Western Intel

UN investigator: Obama must release details of Bush kidnapping and torture program

"Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, will release a new report on Tuesday detailing his findings about the Bush-era program, according to Reuters. The report was not published online ahead of a planned hearing set for Tuesday, and a spokesperson was unavailable for comment. He added that there is 'credible evidence' that the CIA under the Bush administration had 'black sites' in Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania and Romania. Emmerson’s report is expected to urge lawmakers in those countries to fully investigate the matter and prosecute former officials if necessary." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUN investigator: Obama must release details of Bush kidnapping and torture program

Raisons d’État: Justifying Assassination and Murder of American Citizens

"From Niccolo Machiavelli and Cardinal Richelieu to George W. Bush and Barack Obama, survival of the state has been the highest priority of political authority. Any means necessary regardless of morality or legality is sanctioned for reasons of state (raisons d'État). In statecraft, the ends justify the means. I suspect that many of these craven individuals (of both parties) will soon be marching in lock-step unison in shouting their support of an earlier assassination of an American citizen by the top tier of the National Security establishment fifty years ago who was seen as a traitor to his nation during the height of the Cold War." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingRaisons d’État: Justifying Assassination and Murder of American Citizens

When can your government kill you?

"The administration seems happy to answer whether or not anyone has been killed in a drone strike in the United States. No one has yet answered whether targeted killings, conducted via some means other than drones, have ever been carried out. And no one has yet answered whether either the Obama administration or the Bush administration before it ever has operated at the boundaries of what OLC says is possible within the United States. That’s important because people have died in counterterrorism operations within the United States." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhen can your government kill you?

Paul Craig Roberts: Obama’s Expanding Kill List

"If the Obama regime is on the side of the government, as in Algeria, it will kill the rebels opposing the government. If the Obama regime is on the side of the rebels, as in Libya, it will kill the government’s leaders. Whether Washington sends a drone to murder Putin and the president of China remains to be seen. The elasticity of the Kill List and its easy expansion makes it certain that Washington will be involved in extra-judicial executions of those 'associated with terrorism' over much of the world. Americans themselves should be alarmed, because the term 'association with terrorism' is very elastic." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPaul Craig Roberts: Obama’s Expanding Kill List

Why Isn’t The Murder Of An American Boy An Impeachable Offense?

"In 1998, President Bill Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice for matters arising out of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. If perjury and obstruction of justice constitute high crimes or misdemeanors, then doesn’t it seem rather obvious that the murder of an American citizen by the president would also constitute a high crime or misdemeanor, especially if the citizen is a child? Proponents of the war on terrorism argue that the killing of the teenager wasn’t really a murder but rather an assassination. But how is Obama’s killing of Abdulrahman any different from Pinochet’s murder of Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhy Isn’t The Murder Of An American Boy An Impeachable Offense?

Welcome to the Malware-Industrial Complex

"Freshly discovered weakness in a popular piece of software, known in the trade as a 'zero-day' vulnerability because the software makers have had no time to develop a fix, can command prices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars from defense contractors, security agencies and governments. This trade in zero-day exploits is poorly documented, but it is perhaps the most visible part of a new industry that in the years to come is likely to swallow growing portions of the U.S. national defense budget, reshape international relations, and perhaps make the Web less safe for everyone." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWelcome to the Malware-Industrial Complex

Italy’s ex-intelligence chief given 10-year sentence for role in CIA kidnapping

"Mustafa Osama Nasr (Abu Omar), who in 2001 had been granted asylum by Italy from persecution in Egypt, was abducted by the CIA and then shipped back to Egypt where he was imprisoned for four years without charges and, he says, brutally tortured by America's long-standing ally, the Mubarak regime. Nasr 'was seized in broad daylight on the open street, pushed into a white van, taken to the Aviano military airport and then flown to Egypt via the US Ramstein Air Base in Germany'. Yesterday, an Italian appellate court sentenced the country's former intelligence chief, Niccolò Pollari, to ten years in prison 'for complicity' in that kidnapping." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingItaly’s ex-intelligence chief given 10-year sentence for role in CIA kidnapping

At least 20 prisoners still missing from CIA ‘black sites’

"In one of President Barack Obama first acts in the White House, he ordered the closure of the CIA’s so-called 'black-site' prisons, where terror suspects had been held and, sometimes, tortured. But the CIA’s prisons left some unfinished business. In 2009, ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer listed more than thirty people who had been held in CIA prisons and were still missing. Some of those prisoners have since resurfaced, but at least twenty are still unaccounted for. A few emerged from foreign prisons after the turmoil of the Arab Spring. One has died." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAt least 20 prisoners still missing from CIA ‘black sites’

Tear gas, water cannons as Egyptians throw stones at presidential palace

"The clashes broke out after several hundred demonstrators marched to the palace on a day of marches against Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi. Thousands of other protesters took part in separate demonstrations across the country. Protesters are demanding that Morsi fulfill the goals of the revolution which brought him and his Muslim Brotherhood party to power. Those demands include a new unity government, amendments to an Islamist-drafted constitution, and the sacking of Egypt's prosecutor general. The demonstrators are also angry that no one has been held accountable for the deaths of dozens of protesters in clashes with police during recent months." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTear gas, water cannons as Egyptians throw stones at presidential palace