Puppet MastersS

USA

Human rights group alleges US waterboarded Gaddafi opponents

  • Tony Blair and Gaddafi
    © Stefan Rousseau/PA Prime Minister Tony Blair meets Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2007.
    New waterboarding allegations detailed
  • CIA says its job is to collaborate with foreign governments
  • U.S. Justice Department recently closed probe of CIA actions
A human rights organization says it has collected evidence of two previously unreported cases in which U.S. agents used waterboarding or a similar harsh interrogation technique on Libyan militants held by American forces in Afghanistan.

In a report released on Thursday, Human Rights Watch also says it acquired new evidence of the extent to which the United States and some of its allies, including Great Britain, allegedly detained exiled opponents of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and forcibly transferred them back to Libya.

Human Rights Watch said that it assembled its report by interviewing victims and witnesses familiar with alleged abuses and by combing through once-secret archives that became public during the Libyan revolution that led to Gaddafi's ouster and eventual death.

Documents found in the archives following the collapse of Gaddafi's regime included classified correspondence between top Libyan officials and officials from the CIA and Britain's spy agencies MI5 and MI6.

They illustrate how, between late 2003 when Gaddafi agreed to give up his weapons of mass destruction programs, and the 2011 Libyan revolution, Gaddafi and Western intelligence agencies quietly cooperated in battling Islamic militants.

"Not only did the U.S. deliver Gaddafi his enemies on a silver platter, but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first," Laura Pitter, a counterterrorism expert at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, said in a written statement.

Mr. Potato

Best of the Web: Mitt Romney Accidentally Confronts A Gay Veteran; Awesomeness Ensues

Back in December 2011 during a campaign stop in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney decided to drop by Vietnam War veteran Bob Garon's breakfast table for a quick photo-op. What Romney didn't realize is that Garon was sitting with his husband, whom he had married just a few months earlier.

What followed might be the single greatest "oblivious Romney" moment of the entire campaign. Enjoy.

Vader

Reality Check: Ohio Reporter Ben Swann Exposes Devious Duplicity of Obama's 'Kill List'

Challenging President Obama on extrajudicial assassinations, a broadcast journalist whips out the "Reality Check."


Megaphone

Hamas Urges Muslims to Help Free Palestine through Collective Efforts

Image
© Fars News Agency

Representative of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Khaled Qadoumi called on the world Muslim states to contribute their share to the efforts made for the freedom of Palestine, stressing that the holy land of the Islamic Ummah can only be set free through the collective efforts of the worldwide Muslims.

"Freedom of Palestine is a responsibility which should be shared by all Muslims," Qadoumi said, addressing a gathering on Islamic Resistance in Iran's Central city of Isfahan on Wednesday.

He pointed to the Palestinian nation's continued resistance against the Zionist regime, and noted, "We feel that we are not alone in our resistance because Islamic nations such as Iran and Syria are backing us in this regard."

Smiley

US Presidential Candidate: Iran Unaffected by Sanctions

Image
© Fars News AgencyMerlin Miller

Merlin Miller, the US presidential candidate for the American Third Position Party, underlined that scrutinizing the situation of the Iranian society reveals that the western sanctions have failed to leave an impact on the country.

"I expected to witness the painful effects of sanctions but I was taken aback when I didn't witness such a thing," Miller told FNA in Tehran on Wednesday, adding, "I see no harms of sanctions in Iran."

He also underlined the Iranian people's indifference to the western embargos, and said, "Before I came to Iran, I expected to see hostility from the Iranian people due to the sanctions imposed by my country on the Iranian nation but now that I have come to Iran, my perception has changed."

"Iran is a country with very kind, hospitable and peace-loving people," Miller said.

Comment: While American Third Position Party is not well known, at least they have a candidate that appears to show a level of humanity and awareness vs. the current mainstream (media) candidates.


Document

Reality Check talks one on one with President Obama

Ben Swann Reality Check talks one on one with President Obama and asks about the so called Presidential Kill List.


Comment: Hat tip to Psychopaths Rule the World on Facebook.


Arrow Down

Eurozone fall akin to Great Depression

Image
The eurozone economic downturn since the start of the crisis looks like the Great Depression of the 1930s, according to one economist

The decline in the economy of the eurozone, sparked by the beginning of the debt crisis with the shocks in Greece two and a half years ago, "seems to be more of a long-distance run than a quick sprint," according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.

One day ahead of a crucial European Central Bank (ECB) monetary policy meeting, the composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for the eurozone - comprising manufacturing and services - fell to 46.3 from a flash reading of 46.6 and compared with a reading of 46.5 in July, data from Markit showed.

Analysts have told Emerging Markets that September, with its string of events for the eurozone, could bring a shock to emerging markets as any bad news would trigger risk aversion.

Weinberg pointed out in a market note that since the second quarter of 2010 - when Greece admitted lying about its fiscal position and markets started having doubts about its ability to pay back its debts - gross domestic product growth has declined or failed to rise in every quarter but one.

GDP, which has not recovered from the post-Lehman contraction, is falling again and unemployment has risen since the eurozone debt crisis started, he added.

Dollar

US Debt Eclipses Economy, Reaching $16 Trillion

money
© unknown
The US government has announced its $16 trillion debt, a landmark number that has more than tripled during the last two presidencies. At 104 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product, the debt is now larger than the US economy itself.

The data released by the Treasury Department on Tuesday showed that the government debt has surpassed $16 trillion for the first time in American history.

The news comes as Republicans and Democrats formally nominate their presidential candidates, and the official announcement comes on the first day of the Democratic National Convention.

"This is a grim landmark for the United States. Yet the president seems strangely unconcerned," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of the Senate Budget Committee.

Each day, the debt grows by roughly $3.5 billion, or about $2 million per minute.

Airplane

Drone Strike Kills 13 Civilians in Yemen

drones
© Desconocido
Local officials in Yemen say that a United States-led drone strike over the weekend there killed 13 civilians.

Members of the Yemeni government tells reporters that an unmanned aerial vehicle operated remotely by the United States military executed more than a dozen civilians, including three women, near the town of Rada in al-Baitha province on Sunday.

"This was one of the very few times when our target was completely missed. It was a mistake, but we hope it will not hurt our anti-terror efforts in the region," a senior Yemeni Defense Ministry official says to CNN this week on condition of anonymity.

The United States believes that as many as 200 suspected members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization operate out of Yemen, where the US has been linked to carrying out several air strikes.

On the record, however, the US has not officially acknowledged these missions, only further angering the families of the victims, including those who lost loved ones in this weekend's assault.

Fielding a question about the criticism his targeted-kill program has generated during this administration, US President Barack Obama said last year, it's "important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash." Despite this claim, though, civilians on the other side of the world see things differently.

Comment: For more information about the use of drones please read:
Celebrating our "Warrior President"
Obama's Death Panels: Jeremy Scahill at the Drone Summit
Spy in the Sky: Is It Only a Matter of Time Before Drone Technology is Used in Civil Society?
Police State: "Robots R'US": Military-Style Drones on 63 Military Bases In The USA


Family

George Romney, Mitt's Father, "Was on Welfare Relief for the First Years of His Life"

Image
The most effective and politically potent moment of the GOP convention was not seen by most Americans (and the Tampa conclave had low ratings to begin with). It was a biography of the Romneys that did momentarily bring a Hollywood manufactured aura of personal amiability to the couple. Unfortunately for the hapless Romney campaign advisors, the video was shown before the golden hour of national television coverage - in order to make time for the disastrous appearance known as the "Clint Eastwood Outer Limits Moment."

One quickly glossed over moment in the video, however, is when Mitt Romney states that his father and grandparents came back to the United States to escape a revolution. Yes, they were escaping the Mexican revolution in 1912, but the GOP candidate president omits a bit of the story that is quite telling, according to the Boston Globe:
George Romney was born in Mexico and was 5 years old when a revolution forced his family members in 1912 to flee their Mormon colony and seek refuge in the United States. The Mormon exiles lost their homes, farms, and most of their belongings, were welcomed by the United States, and benefited from a $100,000 refugee fund established by Congress.

But there are other elements to the Romney story that may explain why he doesn't tell the full tale on the campaign trail. The reason that George was born in Mexico is that his grandfather - Mitt's great-grandfather - had taken refuge there in order to escape US laws against polygamy. It was this family patriarch, Miles Park Romney, who established the colony and lived there with four wives.