Puppet MastersS


Airplane

U.S. drone strike estimates exceed 3,300 deaths


CBC News
Sat, 25 May 2013 06:55 UTC
predator drone
© Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press
Decade-long air campaign peaked under Obama in 2010

President Barack Obama said Thursday that he will engage Congress in exploring a number of options for increased oversight of lethal drone strikes outside of war zones like Afghanistan.

The official U.S. figures of number of strikes and estimated deaths remain classified.

But, according to the New America Foundation which maintains a database of the strikes, the CIA and the military have carried out an estimated 416 drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, resulting in 3,364 estimated deaths, including militants and civilians. The Associated Press also has reported a drone strike in Somalia in 2012 that killed one.

The think tank compiles its numbers by combining reports in major news media that rely on local officials and eyewitness accounts.

Comment: US President Barack Obama defends his administration's slaughter by drones as legal, effective, and just.

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Vader

Obama defends drone use as legal, effective and just


Press TV
Fri, 24 May 2013 07:04 UTC
US President Barack Obama
© n/aUS President Barack Obama
US President Barack Obama has defended his administration's use of drones as legal, effective, and just.

"We are at war with an organization that right now would kill as many Americans as they could if we did not stop them first. So this is a just war," Obama said in a major policy speech at Washington's National Defense University on Thursday.
"Our nation is still threatened by terrorists," he pointed out, noting that "We must recognize however, that the threat has shifted and evolved from the one that came to our shores on 9/11," he said.
The US president claimed the strikes have been effective in targeting militants and have made the United States a safer country.

Obama outlined the legal guidelines surrounding the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to wage war in distant lands.

"I don't not believe it would be constitutional for the government to target and kill any U.S. citizen...Nor should any president deploy armed drones over US soil. But when a US citizen goes abroad to wage war against American and is actively plotting to kill US citizens...his citizenship should no more serve as a shield than a sniper shooting down an innocent crowd should be protected from a swat team," he said.
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Red Flag

Woolwich attack: MI5 'offered job to suspect'


BBC News
Sat, 25 May 2013 06:47 UTC
MI5 London Britain intelligence
© MI5
MI5 asked Woolwich murder suspect Michael Adebolajo if he wanted to work for them about six months before the killing, a childhood friend has said.

Abu Nusaybah told BBC Newsnight his friend - one of two men arrested after Drummer Lee Rigby's murder in south-east London on Wednesday - had rejected the approach from the security service.

The BBC could not obtain any confirmation from Whitehall sources.

Abu Nusaybah was arrested at the BBC after giving the interview.

Newsnight reporter Richard Watson said after the interview had concluded he left the studio to find officers from the Metropolitan Police counter terrorism unit waiting to arrest Abu Nusaybah.


The Met confirmed a 31-year-old man had been arrested at 21:30 BST on Friday in relation to suspected terrorism offences and search warrants were being executed at two homes in east London.

The arrest was not directly related to the murder of Drummer Rigby, it said.
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Target

Global war of terror: entire world is a battlefield for Pentagon


RT.com
Fri, 24 May 2013 10:57 UTC
Image
© AFP Photo / US Navy / MC2 Tony D. Curtis
Forget it; the Global War on Terror (GWOT) is not becoming more "democratic" - or even transparent.

US President Barack Obama now pledges to transfer the responsibility of the shadow 'Drone Wars' from the CIA to the Pentagon - so the US Congress is able to monitor it.

Until virtually yesterday the Obama administration did not even recognize in public the existence of the shadow 'Drone Wars'.

The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at the Pentagon - which would then be in charge of the 'Drone Wars' - is bound to remain secret.

And the Pentagon is not exactly yearning to retouch its definition of a "militant", a prime candidate to be 'target-assassinated'; "any military-aged male in a strike zone". "Muslim" male, it goes without saying.

Obama's rhetoric is one thing. His administration's 'Drone Wars' are another thing entirely.

The President now insists GWOT is no longer a "boundless global war".

That's rhetoric. For the Pentagon, the "entire globe is a battlefield".
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Chess

Russian fleet returns to Mediterranean - an unintended consequence of Western aggression

Jim W. Dean
PressTV
Mon, 20 May 2013 14:42 UTC
Image
Russian sailors march near their Navy vessel in the bay of the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol, which is the main base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
There was a lot of distraction in the news last week, particularly the flank attack moves on Obama that obscured a huge development in the Mid East... the first return of the Russian Pacific Navy for Mediterranean deployment since 1992.

The first big part of the news is the active word 'permanent.' Corporate media decided to ignore the strategic shift consequences of that, and the West may be looking back soon at the wisdom their aggressive regime change military moves, despite the extensive use of proxies.

The recent Israeli attacks on Syria, particularly the use of a nuclear bunker buster gave the Russians a gift from heaven, opening the door to make a defensive deployment to protect their longtime ally in Syria. The Russians are back in the Med to stay, and this might be a good lesson to the folly of the Western slow motion aggression policy in the region, which has put a match to the whole place.

Russian Navy Commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov has announced that a permanent staff was being set up, and the present force might eventually include their nuclear submarines. In speaking to RIA:
"Overall, already from this year, we plan to have five or six warships and support vessels [in the Mediterranean Sea], which will be replaced on a rotating basis from each of the fleets - the Black Sea, Baltic, Northern and, in some cases, even the Pacific Fleet. Depending on the scope of assignments and their complexity, the number of warships in the task force may be increased."
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Attention

'UK security services warned for a decade about wars abroad sparking home terror'


RT
Fri, 24 May 2013 17:58 UTC
floral tributes
© AFP Photo / Justin TallisA man looks at floral tributes left at the scene where Drummer Lee Rigby of the 2nd Battalion was killed outside Woolwich Barracks in London on May 24, 2013.
Woolwich machete attack is a result of the policy of British government that continues wars abroad despite security services' warnings that this would increase the danger of terrorism in the UK, Lindsey German from Stop the War coalition has told RT.

The investigation is ongoing into the Wednesday's killing of the British soldier, Drummer Lee Rigby by two alleged Islamist terrorists in south-east London.

According to Lindsey German this attack could have been influenced by the British government's foreign policy: the country has been involved in foreign military interventions in Afghanistan and then Iraq for over a decade.
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Question

Best of the Web: Was the London killing of a British soldier 'terrorism'?

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Fri, 24 May 2013 17:42 UTC
Woolwich attack
© Pixel8000A man appearing to be holding a knife following the Woolwich attack.
What definition of the term includes this horrific act of violence but excludes the acts of the US, the UK and its allies?

Two men yesterday engaged in a horrific act of violence on the streets of London by using what appeared to be a meat cleaver to hack to death a British soldier. In the wake of claims that the assailants shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the killing, and a video showing one of the assailants citing Islam as well as a desire to avenge and stop continuous UK violence against Muslims, media outlets (including the Guardian) and British politicians instantly characterized the attack as "terrorism".

That this was a barbaric and horrendous act goes without saying, but given the legal, military, cultural and political significance of the term "terrorism", it is vital to ask: is that term really applicable to this act of violence? To begin with, in order for an act of violence to be "terrorism", many argue that it must deliberately target civilians. That's the most common means used by those who try to distinguish the violence engaged in by western nations from that used by the "terrorists": sure, we kill civilians sometimes, but we don't deliberately target them the way the "terrorists" do.
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Stock Down

Best of the Web: MEP Godfrey Bloom: Why the whole banking system is a scam

europarl
YouTube
Fri, 24 May 2013 16:43 UTC

Comment: Godfrey Bloom, member of European Parliament for the UK Independence Party (Yorkshire & Lincolnshire constituency), and Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, explains some of the basics of how banking works to other MEPs at the European Parliament in Strasbourg earlier this week.


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Brick Wall

'Secret' Connecticut law to prevent 'some' Sandy Hook School Massacre legal records from ever reaching public

Jon Lender, Edmund H. Mahony and Dave Altmari
The Hartford Courant
Tue, 21 May 2013 16:08 UTC
Image
Trust us, we're from The Government
The staffs of the state's top prosecutor and the governor's office have been working in secret with General Assembly leaders on legislation to withhold records related to the police investigation into the Dec. 14 Newtown elementary school massacre - including victims' photos, tapes of 911 calls, and possibly more.

The behind-the-scenes legislative effort came to light Tuesday when The Courant obtained a copy of an email by a top assistant to Chief State's Attorney Kevin Kane, Timothy J. Sugrue. Sugrue, an assistant state's attorney, discussed options considered so far, including blocking release of statements "made by a minor."

"There is complete agreement regarding photos etc., and audio tapes, although the act may allow the disclosure of audio transcripts," Sugrue wrote to Kane, two other Kane subordinates and to Danbury State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky, who is directing the investigation of the killings.

The bill that's being crafted has not been handled under routine legislative procedures - it hasn't gone through the committee process, which includes a public hearing, for example. Sugrue's email Tuesday indicated that a draft of the bill was being worked on by leaders in both the House and Senate, and might be ready as soon as the end of the day.

Comment: Indeed, the 'actors' nonsense in the aftermath of Sandy Hook was a first, and has given the authorities justification for preventing the truth from ever seeing the light of day.

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Padlock

Censoring our food

Jill Richardson
Common Dreams
Thu, 23 May 2013 13:30 UTC
Image
If farms and slaughterhouses are rife with repulsive and sadistic abuses, why should we pass laws to help hide it?

Standing outside a slaughterhouse in Draper City, Utah, Amy Meyer was horrified by what she saw. Cows struggled to stay out of the plant and employees hauled one cow that appeared sick or injured in a tractor. While standing on public property, Meyer pulled out her cell phone to document the scene. And...she got arrested.

Big Ag has found a clever new way to keep the public from seeing footage or photographs of animal cruelty. In six states (Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, and Utah), Big Ag lobbyists succeeded in making filming or photographing agricultural operations illegal. Similar measures are in the pipeline in other states, although Governor Bill Haslam just vetoed one in Tennessee.

Comment: Read the following articles for a more in depth look at the current trend in the U.S. to silence anyone from reporting about the inhumane treatment and abuse of factory farmed animals:

Why You Can Be Branded a Terrorist for Fighting Animal Abuse
FBI Says Activists Who Investigate Factory Farms Can Be Prosecuted as Terrorists
Shocking: Reporting factory farm abuses to be considered "Act of Terrorism" if new laws pass
Utah Bill Would Make Videotaping a Factory Farm the Same as Assaulting a Police Officer
Business lobby moves to criminalize filming animal abuse on factory farms
State of Iowa Makes Filming Animal Abuse a Crime

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