My friends who served in the military speak of the pride with they performed what they viewed as their duty. This duty included the obligation to act with honor, including, above all, following the Geneva Conventions when handling detainees and prisoners of war. My friends tell sadly of the despair they felt in seeing this obligation shredded during the Bush administration as word came down that they should do “whatever it takes.” Some of them resigned in disgust. Others resisted what they viewed as moral decay from within.
A new story by attorney Scott Horton at Harpers reveals yet another very disturbing episode of dishonor. Horton reveals strong credible evidence that three alleged “suicides” at Guantanamo in June 2006 were really homicides. The official story is that during the night of June 9, 2006, three prisoners were found hanging in their cells in Alpha Block of Guantanamo's Camp 1.
Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF, lays out the political case for “Trust Busting” in the 21st Century — it is a political argument that Andrew Jackson and Teddy Roosevelt would have understood and probably approved of.
At this stage in the electoral cycle, Democrats should be running hard against big banks and their consequences. Some roots of our current economic difficulties lie in the Clinton 1990s, but the real origins can be traced to the financial deregulation at the heart of the Reagan Revolution – and all the underlying problems became much worse in eight years of George W. Bush’s unique brand of excess and neglect.
The theme for the November midterms should be: Which part of the 8 million jobs lost [since December 2007] do you not understand? The big banks must be reined in and forced to break themselves up, or we’ll head directly for another such crisis.
Instead, the Democrats have fallen into a legislative and electoral trap that – amazingly – they built for themselves.
1) US Intelligence Community does not actually “know” where Iran is on nuclear, where Yemen is on Al Qaeda, where the Taliban is on Afghanistan….the list is long.
2) CIA and DoJ ares out of control on assessments and investigations–or they are consistently politicized. One or the other, which is it?
3) Terrorism is still the crutch for those unable or unwilling to comprehend Grand Strategy and a more mature appreciation for all of the threats, all of the policies, all of the information, all of the time. The USA remains government by uninformed sound-bite.
4) India matters, so we are told, as a recipient of expensive U.S. war-fighting technology and as a partner against terrorism. Never mind the deeply shared problem of poverty in America and India, a problem quickly addressable by the redirection of a fraction of the Pentagon budget toward “peaceful preventive measures.”
Herewith, then, is an all-inclusive guide to the scandal of the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, based largely on documents unearthed by The Washington Times, along with other original reporting – and why it is important:
The FBI illegally collected more than 2,000 U.S. telephone call records between 2002 and 2006 by invoking terrorism emergencies that did not exist or simply persuading phone companies to provide records, according to internal bureau memos and interviews. FBI officials issued approvals after the fact to justify their actions.
The Christmas Day episode highlights three critical points. First is how much progress U.S. intelligence has made. . . . Second, the Christmas Day plot demonstrates that much of what passes for security is a waste of time and money. . . . Third, the public furor over the foiled plot shows that more perspective on terrorism is essential.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican and ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said in an interview that “they wrote a political document in 2007 to embarrass President Bush which everyone uniformly agrees was a piece of trash.”
That said, there are still more opportunities for closer cooperation that will allow us to share technology and increase the flow of information and expertise. . . . Perhaps the greatest common challenge India and the United States face is terrorism.
NIGHTWATCH Afghanistan: Multiple news services reported today’s bold Afghan Taliban attacks in Kabul. The coordinated multiple attacks killed at least 15 and injured 62, as reported in this Watch
Four militants also were killed, including two suicide bombers who detonated their explosives, and Afghan forces were searching several other areas in the city for more attackers, a government spokesman said.
It was the biggest attack in the capital since 28 October when gunmen with automatic weapons and suicide vests stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff, killing at least 11 people including three U.N. staff.
The attack coincided with the investiture of those Cabinet members in the Karzai government who had been confirmed by the Parliament. A majority of his choices have been rejected twice.
Multinational Decision Support Center (MDSC) in Tampa or Quantico
Grid the Island, Assign Zone Masters with Commercial Satellite Communications to Each Grid Square
Execute Bottom-Up Needs-Driven Information-Driven Relief Effort as well as Med-Evac Priority
Emphasize AIR DROPS not WHEELS, and C-13os using See Bee rough strips created overnight
Assume all local water contaminated by bodies and sewage until demonstrated otherwise
Hospital Ship Should Have Been Turned Around Instantly, Refueled and Resupplied at Sea
Send at least one and ideally two Amphibious Ships will full complements of helos augmented as they pass Camp Lejeune coming down from Little Creek–ideally plan to use Landing Craft not just the helos
Pre-Approved Emergency Flights ONLY into Port a Prince and Santo Domingo (including See Bees and their construction equipment, Army engineers and bridges
Create at least two Foreward Area Refueling Points (FARP), one for conventional aircraft, one for helicopters, and add a third for free fuel for all ground vehicles including indigenous and NGO vehicles
Triage all relief aircraft via MDSC, ideally triage the loads BEFORE they are loaded–push the information perimeter all the way out to every government and NGO planning to arrive, run BIG AIR into McDill, Guantanamo, Havana, Bermuda, Miami, triage loads into C-130, Air Drop, and Helo Delivery. Remember that onward transport is the next log-jam, see USMC Lessons Learned from Bangladesh–precision drops across the country are better than jamming everything into an airport without onward delivery options.
Why is it we are not seeing Army Civil Affairs Brigade in charge of this? Frock the ranking Colonel to one-star (pull him out of AF for this), put the Total Force behind CAB, and tell the existing conventional leadership they are in direct support of CAB.
Blackwater/XE behind terrorist bombings in Asia and Africa?
ByWayne Madsen Online Journal Contributing Writer
Jan 18, 2010, 00:25
WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia and Europe are reporting that the CIA contractor firm XE Services, formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out “false flag” terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sinkiang region of China, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, in some cases with the assistance of Israeli Mossad and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) personnel.
Fingers are being pointed at Blackwater/XE and Mossad operatives for the motorbike bomb in Tehran that killed Tehran University nuclear physicist Dr. Moussad Ali-Mohammadi.
Gen Richards' views come ahead of a defence review and potential cuts
A “radical” shift in defence spending is needed, the head of the British army has said.
General Sir David Richards said priority should be given to troops working on the ground on winning over hearts and minds.
He told the International Institute for Strategic Studies there was too much emphasis on cutting-edge technology and not enough on cheaper troops and staff.
The UK was behind its enemies in being prepared for modern warfare, he added.
‘Minds of millions'
Gen Richards said current and future conflicts would focus on using communication to drum up support and would need more British troops to work among populations such as that in Afghanistan.
In his speech in London, he said: “If one equips more for this type of conflict while significantly reducing investment in higher-end war-fighting capability, suddenly one can buy an impressive amount of ‘kit'.
The United States attorney in Manhattan is merging the two units in his office that prosecute terrorism and international narcotics cases, saying that he wants to focus more on extremist Islamic groups whose members he believes are increasingly turning to the drug trade to finance their activities.
Pentagon Supplier for Rifle Sights Says It Has ‘Always' Added New Testament References
By JOSEPH RHEE, TAHMAN BRADLEY and BRIAN ROSS
Jan. 18, 2010
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Note: the below report, which appears to be well sourced, does not rebut the Global Warming hypothesis per se, but it highlights the shoddy political character of the IPCC, together with its bias to hype the threat of global warming.
It also makes the revelations in the hacked emails all the more salient to the GW debate, especially those emails which reveal the organized efforts of suppress the opposing views of those scientists labeled disparagingly as “climate deniers” (an obscene, almost subliminal, reference to holocaust deniers) in peer reviewed journals.
Welcome to the Tea Party Express III: Just Vote Them Out!
All throughout the recent Tea Party Express national bus tour we kept receiving calls from people around the nation who lived far away from the route our buses took across America. We vowed at the time to keep the Tea Party Express effort alive – and that’s exactly what we are doing.
Join us from March 27th to April 15th, 2010
as we tell Congress and the White House: “Enough!”
Let’s stand up and stop the bailouts, cap and trade, out-of-control spending, government-run healthcare, and higher taxes! We’re back and determined to take our country back!
Phi Beta Iota: We do not believe that a Civil War is coming for the simple reason that there are not enough organized guns to put down the public if the public is united. The Tea Party Express is more authentic in many ways than the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), which is much more like organized politics as operated by the two parties that have corrupted the electoral system and block out the other 63 parties from actual participation.
