Puppet MastersS


USA

America is shamed that only Rand Paul is talking about drone executions

Amy Goodman
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:16 UTC
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© APSenator Rand Paul during his 13-hour talking filibuster insisting that Obama administration provide stronger assurances that US citizens will never be killed by drone attack on US soil.
Where are the civil libertarians in the president's party that we must rely on a Tea Party Republican to champion this issue?

You could say that a filibuster occurs when a senator drones on and on. The problem with the US Senate was that there were too few senators speaking about drones this week.

President Barack Obama's controversial nomination of John Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency was held up Wednesday afternoon by a Senate filibuster. The reason: Brennan's role in targeted killings by drones, and President Obama's presumed authority to kill US citizens, without any due process, if they pose an "imminent threat". The effort was led by Tea Party Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, joined by several of his Republican colleagues. Among the Democrats, at the time of this writing, only Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon had joined in the genuine, old-fashioned "talking filibuster", wherein the activities of the Senate floor are held up by a senator's speech.

Members of Congress, tasked with oversight of intelligence and military matters, have repeatedly demanded the memoranda from the White House detailing the legal basis for the drone program, only to be repeatedly denied. The nomination of Brennan has opened up the debate, forcing the Obama administration to make nominal gestures of compliance. The answers so far have not satisfied Senator Paul. Nearing hour six of his filibuster, Senator Paul admitted:
"I can't ultimately stop the nomination, but what I can do is try to draw attention to this and try to get an answer ... that would be something if we could get an answer from the president ... if he would say explicitly that noncombatants in America won't be killed by drones. The reason it has to be answered is because our foreign drone strike program does kill noncombatants. They may argue that they are conspiring or they may someday be combatants, but if that is the same standard that we are going to use in the United States, it is a far different country than I know about."
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Brick Wall

Rand Paul filibuster joined by others in bid to block Brennan appointment

Paul Harris
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:09 UTC
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© APSenator Rand Paul during his 13-hour talking filibuster insisting that Obama administration provide stronger assurances that US citizens will never be killed by drone attack on US soil.
Kentucky senator speaks in protest at comments from officials over possibility of carrying out drone strikes on US soil

Senator Rand Paul on Wednesday began a rare talking filibuster in order to try and block the appointment of John Brennan as CIA chief over his attitude to President Barack Obama's controversial drones policy.

The move, made famous in popular culture by James Stewart in the film Mr Smith Goes to Washington, involves trying to block a piece of legislation by speaking for as long as possible, though rule changes have largely reduced it to a publicity stunt.

In an unexpected development, Paul was joined by Democratic senator Ron Wyden, from Oregon, who warmly praised the Kentucky Senator's move and gave the anti-drones protest a sudden flush of cross-party support. Like Paul, Wyden has been a longstanding critic of aspects of Obama's use of drones. Five Republicans also joined in by making statements.

Paul, a Kentucky senator and son of libertarian hero and former presidential hopeful Ron Paul, said he was making the filibuster attempt out of outrage at recent comments made by Obama officials on the possible legality of carrying out drone strikes against US citizens on American soil.
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Vader

Obama must reveal legal memos on his administration's drone killing program

Kade Crockford
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:47 UTC
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© Khaled Abdullah/ReutersA car destroyed by a US drone strike in Yemen: 'signature strikes' have allowed the CIA to expand vastly the range of targets it kills by drone attack.
Brennan's confirmation hearing as CIA director was a crucial test of the Senate's exercise of oversight. It failed; now it's up to us

The American public still does not know how the Obama administration legally justifies its vast killing program. But thanks to years of quietly accumulating political pressure, mounting criticism from important US allies, and a very public airing of widely-held concerns last night, that may soon change.

Europe raises the red flag on the so-called targeted killing program

The United States has reportedly killed 4,700 people in "war on terror" operations outside of declared war zones. On Wednesday, the European Parliament heard a special briefing on the US kill programs from the ACLU's Hina Shamsi and the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Ben Emmerson. Following the briefing, the parliamentarians issued a statement calling into question the legality (and morality) of US strikes. The United States cannot hide its legal justification for these operations from the world any longer, they wrote:
"We are deeply concerned about the legal basis, as well as the moral, ethical and human rights implications of the United States' targeted killing programme that authorises the CIA and the military to hunt and kill individuals who have suspected links to terrorism anywhere in the world.

"Despite having abandoned the 'war on terror' rhetoric, the US sticks to the notion that it is in the realm of a war, and not organised criminality, when fighting terrorism. It has a destabilising effect on the international legal framework ...

"There are a growing number of reports demonstrating that hundreds of civilians are being killed in the framework of the targeted killing program. This is being done without any transparency in justification of a 'wartime' policy. We urge our American allies to address the pressing questions over the legal criteria at the basis of a policy that, in targeting so-called militants, destroys both innocent human beings and our common legal heritage." [My emphasis]
The members announced that the European Parliament will hold hearings next month to look further into the US program. Amid such fierce criticisms from key US allies, one has to wonder what the Obama administration is hiding in the legal memos justifying its killing operations. If everything the US is doing is truly above board and complies with international and domestic law, why don't officials release the memos?

What does the president have to hide?
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Heart - Black

Iraqi prisoners with gunshot wounds received no pain relief, public inquiry hears

Ian Cobain
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:43 UTC
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© Denis Doyle/APBritish troops take over the Iraqi village of Majar al-Kabir in 2003
Cases of insurgents captured by the UK military after 2004 battle in south-east Iraq being heard at al-Sweady inquiry in London

British military doctors failed to give any pain relief to Iraqi insurgents with gunshot wounds - although they did check their pulses and breathing before they were sent for interrogation, a public inquiry into allegations of murder and the abuse of unarmed prisoners by UK forces heard on Thursday.

One man who had three bullet wounds and several shrapnel wounds to his right leg and foot says he told an army doctor that he was "in agony", but his detention record showed that he received no analgesics. He later needed surgery.

Others with gunshot wounds, or injuries including cuts, bruises or broken noses that they say were inflicted after capture by British troops, say that they were medically examined before interrogation but not given pain relief.

Jonathan Acton Davis QC, counsel to the al-Sweady Inquiry, said that the records showed that men captured after a fierce battle near the town of Majar al-Kabir in south-east Iraq were weighed on arrival at the Shaibah logistics base, and that doctors also checked their pulses, respiration, body temperatures, analysed their urine for blood, glucose or protein, and even asked whether they had any allergies. They were then passed as being fit for detention, and sent for interrogation sessions, during which some are alleged to have been assaulted.
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USA

Pentagon investigating link between U.S. military and torture centres in Iraq

Ewen MacAskill and Mona Mahmood
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:37 UTC
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Defense Department says 'it will take time' to respond to 15-month investigation by BBC Arabic and the Guardian

The Pentagon is investigating allegations linking the US military to human rights abuses in Iraq by police commando units who operated a network of detention and torture centres.

A 15-month investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic, published on Wednesday, disclosed that the US sent a veteran of the "dirty wars" in Central America to oversee Iraqi commando units involved in some of the worst acts of torture during the American-led occupation.

The allegations, made by US and Iraqi witnesses, implicate US advisers for the first time in these human rights abuses. It is also the first time that the then US commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, has been linked through an adviser to the abuses.

Colonel Jack Wesley, a Pentagon spokesman, told the Guardian on Thursday: "Obviously we have seen the reports and we are currently looking into the situation."
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Eye 1

U.S. dismisses claims that CIA gave Chávez cancer as 'absurd'

Rory Carroll
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:48 UTC
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© Presidency Of Venezuela/ Presidency of Venezuela/Xinhua Press/CorbisNicolas Maduro, left, repeated claims Hugo Chávez was poisoned by the US.
Venezuelan general claims history will reveal plot to poison fallen comrade as vice-president calls for investigation

Conspiracy theorists who wonder about aliens at Roswell and Nasa faking the moon landings have a new issue to ponder: did the CIA murder Hugo Chávez?

The claim has acquired supporters since Venezuela's vice-president, Nicolas Maduro, floated it after announcing Chávez's death on Tuesday following a two-year battle with cancer.

General José Ornella, the head of the presidential guard, told AP: "I think it will be 50 years before they declassify a document [that] I think [will show] the hand of the enemy is involved."

Eva Golinger, a Caracas-based America attorney and pro-government activist, told the local paper Ultimas Noticias the US had tried to assassinate Cuba's former president Fidel Castro with radiation, among other methods, and that there was circumstantial evidence of a plot against Chavez. "We can only imagine the weapons capacity the US possesses today. They have used different biological weapons against their adversaries."
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USA

Bin Laden son-in-law detained in Jordan over links to al-Qaida


Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:48 UTC
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© MBC/AFPSuleiman Abu Ghaith.
US government sources said Suleiman Abu Ghaith had appeared in al-Qaida videos praising the 9/11 attacks

A son-in-law of Osama bin Laden who served as al-Qaida's spokesman has been detained in Jordan, US government sources said on Thursday.

The sources said Suleiman Abu Ghaith, a militant who had appeared in videos representing al-Qaida after the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington in 2001, had initially been picked up in Turkey.

The Turkish government then deported him to Jordan, said the sources, where local authorities and the FBI took custody of him.

Initial public confirmation of Abu Ghaith's capture came from Peter King, a senior Republican member of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, and former chairman of the House committee on homeland security.
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USA

Reconciliation in Iraq is impossible without U.S. truth about its dirty war

Ben Emmerson
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:37 UTC
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© Karim Kadim/APA guard escorts suspected terrorists at the police headquarters in Baghdad, 2008.
America's claim to have helped Iraq to democracy is hollow until the US makes Bush era officials accountable for torture

The investigation by the Guardian and the BBC into direct Pentagon involvement in the systematic torture of Sunni insurgents in Iraq is a bloody reminder of the catastrophe that the 2003 invasion wreaked on the people of Iraq. It also a key reason behind the decade of sectarian violence the war has left in its wake.

After a decade of the most extreme bloodshed on both sides, the Sunni minority is now asserting its collective muscle in an organised fashion under the leadership of figures such as the Sunni scholar Abdul-Malik al-Saadi. The immediate reason for this upsurge in confidence among the Sunnis of Iraq is not hard to find.

The rebellion in neighbouring Syria, which began as essentially secular resistance movement, has attracted Sunni extremist groups from across the globe in support of the effort to bring down President Assad. Armed by regional troika of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, they are now about to be provided with military support by the west, including Britain, in an echo of the strategy under which western countries provided firepower to support the Islamist rebel forces in Libya.

This, in turn, has emboldened the Sunni minority, comprising a fifth of Iraq's population, which has been holding large-scale public demonstrations. Their attempt to mount a cross-sectarian challenge to the government in Baghdad has also attracted the support of Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Meanwhile, the remnant of al-Qaida in Iraq has been attempting to use the protests as cover for a highly incendiary campaign inciting Sunnis to take up arms against the regime.
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Bad Guys

UN expands North Korea sanctions after U.S. warning over nuclear threat

Tania Branigan and Ewen MacAskill
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:31 UTC
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© Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesUN ambassador Susan Rice votes at a security council meeting on imposing a fourth round of sanctions against North Korea.
UN resolution condemns third nuclear test 'in the strongest possible terms' and warns the North against further provocations

The United Nations security council has voted unanimously to punish North Korea for last month's nuclear test with a toughened sanctions regime, hours after Pyongyang threatened to unleash a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States.

Secretary general Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, said the resolution "sent an unequivocal message to [the North] that the international community will not tolerate its pursuit of nuclear weapons".

The decision by the 15-member council followed lengthy negotiations between the United States and China, the North's main ally. Measures range from tightened financial restrictions to cargo inspections and an explicit ban on exports of yachts and racing cars to the North, but experts say the real issue is enforcement.

China's UN ambassador Li Baodong said Beijing, Pyongyang's main trading partner, wanted to see "full implementation" of the resolution.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, told reporters that the measures would "bite hard". She added: "North Korea will achieve nothing by continued threats and provocations."
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Snakes in Suits

Rand Paul anti-drone filibuster draws stinging criticism from Republicans

Paul Harris
Guardian
Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:26 UTC
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© AP'I would go for another 12 hours ... but I've discovered that there are some limits to filibustering,' said Paul, drawing his speech to a close.
John McCain claims Paul's effort - in which he held the Senate floor for nearly 13 hours - was 'distortion of the threats we face'

Senator Rand Paul's extraordinary talking filibuster to halt the appointment of new CIA chief John Brennan, due to his concerns over American use of drones, on Thursday drew withering attack from senior members of his own Republican party.

Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, had held the Senate floor for almost 13 hours in a dramatic effort to ratchet up the drones debate.

Paul was particularly exercised about the question of whether the US government believed it could use drones against its own citizens on American soil. But that point of view clearly angered Arizona senator John McCain, like Brennan a keen supporter of drones.

Speaking in the Senate, McCain said Paul's filibuster had been a "distortion of the realities of the threats we face. It is not a mature discussion."

McCain was joined by South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who put up a sign on the Senate floor with figures saying that al-Qaida had killed 2,958 US citizens in America, while drones had killed none. "To take this debate into the absurd is what I object to," Graham said.
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