Puppet MastersS


Vader

Death from Above for our Allies

Clive Stafford Smith
The New York Times
Thu, 03 Nov 2011 00:00 UTC
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© (Image credit: U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson) MQ-9 Reaper mid-flight

Last Friday, I took part in an unusual meeting in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

The meeting had been organized so that Pashtun tribal elders who lived along the Pakistani-Afghan frontier could meet with Westerners for the first time to offer their perspectives on the shadowy drone war being waged by the Central Intelligence Agency in their region. Twenty men came to air their views; some brought their young sons along to experience this rare interaction with Americans. In all, 60 villagers made the journey.

The meeting was organized as a traditional jirga. In Pashtun culture, a jirga acts as both a parliament and a courtroom: it is the time-honored way in which Pashtuns have tried to establish rules and settle differences amicably with those who they feel have wronged them.
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Bad Guys

Lethal Presidency:Obama's Drone Murder of Al-Awlaki's 16yo Son

AnCapMercenary
The Daily Paul
Wed, 11 Jul 2012 18:53 UTC
Would You Believe A US Teenager Who Grew Up In Denver Was Executed WITHOUT TRIAL With A Drone Strike

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks covers Obama's Drone Murder of Al-Awlaki's 16 year old son.
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Black Cat

Defender of Obama's Drone War Makes Excuses for Assassination Secrecy

Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 20:28 UTC
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© AP/Carolyn Kaster

In response to his widely discussed Esquire article entitled "The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama," Tom Junod received a telephone call from someone he describes as "a person with intimate knowledge of the executive counter-terrorism policies of the Obama administration." This unnamed person called Junod specifically to defend the administration's refusal to provide any minimal transparency or even acknowledgment about these policies, even when drone attacks ordered by the President kill innocent American teenagers such as 16-year-old Abdulrahman Awlaki.
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Syringe

Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Interrogated while Being Forcibly Injected with Anti-Psychotics


MailOnline
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:10 UTC
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Detention: Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, pictured, were injected with anti-psychotic medication
Guantanamo Bay prisoners were interrogated while being dosed up on 'mind altering drugs', according to a secret Pentagon report released under Freedom of Information laws.

The two-year probe by the Pentagon's inspector general into the use of anti-psychotic medication during interrogations revealed detainees inside the U.S. military's facility in Cuba were forcibly injected with powerful sedatives used in psychiatric hospitals.

'Certain detainees, diagnosed as having serious mental health conditions being treated with psychoactive medications on a continuing basis, were interrogated,' the inspector general concludes in the report.
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Arrow Down

Corporate Psychopaths Bad for Business

Rachel Sullivan
CIO
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:47 UTC
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© Nicolas Walker
We all have our personality quirks that either endear us to others, or drive them to distraction, often simultaneously. But when does a quirk become a liability in the workplace? And how can you minimize the fallout?

Some extreme personalities may be good for business, but there's one that most would steer well clear of: The corporate psychopath.

While the term 'psychopath' usually suggests highly antisocial individuals with a long and abhorrent criminal history, most aren't. Psychopaths are found working in every field, comprising between 1 and 3 percent of men and less than 1 percent of women.

Essentially, psychopaths are people without a conscience, who inhabit their own world and break society's rules at will. According to Dr Robert Hare, who has made studying psychopaths his life's work, they are "social predators who charm, manipulate and ruthlessly plow their way through life, leaving a broad trail of broken hearts, shattered expectations and empty wallets...selfishly taking what they want and doing as they please without the slightest sense of guilt or regret."
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Beaker

Propaganda Alert: Syria moving chemical weapons stockpile

Courtney Kube
NBC News
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:35 UTC

A[n unnamed] U.S. official confirmed Friday that the Syrian regime has been moving elements of its chemical weapons stockpile in recent days, an action that has U.S. officials both concerned and perplexed.

"We don't know why" they have begun moving chemical weapons from storage, the source said, refusing to speculate whether President Bashar Assad's regime could be preparing to use the weapons on the civilian uprising.

Asked whether there is concern that the weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists, the source said the United States still believes the chemical weapons are "secure" and under the control of the Assad regime.

Comment: Who confirmed? What was the confirmation based on? Why isn't the data that caused this confirmation put into the article? Is Syria about to be chemically attacked and then blamed for it? The above article only creates more questions. Syria may well be moving its chemical weapons caused by the fear of a false flag attack that will make it look as if it has poisoned its own people.
Syria's Bloody CIA Revolution
NATO's 'Civil War' Machine Rolls Into Syria

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Handcuffs

Felon voting bans will disenfranchise a historic 6 million voters

Ed Pilkington
The Guardian
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:52 UTC
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© Unknown
Almost 6 million Americans will not be able to vote in November's presidential election under tough state rules that have pushed the number of disenfranchised former convicted criminals to a historic high.A new study by the Sentencing Project estimates that a record 5.85 million people - some 2.5% of the US voting age population equivalent to one out of every 40 adult Americans - will be ineligible to vote in November by dint of having been convicted of a felony. That includes almost 3 million people who have served their sentence in full, including all probation, and yet are still stripped of their right to vote under harsh state laws.

The US is the among the strictest nations in the world in terms of denying the vote to those who have felony convictions on their record. The Sentencing Project report shows how the laws have been sharply toughened up in recent years across many states, dramatically increasing the numbers caught in the felony trap - from just 1.2 million people in 1976 to 5.9 million in 2010.

African Americans and other minority ethnic groups are particularly vulnerable to being disenfranchised. Almost 8% of adult African Americans are ineligible to vote because of convictions, compared to 1.8% of the rest of the adult population.
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Footprints

Ex-CIA agent defends herself in rendition case: report


The Raw Story
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:45 UTC
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© Unknown
Washington - A former CIA agent convicted by an Italian court of participating in the covert 2003 abduction in Milan of an Egyptian cleric suspected of terror-related offenses had gone public to defend herself.

In an interview published in the Washington Post, Sabrina de Sousa, 56, denied playing any role in the kidnapping of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, a member of Egypt's radical Islamist opposition also known as Abu Omar.

Abu Omar was seized on the streets of Milan on February 17, 2003 in a joint operation between the CIA and Italian intelligence services. He was then transferred to Egypt, where his lawyers say he was tortured.

It was part of a CIA practice known as "rendition" - when a terror suspect is forced against his will to fly to a third country known for allowing torture during interrogations.

In 2009, an Italian court sentenced De Sousa and 22 other CIA agents to seven to nine years in prison over the incident.
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Bad Guys

Romney Caught Lying by SEC Forms: He was CEO, President, Chairman and Owner of Bain When He Claims He Wasn't

Mark Karlin
Buzzflash
Thu, 12 Jul 2012 14:37 UTC
Romney/Bain
© n/a
If running a successful campaign is largely keeping your opponent on the defensive, then Mitt Romney is in the political dog house - and it's his own fault, because he lied.

Let's step back up a second. The Obama campaign ran ads a short time ago and accused Romney of investing in firms that resulted in outsourcing jobs and increasing unemployment in the US. Romney claimed he was not responsible for his Bain vulture capital firm when this activity was taking place because he had left the company.

However, the Boston Globe revealed today (based on earlier stories in Talking Points Memo and Mother Jones):

Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time.

Romney has said he left Bain in 1999 to lead the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, ending his role in the company. But public Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents filed later by Bain Capital state he remained the firm's "sole stockholder, chairman of the board, chief executive officer, and president."
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Footprints

U.S. should scale down $1 billion Kansas biodefense lab: study

Kevin Murphy
Reuters
Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:21 UTC
The United States should consider scaling down ambitious plans for a $1 billion laboratory in Kansas to study potentially deadly animal diseases, the National Research Council said on Friday in a key report to help the government decide how to proceed.

Construction of the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Manhattan, Kansas has been stalled by concerns that deadly animal diseases could escape and devastate agriculture, and criticism of it as a costly boondoggle.

The Department of Homeland Security asked the research council - which is part of the National Academy of Sciences - to study three options for the facility. They were to proceed with the Kansas plant, scale it back, or retain the aging Plum Island Animal Disease Center off Long Island, New York.
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