Daily Briefing — 23rd-24th June 2009

Obama drone strike kills 65 at a funeral in Pakistan; Another man released from Gitmo; International collaborators look to attack “tax havens” like Switzerland; The Ayatollah’s tactics to crush dissent are biting him in the ass; Russia supports East Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital; Cigarettes, whiskey, and wild money in the life of the world’s oldest man; and more…

U.S. drone attack has kills at least 40 65 in the Pakistan tribal region of South Waziristan. (al Jazeera) Dozens more are said to be wounded. The drone struck a funeral prayer meeting. The target was a “Taliban leader” named Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed, but not by the drone strike. Saeed Shah reports one of his guards shot him. This strike comes days before the U.S. is to limit air strikes for “tactical reasons” — not because it kills 65 people in South Waziristan or 147 civilians (by accident) in Farah province over the last six weeks or so, but for “tactical reasons”…. UPDATE: At least 65 were killed.

Read Jeremy Scahill’s “Obama’s Undeclared War Against Pakistan Continues, Despite His Attempt to Downplay It” from yesterdday if you haven’t already.

“British soldiers have launched a major airborne assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan.” (BBC) U.S. collaborators, Georgia, is sacrificing 500 soldiers to the NATO cause in their effort to kiss enough ass to join NATO.

Instead of bombing the hell out of Islamabad and Karachi, India has issued warrants for the arrests of Lashkar-e-Ta’iba operatives suspected of involvement in the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai that killed 179 people. (Press TV) You can read the BBC story here.

Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak was released from Gitmo after being captured in 2002 for ties to al-Qa’ida. The discovery was that this connection did exist. He was tortured by al-Qa’ida before being kidnapped by the U.S. (al Jazeera) Gitmo scholar Andy Worthington discussed this case with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! today.

The 17 Uighurs don’t want to go to Palau. The 17 men were recently freed from Gitmo, after being held for seven years without charges. The men are concerned that the Palau gov’t can’t protect them from being kidnapped by the Chinese gov’t. (FT)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is looking to “pressure tax havens”. 18 countries are focusing on their “grey list”, which includes Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg. The OCED wants to apply unspecified sanctions on these countries. (BBC) We might as well have a de jure libertarian world; borders only mean something when you’re not of the political or bankster class. Imagine if the rest of us accepted this de facto reality that “borders” are just tools of those in power to apply authority. </rant> (Little Alex)

The Federal Reserve will keep interest rates near zero for an “extended period”. (FT) The $300bn created has been leveraged with the $450bn set to dish out into estimates of $14tn in credit since late September. The U.S. dollar continues to fall.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) says the Obama Administration and Congress are collaborating for an “economic collapse” in his weekly address. (The Raw Story)

“‘It’s easy to stop a riot or demonstration with violence, but it’s not easy to regain moral authority once it’s been chipped away by your actions,‘ says Juan Cole, a historian of the Middle East and an expert on Shiite Islam at the University of Michigan. ‘This is the kind of thing the shah used to do. The revolution has always said it stands for justice and the rule of law, but a large segment of the public is not going to think that anymore.'” Read the full CSM article on how the Ayatollah’s actions are contrary to preserving his power and their new bio on Ayatollah Khamenei. Today’s FT editorial focuses on the Ayatollah’s missed political opportunity here, as well. Lee Sustar takes a great look at this new chink in the Ayatollah’s armor today at SWO. (Sayyid)

“Harsh Crackdown Extends to Leading Opposition Figures” by Sara Farhang (IPS): “Eleven days after Iran’s disputed Jun. 12 president election, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears determined to round up key members of the opposition, journalists and human rights activists who could play a key role in rallying public support for opposition demands.”

Jim Lobe covers the continuation of the Neo-Con’s pressure on Pres. Obama to intervene in Iran. The Nation editor Chris Hayes commented on this last night, playing political footbal for his own team on “The Rachel Maddow Show” last night. We already are intervening. See our post on U.S. covert intervention in Iran and you’ll see that this approach to warmongering is Plan 1A, as their propaganda effort to lie the U.S. into war under the false pretense of Iran as a nuclear threat continues to get debunked in the face of empirical evidence. Eric Margolis’ article on the topic at LewRockwell.com is an absolute must-read. Today, the president said he was “appalled and outraged“. Watch the Dems calls this a hard line and the GOP says it’s just rhetoric and the president needs to do more. Ignorant boobs. As the line gets harder, watch the mainstream Dems and the anti-war [sic] movement tip-toe with him like the blind sheeple they are. Lew Rockwell’s response to the president is pretty adequate: “You see, violence by regimes the U.S. is demonizing for war Must Be Stopped; violence by the U.S. and its puppets must never end.” Congress is going after gas imports. This would be brutal for the people of Iran — especially under a Keynesian regime. (Little Alex)

“Mousavi said to have role in bloody 1980s attacks” by Daniel Tencer (Raw Story) links to the CQ story.

“[S]toning, heresy and cutting hands will be omitted from Iran’s penal laws.” (Press TV)

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev supports East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state saying that a resultion“must include the creation of an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state with the capital in East Jerusalem, which will coexist peacefully with all the countries in the region, including Israel”. (RT)

Israel has released the Hamas speaker of the Palestinian parliament Aziz Dweik after being held for three years. (Press TV)

81% of Americans believe Palestinians should recognize Israel’s right to exist. I wonder how many know that they already do and the problem is Israel not recognize a right for Palestinians to exist at all. (Little Alex)

Best way to steal people’s right to defend themselves when democracy [sic] fails to steal liberty: put them on a terrorist list. (CSM)

The U.S.-backed puppet regime of Colombia destroyed evidence domestic spying. “Dozens of boxes of files, computer hard drives, tape recordings and transcripts containing the results of months or even years of spying on Supreme Court judges, prosecutors, human rights defenders, opposition politicians and journalists were destroyed on orders from above.” as the world (including Colombians) were focused on President Obama’s inaugu-coronation. (IPS)

100,000 marched in Central London to support the Tamils and call for investigations and prosecutions of war crimes in the Sri Lanka civil war. (UK Indymedia)

Former Rwanda Interior Minister Callixte Kalimanzira was sentenced to 30 years by the U.N.-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda for two counts — genocide and direct and public incitement to commit genocide. In other news, George W. Bush spooned his wife, Dick Cheney had a delicious breakfast this morning, and Donald Rumsfeld jerked off to the torture photos he snuck into his breast pocket on the way out. Phillip Giraldi tracks these war criminals down in his AntiWar.com article today.

One for the No Shit! file: “Civilians ‘bear the brunt of war'” is the BBC headline relaying a Red Cross report on Afghanistan, Georgia, Haiti, Liberia, the Congo, Colombia, Lebanon and the Philippines.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has decided to kill a controversial Bush administration program to use U.S. spy satellites to collect domestic intelligence for counter-terrorism, law enforcement and security. The biggest proponent for this measure was Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), who was recently caught in a wiretap agreeing to aid Israeli espionage.

The U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan will remain for an extra year. Last February, Kyrgyzstan ordered the U.S. to vacate in six months after a $2bn commitment from Russia. The deal was struck with Kyrgyzstan to receive $127m instead of $17m for the base in Manas, which is used to funnel U.S. soldiers, etc. used in the Af-Pak war and occupation. (FT)

Check out Charles Johnson’s most recent linkage of State-stormtrooper penis-waving, “The Police Beat”. (Rad Geek People’s Daily)

Cigarettes, whiskey, and women are the secret to living 113+ years, says Henry Allingham, the world’s oldest man. (LRC)

Eric Ruder wrote on the Socialism 2009 conference here in Chicago last weekend. I was there. I’m not a socialist, but it was a great time. Thanks to the International Socialist Organization, et al. for the great weekend…. and Jeremy Scahill is the shit. (Little Alex)

Glenn Greenwald is extending a request for fundage. Keep him informing us and independent. You can read his article on this fundraising drive here.

InfoShop News has posted a great poster for protesting the G-20 in Pittsburgh here.

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