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Six key takeaways from Hillary Clinton's Benghazi hearings


Washington Free Beacon
Wed, 23 Jan 2013 15:02 UTC
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© AP
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified Wednesday in a lengthy set of hearings on the Benghazi attacks before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She spoke repeatedly of a growing jihadist threat in the region, deficiencies in the lead-up to and aftermath of the attack at the U.S. mission, and the administration's role in addressing both. Here are six key takeaways from the testimony:

1. Clinton acknowledged the 'spreading jihadist threat'

The secretary of state emphasized the "global movement" at work in a post-Arab Spring Middle East and North Africa in her remarks to the Senate:
"We now face a spreading jihadist threat," Clinton said. "We have driven a lot of the operatives out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, killed a lot of them, including [Osama] Bin Laden."

"But this is a global movement," Clinton said. "We can kill leaders, but until we help establish strong democratic institutions, until we do a better job with values and relationships, we will be faced with this level of instability." [...]

"This is a great opportunity as well as a serious threat to our country," Clinton said, referring to the Arab Spring. "It's not going to be easy. They [these new governments] have no experience with democracy, they don't have any real experience among the leaders in running countries and doing security."
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Kevin Barrett: Is Obama killing 'kill list' critics?


PressTV
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:57 UTC
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Dr. Kevin Barrett, one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror, has raised questions about the death of Aaron Swartz, a prominent info-warrior and critic of President Obama's "kill list."

"As with so many freemasonic assassinations, including that of 'DC Madam' Deborah Jean Palfrey, Swartz was hanged. Naturally the police are calling it suicide," Dr. Barrett wrote in an article titled "Is Obama killing kill list critics?" published on Veterans Today.

According to Barrett, "Swartz's death raises the obvious question: Can you criticize Obama's barbarian, unconstitutional 'kill list' without ending up on it yourself?"
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Red Flag

New Mexico bill would criminalize abortions after rape as 'tampering with evidence'

Laura Bassett
Huffington Post
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:34 UTC
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New Mexico State Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R) is the author of the bill and one its sponsors.
A Republican lawmaker in New Mexico introduced a bill on Wednesday that would legally require victims of rape to carry their pregnancies to term in order to use the fetus as evidence for a sexual assault trial.

House Bill 206, introduced by state Rep. Cathrynn Brown (R), would charge a rape victim who ended her pregnancy with a third-degree felony for "tampering with evidence."

"Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime," the bill says.
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Red Flag

Report: Obama ousting CENTCOM Chief Mattis


Washington Free Beacon
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:52 UTC
"Word on the national security street is that General James Mattis is being given the bum's rush out of his job as commander of Central Command, and is being told to vacate his office several months earlier than planned," reports veteran national security correspondent Thomas E. Ricks.

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It now appears likely that Gen. Mattis, a Marine Corps legend, will leave his post as head of America's most important combatant command in March, several months earlier than planned. Ricks continues:
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UN launches investigation into drone strikes

Natasha Lennard
Salon
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:49 UTC
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© Shutterstock
A Geneva-based team will examine reports of civilian deaths and the legality of the U.S.'s extrajudicial killings.

The U.N. announced Thursday the launch of its investigation into targeted killings carried out by the U.S. and its allies. U.N. special rapporteur Ben Emmerson, who monitors counter-terrorism programs, will lead the Geneva-based investigation, which will look at civilian deaths in drone strikes and the legality of extradjudicial executions.

As Salon reported last year when Emmerson first announced the U.N. project, the human rights attorney told a Harvard conference that his team would be weighing up evidence as to whether the Obama administration was guilty of war crimes. He said:
[It is] alleged that since President Obama took office at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims and more than 20 civilians have also been attacked in deliberate strikes on funerals and mourners. [U.N. consultant, professor of human rights] Christof Heyns ... has described such attacks, if they prove to have happened, as war crimes. I would endorse that view.
The investigation's launch comes just as the Obama administration finalizes a manual on guidelines for targeted killings, further cementing kill lists into the U.S. national security apparatus.
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USA

CIA drone strikes will get pass in counterterrorism 'playbook,' officials say

Greg Miller, Ellen Nakashima and Karen DeYoung
Washington Post
Sat, 19 Jan 2013 13:45 UTC
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© EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
A counterterrorism manual designed to establish rules for targeted drone strikes leaves open major exemptions for drone strikes in Pakistan, U.S. officials say.
The Obama administration is nearing completion of a detailed counterterrorism manual that is designed to establish clear rules for targeted-killing operations but leaves open a major exemption for the CIA's campaign of drone strikes in Pakistan, U.S. officials said.

The carve-out would allow the CIA to continue pounding al-Qaeda and Taliban targets for a year or more before the agency is forced to comply with more stringent rules spelled out in a classified document that officials have described as a counterterrorism "playbook."

The document, which is expected to be submitted to President Obama for final approval within weeks, marks the culmination of a year-long effort by the White House to codify its counterterrorism policies and create a guide for lethal operations through Obama's second term.

A senior U.S. official involved in drafting the document said that a few issues remain unresolved but described them as minor. The senior U.S. official said the playbook "will be done shortly."
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France orders Twitter to identify racist users


France 24
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:41 UTC
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Microblogging site Twitter must hand over data to help identify users who post racist and anti-Semitic comments, a French court ruled on Thursday.

Twitter was the subject of legal action by Jewish student group the UEJF and other associations, following a swathe of postings in October using hashtags (which group and identify postings according to a theme) including #UnBonJuif [A Good Jew] and #UnJuifMort [A Dead Jew].

Twitter deleted some posts, but this did not stop users continuing in the same vein, with popular hashtags appearing in December and January such as #UnBonNoir [A Good Black] and #SiJetaisNazi [If I was a Nazi].

In bringing legal action against the site, which is hosted in the US, the associations demanded that Twitter make it easier for users to flag racist or anti-Semitic content, while helping to identify those who had posted the hashtags with associated comments so that they could be prosecuted under France's tough anti-racism laws.
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V

Half-Jewish, half-Arab woman sues FBI, TSA, Frontier Airlines over 9/11 strip search

Rym Momtaz
ABC News
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 13:38 UTC
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© Courtesy Shoshana Hebshi/AP Photo
Shoshana Hebshi of Sylvania, Ohio, is shown in this Sept. 13, 2011 photo
A half-Jewish, half-Arab Ohio woman is suing Frontier Airlines, the FBI, TSA and other government agencies after she says was removed at gunpoint from a flight on the tenth anniversary of 9/11, strip-searched and jailed because of her ethnicity.

"I know now that my only crime on that day was an ethnic name and arbitrary seat assignment," said Shoshana Hebshi, a 36-year-old freelance journalist born in California to a Jewish mother and a Saudi father, said at a press conference Tuesday.

In her lawsuit, filed by the ACLU in Detroit federal court Tuesday, Hebshi alleges she was removed at gunpoint from a Denver to Detroit flight on Sept. 11, 2011, when passengers and flight crew became suspicious after two men of South-Asian descent seated next to her made several trips to the bathroom during the flight.

"As officers boarded the plane," said Hebshi at the press conference, "we were ordered to put our heads down and our arms in front of us. I wondered if there was a fugitive on board. I had no idea they were coming for me. ... I was completely shocked and panicked."
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Whistle

Have you heard about the famous anti-GMO scientist who switched sides and is now pro?


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:48 UTC
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Mark Lynas
For one thing, he isn't a scientist at all.

This episode has been all over the media. Some commentators have speculated that this will turn the tide in Europe and persuade regulators there to give a full green light to GMO. But let's take a moment to review the facts.

Mark Lynas is not a scientist. He does not even reveal his education on his own website, nor is it easily available on the Web. He is a British author, journalist, and environmental activist with a flair for publicity and a primary focus on climate change. He's been called a "pioneer" and an "apostle" of the anti-GMO movement, but that is mostly his own self-promotion.

At a farming conference in Oxford, England, earlier this month, he gave a speech reversing his previous position on GMO in characteristically dramatic style: "You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food." Obviously no scientist would make such a statement given the lack of established facts about GMO. It is precisely the lack of proven facts which are the problem. Lynas added, just to stir the pot further: "More to the point, people have died from choosing organic, but no one has died from eating GM." Of course he provided no support for that wild claim.

Comment: Read the following article for a more in depth look at how Pro GMO mouth pieces like Mark Lynas twist the truth and claim that they love science and support the scientific method when defending the 'safety of GM technology':

The pro-GM lobby's seven sins against science
The role that genetically modified (GM) food should play in our food chain is a highly contested political issues. One interesting facet of the debate in the past year has been the pro-GM lobby's interest in staking the 'scientific high-ground'; simultaneously positioning itself as the voice of reason and progress, while painting its opponents as unsophisticated 'anti-science' luddites, whose arguments are full of dogma and emotion, but lack scientific rigor...

This characterisation of those opposed to GM as being anti-science has always ignored the fact that the NGOs concerned, like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association, are staunch supporters of science, have scientists working for them, and run campaigns to combat problems which were only identifiable through scientific investigation, like the depletion of the ozone layer and climate change. People opposed to GM, including farmers and environmentalists, often have professional or scientific qualifications, and are well versed in the scientific disciplines that affect agriculture. This has not stopped supporters of GM crops dismissing all of these people as irrational, emotional, anti-science zealots.
In addition read about what happens to real scientists when they speak out about their research:

GMO Researchers Attacked, Evidence Denied, and a Population at Risk

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Vader

Report details 'callous' lack of sexual assault investigation by D.C. police

Joanna Walters
Raw Story
Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:23 UTC
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© AFP Photo
DC police chief Cathy Lanier
Human Rights Watch calls for investigation after report found victims endure 'callous and traumatising' treatment from police.

Victims of sexual assault in Washington DC too often endure "callous and traumatising" treatment from the police while attacks are dismissed on the spot and never investigated, according to a bombshell report.

Campaign group Human Rights Watch is concerned that problems at the city's Metropolitan police department are so serious that it amounts to "an institutional tolerance of inappropriate behaviour" by poorly trained detectives.

More than 40% of reviewed cases of sexual assault reported to the police by the city's central hospital, after victims received forensic examinations, "appear never to have been investigated" or even documented by the MPD, today's report says.
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