While government services around the country have shut down - including food inspections, cancer treatments and meteorological tracking - the House gym is still up and running, albeit without towel service. Republicans in the House continue passing piecemeal budget bills, including one passing military death benefits on Wednesday. Democrats are opposed to piecemeal funding, in part because it could take up to 10 weeks to fully fund the government. In the meantime, the country draws ever closer to a potential debt-ceiling default on October 17 with no congressional compromise in sight. RT's Sam Sacks talks to Ben Swann, founder of benswann.com, about the consequences of a continued shutdown and of the country defaulting on its debts.
Puppet Masters
© US Air Force
Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was fired from his command of the US Air Force’s nuclear missiles.
Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was fired from his command of the US Air Force’s nuclear missiles.
Maj. Gen. Michael Carey was removed from his command of the 20th Air Force, which is responsible for the nation's three wings of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the US Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) said in a statement.
The three wings of ICBMs consist of a total of 450 missiles at three bases across the country, The Associated Press reported.
The decision to fire Carey was made by the commander of AFGSC, Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, "based on information from an Inspector General investigation into Carey's behavior during a temporary duty assignment," the statement said.
Kowalski is in charge of all of the Air Force's nuclear weapons.
Officials would not say what led to Carey's dismissal, but the statement said it had nothing to do with his command of the nation's nuclear weapons or sexual misconduct.
The vice commander of AFGSC, Maj. Gen. Jack Weinstein, has been named Carey's interim replacement.
© US Navy
Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina is shown in a Nov. 11, 2011, photo.
Navy Vice Adm. Tim Giardina is shown in a Nov. 11, 2011, photo.
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.
© AP/FBI
This 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.
This 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.
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.
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.
© Unknown
Here are some of the benefits:
OPCW HQ, The Hague, The Netherlands
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.
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.
© Moadamiyeh Media Center/EPA
An 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.
An 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 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.
© AFP
Human Rights Watch highlighted five opposition groups that likely took part in the Aug. 4 killings.
Human Rights Watch highlighted five opposition groups that likely took part in the Aug. 4 killings.
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.
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