Puppet MastersS


Che Guevara

Egypt, Brazil, Turkey: Without politics, protest is at the mercy of the elites

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From Egypt to Brazil, street action is driving change, but organisation is essential if it's not to be hijacked or disarmed

Two years after the Arab uprisings fuelled a wave of protests and occupations across the world, mass demonstrations have returned to their crucible in Egypt. Just as millions braved brutal repression in 2011 to topple the western-backed dictator Hosni Mubarak, millions have now taken to the streets of Egyptian cities to demand the ousting of the country's first freely elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

As in 2011, the opposition is a middle-class-dominated alliance of left and right. But this time the Islamists are on the other side while supporters of the Mubarak regime are in the thick of it. The police, who beat and killed protesters two years ago, this week stood aside as demonstrators torched Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood offices. And the army, which backed the dictatorship until the last moment before forming a junta in 2011, has now thrown its weight behind the opposition.

Whether its ultimatum to the president turns into a full-blown coup or a managed change of government, the army - lavishly funded and trained by the US government and in control of extensive commercial interests - is back in the saddle. And many self-proclaimed revolutionaries who previously denounced Morsi for kowtowing to the military are now cheering it on. On past experience, they'll come to regret it.

Comment: On the one hand, we're a little more pessimistic: the movement(s) have already been hijacked.

However, when protests really get going, in country after country, the elites' control could very well be washed away in the blink of an eye...

So there's hope yet!

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Che Guevara

'We don't need U.S. embassy in Bolivia': Morales, UNASUR slam 'imperial' skyjack, demand apologies

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© AFP Photo / Jorge Bernal(L-R) Bolivia's Vice-President Alvaro Garcia Linera, Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, Bolivia's President Evo Morales (L) and Ecuador's President Rafael Correa listen to the Bolivian national anthem during a welcoming gathering in honour of Morales, in Cochabamba, on July 4, 2013
An emergency UNASUR meeting has demanded the governments of France, Portugal, Italy and Spain apologize for forcibly halting President Morales's plane in Austria due to suspicions Edward Snowden might have been aboard.

The Cochabamba Declaration issued at the summit also denounced "the flagrant violation of international treaties."

Tensions flared at the UNASUR summit in Bolivia, with the country's president Evo Morales saying that his "hand would not shake" if and when he "closes the US Embassy," following the forced stop of presidential plane in Austria.

Spain has spoken out in response, stating that it has no reason to apologize to Bolivia. "Spain doesn't have to ask pardon in anyway because its airspace was never closed," Reuters quoted Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo as saying.

Ahead of the summit, the Bolivian President has expressed appreciation for the support he has received so far from Latin American countries.

"Apologies from a country that did not let us pass over its territory are not enough," Morales said before talks in the central city of Cochabamba. "Some governments apologized, saying it was an error, but this was not an error."

USA

'Morsi ousted with U.S. blessing'


From its inception the uprising against President Morsi was aided by the US, researcher and writer Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich told RT. She argues that whoever succeeds the ousted Egyptian leader will likely be beholden to the forces that put him in power.

Morsi displacement is a military coup in the first place

RT: What do you think the future holds for Mohamed Morsi now?

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Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich: I don't think Mohamed Morsi has any place to go to really. There might be a lot of jubilation that the military has removed him from office. President Morsi did make himself very unpopular not only inside Egypt but with his neighbors, the surrounding countries. But that being said, the implications are huge as he was democratically elected. And for the army to step in and remove him from office is a military coup and it is very hard for me to believe that the military would have taken this step without the blessing of the United States.

I know that the Americans said, President Obama said, that they would review aid to Egypt. But [US Secretary of Defense] Chuck Hagel had been on the phone with Egypt for two or three days. Egypt basically owes its military, owes its existence to the United States of America. This is not a step they would take without their blessings.

Mohamed Morsi may be out now, but his followers will not be and we'll only see an escalation of clashes, which is very unfortunate for the Egyptian people.

Bad Guys

Forcing down Bolivian president Evo Morales' plane was an act of air piracy

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© Zuma/Rex FeaturesPresident Morales arrives back in La Paz, Bolivia. ‘Imagine the response from Paris if the French president's plane was forced down in Latin America.’
Denying the Bolivian president air space was a metaphor for the gangsterism that now rules the world

Imagine the aircraft of the President of France being forced down in Latin America on "suspicion" that it was carrying a political refugee to safety - and not just any refugee but someone who has provided the people of the world with proof of criminal activity on an epic scale.

Imagine the response from Paris, let alone the "international community", as the governments of the West call themselves. To a chorus of baying indignation from Whitehall to Washington, Brussels to Madrid, heroic special forces would be dispatched to rescue their leader and, as sport, smash up the source of such flagrant international gangsterism. Editorials would cheer them on, perhaps reminding readers that this kind of piracy was exhibited by the German Reich in the 1930s.

The forcing down of Bolivian President Evo Morales's plane - denied air space by France, Spain and Portugal, followed by his 14-hour confinement while Austrian officials demanded to "inspect" his aircraft for the "fugitive" Edward Snowden - was an act of air piracy and state terrorism. It was a metaphor for the gangsterism that now rules the world and the cowardice and hypocrisy of bystanders who dare not speak its name.

In Moscow for a summit of gas-producing nations, Morales had been asked about Snowden who remains trapped in Moscow airport. "If there were a request [for political asylum]," he said, "of course, we would be willing to debate and consider the idea." That was clearly enough provocation for the Godfather. "We have been in touch with a range of countries that had a chance of having Snowden land or travel through their country," said a US state department official.

Bizarro Earth

Gitmo detainees to be force-fed at night out of respect for Ramadan

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© AP
The United States military will likely show its benevolence toward the Guantanamo Bay detainees it's holding in perpetuity and will only force-feed the hunger strikers at night out of respect for Ramadan. Currently 106 of the 166 detainees are on hunger strike, and 44 of them are twice daily strapped into a chair while a tube is threaded through their noses into their stomachs to prevent them from escaping detention through suicide. In a motion filed Sunday night, four men asked federal court to stop the force feeding, the Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg explains, and judges gave the government till Wednesday at noon to respond. Ramadan starts July 8, and if the court can't decide by then, the men ask the judges "at a minimum, to enjoin any force-feeding between sunup and sundown during the month of Ramadan."

That was the plan all along, a Guantanamo spokesman told Reuters' Jane Sutton, who says the military said two weeks ago it planned to only do nighttime force feedings, as it has during past Ramadans. However, the Miami Herald reports that in previous years, there were only a few detainees being force fed at a time, and that Guantanamo spokesmen would not say whether the base was capable of following that procedure with so many detainees.

Snakes in Suits

Montreal's ex-mayor Applebaum allowed to leave country, despite 14 charges

Michael Applebaum
© The Canadian Press/Ryan RemiorzMontreal Mayor Michael Applebaum announces his resignation at a news conference in Montreal, Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Former Montreal mayor Michael Applebaum has permission to go on holiday outside the country, despite facing a number of criminal charges.

A member of his legal team said Applebaum got his passport back from authorities last week as he prepared for a 10-day trip, which was planned well before his arrest.

The prosecution and defence agree Applebaum does not represent a flight risk.

Defence lawyer Conrad Lord said he doesn't know where Applebaum is going next week, but that it's not a business trip. The veteran lawyer said a media report that Applebaum was "fleeing" to the Bahamas was false.

"He's not going to flee the country, he's not going to hide somewhere, he's not going to go live in a third country," Lord told reporters Thursday.

"Basically he's asking for what any defendant would ask under circumstances where trips were planned in advance."

Crown prosecutor Marie-Helene Giroux said it had been previously agreed that Appelbaum would be allowed to travel for a specific trip.

She was asked if she had any concerns about Applebaum leaving the country.

"Not at all," Giroux said.

It's common for the criminally accused to hand over a passport to limit travel, but it's not uncommon for the Crown to allow for specific travel. Applebaum was given back his passport to travel over a 10-day period.

His lawyer noted that his only address is in Quebec.

Applebaum faces 14 charges including fraud, conspiracy, breach of trust, and corruption in municipal affairs. He stepped down as interim mayor one day after his arrest by Quebec's anti-corruption unit.

Question

Canada Day bomb-plot arrests raise questions about war on terror tactics

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John Nuttall, obviously working for al Qaeda
Vancouver - Just what triggered a five-month investigation involving the country's national terrorism unit into two recent Muslim converts now accused of a Canada Day terror plot in British Columbia?

And what role did police operatives play as the bombing plan unfolded that gave RCMP so much confidence the public was never in danger?

As controversy mounts in the United States about the tactics employed in the American war on terror, those are some of the questions being asked after RCMP arrested John Nuttall and Amanda Korody this week for allegedly planning a bomb attack at the B.C. legislature during July 1 celebrations.

"For me, that's one of the most interesting questions that's going to come out of this: How were they first alerted to these two and then what role did (police) play in encouraging or providing material?" Scott Watson, a University of Victoria expert in international security issues, said Thursday.

Micheal Vonn, of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, said there are similarities between this investigation and some American counter-terrorism investigations.

"The real signal is the absolute confidence of the police that the devices would not work. This is certainly a suggestion that either they had control of the devices - perhaps they provided them, perhaps they knew the specifications of them were faulty," she said.

"Whatever that confidence is based on ... these are signals that the investigation may have had this component of facilitation and those are inherently controversial in terms of police tactics."

Comment: Two Canadians inspired by al Qaeda ideology? Are they serious?

Pressure cooker bombs like those allegedly used at the Boston Bombings?

Timed to happen on the Canadians' equivalent to Patriots' Day?

Foiled thanks to an intel operation that had been monitoring the suspects for months?

If, like us, you're already smelling bullshit, that's because it is...

Strategy of Tension - Boston Marathon bombing


Bomb

On This Day in 1945: The only real attempt to halt the atomic bombing of Japan

Hiroshima: America’s Crime and Ruthless Genocide | Peter N. Kirstein:
© Unknown
On this date in 1945, the great atomic scientist Leo Szilard finished a letter that would become the strongest (virtually the only) real attempt at halting President Truman's march to using the atomic bomb - which was two weeks from its first test at Trinity - against Japanese cities.

Each summer I count down the days to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, marking events from 1945 that spurred the decision to drop the two bombs, raising plenty of my own questions along the way. Last year, I wrote nearly daily articles for The Nation. Of course, I won't do that again, but I thought I'd launch it here with the Szilard letter. Over the next five weeks or so you can check my Pressing Issues blog.

I've written hundreds of articles and three books on the subject, Hiroshima in America (with Robert Jay Lifton), and more recently Atomic Cover-Up (on decades-long suppression of film shot in the atomic cities by the US military) and Hollywood Bomb (how an MGM 1947 drama was censored by the military and Truman himself).

Handcuffs

Gitmo inmate accuses Guards of sexual assault

Detainees in orange jumpsuits
© ReutersDetainees in orange jumpsuits sit in a holding area under the watchful eyes of military police; January 11, 2002 file photograph
A Guantanamo detainee who spent 11 years in the facility has alleged that the US military are sexually assaulting inmates under the guise of maintaining security, it was revealed in media.

45-year old Younous Chekkouri was cleared for release to another country in 2010 but so-far this hasn't happened.

He wrote to his lawyer, Cori Crider, who is also the strategic director for London based legal action charity Reprieve, that Guantanamo guards are punishing him and other hunger strikers with extremely invasive body searches every time they come in and out of their cell, in the letter obtained by Al Jazeera.

"The searches, as they like to call them, are spreading fear and shame. Eight guards with the watch commander surround me in one room, while two of them put their hands all over me. The sexual assault hasn't just happened to me. Why are they doing this? That's what I'd like to know."

The US military strongly denies these allegations, although it is fighting similar charges from other detainees.

Eye 1

France 'has vast data surveillance' - french daily Le Monde report

 DGSE data
© AFPThe DGSE data is said to be accessed by other French intelligence agencies
France's foreign intelligence service intercepts computer and telephone data on a vast scale, like the controversial US Prism programme, according to the French daily Le Monde.

The data is stored on a supercomputer at the headquarters of the DGSE intelligence service, the paper says.

The operation is "outside the law, and beyond any proper supervision", Le Monde says.

Other French intelligence agencies allegedly access the data secretly.

It is not clear however whether the DGSE surveillance goes as far as Prism. So far French officials have not commented on Le Monde's allegations.

The DGSE allegedly analyses the "metadata" - not the contents of e-mails and other communications, but the data revealing who is speaking to whom, when and where.

Connections inside France and between France and other countries are all monitored, Le Monde reports.

The paper alleges the data is being stored on three basement floors of the DGSE building in Paris. The secret service is the French equivalent of Britain's MI6.