadists for the first time.

“The Americans are not very clever in calculating this sort of thing,” said Kamran Karadaghi, an Iraqi Kurdish commentator and former chief of staff to the Iraqi President, Jalal Talabani. “Maybe they calculate that with Turkey involved on their side, they don’t need the Kurds.” [….]

The result is that the US may find it has helped to destabilise Turkey by involving it in the war in both Iraq and Syria, yet without coming much closer to defeating Isis in either country. If so, America will have committed its biggest mistake in the Middle East since it invaded Iraq in 2003…’

Turkey conflict with Kurds: Was approving air strikes against the PKK America's worst error in the Middle East since the Iraq War? – Middle East – World – The Independent.

42 Years Later, Chilean Military Officers Charged for Murder of Victor Jara

Posted on 2015/07/24 - 2015/07/24 by jd

jara

More than four decades after the Chilean military tortured and killed beloved folk singer, playwright, and social activist Victor Jara during the coup of General Augusto Pinochet, former officers allegedly involved in the murder are finally facing charges.

Judge Miguel Vázquez Plaza on Wednesday announced homicide and kidnapping charges against 10 former military officers, including former lieutenant Pedro Barrientos Nuñez, a resident of Florida who is seeking to avoid extradition to Chile. Four of the people indicted have already turned themselves in, and arrests are expected to follow.

via 42 Years Later, Officers Charged for Murder of Defiant Chilean Folk Singer | Common Dreams | Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community.

U2…

…Jara sang, his song a weapon
In the hands of love
You know his blood still cries
From the ground…
U2 – One Tree Hill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQC8la3fVlU

Rewriting the History of Plan Colombia and ‘false positives’

Posted on 2015/07/24 by jd

quote: ‘…The United States’ relationship with Colombia is, as says, a “special” one. Outside the so-called Greater Middle East, no country has received more U.S. military aid and training in the past three decades.

That brings us to [United States Army General John F. Kelly’s] real mission, which the general lets slip following a run of particularly tired cliches. Colombia, he writes, has “taught us that the battle for the narrative is perhaps the most important fight of all.” It’s the closest he comes to acknowledging his editorial for the ceaseless barrage of willful misinformation it is.

Last month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) published “On their Watch,” a 95-page report that should eliminate any doubt as to the maliciousness of Kelly’s intentions. Having reviewed months of in-depth interviews and research, the report’s authors concluded, “There is abundant evidence indicating that numerous senior army officers bear responsibility” for the widespread Colombian military practice known as “false positives.“

False positives is a euphemism, an innocuous technical-sounding shield for a phenomenon HRW Americas Director Jose Miguel Vivanco has characterized as “one of the worst episodes of mass atrocity in the Western Hemisphere in recent years.” That it has stuck, and that even people who understand what it means still use it, is just one testament to the extent to which Kelly and company have been able to dictate the terms of the narrative “battle.”

What false positives actually entails is the systematic cold-blooded murder of civilians for profit and political gamesmanship, a coherent military strategy to inflate statistics by passing off executed civilians as rebels killed in combat. Often, units involved in the practice–and virtually every brigade in the Colombian Army has been–targeted the most vulnerable elements of society: the poor, drug-addicted, and mentally handicapped. In some cases, soldiers received fresh corpses from right-wing death squads and dressed them in rebel fatigues. This barbaric enterprise was, at the very least, condoned by the highest levels of the military and executive office and explicitly incentivized with bonuses, paid vacations, and promotions.

No one has ever accused Colombian justice of being among the “strong institutions” Kelly claims to admire, and false positives offers a fairly representative case study. According to HRW, prosecutors are assessing some 3,000 alleged false positive extrajudicial executions committed between 2002 and 2008.

via Rewriting the History of Plan Colombia | NACLA.

Guantanamo was big mistake, says Major General Michael R. Lehnert (retired)

Posted on 2015/07/12 - 2015/07/12 by jd

Major General Michael R. Lehnert (retired):
"We squandered the goodwill of the world after we were attacked by our actions in Guantanamo, both in terms of detention and torture," Lehnert wrote. "Our decision to keep Guantanamo open has helped our enemies because it validates every negative perception of the United States."

…The United States has since held 779 men at the facility and 162 remain.

[Lehnert wrote] “If we make a mockery of our values, it calls us to question what we are really fighting for.”

via Guantanamo was big mistake: U.S. Major that was there from beginning – NY Daily News.

CIA: Psychologists have an obligation to the nation

Posted on 2015/07/10 by jd

what kind of Nazi shit is this???

‘…The report concludes that some of the association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the interrogation policies of the Defense Department, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the C.I.A.’s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency.

The C.I.A. chose Mel Gravitz, a prominent psychologist who was also a member of the agency’s advisory committee. In early 2003, Mr. Gravitz wrote an opinion that persuaded the chief of the agency’s counterterrorism center that Mr. Mitchell could continue to participate in and support interrogations, according to the Hoffman report…..

Mr. Gravitz’s opinion, which the Hoffman report quotes, noted that “the psychologist has an obligation to (a) group of individuals, such as the nation,” and that the ethics code “must be flexible [sic] applied to the circumstances at hand.”

via Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds – The New York Times.

WikiLeaks reveals what the US is afraid of from France

Posted on 2015/06/24 by jd

‘…According to the documents released by Wikileaks, Sarkozy is said to have considered restarting the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks without US involvement…’
via François Hollande holds emergency meeting after WikiLeaks claims US spied on three French presidents | World news | The Guardian.

CIA spent $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel

Posted on 2015/06/15 by jd

The cost of that CIA program has not previously been disclosed, and the figure provides the clearest indication to date of the extent to which the agency’s attention and resources have shifted to Syria. At $1 billion, Syria-related operations account for about $1 of every $15 in the CIA’s overall budget, judging by spending levels revealed in documents The Washington Post obtained from former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden. U.S. officials said the CIA has trained and equipped nearly 10,000 fighters sent into Syria over the past several years — meaning that the agency is spending roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone through the program.
via Secret CIA effort in Syria faces large funding cut – The Washington Post.

Gary Sick explains Saudi Arabia’s War

Posted on 2015/06/06 - 2015/06/06 by jd

Listen to Gary Sick (also: wikipedia)

‘…Saudi Arabia’s decision to place the political threat from Iran above the actual military and ideological threat from radical Sunni Islamism is questionable at best. Both Al Qaeda and the self-styled Caliph of the Islamic State have openly proclaimed their intent to overthrow the corrupt Saudi royal family and take control of the two holy places—Mecca and Medina—that define the Islamic credentials of Saudi rule. Indeed only last week ISIL claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Shiite mosque in eastern Saudi Arabia that killed more than 20 people.

This threat from radical Sunni Islamism is the only credible external threat to Saudi independence and territorial integrity. No other movement, state or institution in the Middle East has undertaken anything remotely like this concerted anti-Saudi campaign. The Iranian regime has never evinced an aspiration to destabilize, much less attack, Saudi Arabia or any other Sunni state. Iran’s horrific eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s came in response to an outright invasion by Saddam Hussein, explicitly supported and funded by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies.

Today, Saudi Arabia, together with Qatar and Turkey, is supporting and funding radical Sunni Islamists in Syria (Nusra Front and other al-Qaeda affiliates). This effort may well achieve its goal of overthrowing the Assad regime, or at least carve out a mini Sunni state within Syria, but the result would be to empower a vicious and uncontrollable coalition of extremists whose policies make them essentially indistinguishable from ISIL. Deposing Assad will not end the Syrian civil war; it will simply reverse the players, turning many current regime supporters into insurgents while fueling a contest for supremacy among the Al-Qaeda militias and ISIL….’

Via Saudi Arabia's Widening War – Gary Sick – POLITICO Magazine
Part One and Part Two.

100% of White Male American Terrorism Experts Agree….

Posted on 2015/06/03 by jd

TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 fake-bomb tests

Posted on 2015/06/01 - 2015/06/01 by jd

‘…An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned.

The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

via EXCLUSIVE: Undercover DHS Tests Find Security Failures at US Airports – ABC News.

Tom Tomorrow: Don’t Blame Bush and Cheney… Blame the Intelligence!

Posted on 2015/05/27 - 2015/05/27 by jd

tmw2015-05-27colorlarge

Tom Tomorrow Cartoon: Don’t Blame Bush and Cheney… Blame the Intelligence! | The Nation.

Obama’s R&D of hypersonic weapons and China’s No First Strike Policy

Posted on 2015/05/26 - 2015/05/26 by jd

Screen shot 2015-05-26 at 21.28.30

President Kill List with a Nobel Peace Prize is pursuing weapons that may ignite a new Cold War and cause the Chinese to end their No-First Strike policy for their nukes. No worries, his legacy will be intact as the weapons will are scheduled for testing in 2018 or 2019.

‘…In an effort to develop a defense mechanism that can reach any target in the world in just an hour, the US Air Force is developing hypersonic weapons, which are currently nearing the testing stage. While the technology is not expected to be fully developed for years, some in the international community are worried about the risks of inadvertent nuclear warfare.

[….] According to The Guardian, experts are worried that, due to the method of deployment, hypersonic missiles may be confused for nuclear weapons and spark retaliation. Additionally, Foreign Policy magazine reported that America’s foray into hypersonic military technology has stirred a debate about whether China should abandon its policy not to use nuclear weapons first.

However, the US is pushing forward. The High Speed Strike Weapon and several other hypersonic weapons developed by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are scheduled for testing in 2018 or 2019…’

via Why the US is testing hypersonic weapons.

and it is true, Foreign Policy did write about this…

‘…For example, fear of American conventional weapons has sparked an internal Chinese debate about whether Beijing should abandon its long-standing policy not to use nuclear weapons first. [….] The implications of these weapons should be seriously considered now — not after they’re fielded. Their implications for international security — particularly in the event of a U.S.-China conflict — are simply too profound to leave the debate to the handful of wonks that have heard of them today….’
via The Arms Race Goes Hypersonic | Foreign Policy – or, read from the no pay wall: web cache

Hillary exposed in OBL cover-up?

Posted on 2015/05/22 - 2015/05/22 by jd

Bob Dreyfuss writes:

‘…Back in 2009, during her first visit to Pakistan as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton stunned her hosts by saying, “I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where [bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders] are.” (Yet, two years later, just weeks after the 2011 raid, Clinton reversed herself, insisting that Washington had “absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest level of the Pakistani government” had known bin Laden’s whereabouts. If Hersh is right, Clinton’s second comment was part of an official cover story.)….’
via Why We Need to Take Sy Hersh’s bin Laden Bombshell Seriously | The Nation.

‘Redacted’ is the new American hero

Posted on 2015/05/20 - 2015/05/20 by jd

Redacted,
Snowden,
Manning…

‘A CIA interrogator of "high-value detainees" filed a complaint in April 2013 with the agency’s internal watchdog in which he sought "whistleblower protection," claiming the CIA punished him as a "reprisal" for him cooperating with investigations into the treatment of detainees. The punishment, he said, was the CIA failing to reimburse him for legal fees he incurred as a result of the investigations. [….]

"[Redacted] contacted the CIA Office of Inspector General via the Report Fraud electronic database alleging reprisal," says the April 12, 2013 closing memorandum in the interrogator’s case. "[Redacted] alleged that [redacted] legal fee reimbursement claim to the CIA was intentionally delayed by Office of General Counsel (OGC) personnel as reprisal for [redacted] cooperation with OIG investigations and other matters involving the Detainee Interrogation Program. [Redacted] served as an interrogator with the Renditions and Detention Group (RDG) of the [CIA’s] National Clandestine Service (NCS)."

via A CIA Interrogator Said the Agency Punished Him For Cooperating With Torture Probe | VICE News.

It’s Official, Obama has US Troops in Syria

Posted on 2015/05/17 - 2015/05/17 by jd

Wow, this NYT article so soon after the Seymour Hersh article that explains how the Obama Admin lied about how they killed Osama bin Laden? I am sceptical of the too conveniently timed news story. The first 2 paragraphs read like a Hollywood film plot. Delta force is even rescuing slaves! Who could possibly disagree with the idea that Obama has invaded yet another country??! — this time Syria. What could possibly go wrong?

‘WASHINGTON — American Special Operations forces mounted a rare raid into eastern Syria early Saturday, killing a leader of the Islamic State and about a dozen militant fighters, as well as capturing his wife and freeing an 18-year-old Yazidi woman whom Pentagon officials said had been held as a slave.

In the first successful raid by American ground troops since the military campaign against the Islamic State began last year, two dozen Delta Force commandos entered Syria aboard Black Hawk helicopters and V-22 Ospreys and killed the leader, a man known as Abu Sayyaf. One American military official described him as the Islamic State’s “emir of oil and gas.”…’
via ISIS Official Killed in U.S. Raid in Syria, Pentagon Says – NYTimes.com.

US Congress Votes Keep Guantánamo Bay open 4Evar!

Posted on 2015/05/16 by jd

‘An amendment to the annual National Defense Authorization Act that would provide a framework for closing the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, failed on a vote of 174-249….’
via House rejects bid to close Gitmo | TheHill.

Poland to pay reparations to CIA rendition and torture victims

Posted on 2015/05/16 - 2015/05/16 by jd

The European Court of Human Rights urged the US not to execute the suspects???! Is this a serious worry, or just something the ECHR feels it has to say when handling with legal cases dealing with the USA??

‘…The European Court of Human Rights had imposed a Saturday deadline on Poland to make the reparations. Last July Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri were awarded USD $147,000 and $113,000, respectively, in a lawsuit against Poland for allowing the CIA to detain them and for not preventing torture and inhumane treatment. The court also ordered Poland to urge the US not to execute the suspects.
via JURIST – Poland to make payments to alleged CIA rendition victims.

image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site

NATO foreign ministers sing ‘We Are The World’

Posted on 2015/05/15 - 2015/05/15 by jd

Reuters 2015.05.14:
‘Setting aside for a moment all the world’s major problems,
NATO foreign ministers let their hair down at the end of a meeting in Antalya, Turkey.’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_wfMrz9_mY

Chelsea Manning, Political Prisoner and American Citizen

Posted on 2015/05/06 by jd

…I believe that when the public lacks even the most fundamental access to what its governments and militaries are doing in their names, then they cease to be involved in the act of citizenship. There is a bright distinction between citizens, who have rights and privileges protected by the state, and subjects, who are under the complete control and authority of the state…
via We're citizens, not subjects. We have the right to criticize government without fear | Chelsea E Manning | Comment is free | The Guardian.