Puppet MastersS


Propaganda

Propaganda Alert! Al-Qaeda 'plotting another 9/11' from Afghanistan claims US Ambassador

Al-Qaeda fighters have returned to Afghanistan and will use the country as a base to launch September 11-style attacks on Western cities, according to the American ambassador to Kabul.

Ryan Crocker
© UnknownRyan Crocker, the American ambassador to Kabul, said the West could not give up on the country
Ryan Crocker told The Daily Telegraph that if the West was to leave Afghanistan too early, al-Qaeda would be able to increase its presence.

With the US preparing to withdraw the majority of its combat forces from Afghanistan next year, Mr Crocker warned: "If we decide we're tired, they'll be back.

"Al-Qaeda is still present in Afghanistan. If the West decides that 10 years in Afghanistan is too long then they will be back, and the next time it will not be New York or Washington, it will be another big Western city."

Mr Crocker, 62, who previously served as ambassador to Iraq, said that while progress had been made, Afghanistan would need Western support for years to come.

Nato officials believe that up to 100 al-Qaeda fighters have returned to the country, based mainly in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces near the border with Pakistan. Hundreds more are based in Pakistan and could return if circumstances were to change.

Handcuffs

Daylong Tussle on 'Homeland Battlefield' Law

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© Unknown
Manhattan - Overcoming an initially "skeptical" federal judge, opponents of the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act - which allows the military to indefinitely detain anyone it suspects "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces" - brought strong arguments Thursday to a case once believed to be quixotic.

Prominent writers and activists - led by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges - met in court for the first time for a hearing challenging the law, which President Barack Obama signed on New Year's Eve. The bill is also known as the Homeland Battlefield law.

Buried within the 565-page statute, opponents said, is a short paragraph that makes political activists and muckraking journalists susceptible to indefinite military detention for exercising free speech.
Section 1021 (b)(2) allows the military to detain anyone it suspects "substantially supported" al-Qaida, the Taliban or "associated forces," and to keep them detained until "the end of hostilities."

Hedges and others claim those words are so vague they could justify indefinite detention of political dissidents without due process.

Laptop

Email and Web Use 'To Be Monitored' Under New UK Laws

laptop, computer
© unknownThe actual content of emails, calls and text messages could only be accessed with a warrant
The government will be able to monitor the calls, emails, texts and website visits of everyone in the UK under new legislation set to be announced soon.

Internet firms will be required to give intelligence agency GCHQ access to communications on demand, in real time.

The Home Office says the move is key to tackling crime and terrorism, but civil liberties groups have criticised it.

Attempts by the last Labour government to take similar steps failed after huge opposition, including from the Tories.

A new law - which may be announced in the forthcoming Queen's Speech in May - would not allow GCHQ to access the content of emails, calls or messages without a warrant.

But it would enable intelligence officers to identify who an individual or group is in contact with, how often and for how long.

Bizarro Earth

China Arrests Over Coup Rumours

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© unknownThe internet rumours have spooked China's top leadership
Chinese police have arrested six people and shut 16 websites after rumours were spread that military vehicles were on the streets of Beijing, officials say.

The web posts were picked up last week by media outlets around the world, amid uncertainty caused by the ouster of top political leader Bo Xilai.

The State Internet Information Office (SIIO) said the rumours had a "very bad influence on the public".

Two popular microblogs have temporarily stopped users from posting comments.

The two sites, Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo, are still letting people post to their own sites. But they said commenting on other people's posts would be disabled between 31 March and 3 April, so they "could act to stop the spread of rumours".

A spokesman for the SIIO told state news agency Xinhua earlier that the two websites had been "criticised and punished accordingly".

He added that that a number of other people had been "admonished or educated".

Target

Mohamed Merah's Family Denies He Was Toulouse, France Gunman

French police/Toulouse
© Reuters
The family of Mohamed Merah, whom French police accused of carrying out a wave of deadly shootings in Toulouse and Montauban between March 11 and 19, has emphatically denied that he was a terrorist or carried out the killings. Merah was killed by an elite police unit after a 32-hour siege of his flat last Thursday.

His half-brother Rachid Merah, who lives in Algeria, told FranceInfo television: "I have no idea of what the media and the politicians are talking about. They say that Mohammed has been in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that he was in contact with Al Qaeda. But I categorically deny it. And I doubt whether he has had any links with Al Qaeda or the Taliban or any terrorist organisation in the world. And proof of that is that France killed him before he could speak in court, when they could have caught him alive."

Rachid Merah's comments come after similar questions were raised by police experts, such as Claude Prouteau of the Intervention Group of the National Gendarmerie (GIGN), who noted that the special police unit that killed Merah could easily have captured him alive. Instead, the police stormed Merah's flat and killed him in a hail of nearly 300 bullets. During the siege, Interior Minister Claude Guéant nonetheless had asserted that everything would be done to capture Merah alive, so he could stand trial.

Commenting on the weapons and videos of the shooting that police reportedly found in Merah's flat, Rachid Merah referred to well-publicized reports that Merah was functioning as an informer for French intelligence: "But as for the weapons we can suppose that he was manipulated by the French secret services, because he was young and easily influenced. They could well have bought him. They used him then they killed him. All scenarios are possible. Who can prove that Mohamed Merah filmed the videos [of the shootings] himself? It could well be someone else."

Attention

Gaza Man Killed by Soldiers as Thousands Protest Israel Policy

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© The Associated Press/ScheinerIsraeli police officers detain a Palestinian man outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, Friday, March 30.

Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian protester in Gaza on Friday as thousands in the Palestinian territories, Israel and neighboring countries participated in an annual protest against the Jewish state's land policies.

Security forces in riot gear deployed in high numbers along the frontiers of Israel and the Palestinian territories in anticipation of a repeat of last year's violence, in which at least 38 people died near the borders with Lebanon and Syria.

But for the most part, protests were small and organizers kept demonstrators from actually marching on the borders.

The "Land Day" rallies are an annual event marked by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank andGaza who protest what they say are discriminatory Israeli land policies.

Gaza health official Adham Abu Salmia said Israeli forces shot and killed Mahmoud Zaqout, 21, and critically wounded another man as they were approaching the Israel-Gaza border during a demonstration of a few thousand people organized by the territory's Hamas rulers.

Bizarro Earth

U.S. Drone Strike Kills 4 Militants in North-Western Pakistan

Drone
© Reuters
Miranshah, Pakistan - U.S. drone strike killed four suspected militants and wounded three others on Friday in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border, intelligence officials and militants said.

The remotely piloted aircraft targeted a residential compound used by militants in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, a Pakistan Taliban commander told Reuters.

"The four dead are local Taliban militants," an intelligence official told Reuters.

The controversial drone program, a key element in U.S. counter-terrorism efforts, is highly unpopular in Pakistan, where it is considered a violation of sovereignty which causes many civilian casualties.

War Whore

Israel 'does Azerbaijan airbase deal' in plan to attack Iran

Americans may have leaked news in effort to stop Israelis carrying out their threats

Israel's military may have negotiated access to strategically placed air bases in Azerbaijan that could be used in an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, US officials have said.

The unconfirmed report in Foreign Policy magazine suggested deepening co-operation between Israel and the Caucasian republic, which shares a border with Iran. It said that Israel and Azerbaijan secured a $1.6bn arms deal in February, which included the pledged sale of drones and anti-aircraft missile systems to Baku.

"The Israelis have bought an airfield, and the airfield is called Azerbaijan," an unnamed senior US administration official was quoted as saying.

Comment: Lets assume for a moment that the US indeed leaked the news to discourage Israel from attacking Iran, out of fear that the American military would be forced to get involved. This implies, among other things, that the American imperial machine is out of control, since it is so easy for a small and troublesome nation to push it into a war it would rather not have at the moment. Then again, is this not what Israel does best, i.e. manipulate others into fighting its expansionist wars?


Bug

Santorum Gets Angry and Profane on the Campaign Trail


Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum's blowup at New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny.

Heart - Black

Israeli forces fire tear gas at Palestinians as Land Day turns violent

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© Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Israeli security forces fired rubber bullets, tear gas and stun grenades to break up groups of Palestinian stone-throwers on Friday as annual Land Day rallies turned violent.

Palestinian activists have called for a "Global March to Jerusalem" to mark the day when Israeli Arabs protest against government policies that they say has stripped them of land.

Arab news channel Al Jazeera reported in a live blog on its website that the Israeli army was "pushing protesters back towards Ramallah with the use of tear gas and water cannons".

It also reported that there are close to 1,000 protestors gathered in Ramallah.

Israeli forces were put on high alert at frontier crossings with Lebanon and Syria but there were no reports of any protesters nearing the border fences, unlike last year when several demonstrators were killed there in Land Day protests.

Comment: And the cycle of violence continues.