Puppet MastersS


USA

Drones are fool's gold: They prolong wars we can't win

Simon Jenkins
Guardian
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 15:37 UTC
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© Photograph: S.S MIRZA/AFP/Getty ImagesA demonstration in Pakistan last week against drone attacks. 'Three-quarters of Pakistanis are now declared enemies of the US
New appointments in the White House hail an era of hands-free warfare. Yet these weapons induce not defeat, but retaliation.

The greatest threat to world peace is not from nuclear weapons and their possible proliferation. It is from drones and their certain proliferation. Nuclear bombs are useless weapons, playthings for the powerful or those aspiring to power. Drones are now sweeping the global arms market. There are some 10,000 said to be in service, of which a thousand are armed and mostly American. Some reports say they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9/11.

I have not read one independent study of the current drone wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the horn of Africa that suggests these weapons serve any strategic purpose. Their "success" is expressed solely in body count, the number of so-called "al-Qaida-linked commanders" killed. If body count were victory, the Germans would have won Stalingrad and the Americans Vietnam.

Neither the legality nor the ethics of drone attacks bear examination. Last year's exhaustive report by lawyers from Stanford and New York universities concluded that they were in many cases illegal, killed civilians, and were militarily counter-productive. Among the deaths were an estimated 176 children. Such slaughter would have an infantry unit court-martialled. Air forces enjoy such prestige that civilian deaths are excused as a price worth paying for not jeopardising pilots' lives.
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Pistol

Blowback from the Alex Jones outburst


The Truth Seeker
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:43 UTC
morgan jones
© CNN
The authorities have long used supposed anti-authoritarian activists to further their agenda and Alex Jones recent rant on CNN is the latest example.

As even the target of his rant, Piers Morgan says, Alex Jones outburst "was the best advertisement for gun control you could have wished for".

Indeed.

Piers Morgan went on to say that Jones's "vitriol, hatred, and zealotry is really quite scary" and that was precisely the intention. For Jones's bluster was nothing more than a calculated attempt to demonise opponents of gun control through association and scaremongering.

Thereby helping to smooth the passage for stricter gun legislation, which is exactly what the authorities want.
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Brick Wall

The fascinating case of Lynne Stewart

Jacob G. Hornberger
Information Clearing House
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:24 UTC
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Lynne Stewart is a New York attorney who is serving a 10-year sentence in the federal penitentiary for being a supporter of terrorism. Her crime? Two years after the 9/11 attacks, she read the following message from her client, convicted terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman, at a press conference in New York City: "I [Omar Abdel-Rahmn] am not withdrawing my support of the cease-fire, I am merely questioning it and I am urging you, who are on the ground there to discuss it and to include everyone in your discussions as we always have done."

What's criminal about that message?

The U.S. federal courts construed the message as exhorting the members of Abdel-Rahmn's Islamic organization in Egypt, which U.S. officials had labeled a terrorist organization, to use violence to overthrow the Egyptian government. They said that made Stewart a supporter of terrorism.

The case is fascinating on several levels, not the least of which was that many Egyptian citizens were of the mindset that the Egyptian government was one of the most brutal, tyrannical military dictatorships in the world, one that had long oppressed the Egyptian people. It was, in fact, that deep-seated discontent among the Egyptian citizenry that ultimately led to the ouster of Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak.
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Stock Down

Washington's hegemonic ambitions are not in sync with its faltering economy

Paul Craig Roberts
Information Clearing House
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:17 UTC
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In November the largest chunk of new jobs came from retail and wholesale trade. Businesses gearing up for Christmas sales added 65,700 jobs or 45% of November's 146,000 jobs gain. With December sales a disappointment, these jobs are likely to reverse when the January payroll jobs report comes out in February. Family Dollar Stores CEO Howard Levine told analysts that his company's customers were unable to afford toys this holiday season and focused instead on basic needs such as food. Levine said that his customers "clearly don't have as much for discretionary purchases as they once did."

For December's new jobs we return to the old standbys: health care and social assistance and waitresses and bartenders. These four classifications accounted for 93,000 of December's new jobs, 60% of the 155,000 jobs.

Obviously, the economy is not going anywhere except down. It takes approximately 150,000 new jobs each month to stay even with population growth and new entrants into the work force. Few of the jobs that are being created pay well, and the constant, consistent demand for more poorly paid waitresses, bartenders and hospital orderlies is difficult to believe. If Americans cannot afford toys for their kid's Christmas, how can they afford to eat and drink out?
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Gold Coins

U.S. banks win mortgage fraud settlement, borrowers lose

Pratap Chatterjee
CorpWatch Blog
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 11:09 UTC
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© Photo: Steve RhodesProtest outside San Francisco Federal Reserve.
Ten major U.S. banks settled charges of illegally kicking people out of their homes for pennies on the dollar, under two agreements with the government announced this week. The biggest beneficiary is Bank of America which will win a get-out-of-jail free card for selling fraudulent loans to two government-sponsored mortgage finance companies.

Bank of America sold bad mortgages that led to numerous foreclosures via subprime mortgage lenders Countrywide Financial Corporation and Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. that it acquired in 2008. "Through a program aptly named 'the Hustle,' Countrywide and Bank of America made disastrously bad loans and stuck taxpayers with the bill," said Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York when he sued the company for $1 billion on behalf of the government last October.
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USA

Even a military judge recognizes what many progressives denied: Bradley Manning was mistreated

Glenn Greenwald
Guardian
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:44 UTC
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© Photograph: Patrick Semansky/APBradley Manning
The ruling is but the latest repudiation of claims from Obama supporters that Manning was treated fairly and justly.
"With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are." - Barack Obama, White House Press Conference, March 10, 2011.
Few if any articles that I've written produced as much backlash as my 15 December 2010 column reporting on the oppressive and inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention, the first time that story was reported. The anger at my article primarily came not from right-wing venues but from the hardest-core Obama supporters, who (as they always do since 20 January 2009) reflexively defended the US government. Led by former Obama campaign press aide and now MSNBC contributor (the ultimate redundancy) Joy Reid, these particularly fanatical Democratic partisans literally adopted the anti-Manning rhetoric from the further right-wing precincts and repudiated the liberal tradition of defending whistleblowers and opposing oppressive detention conditions - all in order to insist that Manning was being treated exactly how he should be (this warped reaction was far from unanimous, as many progressives protested Manning's treatment).
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Cowboy Hat

Piers Morgan: Alex Jones 'terrifying,' a perfect 'advertisement for gun control'


Huffington Post
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 10:36 UTC
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Piers Morgan said on Tuesday that his infamous encounter with radio host Alex Jones would only help his gun control crusade.

The radio host more than lost his temper with Morgan on Monday, going on a monumental rant about guns. He then speculated that he might be murdered by undercover police officers.

"I can't think of a better advertisement for gun control than Alex Jones' interview last night," Morgan told CNN on Tuesday. "It was startling, it was terrifying in parts, it was completely deluded. It was based on a premise of making Americans so fearful that they all rush out to buy even more guns ... the kind of twisted way that he turned everything into this assault on the Second Amendment is exactly what the gun rights lobby people do."
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Snakes in Suits

Meet John Brennan, new CIA director

Medea Benjamin
Huffington Post
Thu, 10 Jan 2013 09:23 UTC
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In October 2011, 16-year-old Tariq Aziz attended a gathering in Islamabad where he was taught how to use a video camera so he could document the drones that were constantly circling over his Pakistani village, terrorizing and killing his family and neighbors. Two days later, when Aziz was driving with his 12-year-old cousin to a village near his home in Waziristan to pick up his aunt, his car was struck by a Hellfire missile. With the push of a button by a pilot at a US base thousands of miles away, both boys were instantly vaporized -- only a few chunks of flesh remained.

Afterwards, the US government refused to acknowledge the boys' deaths or explain why they were targeted. Why should they? This is a covert program where no one is held accountable for their actions.

The main architect of this drone policy that has killed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocents, including 176 children in Pakistan alone, is President Obama's counterterrorism chief and his pick for the next director of the CIA: John Brennan.
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Cowboy Hat

Why progressives should oppose Hagel

Allen Ruff
The Progressive
Tue, 08 Jan 2013 09:13 UTC
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Following weeks of trial-balloon conjecture, President Obama nominated Chuck Hagel, the former Senator from Nebraska and oft-described "moderate Republican," to succeed Leon Panetta as Secretary of Defense.

Conservative critics had raised objections as soon as Hagel's name surfaced as a probable nominee in mid-November. The usual pack of neocon watchdogs charged him with being inadequately hawkish on Iran and out of lockstep on Israel.

Towing its increasingly neocon editorial line, the Washington Post on November 18th editorialized that Hagel was "not the right choice for defense secretary." Citing the ex-Senator-cum-Washington insider's public record, the Post asserted: "Mr. Hagel's stated positions on critical issues, ranging from defense spending to Iran, fall well to the left of those pursued by Mr. Obama during his first term." (Hagel once had the temerity to suggest that Pentagon spending should be "pared down." Imagine!)
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Pistol

New York Governor Cuomo proposes gun, ammo magazine limits

Michael Gormley
seattlepi.com
Wed, 09 Jan 2013 08:52 UTC
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© Photo: Mike Groll / APNew York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers his third State of the State address at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center in Albany, N.Y., Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called for tougher state bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines of ammunition as part of a progressive agenda in a sometimes fiery State of the State speech Wednesday.

"No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer," Cuomo said. "End the madness now!

"The tragic events of just the last few weeks in Newtown, Conn., and West Webster, N.Y., have indelibly taught us guns can cut down small children, firefighters and policemen in a moment," Cuomo said.

The state already has among the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation, and the governor noted that New York passed the nation's first handgun permit law, in 1911.
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