military industrial complex

Fifth of CIA applicants with suspect backgrounds have ‘significant terrorist’ connections

"Although the file did not describe the nature of the jobseekers’ extremist or hostile ties, it cited Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda and its affiliates most often. The fear of infiltration is such that the NSA planned last year to investigate at least 4,000 staff who obtained security clearances. The NSA detected potentially suspicious activity among staff members after trawling through trillions of employee keystrokes at work. The suspicious behavior included staffers accessing classified databases they do not usually use for their work or downloading several documents, two people familiar with the software used to monitor staff told the Post." Continue reading →

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Snowden files reveal NSA spied on Brazil and Mexico presidents

"Rio de Janeiro-based journalist Glenn Greenwald told Globo on Sunday that a document dated June 2012 shows that Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s emails were being accessed. That was a month before his election. The NSA also intercepted some of Pena Nieto’s voicemails. The communications included messages in which the future leader discussed the names of potential cabinet members. As for Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, the NSA said in the document that it was trying to better understand her methods of communication and interlocutors using a program to access all Internet content the president visited online." Continue reading →

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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 →

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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 →

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Swiss government blocks arms sales to U.S. over human rights concerns

"The Swiss government regularly comes in for criticism over the export of firearms. A blocked sale of weapon components to the United States has recently put the spotlight on little known aspects of the global arms trade. The government in January vetoed the deal for handgun parts worth more than CHF400,000 on the grounds that the handguns – assembled in the US for export to Saudi Arabia - could be used to violate human rights." Continue reading →

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Documenting “Detainee Treatment [sic for ‘Torture’]“

"'The report of the blue ribbon Task Force on Detainee Treatment[sic for 'torture'] is the most comprehensive, bipartisan investigation into the detention and treatment [sic for 'torture'] of suspected terrorists yet published. The report's first 'finding' states, 'U.S. forces, in many instances, used interrogation techniques on detainees that constitute torture. American personnel conducted an even larger number of interrogations that involved 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.' Both categories of actions violate U.S. laws and international treaties. Such conduct was directly counter to values of the Constitution and our nation.' And remember, these are people who like Leviathan!" Continue reading →

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Two Algerians repatriated from Guantanamo: Pentagon

"Two long-held Algerian detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been returned to their homeland, the first such transfer since US President Barack Obama renewed his pledge to close the controversial jail. The Pentagon announced Thursday that Nabil Said Hadjarab, 34, and Mutia Sadiq Ahmad Sayyab, 36, were handed over to the government of Algeria, completing a process outlined last month by the United States. The US-run prison in Cuba, set up in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, still holds 164 detainees more than four years after Obama took office and first vowed to shut it down." Continue reading →

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Guantanamo Gulag and the Human Rights Lie

"The US military running the Guantanamo Bay prison have cracked down hard on the dozens of prisoners who have, in desperation, engaged in secret hunger strikes so that they may die in peace making their point about the American gulag without being force-fed by US authorities. Of the 166 who remain in indefinite detention, without charge or trial, 86 have been 'cleared for release.' But they will not be released. They will most likely be held until they die. Many have likely already gone insane, as they were captured with no evidence, given no trials, tortured, and forced to live in a tropical Siberia. Yet the US has the gall to hector and lecture [other countries] about 'human rights.'" Continue reading →

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Mark Steyn Correctly Worries about Obama’s Looming Syrian Adventure

"The problem with the American way of war is that, technologically, it can’t lose, but, in every other sense, it can’t win. No one in his right mind wants to get into a tank battle or a naval bombardment with the guys responsible for over 40 percent of the planet’s military expenditures. Which is why these days there aren’t a lot of tank battles. The consummate interventionist Robert Kagan wrote in his recent book that the American military 'remains unmatched.' It’s unmatched in the sense that the only guy in town with a tennis racket isn’t going to be playing a lot of tennis matches." Continue reading →

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Syria and the Albright Syndrome

"Much like the person with a hammer, to whom everything looks like a nail—we continue to believe that every problem can be solved by the military. Sadly—regardless of the administration’s overall political views—we continue to suffer from Madeleine Albright syndrome. As Secretary of State, Albright challenged then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell’s view that the United States should restrict its military interventions to situations in which vital U.S. interests were threatened, quipping: 'What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?'" Continue reading →

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