The Pedophocracy, Part I: From Brussels ...

"Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose ... I am also a theologian and as a theologian, I believe it is God's will that there be closeness and intimacy, unity of flesh, between people ... paedophiles can make the assertion that the pursuit of intimacy and love is what they choose. With boldness, they can say, 'I believe this is in fact part of God's will.'"

Ralph Underwager, 'expert' witness for the defense in scores of child abuse cases and former vocal member of the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, in an interview in Paidika (a pro-pedophilia publication), conducted in June 1991

To the vast majority of Americans, the name Marc Dutroux doesn't mean much. Drop that name in Belgium though and you're likely to elicit some very visceral reactions. Dutroux - convicted along with his wife in 1989 for the rape and violent abuse of five young girls, the youngest of whom was just eleven - now stands accused of being a key player in an international child prostitution and pornography ring whose practices included kidnapping, rape, sadistic torture, and murder.

Dutroux was sentenced in 1989 to thirteen years for his crimes, but was freed after having served just three. This was in spite of the fact that, as prison governor Yvan Stuaert would later tell a parliamentary commission: "A medical report described him as a perverse psychopath, an explosive mix. He was an evident danger to society."

The man who turned Dutroux loose on society, Justice Minister Melchior Wathelet, soon after received a prestigious appointment to serve as a judge at the European Court of Justice at the Hague. Shortly after Dutroux's release, young girls began to disappear in the vicinity of some of his homes. Though technically unemployed and drawing welfare from the state, he nevertheless owned at least six houses and lived quite lavishly.

In the past 48 hours across Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have killed 19 Palestinians, and injured 30 others.

In 2 seperate Drone attacks this morning, a 12 year old boy was killed in Jabalia, and in Gaza city, a 60 year old man also died.

Earlier this morning, in the Al Zaytoon area in eastern Gaza. 2 others were injured in the latest airstike to hit Gaza today. In the attack, Ahmad Deeb Salem was killed. Only 2 days ago he was married.

Israeli air raids killed at least one person and injured 2 others in Rafah in the south of the Gaza strip earlier on Saturday. Their motorcycle was hit by a missile fired from a drone.

The latest deaths came as Israeli drones fired missiles in Khan Younis killing Mansour Abu Nusaira and Hussein Hamad earlier this morning.

A US soldier shot dead 16 civilians including nine children in southern Kandahar province, Afghan officials said.

One Afghan father who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies.

The US embassy in Kabul said an American soldier had been detained over the shooting. It added that anti-US reprisals were possible following the killings, which come just weeks after US soldiers burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base, triggering widespread anti-Western protests.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the rampage as "intentional murders" and demanded an explanation from the US. His office said the dead included nine children and three women.

An Afghan minister earlier told Reuters that a lone US soldier had killed up to 16 people when he burst into homes in villages near his base in the middle of the night.

Panjwayi district is about 35 km (22 miles) west of the provincial capital Kandahar city. The district is considered the spiritual home of the Taliban and is believed to be a hive of insurgent activity.

An American soldier goes on a shooting spree in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, killing at least 17 innocent Afghan civilians and wounding several others, Press TV reports.

The shooting took place early Sunday in the district of Panjwaii in southern Kandahar Province.

The US soldier has been reportedly detained following the assault.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan confirmed the incident but did not disclose further details. The motive behind the deadly attack is not known yet. The Western military alliance says it will launch an investigation into the incident.

"This is a deeply regrettable incident and we extend our thoughts and concerns to the families involved," ISAF said in a statement.

The Zionist Story, an independent film by Ronen Berelovich, is the story of ethnic cleansing, colonialism and apartheid to produce a demographically Jewish State.

A sensation of unbearable, sudden heat seems to come out of nowhere - this wave, a strong electromagnetic beam, is the latest non-lethal weapon unveiled by the US military this week.

"You're not gonna see it, you're not gonna hear it, you're not gonna smell it: you're gonna feel it," explained US Marine Colonel Tracy Taffola, director the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, Marine Corps Base Quantico, at a demonstration for members of the media.

The effect is so repellant, the immediate instinct is to flee - and quickly, as experienced by AFP at the presentation.

Taffola is quick also to point out the "Active Denial System" beam, while powerful and long-range, some 1000 meters (0.6 miles), is the military's "safest non-lethal capability" that has been developed over 15 years but never used in the field.

It was deployed briefly in Afghanistan in 2010, but never employed in an operation.

As a foreign observer writing from Argentina, we too are awaiting with keen expectation the results of the Russian Elections. As happens with all elections when observed from far away, save for the incumbent and maybe one or two other names, the rest are often a bewildering series of unknowns and the local issues are also mostly unfamiliar to us.

I am not Russian. I do not live in Russia. I do not speak Russian (unfortunately!). And I must even confess that I have a patchy knowledge about Russia.

But I can tell you this: as a geopolitical analyst I know that Russia is crucially important to Mankind at the crossroads we find ourselves in these very dark times.

Politics are never a black or white, good-guy-versus-bad-guy affair (sorry, Hollywood... sorry, White House...). In Politics, "truth" always lies in some often subtle shade of grey. What political opponents normally fight, argue and bicker about, is what is that "correct" shade of grey. Of course, they never reach any agreement. Why? Because there is no "correct" shade of grey. It's like beauty: always in the eyes of the beholder.

News of the crisis in Syria has gone global and has many countries wanting to intervene. In the US, President Obama is calling for action to be taken against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. But is action already being taken? According to reports, Syrian officials have apprehended Israeli anti-tank missiles and drones. Here is the latest from Syria.

Thomas Drake on life inside the National Security Agency and the price of truth telling

Thomas Drake, the whistle-blower whom the Obama administration tried and failed to prosecute for leaking information about waste, fraud and abuse at the National Security Agency, now works at an Apple store in Maryland. In an interview with Salon, Drake laughed about the time he confronted Attorney General Eric Holder at his store while Holder perused the gadgetry on display with his security detail around him. When Drake started asking Holder questions about his case, America's chief law enforcement officer turned and fled the store.

But the humor drained away quickly from Drake's thin and tired face as he recounted his ordeal since 2010 when federal prosecutors charged him with violating the Espionage Act for retaining classified information they believed he would pass on to then Baltimore Sun reporter Siobhan Gorman. While Drake never disclosed classified information, he did pass on unclassified information to Gorman revealing that the NSA had wasted billions of taxpayers' dollars on Trailblazer, a contractor-heavy intelligence software program that failed to find terrorist threats in the tsunami of digital data the agency was sucking up globally - and sometimes unconstitutionally. While Trailblazer burned through cash, in the process enriching many NSA employees turned contractors, Drake found that another software program named ThinThread had already met the core requirements of a federal acquisition regulation that governed the proposed system at a sliver of the cost, all while protecting American civil liberties at the code level. The NSA leadership, however, had already bet their careers on Trailblazer. So Drake blew the whistle, first to Congress, then to the Department of Defense Inspector General's Office, and finally, and fatefully, to Gorman.

Last June, the government's case collapsed. On the eve of trial, all 10 counts were dropped. In a Kafkaesque turn of events, Drake actually helped the government find a misdemeanor to charge him with - exceeding authorized use of an NSA computer - so federal prosecutors could save face. Once facing 35 years behind bars, Drake pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge and was sentenced to one year of probation and 240 hours of community service, what he sardonically calls "his penance."

Uganda is undoubtedly rife with resources for Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron, et. al. to plunder, otherwise why would a viral film like Kony 2012 be popping up on YouTube? And the unwitting, or perhaps even duplicitously savvy shill's film - and its Hollywood accomplices - are certainly making ample headlines. The ostensible end of the viral YouTube picture, would appear to be pressing for yet another "humanitarian" intervention. After all AFRICOM is still based in Stuttgart, Germany, so the US and its partners, are undoubtedly pining away for another place, to base their banefulness and multifarious tools of mass destruction.

The US/Western-backed dictator Yoweri Museveni is somehow never mentioned in the film. A man's whose iron fist, and human rights violations have given rise, to a monstrous opposition movement like the Kony-led Lord's Resistance Army. And Museveni has been involved in numerous atrocities, and crimes against humanity himself. And about 40% of the Ugandan people live in immense poverty under Museveni's authority. Indeed, on Museveni's inauguration day (23 years ago) he said that Africa's problems, were largely caused by leaders who overstay their time in power: leading to impunity, the promotion of patronage, and corruption. Museveni - who the Congo received $10 billion from an International Court of Justice ruling because of his atrocities - should, undoubtedly, be brought to justice also.