3 Oct 2010 | InfoShop News

The U.S. Army installs soldiers at local media affiliates to train them for psychological operations (PSYOPS), John Cook reported Friday at Yahoo! News’ blog “The Upshot” (h/t: Daniel Tencer):

The U.S. Army has used local television stations in the U.S. as training posts for some of its psychological-operations personnel, The Upshot has learned. Since at least 2001, both WRAL, a CBS affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., and WTOC, a CBS affiliate in Savannah, Ga., have regularly hosted active-duty soldiers from the Army’s 4th Psychological Operations group as part of the Army’s Training With Industry program. Training With Industry is designed to offer career soldiers a chance to pick up skills through internships and fellowships with private businesses. The PSYOPS soldiers used WRAL and WTOC to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of “influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences.”

WRAL claims to have not hosted PSOPS personnel since 2007, but WTOC currently has one soldier training in their newsroom, Mr. Cook reported.

The CBS affiliates were on a list of participants of the Army’s “Training With Industry” (T.W.I.) program obtained as a result of an “Upshot” Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The local affiliates add to the list of the Pentagon’s PSYOPS programs, which places military personnel directly in the media apparatus.

In 2008, it was discovered that retired generals working with the Pentagon were being portrayed as independent “analysts” by CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX in their interviews with them through David Barstow’s Pulitzer-winning investigative report at The New York Times. In October, the Pentagon would not comment as to whether or not the Bush Administration’s covert propaganda effort by the Pentagon was still a part of their PSYOPS policy during the Obama Administration.

Records obtained by “The Upshot” in August confirmed the T.W.I. program didn’t only include military personnel working in the military-industrial complex of weapons manufacturers, private security contractors and consulting, but also as “reverse embeds” in the media:

Much has been made of the media’s practice of “embedding” reporters in military units, allowing them to file immersive reports on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while under the total care and control of the U.S. military. But a less widely known practice is the Pentagon’s occasional “reverse embed,” which permits active-duty service personnel to serve as interns in major media companies—sometimes in an editorial capacity—gleaning insights and intelligence into how media organizations operate, and perhaps helping to shape the way they cover the military. According to military records obtained by “The Upshot” under the Freedom of Information Act, in recent years CNN, the Chicago Tribune, and a smattering of other smaller news outlets have all hosted active-duty military personnel as part of a Pentagon program designed to offer service members experience in the corporate world.

Though CNN admitted the relationship was inappropriate, “The Upshot” confirmed that if the program was ever ended, it was reactivated, Mr Cook reported:

The T.W.I. operation achieved some notoriety in 2000, when Dutch and French media reported that CNN had invited U.S. Army psychological operations soldiers into its newsroom to serve as interns. Embarrassed at having hosted military disinformation specialists,  the network acknowledged that it was a mistake and said in a statement that “the intern program was terminated as soon as the leadership of CNN learned of it.”

Now, however, the program appears to have been reactivated—at CNN and elsewhere.

The Chicago Tribune, according to Mr. Cook’s report, has not participated in the program since 2004.

The Pentagon spent almost $5bn specifically for public opinion related expenditures in 2009, Daniel Tencer at The Raw Story yesterday added:

Last year, the Associated Press reported on a mushrooming military budget for public opinion operations, with the budget for such operations hitting $4.7 billion in 2009 — “almost as much as it spent on body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2004 and 2006.” Some $489 million of that went to psychological operations.

There is no plan to significantly cut military spending. Ivan Eland of The Independent Institute adequately compares it to a shell game.

The rhetoric is weak in itself—claiming aims to cut $100m from a war chest of well over a half-trillion dollars per year. A handful of recent actions are tell the true path of the Pentagon:

• Boeing yesterday received another contract from the Pentagon, guaranteeing it $12bn over the next eight years, and continues to play a “pivotal role” in Washington’s never-ending drone war in Afghanistan and Pakistan—though the E.U. recently found at least $10bn of the company’s welfare benefits is illegal under already loose restrictions;
• Lockheed Martin’s set to receive $2.75bn from the U.S. military to manufacture and ship 20 fighter jets to the State of Israel, recently received a $300m contract from the Pentagon for anti-tank missiles, and regaining a $5bn contract to supply Washington ‘kill or capture’ raid policies—after posting a 12% profit-jump through July of this year;
• ITT recently received a $260.5m contract from the U.S. Army for nightvison goggles.

These deals were all in the last couple of months. How many people have given up looking for work or lost their homes since then?

More importantly, how many Afghan and Paki civilians have been slaughtered and terrorized by Washington’s destruction-driven economy?

The story isn’t the obvious expectation that Afghanistan’s elections are rigged. We wouldn’t expect them to be performed in any other manner.

But, apparently the Afghans are like our dads in the early-1980s—so impressed with the VHS motion picture thingamabob—that everything must be videotaped, especially ‘Fixing Elections Day’.

The video was first aired on Al Jazeera English and obtained by McClatchy shows three men, surrounded by armed guards, frantically filling in stacks of ballots and stuffing them into the boxes. Dion Nissenbaum’s McClatchy report cites an unnamed Afghan politician as the source of the video, which can been seen raw at the top of his article:

Video obtained by McClatchy shows a man in an Afghan border police uniform standing watch while three men appear to be stuffing votes into a ballot box.

The one-minute clip, which couldn’t be independently authenticated, is one of thousands of cases that could tilt the balance of legislative races as elections officials examine the complaints and prepare to release full results in a few weeks.

The video, obtained from an Afghan politician who asked not to be identified for safety reasons, shows three men sitting on the floor filling out ballot after ballot and then stuffing them into the nearby ballot box. It shows a man in a border police uniform standing with a Kalashnikov rifle and keeping guard over the apparent ballot stuffing.

The not-yet authenticated video, according to the source, “was shot in Spin Boldak, a scrappy town along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border that’s controlled by Abdel Razek, a feared border police commander dubbed ‘the Master of Spin Boldak’ “, according to Mr. Nissenbaum’s report, which added:

It was impossible, however, to determine who was the beneficiary of the apparent ballot stuffing.

Elections officials said Monday that they’re investigating more than 3,600 complaints from the Sept. 18 election to select 249 members of the elected house of the country’s bicameral parliament.

Over a month ago, a U.S. government scientist ate crow and admitted 90% of the oil that gushed into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s exploded Deepwater Horizon rig was ‘unaccounted for‘.

One oceanographer told a government probe that he estimates 2.5 million barrels—or 105 million gallons— are still “embedded in the fragile ecosystem”, the Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (via The Raw Story).

The fact is that it has yet to be accounted for, Suzanne Goldberg reported today at the London Guardian:

On his [Rainer Amon, an ocean scientist at Texas A&M University at Galveston] return voyage he is encountering a void. “If that oil and gas had been consumed by bacteria you would expect to see more oxygen depletion than what we have seen,” he said.

“Was it just a fluke that we found it, or is there an oil carpet on the ground?”

So where is the oil? It’s been two months since any new crude from BP’s well entered the Gulf. Independent estimates suggest 4.4m barrels of oil spewed out into the Gulf of Mexico, but there is no scientific agreement on its fate. “You could say it’s a mystery,” said Amon.

Did the oil sink to the bottom? A University of Georgia research expedition earlier this month discovered a thick coating of oil on the sea floor, 16 nautical miles from the BP well-head.

Is it floating in the depths? One team of researchers reported finding a deep sea plume of oil and natural gas the size of Manhattan, that was slow to degrade. A second study of the plume found the oil and gas were quickly being gobbled up by microbes.

Federal government agencies, meanwhile, have been seen to play down the long-term effects of the oil.

“We still have not got to the bottom of where the majority of the oil went,” said Adam Walters, a Greenpeace scientist. “The work is sound but the conclusions are really clutching at straws.”

The uncertainty about the fate of the oil has deepened the sense of urgency among scientists to gather evidence from the deep water and the ocean floor, and to begin weighing the effects of the spill on marine life.

That in turn has scientists clamouring for the release of the BP research funds, the bulk of which have yet to be awarded.

As I’ve written before, BP’s trust funds for the Gulf are a scam:

The government’s been aiding BP’s public relations nightmare since the explosion. Frankly, there has been no reason to believe that Washington or BP have ever made anything but marketing the first priority.

The damages from the April explosion are estimates well into the tens of billions and the initial scare was that, after cleanup, BP would only be held liable for $75m in damages and U.S. taxpayers inevitably footed with the rest of the bill. Playing damage control, the Obama Administration brokered a ‘voluntary’ $20bn holding fund that BP would set aside to cover future claims.

In reality, BP is expected to save nearly $10bn this year is U.S. and U.K. tax credits as it announced a $32.2bn provision for the spill. Worse, the $20bn escrow fund agreement is not directly with BP PLC, but with BP Exploration and Production Inc., a subsidiary of BP America Production, which is a distant subsidiary of BP PLC that deals primarily with production in the Gulf. Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones reported today:

BP America Production is a subsidiary of BP Company North America, which is a subsidiary of BP Corporation North America, which is a subsidiary of BP America Inc., which is a subsidiary of the parent company BP. In case you’re counting, that means the escrow deal is with a subsidiary five layers removed from BP PLC, the multinational oil giant. Because the deal is with a subsidiary way down the chain, it would be difficult to access additional funds from the corporate parent should the subsidiary collapse or simply not have enough funds to meet the obligation, since it’s the subsidiary, not the parent corporation, that’s legally on the hook, says Public Citizen.

Translation: if BP can’t drill in the Gulf, they can just tank BP Exploration and Production Inc. and the escrow agreement goes to the bankruptcy courts. Worse that what Ms. Kilkenny fears, U.S. taxpayers will be forced to deal with the mess and BP will not have run away, but will be drilling and collecting oil to sell back to the government a stone’s throw away. The government can’t afford to force BP to comply without risking that runaway and the bankruptcy of BP Exploration and Production Inc.

The rig exploded in late April and Gallup poll results released today found that depression is up 25% along the Gulf coast since.

Monday, U.S. Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 22, “one of five American soldiers accused by Army investigators of taking part in the murders of three Afghan civilians this year, appeared at a hearing to determine the formal charges against him”, Robert Mackey reported at his New York Times (NYT) blog, “The Lede”.

The 11 other soldiers “invoked their constitutional right not to testify in the case”, Reuters reported (via the NYT). Nine of them are among the 12 charged from the 5th Stryker Brigade, out of Washington state, charged with crimes relating to their activities while deployed to the Kandahar province of Afghanistan. Nicholas Riccardi of the Los Angeles Times reported from the base, “Of the 18 witnesses listed for Monday’s hearing, 14 invoked their 5th amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying, including the lieutenant of the platoon.”

The CNN report as well as Mr. Mackey’s—and another at the NYT by William Yardley—point toward abuse of prescription drugs and hash as influencing the staged brutal murders and trophy-collecting. Mr. Yardley’s report adds of another story where the soldiers staged a murder by planting a grenade near a defenseless civilian:

Some of the soldiers have said in court documents that they were forced to participate in the killings by a supervisor, Sgt. Calvin Gibbs, who is also accused in the killings. All five defendants have said they are not guilty.

In one incident, Specialist Morlock recounted in the video, he described Sergeant Gibbs identifying for no apparent reason an Afghan civilian in a village, then directing Specialist Morlock and another soldier to fire on the man after Sergeant Gibbs lobbed a grenade in his direction.

“He kind of placed me and Winfield off over here so we had a clean line of sight for this guy and, you know, he pulled out one of his grenades, an American grenade, popped it, throws the grenade, and tells me and Winfield: ‘All right, wax this guy. Kill this guy, kill this guy,’ ” Specialist Morlock said in the video.

Referring to the Afghan, the investigator asked: “Did you see him present any weapons? Was he aggressive toward you at all?”

Specialist Morlock replied: “No, not at all. Nothing. He wasn’t a threat.”

As Monday’s hearing was getting under way, CNN and ABC News broadcast the video. In the CNN clip and the ABC clip, Specialist Morlock, speaking in a near monotone, looks like a teenager recounting a story to his parents.

Spc. Morlock’s attorney, Michael Waddington, is attempting to refute the confession because of his client’s drug use, Mr. Mackey added, citing Hal Berton at The Seattle Times.

Questioning Army investigators in Afghanistan, Mr. Yardley reported, “Mr. Waddington repeatedly asked whether they found Specialist Morlock to be under the influence of medication in the interviews.”

The taped interrogations were not intended to be publicized and access to the seized photographs are limited to the soldiers’ lawyers, his report added:

A memo circulated by a military defense lawyer the previous week described an inadvertent release of photographs, including three that show American soldiers holding up the heads of dead Afghans. It was unclear whether all of the pictures showed soldiers in the cases, though military prosecutors said Monday that Specialist Morlock was in at least one image, apparently with a dead Afghan.

Photographic evidence could play an important role in the Army’s case, as will statements from soldiers. No bodies have been recovered, and a military investigator testified on Monday that the nature of the areas where the crimes occurred, including religious views of residents and potential danger to American soldiers, prevented them from conducting crime scene investigations.

The dozen soldiers are charged with crimes relating to incidents in January, February, and May of this year.

Lawyers attributed the tragedies to Washington’s “failed policy” in the Afghan region.

The Kabul government has sent a “delegation” to Afghanistan’s eastern Laghman Province to investigate villagers’ claims that civilians were killed in a Saturday night raid by NATO, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday, Reuters reported (via The New York Times).

At least 30 were killed in the “assault” and NATO claims that all were “insurgents”—a clever word to use because it only means that those who died were fighting back against the NATO raid. Even finding that non-combatants may have been killed would not tell the whole story.

NATO cannot prove that people with connections to the Haqqani or Quetta Shura Networks were killed and until they can, it’s most reasonable to assume, like most reports, that all casualties were civilians. And, as the report continues, the clever language-crafting still can’t prevent the rise of civilian casualties—as the U.S.-led coalition narrowly classifies “civilians”:

Civilian casualties caused by foreign forces hunting militants have long been a major source of tension between Karzai and the Western nations whose troops help support his government in the face of a growing insurgency.

A mid-year United Nations report painted a dark picture of security in Afghanistan in the first half of 2010, with violent civilian deaths jumping 31 percent, although the total number caused by aerial attacks fell 64 percent.

These are war crimes, along with the C.I.A. “drastically” increasing the frequency of drone strikes in Pakistan over the last month. Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt reported yesterday at The New York Times:

The 20 C.I.A. drone attacks in September represent the most intense bombardment by the spy agency since January, when the C.I.A. carried out 11 strikes after a suicide bomber killed seven agency operatives at a remote base in eastern Afghanistan.

According to one Pakistani intelligence official, the recent drone attacks have not killed any senior Taliban or Qaeda leaders. Many senior operatives have already fled North Waziristan, he said, to escape the C.I.A. drone campaign.

Over all the spy agency has carried out 74 drone attacks this year, according to the Web site The Long War Journal, which tracks the strikes. A vast majority of the attacks—which usually involve several drones firing multiple missiles or bombs—have taken place in North Waziristan.

The Obama administration has enthusiastically embraced the C.I.A.’s drone program, an ambitious and historically unusual war campaign by American spies. According to The Long War Journal, the spy agency in 2009 and 2010 has launched nearly four times as many attacks as it did during the final year of the Bush administration.

These include the deadly strikes over the weekend.

Being classified in the press as a “suspected militant” admittedly has nothing to do with actually being a militant, let alone a terrorist, let alone an international terrorist.

Jason Ditz at AntiWar News notes the media focus on 50 “militants” killed during a NATO airstrike on Pakistan—and the becoming-ridiculous Pakistani government posturing as if it doesn’t consent—is ignorant to this:

In fact, a series of attacks over the past three days has killed at least 15 people, none of whom has been conclusively identified but all of whom officials felt comfortable labeling “suspected militants” simply by virtue that they got hit with a C.I.A. missile.

Though the drone strikes in Pakistan began under President Bush, since taking office President Obama has dramatically increased the number of attacks and well over 1,000 have been killed. Of those, only a handful were ever conclusively linked to any militant group and well over 700 civilians were killed. Hundreds of others in more recent attacks remain unidentified, and as the Pakistani government does not generally allow media into the region, their identities will likely remain shrouded in mystery.

Officially the Pakistani government has criticized the drone strikes and the military incursions, though U.S. officials maintain that privately agreements exist allowing both. The Zardari government has been quite deceptive about the drone program, loudly taking credit on the rare occasions the drones actually kill somebody notable and feigning ignorance on the many, many occasions when they kill random tribesmen.

Remember when every brown person who died in Iraq or Afghanistan was “Al Qaeda”.

Then, they were all “terrorists”.

Then, they were all “insurgents”.

Then, they were all “militants”.

Now, they’re “suspected militants”.

Why? Because before a burden of proof is met, the classification is all suspect and the label used to justify such acts like kidnapping and killing are little more than authoritative assertion. (See Anwar al-Awlaki.)

The defense for targeting Mr. al-Awlaki is that he’s a suspect. Consent for the strikes on Afghans and Pakis coincides with manufacturing consent for the arbitrary extrajudicial assassinations of American citizens.

The War on Terror is a war of the few in the state apparatus against every human being on Earth with consent to remove from it.

Yes, when the C.I.A. and NATO drop 500-lb. bombs on villages in Pakistan and tell everyone that the burden of proof is on everyone else to show the dead weren’t militants, the war is against you.

When they get away with assassinating “suspected militants” after designating everyone as a suspect, you’re in the middle of the bulls-eye.

Government agents raided the home of a Palestinian-American antiwar activist in Chicago, Friday, “in an attempt to silence his advocacy, an attorney said Sunday”, The Associated Press reported Sunday evening (via The New York Times):

The F.B.I. on Friday searched eight addresses in Minneapolis and Chicago, including the home of Hatem Abudayyeh, who is the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, attorney Jim Fennerty told The Associated Press.

“The government’s trying to quiet activists,” Fennerty said. “This case is really scary.”

More than half a dozen agents went to Abudayyeh’s home on Friday and took any documents containing the word “Palestine,” Fennerty said.

Abudayyeh, a U.S. citizen whose parent immigrated from Palestine, wasn’t home at the time of the raid because he was at a hospital with his mother who is battling liver cancer, Fennerty said.

[...]

Warrants suggested agents were looking for links between anti-war activists and terrorist groups in Colombia and the Middle East.

Jason Ditz at AntiWar News added:

Beyond that a number of the activists raided were served with subpoenas demanding that they appear in Chicago before a Grand Jury and provide them with any evidence of any contact they had with anybody in a number of countries, including Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Officials seem to be fishing for evidence that they can somehow used to tie the domestic antiwar movement to some foreign terrorist group and charge its members with providing “material aid to terrorism.” Yet whether they can manufacture this evidence or not, the tactics used in the search seem certain to have a deleterious effect on the ablity to speak out against the administration going forward.

Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Web Site called the raids “an ominous warning that the U.S. government, unable to convince the American people to support the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a predatory foreign policy around the world, is moving to criminalize open political opposition”, adequately adding:

At a press conference Saturday in Chicago, two of those targeted, Joe Iosbaker and Stephanie Weiner, gave details of the raid. Twenty F.B.I. agents ransacked their home, taking away more than 30 boxes of papers, correspondence and personal items dating back over four decades. At several of the homes raided, F.B.I. agents seized computers and cell phones.

While no one was arrested—a fact that in itself demonstrates there was no “terrorist” threat—many of those targeted were given subpoenas to appear before federal grand juries next month. They will apparently be questioned particularly about their personal travel to foreign countries where they met openly with political and labor groups.

Those targeted in the September 24 raids are not terrorists stockpiling bombs, but political activists whose “weapons” are leaflets, placards, newsletters and Internet postings.

[...]

An F.B.I. spokesman claimed that the raids were aimed at people “providing, attempting and conspiring to provide material support” to terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). But there is no evidence tying any of those targeted in the raids to terrorism.

The FBI is apparently attempting to use the precedent set by the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of The Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder. In this reactionary decision, handed down in June, the high court upheld the charge of “material support” to terrorism against people who were working with the P.K.K., a Kurdish nationalist guerrilla group fighting in Turkey, and the L.T.T.E., the Tamil nationalist organization fighting a civil war in Sri Lanka.

The individuals charged in that case were not providing military or technical assistance to guerrilla warfare. Some were seeking to persuade the P.K.K. to make the transition from guerrilla warfare to electoral politics in Turkey (as the Irish Republican Army did in Northern Ireland, under the auspices of the Clinton administration). Others were advising the L.T.T.E., during a period of ceasefire in the Sri Lankan civil war, on how to obtain disaster aid for the Tamil population after the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Both the P.K.K. and L.T.T.E. had been designated as “terrorist” organizations by the U.S. State Department because they were fighting governments allied to Washington. Similar organizations fighting governments at odds with U.S. foreign policy were not so designated, although their tactics were identical.

If the Holder precedent had been in effect during the 1980s, antiapartheid campaigners in the United States could have been arrested and prosecuted for “material support,” because the Reagan administration had designated the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela as “terrorists.”

[...]

The Bush Justice Department brought the “material support” charges and the Obama Justice Department carried the case to a successful conclusion at the Supreme Court, a fact which underscores the continuity between the Republicans and the Democrats when it comes to attacking the democratic rights of the American people.

The September 24 raids came only four days after publication of an internal report by the Justice Department’s inspector general admitting that the F.B.I. improperly opened “terrorism” investigations into peace and social justice groups including Quakers, Catholic Worker, the Thomas Merton Center, Greenpeace, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Beware, peacemongers! The government hates you because it’s rooted in violence.

Filed under: National News, Political Science Tagged: antiwar activists, Arab American Action Network, Bush Administration, Chicago, civil liberties, criminal justice, FARC, FBI, Hatem Abudayyeh, Jason Ditz, Jim Fennerty, Joe Iosbaker, Minneapolis, Obama Administration, Patrick Martin, peace movement, SCOTUS, Stephanie Weiner, The Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, thoughtcrime ]]> http://littlealexinwonderland.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/attorney-govt-raids-targeting-antiwar-activists-searching-docs-containing-palestine/feed/ 0 Little Alex http://littlealexinwonderland.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/obama-wants-all-your-internets-to-belong-to-him/ http://littlealexinwonderland.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/obama-wants-all-your-internets-to-belong-to-him/#comments Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:00:20 +0000 Sayyid http://littlealexinwonderland.wordpress.com/?p=11911 ]]> The White House will push Congress to ‘make it easier to wiretap the internet’.

The Obama Administration is going to push Congress to write policy granting the executive branch of the U.S. government more privileges to “wiretap the internet” and the implications are global, Charlie Savage reported today at The New York Times.

It’s all to fight terrorism, of course, he added:

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications—including encrypted e-mail transmitters like BlackBerry, social networking Web sites like Facebook and software that allows direct “peer to peer” messaging like Skype—to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.

The amoral argument from the industry is that such measures counter the “decentralized design” of the internet. It’s what progresses from the becoming-archaic telephone-method of commincation, one expert said.

But, don’t forget—TERRORISM REQUIRES UNBRIDLED POWER, AS DOES COUNTERING IT!:

But law enforcement officials contend that imposing such a mandate is reasonable and necessary to prevent the erosion of their investigative powers.

“We’re talking about lawfully authorized intercepts,” said Valerie E. Caproni, general counsel for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “We’re not talking expanding authority. We’re talking about preserving our ability to execute our existing authority in order to protect the public safety and national security.”

In other words: ‘lawfully’ means whatever the government agents chooses to permit. According to Ms. Caprioni, this isn’t “expanding authority”, only expanding what people in authority are immune from prosecution after committing and allowing more information to be collected against people without due process, with lesser scrutiny to probable cause.

The key isn’t overtly “expanding authority” like adding agents and arms and cameras and wiretaps, etc., but crafting the most deceitful language:

There is not yet agreement on important elements, like how to word statutory language defining who counts as a communications service provider, according to several officials familiar with the deliberations.

Manufacture consent for evil and evil becomes good.

The U.S. soldiers to face military tribunals for killing Afghan civilians didn’t only slaughter the people, according to the charges against them, but kept trophies ranging from photographs to body parts.

Spencer Ackerman at Wired added: “And if the Army gets its way, that gruesome evidence won’t be public.”

Reuters reported today (via The New York Times):

Army Specialist Jeremy Morlock, 22, from Wasilla, Alaska, is charged with premeditated murder in the deaths of three Afghan civilians, assaulting a fellow soldier and “wrongfully photographing and possessing visual images of human casualties.”

The case of Morlock and his co-defendants could become the grimmest investigation of alleged atrocities by U.S. military personnel during almost nine years of war in Afghanistan.

Reports of grisly photos of Afghan bodies being posed for photos by American troops could be among the more inflammatory revelations to emerge from the case, echoing worldwide outrage stirred by pictures of nude Iraqi prisoners of war taken by U.S. military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The photos referred to in the charging documents “have not been released … as yet to the public,” Army spokeswoman Major Kathleen Turner told Reuters Sunday.

The troops from the 5th Stryker Brigade based in Washington state deployed to Kandahar province a year ago, and the murders occurred between January and March, according to charges by army prosecutors made public this month.

In two of the slayings, fragmentary grenades were thrown at the victims and they were shot, according to charging documents. The third victim also was shot.

Morlock was the first of five soldiers initially charged in June with the murders. Seven others have been charged since then with various other crimes stemming from the investigation, including conspiracy to cover up the slayings.

Four of the soldiers have been charged with keeping body parts, including finger bones, a skull, leg bones and a human tooth.

The sickness isn’t the post-traumatic stress disorder upon returning to everyday life, but the programming of the U.S. military of human beings to dehumanize themselves to further dehumanize others.

Case and point: if the public heard of soldiers treating dogs and cats this way, they’d actually be outraged.

How long before that’s the line derived from this New York Times article?:

Last year, Mr. Ghailani became the first detainee moved from Guantánamo into the civilian system, as President Obama declared his intention to try terrorism suspects in federal court whenever feasible, fueling a debate on whether the civilian or the military system was better for such cases.

The president’s effort has stalled with the controversy over moving detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed into civilian court. But Mr. Ghailani has now entered the discussion, expressing strong opinions on the merits of each system and his preference for the rules of civilian justice, as part of 16 hours of discussion with a psychiatrist who evaluated him last spring and quoted him extensively in a report.

“When I was at Gitmo, they were able to use hearsay evidence,” Mr. Ghailani told the doctor. “Here, they have constitutional rights.”

In addition to his own experiences, Mr. Ghailani freely credits another, surprising source for his more than working knowledge of how the legal system operates—numerous John Grisham novels he has read and one that he has seen as a movie: A Time to Kill.

John Grisham’s like the Anwar al-Awlaki of Gitmo, I guess.

Wait, does that mean the oft-quoted-by-teabaggers Thomas Jefferson is like Osama bin Laden?

Of course, the same people who imply that supporting the supremacy of the Constitution over authoritative decrees of government agents is somehow anti-American, terrorism, evil, socialist, etc., are the same who firmly believe doctors should have gubment-guns in their face to force them from not providing a woman with the service of safely aborting her pregnancy. How Taliban of the conservadroolers…

I guess it’s literally “Don’t Tread on Me”, as in “Don’t Tread on Me, Only Them, Whoever I Declare ‘Them’ To Be, You Know, Just Because.”

Foreign occupation is one thing. Extending absolute authority and claiming permanent ownership of land is an extension of that, which is the vulgarity of the four-decade-plus Israeli occupation of the Palestinian West Bank.

The 10-month “settlement freeze” loosely executed by the Israeli government expired Sunday and the bulldozers were out in full effect by Monday morning, Chaim Levinson and Barak Ravid reported today at Ha’aretz.

Maria Kornalian and Tom Kutsch wrote at Foreign Policy‘s “Middle East Channel” blog’s “Daily News Brief”:

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu refused to extend the 10-month partial freeze on settlements, which he allowed to expire at midnight on Sunday. The Prime Minister urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to continue engaging in peace talks, despite the resumption of settlement construction. “I call on President Abbas to continue with the good and honest talks we have just embarked upon, in an attempt to reach a historic peace agreement between our two peoples,” Netanyahu said today. Abbas has put off a decision on whether or not to continue with direct negotiations while he consults other Arab governments. He has yet to release an official response to Israel’s resumption of settlement construction, but said on Sunday in Paris that Israel would have to make a decision: “Either peace or settlements.”

The official discourse remains that Mr. Abbas is the bad guy if refuses to budge on settlement expansion, though it’s uncontroversial that land authority, occupation, and usage are the core of all border disputes between governing apparatchiks.

The Ha’aretz report added:

Construction of dozens of housing units also resumed in the settlements of Ravava, Yakir and Kochav a Hashachar, where bulldozers began clearing ground for new developments, which received permits before the freeze began.

Settlers currently have plans for around 2,000 new homes across the West Bank. Of these, around 600 have up-to-date paperwork and are expected to be completed in the coming months.

Construction is expected to begin on Tuesday at a number of sites including Shavei Shomron, Adam, Oranit, Sha’arei Tikva, Kedumim and Karmei Tzur. A cornerstone is to be laid for a new neighborhood in the southern West Bank settlement of Beit Hagai, with construction set to start soon.

After the Sukkot holiday, the Yesha Council of settlements and local West Bank councils are expected to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into approving new construction.

The ruling party of the State of Israel lobbied for U.S. congressional consent for settlement expansion at the same time so-called “peace talks” began between Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said over a week ago of renewing the freeze-in-principle, “Well, that certainly is our hope.”

In action, the U.S. government is rewarding Tel Aviv’s actions with $2.75bn in free fighter jets for its Air Force “that allow preemptive strikes”.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a lawsuit, representing the rights of New Mexico cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, in the attempt to force the Obama Administration “needs to present evidence before assassinating the U.S. citizen”, Jason Ditz wrote yesterday at AntiWar News.

To which the Administration “is fighting tooth and nail”, he added, to “kill” the suit—citing The Bushian Imperial Presidency philosophy:

In fact the papers filed by the Justice Department attempting to quash the case argue that the court system should have absolutely no oversight over the administration’s sudden, bizarre claim that it can assassinate any American citizen it wants on the basis of nation security, arguing that such issues are “for the executive branch of the government to decide rather than the courts.”Though officials have alleged that Awlaki has active ties to Al Qaeda, they have never presented publicly any evidence of this claim, and cite “state secrets” to the court as one of the many reasons they should never have to. Instead officials point to Awlaki’s well publicized sermons criticizing American foreign policy as proof that he is a threat.

The assertion of the authoritarian “state secrets” privilege by the Administration is—as constitutional lawyer and Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald wrote over the weekend—”an all-new low in its abysmal civil liberties record”, adding:

As a reminder:  Obama supporters who are dutifully insisting that the President not only has the right to order American citizens killed without due process, but to do so in total secrecy, on the ground that Awlaki is a Terrorist and Traitor, are embracing those accusations without having the slightest idea whether they’re actually true.  All they know is that Obama has issued these accusations, which is good enough for them.  That’s the authoritarian mind, by definition:  if the Leader accuses a fellow citizen of something, then it’s true — no trial or any due process at all is needed and there is no need even for judicial review before the decreed sentence is meted out, even when the sentence is death.For those reciting the “Awlaki-is-a-traitor” mantra, there’s also the apparently irrelevant matter that Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution (the document which these same Obama supporters pretended to care about during the Bush years) provides that “No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.”  Treason is a crime that the Constitution specifically requires be proven with due process in court, not by unilateral presidential decree.  And that’s to say nothing of the fact that the same document—the Constitution—expressly forbids the deprivation of life “without due process of law.” This one sentence from [The Washington Post] article nicely summarizes the state of Obama’s civil liberties record:

The Obama administration has cited the state-secrets argument in at least three cases since taking office—in defense of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, surveillance of an Islamic charity, and the torture and rendition of C.I.A. prisoners.

And now, in this case, Obama uses this secrecy and immunity weapon not to shield Bush lawlessness from judicial review, but his own.

Mr. Greenwald also added that Charlie Savage at The New York Times “wrote about the possibility that Obama might raise this argument“.

A majority of Americans oppose the U.S. military intervening in armed conflict between Israel and Iran, a poll conducted by The Chicago Council on Global Affairs found [.pdf].

Presented with the scenario of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, 56% of those polled said “the United States should not bring its military forces into such a conflict, with 38% saying it should”, the study found as “most striking”. Only 50% said they would oppose U.S. defense of Israel against an attack by a neighboring state military, with 47% support such foreign intervention.

Despite media lies and aggressive lobbying for more blowing-shit-up-around-the-world policy, Iran is not a nuclear threat to anyone. If you still believe the manufactured hype that it is, read AntiWar Radio host Scott Horton’s recent op-ed at The Christian Science Monitor.

• US group releases West Bank settlements iPhone app | AFP 21 September 2010
• Afghanistan says over 3,000 complaints about vote | AFP 21 September 2010
• Judge upholds Guantanamo detention in rare government win – Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy 21 September 2010
• U.S. Air War Soars in ‘Post-Combat’ Iraq – Noah Shachtman | Wired.com 21 September 2010
• Feds: Privacy Does Not Exist in ‘Public Places’ – David Kravets | Wired.com 21 September 2010
• CUBA: Black Women Face Double Discrimination, Half Century After Revolution – Patricia Grogg | IPS 21 September 2010
• U.S.: FBI Chastised for Spying on Activists – William Fisher | IPS 21 September 2010
• IRAQ: After False Promises, the Heat Is On – Abdu Rahman and Dahr Jamail | IPS 21 September 2010
• Great Recession ended in June 2009, but who knew? | McClatchy 21 September 2010
• One and a Half Cheers for American Decline: The Future’s Not Ours and That’s Good News – Tom Engelhardt | Truthout 21 September 2010
• Wisdom of the Terrorist’s Son – Chris Hedges | Truthdig 21 September 2010
• Gold Hits Record, 2-Year Yield at All-Time Low on Fed Statement | Bloomberg 21 September 2010
• Somali prime minister resigns | The Guardian 21 September 2010
• Gulf States Order $123 Billion of U.S. Weaponry to Counter Iran, FT Says | Bloomberg 21 September 2010
• ACLU Sues Pittsburgh Police Over post-G-20 Conduct | AP 21 September 2010
• Picturing War’s Wounded and Dead – C.J.Chivers | NY Times 21 September 2010
• China Launches First Cross-Border Air Strike Drill | AP 21 September 2010
• Ga. Execution Delayed After Suicide Attempt | AP 21 September 2010
• Officials – US Drones Kill 6 Militants in Pakistan | AP 21 September 2010
• Kyrgyz leader seeks to bar U.S. contractors from supplying fuel to American base | WaPo 21 September 2010
• Brazil quickly becoming a player in the global economy | WaPo 21 September 2010
• FBI misled Justice about spying on peace group – Jeff Stein | WaPo 21 September 2010
• The New Saudi Arms Deal – Stephen M. Walt | Foreign Policy 21 September 2010
• Secret Police Stage More ‘Terrorism’ | LewRockwell.com Blog 21 September 2010
• Grayson Sends Letter Demanding Halt Of Illegal Foreclosures, Calls Out “Largest Seizure Of Private Property Ever Attempted By Banks And Government” | zero hedge 21 September 2010
• Omar Khadr is 24 Today: He Has Lost One-Third of His Life in US Custody | Andy Worthington 21 September 2010
• Fed Injects Record $5 Billion Into Stock Market With Today’s POMO | zero hedge 21 September 2010
• I can print more money than you can – Buttonwood Blog | The Economist 21 September 2010
• An Awesome MSM Clip on Iran – Eric Garris | Antiwar.com Blog 21 September 2010
• Jason Ditz on Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton 21 September 2010
• Israel Floats Idea of Swapping Settlement Freeze for US Spy | Antiwar.com 21 September 2010
• Helicopter Crash Makes 2010 Deadliest Of Afghan War | NY Times 21 September 2010
• They Died for Iran – Sheldon Richman | FFF 19 September 2010
• Reality check: Iran is not a nuclear threat – Scott Horton | CSMonitor.com 19 September 2010
• Israel’s settlements key to peace talk progress | AP 17 September 2010
• Lockheed Martin gets role in $2.8B IT contract | AP 17 September 2010
• Non-Aligned Movement backs Iran – Kaveh L Afrasiabi | Asia Times 17 September 2010
• Minority Rules – Paul O’Mahony | Foreign Policy 17 September 2010

21 Sept 2010 | C4SS

Steve Biko had a saying: “The oppressor’s most powerful weapon is the mind of the oppressed.” The state’s ideological indoctrination is far from perfect. But all too many people are still successfully conditioned by the state’s legitimizing ideology not to see certain internal contradictions in the state’s claims, or to ask questions that would seem obvious to anyone not trained to suppress certain kinds of logical connections.

One example of a question that’s not asked, a logical connection that’s not made, is the tendency to judge the state by the professed intentions of its spokesmen rather than by its actions. Closely associated with it is the tendency to judge the state by its professed intentions, while judging private actors by their actions.

For instance, Michigan Congressman Mike Rogers recently argued that U.S. Army PFC Bradley Manning should be considered guilty of murder: “We know for a fact that people will likely be killed because of this information being disclosed.”

You don’t think anyone “knew for a fact” that people would be killed when Bush initiated wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? So why isn’t an American President guilty of murder when he commits troops to a war?

Lots of public figures have argued that the idiot preacher from Florida who wanted to burn the Quran on 9-11 would be responsible for increased bloodshed. Glenn Greenwald asks at his Salon blog, in response, whether “establishment-serving, power-worshipping” commentators “would ever in a million years use language like that to condemn American officials who have actually spilled enormous amounts of blood?”

As Alexander Berkman pointed out in Now and After: The ABC of Anarchism (1929) in response to people who wrung their hands over anarchists’ alleged bomb-throwing and violence: “When a citizen puts on a soldier’s uniform, he may have to throw bombs and use violence.” The commands of the state, by their very nature, depend on force and violence. If the state was not, as Poul Anderson put it, the agency that reserves the right to kill anyone who disobeys it, why — its commands would be mere suggestions.

It follows, Berkman argued, that “we are so steeped in the spirit of violence that we never stop to ask whether violence is right or wrong. We only ask if it is legal, whether the law permits it. You don’t question the right of the government to kill, to confiscate and imprison. If a private person should be guilty of the things the government is doing all the time, you’d brand him a murderer, thief, and scoundrel. ”

Critics of anarchism demonize a hypothetical stateless society on the grounds that it will be unable to completely stamp out violence and crime—implicitly assuming that the state is fully successful in stamping out those things.

No, sad to say, voluntary associations in a stateless society wouldn’t be able to prevent a hundred percent of murders, robberies, and rapes. Unlike the state we live under now, which guarantees 100% effective crime prevention or your money back. Seriously, if you call 911 to report that a guy with a hockey mask and a hook for a hand is fiddling around with your back window screens, the state is under absolutely no legal obligation to get cops to your house before he eviscerates you and hangs you in the freezer. It’s not like you’re the customer or anything.

Never mind, as we saw above, that the state itself actively engages in murder, robbery and rape.

And this doesn’t just refer to those other, bad states, the official enemies of the good guys in the United States government—as bad as their death tolls have been. After WWII, the U.S. government itself was the world’s biggest job retraining program for Nazi war criminals. Left-wing resistance movements throughout the European and Pacific theaters were divested of the ground they held at the end of the war, and in many cases former Axis collaborators were put in control of provisional governments installed by the Allies. In the ensuing decades, the U.S. has been an overflowing source of fraternal aid and assistance to right-wing death squads and military dictators all over the world. In Central America alone, the death toll from military regimes installed by the U.S. and death squads trained by the U.S. extends into the millions. Under Operation Condor in South America, a series of coups—starting with Brazil—extended over most of the continent. And then there’s Mobutu, Suharto …

We need to start judging the state by its actions, not its words. And we need to judge the actions of the state by the same standards we use to judge everyone else.

Kevin Carson is a research associate at the Center for a Stateless Society, contemporary mutualist author and individualist anarchist whose written work includes Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Organization Theory: An Individualist Anarchist Perspective. Mr. Carson has also written for a variety of internet-based journals and blogs, including Just Things, The Art of the Possible, the P2P Foundation and his own Mutualist Blog.

• Report: $2.75bn U.S. Fighter Jet Welfare to Israel Approved While One in Seven Americans Live in Poverty – Sayyid | Little Alex in Wonderland 16 September 2010
• Israel decides to buy F-35 fighter jets, despite row over cost of deal | Haaretz 16 September 2010
• U.S. urges Arab countries to leave Israel off the agenda at IAEA conference | Haaretz 16 September 2010
• U.S.: Forget ‘Ground Zero Mosque’, It’s the Great Sharia Conspiracy – Daniel Luban | IPS 16 September 2010
• U.S.: Rights Groups Leery of Surge in Wartime Contractors – William Fisher | IPS 16 September 2010
• US puts no timeline on Japan base resolution | AFP 16 September 2010
• Venezuela’s economy: Disappearing dollars | The Economist 16 September 2010
• U.S. transfers 2 more Guantanamo detainees — to Germany – Carol Rosenberg | McClatchy 16 September 2010
• 15 Die in Somalia as Parliament Demands Gov’t Vote | AP 16 September 2010
• Senate Passes Bill to Aid Small Businesses | NY Times 16 September 2010
• One in seven Americans is living in poverty, Census shows | WaPo 16 September 2010
• DNA Evidence Clears Two Men Who Served 30 Years Each For Rape | ABC News 16 September 2010
• Taxing American Competitiveness – Jacob F. Kirkegaard and Arvind Subramanian | Foreign Policy 16 September 2010
• Did Ban just hire the first female Secretary General? | Turtle Bay 16 September 2010
• NATO troops shoot armed protester in South Afghanistan | Reuters 16 September 2010
• Israel bombs Gaza tunnels as leaders talk peace | BBC News 16 September 2010
• Report: U.S. suggests 3-month extension to settlement freeze | Haaretz 16 September 2010
• US ‘open to talks with North Korea’ | AJ English 16 September 2010
• US homes lost to foreclosure up 25 pct on year | AP 16 September 2010
• US jobless claims fall faster than expected | AFP 16 September 2010
• Under IAEA Pressure, Syria And Iran Point to Israel | Reuters 16 September 2010
• Nuclear detectors a $4 billion bust, GAO says – Jeff Stein | WaPo 16 September 2010
• Public opinion and the war in Afghanistan – Glenn Greenwald | Salon.com 16 September 2010
• Gold Takes Out All Stops As It Hits New Record, Approaches $1,280 | zero hedge 16 September 2010
• Real IRA threatens attacks on banks | AJ English 16 September 2010
• Afghan progress like ‘watching grass grow’: Petraeus | AFP 16 September 2010
• IMF approves 451-million-dollar loan for flood-hit Pakistan | AFP 16 September 2010
• Administration vows to get tough with China | AP 16 September 2010

A panel headed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved the purchase of 20 F-35 for the Israeli Air Force (I.A.F.), Thursday, Barak Ravid reported today at Ha’aretz.

The jets are valued at an estimated $2.75bn are in the deal. “The entire deal will be funded by American military,” Mr Ravid added:

Negotiations dragged on for more than two years amid several disagreements; many revolved around the I.A.F.’s demands that Israeli-made systems be installed for specialties such as electronic warfare and communications. Israel also wanted to expand the plane’s capacity to allow it to carry Israeli-made missiles.

The Americans declined, however, insisting that the deal was a “closed package” and none of the components could be altered. In any case, the F-35 will give the I.A.F. outstanding radar-dodging capabilities that allow preemptive strikes against enemy states with advanced air defense technologies.

The first jets are expected to arrive in Israel in 2015. Over/under on how many governments are labeled by Washington as “states who sponsor terrorism” between now and then?

Meanwhile, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today that poverty in America is at a 15-year-high, as Al Jazeera English reported:

The report showed that one in seven Americans lived in poverty last year, while the overall poverty rate climbed to 14.3 per cent, or 43.6 million people, from 13.2 per cent, or 39.8 million people, in 2008.

The figures showed that the poverty rate in 2009 was the highest since 1994, but was 8.1 percentage points lower than the poverty rate in 1959, the first year for which poverty estimates are available, the Census Bureau said.

Obama called 2009 a tough year for working families but said it could have been worse.

Yeah, it could’ve. The U.S. military could’ve donated the 75 jets requested by Tel Aviv.

• Khmer Rouge Leaders Indicted | NY Times 16 September 2010
• Small Business Can’t Get Loans From Bailed-Out Banks in U.S. | Bloomberg 16 September 2010
• Mideast talks: Israel, Palestinians wrap up latest round of peace talks without announcing breakthrough | LA Times 16 September 2010
• Washington peace talks: democracy need not apply – Matthew Cassel | ei 16 September 2010
• Report: Illegal drug use up sharply last year | AP 16 September 2010
• U.S. may sue oil companies in gulf spill | LA Times 16 September 2010
• Small-business aid: Senate clears way for Obama administration package | LA Times 16 September 2010
• GOP fiscal plan would raise debt $4 trillion: report | Raw Story 16 September 2010
• Doubling of Night Raids Backfired in Kandahar – Gareth Porter | Antiwar.com 16 September 2010
• Greece: Pakistani workers go on strike after police raid | Infoshop News 16 September 2010
• Little Resistance as US Invades ‘Key’ Kandahar Village | Antiwar.com 16 September 2010
• U.S. Import Prices Rose More Than Forecast in August | Bloomberg 16 September 2010
• WTO Rules Boeing Got Illegal U.S. Aid, Officials Say | Bloomberg 16 September 2010
• Lehman Defies Bankruptcy to Become a Business Again | Bloomberg 16 September 2010
• U.S. Auditors Question Pentagon on GE Engine’s Cost | Bloomberg 16 September 2010
• Zawahri Tape Criticizes Pakistan | Reuters 16 September 2010
• Myanmar Expands Private Banks With Military Ties | Reuters 16 September 2010
• India – Police Kill 4 Protesters | AP 16 September 2010
• Rethinking the Process for BP Oil Spill Claims | NY Times 16 September 2010
• U.S. Debates Response to Targeted Killing Lawsuit | NY Times 16 September 2010
• U.S. Divided on Aid to Counter Qaeda Threat in Yemen | NY Times 16 September 2010
  
• Police and Anti-American Protesters Clash in Kabul | NY Times 16 September 2010
• Musharraf Claims Support for a Comeback | NY Times 16 September 2010
• Global Crisis Adds to Surge of Labor Disputes in Chinese Courts | NYTimes.com 16 September 2010
• Blackwater Murder Trial Begins In Virginia | AP 16 September 2010
• Introducing the Definitive List of the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo | Andy Worthington 16 September 2010
• Report: U.S. Troops ‘Still Killing Civilians’ in Iraq | Little Alex in Wonderland 16 September 2010
• US Drone Strikes Kill 15 in N. Waziristan | Informed Comment 16 September 2010
• Blackwater’s Black Ops – Jeremy Scahill | The Nation 15 September 2010
• WikiLeaks to release more Iraq War files (Video) | msnbc 15 September 2010
• Artists Make More Money in File-Sharing Age Than Before It | TorrentFreak 15 September 2010
• GAO: Iraq Should Spend Surplus on Arms | Antiwar.com 15 September 2010
• Israeli Govt: They Hate Us For Our Freedom | Antiwar.com 15 September 2010
• Because the System’s Not Rigged Enough for Cops and Prosecutors – Kevin Carson | Little Alex in Wonderland 15 September 2010
• Kashmir voices: ‘We are angry’ | BBC News 15 September 2010
• Government Using Anti-Terrorism Laws to Crush Dissent | zero hedge 14 September 2010
• Amnesty International slams Iraq over prison torture | McClatchy 14 September 2010

16 Sept 2010 | InfoShop News

A joint U.S.-Iraqi counterterrorism operation outside of Fallujah on Wednesday was reported by Janine Zacharia at The Washington Post as “the deadliest incident involving U.S. troops since the United States declared an end to its combat operations in Iraq on Aug. 31″.

Iraqi and U.S. officials differed on their head-counts of civilian casualties, but it’s another clear “indication that the U.S. War in Iraq is not over: they are still killing civilians”, Jason Ditz wrote at AntiWar News.

“Iraqi officials said eight civilians were killed, while the U.S. military said four suspected members of al-Qaeda in Iraq and two civilians died in a firefight,” Ms. Zacharia added, though: “Among the dead, they said, were a 70-year-old man and three of his sons, who were all asleep in their yard when they were killed by a grenade. A fourth son died at a hospital, the Iraqi officials said.”

Timothy Williams and Duraid Adnan reported at The New York Times: “Four of the dead were brothers between the ages of 10 and 18, according to the Iraqi police and residents of the area.”

The rationing of electricity has forced many Iraqis to sleep outside and the Iraqi forces said to be initiating operations are being widely regarded as violence-by-choice, rather than necessity, Mr. Ditz added:

Since post-invasion Iraq has near constant blackouts most Iraqis sleep outdoors in the summer to escape the heat.Provincial officials complained that neither the Americans, nor the Iraqi security forces involved in the attack informed them of the planned attack, and it seems there was little indication of any coordination. The Iraqi forces were said to have been part of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office, a security force which has often come under fire for acting as a de facto private militia to Maliki.

The attack is just the latest in a growing number of combat missions the U.S. troops have taken part in since the Obama Administration announced its fake end to the Iraq War earlier this month and claimed that all combat was over. It should be pointed out that in this case there doesn’t appear to have been any actual combat but just summary killings.

Ms. Zacharia is wrong to classify this as the “deadliest” event related to U.S. combat since the Administration’s re-branding of the war, though it has the resulted in the largest amount of civilian casualties.

In two previous incidents involving gunfire from U.S. troops, three were killed in a firefight earlier this week and twelve earlier in the month.

The Obama Administration renamed the U.S. effort in Iraq to “Operation New Dawn” last month after lowering the troop presence to under 50,000, including 4,500 U.S. Special Operations Forces for ‘kill or capture’ missions.

14 Sept 2010 | C4SS

Rupert Myers, at the Guardian (“Tricks and cheats are the price of cutting legal aid”), recently did a bit of hand-wringing about the role of crowdsourced law (i.e. free legal advice websites) in providing those accused of traffic and child support offenses, among other things, with handy tips for beating the system:

… [W]ith the capacity to share approaches to defence has come the temptation in forums to share advice which, if followed, would result in a miscarriage of justice. … Every case in which a defendant employs a sharp tactic to win a trial, or exploits a loophole discussed online, is one that costs the taxpayer.

Why, gasps Myers, these things might “undermine the very legitimacy and effectiveness of the justice system”!  Heaven forfend! Because it was, you know, so much more legitimate when it was easier for cops and prosecutors to railroad people into jail.

I don’t know how things are in the U.K., but here in the U.S. the very idea of someone whining that online sharing of “tricks and cheats” is unfair to the poor downtrodden cops and prosecutors is enough to make me puke.

The whole system is rigged so that about the only way a cop can get fired or prosecuted is when they’re actually recorded shooting an unarmed person in the back and planting a gun on them, or go around bragging and waving the feces-smeared broom handle they raped a prisoner with. Even when a cop’s caught on video using excessive force, they’ll most likely be put on paid suspension until the police commission finds “no evidence of wrongdoing” and that “all procedures were followed.”

What’s more, cops have their own form of “crowdsourced” lawyering up. Police forces, just as much as prisons, are “colleges of crime.” The lore of police work is full of helpful hints on manufacturing probable cause for invading the homes of people cops “know” are guilty despite the lack of any real evidence, perjuring themselves to obtain warrants, obtaining warrants based on coerced testimony from jailhouse snitches, training police dogs to “alert” on command, tricking or bullying people into giving confessions without a lawyer present in violation of the spirit of Miranda, and using every shred of power they possess under the letter—and punctuation marks—of the law to harrass people who fall afoul of them. Any time a cop finds another trick or cheat, another loophole for evading the spirit of a thousand years of common law due process rights and turning the Fourth Amendment into toilet paper, it will circulate among the Brotherhood faster than crib notes in a frat house.

If you publicize police misconduct, your troubles have only begun. Never mind what the law says — if you’re spotted recording a beating with your cell phone camera, you’ll probably be arrested for it. And if you post footage online of unruly cops  (terrorizing people in a bar while off-duty, staggering around publicly urinating during Law Enforcement Day festivities, etc.), you can count on  anonymous death threats from the Brotherhood.

As for prosecutors: In every single story I’ve ever seen where subsequent evidence exonerated a convict, the prosecutor in the case fought tooth and nail to prevent the case being reopened. Compared to the “injustice” of tarnishing the prosecutor’s conviction ratio in the face of an upcoming election, the prospect of an innocent person rotting away in hell is small potatoes.

There’s also the venerable prosecutorial practice of suppressing evidence during the original trial. Take Nancy Grace, the shrill harpy of law-n-order and “victims’ rights” whose philosophy is “They must be guilty, or they wouldn’t have been arrested.” (I wish she’d get whacked on the head with a shovel like Gracie Jane on Boston Legal.)

Nancy had one conviction declared a mistrial and another overturned on appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, the latter on grounds of “inappropriate and illegal conduct in the course of the trial.” Among other things she made an opening statement in which she promised the jury inflammatory evidence she obviously knew would be inadmissible, withheld evidence from the defense, and personally conducted an illegal search accompanied by a CNN camera crew.

The equally despicable Wendy Murphy, who like Grace parleyed her prosecutorial background and her personal hysteria and dishonesty into a career in cheap cable punditry, made endless TV appearances during the Duke lacrosse team case in which just about every assertion of fact she made proved to be a verifiable lie. I doubt this sociopath, who has absolutely no qualms about just making (stuff) up, was any more scrupulous as a prosecutor.

The game is already rigged in favor of cops and prosecutors. Whining about ordinary people using crowdsourced law to even things up strikes me as more than a little perverse.

Kevin Carson is a research associate at the Center for a Stateless Society, contemporary mutualist author and individualist anarchist whose written work includes Studies in Mutualist Political Economy and Organization Theory: An Individualist Anarchist Perspective. Mr. Carson has also written for a variety of internet-based journals and blogs, including Just Things, The Art of the Possible, the P2P Foundation and his own Mutualist Blog.

• China’s currency hits fresh high against US dollar | AP 14 September 2010
• Immigrant rights: Illegal immigrants held in isolated jails struggle for legal help, survey finds | LA Times 14 September 2010
• Warlords, alleged killers seek re-election to Afghan parliament | McClatchy 14 September 2010
• Cuban jobs going private in overhaul | MiamiHerald.com 14 September 2010
• Drill Held to Detainee’s Head: Ex-CIA Agents Confirm Torture at Polish Black Site | SPIEGEL ONLINE 14 September 2010
• Yen Climbs to 15-Year High Versus Dollar as Kan Wins DPJ Vote | Bloomberg 14 September 2010
• Gold Futures Surge to Record $1,276.50 an Ounce on Haven Demand | Bloomberg 14 September 2010
• New book says President Bush broke laws on torture | Reuters 14 September 2010
• French Senate Passes Full Islamic Veils Ban | AP 14 September 2010
• Israel Accused of Not Probing Palestinian Deaths | NY Times 14 September 2010
• More Trouble Foreseen for Kabul Bank | NY Times 14 September 2010
• New Afghan Corruption Inquiries Frozen | NY Times 14 September 2010
• In Iraq, Clearer Image of U.S. Support | NY Times 14 September 2010
• Civil Rights Photographer Unmasked as Informer | NY Times 14 September 2010
• Released U.S. Hiker Leaves Iran | NY Times 14 September 2010
• US: Arab States Must Drop Call for Israel to Join NPT | Antiwar.com 14 September 2010

• Up to 750,000 ‘special needs’ pupils are just badly taught | Mail Online 14 September 2010
• Study Shows How the Innocent Confess to Crimes | NY Times 14 September 2010
• Racial Disparities Found in School Suspensions | NY Times 14 September 2010
• Evidence Mounts of BP Spraying Toxic Dispersants – Dahr Jamail | Truthout 14 September 2010
• Report: ‘Largest Military Deal Ever’ Between U.S.-Saudis Could Reach $90bn | Little Alex in Wonderland 14 September 2010
• Gaza economy grew 16 pct in 2010: IMF | AFP 14 September 2010
• Iraq, US dispute Amnesty prison abuse claims | AFP 13 September 2010
• U.S.-Saudi Arms Deal Moves Ahead | WSJ 13 September 2010
• Thinking About Anarchism: But People Are Selfish | Infoshop News 13 September 2010
• From the IMF Resistance Network: Beyond the Local/ Global Dichotomy | Infoshop News 13 September 2010
• Response Is Cautious to Israel’s Settlements Signal | NY Times 13 September 2010
• F.C.C. Is to Open Unlicensed Airwaves to Wireless Innovators | NY Times 13 September 2010
• Afghan Commander Issues Rules on Contractors | NY Times 13 September 2010
• 2 Afghans Killed in Protest Over Planned Koran Burning | NY Times 13 September 2010
• Fellow Americans’ Suspicions Frustrate US Muslims | AP 13 September 2010
• Student Loan Defaults Are Still Rising | NY Times 13 September 2010
• Air strikes kill 14 in Afghanistan: NATO | AFP 13 September 2010
• Over 100 million dollars unprotected in Japan failed bank | AFP 13 September 2010
• Indian forces kill 17 in clashes spurred by reports of Tenn. Koran burning | WaPo 13 September 2010
• US Debt-to-Deficit Difference Hits Fresh Record, As Treasury Continues To Issue 50% More Debt Than Needed To Fund Deficit | zero hedge 13 September 2010
• Why It’s Not Really Obama’s Fault | Stephen M. Walt 13 September 2010
• Do Not Pity the Democrats – Chris Hedges | Truthdig 13 September 2010
• U.S. Troops See Combat in Iraq… Again | Little Alex in Wonderland 13 September 2010
• The lie behind mass ‘suicides’ of Egypt’s young women – Robert Fisk | The Independent 9 September 2010
• Weary of drug war, Mexico debates legalization | McClatchy 9 September 2010
• Fidel Castro: Cuba’s economic model is broken | MiamiHerald.com 9 September 2010
• US soldier ‘kept Afghan body parts’ | AJ English 9 September 2010
• SCOTUS: Corporations can Buy Judges | Washington’s Blog 9 September 2010
• Iran to free one of three jailed US hikers | The Guardian 9 September 2010
• Video: Serbia drops challenge to Kosovo independence | The Guardian 9 September 2010
• Islamist militants blamed after suicide bomb kills 16 in Russian Orthodox city | The Guardian 9 September 2010
• PA Rules Out Recognizing Israel as ‘Jewish State’ | Antiwar.com 9 September 2010
• Islam and America’s Most Powerful Cult – M. Junaid Levesque-Alam | Antiwar.com 9 September 2010
• UN: More Than 230 Civilians Killed in Two Weeks in Mogadishu | Antiwar.com 9 September 2010
• US Court Sides With CIA On Rendition and Torture Case | Antiwar.com 9 September 2010
• Children Among 24 Killed as US Drone Strikes Rock Pakistan | Antiwar.com 9 September 2010
• EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Government Loaned Mexican Government More Than $1 Billion to Drill Oil in Gulf of Mexico Last Year; Has $1 Billion More Planned For This Year | CNS News 8 September 2010

On top of a package that could be worth up to $30bn to upgrade the Saudi Navy, the Obama Administration is setting the stage to present a $60bn arms deal before the Congress between the Saudi royal family and the military-industrial complex of the U.S., Adam Entous reported yesterday at The Wall Street Journal.

The “largest arms deal ever”, he added, will be politically sold “as a major job creator—supporting at least 75,000 jobs, according to company estimates—and sees the sale of advanced fighter jets and military helicopters to key Middle Eastern ally Riyadh as part of a broader policy aimed at shoring up Arab allies against Iran”.

Corporations on the profiting side of the deal include the usual suspects: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, etc.:

The $60 billion in fighter jets and helicopters is the top-line amount requested by the Saudis, even though the kingdom is likely to commit initially to buying only about half that amount.

In a notification to Congress, expected to be submitted this week or next, the administration will authorize the Saudis to buy as many as 84 new F-15 fighters, upgrade 70 more, and purchase three types of helicopters—70 Apaches, 72 Black Hawks and 36 Little Birds, officials said.

[...]Talks are also underway to expand Saudi Arabia’s ballistic-missile defenses. The U.S. is encouraging the Saudis to buy systems known as THAAD—Terminal High Altitude Defense—and to upgrade its Patriot missiles to reduce the threat from Iranian rockets. U.S. officials said it was unclear how much this package would be worth.

The U.S. has sought to build up missile defense across the region, and the Saudi package could be similar to one in the United Arab Emirates, officials said. THAAD is built by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Raytheon Co. supplies the system’s radar. THAAD is the first system designed to defend against short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles both inside and outside the Earth’s atmosphere. It complements the lower-aimed Patriot missile defense system, providing a layered defense.

Lockheed officials have stated that they see serious export potential for the system in the Middle East, where a major concern exists about Iran’s ballistic missile development.

The prospect for job growth could help build support in Congress for the $60 billion package, officials said. “It’s a big economic sale for the U.S. and the argument is that it is better to create jobs here than in Europe,” said one person close to the talks.

Boeing Co., which makes the F-15s, the Apaches and the Little Birds, believes the Saudi package would directly or indirectly support 77,000 jobs across 44 states. It is unclear how many jobs, if any, would be supported by the Saudi purchase of Black Hawks, made by Sikorsky. Production levels are already high at Sikorsky, which is owned by United Technologies Co.

The Saudis in recent years have broadened their acquisitions to include more European- and Russian-made weaponry. That thinking was partially behind Riyadh’s 2007 deal to purchase dozens of Eurofighter fighter planes from BAE Systems PLC, Saudi officials said.

The deal has raised concern in Tel Aviv, where the Israeli government—Ha’aretz reported in August—is whining about first dibs, adding:

The two sides agreed that neither would surprise the other by agreeing to a military deal with a third party. A senior source in the U.S. administration told Haaretz the United States has promised Israel it would have priority access to any new weapons system and, in some cases, exclusive rights to buy new weapons systems, as opposed to Arab states.

More than two-thirds of the global arms sold in 2008 involved U.S. corporations, Congressional Research Service found in a report published earlier this year.

13 Sept 2010 | InfoShop News

In a coordinated raid near Baghdad, U.S. ‘non-combat’ troops engaged in combat, supporting Iraqi forces against rebels, Timothy Williams reported Sunday at The New York Times.

Almost a month ago, the Pentagon announced the amount of U.S. troops in Iraq were under 50,000 and that combat operations were over. There has never been any indication that the war to prop up the Iraqi government-without-a-face was over and those ‘residual troops’ were remaining to engage in combat alongside the Iraqi forces’ operations.

The U.S. military’s involvement in this raid was the second such reported combat operation in which it has engaged in firefight since Washington’s announcement it would not be coordinating such operations any longer.

“It was the second major combat U.S. troops have been involved in since the Obama Administration announced the ‘end’ of the combat operations with a series of formal announcements,” Jason Ditz wrote at AntiWar News. “Last week U.S. troops engaged in a fight in Baghdad when insurgents attacked Baghdad military headquarters.” Of the twelve killed, two were of the U.S. Armed Forces.

“The United States military did not confirm its role in the fighting,” Mr. Williams reported, later adding that Iraqi officials confirmed U.S. soldiers fired from helicopters and acted with Iraqi forces on the ground. Three were killed—an “insurgent”, an Iraqi soldier and a local police officer—and ten were wounded in the operation.

“There were no American casualties in the fighting in Hudaidy, a village about 50 miles from Baghdad that has long harbored members of the Sunni insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” he added:

But Iraqi military and civilian officials said American helicopters and some ground troops had taken part after Iraqi forces requested assistance. The Iraqis had come under fire while raiding Sunni insurgent hide-outs in the agricultural area.

[...]

On Sunday, Maj. Dhalib Attiya of the Diyala Police said insurgents had placed bombs at the perimeter of a 12-acre palm grove in Hudaidy to prevent Iraqi forces from approaching.

Some of the fighters then climbed into tall palms and fired at Iraqi Army and police units with sniper rifles, he said.

Isam Shakar Mizher, a member of the security committee of the Diyala Provincial Council, said Iraqi forces sought help from American helicopters after being unable to locate the snipers.

“This support was necessary to deal with some of these targets,” Mr. Mizher said.

After arriving American helicopters fired rockets at the snipers, United States soldiers on the ground helped Iraqi troops defuse at least two bombs planted by insurgents, Iraqi officials said.

The battle started Saturday afternoon after Iraqi security forces arrested at least eight men suspected of having ties to the insurgency, the Iraqi police said.

Not long afterward, Iraqi soldiers and police officers were attacked near the orchard, and a police officer was killed by a bomb. Major Attiya said the Americans did not join the fight until Sunday morning, after the Iraqi military had formally requested assistance.

Mr. Ditz added that it is highly likely the U.S. will definitely keep troops in Iraq past the withdrawal date demanded by the Iraqi Parliament and agreed to by the Bush Administration in late 2008:

Some 50,000 U.S. troops remain on the ground and though the administration is still officially pointing to the end of 2011 as the date for their withdrawal, privately officials say troops will almost certainly remain past that date. Iraqi Defense Minister [Lt. Gen. Abd al-Qadr Muhammed Jassim al-Obaidi] insisted last week that U.S. troops would remain through at least 2016 and might remain more or less forever.