Corruption – Page 645 – Public Intelligence Blog

2012/10/222012/10/22

Mini-Me: CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody ‘video-game’ sorties by drone pilots

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Drones & UAVs, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Deeds of War

CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody ‘video-game' sorties by drone pilots

The Mail on Sunday today reveals shocking new evidence of the full horrific impact of US drone attacks in Pakistan.

A damning dossier assembled from exhaustive research into the strikes’ targets sets out in heartbreaking detail the deaths of teachers, students and Pakistani policemen. It also describes how bereaved relatives are forced to gather their loved ones’ dismembered body parts in the aftermath of strikes.

The dossier has been assembled by human rights lawyer Shahzad Akbar, who works for Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights and the British human rights charity Reprieve.

Filed in two separate court cases, it is set to trigger a formal murder investigation by police into the roles of two US officials said to have ordered the strikes. They are Jonathan Banks, former head of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Islamabad station, and John A. Rizzo, the CIA’s former chief lawyer. Mr Akbar and his staff have already gathered further testimony which has yet to be filed.

See photos and real full article.

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2012/10/212012/10/24

Leah Lynn Plante: Our Tunesian Fruit Seller?

05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, Law Enforcement

Political Prisoner Leah Lynn Plante Released!

Last week Leah Lynn Plante was arrested and placed in solitary confinement for remaining silent during a grand jury trial. Due to the secrecy of the proceedings, little information has come to light about her or her two friends, Katherine “Kteeo” Olejnik and Matthew Kyle Duran since the story went viral last week.

However, word was just sent out from Leah's supporters that she had been released, although unfortunately her two friends still remain behind bars.

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2012/10/202012/10/20

Mini-Me: CIA Station Chief – Drone War Creating More Enemies Than We Destroy

07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Corruption, Government, IO Deeds of War, Peace Intelligence

Huh?

Drone War Creating More Enemies Than it Destroys

Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

New American, 20 October 2012

EXTRACT:

Reuters explains that “Western diplomats in Sanaa say al Qaeda is a threat to Yemen and the rest of the world.” An argument can be made that a bigger threat to the world is the United States’ daily drone attacks that destroy our own dedication to the rule of law and serve as effective recruiting tool for those seeking revenge for the killing.

The former CIA Pakistan station chief agrees. Speaking of the rapid expansion of the drone war in Yemen, Robert Grenier told the Guardian (U.K.):

That brings you to a place where young men, who are typically armed, are in the same area and may hold these militants in a certain form of high regard. If you strike them indiscriminately you are running the risk of creating a terrific amount of popular anger. They have tribes and clans and large families. Now all of a sudden you have a big problem…. I am very concerned about the creation of a larger terrorist safe haven in Yemen.

And:

We have gone a long way down the road of creating a situation where we are creating more enemies than we are removing from the battlefield. We are already there with regards to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Read full article with many links.

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2012/10/202012/10/20

Chuck Spinney: Thinking About Gaza

Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Deeds of War, Military, Peace Intelligence

Patrick Seale reviews an important new book – Histoire de Gaza – by Professer Jean-Pierre Filiu of the Institute for Political Science in Paris.

The Need to Defuse the Gaza Time-Bomb

by Patrick Seale

Agence Global, 18 Oct 2012

One of the most urgent tasks for the international community in 2013 must surely be to lift Israel’s cruel siege of Gaza — now entering its sixth year — and end the misguided boycott of its Hamas government. There is hardly a more flagrant example of injustice in the world today than the situation of the 1.6 million inhabitants of this hugely over-crowded Strip — many of them refugees driven out of Palestine by the new Israeli state in 1947-48. They must be allowed to live a normal life — to travel, to manufacture, to trade, to educate their children — free from the constant danger of Israeli air strikes.

French scholar Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor at the prestigious Institute of Political Science in Paris, has published an important 400-page history of Gaza, from ancient times to the disturbed present. His Histoire de Gaza (Editions Fayard, Paris, 2012) is the most comprehensive ever written and should be required reading for all those concerned with the long agony of the Palestinians in their struggle for statehood.

It is impossible in a short article to do justice to Filiu’s sweeping narrative, meticulous research and detailed findings, but it is perhaps worth pointing out that he lays blame for the as yet unresolved and indeed worsening crisis on three main actors:

first and foremost on Israel, concerned only with its own security and brutally indifferent to Palestinian life;
secondly, on Fatah and Hamas, those old rivals, still locked in a fratricidal struggle as if unaware that their national cause is slipping away before their eyes;
and thirdly, on the humanitarian aid provided by the international community which has kept Gaza’s population alive but has also, paradoxically, prevented Gaza’s economic development and its efforts at self-sufficiency.

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota: Gaza is the worst of 5,000 distinct geo-cultural communities under seige. It represents the complete absence of ethics in Western “diplomacy.”

2012/10/192012/10/19

DefDog: The Gathering Storm – CIA Asks for More Drones, Most Clueless About Tribes, and Rest of World Routing Around the State

Corruption, Government, Media, Military

These three hang together.

CIA claims it needs more drones

The CIA has asked the White House to increase the number of drones it employs to transform it into a paramilitary force, despite recent statistics that show the majority of drone deaths are civilians.

CIA Director David Petraeus submitted a proposal that could add as many as 10 drones to a program that currently ranges between 30 to 35 of the unmanned aerial vehicles. The increase would allow the agency to continue launching lethal strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, as well as target developing terror threats in other regions of the world, according to a report first acquired by the Washington Post.

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Tribes and Terrorism: Myth and Reality

Tribal areas in the Middle East are not administrated by powerful gangs, bandits, or warlords, but by representative local leadership. The authority and power of local sheikhs in Arab tribes are dependent on the consent, respect, and support of their constituents. Tribal leaders are sacked and replaced if they lose the respect of their tribesmen. Unlike the highly centralized and hierarchical Turkic and Central Asian models of tribalism, Arab tribes tend to be relatively egalitarian social organizations. Although political manipulation by the colonial and post-colonial regimes created disparities in wealth and power within and between tribes in the region, tribal sheikhs continue to perceive one another as equals endowed with certain social and material privileges. Unlike hard to reach government officials, a sheikh’s door is open to all.

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Pirate Bay and Mega: Treating the State as Damage and Routing Around It

One advantage of network culture is that self-organized networks are much smarter than authoritarian hierarchies. Horizontal networks circumvent censorship faster than vertically organized institutions can impose it.

Last year, as the U.S. House and Senate considered (respectively) SOPA and PIPA legislation that would authorize the federal government to shut down websites — entirely by administrative fiat and without judicial due process — for alleged copyright infringement, the Web quickly responded with countermeasures that preemptively rendered such laws ineffectual.

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2012/10/192012/10/19

Mini-Me: Navy Dependant Put on No-Fly List for Critical Views – Stranded for Five Days in Hawaii – No One In TSA Able to Think or Over-Ride?

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude

Man stranded after finding himself on no-fly list during stopover in Hawaii

JOINT BASE PEARL HARBOR-HICKAM, Hawaii – Hawaii is a paradise for most visitors. But it was Wade Hicks, Jr.'s prison for five days.

The 34-year-old from Gulfport, Miss., was stranded in the islands this week after being told he was on the FBI's no-fly list during a layover for a military flight from California to Japan.

The episode left Hicks scrambling to figure out how he'd get home from Hawaii without being able to fly until he was abruptly removed from the list on Thursday with no explanation. It also raised questions beyond how he landed on the list: How could someone on a list intelligence officials use to inform counterterrorism investigations successfully fly standby on an Air Force flight?

Hicks said he was traveling to visit his wife, a U.S. Navy lieutenant who's deployed in Japan. He hitched a ride on the military flight as is common for military dependents, who are allowed to fly on scheduled routes when there's room.

Hicks said that during his layover at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent told him he was on the no-fly list and wouldn't be allowed on a plane.

“I said, ‘How am I supposed to get off this island and go see my wife or go home?' And her explanation was: ‘I don't know,'” Hicks said.

Hicks said he was shocked and thought they must have had the wrong person because he doesn't have a criminal record and recently passed an extensive background check in Mississippi to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

But the agent said his name, Social Security number and date of birth matched the person prohibited from flying, Hicks said. He wasn't told why and wonders whether his controversial views on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks played a role. Hicks said he disagrees with the 9/11 Commission's conclusions about the attacks.

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2012/10/182012/10/18

Mini-Me: Boy Scouts Covering Up Child Molestation and Covering for Known Perverts Using Scouting to Hunt Victims….Since 1960’s and Still Today!

Civil Society, Corruption

Huh?

‘Perversion files' show locals helped cover up for Boy Scouts

Newsday, 18 October 2012

Local Boy Scout leaders, police officials, prosecutors and mayors helped hush up numerous child sex abuse allegations against scoutmasters and other volunteers, according to details in a trove of nearly 15,000 pages of so-called “perversion files” compiled by the Scouts from 1959 to the mid-1980s.

Portland attorney Kelly Clark released the files on Thursday.

The Associated Press obtained copies of the files weeks in advance and conducted an extensive review of them.

The files document allegations of sex abuse by Scouting volunteers across the country. The Scouts have been collecting the documents since the early 1900s, and continue to do so.

At the news conference, Clark blasted the Boy Scouts for their continuing legal battles to try to keep the full trove of files secret.

“You do not keep secrets hidden about dangers to children,” said Clark, who in 2010 won a landmark lawsuit against the Boy Scouts on behalf of a plaintiff who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the 1980s.

Clark's colleague, Paul Mones, said the files in the Portland case represent “the pain and anguish of thousands of Scouts” who were abused by Scout leaders.

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