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U.S. transport ship with hundreds of Marines deployed to the Mediterranean

“The US Navy has deployed an amphibious transport ship to the Mediterranean, where five destroyers are already in place for possible missile strikes on Syria, a defense official said on Sunday. The USS San Antonio, with several helicopters and hundreds of Marines on board, is ‘on station in the Eastern Mediterranean’ but ‘has received no specific tasking,’ said the defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Unlike the destroyers deployed to the area, the San Antonio carries no Tomahawk cruise missiles but can ferry up to four helicopters and is designed to bring Marines ashore by chopper or landing craft.” Continue reading →

Iran claims U.S. Congress not ‘authorized’ to authorize Syria strikes

“The US Congress is not authorised to green-light American military strikes against Syria as any such action would be in violation of international law, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday. ‘Mr Obama cannot interpret and construe international law for his own (benefit),’ Zarif told reporters after a late afternoon cabinet meeting, the ISNA news agency reported. ‘Congress cannot authorise strikes (against Syria) and that attack would be in violation of international law,’ he said, explaining that ‘only the UN Security Council — under special conditions — can issue authorization’ for the use of force to restore international peace.” Continue reading →

U.S. court grants Nigerian asylum-seeker the right to testify about his own torture

“The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided today that a Nigerian man, Olakunle Oshodi, will be allowed to testify fully at his deportation hearing about the torture he suffered as a political dissident at the hands of Nigerian officials before he fled his homeland. The lower courts and dissenting judges refused to hear what happened the first time an unsympathetic immigration judge deported him, back in 1978. Oshodi returned to the United States in 1981, eventually married a citizen and had a child. Despite that, he faced deportation years later and then applied for political asylum.” Continue reading →

North Korean spy’s memoir details ‘enemization’ training by abducted South Koreans

“After graduation, the focus switched to training the agents to pass as locals. South Koreans abducted and smuggled back into the North were among those who instructed them in mastering the right accents and understanding the social and political culture of the capitalist South. This ‘enemization’ process gave them their first real taste of life outside the isolated North, as they consumed a daily diet of South Korean TV shows, movies, magazines, newspapers and books. Popular songs and dance moves were memorised, along with the names and careers of prominent TV celebrities and sports stars.” Continue reading →

Eric Margolis: Korea, One Of The World’s Five Most Strategic Nations

“Amazingly, South Korea’s tough 600,000-man armed forces are under the command of a US four-star general 60 years after the end of the Korean War, backed up by 28,500 US troops that include a full heavy infantry division, North Korea calls itself the ‘true Korea,’ denouncing the South as ‘puppets of the US imperialists.’ Interestingly, some studies show that many South Koreans share this view and are proud of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program though they want no part of its socialism and self-reliant policy known as ‘juche.'” Continue reading →

U.S. seeks to speed up hearings for five 9/11 suspects

“Self-declared 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed appeared in the military court at the US prison in Cuba with his four co-defendants. All face the death penalty if convicted of plotting the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, which left nearly 3,000 people dead. Preliminary hearings in the case began in May 2012. The five defendants were held incommunicado in secret CIA prisons from 2002 to 2006, before they were transferred to Guantanamo. The detainees’ treatment has come under close scrutiny. Mohammed is known to have been subjected to 183 sessions of waterboarding, the technique of simulated drowning which has been decried as torture by rights groups.” Continue reading →

Gitmo defendant’s lawyers: CIA gave ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ makers more info than us

“The CIA cooperated with the makers of the Hollywood movie about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and has acknowledged one character was ‘modeled after’ Connell’s client, Ammar al Baluchi, an alleged al Qaeda money mover also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. He is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew. The movie showed interrogators stringing up the Ammar character with a rope, forcing him to wear a dog collar, waterboarding him and stuffing him into a coffin-like box. The CIA has not acknowledged using those techniques on Baluchi but has admitted using them on other prisoners.” Continue reading →

2 of the Worst Warmongering Neocons Demand To Know

“Why were Beyonce and Jay Z allowed to visit Cuba? Of course, the real question is: how dare the state order us to stay away from places we want to go, East German style? I must say, I’d love to visit Cuba myself. I am told that if one does, one can go through Mexico City and the Cubans do not stamp your passport. Indeed, I’d like to visit Iran, Syria, Gaza, North Korea, and all the other places the parasites don’t want us to go.” Continue reading →