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Nobel Prize winner tells Obama to stay away from Argentina on US-backed coup anniversary

RT | March 4, 2016

A former Argentine Nobel Prize winner says US President Barack Obama should skip or at least delay his intended visit to the country on March 24 because it coincides with the 40th anniversary of a coup that installed a Washington-backed military government.

Adolfo Perez Esquivel says he is happy that the US president would like to visit Argentina, only he believes that Obama should travel to the country at a later date due to the sensitivity of the anniversary.

“I’m a survivor of that era, of the flights of death, of the torture, of the prisons, of the exiles,” Esquivel told AP. “And when you analyze the situation in depth, the United States was responsible for the coups in Latin America.”

Esquivel won the Nobel Prize in 1980 for defending human rights under Argentina’s dictatorship, which spanned from 1976 until 1983. On March 24, 1976, a military coup toppled Isabel Peron’s government. Human rights groups estimate that around 30,000 people were killed or simply disappeared under the military government.

The current Argentine President Mauricio Macri is trying to improve relations with the US, which were frosty under his predecessor Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. He says he has met with human rights groups to try and placate the situation. However, the rights groups are less than impressed.

Obama “is the false face of the Nobel Prize and we believe there are many things he should pay for,” Hebe de Bonafini, president of iconic human rights group Mothers of Plaza the Mayo, told AP. “We don’t want him here.”

The US president plans to visit Argentina on March 23, after making a historic trip to Cuba. The US Ambassador to Argentina Noah Clarin said that Obama would not be able to change his plans and would have to come on the planned dates.

Obama, like Esquivel, is also a Nobel Prize winner, having won the award in 2009. In fact Esquivel was one of twelve previous winners of the Nobel Peace Prize to urge fellow laureate Obama to release a CIA torture report.

The laureates wrote in October, 2014 in an open letter that called for “full disclosure to the American people of the extent and use of torture and rendition by American soldiers, operatives, and contractors, as well as the authorization of torture and rendition by American officials.”

The letter called on Obama, who won the accolade after spending less than a year in the White House, to follow principles of international law outlined in the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions.

March 4, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

US B-52s to perform ‘not normal’ exercises in Norway

RT | March 3, 2016

Three B-52 Stratofortress bombers that have moved from the US to Europe are set to participate in military exercises in Norway. A top US commander characterized the redeployment as “not normal.”

The move, which began last week with the bombers and 200 support airmen being stationed in Spain, is part of the Obama administration’s build-up of US forces in Europe in response to European countries’ anxiety over perceived Russian aggression.

However, US Air Force General Philip Breedlove said Tuesday that while the deployment of the B-52s was abnormal, the aircraft had been scheduled for NATO exercises and the move was not prompted by the actions of Russia, the Washington Post reported.

“It is a part of the exercise objectives… not a part of any response [to Russian actions],” Breedlove insisted, according to Sputnik.

The three bombers are assigned to the 2nd Bomb Wing and were rebased from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana on Friday, and will temporarily stay at Spain’s Morón Air Base.

“Strategic bomber deployments enhance the readiness and training vital to rapidly projecting global power and responding to any potential crisis or challenge,” Admiral Cecil D. Haney, the commander of US Strategic Command, said in a statement.

The bombers provide a unique complement to the nuclear delivery capabilities of intercontinental ballistic missiles and ballistic missile submarines, Haney added.

The Norwegian exercise, called Cold Response, is meant to practice “high-intensity operations in winter conditions,” according to the Pentagon. More than a dozen NATO countries will participate in the rehearsal that is meant to underscore NATO’s ability “to defend against any threat in any environment.”

In February, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter announced that US military spending on Europe would be more than quadrupled from $689 million in 2016 to $3.4 billion in 2017.

March 3, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama extends anti-Russia sanctions for another year

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Press TV – March 3, 2016

US President Barack Obama has signed a new Executive Order that extends economic sanctions against Russia for another year.

The decree, published Wednesday on the official White House website, states that economic and financial sanctions imposed on Moscow over its involvement in the Ukrainian crisis will stay in place until March 6, 2017.

The decision came as “Russia’s actions continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” Obama said in the document.

“I found that the actions and policies of the Government of the Russian Federation with respect to Ukraine undermine democratic processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets,” the president added.

The move drew criticism from the Kremlin, with Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters on Thursday that the decision was regrettable.

The sanctions were originally introduced against Moscow in March 2014, after Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea joined Russia. The move prompted the US to press sanctions against Russia’s energy and finance sectors.

The European Union followed suit shortly after, introducing its own set of sanctions against Moscow that targeted a number of Russian politicians and businessmen, and placed restrictions on lending to Russia’s major state-owned banks, military and oil firms.

On the military side, exporting dual-use equipment to Russia was banned and all future EU-Moscow military deals were put on hold.

According to EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic, the bans sought to force Russia to comply with the ceasefire introduced by the Minsk agreement.

Putin signed the agreement with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in February last year, following negotiations held in the presence of French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The deal introduces a complete ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry from border areas, and holding free elections in the region.

March 3, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | Leave a comment

Killing Someone Else’s Beloved

Promoting the American Way of War in Campaign 2016

By Mattea Kramer | TomDispatch | March 3, 2016

The crowd that gathered in an airplane hangar in the desert roared with excitement when the man on stage vowed to murder women and children.

It was just another Donald Trump campaign event, and the candidate had affirmed his previously made pledge not only to kill terrorists but to “take out” their family members, too. Outrageous as that might sound, it hardly distinguished Trump from most of his Republican rivals, fiercely competing over who will commit the worst war crimes if elected. All the chilling claims about who will preside over more killings of innocents in distant lands — and the thunderous applause that meets such boasts — could easily be taken as evidence that the megalomaniacal billionaire Republican front-runner, his various opponents, and their legions of supporters, are all crazytown.

Yet Trump’s pledge to murder the civilian relatives of terrorists could be considered quite modest — and, in its bluntness, refreshingly candid — when compared to President Obama’s ongoing policy of loosing drones and U.S. Special Operations forces in the Greater Middle East. Those policies, the assassinations that go with them, and the “collateral damage” they regularly cause are based on one premise when it comes to the American public: that we will permanently suspend our capacity for grief and empathy when it comes to the dead (and the living) in distant countries.

Classified documents recently leaked to the Intercept by a whistleblower describe the “killing campaign” carried out by the CIA and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command in Yemen and Somalia. (The U.S. also conducts drone strikes in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya; the leaked documents explain how President Obama has institutionalized the practice of striking outside regions of “active hostilities.”) Intelligence personnel build a case against a terror suspect and then develop what’s termed a “baseball card” — a condensed dossier with a portrait of the individual targeted and the nature of the alleged threat he poses to U.S. interests — that gets sent up the chain of command, eventually landing in the Oval Office.  The president then meets with more than 100 representatives of his national security team, generally on a weekly basis, to determine just which of those cards will be selected picked for death.  (The New York Times has vividly described this intimate process of choosing assassination targets.)

Orders then make their way down to drone operators somewhere in the United States, thousands of miles from the individuals slated to be killed, who remotely pilot the aircraft to the location and then pull the trigger. But when those drone operators launch missiles on the other side of the world, the terrifying truth is that the U.S. “is often unsure who will die,” as a New York Times headline put it.

That’s because intel on a target’s precise whereabouts at any given moment can be faulty. And so, as the Times reported, “most individuals killed are not on a kill list, and the government does not know their names.” In 2014, for instance, the human-rights group Reprieve, analyzing what limited data on U.S. drone strikes was available, discovered that in attempts to kill 41 terror figures (not all of whom died), 1,147 people were killed.  The study found that the vast majority of strikes failed to take down the intended victim, and thus numerous strikes were often attempted on a single target. The Guardian reported that in attempts to take down 24 men in Pakistan — only six of whom were eventually eliminated in successful drone strikes — the U.S. killed an estimated 142 children.

Trump’s plan merely to murder the relatives of terrorists seems practically tame, by comparison.

Their Grief and Mine 

Apparently you and I are meant to consider all those accidental killings as mere “collateral damage,” or else we’re not meant to consider them at all. We’re supposed to toggle to the “off” position any sentiment of remorse or compassion that we might feel for all the civilians who die thanks to our country’s homicidal approach to keeping us safe.

I admit to a failing here: when I notice such stories, sometimes buried deep in news reports — including the 30 people killed, three of them children, when U.S. airpower “accidentally” hit a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last October; or the two women and three children blasted to smithereens by U.S. airpower last spring at an Islamic State checkpoint in northern Iraq because the pilots of two A-10 Warthogs attacking the site didn’t realize that civilians were in the vehicles stopped there; or the innumerable similar incidents that have happened with remarkable regularity and which barely make it into American news reports — I find I can’t quite achieve the cold distance necessary to accept our government’s tactics. And for this I blame (or thank) my father.

To understand why it’s so difficult for me to gloss over the dead, you have to know that on December 1, 2003, a date I will never forget nor fully recover from, I called home from a phone booth on a cobblestone street in Switzerland — where I was backpacking at the time — and learned that my Dad was dead. A heart attack that struck as suddenly as a Hellfire missile.

Standing in that sun-warmed phone booth clutching the receiver with a slick hand, vomit gurgling up at the back of my throat, I pressed my eyes closed and saw my Dad. First, I saw his back as he sat at the broad desk in his home office, his spot of thinning hair revealed. Then, I saw him in his nylon pants and baseball cap, paused at the kitchen door on his way to play paddle tennis. And finally, I saw him as I had the last time we parted, at Boston’s Logan Airport, on a patch of dingy grey carpet, as I kissed his whiskered cheek.

A few days later, after mute weeping won me a seat on a fully booked trans-Atlantic flight, I stood in the wan light of early December and watched the employees of the funeral home as they unloosed the pulleys to lower Dad’s wooden box into the ground. I peered down into that earthen hole, crying and sweating and shivering in the stinging cold, and tried to make sense of the senseless: Why was he dead while the rest of us lived?

And that’s why, when I read about all the innocent civilians we’ve been killing over the years with the airpower that presidential candidate Ted Cruz calls “a blessing,” I tend to think about the people left behind. Those who loved the people we’ve killed. I wonder how they received the news. (“We’ve had a tragedy here,” my Mom told me.) I wonder about the shattering anguish they surely feel at the loss of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, friends. I wonder what memories come to them when they squeeze their eyes closed in grief. And I wonder if they’ll ever be able to pick up the pieces of their lives and return to some semblance of normalcy in societies that are often shattering around them. (What I don’t wonder about, though, is whether or not they’re more likely to become radicalized — to hate not just our drones but our country and us — because the answer to that is obvious.)

Playing God in the Oval Office

“It’s the worst thing to ever happen to anyone,” actor Liam Neeson recently wrote on Facebook. He wasn’t talking about drone strikes, but about the fundamental experience of loss — of losing a loved one by any means. He was marking five years since his wife’s sudden death. “They say the hardest thing in the world is losing someone you love,” he added. I won’t disagree. After losing her husband, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg posted about “the brutal moments when I am overtaken by the void, when the months and years stretch out in front of me, endless and empty.” After her husband’s sudden death, author Joan Didion described grief as a “relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.”

That squares with the description offered by a man in Yemen who had much of his extended family blown away by an American drone at his wedding. “I felt myself going deeper and deeper into darkness,” the man later told a reporter. The drone arrived just after the wedding party had climbed into vehicles strewn with ribbons to escort the bride to her groom’s hometown. Everyone’s belly was full of lamb and it was dusk. It was quiet. Then the sky opened, and four missiles rained down on the procession, killing 12.

U.S. airpower has hit a bunch of other weddings, too. And funerals. And clinics. And an unknown and unknowable number of family homes. The CIA’s drone assassination campaign in the tribal regions of Pakistan even led a group of American and Pakistani artists to install an enormous portrait of a child on the ground in a frequently targeted region of that country. The artists wanted drone operators to see the face of one of the young people they might be targeting, instead of the tiny infrared figures on their computer consoles that they colloquially refer to as “bugsplats.” It’s an exhortation to them not to kill someone else’s beloved.

Once in a while a drone operator comes forward to reveal the emotional and psychic burden of passing 12-hour shifts in a windowless bunker on an Air Force base, killing by keystroke for a living. One serviceman’s six years on the job began when he was 21 years old and included a moment when he glimpsed a tiny figure dart around the side of a house in Afghanistan that was the target of a missile already on its way. In terror, he demanded of his co-pilot, “Did that look like a child to you?” Feverishly, he began tapping messages to ask the mission’s remote observer — an intelligence staffer at another location — if there was a child present. He’ll never know the answer. Moments later, the missile struck the house, leveling it. That particular drone operator has since left the military. After his resignation, he spent a bitterly cold winter in his home state of Montana getting blackout drunk and sleeping in a public playground in his government-issued sleeping bag.

Someone else has, of course, taken his seat at that console and continues to receive kill orders from above.

Meanwhile Donald Trump and most of the other Republican candidates have been competing over who can most successfully obliterate combatants as well as civilians. (Ted Cruz’s comment about carpet-bombing ISIS until we find out “if sand can glow in the dark” has practically become a catchphrase.) But it’s not just the Republicans. Every single major candidate from both parties has plans to maintain some version of Washington’s increasingly far-flung drone campaigns. In other words, a program that originated under President George W. Bush as a crucial part of his “global war on terror,” and that was further institutionalized and ramped up under President Obama, will soon be bequeathed to a new president-elect.

When you think about it that way, election 2016 isn’t so much a vote to select the leader of the planet’s last superpower as it is a tournament to decide who will next step into the Oval Office and have the chance to play god.

Who will get your support as the best candidate to continue killing the loved ones of others?

Go to the polls, America.

Mattea Kramer is a TomDispatch regular who writes on a wide range of topics, from military policy to love and loss. She blogs at This Life After Loss. Follow her on Twitter.

Copyright 2016 Mattea Kramer

March 3, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

President Obama, When It Comes to Human Rights, We Need More Action, Not Words

By Jamil Dakwar | ACLU | March 2, 2016

The Obama administration this week made new pledges and commitments to protect “human rights and fundamental freedoms” to the United Nations in advance of the U.S. re-election to the U.N. Human Rights Council. Yet while the U.S. has used its first six years of HRC membership to advance human rights overseas, its participation has had little direct bearing on human rights at home. Lack of accountability for torture and cooperation with U.N. human rights experts are just two examples of such double standards.

When he took office, President Obama promised to disavow many of the disastrous Bush administration policies, including by closing Guantánamo and ending the use of torture. Obama also promised to reassert U.S. global leadership on human rights by joining the HRC later that year.

While the president issued an executive order on his second day in office ending the CIA’s secret detention and torture program, he declined to support any meaningful measures of accountability for crimes that had taken place. His policy of “looking forward rather than backward,” as well as his administration’s continuing fight against transparency and any attempts to reveal the whole truth about Bush administration torture policies, will undoubtedly stain his human rights legacy.

That’s why it was surprising when the U.S. government released the following statement earlier this week:

“The United States is committed to upholding our international obligations to prevent torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The United States supports the work of the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the Committee Against Torture, and in 2015, the United States was proud to become a participant in the Group of Friends of the Convention Against Torture Initiative.”

This kind of rhetoric is emblematic of the Obama administration’s hypocrisy and cherry-picking when it comes to U.S. international legal obligations. The U.S. is obligated under the Convention Against Torture not only to prevent torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. It is also obligated to hold accountable those who ordered or perpetrated acts of torture and to provide legal redress to victims. On these fronts, our government’s record has been abysmal. Yesterday Human Rights Watch and the ACLU submitted a response to the U.S. one year follow-up report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture, which details the United States’ failure to meet its legal obligations to fully investigate acts of torture during the Bush administration.

When it comes to torture, the gap between rhetoric and action isn’t limited to the Bush administration’s record. While it is encouraging to see the U.S. expressing support for the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, consider the ways the U.S. has directly prevented this critically important institution from effectively doing its job.

The current special rapporteur on torture, Juan Mendez, is about to end his six-year term. Since the early days of his mandate, he has repeatedly asked to visit U.S. prisons and detention facilities in order to examine the widespread use of solitary confinement, which often causes mental and physical suffering and can amount to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment — even torture. However, the U.S. has consistently stonewalled his requests and has so far failed to provide him with the minimum standards of access required by U.N. protocol for such visits. It is very likely that Mr. Mendez won’t be able to carry out his visit before the end of his term, which is exactly what the U.S. likely intended in delaying and dragging out the process. It’s simply outrageous that the United States won’t provide basic access to its domestic detention facilities, especially given that the U.S. is perhaps the only Western democracy that doesn’t have a permanent and independent monitoring system of all detention facilities.

American leadership on the world stage suffers when the country presents such a stark double standard on human rights and denies independent human rights monitors access to U.S. facilities abroad, like Guantánamo, and here in the United States.

This coming November, the U.S. will be on the ballot for a new three-year-term membership in the U.N. Human Rights Council. The Obama administration has another opportunity to demonstrate to the world that U.S. commitment to the universal prohibition against torture is serious and long-lasting. By upholding U.S. human rights obligations through action in addition to rhetoric, the Obama administration can send a strong message to future presidents that there will be consequences for breaking the law and more effectively press other governments to end torture abroad.

March 2, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Afghanistan: The Forever-War We Never Question

By Charles Davis – teleSUR – February 29, 2016

The U.S. and NATO will never get out of Afghanistan if their leaders never even have to explain why they are there.

War is so normal in the United States of America — being in a constant state of it, somewhere else — that the longest-running foreign conflict in the country’s history is hardly even an afterthought in the race to become the nation’s next commander in chief.

In 17 televised debates and town halls, the Republicans and Democrats running for president have been asked all of two questions about the war in Afghanistan, now in its 15th year. The antiwar movement having died off with the election of President Barack Obama, who dramatically escalated the war before promising to end it, Afghanistan is of little concern outside a small room in Nevada where a U.S. pilot is remotely firing a Predator drone’s Hellfire missiles.

On the Republican side, Ben Carson was asked about Obama’s decision last year to “leave 10,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan” indefinitely. That was in November 2015, and Carson dodged the question, shifting to a question of his own — on humiliation as counterterrorism — that he posed as an answer. “How do we make them look like losers?” he asked, arguably elevating the discourse on foreign policy in this most humiliating of election campaigns.

No Republican has been asked about Afghanistan since. At nearly half of their debates, the name of the country hasn’t even been mentioned in passing.

As for the Democrats, voters might be forgiven for assuming there’s a stark difference between the progressive Bernie Sanders and the centrist Hillary Clinton.

Bernie volunteered at the first debate in October 2015 that he “supported the war in Afghanistan,” but the remark was ambiguous: Did he still support, or was he merely listing all the bombs he has supported dropping in the past, a prerequisite for someone seeking to occupy the White House. It wasn’t until February 2016 that either he or Clinton were asked a direct question about a U.S. occupation that’s halfway through its second decade.

“If President Obama leaves you 10,000 troops,” the moderator inquired, “how long do you think they’re going to be there?”

“Well, you can’t simply withdraw tomorrow,” said Sanders. “Wish we could, and allow, you know, the Taliban or anybody else to reclaim that country.” He then shifted to “destroying” the Islamic State group in Iraq. And that was that.

If Bernie did not actually answer the question, neither did Hillary, who was named secretary of state by the president who has chosen to break his promise to leave Afghanistan in favor of leaving those 10,000 troops instead. “I would have to make an evaluation based on the circumstances at the time I took office,” said Clinton, not really saying anything.

Afghanistan hasn’t come up again, perhaps because two old white people agreeing with each other does not make for great television. For years the war in Afghanistan was “the good one,” launched as it was just a month after the terrorist attacks on Sep. 11, 2001, with liberal Democrats spending the better part of a decade contrasting its justness with the “distraction” of invading and destroying Iraq.

Do Afghan Lives Matter?

Afghanistan’s absence from U.S. politics can also, perhaps, be attributed to the fact that those who are dying there today are not the U.S. military’s brave men and women, but Afghan civilians, as anonymous as they are innocent.

“For the most part I would blame racism in the media,” said Mohammed Harun Arsalai, a 34-year-old Afghan living in Kabul, in an interview with teleSUR. An independent journalist, Arsalai has seen firsthand that, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, Afghan lives don’t matter.

“I can point back to at least two examples in recent memory where a major, mainstream media outlet contacted me about footage and information on attacks taking place in Kabul against ‘Western targets,’” he said. One was a suicide car bomb attack on a French restaurant and the other was an attack on the Italian Embassy. “In both instances,” he said, “these outlets canceled their requests with me because no Westerners were injured. Afghan lives just aren’t worth as much to these people.”

On Feb. 27, the same day Clinton and Sanders were campaigning for votes in South Carolina, at least 26 people were killed and 50 wounded in suicide bombings across Afghanistan. No Westerners died, however, and so another day went by on the campaign trail where a war being waged 11,000 kilometers away went unmentioned.

If he had a chance to meet with any of the presidential contenders, Arsalai knows what he would say: “That the U.S. has no policy in Afghanistan.” The threat of a Taliban takeover is oft-cited as a reason to stay, but the U.S. “has said on multiple occasions now that they are not at war with the Taliban. What does that mean? What are they doing here then?”

“Afghans are killing Afghans,” said Arsalai, “while the U.S. is mainly confined to its bases using drones and airstrikes, basically acting as a manager of the violence.”

War Without an End

Matthew Hoh was one of the U.S. State Department’s senior officers in Afghanistan. He resigned in September 2009, protesting a war he accused the Obama administration of fighting without a clear idea as to “why and to what end.”

“Cut the crap,” Hoh would tell those — everyone running for president — who believe the U.S. presence is preventing an extremist takeover. “Our presence in Afghanistan, in particular our escalation of the war, has only made the Taliban stronger,” he told teleSUR.

In the months before Hoh resigned from the State Department, President Obama fulfilled a campaign promise and ordered a massive surge of troops in Afghanistan, increasing the size of the U.S. occupying force from 32,800 men and women at the time he took office in January 2009 to more than 100,000 by 2011, not counting private contractors. It was another campaign promise, made four years later, that he decided to break: the one about getting out.

The product of escalation has not been peace, but a surge in death for all sides, though in war as in capitalism, burdens are not distributed equally. Of the nearly 2,400 U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan, more than 1,750 have died since Obama took office. But as in any war, the brunt of the violence has been felt by those on whose behalf it is ostensibly being fought: In 2015 alone, at least 3,545 civilians were violently killed, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, while more than 7,400 were injured, making it the worst year on record for the Afghan people.

Overall, the war has killed around 100,000 people in Afghanistan, more than a quarter of them civilians, according to a study by researchers at Brown University. And the 30 million Afghans still living now face another threat: the Islamic State group, an extremist organization for those who deem the ultra-reactionary Taliban too moderate. “(M)ore than two-thirds (67.4 percent) of Afghans report that they always, often, or sometimes fear for their personal safety,” found a survey of nearly 10,000 people released in November 2015 by The Asia Foundation. “This is the highest rate since 2006.”

No Courage, No Peace

“By every standard of measurement,” Hoh said, “our military, economic and diplomatic campaigns under the Obama administration have worsened conditions for the average Afghan, increased popular support for the Taliban, and created an increasing factionalism and weakness in Afghan society that has allowed for a group like the Islamic State to find a welcoming base of support and enthusiastic adherents.”

After all, thanks to corrupt local warlords sometimes called “governors” and backed by the power and glory of the almighty U.S. military, many Afghans have come to learn that Taliban, ISIS or al-Qaida or not, getting in the way of corruption, or just living on land the corrupt desire, can be a ticket to a torture chamber at Bagram or an extended stay in an early grave. And if they can’t join the corrupted, some decide they might as well join the resistance, or what passes for it, whether they share its views on women and television or not.

But people prefer the comfort of simplicity and, so long as the dead is someone else’s kid, there’s no real price to pay for ignorance, or really anything to gain politically from denouncing an act that no one is angry about.

“The vast majority of Americans are unaffected by the war. It has no immediate costs for them and they bear no sacrifice,” said Hoh. Stirring that sorely lacking concern is, alas, asking for more than most media outlets are willing or capable.

“For the standard three-minute television story or 500-word print story,” Hoh argued, “upsetting the moral narrative of the ‘good war’ is too difficult to achieve, and it is something that would take moral courage to do, anyhow.” In the campaign press as with politicians on the campaign trail, there just isn’t a whole lot of that sort of thing, even in the best of times — and this, the age of austerity and Donald Trump, cannot be confused with that.

So, left unchallenged, even the populists will continue to shrug along with the status quo, not even bothering with the historic tradition of making anti-war promises to break, while Afghans will continue dying in a war that few ever bothered to understand.

Charles Davis is an editor at teleSUR. Follow him on Twitter @charliearchy

March 1, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Is the world ready for further reduction of nuclear weapons?

Dr Alexander Yakovenko – RT – February 27, 2016

One of the most important tasks in the field of international security is to rid the world of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.

Russia has been constantly advocating further limitations and reductions of nuclear weapons stockpiles along with strengthening international regimes of arms control and non-proliferation.

However, further dialogue on nuclear disarmament, held both bilaterally and multilaterally, could only be successful if the core principle of international security is observed, i.e. that the security of one country should not be strengthened at the expense of the security of others.

Unfortunately, what is happening now is a far cry from what the international community has been striving for. Among other things it is about global stability and deterrence; the trust between Russia and the West is diminishing. Some of the critical Russian concerns are left unaddressed.

First of all, as a result of the Russia-US New START Treaty, which entered into force in 2011, the number of nuclear warheads has already been reduced to the level of late 1950s or early 1960s. Thus, it brings up the issue of other nuclear states, including UK, joining the effort.

Secondly, further reductions are impossible while Washington is busy creating a global BMD system and conducting research into conventional weapons with a strategic range.

There is also serious concern over the possible transfer of the arms race to outer space. The Russian initiative to draft a legally binding document to ban the deployment of weapons in outer space is, unfortunately, hindered by the West. Before any concrete steps are made in this area, we’ve got to have guarantees against any imbalances in conventional armaments. The lack of progress in coming into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is also a major factor.

Where are, after all, political logic and common sense, when the US pushes forward its disarmament proposal, while continuing to undermine Russia’s defense and industrial potential through restrictive measures and sanctions?

Above all, the trust between our sides is well below the “Cold War” level as the West launched an unprecedented media campaign against Russia and its political leadership. We cannot seriously consider proposals that amount to playing a one-sided game or rather, a game with no rules or with rules that are arbitrarily changed in Washington.

If, and when, all of the above circumstances change and our concerns and priorities are taken into account, including equal and indivisible security for all states, then it will be possible to consider discussing further nuclear reduction.

Dr Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Deputy foreign minister (2005-2011). Follow him on Twitter @Amb_Yakovenko

February 28, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Obama Administration Fails to Make Progress on Reforming US Drone Program

Sputnik — February 23, 2016

US President Barack Obama’s administration has failed to implement reforms regarding the controversial drone policy to make it more transparent, accountable and consistent with national security interests, according to a report by the US think tank Stimson Center published Tuesday.

“Little progress has been made during the past year and a half to enact reforms that establish a more sensible US drone policy consistent with America’s long-term security and economic interests. The lack of a clear drone policy risks leaving a legacy on drone use that is based on secrecy and a lack of accountability that undermines efforts to support the international rule of law,” the report reads.

In 2014, the Stimson Task Force, comprising senior military and intelligence officials, recommended public disclosure of targeted drone strikes, thorough review of past and present drone strikes and their effectiveness and detailed reports explaining the legal basis of the US lethal drone program, among other recommendations.

The proposals were later backed by UN experts, including the adviser to Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Sarah Knuckey.

The US military has increasingly relied on drones to conduct operations in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Syria and Iraq. Critics have slammed the practice for resulting in a significant number of civilian deaths and the destruction of infrastructure unrelated to terrorists.

Data collected by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism shows that US drone strikes have killed up to 1,000 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen over the past 10 years.

February 23, 2016 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

DoD, State Dept. struggle to explain Libya strike legality with 15yo authorization & some intl law

RT | February 20, 2016

A view shows damage at the scene after an airstrike by U.S. warplanes against Islamic State in Sabratha, Libya, in this February 19, 2016 handout picture. © Sabratha municipality media office

A view shows damage at the scene after an airstrike by U.S. warplanes against Islamic State in Sabratha, Libya, in this February 19, 2016 handout picture.
© Sabratha municipality media office / Reuters

Having confirmed a strike on an ISIS camp in Libya, Washington officials had difficulties explaining under which legal authority the US acts. While the Pentagon cites post-9/11 legislation, stripped of such powers, the State Department refers to unnamed international laws.

On Friday, the US announced that its warplanes targeted a training camp near the Libyan city of Sabratha, reportedly killing up to 40 people. The Pentagon has treated the attack as a success as it declared the elimination of a Tunisian national, Noureddine Chouchane, who was an Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS) facilitator in Libya.

Also known as “Sabir,” the militant is believed to be behind the deadly attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunis in March 2015.

However, regardless of its achievement, the US authority to carry out strikes on Libyan soil has again come into question. It has appeared that Washington does not have a single answer.

After briefing reporters on Friday, the Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook was asked to clarify under what authority the US came to Libya, given that no Americans had been killed in the 2015 Tunisia attack.

“We have struck in Libya previously under the existing Authorization for the use of [military] force,” Cook replied.

The Pentagon’s spokesperson allegedly referred to the AUMF, which was passed and then signed by President George W. Bush shortly after 9/11, in September 2001, to target al-Qaeda. It authorized United States Armed Forces to carry out attacks against those responsible for September 11.

However, the Defense Department “believes” that the AUMF can be used 15 years later to fight ISIS.

“We believe that this was carried out under international law and, specifically, that this operation was consistent with domestic and international law,” Cook said, while not explicitly referring to any particular legislation.

In February 2015, President Obama did propose his own AUMF, which “does not address the 2001 AUMF”, but the draft was rejected by the Congress in December.

Other AUMF drafts, including for example, one of the most recently submitted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have not gotten Congressional approval either.

RT has also tried to clarify the US’s authority for the attack with the State Department, but failed to get a conclusive answer.

RT’s Gayane Chichikyan: “Under what legal authority did the US carry out strikes in Libya this morning?”

State Department’s Mark Toner: “It was in full accordance with international law. We’ve talked about this many times. I’d refer you to the Department of Defense to speak about specifics.”

Chichikyan: “So not the AUMF? It’s – it was international law?”

Toner: “Exactly. I mean – exactly.” He then refused to “get into details here,” again readdressing the question back to the Pentagon.

Approved by ‘some Libyan authority’?

At the same time both departments unanimously stress that “the Libyan authorities were aware” about the US’s strike. However, when asked to specify what “Libyan authorities” he referred to, Toner seemed to be at a loss, saying that “there is some governmental structure present” there.

“The new – well, I mean, there’s obviously Libyan authorities on the ground,” he replied to a question about Libya’s recently announced unity government. “It’s not – we’re still working to stand up the Government of National Accord. We want to see it returned and establish itself in Tripoli.”

Meanwhile, as experts tell RT, until its approval, the UN-backed unity government does not have powers to authorize foreign intervention.

“There is really no Libyan authority in existence that’s able to invite them [the US], so I think they did it on their own authority,” Oliver Miles, former UK ambassador to Libya, said. Miles believes the Libyans would oppose “very strongly” any foreign intervention.

Five years after the US-led force toppled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Libya remains in a power vacuum, which dragged the country into a civil war and let terror groups gain a foothold in the region.

There is a glimpse of hope for improvement and stability as the unity government, consisting of 13 ministers and five ministers of state, was formed Sunday and is currently expecting Libya’s eastern parliament’s approval.

The State Department “disagrees” that the US’s devastating intervention in Libya in 2011 has been a reason for its current involvement in Libya.

“We’re very clear-eyed in our assessment that when we see ISIL take these kinds of actions, we need to be able to strike at them,” Toner said, stressing that it is not “second intervention.”

In the meantime, the Pentagon has announced that it “will go after ISIL whenever it is necessary, using the full range of tools at our disposal.” 

February 20, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama admits US-ISIS terror link

By Finian Cunningham | American Herald tribune | February 18, 2016

Call it a Freudian slip, but US President Barack Obama appears to have come clean, for once, on the connection between American foreign policy and the so called Islamic State (ISIS) terror group.

In an address earlier this week to the leaders of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), gathered in California, Obama was answering questions from news reporters on various international topics. On the matter of terrorist groups expanding their foothold in Libya, the president said the following: “With respect to Libya… we will go after ISIS wherever it appears, the same way we went after al Qaeda wherever they appeared.”

In casual parlance the phrase “go after” can mean “to destroy”. But the more literal meaning and perhaps the one that Obama inadvertently let slip is simply “to follow”–as in a partnered way.

In that case, what Obama is referring to is the actual foreign policy function of ISIS and its related al Qaeda terror network. Wherever these groups appear, then Washington appoints itself to follow them under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

This pretext works very efficiently to nullify problems of international law. When the US sends its military into a foreign country to ostensibly combat terrorism then it is untrammeled by legal objections that it is violating other countries’ sovereignty. What would normally be seen as a gross violation –a military invasion by the US –is neatly transformed into an “anti-terror”operation. And if the incumbent foreign government complains about the “benevolent US assistance” then it can be toppled because it is “siding with the terrorists”.

This is, of course, the whole rationale behind the so-called War on Terror that Washington crafted in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Just uttering the phrase War on Terror gives Washington license to invade and ransack any foreign state it chooses, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than one million people were killed by US forces “hunting down terrorists”.

Before that, the official pretexts were “War on Communism”or “War on Drugs”. But with the collapse of the “Evil Soviet Empire”, the first of these pretexts became redundant. Although, Washington and its NATO allies are trying their best to revive the “Russian Scare” by demonizing Vladimir Putin as the “new Hitler in Europe”. As for the War on Drugs, it didn’t quite have the required kick to pump up the Pentagon’s $600 billion annual budget, or to enthuse the American public, many of whom rather enjoy drugs anyway.

But the War on Terror, now that is, or at least was, a satisfying wheeze. It also has the added benefit of allowing federal authorities to crack down on civil rights and make all sorts of invasive controls over individual liberty, as in the latest controversy of the FBI demanding that Apple give them a digital key for unlocking phones and computers.

The primary function, however, remains: the terror groups, whether they go by the name of al Qaeda or ISIS, give Washington the convenient cover to militarily invade any country on the globe. The real agenda being regime change or commandeering the natural resources of the target country for the gratification of Wall Street banks and other American corporations –in the exact same scam that pertained in the old days of Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, who later confessed to being a henchman on behalf of US capitalism, by overthrowing governments in Central America and the Caribbean during the early 1900s.

Admittedly, sometimes the terrorists do get whacked by the Pentagon. No doubt about it that Obama and his generals have killed numerous al Qaeda-linked operatives with assassination drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen. Many more innocent civilians have also been murdered along the way by US drones.

The assassination of terror cadres by Washington may seem like a contradiction to the overall argument here that there is a mutual connection between the two. However, we shouldn’t think of Washington as a monolith. There are no doubt people within the US establishment who are dedicated to genuinely fighting terrorism, and sometimes they succeed.

But that doesn’t negate the central point that the US has covertly created these same terrorist groups to expedite its own foreign policy and geopolitical ambitions. We can’t go into the full history here, but it is well documented that the CIA engendered, mobilized and weaponized al Qaeda “the database” to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan during the 1980s. It wasn’t just the CIA. British MI6, French DGSE and Pakistani ISI were involved, as were the Saudi regime who provided the billions of dollars of finance and fundamentalist Wahhabi ideology that perversely empowers cadres to kill anyone –men, women and children –whom is designated an “infidel”. In other words, perfect proxy killers for the powers-that-be.

Despite the propaganda pumped out in the Western mainstream media of a US-led coalition “fighting terrorism” in Syria, the hard fact is that al Qaeda, ISIS and a plethora of other terrorist mercenary brigades were sent into Syria by the same US-led coalition for the purpose of regime change against the Russian and Iranian-allied government of President Bashar al-Assad. Readers can look up the candid admission of Lt General Michael Flynn, the former chief of US Defense Intelligence Agency as to the cynical calculations that Washington made in unleashing the terrorists on Syria.

If the US were really fighting terrorism in Syria then how do you explain this headline from McClatchy News referring to the huge discrepancy in Russian bombing raids compared with American. “Russia hit 1,888 targets in Syria in a week; the US count? Just 16”.

Face it. Until Russia intervened last September, the ISIS terror network had proliferated under US “bombing” to such an extent that Syria was in danger of being overthrown (as according to Washington’s plan).

Having failed in that mission largely because of Russia’s military intervention over the past five months, the fallback option provided by the terror groups is that they could be used to justify an outright military invasion of Syria by the US-led coalition, in the form of NATO-member Turkey and Saudi Arabia along with the other American-Arab puppet-regimes.

As Obama let slip at the ASEAN summit this week: “Wherever ISIS or al Qaeda appears, we will go after them.”

Well said Mr President. For once, you told the plain truth.

PS. The ASEAN venue where Obama was speaking at in Sunnylands, California is called “Rancho Mirage”. Kind of appropriate, don’t you think?

February 20, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Brandon Turbeville: “The connections between the United States and Daesh are there for all to see”

Interview by Mohsen Abdelmoumen | American Herald Tribune | February 16, 2016

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: Do you think that the agreement on a ceasefire in Syria that the US has got to Russia is not intended to give a new breath the terrorist groups to enable them to reorganize, but also to erase the traces of links between the United States and Daesh? Some information from various intelligence sources reveal that Daesh elements were exfiltrated further to Russian bombardments, what do you think?

Brandon Turbeville: I think the major reason behind the ceasefire was an attempt on the part of the Western powers, particularly the United States, to buy time for the terrorists in Syria who are now on the run because of the Russian assistance being provided to the SAA. The connections between the United States and Daesh are there for all to see – from the “ineffective” bombing campaign, the links between virtually all other groups fighting against the Syrian government to al-Qaeda and Daesh, and the leaked DIA documents that revealed the creation of a “Salafist principality” was actually the desire of the U.S. and its allies. So simply eliminating specific elements of the terrorist groups would not necessarily erase the clear connections between the United States and Daesh. Remember, Daesh is merely the progression of a series of name changes made by al-Qaeda and al-Nusra, not some mystery army that appeared in the middle of the desert without warning. It is true enough that allowing groups designated as ISIS proper to be eradicated might satisfy the curiosity of some but it would also eliminate the justification for direct American involvement in Syria also and it is not likely that the NATO powers want to see that happen. Also remember, this is a pattern we have seen since the Syrian military began launching a series of successful counter-offensives a few years ago and even more so since the Russian involvement. By this I mean that, whenever the terrorists (call them what you will – “ISIS,” “Nusra,” or “moderate rebels,”) begin to gain ground, the Western powers scream for Assad to step down. Then, there is no negotiation. But, when the Syrian military gains ground, we hear incessant calls for “peace” and “ceasefires.”

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How you explain the commitment in Syria of the Saudi army which is massacring in all impunity in Yemen in full sight of the planet. Don’t you think that Saudi Arabia sends reinforcement to Daesh?

Of course Saudi Arabia sends reinforcements to Daesh! Saudi Arabia has been one of the main financial backers of the group long before it was named “ISIS” in the Western media. Saudi Arabia has long been known as a major financial backer, supporter, and commander of terrorism. As far as their commitment to Syria, I would suggest that any direct Saudi or, for that matter, Qatari forces inside Syria are no more than decoys and proxy deterrents for the Russians and Syrians. The whole world has seen that Saudi Arabia and Qatar are paper tigers when it comes to military force. Neither country would stand a chance against any opponent in the Syrian theatre. But they can function as a state actor on the ground that would justify greater NATO involvement if bombed by the Russians or the Syrians. The Gulf forces would thus be much more than mere reinforcements for ISIS and other related terror organizations. They would be “untouchables” committing acts of war against Syria, supporting terrorists, and daring the Russians or Syrians to hit them with the possible repercussions being an American or NATO military response.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: You mentioned 36 reasons why Hillary Clinton should not be president. No more than 36? How do you explain the mediocrity of the presidential debates?

There were many more than 36 but, at some point, a book has to come to an end if it is to be released before the primary elections which was the goal. By far, Hillary Clinton is the most odious Presidential candidate in the race. Her ties to Wall Street, Foundations, NGOs, oligarchs, and treacherous think tanks are too numerous to mention. Her support for every single war since she was first lady, her assault on Constitutional rights, and her numerous scandals should disqualify her from being legitimately considered as a candidate for President.

I think the candidates appear mediocre because every single one of them represents the continuation of the present system. For instance, can you name one who does not support war in some form? Can you name one that has a modicum of respect for Constitutional rights? You can’t! Even the more seemingly radical candidates like Sanders and Trump are supportive of “safe zones” in Syria, essentially direct military invasion. Both are selective in their support for Constitutional rights with Trump demonstrating a willingness to clamp down on the First Amendment and Sanders willing to crack down on the Second.

It is also important to note that the Establishment here in the United States appears to favor Hillary Clinton as its figurehead. Thus, we see a major push by the American oligarchs to install her as President. Hence, we see the air of inevitability given her by the Republicans and mainstream media, Sanders’ weakness when debating and campaigning against her, and the possibility that Republican candidates like Donald Trump are actually working with her on the Republican side of the field.

Essentially, the candidates are mediocre because American political discourse is mediocre. The oligarchs in the United States have made sure that truly original ideas or those that do not reflect the position of the oligarchy never make it through in a political debate.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: There was the show of the COP 21 where the major powers have said that it was a success and that the agreements would be respected. Do you think that with a carnivorous capitalism and a criminal imperialism, it is possible to lead to any agreement for environment?

I don’t see the COP 21 meeting as positive in any way. Particularly because the solutions to environmental degradation are based upon the idea of Anthropogenic Man-Made CO2-based Global Warming and amount to nothing more than genocidal austerity measures that drastically reduce the living standards of the First World and condemn the Third World to remain in its current conditions. The tragedy is that it does not have to be this way. The world’s people are very much able to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to higher living standards, development, and a clean environment. However, an obsession with faulty “climate science” that blames CO2 for everything under the sun and a world corporatist system that would sooner eliminate every tree from the planet if it meant increasing profits are combining to provide the worst of both worlds – austerity and corporate feudalism.

My suggestion to people of good will is to abandon the CO2 alarmism and focus on real world solutions to real world problems like deforestation, fracking, radioactive contamination, genetically modified crops, and the like. Ending imperialist wars would also go great lengths to providing an opportunity to tackle environmental issues. Focusing on true environmentally friendly development and the repair of damage already done should be the focus of the world community. Money is already available for this from any nation that has the courage to nationalize its central bank and use credit stimulus for the purpose of research and implementation.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: About the Zika virus, one speaks of a great manipulation which serves the interests of industrial groups and various lobbies. What is your opinion?

Zika Virus represents a potential world health emergency but it also represents the possibility that certain lobbies – medical, pharmaceutical, vaccine, and many others – are attempting to generate panic for increased profits. It is also possible that certain elements within the ruling elite are helping push the concern over Zika for the purpose of distraction or even the eventuality where many societies may see a government crackdown on their civil liberties under the guise of a public health emergency. Remember, only months ago, Ebola was touted as the disease that would kill us all. We saw preparations for vaccines, quarantines, and virtual martial law. In February, 2016, few Americans even remember the Ebola scare.

Mohsen Abdelmoumen: What is your assessment of both Obama mandates, and is he free from the arguments of the neocons?

Obama was rushed to office in 2008 in what could almost be deemed a color revolution. There were certainly elements of a well-funded personality cult. 2012 seemed to represent more of a fear of Romney on the part of the electorate than support for Obama, who, for some, still retains his personality cult superstardom. I would be careful of calling it a mandate, however.

As for the neocons, Obama is no different than a neocon. His policies are essentially the same as George W. Bush and one could scarcely point to one that is different. Only in implementation are differences visible. For instance, Bush’s years were marked with direct military invasion while Obama’s involved “humanitarian bombing” and proxy forces but the overarching agenda of imperialism continued. The crackdown on domestic civil liberties has continued at an increasing speed. Neocons themselves are still visible in the Obama cabinet. All this is a demonstration of the fact that the office of the President has become a mere puppet post, where a dominant elite changes figureheads every four to eight years. The agenda of that elite simply moves forward under a different brand. Mark my words, regardless of who is elected, 2016-2020 will be no different.

Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen

Who is Brandon Turbeville?

Brandon Turbeville is an author and a writer who resides in Florence, South Carolina.  He is – article archive here – the author of seven books, Codex Alimentarius — The End of Health Freedom, 7 Real Conspiracies, Five Sense Solutions and Dispatches From a Dissident, volume 1 and volume 2,The Road to Damascus: The Anglo-American Assault on Syria,and The Difference it Makes: 36 Reasons Why Hillary Clinton Should Never Be President. Brandon joined Anti-Media’s team as an independent journalist in July of 2014. He has written over 700 articles dealing with the Middle East, Geopolitics, Syria, Economics, Health, government corruption, and Civil Liberties. Turbeville has been interviewed by a number of media outlets in the alternative media as well as the independent and mainstream. He has been interviewed by PRESS TV, al-Etejah, FOX, ITAR-TASS, LPR, and Sputnik International. Brandon Turbeville’s radio show Truth on The Tracks can be found every Monday night 9 pm EST at UCYTV.

His website is BrandonTurbeville.com.

February 16, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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