Puppet MastersS


Binoculars

CIA stealth drones made hundreds of passes over Iran

Iranian Nuclear plant
© Hamid Foroutan / APIran's heavy water nuclear facilities near the central city of Arak
More than three years ago, the CIA dispatched a stealth surveillance drone into the skies over Iran.

The bat-winged aircraft penetrated more than 600 miles inside the country, captured images of Iran's secret nuclear facility at Qom and then flew home. All the while, analysts at the CIA and other agencies watched carefully for any sign that the craft, dubbed the RQ-170 Sentinel, had been detected by Tehran's air defenses on its maiden voyage.

"There was never even a ripple," said a former senior U.S. intelligence official involved in the previously undisclosed mission.

CIA stealth drones scoured dozens of sites throughout Iran, making hundreds of passes over suspicious facilities, before a version of the RQ-170 crashed inside Iran's borders in December. The surveillance has been part of what current and former U.S. officials describe as an intelligence surge that is aimed at Iran's nuclear program and that has been gaining momentum since the final years of George W. Bush's administration.

Comment: We wonder how the psychopaths in the US government would react if another country dispatched hundreds of drones to illegally spy on America. We wonder what the hypocritical liars at the Pentagon would say and do?


Bomb

Special report: Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials

Fatima Bouchar
© Irina Kalashnikova for the Guardian Fatima Bouchar, the wife of Abdul Hakim Belhaj. Both were detained in 2004 in Bangkok with the help of MI6 and rendered to Libya.
In 2004, Fatima Bouchar and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, were detained en route to the UK, and rendered to Libya. This is the story of their imprisonment, and the trail of evidence that reveals the involvement of the British government

Nuke

Germany throws weight behind Iran's nuclear energy program

Guido Westerwelle
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle has underlined Iran's right to develop its nuclear energy program as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

According to a commentary by the top German diplomat in the Sunday paper Bild am Sonntag, Westerwelle stressed "Iran's right to have nuclear energy for civilian use."

He also made reference to his country's ongoing efforts for a diplomatic solution to the Western dispute over Iran's nuclear issue.

No Entry

Best of the Web: Guenter Grass banned in Israel after controversial poem

Guenter Grass
© Associated Press
Israel on Sunday declared Guenter Grass persona non grata, deepening a spat with the Nobel-winning author over a poem that deeply criticised the Jewish state and suggested it was as much a danger as Iran.

The dispute with Grass, who only late in life admitted to a Nazi past, has drawn new attention to strains in Germany's complicated relationship with the Jewish state - and also focused unwelcome light on Israel's own secretive nuclear program.

Comment: Translation of controversial Guenter Grass poem What Must Be Said

By Associated Press

What Must Be Said

What is obvious and has been

Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors

Are at best footnotes.

It is the alleged right to the first strike

That could annihilate the Iranian people -

Subjugated by a loud-mouth

And guided to organized jubilation -

Because in their sphere of power,

It is suspected, a nuclear bomb is being built.

Yet why do I forbid myself

To name that other country

In which, for years, even if secretly,

There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand

But beyond control, because not accessible to inspections?

The universal concealment of these facts,

To which my silence subordinated itself,

I sense as an incriminating lie

And coercion--the punishment is promised

As soon as it is ignored;

The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.

Now, though, because in my country

Which time and again has sought and confronted

Its very own crimes

That is without comparison

In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also

With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares

A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,

Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence

Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,

But fear wishes to be of conclusive evidence,

I say what must be said.

But why have I stayed silent until now?

Because I thought my origin,

Afflicted by a stain never to be expunged

Forbade this fact as pronounced truth

To be told to the nation of Israel, to which I am bound

And wish to stay bound.

Why do I say only now,

Aged and with my last ink,

The nuclear power Israel endangers

The already fragile world peace?

Because it must be said

What even tomorrow may be too late to say;

Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--

Could become suppliers to a crime

That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity

Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

And granted: I am silent no longer

Because I am tired of the West's hypocrisy;

In addition to which it is to be hoped

That this will free many from silence,

Appeal to the perpetrator of the recognizable danger

To renounce violence and

Likewise insist

That an unhindered and permanent control

Of the Israeli nuclear potential

And the Iranian nuclear sites

Be authorized through an international agency

By the governments of both countries.

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,

Even more, all people, that in this

Region occupied by mania

Live cheek by jowl among enemies,

And also us, to be helped.


Take 2

U.S. filmmaker repeatedly detained at border

Laura Poitras
© SalonLaura Poitras
One of the more extreme government abuses of the post-9/11 era targets U.S. citizens re-entering their own country, and it has received far too little attention. With no oversight or legal framework whatsoever, the Department of Homeland Security routinely singles out individuals who are suspected of no crimes, detains them and questions them at the airport, often for hours, when they return to the U.S. after an international trip, and then copies and even seizes their electronic devices (laptops, cameras, cellphones) and other papers (notebooks, journals, credit card receipts), forever storing their contents in government files. No search warrant is needed for any of this. No oversight exists. And there are no apparent constraints on what the U.S. Government can do with regard to whom it decides to target or why.

Eye 1

Pupils are recruited to spy on us during our lessons and schools are being 'run like totalitarian regimes', say British teachers

Pupils are being 'actively recruited' by schools to spy on their teachers in the classroom, a union has warned.

They are being used as 'management tools' to carry out covert - and even open - surveillance of members of staff, it was claimed.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, condemned the practice as a 'form of abuse' of children.

She told the union's annual conference in Birmingham on Saturday that 'debilitating' monitoring 'erodes teachers' self-esteem and gnaws away at their professional confidence'.

She said: 'Children and teachers are diminished and abused by the use of pupils as management tools to carry out surveillance on their teachers.

Pills

A Fog of Drugs and War

Image
© Burke Family PhotoPatrick Burke with his wife, Elise, and their son, Jackson. In a drunk driving and auto theft case last year, the Air Force pilot was found not guilty "by reason of lack of mental responsibility" -- a result of the prescription drugs he'd taken.
More than 110,000 active-duty Army troops last year took antidepressants, sedatives and other prescription medications. Some see a link to aberrant behavior.


US, Seattle - U.S. Air Force pilot Patrick Burke's day started in the cockpit of a B-1 bomber near the Persian Gulf and proceeded across nine time zones as he ferried the aircraft home to South Dakota.

Every four hours during the 19-hour flight, Burke swallowed a tablet of Dexedrine, the prescribed amphetamine known as "go pills." After landing, he went out for dinner and drinks with a fellow crewman. They were driving back to Ellsworth Air Force Base when Burke began striking his friend in the head.

"Jack Bauer told me this was going to happen - you guys are trying to kidnap me!" he yelled, as if he were a character in the TV show 24.

When the woman giving them a lift pulled the car over, Burke leaped on her and wrestled her to the ground. "Me and my platoon are looking for terrorists," he told her before grabbing her keys, driving away and crashing into a guardrail.

Burke was charged with auto theft, drunk driving and two counts of assault. But in October, a court-martial judge found the young lieutenant not guilty "by reason of lack of mental responsibility" - the almost unprecedented equivalent, at least in modern-day military courts, of an insanity acquittal.

Star of David

Israeli Lawmaker with Ties to Ousted Regime Backs Omar Suleiman for Egypt's Presidency

Image
© The Associated Press/Amr NabilSupporters of former Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman chant in front of his posters out side the Higher Presidential Elections Commission, in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, April 8, 2012.
An Israeli lawmaker with close ties to the ousted Egyptian regime says former spy chief Omar Suleiman would be the best president for Egypt in terms of Israeli interests.

Legislator Binyamin Ben-Eliezer says a Muslim Brotherhood leader would threaten Israel's 1979 peace deal with Egypt.

Ben-Eliezer told Army Radio on Monday that former strongman Suleiman views relations with Israel as a strategic "cornerstone."

The 1979 accord is a pillar of stability for both countries.

But Israeli concerns for its future have grown with the rise of Islamist parties in Egypt. The Brotherhood has said it would seek changes, but not cancel the peace deal.

Ben-Eliezer is a longtime friend of toppled Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak. Suleiman announced his candidacy for president last week.

Source: The Associated Press

Rocket

Firsthand Look at North Korea Launch Pad: Rocket in Place for Controversial Send-Off

Image
© The Associated Press/The Canadian Press/Ng Han GuanNorth Korean soldiers stand in front of the country's Unha-3 rocket, slated for liftoff between April 12-16, as they wait to give a security check to arriving journalists at Sohae Satellite Station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea on Sunday April 8, 2012. North Korean space officials have moved a long-range rocket into position for this week's controversial satellite launch, vowing Sunday to push ahead with their plans in defiance of international warnings against violating a ban on missile activity.
North Korean space officials have moved all three stages of a long-range rocket into position for a controversial launch, vowing to push ahead with their plan in defiance of international warnings against violating a ban on missile activity.

The Associated Press was among foreign news agencies allowed a firsthand look Sunday at preparations under way at the coastal Sohae Satellite Station in northwestern North Korea.

North Korea announced plans last month to launch an observation satellite using a three-stage rocket during mid-April celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. The U.S., Japan, Britain and other nations have urged North Korea to cancel the launch, warning that firing the long-range rocket would violate U.N. resolutions and North Korea's promise to refrain from engaging in nuclear and missile activity.

North Korea maintains that the launch is a scientific achievement intended to improve the nation's faltering economy by providing detailed surveys of the countryside.

"Our country has the right and also the obligation to develop satellites and launching vehicles," Jang Myong Jin, general manager of the launch facility, said during a tour, citing the U.N. space treaty. "No matter what others say, we are doing this for peaceful purposes."

Experts say the Unha-3 rocket slated for liftoff between April 12 and 16 could also test long-range missile technology that might be used to strike the U.S. and other targets. Unha means galaxy in English.

North Korea has tested two atomic devices, but is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to mount a warhead on a long-range missile.

Bad Guys

Best of the Web: Monsanto Threatens to Sue Vermont if Legislators Pass a Bill Requiring GMO Food to Be Labeled

Monsanto skull and bones
© n/a

The world's most hated corporation is at it again, this time in Vermont.

Despite overwhelming public support and support from a clear majority of Vermont's Agriculture Committee, Vermont legislators are dragging their feet on a proposed GMO labeling bill. Why? Because Monsanto has threatened to sue the state if the bill passes.

The popular legislative bill requiring mandatory labels on genetically engineered food (H-722) is languishing in the Vermont House Agriculture Committee, with only four weeks left until the legislature adjourns for the year. Despite thousands of emails and calls from constituents who overwhelmingly support mandatory labeling, despite the fact that a majority (6 to 5) of Agriculture Committee members support passage of the measure, Vermont legislators are holding up the labeling bill and refusing to take a vote.

Instead, they're calling for more public hearings on April 12, in the apparent hope that they can run out the clock until the legislative session ends in early May.

What happened to the formerly staunch legislative champions of Vermont's "right to know" bill? They lost their nerve and abandoned their principles after Monsanto representative recently threatened a public official that the biotech giant would sue Vermont if they dared to pass the bill. Several legislators have rather unconvincingly argued that the Vermont public has a "low appetite" for any bills, even very popular bills like this one, that might end up in court. Others expressed concern about Vermont being the first state to pass a mandatory GMO labeling bill and then having to "go it alone" against Monsanto in court.