Thursday, September 30, 2010
US Supreme Court is expected to decide this week whether to hear a lawsuit filed by former Abu Ghraib prisoners
Democracy Now! - Headlines for September 27, 2010 - HERE
Abused Iraqi Prisoners Held at Abu Ghraib Never Received Compensation
The Associated Press has revealed that Army records show no Iraqi prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib prison ever received compensation from the United States despite promises by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In 2004 Rumsfeld told Congress that he had found a legal way to compensate Iraqi prisoners who were abused. Rumsfeld said, "It’s the right thing to do. And it is my intention to see that we do." Six years later, no record of payment exists, and the Army cannot verify whether any such payments were made informally through Iraqi leaders. The news come as the Supreme Court is expected to decide this week whether to hear a lawsuit filed by former Abu Ghraib prisoners against two private companies: CACI International and L-3 Services, formerly Titan Corp.
Abu Ghraib Revisited:
Abused Iraqi Prisoners Held at Abu Ghraib Never Received Compensation
The Associated Press has revealed that Army records show no Iraqi prisoners tortured at Abu Ghraib prison ever received compensation from the United States despite promises by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In 2004 Rumsfeld told Congress that he had found a legal way to compensate Iraqi prisoners who were abused. Rumsfeld said, "It’s the right thing to do. And it is my intention to see that we do." Six years later, no record of payment exists, and the Army cannot verify whether any such payments were made informally through Iraqi leaders. The news come as the Supreme Court is expected to decide this week whether to hear a lawsuit filed by former Abu Ghraib prisoners against two private companies: CACI International and L-3 Services, formerly Titan Corp.
Abu Ghraib Revisited:
USA ARMY "KILL TEAM"
More on the subject:
Army ‘Kill Team’ Leader Wanted a Necklace of Fingers
WIRED - Danger Room - September 30, 2010 - by Spencer Ackerman
Army ‘Kill Team’ Leader Wanted a Necklace of Fingers
WATCH THE VIDEO AT:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/army-kill-team-leader-wanted-a-necklace-of-fingers/#ixzz114vXbfEx
Army ‘Kill Team’ Leader Wanted a Necklace of Fingers
WIRED - Danger Room - September 30, 2010 - by Spencer Ackerman
Army ‘Kill Team’ Leader Wanted a Necklace of Fingers
WATCH THE VIDEO AT:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/army-kill-team-leader-wanted-a-necklace-of-fingers/#ixzz114vXbfEx
Thursday, September 23, 2010
"The United States of America Has Gone Mad."
by British novelist John le Carré - 2003
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.
The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.
The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.
But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer’s pocket? At what cost—because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people—in Iraqi lives?
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.
Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I’m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam’s downfall—just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. [...]
What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America’s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us—to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.
The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair’s part in all of this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can’t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can’t get out.
It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain’s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that’s Britain’s tragedy, as it is America’s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. [...]
I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect’s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can’t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.
"But will we win, Daddy?"
"Of course, child. It will all be over while you’re still in bed."
"Why?"
"Because otherwise Mr Bush’s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him."
"But will people be killed, Daddy?"
"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."
"Can I watch it on television?"
"Only if Mr Bush says you can."
"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?"
"Hush child, and go to sleep."
Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he’d finished shopping.
Democracy Now! - Broadcast September 20, 2010
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.
The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.
The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.
But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360 billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer’s pocket? At what cost—because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane people—in Iraqi lives?
How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America’s anger from bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely into the next election.
Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the enemy. Which is odd, because I’m dead against Bush, but I would love to see Saddam’s downfall—just not on Bush’s terms and not by his methods. And not under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.
The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist. [...]
What is at stake is not an imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US growth. What is at stake is America’s need to demonstrate its military power to all of us—to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and who is to be ruled by America abroad.
The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair’s part in all of this is that he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can’t. Instead, he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can’t get out.
It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself against the ropes, neither of Britain’s opposition leaders can lay a glove on him. But that’s Britain’s tragedy, as it is America’s: as our Governments spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks the other way. [...]
I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect’s sophistries to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are shared by all sane men. What he can’t explain is how he reconciles a global assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war, if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the altar.
"But will we win, Daddy?"
"Of course, child. It will all be over while you’re still in bed."
"Why?"
"Because otherwise Mr Bush’s voters will get terribly impatient and may decide not to vote for him."
"But will people be killed, Daddy?"
"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."
"Can I watch it on television?"
"Only if Mr Bush says you can."
"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything horrid any more?"
"Hush child, and go to sleep."
Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by the time he’d finished shopping.
Democracy Now! - Broadcast September 20, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Rape, Sexual Violence and Impunity - "Hitting Bottom"
UN Security Council condemns rapes, urges justice (Congo)
http://jurist.org/paperchase/2010/09/un-security-council-condemns-drc-mass-rapes-urges-justice.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pitt%2FvLdl+%28JURIST+-+Paper+Chase+%5Bfull%5D%29
http://jurist.org/paperchase/2010/09/un-security-council-condemns-drc-mass-rapes-urges-justice.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pitt%2FvLdl+%28JURIST+-+Paper+Chase+%5Bfull%5D%29
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Yusuf Islam in London. - Don't Be Shy
Yusuf Islam was born Steven Demetre Georgiou in London, England and was originally and commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens.
Black Ops Mercenaries servicing the Canadian military
The Nation Magazine - September 15, 2010
by Jeremy Scahill
The article at:
http://www.thenation.com/article/154739/blackwaters-black-ops
Interview:
by Jeremy Scahill
The article at:
http://www.thenation.com/article/154739/blackwaters-black-ops
Interview:
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping, and the New Imperialism by Sherene H. Razack
Sherene H. Razack is also the author of :
Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslins from Western Law and Politics
2008 - Sherene Razack - ISBN 978-0802094971
Sherene H. Razack looks at how "race thinking" supports the idea that the suspension of rights for racialized groups is warranted in the interests of national security. She points out to "race thinking" as being a structure of thought that divides up the world between the deserving and undeserving according to racial descent.
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
George Santayana , 1905 - Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner's, 1905, page 284
Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslins from Western Law and Politics
2008 - Sherene Razack - ISBN 978-0802094971
Sherene H. Razack looks at how "race thinking" supports the idea that the suspension of rights for racialized groups is warranted in the interests of national security. She points out to "race thinking" as being a structure of thought that divides up the world between the deserving and undeserving according to racial descent.
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
George Santayana , 1905 - Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner's, 1905, page 284
The "Somalia Affair" (1993) Revisited
John le Carré - his final interview to BBC Channel 4 - Sep 13 2010
Carré talks about how he likes writing about interrogation. He talks about his position on "the other sort of interrogation"...
" I have complete contempt for the other sort of interrogation"
" I have complete contempt for the other sort of interrogation"
Sunday, September 12, 2010
The chilling truth behind the book "The Man who Stare at Goats" - From the Hawaiian Islands to Fort Bragg , Abu Ghraib and the world
A look at the revelations about a top-secret wing of the U.S. military and the real men and real events that inspired Jon Ronson's book "The Men Who Stare at Goats". From music as a form of torture to "terminal human experiments", Project MKULTRA, Project Artichoke and more.
PS: Jim Channon, Sergeant Glenn Wheaton and Major Ed Dames were all living in the Hawaiian Islands when they were interviewed for the book.
More about Jon Ronson's book "The Men Who Stare at Goats" at:
Psychic Spies, Acid Guinea Pigs, New Age Soldiers: the True Men Who Stare at Goats - by David Humbling - Wired- Danger Room - Nov 6, 2009
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/psychic-spies-acid-guinea-pigs-new-age-gis-the-true-men-who-stare-at-goats/
Inside the Army's Far-Out Acid Tests - by David Humbling - Wired- Danger Room - Nov 5, 2009
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/inside-the-armys-far-out-acid-tests/
"Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all-highest?" CIA agent George White's resignation letter to Sidney Gottlieb, one of the architects of Projects Mkultra and Artichoke
PS: Jim Channon, Sergeant Glenn Wheaton and Major Ed Dames were all living in the Hawaiian Islands when they were interviewed for the book.
More about Jon Ronson's book "The Men Who Stare at Goats" at:
Psychic Spies, Acid Guinea Pigs, New Age Soldiers: the True Men Who Stare at Goats - by David Humbling - Wired- Danger Room - Nov 6, 2009
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/psychic-spies-acid-guinea-pigs-new-age-gis-the-true-men-who-stare-at-goats/
Inside the Army's Far-Out Acid Tests - by David Humbling - Wired- Danger Room - Nov 5, 2009
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/11/inside-the-armys-far-out-acid-tests/
"Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all-highest?" CIA agent George White's resignation letter to Sidney Gottlieb, one of the architects of Projects Mkultra and Artichoke
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
American Torture Program: Former CIA agent implicated in torture returns to CIA as contractor and instructor
Associated Press reveals that former FBI and ex-CIA Officer Accused Of Electric-Drill Torture is now Training CIA Operatives As A Contractor:
The former CIA officer accused of revving an electric drill near the head of an imprisoned terror suspect has returned to U.S. intelligence as a contractor. The now instructor at the CIA is an Egyptian descent man who was a FBI agent in New York before joining the CIA.
AP sources: Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse - Boston.com
More at:
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/ex-cia-electric-drill-contractor-training-operatives_n_708085.html
Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse is now training CIA operatives:
By Adam Goldman
Associated Press Write
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/09/07/ap_sources_former_fbi_man_implicated_in_cia_abuse/
The former CIA officer accused of revving an electric drill near the head of an imprisoned terror suspect has returned to U.S. intelligence as a contractor. The now instructor at the CIA is an Egyptian descent man who was a FBI agent in New York before joining the CIA.
AP sources: Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse - Boston.com
More at:
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/ex-cia-electric-drill-contractor-training-operatives_n_708085.html
Former FBI man implicated in CIA abuse is now training CIA operatives:
By Adam Goldman
Associated Press Write
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/09/07/ap_sources_former_fbi_man_implicated_in_cia_abuse/
Friday, September 3, 2010
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