Imperial Hubris

“State Control”: What the UN Firearms Treaty is All About

"For more than fifty years, the United Nations, with the enthusiastic support of the U.S. government, has pursued a vision of 'general and complete disarmament' in which the world body, or its successor, would claim a monopoly on the 'legitimate' use of force. Within that global monopoly, each national government would have an exclusive territorial franchise. It was in pursuit of that formula that UN 'peacekeepers' were deployed in Rwanda in 1993. Despite that country’s history of bloody ethnic conflict, Rwandans were assured that they had nothing to fear from a UN-approved government that claimed a monopoly on weaponry." Continue reading →

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Ignorance is Strength: Kim Jong Un Edition

"For one state to respond to another state’s military aggression by killing, or threatening to kill, its civilian population is monstrous. And if it’s monstrous, it’s monstrous when anyone does it. It would also be monstrous if some purely hypothetical country, the only country in the world with atomic weapons, used them to kill several hundred thousand civilians in two Japanese cities. It would be monstrous if some purely hypothetical country with hundreds of long-range bombers had had, as its official military policy, making first use of nuclear weapons and hitting every major population center in the USSR in retaliation for a conventional incursion into Western Europe." Continue reading →

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Media Infantilism, Ours And Theirs

"Isn't it funny how sometimes when the government media in an authoritarian society makes a claim -- such as Syrian state press claims that the armed insurgents are responsible for this or that atrocity, or Bin Laden's claims that he was irritated at the US for stationing troops in Saudi Arabia and favoring Israel -- it is when serving US foreign policy goals written off as the hysterical lying propaganda of a ruthless dictator or madman? However when the US media is echoing the regime in beating the war drums, as on North Korea, every claim by the state controlled media in this or that foreign authoritarian state is to be taken as the Gospel truth." Continue reading →

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CNN previews how war with North Korea would play out

"CNN brought retired General James Marks into their studio on Wednesday afternoon to explain the military strategies North Korea and the United States would likely employ in a conflict. The country would begin firing artillery into South Korea while deploying special operation forces along the coast of the peninsula. Marks also warned North Korea had sleeper agents in South Korea who would spot targets. The United States would respond by destroying North Korea’s artillery with its overwhelming naval and aerial power. The U.S. military would then destroy North Korea’s aerial defenses, communication lines, and transportation routes, paralyzing the North within days." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCNN previews how war with North Korea would play out

Rep. Peter King: US could make preemptive strike on North Korea

"Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said Tuesday that the U.S. had the right to take preemptive military action against North Korea if there was 'solid evidence' that Kim Jon Un planned to attack the U.S. or South Korea. 'I don't think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way,' he continued. 'I'm not saying we should be rushing into war, don't get me wrong, but if we have solid evidence that North Korea's going to take action, then I think we have a moral obligation and an absolute right to defend ourselves.' North Korea's actions are thought to be driven by additional United Nations sanctions that resulted from its recent nuclear test." Continue reading →

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Army: Drone strike ‘condolence payments’ for targets killed ‘an expression of sympathy’

"There’s little documentation of where and how such payments are being made. The government has released almost no information on civilian casualties sustained in drone strikes conducted by the CIA and the military in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Officials maintain they have been 'in the single digits' in recent years, while independent researchers put the total for the past decade in the hundreds. Certainly, though, drone strikes and condolence payments make for a striking match: The technological apex of war combined with an age-old method of compensating loss." Continue reading →

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Glenn Greenwald: The message sent by America’s invisible victims

"The most propagandistic aspect of the US War on Terror has been, and remains, that its victims are rendered invisible and voiceless. They are almost never named by newspapers. They and their surviving family members are virtually never heard from on television. The Bush and Obama DOJs have collaborated with federal judges to ensure that even those who everyone admits are completely innocent have no access to American courts and thus no means of having their stories heard or their rights vindicated. Radical secrecy theories and escalating attacks on whistleblowers push these victims further into the dark." Continue reading →

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UN human rights chief slams failure to shut Guantanamo

"Washington is breaking international law by holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo and must honour a pledge to shut the controversial jail, the UN’s human rights chief said. 'The continuing indefinite incarceration of many of the detainees amounts to arbitrary detention and is in clear breach of international law. It severely undermines the United States’ stance that it is an upholder of human rights… When other countries breach these standards, the US — quite rightly — strongly criticises them for it.' The jail, in a US Navy base in Cuba, was opened in 2002 to hold prisoners taken in the 'War on Terror' waged by George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks." Continue reading →

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Why Is the U.S. Funding International Drug Rehabs Known for Torture and Abuse?

"Children are not exempt from indefinite detainment in these camps. UNICEF-sponsored investigations in Laos found 150 detainees under 18 in 2003, and more than 600 children in 2006. Despite calls from human rights organizations, the United States has continued to pump money into the Somsanga Rehabilitation Center. In March of last year, 12 United Nations agencies, including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Health Organization, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and UNAIDS, issued a joint statement calling for the closure of drug-user detention centers where they identified grave human rights violations." Continue reading →

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Military’s ‘war on drugs’ back as U.S. Navy looks to net big catches in the Pacific

"Operation Martillo and other military assistance to Central American nations represent one of the most ambitious US efforts against drug cartels since World War II. The United States has trained security forces across the region, deployed 200 Marines in Guatemala and built forward operating bases in Honduras and shared radar intelligence with Honduran authorities. But top US generals warned last month that the effort could be greatly undermined by budget cuts. The cost of international operations and support to nations worldwide to fight drugs went from $2.7 billion in 2001 to $5.7 billion last year." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingMilitary’s ‘war on drugs’ back as U.S. Navy looks to net big catches in the Pacific