Despite International Criticism, Interior Ministry Pushing Through More Schemes

Yesterday's announcement for 1,500 more settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem took a lot of people by surprise. Israel usually staggers such announcements so they can finish diplomatic damage control on the one before announcing another, and the dispute over E1 is still fresh in everyone's minds. It seems this is just the new normal for Israel heading into the election.

That's because the Interior Ministry is now reporting that its panel didn't finish with the 1,500, and in fact is going to keep meeting throughout the week to rubber stamp expansions in two more settlements in East Jerusalem, making this week's announcements up to 6,000 units.

© Spencer Platt/GettyA memorial to the victims of the Sandy Hook school shootings in Connecticut. The children killed by US drones in north-west Pakistan 'have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and teddy bears'.

Barack Obama's tears for the children of Newtown are in stark contrast to his silence over the children murdered by his drones

"Mere words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, nor can they heal your wounded hearts ... These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change." Every parent can connect with what President Barack Obama said about the murder of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut. There can scarcely be a person on earth with access to the media who is untouched by the grief of the people of that town.

It must follow that what applies to the children murdered there by a deranged young man also applies to the children murdered in Pakistan by a sombre American president. These children are just as important, just as real, just as deserving of the world's concern. Yet there are no presidential speeches or presidential tears for them, no pictures on the front pages of the world's newspapers, no interviews with grieving relatives, no minute analysis of what happened and why.

Numerous commentators have rightly lamented the difference in how these childrens' deaths are perceived. What explains it?

Over the last several days, numerous commentators have lamented the vastly different reactions in the US to the heinous shooting of children in Newtown, Connecticut as compared to the continuous killing of (far more) children and innocent adults by the US government in Pakistan and Yemen, among other places. The blogger Atrios this week succinctly observed:

"I do wish more people who manage to fully comprehend the broad trauma a mass shooting can have on our country would consider the consequences of a decade of war."

My Guardian colleague George Monbiot has a powerful and eloquent column this week provocatively entitled: "In the US, mass child killings are tragedies. In Pakistan, mere bug splats". He points out all the ways that Obama has made lethal US attacks in these predominantly Muslim countries not only more frequent but also more indiscriminate - "signature strikes" and "double-tap" attacks on rescuers and funerals - and then argues:

"Most of the world's media, which has rightly commemorated the children of Newtown, either ignores Obama's murders or accepts the official version that all those killed are 'militants'. The children of north-west Pakistan, it seems, are not like our children. They have no names, no pictures, no memorials of candles and flowers and teddy bears. They belong to the other: to the non-human world of bugs and grass and tissue.

"'Are we,' Obama asked on Sunday, 'prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?' It's a valid question. He should apply it to the violence he is visiting on the children of Pakistan."

Lawmakers in Washington have stripped an amendment from next year's National Defense Authorization Act that could have kept the government from indefinitely detaining US citizens without charge or trial.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Michigan) told reporters on Tuesday that an amendment to the 2013 defense spending bill approved only two weeks earlier had been removed. That amendment, authored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), was pitched as a solution to a clause in the current NDAA that allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens without due process or habeas corpus.

Under the 2012 NDAA, US President Barack Obama is affirmed the power to put any American citizen behind bars if he or she is suspected of assisting in any way with forces engaged in hostilities against the United States or its allies. That provision, Sec. 1021, says any person who commits a "belligerent act" against the country can be imprisoned indefinitely "without trial" until the vaguely-worded period of hostilities has come to an end.

The US and Qatar are coordinating plans to destabilize Jordan, Arab sources warned on Wednesday, adding that both countries are making hectic efforts to this end.

"The US and Qatar's embassies (in Jordan) in a coordinated move are recruiting groups in Jordan to strike at the country's stability," the Arabic-language al-Manar weekly quoted Arab diplomatic sources as saying.

Qatar has recently augmented its moves and meddling in several regional states. Sources disclosed earlier this week that Qatar has also been trying to destabilize Syria and Kuwait.

On Sunday, Russian analysts said that the Jordanian king is deeply fearful that the destabilizing efforts made by Turkey, Egypt and Qatar lead to an uprising in his country.

"We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another." - Robert Oppenheimer First broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965)

"Evil visited this community today," is how Governor Molloy described the awful events that occurred at a Newtown Connecticut Elementary school. Whenever a "terrorist" attacks and innocents are slaughtered, we begin referencing religious concepts and asking the inevitable questions. Why do they hate us? Why would someone commit such an atrocity? Why was a flawed, obviously insane individual allowed access to weapons? The 24 hour cable "news" networks voyeuristically "report" firsthand accounts and talking head "experts" speculate regarding motive and intent. But yet we ignore the obvious, and refuse to look at who we are, better, what we've become, as a nation, a people, that makes such awful events not an aberration, but an all too common occurrence of slaughter and mayhem.

An independent panel set up to investigate September's Benghazi attack has placed the blame for the death of four US foreign servicemen on inadequate security measures provided by the State Department.

­On Tuesday, the US State Department delivered a classified version of the report by the Accountability Review Board containing 29 recommendations to improve US embassy security to lawmakers. An unclassified version of the findings was also released.

Systematic mismanagement was blamed for the inadequate security that left the diplomatic mission in Benghazi vulnerable to the attack on September 11th. Contrary to initial reports, the panel concluded that there were no rallies outside embassy at the time of the assault and blamed the deaths of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others on terrorists.

The probe also revealed that Washington ignored calls from the American Embassy in Tripoli to supply more guards for diplomats, instead relying on local militias to safeguard the diplomatic mission.

The findings also said that the State Department waited for specific threats rather than installing security protocols as the security situation worsened in the country. In addition the inquiry discovered that "intelligence provided no immediate, specific tactical warning of the September 11 attacks."

The mistress of former CIA head Gen. David Petraeus will not be charged with cyberstalking, the United States Department of Justice confirmed Tuesday.

Attorneys for Paula Broadwell say that the woman blamed for bringing down the country's top intelligence officer won't face any federal charges related to "alleged acts of cyberstalking," according to a letter they released Tuesday from Assistant US Attorney W. Stephen Muldrow.

"As the target of our investigation, we believe it is appropriate to advise your client that our office has determined that no federal charges will be brought in the Middle District of Florida relating to alleged acts of cyberstalking," the letter reads.

Broadwell, the one-time biographer of Gen. Petraeus, was under investigation for allegedly harassing a Florida socialite named Jill Kelley. Emails sent to Kelley warning her to stay away from the Gen. Petraeus as well as Gen. John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, provoked the recipient to ask for help from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI was brought in to conduct a probe of those emails, only to in turn uncover an affair between Broadwell and Gen. Petraeus.

The Department of Homeland Security is positioning itself to assume immense domestic law-enforcement and surveillance powers. From patrolling the traffic on the Internet to consolidating local police power, DHS is accumulating all the unconstitutional authority necessary for a proper Stasi-like secret police force.

A recent story published by California Watch reported that DHS inked a new $443 million deal with über-defense contractor General Atomics to purchase 14 additional Predator drones. If (when) the new craft are delivered to DHS, there would be 24 drones in the agency's fleet.

As we have chronicled, Predator is the preferred model of unmanned aerial vehicle of the U.S. military for prosecuting its death-by-drone program in Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere overseas. What doesn't receive nearly as much press is the domestic deployment of these remote control armed spy planes.

DHS is particularly fond of this brand of drone, having spent over $250 million since 2006 on building its Predator fleet. Reportedly, DHS is using the devices to patrol the porous border separating the United States from Mexico.

This new exclusive, exorbitant deal with General Atomics is curious in light of the scathing report on DHS waste issued in June by the Inspector General. As reported by Huffington Post: "The Homeland Security inspector general's office in a June audit recommended that Customs and Border Protection stop buying the drones until officials figure out a budget plan for the program and how to get the most use out of the unmanned aircraft, which are frequently grounded by inclement weather."

Washington - An Army general will face court-martial on a series of sexual misconduct charges, including forcible sodomy, in connection with several illicit affairs, and could receive life in prison if convicted, the Army said Tuesday.

Included in the allegations against Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair are that he carried on affairs with and mistreated subordinate officers and later tried to impede the investigation of some of the offenses by deleting nude photos and other emails.

The case is the latest in a series of missteps by military leaders: At least five current and former generals at the rank of one-star or higher have been reprimanded or investigated for possible misconduct in recent months.

The five pages of allegations involved Sinclair's conduct with five women who were not his wife.

A 27-year Army veteran who served five combat tours, Sinclair is charged with eight crimes, including one count of forcible sodomy; two counts of wrongful sexual conduct; six counts of inappropriate sexual relationships, and eight counts of violating regulations. The charges involve activities when he was in Afghanistan, Iraq, Germany and at Fort Bragg, N.C., and they include violating what's known as General Order No. 1 - possessing alcohol in a war zone.