Puppet MastersS


Bad Guys

No conscience: Americans living in Israel sue U.S. government


JTA
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:30 UTC
Two dozen American citizens living in Israel filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government over its funding to the Palestinian Authority and other groups operating in the West Bank and Gaza.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Washington, alleges that the U.S. State Department, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, violated the Anti-Terrorism Act and disregarded the congressional safeguards and reporting requirements that are attached to American aid to the Palestinian Authority.

Thus, according to the lawsuit, federal money has fallen into the hands of Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and other supporters of terrorism against civilians who live in Israel.

Successive U.S. administrations have gone on record as saying that controls are in place to keep funds from reaching terrorists.
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Che Guevara

Bradley Manning to testify at his pretrial hearing

Natasha Lennard
Salon.com
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
Bradley Manning
© unknownPfc. Bradley Manning
The soldier has not spoken publicly in two years.

Pfc. Bradley Manning will testify at his Fort Meade pretrial hearing Tuesday - it will be the accused whistleblower's first public speaking appearance since 2010.

Manning is expected to speak about his treatment at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico as his attorney David Coombs aims to show that his detainment constituted illegal pretrial punishment, such that Manning's charges should be reduced or dismissed. Coombs has described his client's first months in the brig as "the functional equivalent of solitary confinement" - confined to a 6-by-8-foot cell, with no window or natural light, for more than 23 hours each day.

Via the Baltimore Sun:
He was awakened at 5 a.m. each morning and required to remain awake until 10 p.m., according to his lawyers. He was not permitted to lie on his bed or lean against the cell wall. He was not allowed to exercise in his cell.

Guards were required to check on his well-being every five minutes. If they could not see him - if he was asleep under his blanket or turned to the wall - they would wake him.

His lawyers contend that those and other "egregious" conditions at the base near Washington amounted to illegal pretrial punishment.

In court papers, lawyer David Coombs said commanders kept Manning in maximum-security custody and on prevention-of-injury status - under which he was not allowed a regular blanket or pillow, and forced to undergo the regular guard checks - in spite of a favorable security assessment and the recommendations of brig psychiatrists.
At least two military psychiatrists are likely to testify Tuesday that they recommended on numerous occasions that Manning be taken off the "prevention of injury" order. Quantico commanders in charge of the brig during the nine months in which Manning was held there are also believed to be testifying today.
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Briefcase

U.S. elections prompted Obama to feign left by 'codifying' bloodthirsty drone policy

Scott Shane
The New York Times
Sat, 24 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
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© A Majeed/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesPakistanis displaced by a drone strike.
Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.

The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.

Mr. Obama and his advisers are still debating whether remote-control killing should be a measure of last resort against imminent threats to the United States, or a more flexible tool, available to help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territory.


Comment: Whether this "debate" is actually taking place or not is non-evident. People are dying daily through the use of drone strikes in many places in the Middle East and Africa. Drones are also being deployed domestically within the U.S. So if there is a "debate", we're not seeing it. In fact, the New York Times may simply be trying to give us readers the impression that a debate is going on so that we fill in the gaps and assume that the Obama administration is 'wrestling with its conscience' over whether or not to kill more Muslims.


Though publicly the administration presents a united front on the use of drones, behind the scenes there is longstanding tension. The Defense Department and the C.I.A. continue to press for greater latitude to carry out strikes; Justice Department and State Department officials, and the president's counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, have argued for restraint, officials involved in the discussions say.

Comment: For more information about the use of drones please read:
Your Tax Dollars at Work: CIA chiefs face arrest over horrific evidence of bloody 'video-game' sorties by drone pilots
America's deadly double tap drone attacks are 'killing 49 people for every known terrorist in Pakistan'
Outrage at CIA's deadly 'double tap' drone attacks
Celebrating our "Warrior President"

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Robot

Feel safer now? A human will always decide when a robot kills you

Damien Gayle
Daily Mail
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:08 UTC
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Automatic death: Samsung's machine gun sentry robot, which is already in use in South Korea, can spot unusual activity, challenge intruders and, when authorised by a human controller, open fire
The U.S. military has made clear that any future robot weapons systems will always need manual authorisation before opening fire on human targets. The Department of Defense issued a new policy directive saying that any semi-autonomous weapons systems will be designed so they need human authorisation to open fire.

The promise comes after a Human Rights Watch report called for an international ban on 'killer robots', which the group warned could be deployed within 20 years. Soon after that report was published, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter signed a series of instructions 'to minimise failures that could lead to unintended engagements or to loss of control' of armed robots.

Policy directive 3000.09 says: 'Semi-autonomous weapon systems that are onboard or integrated with unmanned platforms must be designed such that, in the event of degraded or lost communications, the system does not autonomously select and engage individual targets or specific target groups that have not been previously selected by an authorised human operator.'
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Attention

Yasser Arafat's remains exhumed as poison probe begins

Cecile Feuillatre
The Globe and Mail
Tue, 27 Nov 2012 02:42 UTC
Yasser Arafat
© unknownYasser Arafat
Eight years after the death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, his remains were exhumed on Tuesday, with experts set to test for signs that the late president was poisoned.

The process was carried out in secrecy, with Mr. Arafat's grave carefully shielded from the public eye and media kept far away, but Palestinian sources confirmed the remains had been removed for testing on Tuesday morning.

"At 5:00 a.m., experts began to remove the stones and began opening the grave in an orderly fashion. The remains were then transferred to a mosque adjacent to the grave for the removal of samples," a Palestinian source told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The source said only a Palestinian doctor would be allowed to directly touch the remains and remove the samples, but that the process was being conducted in front of Swiss, Russian and French experts.

The remains were reburied on Tuesday after the samples were taken, Palestinian sources said.

"The operation is finished, the tomb has been resealed and the samples have been given to the French, Swiss and Russian experts," officials from the Palestinian
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Bad Guys

Photo shows activity at North Korean launch site?

Andrea Shalal-Esa
Reuters
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:00 UTC
Image
© DigitalGlobe via ReutersA satellite image of the Sohae launch facility on November 23, showing increased activity at the North Korean missile launch site.
A new satellite image shows a marked increase in activity at a North Korean missile launch site, pointing to a possible long-range ballistic missile test by Pyongyang in the next three weeks, according to satellite operator DigitalGlobe Inc.

The imagery was released days after a Japanese newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, reported that U.S. intelligence analysts had detected moves that were seen as preparation by North Korea for a long-range missile launch as early as this month.

DigitalGlobe, which provides commercial satellite imagery to the U.S. government and foreign governments, on Monday released a new image that it said showed increased activity at North Korea's Sohae (West Sea) Satellite Launch Station.

It said the imagery showed more people, trucks and other equipment at the site, a level of activity that was consistent with launch preparations seen before North Korea's failed April 13 rocket launch.

Comment: Wow, a missile that can hit the United States from North Korea ... similar to China, Russia, France or many other countries who have long range ballistic missiles - nuclear or otherwise. Since this is North Korea the writer is talking about, please remember to be scared.

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Star of David

War profiteers! Israel's arms industry courted by EU on eve of Gaza attack

David Cronin
New Europe
Sun, 25 Nov 2012 00:00 UTC
Image
© AFP PHOTO/MOHAMMED ABED
Haneen was 10-months-old; Omar 11 months; Ibrahim one year. For the offence of being reared in Gaza, these infants were killed with the aid of Israel's "precision-guided" missiles.

A few days before their deaths, the European Commission sponsored the "second international homeland security conference" in Tel Aviv. More of a bazaar than a talking shop, the event featured exhibits by Israel's top weapons companies. Shimon Peres, the state's president, gave the closing address, using this august occasion to boast of how, as a youthful arms dealer, he was "part of founding Israel's defence industries". Peres said he was "delighted to see the innovative technological developments which are leading the world in homeland security" and expressed pride in heading "a nation with creativity and wisdom, courage and chutzpah".

As far as I can see, the EU's involvement in this exhibition went unnoticed by the media. That is deeply disturbing. It suggests that the Commission can endorse firms which profit from dropping bombs on Palestinian babies without anyone batting an eyelid.
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Light Sabers

The Palestinians' only option

Alan Hart
alanhart.net
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:55 UTC
Image
In the final countdown to the UN General Assembly vote on recognition of Palestine as a non-member state, the PLO has indicated that it's expecting "a pleasant surprise", it being the number of European countries which will not do Zionism's bidding on this occasion and will vote for the resolution. Victory for the Palestinians in this forum can be taken for granted, and it will help to further isolate the Israel of Netanyahu as a pariah state, but... It won't be, can't be, a substitute for a viable strategy to secure justice for the Palestinians.

In my analysis the Palestinians now have only one option.

For starters it requires the PLO to recognize and declare that the two-state solution is dead (not least because no Israeli prime minister is going to trigger a Jewish civil war in order to end the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem).

Then what?

The next step should be winding up the Palestine Authority and handing total responsibility for the occupation back to Israel.
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Che Guevara

Colombia, FARC peace talks off to good start in Havana

Jeff Franks
Reuters
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:58 UTC
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FARC rebels
Peace negotiations between Colombia and Marxist guerrillas are off to a good start in Cuba, a rebel negotiator said on Tuesday, after delays and rocky moments in the weeks before talks began to end Latin America's longest-running insurgency.

Tempered by a history of failure, Colombia's government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, started discussions on Monday with rebels calling a unilateral truce, boosting hopes for an end after nearly 50 years of fighting.

Rebel negotiator Jesus Santrich, wearing a gray jacket and dark neck scarf, told reporters outside a Havana convention center that the first session on Monday went smoothly.
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Pirates

Russian PM criticizes Hollande over supporting al Qaeda terrorists in Syria


Press TV
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:39 UTC
Image
Collaborators
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has censured the French government for supporting the insurgents in Syria.

"The question is how right it is to... decide to support another political force if that political force is in direct confrontation with the officially recognized government of another country," Medvedev said prior to a visit to the French capital Paris on Monday.

"And from the point of view of international law, it seems to me that is absolutely unacceptable."

France became the first European country to recognize Syria's opposition coalition on November 13. Paris said it would look into the issue of arming the insurgents against the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
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