WAR ON AFGHANISTAN; Karzai Accuses US & Taliban Of Working Together To Coordinate Bombings During Chuck Hagel’s Visit
“Are the US government and the Afghan Taliban working together? Afghan President Hamid Karzai seems to think so after a couple of bombings in Kabul yesterday. He said they were carried out by the Taliban in coordination with the American government. The United States is supposed to withdraw most troops by the end of next year, and Karzai suggested the US is using terror attacks to preview how things will turn, once they leave.” – FOX News Radio
I just happened to catch this report by FOX News Radio, only once, and after searching YouTube for more details I realized just how poorly reported this very important story is. See audio file below of the FOX News Radio report which I saved. The only YouTube video with any details follows this. I’ve also included another video from last December when Karzai accused the US, NATO, and “Private Security Firms” of destabilizing the country, saying, “there is a very strong perception that some of that insecurity is intentional.”
2013.3.10 Are The US Government & Afghan Taliban Working Together? (FOX News Radio):
2013.3.10 Afghan Accusations; Karzai Says US & Taliban Are Cooperating To Worsen Security Situation (JewishNewsOne, youtube.com):
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUEqH0VfFAc&w=560&h=315]
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has accused the Taliban and the US of working together to convince Afghans that violence will worsen if foreign troops leave the country. Karzai said that two deadly suicide bombings over the weekend demonstrated that the insurgent group is conducting attacks at the service of America. He said both Washington and the Taliban want US forces to stay beyond the end of 2014, when most U.S.-led forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan.
Hold on, so the Taliban want the US forces, that they are supposedly fighting, to stay past 2014? Very interesting. This also goes along with older videos I’ve seen of Afghans claiming that Bush was arming the Taliban in the mountains.
2012.12.6 Hamid Karzai; US, NATO Behind Afghan ‘Insecurity’ (NBC, youtube.com):
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVJ3WU81DKc&w=560&h=315]
Afghan President Hamid Karzai had some harsh words for the United States and NATO during a Thursday interview with NBC News.
Karzai accused the U.S. of violating its strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan, and he indicated that “part of the insecurity [in Afghanistan] is definitely coming to us from terrorism and the attacks of the Taliban.” He continued with a criticism of the U.S., adding, “part of the insecurity is coming to us from the structures that NATO and America created in Afghanistan.”
The Afghan leader singled out “the private security firms” and “the contractors that they promoted at the cost of the Afghan people.”
Karzai also partly blamed the insecurity in Afghanistan on “the way they [the U.S., NATO] behaved with the Afghan people and the anger that that has caused in the Afghan people and the resulting insecurity.” He added, “there is a very strong perception that some of that insecurity is intentional.”
The U.S. actions that stirred anger to which he was likely referring include an incident in which Marines were shown in a video urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters. After the video came to light, Karzai called the actions of those involved “inhuman.” Two Marines were criminally charged for their actions. In another incident, U.S. soldiers were implicated in the burning of copies of the Koran.
Karzai also leveled criticism at the U.S. in November, when he accused U.S. forces of violating a detainee transfer pact signed between the two countries.
New violence struck Afghanistan on Thursday when the country’s intelligence chief, Asadullah Khalid, was wounded by a suicide bombing. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
NBC points out, per the U.N., that “in the first six months of 2012 alone, more than 3,000 civilians were killed or injured” in Afghanistan.
Hugo Chavez, passionate but polarizing Venezuelan president, dead at 58
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who went from a young conspiratorial soldier who dreamed of revolution to the fiery anti-U.S. leader of one of the world’s great oil powers, died March 5 in Caracas of complications from an unspecified cancer in his pelvic area.
He was 58 and had been president since 1999, longer than any other democratically elected leader in the Americas. Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced the death.
Mr. Chavez first revealed in a brief, dramatic television address in June 2011 that he had undergone two surgical procedures in Cuba. He would go under the knife two more times, greatly weakening the once robust leader. Mr. Chavez had been elected in October 2012 to a third six-year term. But he missed his swearing-in ceremony on Jan. 10 while lying gravely ill in a Havana hospital after undergoing what his aides had called a complex operation a month before.
VENEZUELA DEPLOYS ITS ARMY AND POLICE...
Accuses USA of giving Chavez cancer...
Demise Deepens Crisis in Divided Country...
Uncertainty Awaits...
Venezuela Expels American Diplomats...
CLAIM: Chavez Had Amassed Private Fortune of $2 Billion...
By Greg Palast
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
For BBC Television, Palast met several times with Hugo Chàvez, who passed away today.
Venezuelan President Chavez once asked me why the US elite wanted to kill him. My dear Hugo: It’s the oil. And it’s the Koch Brothers – and it’s the ketchup.
Reverend Pat Robertson said,
“Hugo Chavez thinks we’re trying to assassinate him. I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.”
It was 2005 and Robertson was channeling the frustration of George Bush’s State Department. Despite Bush’s providing intelligence, funds and even a note of congratulations to the crew who kidnapped Chavez (we’ll get there), Hugo remained in office, reelected and wildly popular.
But why the Bush regime’s hate, hate, HATE of the President of Venezuela?
Reverend Pat wasn’t coy about the answer: It’s the oil.
“This is a dangerous enemy to our South controlling a huge pool of oil.”
A really BIG pool of oil. Indeed, according to Guy Caruso, former chief of oil intelligence for the CIA, Venezuela hold a recoverable reserve of 1.36 trillion barrels, that is, a whole lot more than Saudi Arabia.
If we didn’t kill Chavez, we’d have to do an “Iraq” on his nation. So the Reverend suggests,
“We don’t need another $200 billion war….It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”
Chavez himself told me he was stunned by Bush’s attacks: Chavez had been quite chummy with Bush Senior and with Bill Clinton.
So what made Chavez suddenly “a dangerous enemy”? Here’s the answer you won’t find in The New York Times:
Just after Bush’s inauguration in 2001, Chavez’ congress voted in a new “Law of Hydrocarbons.” Henceforth, Exxon, British Petroleum, Shell Oil and Chevron would get to keep 70% of the sales revenues from the crude they sucked out of Venezuela. Not bad, considering the price of oil was rising toward $100 a barrel.
But to the oil companies, which had bitch-slapped Venezeula’s prior government into giving them 84% of the sales price, a cut to 70% was “no bueno.” Worse, Venezuela had been charging a joke of a royalty – just one percent – on “heavy” crude from the Orinoco Basin. Chavez told Exxon and friends they’d now have to pay 16.6%.
Clearly, Chavez had to be taught a lesson about the etiquette of dealings with Big Oil.
On April 11, 2002, President Chavez was kidnapped at gunpoint and flown to an island prison in the Caribbean Sea. On April 12, Pedro Carmona, a business partner of the US oil companies and president of the nation’s Chamber of Commerce, declared himself President of Venezuela – giving a whole new meaning to the term, “corporate takeover.”
U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro immediately rushed down from his hilltop embassy to have his picture taken grinning with the self-proclaimed “President” and the leaders of the coup d’état.
Bush’s White House spokesman admitted that Chavez was, “democratically elected,” but, he added, “Legitimacy is something that is conferred not by just the majority of voters.” I see.
With an armed and angry citizenry marching on the Presidential Palace in Caracas ready to string up the coup plotters, Carmona, the Pretend President from Exxon returned his captive Chavez back to his desk within 48 hours. (How? Get The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, the film, expanding on my reports for BBC Television. You can download it for free for the next few days.)
Chavez had provoked the coup not just by clawing back some of the bloated royalties of the oil companies. It’s what he did with that oil money that drove Venezuela’s One Percent to violence.
In Caracas, I ran into the reporter for a TV station whose owner is generally credited with plotting the coup against the president. While doing a publicity photo shoot, leaning back against a tree, showing her wide-open legs nearly up to where they met, the reporter pointed down the hill to the “ranchos,” the slums above Caracas, where shacks, once made of cardboard and tin, where quickly transforming into homes of cinder blocks and cement.
“He [Chavez] gives them bread and bricks, so they vote for him, of course.” She was disgusted by “them,” the 80% of Venezuelans who are negro e indio (Black and Indian)—and poor. Chavez, himself negro e indio, had, for the first time in Venezuela’s history, shifted the oil wealth from the privileged class that called themselves “Spanish,” to the dark-skinned masses.
While trolling around the poor housing blocks of Caracas, I ran into a local, Arturo Quiran, a merchant seaman and no big fan of Chavez. But over a beer at his kitchen table, he told me,
“Fifteen years ago under [then-President] Carlos Andrés Pérez, there was a lot of oil money in Venezuela. The ‘oil boom’ we called it. Here in Venezuela there was a lot of money, but we didn’t see it.”
But then came Hugo Chavez, and now the poor in his neighborhood, he said, “get medical attention, free operations, x-rays, medicines; education also. People who never knew how to write now know how to sign their own papers.”
Chavez’ Robin Hood thing, shifting oil money from the rich to the poor, would have been grudgingly tolerated by the US. But Chavez, who told me, “We are no longer an oil colony,” went further…too much further, in the eyes of the American corporate elite.
Venezuela had landless citizens by the millions – and unused land by the millions of acres tied up, untilled, on which a tiny elite of plantation owners squatted. Chavez’ congress passed in a law in 2001 requiring untilled land to be sold to the landless. It was a program long promised by Venezuela’s politicians at the urging of John F. Kennedy as part of his “Alliance for Progress.”
Plantation owner Heinz Corporation didn’t like that one bit. In retaliation, Heinz closed its ketchup plant in the state of Maturin and fired all the workers. Chavez seized Heinz’ plant and put the workers back on the job. Chavez didn’t realize that he’d just squeezed the tomatoes of America’s powerful Heinz family and Mrs. Heinz’ husband, Senator John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State.
Or, knowing Chavez as I do, he didn’t give a damn.
Chavez could survive the ketchup coup, the Exxon “presidency,” even his taking back a piece of the windfall of oil company profits, but he dangerously tried the patience of America’s least forgiving billionaires: The Koch Brothers.
How? Well, that’s another story for another day. [Watch this space. Or read about it in the book, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. Go to BallotBandits.org).
Elected presidents who annoy Big Oil have ended up in exile—or coffins: Mossadegh of Iran after he nationalized BP’s fields (1953), Elchibey, President of Azerbaijan, after he refused demands of BP for his Caspian fields (1993), President Alfredo Palacio of Ecuador after he terminated Occidental’s drilling concession (2005).
“It’s a chess game, Mr. Palast,” Chavez told me. He was showing me a very long, and very sharp sword once owned by Simon Bolivar, the Great Liberator. “And I am,” Chavez said, “a very good chess player.”
In the film The Seventh Seal, a medieval knight bets his life on a game of chess with the Grim Reaper. Death cheats, of course, and takes the knight. No mortal can indefinitely outplay Death who, this week, Chavez must know, will checkmate the new Bolivar of Venezuela.
But in one last move, the Bolivarian grandmaster played a brilliant endgame, naming
Chavez sent Maduro to meet me in my downtown New York office back in 2004. In our run-down detective digs on Second Avenue, Maduro and I traded information on assassination plots and oil policy.
Even then, Chavez was carefully preparing for the day when Venezuela’s negros e indios would lose their king—but still stay in the game.
Class war on a chessboard. Even in death, I wouldn’t bet against Hugo Chavez.
Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Billionaires & Ballot Bandits: How to Steal an Election in 9 Easy Steps, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, Armed Madhouse and the highly acclaimed Vultures’ Picnic, named Book of the Year 2012 on BBC Newsnight Review.
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FBI Plot to Blow Up Bank in Oakland — Stopped by FBI (Feb ’13) / Plan was a False Flag to frame Anti Govt Activists!
February 16, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Featured
Reminiscent of the NY Federal Reserve Plot in 2012!
Yet another terrorist plot put in motion by FBI is stopped by FBI just in time for FBI to take credit.
Oakland Bank Bomb Plot Suspect May Get Mental Health Evaluation
(Remember that THIS WAS THE FBI’S IDEA!!!!!!!)
Deranged O’Bomba Supporter? Or just another willing DUPE with a 66 IQ?
Matthew Aaron Llaneza Charged in Bomb Plot, Wanted to Frame Anti Goverment Right Wing Groups
Credit: AP
Federal agents arrested 28-year-old California native Matthew Aaron Llaneza on Friday after he allegedly attempted to detonate what he thought was a car bomb outside a Bank of America in Oakland, according to the FBI. Llaneza, a Taliban sympathizer, plotted to blame the attack on right-wing, anti-government groups in a bid to incite a “civil war.”
“Llaneza’s arrest was the culmination of an undercover operation during which he was closely monitored by the FBI’s South Bay Joint Terrorism Task Force. Unbeknownst to Llaneza, the explosive device that he allegedly attempted to use had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public. Llaneza was charged this morning by criminal complaint with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction against property used in an activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce,” according to an FBI press release.
Prior to his arrest, Llaneza met with a man he thought was connected with the Taliban and the mujahidin in Afghanistan — though he was actually an undercover FBI agent. The terrorist suspect suggested carrying out an attack against a bank in the San Francisco Bay Area using a car bomb. He planned to carry out the false flag attack and make it appear as if “the responsible party was an umbrella organization for a loose collection of anti-government militias and their sympathizers.”
“Llaneza’s stated goal was to trigger a governmental crackdown, which he expected would trigger a right-wing counter-response against the government followed by, he hoped, civil war,” the FBI release states.
(* Josh Tolly in this you tube keeps calling the suspect Adam Lanaza – which would be weird… His name is: Matthew Llaneza )
ALSO:
Dan Rather CBS – FBI Involvement in 1993 WTC Bombing
DRONE WARS & INTERNET FASCISM; Panetta Announces Pentagon’s New Medal For Drone Warfare & Cyber Warfare
This new “Distinguished Warfare Medal” outranks the Bronze Star, so it’s clear which direction they are heading… drone wars and internet fascism.
2013.2.14 Pentagon Creates Special Medal For Drone Pilots (RT, youtube.com):
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynkc8JCB27I&w=560&h=315]
Soon receiving military honors might be as easy as adjusting a joystick. The Pentagon is reportedly readying a new award, the new Distinguished Warfare Medal, which could be presented to any of the men and women of the US military who control unmanned aerial vehicles, sometimes from thousands of miles away. Additionally, the troops that are involved in America’s covert cyberwars would also be eligible to receive the honors.
RT’s Liz Wahl has more on the medal.
2013.2.14 Medal Of Droner; Pentagon Award For Deadly Joystick Warriors (RT, youtube.com):
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_53B8s3Sf8&w=560&h=315]
They may be known as the faceless killers of modern warfare, but it seems the US military wants them firmly in the spotlight. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has announced the creation of the Distinguished Warfare Medal, which will be handed out to joystick wielding drone pilots, who wage their battles far from the frontline.
Pope Benedict to seek immunity and protection from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on February 23
Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, has scheduled a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano for Saturday, February 23 to discuss securing protection and immunity from prosecution from the Italian government, according to Italian media sources.
Ratzinger’s meeting follows upon the apparent receipt by the Vatican of a diplomatic note from an undisclosed European government on February 4, stating its intention to issue an arrest warrant for Ratzinger, who resigned from his pontificate less than a week later.
In response to the February 23 meeting, the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS), through its field Secretary, Rev. Kevin Annett, has written to President Napolitano, asking him to refrain from assisting Ratzinger in evading justice.
The ITCCS letter states, in part,
“I need not remind you, Mr. President, that under international law and treaties that have been ratified by Italy, you and your government are forbidden from granting such protection to those like Joseph Ratzinger who have aided and abetted criminal actions, such as ordering Bishops and Cardinals in America and elsewhere to protect known child rapists among their clergy.
“Your obligation to the Vatican through the Lateran Treaty does not negate or nullify the requirements of these higher moral and international laws; nor does it require that you give any protection or immunity to a single individual like Joseph Ratzinger, especially after he has left his papal office.”
FASCISM RISING; America, Hillary Clinton’s Values, ‘More Like Mein Kampf’, ‘Hitler Would Be Envious’
February 13, 2013 by Joel
Filed under Americas, Featured, Police State
“Hitler would be envious of getting the kind of respect that this society gets for doing many of the same things that people were put on trial in Nuremberg for doing.” – Dr. Randy Short
Dr. Randy Short should be commended for telling the truth… a revolutionary act in this time of universal deceit.
Hitlery KKKlinton’s reign of terror as Secretary Of State was one of the most destructive and worst examples of “political diplomacy” in US history.
Now we have the reign of John Kerry to look forward to… a man with so many skeletons in his closet (ie, BCCI cover up, Skull & Bones) he could almost make the Bush Crime Family blush. It’s interesting how the media is portraying Obama’s selection of Chuck Hagel as Secretary Of Defense (SecDef) as some great move towards “peace”, yet they completely ignore Kerry’s pro “War On Iran” stance. Even Kerry’s fascist wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, said Bush was too easy on Iran:
“The only way to prevent the virus from surviving and spreading,” the former Mrs. Heinz advises, “is to attack, killing it with the strongest possible condemnations before it has a chance to mutate and spread.”
Speaking of ketchup… the Heinz Kerry’s also has a vendetta against Venezuela for nationalizing some of their Heinz factories… so don’t be surprised to see more destabilization actions against Venezuela. Obama could not have picked a worse person for this position.
People better start recognizing exactly what Randy Short is saying here… it may sound like he’s joking, but I’ll assure you that he’s not…
2013.2.2 ‘US Continues To Pursue Fascist Values’ (Interviews Dr. Randy Short; Hillary Clinton’s Farewell Speech To State Department) (PressTV, youtube.com):
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCR6unR41wk&w=560&h=315]
A political analyst tells Press TV that the US values are very strange values that do not jibe with the Declaration of Human Rights, with the UN or any other civilized country.
The comments came after Hillary Clinton gave a farewell speech to US citizens on Friday after sending a letter of resignation to President Barack Obama as her last act in the US State Department in Washington, DC.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Dr. Randy Short, member of Dignity, Human Rights and Peace organization, to further discuss the issue.
DHS To America: We Own You sucka!
February 11, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Police State
While Americans have been scandalized by stories of TSA thugs helping themselves to the electronic equipment of the passengers they are allegedly suppose to protect, a much worse violation of rights has been going on. As horrible as it is to have government thieves take your iPad, at least in theory they were not supposed to do so. Your iPad is your property and no one is supposed to take it.
But what about the data on your iPad, laptop, or any other electronic device?
In the case of stolen iPads, we are facing government agents who are dabbling in criminal activity that is not part of their official job. In the case of stealing all the data on your iPad, we are facing a criminal organization operating as an agency of our government. And now they have officially told us that that is what they do and there is nothing we can do about it. They have issued the memo: we own you.
Here is the background: on August 27, 2009 the Department of Homeland Slavemastery released a memo promising, “The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) will also conduct a Civil Liberties Impact Assessment within 120 days.”
Now their assessment has been released three years later. Here is the executive summary sentence:
“We also conclude that imposing a requirement that officers have reasonable suspicion in order to conduct a border search of an electronic device would be operationally harmful without concomitant civil rights/civil liberties benefits” (emphasis added)
So it is official. We can be searched without any basis for suspicion. The message from the Department of Humiliating Servitude is loud and clear: We own you.
DHS is a criminal organization. Here is the law that applies:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
I am not going to waste the effort arguing that “papers” and “effects” includes electronic devices. That is covered by the word, “duh.”
But what I do hate is how much Obama and Napolitano get blamed for all this by conservative Republicans when it is patently obvious that Bush and Cheney were also ones, long before we heard it from Rahm Emanuel, who were not going to let an emergency go to waste. They and their cronies saddled us with this monstrosity; it has grown worse under Obama but he didn’t hatch it. The Republican Administration from 2001 to 2008 told us the Radical Islamists hated us “for our freedoms,” and then pursued a campaign of appeasement by getting rid of them one by one.
I’m not bitter. Most people throughout most of history have lived as slaves under government occupation. No reason I should expect myself or my children to be some kind of exceptions to the rule (though I believe some day no one on the planet will live under such regimes any more).
But I do bitterly resent having to pretend that this is still America. And I resent even more being expected to impute all the sins of the government to one party and treat the “opposite” party as the good guys. If you have eyes at all you know that this prison is being constructed by bipartisan builders.
When DHS tells us, “we own you,” they are speaking for both parties that share power in our bureausaurian government.
75-year-old soybean farmer sees Monsanto lawsuit reach U.S. Supreme Court
Who controls the rights to the seeds planted in the ground? A 75-year-old farmer takes the agricultural giant to court to find out
As David versus Goliath battles go it is hard to imagine a more uneven fight than the one about to play out in front of the US supreme court between Vernon Hugh Bowman and Monsanto.
On the one side is Bowman, a single 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer who is still tending the same acres of land as his father before him in rural south-western Indiana. On the other is a gigantic multibillion dollar agricultural business famed for its zealous protection of its commercial rights.
Not that Bowman sees it that way. “I really don’t consider it as David and Goliath. I don’t think of it in those terms. I think of it in terms of right and wrong,” Bowman told The Guardian in an interview.
Either way, in the next few weeks Bowman and Monsanto’s opposing legal teams will face off in front of America’s most powerful legal body, weighing in on a case that deals with one of the most fundamental questions of modern industrial farming: who controls the rights to the seeds planted in the ground.
Whitewashing Extrajudicial Killing
February 9, 2013 by Jack Blood
Filed under Commentary
We are beginning to wonder when this assassination “mandate” jumps the shark and is used against Dangerous criminals in the USA – maybe officer Dorner – (re-scramble to spell Drone r) will be the first?
Extrajudicial killing is official US policy. Doing so violates fundamental international, constitutional, and US statute laws.
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
“Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.”
Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:
“Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.”
Common Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions states:
“(T)he passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples” are prohibited at all times under all circumstances with no exceptions.
The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment states:
“No person (shall) be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
US statute law (18 USC 1111 – Murder) states:
“Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought.”
John Brennan is Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. He’s Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor.
He heads the administration’s Murder, Inc. agenda. He’s Obama’s CIA director choice. On February 7, his confirmation hearing was held. More on that below.
On February 5, the ACLU, a coalition of other human rights groups and religious organizations addressed Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D. CA) and ranking Republican Saxby Chamblis.
Tough probing questions should be asked, they urged. Information on Brennan’s role in CIA interrogation, detention, extraordinary rendition, and targeted killings should be gotten.
ACLU Legislative Counsel Christopher Anders called Brennan a “Forest Gump of toxic national security policies.”
He’s been involved in “everything from torture to the killing of an American citizen.” Senators shouldn’t pass judgment “in the dark.”
They shouldn’t confirm Brennan “until all Americans know whether the decisions (he) made at CIA headquarters and in his White House office comply with our laws and uphold basic American values.”
Brennan’s a maestro of murder. He’s been involved in gross malfeasance. In late 2008, President-elect Obama rejected him for CIA. Concerns about his earlier complicity with Agency operations eliminated him.
Senate Intelligence Committee members have detailed information on Bush administration CIA torture and other lawless practices. Brennan was intimately involved.
Senators should probe his dark past. Setting the record straight should be prioritized. Information on his role in helping ”develop, carry out, advise on, or implement” lawless policies should be explained.
Previous Bush nominations for CIA general counsel and deputy attorney general were withdrawn. Their complicity in CIA lawlessness eliminated them.
Senate Intelligence Committee members didn’t lay a glove on Brennan.
Questions and answers were largely pro forma. Bipartisan complicity supports America’s war on terror. It’s illegitimate. It’s extrajudicial. It’s a fabricated hoax. It’s done to wage war on humanity.
Drone killings are prioritized. They’re instruments of state terror. They sanitize killing on the cheap. They murder innocent men, women, children, and infants. They do so extrajudicially.
Media scoundrels misreported. The New York Times headlined “Senators Press Brennan About CIA’s Drone Strikes,” saying:
They questioned him on secrecy and legality issues. Brennan was largely noncommittal. His opening statement acknowledged “widespread debate” about administration counterterrorism policies.
He strongly defended them. He said America’s “at war with Al Qaeda.” He defended extrajudicial killings. He claimed they save lives and prevent potential terror attacks.
He said “lethal operations are generally the sole responsibility of the executive branch.” He called civilian deaths mistakes. He lied. Senators let him get away with it. So did The Times.
He left unsaid key information jointly prepared by Stanford University’s International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic (SU) and New York University School of Law’s Global Justice Clinic (NYU). Its report is titled “Living Under Drones.”
It said:
“US drone strike policies cause considerable and under-accounted-for harm to the daily lives of ordinary civilians, beyond death and physical injury.”
“Drones hover twenty-four hours a day over communities in northwest Pakistan, striking homes, vehicles, and public spaces without warning.”
“Their presence terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities.”
“Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves. These fears have affected behavior.”
Innocent people are murdered. At most, only 2% of victims are high-level combatants. Evidence suggests US strikes facilitate anti-American recruitment.
A “significant rethinking (is) long overdue.” Policy makers can’t ignore civilian harm and counterproductive impacts much longer.
Rule of law principles are violated. State-sanctioned murder is lawless. The Times and other media scoundrels left these issues unaddressed.
On February 6, a Washington Post editorial headlined “A time to explain the drone campaign.”
Ahead of Brennan’s hearing, it called Obama’s “drone war against al-Qaeda….legal.” Disclosing justification for waging it would “strengthen” its “political and diplomatic grounding.”
Nothing whatever justifies extrajudicial killing. Claiming it admits advocacy for what’s impermissible. The Post and other media scoundrels march in lockstep with America’s imperium. Doing so exposes their complicity.
Senate Intelligence Committee members share guilt. Brennan got off easy. No criticism was voiced. Tough questions were avoided. Confirmation is assured.
Obama prioritizes extrajudicial killings. Brennan’s been in charge. As CIA head, he’ll have direct control. Expect him to take full advantage.
Anyone can be targeted anywhere in the world. US citizens are vulnerable. They can be murdered for any reason or none at all.
Drones are Washington’s weapon of choice. They’re instruments of state terror. They operate round-the-clock. They target faceless enemies half a world away or nearby.
Rule of law principles aren’t considered. Secrecy and accountability go unaddressed. Murder, Inc. operates globally.
Brennan’s “playbook” developed targeted killing procedures. His “disposition matrix” explains them. Eliminating America’s enemies alone matters. Whether real or invented makes no difference.
Brennan’s a war criminal multiple times over. He should be rejected out of hand. He should be prosecuted for high crimes. Code Pink protesters interrupted his confirmation.
They called him a “national security threat,” a “traitor to democracy,” and “war criminal.” Chairwoman Feinstein ordered them forcibly removed.
“The witness is entitled to be heard,” she said.
Ahead of Brennan’s hearing, White House press secretary Jay Carney defended targeted killings. Doing so makes him complicit. He called them “legal, ethical and wise.”
“Sometimes we use remotely piloted aircraft to conduct targeted strikes against specific al-Qaeda terrorists in order to prevent attacks on the United States and to save American lives,” he said.
“We conduct those strikes because they are necessary to mitigate ongoing actual threats, to stop plots, to prevent future attacks and, again, save American lives. These strikes are legal, they are ethical, and they are wise,” he added.
A leaked unsigned/undated Justice Department “white paper” titled “Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa’ida or An Associated Force” inverted inviolable legal principles.
It said “(t)argeting a member of an enemy force who poses an imminent threat of violent attack to the United States is not unlawful. It is a lawful act of self-defense.”
“The condition that an operational leader present an ‘imminent’ threat of violent attack against the United States does not require the United States to have clear evidence that a specific attack on US persons and interests will take place in the immediate future.”
On February 12, Senate Intelligence Committee members scheduled a follow-up closed door hearing. Brennan will provide secret testimony. Expect Committee confirmation to follow. It may be unanimous. Full Senate confirmation is assured.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
http://www.dailycensored.com/whitewashing-extrajudicial-killing/
The Great Gun Debate [RAP NEWS 18]
February 7, 2013 by Kristen
Filed under Music/Book/Film/Art
Are guns there to stop tyranny? Is tyranny already here? Are there other ways of stopping it than stocking up on munitions? Welcome, Minutemen, to Rap News 18, where we take a few minutes to explore one of the great debates taking place in the Divided States of America. It seems that no matter how high the body count on the latest attempt at topping the civilian shoot’em-up high-score table, this perennial debate shows no sign of abating, having morphed into a vigorous exegisis of the 2nd Command…err…. Amendment, as Americans seek to make sense of the original intentions of the great con-Founding Fathers. Persuasive arguments have been levied form both sides; and yet both sides have failed to convince the other. Is this the quintessential impasse? Join Robert Foster as he sets out to squeeze the juice from this most explsoive of current debates – featuring our two special regular guests: that son of a gun Terence Moonseed, and the big gun General Baxter.
