Imperial Hubris

Guitarist completes first-ever paddleboard journey from Cuba to U.S.

"A Tennessee musician on Friday became the first paddleboarder to cross the Florida Straits between Cuba and the United States, making the 110 mile journey in 28 hours as his father watched from a support boat. Ben Friberg, 35, arrived in Key West dehydrated and exhausted but otherwise in good shape. Before leaving Cuba on Thursday, Friberg said he was 'doing this to promote peace and understanding between Cuba and the United States and to promote a healthy lifestyle.'" Continue reading →

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State Department: Bradley Manning had ‘chilling effect’ on foreign relations

"'Every single embassy' was affected, said Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy, who warned about long-term consequences of Manning’s 2010 leaks to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The unauthorized releases made foreign diplomats, business leaders and other information sources 'reticent to provide their full and frank opinions and share them with us,' he said. Most of the leaked diplomatic cables originated after 2005, when a new information-sharing system was adopted to address intelligence failings exposed by the attacks of September 11, 2001." Continue reading →

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NSA defenders: embassy closures followed ‘pre-9/11 levels’ of ‘chatter’

"Saxby Chambliss, who was briefed by the vice president, Joe Biden, last week, said he believed the intelligence had been gathered by the NSA using foreign surveillance powers granted under section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. 'This is a good indication of why they [the surveillance powers] are so important,' he said. His defence of the NSA was echoed by another Republican, Lindsey Graham. Asked by CNN host Candy Crowley whether Americans were right to be frightened, senator Graham said: 'It is scary … the NSA programme is proving its worth yet again.'" Continue reading →

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CIA Should Probably Stop Having Drones Fire Again On Whoever Shows Up After a Strike

"Double tapping is sure to make even those who support the use of drones at least a little queasy. To many, it is uncomfortably similar to the tactics used by some of the terrorists we are supposed to be morally superior to: Hamas, for example. Some argue that it is a violation of international law, including at least one UN official. At the very least, it is a risky tactic for a country that holds itself up as an example of rectitude in the world and it weakens our moral authority. Worse yet, it creates a justification that could be used against us by future enemies who don't even pretend to have our level of regard for human life." Continue reading →

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Yemeni Engineer Begs Obama to Stop Murdering His Family with Drones

"Last year, Salem Ahmed bin Ali Jaber, a respected Muslim cleric in Yemen, gave a speech denouncing al Qaeda. Representatives from Al Qaeda came to speak with Jaber and his cousin in a private meeting. During this meeting, they were all incinerated in a drone strike by the United States. Jaber’s brother-in-law, Faisal bin Ali Jaber, has written a letter, distributed by human rights group Reprieve, begging Obama and Hadi to stop killing innocents in these drone strikes and warning that they are making enemies of the very communities they claim to be trying to protect." Continue reading →

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Irish man facing U.S. extradition for hosting largest child porn network on the planet

"If extradited to the US, Marques faces four charges relating to images hosted on the Freedom Hosting network, including images of the torture and rape of children. He could be sentenced to 30 years in prison. Freedom Hosting hosted sites on the The Onion Router (Tor) network, which anonymises and encrypts traffic, masking the identity of users. Users on the Tor sub-Reddit were suspicious about the news, dissecting the details of the vulnerability and pointing to a previous case where the FBI had taken over and maintained a site hosting child abuse material for two weeks in order to identify users." Continue reading →

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U.S. military helicopter crashes in Japan’s Okinawa

"A U.S. military helicopter crashed on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa on Monday, U.S. Forces in Japan said, an incident which may stoke anger over the concentration of U.S. military bases on the island. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to move the U.S. Marines’ Futenma airbase to a less crowded part of the island, but stiff opposition from Okinawa residents is stalling the plan. Residents of Okinawa, host to the bulk of U.S. military forces in Japan, have long resented bearing what many feel is an unfair share of the burden for the U.S.-Japan military alliance. Many associate the U.S. bases with accidents, crime and pollution." Continue reading →

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The Latter-Day Rome Lives And Kills

"Libya is no longer. Ditto Iraq. Afghanistan is not doing much better since Rome set up camp there. The Comitatus – 'the sprawling apparatus that encompasses the ministries of government, the lawyers, the diplomats, the adjutants, the messengers, the interpreters, the intellectuals' – refused to keep count of the casualties in the Iraq war. Likewise has 'Operation Enduring Freedom' in Afghanistan, still ongoing, been the direct and indirect cause of the deaths and displacement of many thousands of Afghan civilians. The latter-day Rome has mechanized the warfare state’s killing capabilities and has refined its propaganda wing to an art." Continue reading →

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Last Hurrah of the Interventionists?

"In what a Washington Post columnist describes as a rout of Rand Paul isolationism, the Senate just voted overwhelmingly to send another $1.5 billion in foreign aid to Egypt. The House voted 400-20 to impose new sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, two days before Iran’s new president, elected on a pledge to re-engage the West on the nuclear issue, takes his oath. Do these triumphs of AIPAC and the War Party, of neocons and liberal internationalists, tell us where we are going? Or are they the last hurrahs of the interventionists, as America’s long retreat proceeds apace." Continue reading →

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McCain Declares War on Russia

"He continued by calling for the listing of as many Russians as possible under the Magnitsky legislation in the US, which allows those considered – under dubious criteria – to be human rights violators to be prevented from entering the US and to have their assets seized by the US government. Then, reprising his subsequently discredited position during the short 2008 Russian/Georgian conflict that 'we are all Georgians now,' McCain all but called for the US to foment another Georgian war against Russia — this time with NATO providing back-up." Continue reading →

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