Winning Hearts & Minds

Indefinite Detention and the NDAA: The rise of America’s imperial presidency

"In the eleven years since the terrorist attacks on 9/11, America has effectively lived under a perpetual state of emergency. Last year, President Barack Obama while vacationing in Hawaii signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act which included an embedded provision allowing the presidency what some have termed as indefinite detention powers. The political firestorm and continuing controversy over both the Global War on Terror and the NDAA has led many American citizens to wonder just what all of this means for their individual freedom." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIndefinite Detention and the NDAA: The rise of America’s imperial presidency

The Unfathomable Depravity of the CIA

"Fifty-nine years ago, a CIA bioweapons expert named Frank Olson attended a secret meeting where he was unwittingly given a drink laced with an experimental hallucinogenic compound now known as LSD. In the early hours of November 28, Olson fell to his death from the window of a 13th-floor hotel room. The Agency described the incident as a suicide, concealing the LSD test until 1975. His sons now filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit claiming that the scientist was murdered to conceal illegal interrogations that had been conducted by the agency using biological agents he had developed, resulting in the deaths of detainees in Norway and Germany." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Unfathomable Depravity of the CIA

CIA beat and sodomized wrongly detained German citizen

"CIA agents tortured a German citizen, sodomising, shackling, and beating him, as Macedonian state police looked on, the European court of human rights said in a historic judgment released on Thursday. In a unanimous ruling, it also found Macedonia guilty of torturing, abusing, and secretly imprisoning Khaled el-Masri, a German of Lebanese origin allegedly linked to terrorist organisations. Masri was seized in Macedonia in December 2003 and handed over to a CIA 'rendition team' at Skopje airport and secretly flown to Afghanistan. It is the first time the court has described CIA treatment meted out to terror suspects as torture." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCIA beat and sodomized wrongly detained German citizen

Pentagon prepares military operation in Mali

"United States officials with knowledge of the matter tell the Washington Post that the Department of Defense and the US State Department will assist next year in a mission to overthrow Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaeda who took under control a significant part of Mali. Earlier this year, military officers displaced the administration of then-President Amandou Toumani Toure, claiming that he was reluctant in addressing the extremist issue himself. However since then the military junta failed to improve security in the country and retake control of the northern part of Mali captured by the Islamists. Now the US is claiming that it’s ready to help the military rulers." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingPentagon prepares military operation in Mali

Britain’s ‘under-trained’ drone pilots create ‘significant risks’

"Badly trained pilots are creating 'significant risks' to Britain’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) programme, a military investigation has found. A probe by the Military Aviation Authority found that 'increasing demands' on drones used for surveillance and intelligence-gathering were 'constraining the length of time available to train and qualify' new pilots. MPs are due to debate the country’s involvement in drone warfare later Tuesday and Labour plans to push the government over whether unmanned aircraft will be deployed to kill terrorist suspects." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingBritain’s ‘under-trained’ drone pilots create ‘significant risks’

UK government pays Libyan dissident’s family £2.2 million over MI6-aided rendition

"Ministers have agree to pay more than £2m to the family of a prominent Libyan dissident abducted with the help of MI6 and secretly flown to Tripoli where he was tortured by the security police of the former dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Having sought for years to avoid the agents of the Libyan dictator, Sami al-Saadi was forced on board a plane in Hong Kong with his wife and four young children in a joint UK-US-Libyan operation. They were then flown to Libya, where all of them were initially imprisoned. Saadi was held and tortured for years." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUK government pays Libyan dissident’s family £2.2 million over MI6-aided rendition

US War Crimes Bring Huge War Profits

"It seems like just yesterday that President Clinton's moralizing humanitarian interventionists were taking the US into an illegal war in partnership with the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (a 1990s version of current US partner, the 'Free Syrian Army'). Now in Kosovo, where you can stroll down Bob Dole Street and Bill Clinton Blvd. while admiring the hulking and grotesquely cartoonish statue of our 42nd president, the 'liberators' of that tiny mafia state have returned to collect their rewards for bathing the Balkans in blood." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUS War Crimes Bring Huge War Profits

Obama recognizes Syrian rebels as ‘legitimate representative’ of the people

"President Barack Obama said Tuesday that the Syrian opposition was now 'the legitimate representative' of the Syrian people, in the most significant US intervention yet in the brutal civil war. Though a minority, the Al-Qaeda-linked rebel group Al-Nusra has been one of the most effective rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, raising concerns that hardline extremists are hijacking the 21-month-old revolt. Senior officials however said that despite the move on recognizing the opposition, Washington sticks by its policy of not directly arming the rebels." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingObama recognizes Syrian rebels as ‘legitimate representative’ of the people

What the Eurozone Financial Crisis Is Really About

"Greek hospitals are in such dire straits that staff are failing to keep up basic disease controls such as using gloves and gowns, threatening a rise in multidrug-resistant infections, according to Europe's top health official. Greece already has one of the worst problems in Europe with hospital-acquired infections, and disease experts fear this is being made worse by an economic crisis that has cut health care staffing levels and hurt standards of care. With fewer doctors and nurses to look after more patients, and hospitals running low on cash for supplies, risks are being taken even with basic hygiene." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhat the Eurozone Financial Crisis Is Really About

Tehran residents urged to flee ‘dangerous’ pollution

"Efforts by Tehran officials to boost public transport, including extending the subway lines and establishing lanes for buses only, have barely dented the problem because of the ever-growing number of cars, many of which are inefficient and old. Western sanctions on fuel imports to Iran have also forced the country to rely on its own production of petrol — of a lower grade, and therefore more polluting, than in many other countries." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTehran residents urged to flee ‘dangerous’ pollution