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Vice Adm. Tim Giardina fired as no. 2 nuclear commander

Luis Martinez
ABC News
Wed, 09 Oct 2013 13:22 UTC
Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina
© US NavyNavy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina is shown in a Nov. 11, 2011, photo.
The No. 2 officer at U.S. Strategic Command has been relieved of command by President Obama because of a "loss of confidence" in his abilities to carry out his post.

Vice Adm. Tim Giardina has been the focus of a criminal investigation looking into his suspected use of counterfeit gambling chips in a poker game at a western Iowa casino.

StratCom commander Gen. Robert Kehler suspended Giardina from his duties as deputy commander on Sept. 3 and recommended to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that he be relieved from his post. Kehler's moves were guided by preliminary information he had received from investigations of Giardina's alleged activities.

A defense official said Wednesday that "based upon a recommendation from the Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the president determined Oct. 3 that Vice Adm. Timothy M. Giardina, former Deputy Commander, U.S. Strategic Command (O-9), should be relieved."

President Obama became involved in the case because only the president can relieve a three- and four-star officer from his post.

Giardina has been reassigned to an undetermined position within the Navy.

Comment: Something strange is going on here. The successor Lt. Gen.James Kowalski fires two days later another general in charge of US nuclear weapons.

Another one? US fires general Michael Carey in charge of nuclear missiles

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Bad Guys

Did Obama swap 'black' detention sites for ships?

Eileen Sullivan
My Way News
Tue, 08 Oct 2013 03:12 UTC
Image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the United States for more than a decade.
© AP/FBIThis file image from the FBI website shows Anas al-Libi, an al-Qaeda leader connected to the 1998 embassy bombings in eastern Africa and wanted by the United States for more than a decade. Gunmen in a three-car convoy seized Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, known by his alias Anas al-Libi, outside his house Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013, in the Libyan capital, his relatives said. Two law enforcement officials say a team of U.S. investigators from the military, the intelligence community and the Justice Department has been deployed to question Abu Anas al-Libi, according to two law enforcement officials.
Instead of sending suspected terrorists to Guantanamo Bay or secret CIA "black" sites for interrogation, the Obama administration is questioning terrorists for as long as it takes aboard U.S. naval vessels.

And it's doing it in a way that preserves the government's ability to ultimately prosecute the suspects in civilian courts.

That's the pattern emerging with the recent capture of Abu Anas al-Libi, one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, long-sought for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. He was captured in a raid Saturday and is being held aboard the USS San Antonio, an amphibious warship mainly used to transport troops.

Questioning suspected terrorists aboard U.S. warships in international waters is President Barack Obama's answer to the Bush administration detention policies that candidate Obama promised to end. The strategy also makes good on Obama's pledge to prosecute terrorists in U.S. civilian courts, which many Republicans have argued against. But it also raises questions about using "law of war" powers to circumvent the safeguards of the U.S. criminal justice system.
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Evil Rays

US to clean up chemical weapons illegally left behind in Panama


Voltaire Network
Fri, 11 Oct 2013 10:06 UTC
Image
Taking advantage of the chemical weapon crisis in Syria, the government of Panama has reminded the United-States their obligation to destroy the chemical weapons that they had left on San Jose island, the biggest of the country.

When they signed the treaty banning chemical weapons, in 1997, the US falsly declared not to posses any such weapons outside of their own territory. An inventory established in 2002 by Panama showed the presence of numerous weapons and munitions, dating back to different years. At least 16 different sites were used by the Pentagon to test chemical weapons in Panama.

For 11 years, Panama has been vainly requesting to destruction of phosgene and mustard gas in particular, and of over 120 000 munitions. During that period, at least 20 people died accidentally because of these weapons.
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Mr. Potato

Fear and loathing in House of Saud

Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online
Fri, 11 Oct 2013 09:46 UTC
House of Saud cartoon
© Unknown
Every sentient being with a functional brain perceives the possibility of ending the 34-year Wall of Mistrust between Washington and Tehran as a win-win situation.

Here are some of the benefits:
  • The price of oil and gas from the Persian Gulf would go down;
  • Washington and Tehran could enter a partnership to fight Salafi-jihadis (they already did, by the way, immediately after 9/11) as well as coordinate their policies in Afghanistan to keep the Taliban in check post-2014;
  • Iran and the US share the same interests in Syria; both want no anarchy and no prospect of Islamic radicals having a shot at power. An ideal outcome would balance Iranian influence with a power-sharing agreement between the Bashar al-Assad establishment and the sensible non-weaponized opposition (it does exist, but is at present marginalized);
  • With no more regime change rhetoric and no more sanctions, the sky is the limit for more trade, investment and energy options for the West, especially Europe (Iran is the best possible way for Europeans to soften their dependence on Russia's Gazprom);
  • A solution for the nuclear dossier would allow Iran to manage civilian use of nuclear energy as an alternative source for its industry, releasing more oil and gas for export;
  • Geopolitically, with Iran recognized for what it is - the key actor in Southwest Asia - the US could be released from its self-imposed strategic dogma of depending on the Israeli-Saudi axis. And Washington could even start pivoting to Asia for real - not exclusively via military means.
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    Beaker

    SOTT Focus: And the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize goes to... the warmongers (again)

    Niall Bradley
    Sott.net
    Fri, 11 Oct 2013 04:26 UTC
    Image
    OPCW HQ, The Hague, The Netherlands
    I narrowly avoided spilling tea all over my keyboard this morning when I read that this year's Nobel 'Peace' Prize has been awarded to international 'chemical weapons watchdog', the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Forgive my cynicism, but after Warmonger-in-Chief Obama was awarded the gong in 2009, and the duplicitous EU last year, it seems pretty clear to me that the selection of this year's winner is once again a political statement in favour of war-making.

    Neither Syria nor the OPCW's work with UN inspectors in Syria is mentioned in the Nobel Committee's press release. In fact, the U.S. and Russia are singled out for their failure to comply with treaty obligations. Rest assured, however, that CNN and the rest of the lamestream media is making hay out of this to refocus international attention on the U.S.-led agenda for shock and awe in Syria:
    CNN
    Fri October 11, 2013

    The Nobel Peace Prize has turned the global spotlight back on the conflict in Syria.

    The prize committee in Oslo, Norway, awarded it Friday to the international chemical weapons watchdog helping to eliminate the Syrian army's stockpiles of poison gas, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

    Its inspectors have just begun with that work in the active war zone, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded them the prize in support of the arduous and life-threatening task that lies ahead of them.
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    Life Preserver

    Keiser report: The hierarchy of price fixing and hyper-deflation versus inflation

    Max Keiser
    RT
    Fri, 11 Oct 2013 05:16 UTC
    In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, discuss the good news for the economy as compensation payments for fraud trickles into the local economy, and then they introduce the concept of the People's Price Fix and a Keiser's Hierarchy of Price Fixing. In the second half, Max interviews Professor Antal E. Fekete of FeketeResearch.com about Fed induced hyper-deflation and why the American Austrians were wrong to predict that quantitative easing would cause inflation.

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    Coffee

    Chemical weapons watchdog wins Nobel Peace Prize

    Kathy Lally
    The Washington Post
    Fri, 11 Oct 2013 05:05 UTC
    Chemical weapons inspectors
    © Moadamiyeh Media Center/EPAAn Aug. 26,, 2013, photo released by the Syrian opposition Moadamiyeh Media Center is said to show U.N. inspectors collecting samples from a site that was allegedly hit by a chemical gas weapon, in Moadamiyeh suburb, Damascus, Syria.
    The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the Hague-based agency responsible for destroying Syria's chemical weapons, has won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said Friday in Oslo.

    The award caught much of the world by surprise, as did last year's prize, which went to the European Union. But the removal of chemical weapons from Syria has been viewed as an important step in bringing an end to a two-and-a-half year war that has killed an estimated 100,000 people.

    "Disarmament figures prominently in Alfred Nobel's will," the committee said, recalling the extensive use of chemical weapons in World War I and their use by states and terrorists alike.

    Chemical weapons visit a particular horror on victims, and to those watching from around the world. Awarding the prize to the OPCW may be seen as a resounding vote to end the scourge of chemical weapons once and for all.

    Comment: Their operation in Syria was set off by a Russian diplomatic initiative, which proposed persuading Syria to give up its chemical weapons in exchange for United States backing off plans to bomb the country.

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    Bad Guys

    Syria Takfiris kill 190 civilians in Latakia: HRW


    Press TV
    Fri, 11 Oct 2013 04:52 UTC
    Syrian rebel arms
    © AFPHuman Rights Watch highlighted five opposition groups that likely took part in the Aug. 4 killings.
    Human Rights Watch (HRW) says Takfiri militants killed 190 civilians and held over 200 others hostage in Syria's western province of Latakia in August alone.

    In a report released on Friday, the New York-based rights group presented evidence that anti-Syria terrorist groups carried out the killings and the hostage-taking in their several-day operation that began around Alawite villages in Latakia on August 4.

    The 105-page report was compiled based upon on-site investigation and interviews with 35 people, including the survivors of the attacks.

    According to the report, most of the killings apparently took place on the first day of the offensive. A vast majority of the hostages are also women and children.

    The human rights organization further said the acts of violence "rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity," calling on the UN Security Council to immediately take such cases to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

    The rights group also stressed that the scale and organization of the attacks on civilians suggest premeditation.
    "This operation was a coordinated, planned attack on the civilian population in these Alawite villages," said Joe Stork, acting Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

    Comment: Wow, HRW reports the truth for once. A Takfiri, by the way, is basically an Islamic religious fundamentalist. So that's pretty much all the 'rebels' in Syria.

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    Display

    The list of countries where internet freedom has declined most (and yes, the U.S. is one of them.)

    Olga Khazan
    The Atlantic
    Thu, 03 Oct 2013 01:16 UTC
    As much as we online journalists love reports that rank things, even we must sometimes resist the urge to blog about them, even "in one map." Because honestly, some countries are just going to either be really good or bad at various things for the foreseeable future. Just as the Central African Republic is not going to be the best country for women within our lifetime, you'll probably never see a Scandinavian nation on a "failed states" slideshow.

    Freedom House's annual Freedom on the Net report is out, and like in most such reports, the actual rankings are largely unsurprising. Iceland, the frozen whistleblower nirvana, ranked first, and second was Estonia, the tiny Baltic country that gave us Skype. China, Cuba, and Iran came in last, obviously.
    internet freedom
    © Freedom House
    One thing that is a total grab bag, though, is the list of countries that had the largest declines in Internet freedom. Because although "free" and "not free" countries tend to stay that way, big jumps in their standings can be a sign of really significant and fascinating trends. Here are the explanations for the three of the biggest "losers," as it were: India, Brazil, and the United States.
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    Eye 2

    The Koch brothers' 'Samson option'

    Robert Parry
    consortiumnews.com
    Tue, 08 Oct 2013 21:44 UTC
    Image
    © peoplesworld / FlickrA rally against the Koch brothers' attempt to buy Los Angeles Times on May 14, 2013.
    The Koch Brothers and other right-wing billionaires who provoked the government shutdown and now are angling for an even more devastating credit default see themselves as the people who deserve to rule the United States without interference from lesser citizens, especially those with darker-colored skin.

    Their "masters of the universe" world view is that they or their daddies or their daddies' daddies were the ones who "built America" and, thus, it's their right to tear down the remarkable edifice of U.S. law, politics and economics created over the past two-plus centuries - if the country's less-deserving inhabitants insist on raising taxes on the rich to fund programs benefiting the poor and the middle class.

    That is what we're watching now, what might be called the Koch Brothers' "Samson Option," pulling down the temple to destroy their enemies even if doing so is also destructive to them and their fortunes.

    Charles and David Koch and other right-wing billionaires and near-billionaires are blind with anger after wasting millions of dollars on Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and the Republican Party in a failed attempt to defeat Barack Obama, the Democrats and health-care reform. These were the guys who smirked knowingly when Romney sneered at "the 47 percent" of Americans who receive some government help; they got snappish when Obama called them "fat cats"; they demanded the honorific title of "job creators."
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