US President as Commander and Executioner, bodes ill for the furture
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
CIA Drone Assassination Program green light for executing citizens for exercising 1st Amendment Rights
One of Just Four Overseers on Drone Targeting Believes First Amendment Protected Activities Merit Execution
7 February, 2013 – by emptywheel
While the Gang of Four do not have access to the CIA’s kill list (and therefore did not know whether Samir Khan was on it before his death), they are the only people outside the Executive Branch who had, before today, seen the government’s rationale for killing Anwar al-Awlaki (and DOJ still has 8 memos on targeted killing to turn over). Thus, up until today, the Gang of Four has been the only outside review on that killing, 16 months after Awlaki’s death.
That’s all very nice because last March, in the context of the Administration’s refusal to turn over these memos, Dianne Feinstein offered this guarantee that the targeted killing program — and all other counterterrorism programs — are constitutional.
The Attorney General presented the administration’s legal analysis for the use of force against terrorists, including Americans. I believe it is important for the public to understand the legal basis and to make clear that our counterterrorism efforts are lawful under the Constitution, U.S. law and the law of war.
We are made safer by strikes against terrorists who continue to lead and carry out attacks on the United States. There are legal limits to this authority and great care is taken to ensure it is exercised carefully and with the absolute minimum of collateral damage. The Senate Intelligence Committee is kept fully informed of counterterrorism operations and keeps close watch to make sure they are effective, responsible and in keeping with U.S. and international law. [my emphasis]
That’s it. One of the only assurances that Awlaki’s death, and everyone else’s, is legal.
Which is all the more troubling given that DiFi’s judgement of what makes someone a legitimate target is so outrageous it made even John Brennan pause.
DiFi presented a series of terrorist attacks and asked Brennan to validate that Awlaki was, in fact, involved. It went something like this:
DiFi: Did he have connection to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab?
Brennan: Yes.
DiFI: Can you tell us what that was?
Brennan: I prefer not to.
DiFI: Did he have a connection to Fort Hood?
[long pause and serious squirming]
Brennan: As a member in AQAP he had a role in inciting a number of individuals. There were a number of occasions where individuals, including Awlaki, has been in touch with Nidal Hasan.
DiFi: Did Faisal Shahzad tell interrogators he was inspired by Awlaki.
Brennan: Yes
DiFI: Last October, was he involved [not sure she used that word, and she means October 2010] in the failed attempt to bring down cargo aircraft?
Brennan: Awlaki was involved in overseeing a number of attacks–there was a relationship there.
Now, it is rather telling that Brennan didn’t want to address Abdulmutallab; I think it possible that there are problems with Abdulmutallab’s confession, as I lay out here. That said, there is also NSA information (leaked by Pete Hoekstra and made fairly obvious by the Webster report) and, probably, information from people infiltrated into AQAP, meaning Brennan needed to protect sources and methods.
And the toner cartridge plot is pretty weak, too, as Jabir al-Fayfi reportedly testified that others from AQAP were really in charge of the operation.
But for DiFi to suggest that Awlaki could be killed because of his role in the Nidal Hasan attack is outright irresponsible. After all, FBI read the correspondence between Hasan and Awlaki in real time. And yet having read it all — and having read whatever else email Awlaki received between June 2009 and December 24, 2009 when the US first tried to kill Awlaki — they still didn’t consider Awlaki to be operational (though one office following him believed he aspired to be).
As of January 7 and June 16, 2009, the FBI knew Anwar al-Aulaqi was an anti-American, radical Islamic cleric and the subject of a Tier
Indeed, William Webster spent years trying to figure out whether FBI should have known Hasan was planning an attack from the emails, which is a much closer call. But even after reading everything that might have transpired between the two, no one believes that Awlaki had anything more than an inspirational role.
And yet one of the only four people outside the Administration who has attested to the legality of the strike on Awlaki thinks this should be part of the case to justify a due process free execution.
It got worse from there. She went on to insist that [rough transcript] ” Awlaki was not, by far, an American citizen of whom America would be proud.”
But like writing a bunch of First Amendment protected hateful propaganda, being “an American of whom America would not be proud” is not reason to be executed.
Dianne Feinstein, however, thinks it is. …source
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
CIA impunity and John Brennan’s “drone kill list”
The US prosecuted Omar Khadr in Guantánamo for not being a lawful combatant. Exactly the same applies to the civilian CIA.
The law of war does not shield the CIA and John Brennan’s drone kill list
by Morris Davis – guardian.co.uk – 8 February, 2013
The disclosure Tuesday evening of the Department of Justice white paper on targeted killing (pdf) has sparked a lot of debate, much of it focused on the Obama administration’s extraordinarily broad interpretation of what constitutes an “imminent” threat that justifies lethal force as an act of self-defense. As Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) told reporters during a conference call on Wednesday, “only a team of lawyers could define ‘imminent’ to mean the exact opposite” of what the word means in the real world.
There are, no doubt, many Americans alive today who should be thankful their healthcare providers did not apply the administration’s interpretation of “imminent” to decide if they had crossed over the line of imminent death and said pull the plug.
Some people have acquired power and profits in post-9/11 America by pandering to and perpetuating fear. As has been the case on a range of legal issues – torture, indefinite detention, warrantless surveillance, kill lists – all it takes is for someone to say “terrorism” and “threat to security” in the same breath for the vast majority of the public to handover its principles. Rather than a serious discussion on the proper law/liberty/security balance, too often the public accepts the false syllogism that whatever it takes to stop “them” from hurting “us” is obviously, as White House spokesman Jay Carney might say, “legal, ethical and wise”.
Targeted killing falls into that category. The discussion tends to glom what should be several discrete inquiries – where will the lethal operation take place; who is the imminent threat and why; who will conduct the operation; and what laws apply, among others – into one big ball that slides through with little scrutiny.
The DOJ white paper discusses the right to take military action against a US citizen who is part of the enemy forces, law of war principles that govern application of military power, judicial deference to military judgments in the conduct of warfare, and combatant immunity that gives legal sanction to a deliberate killing by a member of the armed forces acting in compliance with the law of war. In and of themselves, those are all very valid points.
What the white paper ignores, however, is that the US has both a military and a CIA drone program, each one subject to its own rules. The CIA is a civilian agency with civilian employees and civilian contractors. It is not part of the US armed forces and its drone program is not immune from liability by the law of war principles that might apply to the military drone program.
The deliberate killing of another person is generally murder unless it is excused by some valid legal justification, like the law of war’s combatant immunity. For example, the United States charged Omar Khadr with committing murder in violation of the law of war for throwing a grenade and killing a US service member during a battle in Afghanistan.
At his military commission trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military judge explained to Khadr that the law says a “killing is unlawful when done without legal justification or excuse” and that “the phrase ‘in violation of the law of war’ means a person … acting as a combatant [who] did not meet the requirements for being a lawful combatant.” Khadr pled guilty to the charge and is now in prison in Canada serving a sentence for war crimes.
Under what authority is the CIA legally excused for deliberately killing?
The United States has never made – nor should it – the argument that the CIA is part of the US armed forces and governed by the law of war. The fact that the two entities are separate and operate under distinct rules is clear. John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, made the point in his answers to prehearing questions (pdf) from members of the Senate select committee on intelligence:
“The president must have the ability to select which element [the CIA or Department of Defense] is best suited for the particular mission. Factors to be considered in the selection of the personnel and authorities include the capabilities needed, the material required, and whether the activity must be conducted covertly.”
Stated another way, Brennan says that President Obama needs to have a paramilitary force at his disposal to carry out operations the military is prohibited from conducting by the law of war.
Jack Goldsmith, former assistant attorney general in the George W Bush administration and now a professor at Harvard Law School, argues the past decade shows that the United States needs a new statutory framework governing how it conducts secret warfare. Perhaps that would be a positive step, but a new domestic statutory scheme would not make a civilian working for a civilian agency a lawful combatant entitled to immunity under the law of war for acts committed outside the United States.
Neither Congress nor the president has the power to create a legal justification for killing in violation of the law of war. …more
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
Drones, assassinations and detentions: Obama’s frightening new normal
Drone strikes, assassination and detention: Obama’s frightening new normal
By Amy Goodman – 7 February, 2013 – rabble.ca
John Brennan and John Kiriakou worked together years ago, but their careers have dramatically diverged. Brennan is now on track to head the CIA, while Kiriakou is headed off to prison. Each of their fates is tied to the so-called war on terror, which under President George W. Bush provoked worldwide condemnation. President Barack Obama rebranded the war on terror innocuously as “overseas contingency operations,” but, rather than retrench from the odious practices of his predecessor, Obama instead escalated. His promotion of Brennan, and his prosecution of Kiriakou, demonstrate how the recent excesses of U.S. presidential power are not transient aberrations, but the creation of a frightening new normal, where drone strikes, warrantless surveillance, assassination and indefinite detention are conducted with arrogance and impunity, shielded by secrecy and beyond the reach of law.
John Kiriakou spent 14 years at the CIA as an analyst and a case officer. In 2002, he led the team that found Abu Zubaydah, alleged to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaida. Kiriakou was the first to publicly confirm the use of waterboarding by the CIA, in a 2007 interview with ABC’s Brian Ross. He told Ross: “At the time, I felt that waterboarding was something that we needed to do. … I think I’ve changed my mind, and I think that waterboarding is probably something that we shouldn’t be in the business of doing.” Kiriakou says he found the “enhanced interrogation techniques” immoral, and declined to be trained to use them.
Since the interview, it has become known that Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times, and that he provided no useful information as a result. He remains imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, without charge. Kiriakou will soon start serving his 30-month prison sentence, but not for disclosing anything about waterboarding. He pled guilty to disclosing the name of a former CIA interrogator to a journalist, with information that the interrogator himself had posted to a publicly available website.
Meanwhile, John Brennan, longtime counterterrorism advisor to Obama, is expected to receive Senate confirmation as the new director of central intelligence. I recently asked Kiriakou what he thought of Brennan:
“I’ve known John Brennan since 1990. I worked directly for John Brennan twice. I think that he is a terrible choice to lead the CIA. I think that it’s time for the CIA to move beyond the ugliness of the post-September 11th regime, and we need someone who is going to respect the Constitution and to not be bogged down by a legacy of torture. I think that President Obama’s appointment of John Brennan sends the wrong message to all Americans.”
Obama has once already considered Brennan for the top CIA job, back in 2008. Brennan withdrew his nomination then under a hail of criticism for supporting the Bush-era torture policies in his various top-level intelligence positions, including head of the National Counterterrorism Center. …more
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
The Petraeus Scandal draws battle lines in Washington as Obama Debases US Constitution
EXCLUSIVE – Petraeus: the Plot Thickens
By Douglas Lucas and Russ Baker – 5February, 2013 – WhoWhatWhy
Was the ambitious General David Petraeus targeted for take-down by competing interests in the US military/intelligence hierarchy—years before his abrupt downfall last year in an adultery scandal?
Previously unreported documents analyzed by WhoWhatWhy suggest as much. They provide new insight into the scandalous extramarital romance that led to Petraeus’s resignation as CIA director in November after several years of rapid rise—going from a little-known general to a prospective presidential candidate in a stunningly brief time frame.
Among other revelations the documents show that:
-Petraeus was suspected of having an extramarital affair nearly two years earlier than previously known.
-Petraeus’s affair was known to foreign interests with a stake in a raging policy and turf battle in which Petraeus was an active party.
-Those providing the “official” narrative of the affair—and an analysis of why it led to the unprecedented removal of America’s top spymaster— have been less than candid with the American people.
According to internal emails of the Austin-based private intelligence firm Stratfor, General David Petraeus was drawing attention to his private life much earlier than previously believed. Because it was his private life that resulted in his being forced out as CIA director, alterations in our understanding of the time frame are significant.
Until now, the consensus has been that Petraeus began an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, in the fall of 2011, after he retired from the military and took over the CIA.
Lt. Col. John Nagl, a friend of Petraeus, claims the Petraeus-Broadwell extramarital affair did not begin until after Petraeus became CIA director, which was in September 2011. And retired US Army Col. Steve Boylan, a former Petraeus spokesperson, says the affair did not begin until several months after August 2011, when Petraeus retired from the Army.
But documents—researched by WhoWhatWhy and published for the first time as part of an investigative partnership with WikiLeaks—suggest otherwise. These documents characterize Petraeus as having regular dinners in early 2010 with Abdulwahab al-Hajri, then Yemen’s ambassador to the US, and note that Petraeus brought to at least one of those dinners a woman “not his wife”—whom the Yemenis believed was “his mistress.” It’s possible—although not confirmed—that this woman was Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’s biographer and mistress, who sent allegedly threatening emails that spawned the strange FBI investigation that precipitated the former Army general’s resignation on November 9, 2012.
Stratfor has a longstanding position of not commenting on the emails obtained by WikiLeaks. The company’s boilerplate public response regarding the internal documents in WikiLeaks’ possession is that it “will not be victimized twice by submitting to questioning about them.”
Petraeus’s attorney, Robert Barnett, declined to comment.
According to the Stratfor emails, Petraeus brought a woman believed to be his mistress to at least one dinner at al-Hajri’s house as early as January or February 2010. It is known that by late 2010, after Petraeus took command for the Afghanistan war, Paula Broadwell had already established what has been called “unfettered” and “unprecedented” access to Petraeus, including lodging on his Kabul base.
By bringing to such a gathering a younger woman who aroused such suspicion, Petraeus was already exhibiting the kind of recklessness not uncommon to highly ambitious people on the rapid ascent. This was especially true given the stakes involved—and Petraeus’s own formidable enemies within the US government.
If the young woman was Broadwell, her willingness to accompany a top military official to such a closed-door, high-level event should draw additional attention to her thinking and motivations. Broadwell was a military intelligence reservist—and her take on what was discussed at precisely those kinds of dinners would have been of interest to her superiors.
By the date of these 2010 dinners, Broadwell had known Petraeus for four years—and had been working closely with him on his biography since the previous year. She says she first met him in the spring of 2006, when she was a graduate student at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and asked if she could write his biography. She began work on the biography in 2009 when he headed CENTCOM, the US Central Command. With the biography as her justification, she followed him to Afghanistan where he led the US forces.
Thus, if Stratfor’s Yemeni diplomat source is correct, and the woman was Broadwell, an attractive military intelligence reserve officer was far more deeply entwined than previously known with a controversial, fast-climbing figure at the center of some of America’s and the world’s hottest disputes—at the risk of compromising him and his future.
Stratfor’s Source: a Yemeni diplomat based in DC
Mohammed al-Basha, press attaché for the Yemen embassy in Washington DC, is one of Stratfor’s informants, referred to by DC-based Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla as her “Yemeni diplomatic source.”
In an interview with us, al-Basha confirmed that Petraeus dined with Abdulwahab al-Hajri at the former ambassador’s house in DC for “an event or a party” while Petraeus was head of CENTCOM. Petraeus was CENTCOM commander from October 31, 2008 until July 18, 2011— which is within the scope of the Stratfor emails and before the dates Nagl and Boylan give for the start of the affair.
Al-Basha told WhoWhatWhy he had “no idea” whether Paula Broadwell attended a dinner with Petraeus and the Yemeni ambassador. “I have no idea. No, no, I have no idea,” he said. “That’s the first I’ve heard this.” He then denied being Stratfor’s source.
However, there are at least one hundred and twenty emails between the Yemen embassy’s al-Basha and Stratfor’s analyst Bhalla in the WikiLeaks cache; many consist of al-Basha answering her questions. In Email-ID 81508, sent January 15, 2010, Bhalla and al-Basha discuss Yemen’s terms for surrendering American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki; al-Basha tells Bhalla he is “not sure about the terms… I will assume a fair prosecution can be part of the plea”; in Email-ID 1098283, sent the same day, Bhalla forwards his exact words to other Stratfor analysts, telling them they came from her “Yemeni diplomatic source.” …more
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
The Pentagon Papers Of The CIA Torture Program
“The Pentagon Papers Of The CIA Torture Program”
By Jason Leopold – The Public Record – 14 December, 2012
A lawyer for the most high-profile resident of Gitmo sheds light on what a voluminous secret report on the CIA’s torture program approved by a Senate panel Thursday may contain.
On a cold day in February 2009, Brent Mickum arrived at the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility in Washington, DC and went into a room that houses two large safes: One holds materials the government has deemed “secret;” the other contains secrets more secret than that.
The lawyer turned the combination on the top-secret safe and pulled from one of four drawers about a dozen drawings – art that is said to document the art of torture.
Mickum brought his secrets into a room where staff members on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence were preparing to launch an investigation into the CIA’s torture program. He took his seat at a horseshoe-shaped table and prepared to answer their questions about his notorious client and the meaning of his art.
On Thursday, nearly four years after that meeting, the Senate Intelligence Committee met behind closed doors and, by a vote of 9-6, voted to approve the classified report, the product of its investigation into whether so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” were effective and produced actionable results, and if they went beyond what the Department of Justice had authorized.
One Intelligence Committee staff member told Truthout the resulting document could be characterized as “the Pentagon Papers of the CIA torture program.” But the report will remain secret and it’s unclear if a declassified version ever will be released.
The CIA would not comment on the committee’s report or the vote taking place later today. However, Mickum’s story may shed some light on what a small portion of the report reveals.
The Washington, DC lawyer represents Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, better known as Abu Zubaydah – a Guantanamo detainee the US government has claimedfor more than a decade to be “one of the highest-ranking members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization” and “involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by al-Qaeda,” including the 9/11 attacks.
Nonetheless, in an extraordinary court filing in March 2010, the Obama administration’s Justice Department quietly recanted virtually every major claim leveled by the Bush administration against Zubaydah.
The high-value detainee, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2006, plays a starring role in the nearly 6,000-page torture program report, according to several Senate Intelligence Committee staff members, who asked Truthout not to reveal their identities because of the sensitivity surrounding the issues it addresses.
Zubaydah has the dubious distinction of being the first post-9/11 prisoner subjected to the drowning technique known as waterboarding, as well as a dozen or so other extreme methods of torture.
The infamous “torture memo,” drafted in August 2002 by then-Justice Department attorney John Yoo, was created specifically to authorize the CIA to torture Zubaydah, whom CIA contractors and officers had claimed was holding back critical intelligence about pending attack plans. Zubaydah’s interrogation sessions, including several that depicted his waterboarding, were videotaped and later destroyed, sparking a criminal investigation conducted by a special prosecutor that ended without any charges being filed.
Zubaydah, who has been held in a section of Guantanamo reserved for detainees formerly in the custody of the CIA, drew pictures of the torture techniques he says he endured and Mickum said the alleged terrorist is a “pretty good artist.”
Mickum, who has represented Zubaydah since 2008, told Truthout this week that in lieu of the torture tapes, the drawings Zubaydah made – some on smaller pieces of paper – contain the best-known description of the torture techniques CIA interrogators used against Zubaydah.
Although he was unable to describe the drawings due to the classified nature of the materials, Mickum, who holds a top-secret clearance, said the drawings “show oxygen deprivation can happen in different ways.”
Truthout filed what is known as a mandatory declassification review for Zubaydah’s drawings, as well as for poetry and short stories the prisoner wrote last year. But the CIA issued a Glomar response to our request – meaning the agency would not confirm or deny their existence.
If Zubaydah’s drawings and writings do exist, the CIA said, they would be part of the agency’s “operational files,” which means ”records and files detailing the actual conduct of [CIA’s] intelligence activities.”
According to Mickum, they not only exist, he presented them to Intelligence Committee staff members on that cold February day. And he told them what they represented.
He noted that some of them were not just of Zubaydah, but of two other prisoners who also apparently were tortured. …more
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
USG used more that 50 countries to help kidnap, detain and torture people
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
Document Details Arguments About JSOC Torture
New Document Details Arguments About Torture At A JSOC Prison
By Jeffrey Kaye – The Public Record – 6 February, 2013
Journalist Michael Otterman, author of the excellent book, American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond, was kind enough to forward to me some months ago a document he obtained via the Freedom of Information Act. The document consists of the after-action reports made by Colonel Steven Kleinman and Terrence Russell, two of the three team members sent by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency (JPRA) to a top-secret special operations facility in Iraq in September 2003.
The reports, written shortly after both JPRA officials finished their assignment, present two starkly different accounts of what took place that late summer in the depths of a JSOC torture chamber. Even more remarkable, Col. Kleinman, who famously intervened to stop torture interrogations at the facility, had his own report submitted to Russell for comment. Indeed, Kleinman’s report as released contains interpolations by Russell, such that the documents become a kind of ersatz debate over torture by the JPRA team members, and at a distance, some of the Task Force members.
This extraordinary document is being posted here in full for the first time. Click here to download.
“Cleared Hot”
Kleinman told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), which in 2008 was investigating detainee abuse in the military (large PDF), that he thought as Team Leader (and Intelligence Director at JPRA’s Personnel Recovery Academy) he was being sent to the Special Mission Unit Task Force interrogation facility to identify problems with their interrogation program.
Much to his surprise, he and his JPRA team were being asked to provide training in the kind of techniques originally used only for demonstration and “classroom” experience purposes in the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, or SERE program. (JPRA has organizational supervisory control over SERE, though the constituent arms of the military services retain some independence in how they run their programs.)
But not far into his mission, JPRA’s Commander, Colonel Randy Moulton, told Kleinman and his team they were “‘cleared hot’ to employ the full range of JPRA methods to include specifically the following: Walling – Sleep Deprivation – Isolation – Physical Pressures (to include stress positions, facial and stomach slaps, and finger pokes to chest) – Space/Time Disorientation – White Noise”.
The story of the JPRA team visit and how it went bad, how Kleinman intervened when he saw a kneeling prisoner being repeatedly slapped, how he refused to write up a torture interrogation protocol for use at the TF facility — widely believed to be Task Force 20 (as reported by Jane Mayer in her bookThe Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals) — has been told at this point a number of times.
But never has the degree of acrimony and conflict that went on between Kleinman and his other JPRA team members, and the back and forth with superiors and TF personnel been so carefully detailed. …more
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
Twenty Extraordinary Facts about CIA Extraordinary Rendition and Secret Detention
20 Extraordinary Facts about CIA Extraordinary Rendition and Secret Detention
5 February, 2013 – by Jonathan Horowitz & Stacy Cammarano – Open Society
After the 9-11 attacks against the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency conspired with dozens of governments to build a secret extraordinary rendition and detention program that spanned the globe. Extraordinary rendition is the transfer—without legal process—of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for purposes of detention and interrogation.
The program was intended to protect America. But, as described in the Open Society Justice Initiative’s new report, it stripped people of their most basic rights, facilitated gruesome forms of torture, at times captured the wrong people, and debased the United States’ human rights reputation world-wide.
To date, the United States and the vast majority of the other governments involved—more than 50 in all—have refused to acknowledge their participation, compensate the victims, or hold accountable those most responsible for the program and its abuses. Here are 20 additional facts from the new report that expose just how brutal and mistaken the program was:
1. At least 136 individuals were reportedly extraordinarily rendered or secretly detained by the CIA and at least 54 governments reportedly participated in the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition program; classified government documents may reveal many more.
2. A series of Department of Justice memoranda authorized torture methods that the CIA applied on detainees. The Bush Administration referred to these methods as “enhanced interrogation techniques.” “Enhanced interrogation techniques” included “walling” (quickly pulling the detainee forward and then thrusting him against a flexible false wall), “water dousing,” “waterboarding,” “stress positions” (forcing the detainee to remain in body positions designed to induce physical discomfort), “wall standing” (forcing the detainee to remain standing with his arms outstretched in front of him so that his fingers touch a wall five four to five feet away and support his entire body weight), “cramped confinement” in a box, “insult slaps,” (slapping the detainee on the face with fingers spread), “facial hold” (holding a detainee’s head temporarily immobile during interrogation with palms on either side of the face), “attention grasp” (grasping the detainee with both hands, one hand on each side of the collar opening, and quickly drawing him toward the interrogator), forced nudity, sleep deprivation while being vertically shackled, and dietary manipulation.
3. President Bush has stated that about a hundred detainees were held under the CIA secret detention program, about a third of whom were questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques.”
The CIA’s Office of Inspector General has reportedly investigated a number of “erroneous renditions” in which the CIA had abducted and detained the wrong people. A CIA officer told the Washington Post: “They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association” with terrorism.
4. German national Khaled El-Masri was seized in Macedonia because he had been mistaken for an Al Qaeda suspect with a similar name. He was held incommunicado and abused in Macedonia and in secret CIA detention in Afghanistan. On December 13, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights held that Macedonia had violated El-Masri’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights, and found that his ill-treatment by the CIA at Skopje airport in Macedonia amounted to torture.
5. Wesam Abdulrahman Ahmed al-Deemawi was seized in Iran and held for 77 days in the CIA’s “Dark Prison” in Afghanistan. He was later held in Bagram for 40 days and subjected to sleep deprivation, hung from the ceiling by his arms in the “strappado” position, threatened by dogs, made to watch torture videos, and subjected to sounds of electric sawing accompanied by cries of pain.
6. Several former interrogators and counterterrorism experts have confirmed that “coercive interrogation” is ineffective. Col. Steven Kleinman, Jack Cloonan, and Matthew Alexander stated in a letter to Congress that that U.S. interrogation policy “came with heavy costs” and that “[k]ey allies, in some instances, refused to share needed intelligence, terrorists attacks increased world wide, and Al Qaeda and like-minded groups recruited a new generation of Jihadists.”
7. After being extraordinarily rendered by the United States to Egypt in 2002, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under threat of torture at the hands of Egyptian officials, fabricated information relating to Iraq’s provision of chemical and biological weapons training to Al Qaeda. In 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell relied on this fabricated information in his speech to the United Nations that made the case for war against Iraq.
8. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 times by the CIA. FBI interrogator Ali Soufan testified before Congress that he elicited “actionable intelligence” from Zubaydah using rapport-building techniques but that Zubaydah “shut down” after he was waterboarded.
9. Torture is prohibited in all circumstances under international law and allegations of torture must be investigated and criminally punished. The United States prosecuted Japanese interrogators for “waterboarding” U.S. prisoners during World War II.
10. On November 20, 2002, Gul Rahman froze to death in a secret CIA prison in Afghanistan called the “Salt Pit,” after a CIA case officer ordered guards to strip him naked, chain him to the concrete floor, and leave him there overnight without blankets.
11. Fatima Bouchar was abused by the CIA, and by persons believed to be Thai authorities, for several days in the Bangkok airport. Bouchar reported she was chained to a wall and not fed for five days, at a time when she was four-and-a-half months pregnant. After that she was extraordinarily rendered to Libya.
12. Syria was one of the “most common destinations for rendered suspects,” as were Egypt and Jordan. One Syrian prison facility contained individual cells that were roughly the size of coffins. Detainees report incidents of torture involving a chair frame used to stretch the spine (the “German chair”) and beatings.
13. Muhammed al-Zery and Ahmed Agiza, while seeking asylum in Sweden, were extraordinarily rendered to Egypt where they were tortured with shocks to their genitals. Al-Zery was also forced to lie on an electrified bed frame.
14. Abu Omar, an Italian resident, was abducted from the streets of Milan, extraordinarily rendered to Egypt, and secretly detained for fourteen months while Egyptian agents interrogated and tortured him by subjecting him to electric shocks. An Italian court convicted in absentia 22 CIA agents and one Air Force pilot for their roles in the extraordinary rendition of Abu Omar.
16. Known black sites—secret prisons run by the CIA on foreign soil—existed in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, and Thailand.
17. Abd al Rahim al Nashiri was secretly detained in various black sites. While secretly detained in Poland, U.S. interrogators subjected al Nashiri to a mock execution with a power drill as he stood naked and hooded; racked a semi-automatic handgun close to his head as he sat shackled before them; held him in “standing stress positions;” and threatened to bring in his mother and sexually abuse her in front of him.
18. President Obama’s 2009 Executive Order repudiating torture does not repudiate the CIA extraordinary rendition program. It was specifically crafted to preserve the CIA’s authority to detain terrorist suspects on a short-term, transitory basis prior to rendering them to another country for interrogation or trial.
19. President Obama’s 2009 Executive Order also established an interagency task force to review interrogation and transfer policies and issue recommendations on “the practices of transferring individuals to other nations.” The interagency task force report was issued in 2009, but continues to be withheld from the public. It appears that the U.S. intends to continue to rely on anti-torture diplomatic assurances from recipient countries and post-transfer monitoring of detainee treatment, but those methods were not effective safeguards against torture for Maher Arar, who was tortured in Syria, or Ahmed Agiza and Muhammed al-Zery, who were tortured in Egypt.
20. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee has completed a 6,000 page report that further details the CIA detention and interrogation operations with access to classified sources. However, the report itself remains classified.
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
Bahrain regime holds gun to head of Oppostion as ‘talks’ proceed
Thus, a democratic resolution to Bahrain’s political crisis will not be achieved by the latest negotiations because the perpetrators of mass murder and injustice remain cozily embedded, by necessity for Western patronage.”
Bahraini regime holds gun to head in ‘negotiations’
10 February, 2013 – PressTV – By Finian Cunningham
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei described recent American offers of bilateral talks with Iran as tantamount to the US holding negotiations with a gun to the head.
The same apt metaphor, expressing the futility of conducting political talks under extreme duress, applies equally to the internal politics of Bahrain.
Today sees the beginning of yet another “national dialogue” in which the US-backed Al Khalifa regime has invited political opponents to – ostensibly – negotiate a solution to the country’s long-running crisis. The tiny Persian Gulf kingdom has been racked by daily political turmoil since a popular uprising erupted two years ago – on 14th February 2011.
Presumably, the regime now feels safe in holding discussions with the existing opposition parties – discussions within political parameters that have been bludgeoned by months of withering state terrorism and repression. The main opposition bloc, Al Wefaq, has already signaled that it is prepared to accept a revamped constitutional monarchy as part of a settlement. Notably, Washington and London have both been assiduously courting Wefaq to enter into the latest round of political talks with their surrogate, the Khalifa regime.
Meanwhile, more critical political opponents of the regime – who have wide support among the people – are locked up in prison, some serving life sentences on trumped-up charges of subversion. One of these leaders, Hassan Mushaima, is suffering from long-term illness that goes untreated. Another is Abduljalil Al Singace, who has just begun a hunger-strike along with other inmates. Other staunch political opponents, such as Saeed Shehabi, have been forced to live in exile.
These are the true voices of Bahrain’s political opposition who have called for the corrupt Khalifa regime to be sacked and banished, not entertained in any shape or form, to make way for a truly representative government elected by the people. But such voices will not be heard inside the Khalifa palace during Bahrain’s new round of “national dialogue.”
Predictably, the Western allies of the Bahraini regime, principally Washington and the old colonial ruler, Britain, have enthusiastically endorsed the latest political move. The reasons are self-serving and have nothing to do with finding a genuine democratic solution for the long-suffering people of Bahrain.
Indeed, the political talks are a subterfuge, really aimed at ensuring that democracy is denied. The Western governments – despite all their rhetoric about supporting democracy and human rights in the Middle East and elsewhere – are cynically well aware of the real anti-democratic objective in Bahrain. No doubt, they are the architects behind the sham political maneuver, which seeks to find “political compromise” – that is, “political cover” for continued misrule by Western-serving elites.
The current negotiations appear to be a magnanimous gesture from the Khalifa monarchy, reaching out to “its subject people”. This elite has ruled the oil-rich island as a corrupt family fiefdom ever since Britain granted nominal independence in 1971. The British imposed this dictatorship on the mainly Shia majority of Bahrain, and the Americans later became wedded to it, because the unelected elite – quaintly called a “constitutional monarchy” but in practice an absolute despot – was installed with the express purpose of serving the commercial and geopolitical interests of the Western powers, not the majority of Bahraini people. That imposter role continues very much to this day.
This is the same anti-democratic arrangement that prevails in Saudi Arabia and the other Persian Gulf oil sheikhdoms – all of them the illegitimate offspring of the conniving British Empire. And this is why democracy must not be allowed to succeed in Bahrain. Not now, not ever. The domino effect of democracy supplanting the Western-backed Persian Gulf dictatorships would be a disaster for Washington and London, the lynchpins of the petrodollar capitalist system.
Getting back to the issue of Bahrain’s new “national dialogue” and why it is bound to fail from the point of view of democracy, we can say this with certainty because the political talks are being conducted while the regime holds a gun to the head of the Bahraini people.
In fact, this is not a metaphor. Over the past two years, the Khalifa regime, led by King Hamad, has murdered, maimed and tortured thousands of Bahrainis, who have done nothing more than peacefully protest for the establishment of a democratic government. This regime is not interested in rights or law. How could it be when it has and continues to violate every precept and person it finds a threat to its barbarous rule? This regime is in no way willing to account for its crimes against the people. It has made clear that it has no intention of implementing the reasonable recommendations of the international Bassoon Report issued more than a year ago, calling for the release of all prisoners of conscience in Bahrain.
The Al Khalifa potentate retains a self-styled royal prerogative to commit crimes on a massive scale with impunity; sending its security forces into Bahraini villages to shoot indiscriminately at peaceful protesters, poison people to death in their homes with chemical gases, and to smash their way into houses to drag away occupants to unknown torture dungeons. Human rights activists and journalists, who bear witness to these violations, are likewise persecuted, gagged, harassed and jailed.
The vicious repression of the Khalifa royal dictatorship continues unabated precisely because Washington and London have turned a blind eye to its crimes. Not just turned a blind eye; the Western governments have actively supported the Khalifa thugs with copious supplies of crowd-control weaponry and affording the crucial cover of ongoing normal diplomatic and commercial relations.
The complete de facto absence of rule of law in Bahrain and the thuggish suzerainty of unelected despots is not some aberration of Western governments. This is how these governments prefer and need political business to be run in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere. Fascism is the optimum model of Western capitalism, as practiced in the Persian Gulf (and increasingly practiced in fully fledged form back home in the US and Britain.)
Thus, a democratic resolution to Bahrain’s political crisis will not be achieved by the latest negotiations because the perpetrators of mass murder and injustice remain cozily embedded, by necessity for Western patronage.
In Syria, where regime change is desired for expedient self-serving reasons, the arrogant Western governments, without justification, call for President Assad to stand down. Yet the same stricture is not even mooted by these powers when it comes to the truly despotic Bahraini regime. Why? Because regime change in Bahrain and the Persian Gulf is far from desired; the more despotic the better to uphold Western strategic interests.
The Khalifa dynasty retains all its corrupt dictatorial powers bequeathed by Britain and sustained ever since by Washington. The new “dialogue” is simply a cynical charade to conceal this. The very fact that the rulers – or more accurately their Western masters – called for the negotiations indicates that the process is framed to ensure that the regime will, in effect, stay in power, not to find a genuine democratic settlement.
The status quo may have to undergo a cosmetic revamp, re-branded as a “new constitutional monarchy”, and there may follow formal elections. But such a compromise that allows a despotic regime to persist within the political fabric is not a worthy compromise. It is a squalid cop-out. What really needs to be done is for this regime to be prosecuted for crimes against the people, crimes not just committed over the past two years, but over the past four decades.
This is, of course, why Washington and London are backing the dialogue charade, as they have done with previous regime-led initiatives, because these Western governments know that the purpose of the negotiations is to ensure that their Bahraini tyrant-client will remain safely ensconced in power. The regime provides the US with a base for its Navy Fifth Fleet and is an important staging post for Western militarism across the Middle East, as well as being used as a bulwark against Iran’s influence in the vital oil-producing region.
Perhaps more importantly, the Khalifa regime is a bulwark against democracy and the rule of law becoming established in the Persian Gulf. That would present a mortal threat to the geopolitical interests of Washington and London. For these capitalist powers, democracy is simply anathema. For them, the Persian Gulf must remain, at all costs, a feudal backwater ruled by tyrants and unelected despots, who prop up the destructive petrodollar global system and who buy billions of dollars worth of Western weaponry, all in implacable opposition to the democratic needs of the people. (The Western public also needs to realize -and realize quickly – this ugly nature of their so-called governments. For the same oppressive dictatorial measures for satiating the unelected capitalist elite are being applied increasingly to them as well. )
In a very real way, the gun being held to the head of the Bahraini people is ultimately being held by Washington and London.
Will these nefarious powers succeed in their intimidation against democracy? That will be determined by the mass of Bahraini people who refuse the sham offer of negotiations within the constricting and stifling comforts of the Khalifa palace. Despite the Western-backed state terrorism over the past two years, these noble people know that their right for democratic freedom will eventually be won – the hard way – on the streets by bravely facing down the regime’s police thugs. They have sacrificed and suffered too much already to give up now; and the blood and love of their martyrs will sustain them in the struggle for victory. …source
February 10, 2013 Add Comments
Bahraini People: “no possiblity of reform”, “al Khalfa cannot be trusted”; then what the hell is the “oppostion bloc” doing at the Kings table?
February 9, 2013 Add Comments
Zapatista Uprising in Edinburgh Scotland
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
A day in Chiapas not so unlike a day in Bahrain – oppressive misery and looting in the forecast
Chiapas: Indigenous Ch’oles block highway in north of the state
5 February, 2013 – SIPAZ blog
On 5 February, in observance of the 96th anniversary of the Mexican Constitution, approximately 450 Ch’ol women and men who pertain to the organization Laklumal Ixim (Our People of Maize) initiated a highway blockade on the Yajalón-Tila route so as to demonstrate that nearly two months into the administration of the new state government, “the communities and peoples continue to experience abandonment, misery, and looting.” In the communique participants denounce that “the ‘National Crusade against hunger’ is a farce that seeks merely to share crumbs to our communities that experience poverty, while our natural resources are handed over to foreign firms for exploitation. This is all a part of a strategy of counter-insurgency.” Furthermore, the members of the organization demand “that the Chiapas state-government cease this strategy of looting and abandonment toward the indigenous and campesino communities of the state, and that they instead attend to our demands and needs: a just price for electricity in accordance with the poverty of our people, quality healthcare and education, dignified infrastructure (homes, works, and roads), support for coffee-growers, projects and programs of support for the countryside to help women and men of indigenous communities, respect for our rights–ejidal, communal, and indigenous–cessation of the strategy of division and confrontation among communities as promoted by the FANAR (previously PROCEDE) that is being promoted above all by the agrarian governmental agency.” …source
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Clearing the Fog – Egypt’s Political Map Two Years After “The Revolution”
Two Years After a Popular Revolution
Egypt’s Political Map: Clearing the Fog
by ESAM AL-AMIN – Counter Punch – 8 February, 2013
If parties from across all of Egypt’s political spectrum agree on one thing, it’s this: the country is currently witnessing the greatest turmoil since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster and is facing massive upheaval with no end in sight. The unity and resolve displayed by millions of Egyptians two years ago when they decisively deposed the authoritarian and corrupt Mubarak regime is long gone. Throughout these tumultuous two years, there emerged two major fault lines across the country’s political class: one that resulted from the revolution, namely the revolutionary vs. the counter-revolutionary groups; and one along ideological grounds, namely the Islamic vs. the secular parties.
All agree that the revolution was launched spontaneously by non-ideological youth groups, who paid the heaviest price and made the biggest sacrifices during the early days of the revolution. Such groups proclaim the mantle of the revolution and maintain that it has been hijacked by better-organized and established groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the Salafis.
The MB, however, asserts that although it did not publicly join the initial protests on January 25, 2011, it immediately joined forces within three days and protected the revolution as the group mobilized its massive membership and supporters across the country, especially during the battle of the camel on February 1, ultimately forcing the surrender of the regime ten days later.
The more conservative Salafi groups, while acknowledging that they were slow in joining the ranks of the revolution, argue that they embraced its objectives and the democratic process unleashed in its aftermath and thus legitimately represent the interests and aspirations of a substantial segment of Egyptian society.
On the other hand, the secular and liberal groups, including the Coptic Church, which are quite wary of the religious groups and are very adamant about limiting the role of Islam in political life, have been very frustrated in seeing decisive electoral victories by the more popular Islamic groups. Since the fall of Mubarak, Egyptians have been to the polls in largely free and fair elections on eight different occasions. And each time the voters decisively favored the Islamist groups.
In March 2011, the electorate voted 77 percent for a political process advocated by the Islamists that called for elections before writing a new constitution. Furthermore, between November 2011 and January 2012 Egyptian voters went to the polls four times to choose the upper and lower chambers of parliament. Once again the Islamist parties won over 73 percent of the contested seats. By June 2012 Egyptians went to the polls yet again in two stages to choose a president, eventually electing in a tightly contested race, though narrowly, the MB candidate, Muhammad Morsi. In December 2012, the Egyptian electorate went to the polls an eighth time, approving by a 64 percent majority a new constitution endorsed mainly by the Islamist groups, while strongly opposed by the secularist, liberal, and leftist parties as well as by many revolutionary youth groups.
As the second anniversary of the remarkable and peaceful Egyptian revolution approached in late January 2013, new alliances and coalitions were formed largely as the mistrust had widened between those who support and oppose Morsi, the Islamists’ agenda, or the new constitution. Consequently, new battle lines were drawn in anticipation of the new parliamentary elections scheduled for this spring.
With over 100 registered or declared parties across the country, what is the political map of Egypt two years after the revolution? …more
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Criminal insanity of Clinton’s double-think
Criminal insanity of Clinton’s double-think
1 February, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV
And yet given the outrageous provocation of continued Western aggression in Syria – and the very real danger of regional conflagration that that entails – Washington has the preposterous audacity to denounce Russia and Iran for not being constructive players and for assisting an ally through legal and justifiable means.”
In her farewell speech, outgoing US secretary of state Hillary Clinton accused Russia and Iran of “stepping up” military support for Syria and thereby adding fuel to possible regional conflict.
Her words displayed breath-taking myopia and double-think, and this from somebody who is being hailed as one of America’s brightest foreign diplomats in decades.
The first thing about Clinton’s remarks is: so what? Both Russia and Iran have long-standing mutual defense pacts with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. If those countries are sharing military equipment and personnel then that is perfectly legal under the terms of defense agreements signed between sovereign states.
Secondly – and how is this for myopia and double-think? – just as Clinton is remonstrating with Russia and Iran, the Western powers are entering their third of sending fighter bombers, helicopter gun-ships, drones, refueling mid-tankers and cargo planes plus thousands of military personnel to the West African county of Mali to crush separatist militants. That full-scale “stepping up of military support” is headed up by France, which claims that it is responding to an ally in need – the dubious regime in Mali’s capital, Bamako.
Unlike the support given to Syria by Russia and Iran, the French and Western intervention in Mali has tenuous, if any, legal foundation. The Francophile regime in Bamako is an administration that was put in power by a military coup last April. The junta’s appointed so-called interim president, Dioucounda Traore, is an unelected French puppet with no legally constituted popular authority.
The Western powers can’t even wave a fig leaf of a United Nations Security Council mandate for their Malian interference. The UNSC vote on the issue of Mali on December 20 only gave qualified authorization for an African-led military mission under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). There was no authorization at the UNSC for a French or Western military offensive.
So, the French and latterly the British and Americans can weigh into Malian internal affairs with bombers and Special Forces – exacerbating violations by the corrupt Malian army – and this illegal military onslaught in Mali is supposedly permissible.
Whereas, Russian and Iran come to the aid of a sovereign state through a long-standing defense pact between sovereign states, and somehow this is an outrage, according to Clinton’s rational.
Speaking in Washington on Thursday, Clinton told the assembled supine press corps, “The Iranians have made it clear for some time that keeping Assad in power is one of their highest priorities. There is a lot of concern that they are increasing the quality of the weapons because Assad is using up his weaponry.”
Yes, Assad is “using up his weaponry” precisely because his country is under attack from Western-backed mercenaries.
As for Russia, Clinton went on, “The Russians are not passive bystanders in their support for Assad. We have reasons to believe that the Russians continue to supply financial and military assistance in the form of equipment to Assad.”
Again, so what? The only basis for Clinton’s condemnation is her own propagandized subjective and totally spurious logic. …more
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Bahrain regime calls for dialogue then shoots-up protesters with shot-guns
Bahrain opposition parties: the regime calls for dialogue and opens fire on protesters
5 February, 2013 – ABNA
The wide presence of the Bahraini masses in nonstop protests over the past two years following the eruption of the pro-democracy revolution in 2011 has strongly proved that the national demands movement cannot be put down.
Bahrain opposition parties: the regime calls for dialogue and opens fire on protesters
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – The people of Bahrain have proved to this regime and to the world that their civilized and peaceful movement is stronger than the official brutal suppression, and that they will not give up on their humanitarian rights which are stated in local and international covenants and treaties.
The opposition parties said in the final communiqué of today’s protest, titled, “We are confident that we are victorious”, that while the regime pretends to call for dialogue, it opens fire on protesters causing a number of birdshot injuries during the last few days, and this proves that the regime’s call for dialogue lacks seriousness.
The opposition parties stressed that talking about dialogue while the security services are aiming guns at citizen’s heads is not possible. As long as prisons are filled with political prisoners and opposition figures, the call for dialogue is not serious. Bahrain needs a genuine dialogue and not a public relation party for the regime, while at the same time, its repressive policy continues.
The opposition parties stated that the national popular demands are mentioned very clearly in the ‘Manama Document’ and they are merely based on enabling the people to be the source of all powers to end the long era of tyranny and monopolism of individuals in the state’s decision making. The Manama Document put in points Bahrain’s vital need for an elected government instead of the current government that has put the country in set back through corruption, in addition to a legislative authority that is elected through fair constituencies, and an impartial judicial system and national security services which work for the protection of the nation and its citizens.
The opposition parties are fully persistent to the national popular demands of the Bahraini people, and to make the final say for the people through ballot boxes to express their opinions in any negotiation or political consensus as the people are the real source of legitimacy.
The opposition stressed that change is coming for Bahrain and the totalitarian rule must come to an end. Only real democracy can achieve stability and development to the nation and all citizens. …more
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
The Dark Side of America
The Dark Side of America
02 February, 2013 – By Timothy V. Gatto
Saudi ArabiaI’ve been staying out of most world events as of late, preferring to watch things unfold silently as there are so many that seem to have all of the answers. I don’t claim to have any answers, but I sure do have a lot of questions. There is a good chance that many of you have the same questions that I have. Sometimes, the questions are more important than the answers. In this 21st Century, there are so many of our leaders that will give us the answers to any questions we ask, they just aren’t the right answers. In fact, they lie continuously.
One question I have is why do we support a collection of fundamentalist Islamic States like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE with their Wahhabi and Salafi militant Muslim sects? According to the “official” 9/11 explanation, all of the hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and were members of the extremist Wahhabi Muslim sect. Just like the majority of al-Qaeda.
In the recent fighting in Syria, the so-called “rebels” are made up of mostly non-Syrian Salafi and Wahhabi extremists. They also have support from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and other nations that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council with help from Turkey, United Kingdom, Israel and France. Why put extremists in a country that was ruled by a moderate Alawite?
The so-called civil war in Mali is presumably being caused by forces loyal to al-Qaeda; in fact, they gave it the name al-Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM). French forces have responded to this “threat” by sending in 3,500 ground troops courtesy of the United States Military Airlift Command. Mali, which used to be a French Colony, has always had trouble with the Tuareg tribe in the north of that country. Former Libyan leader Mohamar Gadhafi employed many of these people in his army. When we engineered the “Libyan Spring” the Tuareg’s fled the country because they lost their employment and because “freedom fighters” were executing anyone of color at the time. They left with storehouses of arms and ammunition, a perfect beginning to finally wrest Northern Mali away from the rest of the country, something they have been trying to do for hundreds of years. Why is this an American interest? Why are we involved transporting French troops? Who gave authorization for our military to use our tax dollars to transport these French troops?
We saw what the blow-back led to in Libya. Not only was our Envoy and three other Americans killed and our compound burned out, but the country is separated into different fiefdoms with various strongholds led by different sects. Who is telling us the truth about what is going on over there? From the reports I’m reading about the insurrection in Mali from Global Research and others, this is an imperialist expansion for resources by the French.
The rest of Africa is just as perplexing. We have American military officers embedded with almost every army in every country on the continent. The continent is rich in mineral and metal deposits as well as oil and natural gas. Didn’t we learn from the debacle in Iraq that we just can’t go in and grab resources? Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to buy the oil?
Speaking of Iraq, American’s still don’t understand that this was an illegal and immoral war. John “Bomb Bomb Iran” McCain grilled Chuck Hagel about his opposition to the surge. Hagel told them it resulted in needless American deaths. I’m surprised he didn’t bring up the fact that at about the same time the surge was “working”, the Sunni’s started getting paid not to fight the Americans. Maybe it was just a coincidence (if you believe in coincidences). It’s really amazing that so many people in the U.S. never read the Downing Street Memo or realize that Bush and company planned on invading Iraq way before 9/11. Ignorance is bliss, so they say. Ignorance is frustrating, especially when it’s willful ignorance or should I say feigned ignorance.
There are a lot of supposedly ignorant Americans. Either they are ignorant or they just don’t have the backbone or the wherewithal to question authority in any shape or manner anymore. Seems to me that one of the greatest generations this nation ever witnessed was the one that took to the streets and protested the senseless death and carnage we rained down on Southeast Asia. While many in that generation forgot the effectiveness of grassroots protests and organization, the U.S. Government never forgot the lessons of that era. It dawned on them much too late in that war that the media was the message. Since then, they have incrementally gained total control of the American media.
The people in politics and the media like to call it “spin”. That’s another way to say propaganda without offending anyone’s sensibilities. They call torture “enhanced interrogation”. They call those who fight against Western domination and imperialism “insurgents”. When they resort to violence against out interests they are called “terrorists”. When they act on our behalf they are called “freedom fighters”. The government is very good at what they do.
Now that France has claimed victory in Mali, what will they do next? Will they keep a contingent of French Forces in that country to keep the peace? Will French firms move in and exploit the mineral and petroleum reserves there? What do you think?
Our peace-loving ally Israel reportedly bombed a Syrian facility outside of Damascus Wednesday. It was ostensibly done to stop Syria from transferring biological or nerve agent munitions to Hezbollah. With Syria fighting for its very survival, why would they start shipping their weapons out of the country? Does that make any sense? Yet, that was the reason given by the Israeli’s for the attack. They are also reportedly deathly afraid that these weapons will fall into the jihadist’s rebels hands.
“Israel has publicly warned that it would take military action to prevent the Syrian regime’s chemical weapons falling into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon or “global jihadists” fighting inside Syria. Israeli military intelligence is said to be monitoring the area round the clock via satellite for possible convoys carrying weapons.” Guardian 30 Jan 2013
So why was the attack described as an attack on a convoy by the media in the U.S.? This situation makes Russia nervous about the Israeli attack.
“If this information is confirmed, then we are dealing with unprovoked attacks on targets on the territory of a sovereign country, which blatantly violates the UN charter and is unacceptable, no matter the motives to justify it,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday.’ Guardian 31 Jan 2013
Meanwhile, Israel has suffered a defeat in the UN where a United Nations Commission has declared that the settlements in the West Bank are illegal and that the approximately 500,000 Jewish settlers should leave or face possible war crimes charges. Where was the coverage of that little tidbit in the U.S. Press? …more
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Second Anniversary of Bahrain’s 14 February Uprising and Massive Resistance Planned against Backdrop of “reform talks”
Bahrain: Massive resistance expected on 2nd anniversary of Revolution
8 February, 2013 – Bahrain Freedom Movement – warisacrime.org
As the preparations for the 2nd anniversary of the 14th February Revolution get underway, the field activities have warmed up extensively. At the same time supportive actions by the friends of Bahrain have risen sharply and are expected to become more widespread. In several cities around the world the pro-democracy activists have line up programmes of actions to express support to the Revolution that the Anglo-American alliance continues to target with various political and security means. The enmity of this alliance to the aspirations of Bahrain has been laid open especially the British Government dispatched several teams and personnel to help the Alkhalifa hereditary dictatorship repress the people. Despite the claims by some British officials to the contrary, Bahrainis continue to suffer repression in the form of torture, and collective punishment.
The 14th February Alliance has called for a general strike on that day and has taken many steps to ensure its success. Instead of attending workplace people will participate in country-wide protests to re-invigorate the Revolution and tell the world that they are intent on removing the cancerous Alkhalifa cell from power. It is a shame for the world community to tolerate medieval style dynastical rule that has been proven by its own commission of investigation to have committed systematic torture and extra-judicial killings. Furthermore, the Alliance has called for withdrawal of deposits from the banks linked to the Alkhalifa hereditary dictatorship. The stock market indicators have confirmed that in the first day of the campaign the Bahrain burse lost 10.43 points, while the banking sector index registered losses of 2.25 percent of its value.
The revolutionaries have been heartened by these figures and are aiming to cripple the economy which is one of the pillars of the Alkahlifa regime.
Meanwhile Mr Abdul Hadi AlKhawaja and his family have been nominated by one Member of the European Parliament for the Noble Prize for their pro-democracy activities and the personal risks they have suffered in the process. Anna Gomez, MEP, from Portugal said: “I am pleased, as a Portugese Member of European Parliament to nominate Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja and his two daughters, Zaianb and Maryam, from Bahrain, for the 2013 Noble Prize. The family have dedicated themselves, despite the risks and personal harassments to which they are exposed, for the peaceful defence of human rights and political reforms in Bahrain. The three have played a peaceful role in the popular protests in Bahrain, and represented the voice of the non-violent resistance, calling on the Bahraini authorities to respect human rights and implement peaceful political reforms”. This nomination has angered the regime, and there now fears for the safety of the members of the family from a regime t hat has adopted a policy of revenge against its opponents
On another level, Socialism International has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Ibrahim Sharif and the other prisoners of conscience. The organization said, in the communiqué at the end of its conference at Lisbon, Portugal, on Tuesday 5th February, expressed disappointment at the failure of the Bahraini regime to implement the BICI recommendations issued over 14 months ago and those of the UN Human Rights Council.
On 6th February IFEX issued a petition titled “Tell the King of Bahrain free expression is not a crime” asking people to sign it. It said: Who will fight for free expression and human rights in Bahrain when those speaking out are put behind bars? Sign the petition now! As the second anniversary of the pro-democracy protests in Bahrain approaches on 14 February, ask the King of Bahrain to free all human rights defenders, journalists and bloggers languishing in jail, some for life, simply for peacefully exercising their right to free expression and assembly. IFEX member, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), the most vocal independent human rights organisation in Bahrain, has been particularly targeted, with past and present BCHR representatives serving prison sentences, or on trial, including: Abdul Hadi Al Khawaja, Nabeel Rajab and Yousuf Al Mahafdha.
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Revolution Calling
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Bahrain Dry Dock Political Prisoners health in danger as hunger strike enters day 30
Bahrain: Urgent Appeal, Prisoners’ Lives in Immediate Danger as Dry Strike Begins to Protest Unjust Imprisonment and Treatment
05 February, 2013 – Bahrain Center for Human Rights
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights is gravely concerned for the health and well being of the four prisoners who have begun a dry hunger strike in Riffa prison to protest the unjust imprisonment and torture they are subjected to at the hands of the prison authorities.
Mohd Almughni, Jaffar Hussain, Hussain Al-Aali and Radhi Ali began a hunger strike on the 7th of January, and are now on their 30th day without food. On the 1st of February, 2013, the BCHR received information that these detainees have stopped taking water as well. The health of these prisoners has already been greatly weakened as a result of the torture they are continually subjected to, the denial of medical attention, and now the hunger strike. The BCHR fears for the lives of these wrongfully imprisoned men, and calls for their immediate release.
According to the families, these prisoners have suffered from severe physical and psychological abuse. They have been severely beaten, forced to eat with their handcuffs on, forced to stand for long periods of time while blindfolded, and the air-conditioning in the prison cell is constantly on, despite the winter conditions. The prisoners are provided with water that is unsuitable for drinking, and are kept in a generally bad environment where they are held at Riffa prison (according to their families). Each of these men is currently being held in a cell measuring only two meters by two meters; some of these cells are shared other prisoners who do not speak a common language, and with whom they are not allowed to attempt to communicate. The prisoners are not allowed more than five minutes outside the cell each day, and they were allowed these five minutes only after four months of detention. They are not allowed more than five minutes of phone calls every two weeks. Starting January 2013, they have been given 1 hours visit every two weeks instead of 30 minutes visit every week. Except for Radhi, they are not allowed to receive any books from their families. They were not allowed to receive any of the medicines which they were taking before their arrest. They are not allowed to receive warm clothes for the cold season in Bahrain.
Due to the poor prison conditions and the torture they were subjected to, the detainees are now suffering from multiple health problems, physical and physiological:
• Jafar Eid started to suffer from problems with his kidney due to the unclean drinking water. He has walking problems as a result of beatings he received on his leg, and the small confines of the cell do not allow for rehabilitation. His vision is poor, and his cellmate has scabies.
• Hussain Al-Aali has tribology, which is escalating due to his inability to move in the small cell. He also suffers from pains in his back as well as poor vision.
• Radhi Ali Radhi is suffering from regular headaches, sinus problems and pain in his back. He was not allowed to receive the medicines he took before he was arrested. In January 2013, he suffered from problems with his kidneys.
Jaffar and Hussain have been forced to take pills which they say caused hallucinations.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights has previously written about the severe torture and poor detention conditions these detainees were subjected to, including the poor conditions in which visitations are conducted. In fact, three of the detainees entered a ‘visitation strike’ in protest against the humiliating treatment they were subject to.
(See: http://www.bahrainrights.org/en/node/5522)
The detainees in this case are accused with “the making and possession of explosive materials”.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights call for immediate action on behalf of the Bahraini authorities and the international community to:
– To immediately improve the detention conditions and provide the necessary treatment to Mohamed Al-Mughni, Hussain Al Aali, Jaffar Eid, Radhi Ali and all other prisoners in need of medical care in the prisons of Bahrain.
– For the authorities in Bahrain to abide by the international conventions which they have ratified, especially concerning the rights of prisoners to receive full medical care.
– End the practice of torture in the prisons of Bahrian.
– Hold accountable those involved in torture, and bring them to a fair and independent judiciary.
– Ensure that the accused prisoners receive a fair trial, starting with ensuring their protection from torture. …source
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Protests precede pretense of “reform” talks aimed at deflecting tensions ahead of Bahrain’s Formula One
Protests Precede Reconciliation Talks in Bahrain
7 February, 2013 – POMED
Thousands of Bahrainis protested against the ruling monarchy on Wednesday ahead of the dialogue slated to begin on Sunday. Bahraini officials said on Tuesday that invitations were being issued to approximately 17 groups, including both supporters and opponents of the regime, to take part in the talks. Information Affairs Minister Samira Rajab said that the government had “every intention to make this dialogue a success,” but put the onus “on the other parties and their seriousness in pursuing dialogue.” The six main opposition groups agreed to participate, but suggested that disagreements with the government about the dialogue’s goal could compromise its success. Senior al-Wefaq official Khalil al-Marzouq reiterated the opposition’s desire that representatives of the ruling al-Khalifa family participate. He said, “We want a real dialogue, serious negotiations on a mechanism that will restore powers to the people and turn Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy.”
Gulf expert Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen believes that the talks will fail unless the government is prepared to sit down and work with the opposition on moving toward compromise. She asserted, “Given the fact that the government is effectively an outgrowth of the ruling family in Bahrain, any dialogue without their involvement will be meaningless fiddling around the edges.” The Bahrain Justice and Development Movement cautioned the groups against “walking blindly into something that is not yet guaranteed to be beneficial in ending the current crisis” and said the government must participate because it is part of the problem in Bahrain.
Meanwhile, Bahrain Watch revealed new evidence suggesting that the British company Gamma International sold computer surveillance software to the Government of Bahrain, an allegation that the company has denied. The report also claims that Gamma International may have provided Bahrain with updates and retains the ability to deactivate the software. …source
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Bahrain Regime “talks” intendend to pacify oppostion on anniversary of blood stained uprising
Bahrain’s government-initiated national talks to start on Feb 10
6 February, 2013 – 10 February, 2013
The invitations for almost 17 pro-regime and opposition groups will be issued on Wednesday, with the members of both the lower and upper house of the country’s National Assembly also attending the talks beginning on February 10.
“We have every intention to make this dialogue a success,” Bahrain’s Information Affairs Minister Samira Rajab said. “The onus is on the other parties and their seriousness in pursuing dialogue.”
Despite expressing readiness to attend the talks, the opposition groups have cast doubt over the effectiveness of the talks.
The major opposition bloc, al-Wefaq, also pointed out the differences between their goals and the government’s mechanism and aims of the meeting.
The opposition leaders seek the presence of the ruling Al Khalifa family as well as international experts in the talks, senior al-Wefaq official Khalil al-Marzouq noted.
“We want a real dialogue, serious negotiations on a mechanism that will restore powers to the people and turn Bahrain into a constitutional monarchy,” Marzouq opined.
Earlier in July 2011, Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa called for a national dialogue on reform and announced an investigation into the handling of the uprising by Saudi-backed regime forces.
The dialogue did not yield results as al-Wefaq party quit the negotiations, complaining that since their onset, the government had been trying to muffle the voice of the opposition.
This is while, Anti-regime protests rage on in the Persian Gulf Island, with the demonstrators demanding an elected prime minister replace Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa.
The Bahraini uprising against the Al Khalifa rule began in February 2011. The regime promptly launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful protests and called in Saudi-led Arab forces from neighboring states.
The Manama regime has arrested many rights activists, doctors, and nurses since the revolution began.
The Bahraini government is, meanwhile, supported by the United States despite its record of human rights abuse against its nationals.
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Wefaq “grandious demands” and “calls” absent demand for immediate release of Political Oppostion languishing in Prisons
Anti-regime demos held in north Bahrain
7 February, 2013 – PressTV
Bahrainis have once again staged demonstrations against the ruling Al Khalifa regime in a number of villages.
On Wednesday, demonstrators took to the streets of the northeastern island of Sitra, the northwestern village of Diraz and the northern village of Nuwaidrat, chanting slogans against the Manama regime.
The protesters expressed determination to continue the uprising despite the crackdown by security forces.
The recent demonstrations were held ahead of national talks that are scheduled to commence on February 10.
Protest gatherings in Bahrain are planned to be held every day until February 14, which is the second anniversary of the uprising.
On Wednesday, Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, which is the major opposition bloc in Bahrain, called for the establishment of a transitional government, which represents different national factions, as a first step to resolve the crisis in the country.
The group also called on the regime to put an end to the “ongoing crackdowns and media campaigns against dissidents.”
Despite expressing readiness to attend the talks, the opposition groups have cast doubt over the effectiveness of the talks. Six members from the opposition and eight from pro-regime groups will attend the talks.
The popular uprising began in Bahrain in mid-February 2011. The Saudi regime and the United Arab Emirates sent security and military forces to the country upon a request from Manama to help the Bahraini government quash the peaceful protests.
Dozens of people have been killed in the crackdown, and the security forces have arrested hundreds including doctors and nurses. …source
February 8, 2013 Add Comments
Road to No Where
“Given the fact that the government is effectively an outgrowth of the ruling family in Bahrain, any dialogue without their involvement will be meaningless fiddling around the edges.”
Bahrain talks off to shaky start
BBC – 5 February, 2013
Wefaq leader Sheikh Ali Salman leads protest march Jan 2013 The national dialogue aims at ending two years of protest and unrest in Bahrain
Talks aimed at resolving political unrest in the Gulf island kingdom of Bahrain look set to get off to an uncertain start.
The six opposition societies have agreed to meet with other groups on Sunday in a bid to end nearly two years of unrest.
The country’s justice minister has said he will serve as a moderator and government representative.
But the main opposition party al-Wefaq has already voiced grave doubts about a positive outcome.
Khalil al-Marzook, a senior member of the party told the BBC the ruling family was risking “dragging the country into an ambush of more sectarianism”.
Bahrain has a Shia Muslim majority population ruled by a Sunni royal family. Shia have long complained of marginalization and discrimination.
Mr Marzook added: “They (the royal family) have the mindset of playing games rather than solving problems. It is time wasting and it is not in the interests of the country.”
Frustration
Part of the opposition’s frustration has to do with the refusal of the government to enter directly into negotiations aimed at ending an impasse that has severely damaged the economy and polarized the country.
In response to a question from the BBC about what role the government would play, a spokesperson replied: “Representatives of the government’s ministries will be present at the dialogue to oversee and make suggestions if needed, but will not be there to take part in the dialogue itself.”
But that statement and others like it have left observers, the opposition and even some government insiders scratching their heads.
Kristian Coates-Ulrichsen is an expert on Gulf politics and a research fellow at the London School of Economics. He believes that unless the government sits down and is prepared to work with the opposition on moving toward compromise, the talks will fail.
Crown Prince Salman al-Khalifa (30 January 2013) The opposition has called for Crown Prince Salman to join talks aimed at ending nearly two years of unrest
“Given the fact that the government is effectively an outgrowth of the ruling family in Bahrain, any dialogue without their involvement will be meaningless fiddling around the edges.”
Reformers and hardliners
The leader of al-Wefaq, Sheikh Ali Salman had called for the Bahraini Crown Prince Salman al-Khalifa to attend the talks but that is not likely to happen.
The crown prince is seen as a reformist in a court divided on how to respond to opposition demands.
Hardliners – centred around the appointed Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, who has been in his post since 1971 – are said to be opposed to the dialogue.
They fear that any concessions will only serve to encourage more demands from opposition leaders they deeply distrust.
On Wednesday against a backdrop of mutual suspicion, Sheik Salman flys to Moscow at the invitation of the Russian foreign ministry in a bid to bring pressure to bear on the ruling family.
“We are encouraging the international community to urge the al Khalifas to bring credibility, not more manoeuvres to the dialogue process,” Mr Marzook told the BBC.
The move, which caught some observers by surprise, may be part of a wider Russian initiative to improve an image that has been damaged by its stand on the Syria crisis.
“We’ve been asking for a meeting [with Russian officials] since July of last year,” Mr Marzook said, “but we just got the invitation on Sunday.”
This was the same day the Bahraini justice minister offered to renew a dialogue with the opposition. …source
February 5, 2013 Add Comments
Artist Malina Suliman Wakes Up Afghanistan
Malina Suliman: The Graffiti Artist Waking Up Afghanistan
Reuters – Al Arabiya
Charred bodies lie scattered against blood-stained walls and debris covers the ground. The unusual thing in this gruesome scene is that the “blood” is red paint, and part of an art installation.
It’s a work by 23-year-old Afghan artist Malina Suliman. She risks her life, Suliman says, sometimes working by flashlight after dark, to create art in southern Kandahar province, still one of the most dangerous areas in the country.
Her pieces, which range from conceptual art to paintings and sculpture, are bold representations of the problems facing her generation.
“Many people had never seen an art installation,” Suliman said of “War and Chaos,” her exhibit last year, which depicts the aftermath of a suicide bombing, a not uncommon event in Kandahar.
“Some were offended and others were hurt because they’d experienced it before.”
Her pieces earned her an invitation last year to visit the Kabul palace of President Hamid Karzai, who is also from Kandahar, where she showed him her art.
Suliman’s work is now making waves in the Afghan capital, where she lived as a child after fleeing the violence of her native province. She had two Kabul exhibitions in December, a highlight of which was a sculpture of a woman in baggy clothing with a noose tied around her neck.
…more
February 5, 2013 Add Comments