This Land is Mine. Palestinian and Israeli Deaths: Timeline of Violence Since September 2000. Renegade Jewish Settlers Part 1/5. - Palestine Blues PART 1 - A MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY. Obama gives himself control of all communication systems in America. Administration Hardens Stance Against Leaks to Press. He took his concerns everywhere inside the secret world: to his bosses, to the agency’s inspector general, to the Defense Department’s inspector general and to the Congressional intelligence committees. But he felt his message was not getting through. So he contacted a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Today, because of that decision, Mr. Drake, 53, a veteran intelligence bureaucrat who collected early computers, faces years in prison on 10 felony charges involving the mishandling of classified information and obstruction of justice.
The indictment of Mr. Drake was the latest evidence that the Obama administration is proving more aggressive than the Bush administration in seeking to punish unauthorized leaks. In 17 months in office, has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. Mr. In fact, Mr. Though the inquiries began under President Bush, it has fallen to Mr. Though he is charged under the Espionage Act, Mr. Obama Signs NDAA, ACLU Disgusted.
Patriot Act extension signed into law despite bipartisan resistance in Congress. Racing against the clock, Congress approved a four-year extension Thursday to key provisions of the USA Patriot Act that will allow federal investigators to continue to use aggressive surveillance tactics in connection with suspected terrorists. Overcoming objections from a bipartisan clutch of libertarian-minded lawmakers, the legislation passed the Senate, 72 to 23, and the House, 250 to 153. The provisions were due to expire at midnight Thursday without an extension. President Obama is attending a summit in France, but the bill was signed by autopen with his authorization moments before the deadline, the White House said. “I think it is an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat,” Obama said Friday, after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Several Democratic senators raised objections during the Patriot Act extension debate as to the Department of Justice’s interpretation of the information collection provisions in the bill. Sen. SecrecyRC_2010.pdf. The Bin Laden raid exposes the Obama administration's selective secrecy | Glenn Greenwald. Earlier this year, the Obama administration responded to a lawsuit seeking videos and photographs of the Osama bin Laden raid by claiming (as usual) that it was all too secret to disclose. A federal court (as usual) acquiesced to those assertions and dismissed the suit, finding that "the release of the images and/or videos 'reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.'" The administration made the same secrecy and national security claims to deny the requests of multiple news agencies for related materials about the Bin Laden raid.
Those materials would have resolved still lingering and serious questions about that raid – questions created by the administration's numerous inconsistencies and false claims, including whether it was a "kill-not-capture" mission from the start and whether Bin Laden resisted capture in any way. "You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be still scratching your head about the end of Osama bin Laden. " Obama Signs NDAA Martial Law ∞ Justifying why U have no Rights ? Ron Paul Rohbs new channel. NDAA's CIA, military targeted killings of innocent Americans - National Human Rights. NDAA: Death of America, Targeted killings of innocent Americans After the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA FY 2012) passed the Senate 86-13 Thursday afternoon, the world's largest human rights group updated its explanation of the bill's inclusion of targeted killings of Americans, a component already signed as an Executive Order by President Barack Obama, that the NDAA FY 2012, now being studied by the Obama administration after the White House announced the president would sign it.
Aside from the defence bill furthering the Pentagon's Full Spectrum Dominance aim including permanent war for total control, Amnesty International has stated the it's giving the U.S. military free reign to assassinate Americans is a campaign Senator Lindsay Graham has led ten years. Amnesty says that Senator Graham’s avowed military detention of "affiliated terrorists" captured on US soil "is not the only arrow in the military quiver. " NDAA 2012 codifies President George W. Headlines for September 18, 2012. Talking Points: 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
Three myths about the detention bill. Condemnation of President Obama is intense, and growing, as a result of his announced intent to sign into law the indefinite detention bill embedded in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). These denunciations come not only from the nation’s leading civil liberties and human rights groups, but also from the pro-Obama New York Times Editorial Page, which today has a scathing Editorial describing Obama’s stance as “a complete political cave-in, one that reinforces the impression of a fumbling presidency” and lamenting that “the bill has so many other objectionable aspects that we can’t go into them all,” as well as from vocal Obama supporters such as Andrew Sullivan, who wrote yesterday that this episode is “another sign that his campaign pledge to be vigilant about civil liberties in the war on terror was a lie.”
In damage control mode, White-House-allied groups are now trying to ride to the rescue with attacks on the ACLU and dismissive belittling of the bill’s dangers. U.S. finalizes $30 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia. The U.S has finalized the sale of F-15 fighter Jets to Saudi Arabia in a deal worth 30 billion dollars, Principal Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest said in a statement on Thursday. According to the statement, the agreement includes "production of 84 new aircraft and the modernization of 70 existing aircraft as well as munitions, spare parts, training, maintenance and logistics.
" Last year, Israel tried to prevent the contract going through, fearing it would undermine its air force superiority. Andrew Shapiro, Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, said that the deal won't impact Israel. "Let me just say that by law, all sales to the region must be evaluated for the impact on Israel’s qualitative military edge", he said. "We conducted that assessment, and we are satisfied that this sale to Saudi Arabia will not decrement Israel’s qualitative military edge". Untitled. Yemen Fact Sheet - the U.S. covert war in Yemen. On December 17, 2009, Barack Obama ordered airstrikes on the Middle Eastern country of Yemen (read) , killing 63 civilians, 28 of whom were children (read) .
Amnesty International reports that a U.S. cruise missile carrying cluster bombs was behind the attack (read) . Eight days later, on Christmas day, the "underwear bomber", who reportedly received training in Yemen, was accused of attempting to blow up an airplane headed to Detroit. Obama quickly seized the opportunity to label Yemen as a terrorist hotbed, vowing action against "those who threaten our homeland" (read) .
On September 20, 2010, Obama sent a letter to the president of Yemen declaring the United States' unwavering support for the country's government whose undemocratic and repressive tactics have stoked an internal rebellion (read) . Yemen, already one of the poorest countries in the Middle East, is now facing a humanitarian crisis amidst the escalating, U.S. Scahill - Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Outrage at U.S. torture dwindles. As he prepared to accept his nomination for re-election last week, the president made good on a promise he made at the beginning of his term: No CIA officers will be prosecuted for torture. Attorney General Eric Holder quietly announced before the convention that the last two torture investigations would close (like all the prior investigations) without any charge.
As a virtual afterthought, the Justice Department added that it would not address the "propriety of the examined conduct. " The "impropriety" involved two suspects who died under torture by CIA officials. For those still infatuated with Obama, the announcement was the final triumph of "hope" over experience. Since Obama ran on a civil liberties platform, many expected an independent torture investigation as soon as he took office. However, such a principle did not make for good politics. 'Order is an order' This, of course, still left two inconvenient corpses in Iraq and Afghanistan.
CIA promotions Columns. Repulsive progressive hypocrisy. During the Bush years, Guantanamo was the core symbol of right-wing radicalism and what was back then referred to as the “assault on American values and the shredding of our Constitution”: so much so then when Barack Obama ran for President, he featured these issues not as a secondary but as a central plank in his campaign. But now that there is a Democrat in office presiding over Guantanamo and these other polices — rather than a big, bad, scary Republican — all of that has changed, as a new Washington Post/ABC News poll today demonstrates: The sharpest edges of President Obama’s counterterrorism policy, including the use of drone aircraft to kill suspected terrorists abroad and keeping open the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have broad public support, including from the left wing of the Democratic Party.
Repulsive liberal hypocrisy extends far beyond the issue of Guantanamo. Beyond that, Obama has used drones to kill Muslim children and innocent adults by the hundreds. Obama’s Continuing Cover-Up of Torture. Obama’s Normalization of Neo-Convervatism 2 of 4: Continuing Cover-Up of Torture (MediaRoots) – With 8 years of scandal, contempt, torture and two illegal ground wars deep there was a a strong anti-bush sentiment pervasive among American citizens leading up to the 2008 presidential elections. And during Obama’s campaign for president, he made it clear that water boarding was torture, and that bush administration officials broke the law with their counter terrorism torture strategies. But if there’s one thing that’s clear from the last four years, its that talk is cheap.
And as the 2012 Presidential elections inch closer, Media Roots takes a look back at the Bush administration’s illegal torture program, its exposure to the public with the Abu Ghraib scandal and what Obama’s subsequent cover-up of war crimes did to erode the fabric of our society. The torture program was not some US foreign policy fluke gone awry. “did any of this seem weird to you?” – (Errol Morris) Yoo: “No treaty…” Excuses for assassination secrecy. In response to his widely discussed Esquire article entitled “The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama,” Tom Junod received a telephone call from someone he describes as “a person with intimate knowledge of the executive counter-terrorism policies of the Obama administration.”
This unnamed person called Junod specifically to defend the administration’s refusal to provide any minimal transparency or even acknowledgment about these policies, even when drone attacks ordered by the President kill innocent American teenagers such as 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki. Junod summarizes the defense he was given by this source as follows: “You seem to think that more transparency would help rectify some of the moral problems,” he said, and then told me that “the political people in the administration, including the president himself,” would probably agree with me. But nobody’s asking the Administration to reveal sources and methods here, I said. Obama Administration Maintains Bush Position on ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ Lawsuit. Feb 9, 2009 2:44pm From Jake Tapper and Ariane de Vogue: The Obama Administration today announced that it would keep the same position as the Bush Administration in the lawsuit Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition — including current Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, another plaintiff in jail in Egypt, one in jail in Morocco, and two now free.
They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured. A year ago the case was thrown out on the basis of national security, but today the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the appeal, brought by the ACLU. A source inside of the Ninth U.S. This is not going to please civil libertarians and human rights activists who had hoped the Obama administration would allow the lawsuit to proceed. – Jake Tapper and Ariane de Vogue. Top 10 Bush Terror Policies Continued by Obama. After campaigning vigorously against President Bush’s terror policies, Barack Obama continued a good many of them after assuming the presidency. To those policies, along with the Navy SEALS who entered the Abbottabad compound, go the credit for the long-awaited, bullet-to-the-head takedown of Osama bin Laden. Here are the Top 10 Bush Terror Policies Continued by Obama. 1.
Special Forces funded: Since 9/11, funding for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) has tripled, even as its overseas deployments quadrupled. This Pentagon unit oversees all the military services’ elite Special Forces units, including the Navy SEAL Team Six that was dispatched to Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani hideaway. Under Obama, the command continues to be well-funded even during times of economic problems and budget cutbacks. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Former CIA Chief: Obama's War on Terror Same as Bush's, But With More Killing | Threat Level. President Barack Obama has closely followed the policy of his predecessor, President George W. Bush, when it comes to tactics used in the “war on terror” — from rendition, targeted killings, state secrets, Guantanamo Bay to domestic spying, according to Michael Hayden, Bush’s former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. The comments come two months before the Nov. 6 elections, where Obama, a Democrat, faces off for re-election against GOP challenger Mitt Romney.
And Hayden’s remarks give credence to what many who cared about the topic had already realized: Obama largely mirrors Bush when it comes to the war on terror. Hayden, who oversaw the CIA’s use of torture techniques against detainees and the expansion of the NSA to illegally spy on American citizens, admitted to an initial skepticism of Obama. But Hayden, in a nearly 80-minute lecture posted on C-Span, said Obama came to embrace Bush’s positions. Moments later, Hayden added: Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A visualization of drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. Attack of the Drones - People & Power. The US government’s growing reliance on aerial drones to pursue its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere is proving controversial – as evidenced by the international reaction to recent drone missile attacks along the border with Pakistan.
But Barack Obama’s administration is undeterred, favouring the technology more and more because it reduces the need for American troops in those countries and the risk of politically unpalatable casualties. “He probably thinks this is already a controversial war,” says Christ Klep, an international relations analysts at the University of Utrecht. “I’d better not endanger my pilots and my special forces, so what else do I have? Unmanned aerial vehicles? Deploy them.” Nevertheless, Ko Colijn, a security expert at the prestigious Clingendael Institute, says that the technology is here to stay.
“In a way the Americans reached a turning point in 2009, 2010. However the Americans are not the only ones using drones. Obama Personally Oversees 'Secret Kill List': NYT. Obama Finally Talks Drone War, But It's Almost Impossible to Believe Him | Danger Room. U.S. Expands Its Drone War Into Somalia. Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians, U.S. study says. New Stanford/NYU Study Documents the Civilian Terror from Obama's Drones. What Bush's Iraq War and Obama's Drone Strikes Have in Common - Conor Friedersdorf.
Obama Apologists Are Defending a Parallel-Universe Drone War - Conor Friedersdorf. Obama Supporters Know His Drone War Is Indefensible - Conor Friedersdorf. Noam Chomsky - Propaganda & Control of the Public Mind. Oliver Stone on the Untold U.S. History from the Atomic Age to Vietnam to Obama’s Drone Wars. Ducumentary on IRAN Iran Is Not the Problem; Stop War on IRAN.
America's False History Allows the Powerful to Commit Crimes Without Consequence. Britain destroyed records of colonial crimes | UK news. The European Atrocity You Never Heard About - The Chronicle Review. Phil Taylor's Web Site. The Shock Doctrine 2009. HUMAN RESOURCES Social Engineering In The 20th Century HQ FULL. The Business of War: SOFEX. War Is A Racket. Gas Fracking Industry Using Military Psychological Warfare Tactics and Personnel In U.S. Communities. Adam Curtis: MR PINK, MR WHITE AND BOTTOM. Empire - Hollywood and the war machine. Psychologist Lt. Col. Dave Grossman On The Act Of Killing. This Is What Winning Looks Like. Black Hearts. YouTube. Providence — a short film featuring Bradley Manning's voice. Where Are The Media's Iraq War Boosters 10 Years Later? | Research. 26 September 2002 New York Times Advertisement. Engelhardt, Field of Nightmares. Steven Pinker: The surprising decline in violence.
The End of World Violence? - Print View. Angels and Anarchists: A Conflict Scholar’s Response to Steven Pinker’s New Book. Delusions of peace. A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945 - by Isao Hashimoto Quantum Stealth; The Invisible Military Becomes A Reality. OASD(NCB/Nuclear Matters)