♥ 5
→ 23 Apr 13 at 12 pm
→ 23 Apr 13 at 12 pm
(via The Corbett Report | Interview 655 – Sibel Edmonds on the Boston Bombing)
‘FBI whistleblower and BoilingFrogsPost.com editor Sibel Edmonds joins us to discuss the recent Boston bombing hysteria and the potential geopolitical implications of the American public’s “discovery” of Chechen terror. We discuss Sibel’s work exposing the US/NATO roots of so-called Chechen terrorism, and what the FSB’s involvement in this twisted tale might mean in terms of future Russian-US relations.’
‘Seeking clarity - and outrage - from a murky war, data visualization designers Pitch Interactive have used data from the Bureau for Investigative Journalism to create an astounding infographic showing every drone strike in Pakistan since 2004.
Of the estimated 3,100 people killed in those strikes, it shows, 1.5% were identified by US officials as “high-profile” targets, or suspected legitimate bad guys - that, despite the vaunted talk by the US of “precision strikes.”
The rest were children, civilians, and “other” - those identified by the Obama administration as alleged combatants simply because they are adult males, regardless of what they may or may not have done.
See each drone fall, silent, chilling, gathering massive force since 2008: Out of sight, out of mind…
In another like-minded project, if you can stand it, follow a grad student at New York University as he tweets every drone strike as it comes. Then share it all.’
‘After a 10 year war/occupation in Iraq, the death of over a million people including thousands of US soldiers, all based on patently false claims of the nation possessing “weapons of mass destruction,” (WMDs), it is outrageous hypocrisy to see the West arming, funding, and politically backing terrorists in Syria who in fact both possess, and are now using such weapons against the Syrian people.
At least 25 are reported dead after a chemical weapons attack targeting Syrian soldiers was carried out by NATO-backed terrorists in the northern city of Aleppo.
Aleppo is located near the Syrian-Turkish border. Had Libya’s looted stockpiles of chemical weapons been shipped to Syria, they would have passed through Turkey along with weapons sent from Libya by the US and thousands of Libyan terrorists who are admittedly operating inside Syria, and would most likely be used to target cities like Aleppo.
Worse yet, any chemical weapons imported into the country would implicate NATO either directly or through gross negligence, as the weapons would have passed through NATO-member Turkey, past US CIA agents admittedly operating along the border and along side Western-backed terrorists inside Syria.’
♥ 53
→ 05 Feb 13 at 1 pm
→ 05 Feb 13 at 1 pm
(via Native American confronts ‘anti-illegal immigration’ protesters (VIDEO) — RT)
‘A Native American man criticized protesters at an Arizona rally against illegal immigration, calling them the real “illegals” for invading his country and killing Native Americans when Europeans first settled on US soil.
“You’re all fucking illegal. You’re all illegal,” the Native American man yelled at the protesters, who had gathered in Tuscon, Arizona to demonstrate their opposition to illegal immigration by Central and South Americans. “We didn’t invite none of you here. We’re the only native Americans here.”
Some have applauded the man for pointing out the protesters’ hypocrisy, who at one point immigrated to the US themselves or are descendants of immigrants. The Native American man, who was pushing his baby through town in a stroller, staged his own protest when he came across the rally.
“Get on with your bogus arguments. We’re the only legal ones here,” he yelled.
One protester was caught standing near the angry Native American and became the target of his criticism. The man was carrying a small American flag and a sign that read, “We should have put that sign up when you son of the bitches came.”
Pointing towards the American flag held by the protester, the Native American said that it “represents blood spilled by Native Americans, protecting this land from the invaders.”
“You don’t want to hear the God damn truth!” he yelled. “Get on, bitch! All the Native Americans you killed, you plant your houses here. That’s the truth.”
With Arizona’s proximity to the Mexican border, it has long been a hub for anti-immigration protests and initiatives. The state passed the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act” in 2010, which is a strict anti-illegal immigration measure that has stimulated significant controversy. The law made it a misdemeanor crime for an “alien” to be in the state of Arizona without carrying registration documents. It also allows law enforcement officers to stop any individual that they suspect of being an illegal immigrant, thereby promoting racial profiling. It also imposes heavy penalties on those involved in sheltering or hiring unregistered aliens.
The law’s controversial provisions were blocked by the US Department of Justice, but the Supreme Court in 2012 ruled to uphold the “show me your papers” provision allowing law enforcement to stop anyone who looks like an illegal immigrant.
But the Native American man who staged his own protest at the rally considers it hypocritical for Americans to criticize others for immigrating into the US when everyone but Native Americans at one point did so themselves.
“That’s what [the American] flag stands for – all the Native Americans you killed to plant your houses here,” he said. “That’s the truth.”’
‘This incisive article by veteran war correspondent Felicity Arbuthnot was published by Global Research a year ago, on February 2, 2012.
You will not read it in the New York Times.
At a time of mounting media fabrications –when “objective truths are fading” and “lies are passing into history”– this analysis reveals the diabolical modus operandi of US-NATO terrorism and how covert intelligence ops are applied to trigger conditions which are conducive to the collapse of nation states. One of these “conditions” is the outright killing of innocent civilians as part of a cover operation and then blaming president Bashar Al Assad of having committed atrocities against his own people
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research , January 27, 2012
“In order to facilitate the action of liberative (sic) forces, …a special effort should be made to eliminate certain key individuals. …[to] be accomplished early in the course of the uprising and intervention, …
Once a political decision has been reached to proceed with internal disturbances in Syria, CIA is prepared, and SIS (MI6) will attempt to mount minor sabotage and coup de main (sic) incidents within Syria, working through contacts with individuals. …Incidents should not be concentrated in Damascus …
Further : a “necessary degree of fear .. frontier incidents and (staged) border clashes”, would “provide a pretext for intervention… the CIA and SIS [MI6 should use … capabilitites in both psychological and action fields to augment tension.” (Joint US-UK leaked Intelligence Document, London and Washington, 1957)
“’The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.” (George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair, 1903-1950.)
For anyone in two minds about what is really going on in Syria, and whether President Assad, hailed a decade ago as “A Modern Day Attaturk”, has become the latest megalomaniacal despot, to whose people a US-led posse of nations, must deliver “freedom”, with weapons of mass, home, people, nation and livelihood destruction, here is a salutary tale from modern history.
Have the more recent sabre rattlings against Syria* been based on US-UK government papers, only discovered in 2003 - and since air brushed (or erroneously omitted) from even BBC timelines, on that country?
In late 2003, the year of the Iraq invasion, Matthew Jones, a Reader in International History, at London’s Royal Holloway College, discovered “frighteningly frank” documents:1957 plans between then UK Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, and then President, Dwight Eisenhower, endorsing: “a CIA-MI6 plan to stage fake border incidents as an excuse for an invasion (of Syria) by Syria’s pro-western neighbours.”’
♥ 70
→ 26 Jan 13 at 10 am
→ 26 Jan 13 at 10 am
‘Hacktivist movement Anonymous has hijacked the US Sentencing Commission website as a personal vendetta to retaliate against the justice system that threatened to imprison web activist Aaron Swartz, who recently committed suicide, for decades.
The website was hacked early Saturday and a message was placed saying that “a line was crossed” when Swartz killed himself two weeks ago.
“Two weeks ago today, Aaron Swartz was killed. Killed because he faced an impossible choice. Killed because he was forced into playing a game he could not win — a twisted and distorted perversion of justice — a game where the only winning move was not to play,” the statement read.
Anonymous now threatens to release secret information that they have reportedly copied from several governments’ computer systems they were able to access.
The hackers also put up their video statement and a list of files named after US Supreme Court justices on the hacked website.
Earlier, Anonymous gained access to MIT’s website and the Department of Justice, DOJ.gov website, using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to avenge the passing of Swartz.
Aaron Swartz, who co-founded both the website Reddit and the activism organization Demand Progress, was due to appear in federal court during the coming weeks because the United States says he illegally downloaded millions of academic papers from the website JSTOR, presumably for public distribution, while logged onto the computer network of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If convicted, Swartz could have been sentenced to upwards of 35 years in prison and a US$1 million fine.
The 26-year-old Harvard fellow openly discussed his bouts with depression in the past, but Swartz’s parents and advocates alike have suggested that a serious legal fight that has dominated the activist’s life in recent years played a role in his passing.
In a statement published shortly after his death, the activist’s family said, “Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts US Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death.”
Others, including Kim Dotcom, the founder of the now-defunct file-storage site Megaupload, also believe that Aaron Swartz became a political target, and that is what led to his tragic death.
“There is no reasonable cause behind going after a young genius like him in the fashion they did,” Dotcom told RT in an interview.’
‘Since the kindling of the conflict inside Syria in 2011, it was recognized, by friend and foe alike, that the events in that country were tied to a game plan that ultimately targets Iran, Syria’s number one ally. De-linking Syria from Iran and unhinging the Resistance Bloc that Damascus and Tehran have formed has been one of the objectives of the foreign-supported anti-government militias inside Syria. Such a schism between Damascus and Tehran would change the Middle East’s strategic balance in favour of the US and Israel.
If this cannot be accomplished, however, then crippling Syria to effectively prevent it from providing Iran any form of diplomatic, political, economic, and military support in the face of common threats has been a primary objective. Preventing any continued cooperation between the two republics has been a strategic goal. This includes preventing the Iran-Iraq-Syria energy terminal from being built and ending the military pact between the two partners.
All Options are Aimed at Neutralizing Syria
Regime change in Damascus is not the only or main way for the US and its allies to prevent Syria from standing with Iran. Destabilizing Syria and neutralizing it as a failed and divided state is the key. Sectarian fighting is not a haphazard outcome of the instability in Syria, but an assisted project that the US and its allies have steadily fomented with a clear intent to balkanize the Syrian Arab Republic. Regionally, Israel above all other states has a major stake in securing this outcome. The Israelis actually have several publicly available documents, including the Yinon Plan, which outline that the destruction of Syria into a series of smaller sectarian states is one of their strategic objectives. So do American military planners.’
‘Earlier this year an Iphone app that was intended to map all of the drone strikes carried out by the US government was banned by Apple and now the creator of the app is using Twitter as a means to get the word out.
twitter.com/dronestream is now Tweeting every drone Strike by the US Since 2002.
The description on the page says:
“Every reported US drone strike, from 2002-2012. Launching Tuesday, December 11 at 12pm ET. For @rushkoff‘s Narrative Lab. By @joshbegley.”
All of the drone posts are documented with sourced links and offers a clear depiction of just how many drone strikes have taken place in past few years
“I wanted to play with this idea of push notifications and push button technology — essentially asking a question about what we choose to get notified about in real time,” Begley tells Wired, really making it as easy as having real-time drone updates beamed straight to the iPhone of anyone that installs the app.
“I thought reaching into the pockets of U.S. smartphone users and annoying them into drone-consciousness could be an interesting way to surface the conversation a bit more.”
Unfortunately, thanks to government involvement in the marketplace, Apple made the move to pull the application.
At least the message is still getting out there, so twitter users, add Dronestream and spread the word!’
♥ 53
→ 06 Nov 12 at 1 pm
→ 06 Nov 12 at 1 pm
‘Two-party system an illusion, both funded from same source’ (by RussiaToday)
‘Almost 30 million Americans have already cast their votes for President, queuing for hours at early polling stations across the country. Although too soon to tell which way the vote is swinging, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are locked together according to most polls. But lost in the rivalry between Republican and Democrat, are the alternatives that many Americans have longed for.
For perspective on what the third party candidates have to offer, RT talks to Mike Harris, managing director of AMT Capital Partners.’
♥ 19
→ 05 Nov 12 at 3 pm
→ 05 Nov 12 at 3 pm
Ralph Nader: Both Parties, Two Heads of Same Corporate Beast (by breakingtheset)
‘Abby Martin talks to author and former US Presidential Candidate, Ralph Nader, about the US electoral system and breaking out of the “lesser of two evils” mentality’
‘NICK HOPKINS’ Guardian article gives further proof of our leap into an opaque drone age.
It is not that all drones are bad drones; rather, decisions are being made that will ripple through the generations.
Just as the secret Manhattan Project ushered in the nuclear age, so the military and their corporate colleagues are pressing forward with policies with very little public disclosure or debate.
Consider David Cameron’s claim that British drones have killed 124 insurgents in Afghanistan; Hopkins reports that “defence officials said they had no idea where the prime minister got the figure and denied it was from the MoD”. Does this mean that our kill-numbers are being conjured up by politicians?
There are many more questions that beg for an answer. One is the degree to which drones are to be used simply as a weapon of terror. In British Air and Space Power Doctrine, the MoD informs us that “air power is not employed solely for kinetic purposes. The psychological impact of air power from the presence of a UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] … has often proved to be extremely effective in exerting influence, especially when linked to information operations.”
In plain English, the circling drones are used to terrify the citizens below into providing intelligence. Did not the Geneva conventions forbid such a war against civilians? Did we forget so soon how the material frightened out of people in the “war on terror” proved so suspect?
The most harrowing histories I heard in my recent trip to the Pakistan border regions involved the fear factor – 800,000 concededly innocent men, women and children in the region terrified by the sounds of drones overhead, 24 hours a day. To what extent is this to be an intentional policy? Is it regulated? Or even debated?’
♥ 8
→ 17 Oct 12 at 5 am
→ 17 Oct 12 at 5 am
Extremism Export: US admits arms sent to Syria find jihadists (by RussiaToday)
‘Most of the weapons being smuggled to the Syrian rebels from abroad, are bolstering the strength of Islamic extremists. That’s according to US officials, who say radical elements are poised to take over Syria, if Assad falls.’
♥ 6
→ 11 Oct 12 at 8 am
→ 11 Oct 12 at 8 am
US Deploying Military Personnel to Syrian-Jordanian Border (by NileBowie)
‘Nile Bowie speaks to RT on the developing situation in Syria and the ramifications of Washington’s decision to deploy military personnel to Jordan.’
♥ 29
→ 10 Oct 12 at 5 am
→ 10 Oct 12 at 5 am
(via How UK government supports Obama’s drones terrorising an entire civilian population)
‘THE DEVASTATING impact of the US’s drone programme in Pakistan has been highlighted by “Living under Drones”, a new report issued by Stanford and New York Universities.
The report explains that nearly the entire population of Waziristan lives under the constant threat of death, children are afraid to leave their homes because schools have been targeted, and humanitarian workers are afraid to go to the aid of victims because of the US policy of second strikes on those assisting.
In consequence, the incidences of mental illness, anxiety and depression have been rising exponentially in the region.
The UK government has been threatened with legal action over its failure to stop the export of drone components which may be used by the CIA to carry out its illegal campaign in Pakistan.
Research by Reprieve indicates that the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) has granted General Electric an export licence for products used in Predator drones – the robotic aircraft used by the CIA to bomb North West Pakistan – in breach of its own guidelines requiring respect for human rights and international law.’
