Puppet MastersS


Attention

Julian Assange's IM Handle and Other Revelations from the Manning Trial

John Hudson
The Atlantic Wire
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
Julian Assange, Bradley Manning
© Reuters
It was an eventful day at the fourth hearing of alleged WikiLeaker PFC Bradley Manning in Ft. Meade, Maryland Monday. Military prosecutors are attempting to court martial the former military analyst on 22 charges of violating military law in relation to his alleged disclosure of hundreds of thousands of secret government documents.

Manning's defense caught a potential break during the cross-examination of a Special Agent David Shaver, a forensic investigator with the Computer Crimes Investigations Unit. On Sunday, Shaver testified that he found 10,000 U.S. cables on Manning's computer. But in today's cross-examination Shaver said none of those cables matched the cables that WikiLeaks published. "If the cables found on Manning's computer don't match the ones WikiLeaks has, the defense can argue that Julian Assange's outfit may have had a different source for the documents," observes The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal, saying it could become a "lynchpin of the defense's case."
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Vader

Egypt: Despite Footage of Violence, Military General Denies Use of Excessive Force

Noha El-Hennawy
Egypt Independent
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:12 UTC
Image
© Ahmed Almasry
Despite photos and video footage that show military personnel using violence against protesters, a member of Egypt's military council addressed the media on Monday, affirming that the armed forces have exercised self-restraint in the weekend's clashes and accused forces - which he failed to name - of plotting to instigate "chaos," thwart the state and drive wedges between the military and the people.

In a televised news conference, General Adel Emara, member of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), offered the generals' version of the violence that erupted on Friday in downtown Cairo, which left at least 11 killed and more than 500 injured.

He denied reports of the military using "excessive force" against protesters, accusing the media of falsifying reports.

"The armed forces does not use violence systematically," said Emara. "We exercise a level of self-restraint that others envy. We do not do that out of weakness but out of concern for national interests."

The general said that violence erupted on Friday when demonstrators who had been holding a sit-in in outside the cabinet's headquarters for the last three weeks attacked a military officer. Military personnel guarding the cabinet's building came to the officer's rescue, but they were subjected to "deliberate humiliation and provocation," continued Emara, who affirmed later that the armed forces had no intention of dispersing the protest.
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Bad Guys

US: '60 Minutes' Edits Out Obama's Claim That He's the Fourth Best President


Associated Press
Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:06 UTC
President Barack Obama sat for an extensive interview with CBS's 60 Minutes last week, though it appears the portion of the interview actually broadcast on TV left out a statement where Obama essentially declared himself the fourth best president in terms of his accomplishments.

The statement was only made available online as part of the full interview on 60 Minutes Overtime.

According to a transcript posted on the 60 Minutes website, Obama said he would hold his accomplishments so far as president against those of Lyndon B. Johnson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.

"I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, F.D.R., and Lincoln - just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history," Obama told CBS's Steve Kroft.
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Radar

US: The Case Against Alleged WikiLeaks Supplier Bradley Manning Takes a Strange Turn

Alexis Madrigal
Atlantic
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:13 UTC
Image
© Reuters
The military hearing that will determine whether Bradley Manning will receive a court martial for his alleged role in leaking documents to WikiLeaks took a strange turn. In a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland, a prosecution witness testified that he found thousands of State Department cables on Manning's computer, but those cables did *not* match those released by WikiLeaks.

If the cables found on Manning's computer don't match the ones WikiLeaks has, the defense can argue that Julian Assange's outfit may have had a different source for the documents. Wired's Kim Zetter was in the courtroom and filed a report on this dramatic moment, which could become a lynchpin of the defense's case.
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Rocket

Libya: Anatomy of a NATO War Crime

Franklin Lamb
Information Clearinghouse
Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© piazzadcara.wordpress.com
It was a warm early Monday morning along the Libyan coast on June 20, 2011.

At approximately 0200 GMT the next day in NATO Headquarters in Brussels and 30 minutes later in its media center in Naples, staffers finished tabulating NATO's 92nd day of aerial attacks on Libya and began to post the data on its website .

Twenty four hours earlier an Atlantic Alliance command unit, located approximately 30 miles off the Libyan coast, in a direct line with Malta, and NATO's targeting unit had signed off on 49 bombing missions for June 20th, the last day of spring and the last day of NATO's original UN bombing mandate.

The authority for NATO's bombing, which far exceeded earlier estimates, killing or wounding of between 90,000-120,000 Libyans and foreigners, and the displacement of more than two million Libyans and foreign workers was claimed from the hastily adopted UN Security Council Resolutions 1970 and UNSCR 1973. UN resolutions 1970 & 1973 gave NATO UN Chapter 7 authority to enforce a no-fly zone over Libyan airspace, initially for 90 days which ironically ended the day before its bombing at Sorman.

The two UN Security Council Resolutions were insisted upon by their main sponsors, France, the UK, Italy and the US who claimed that "a limited no-fly zone would protect Libya's civilian population from the wrath of the government of Libya's leader, Muammar Kaddafi." NATO requested and was granted two additional 90 days extensions to continue its Libyan mission which gave its air force until the end of 2011 to continue Operation Unified Protector.
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Bell

US: 50 Economic Numbers From 2011 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe


The Economic Collapse Blog
Fri, 16 Dec 2011 01:00 UTC
50 sign
Even though most Americans have become very frustrated with this economy, the reality is that the vast majority of them still have no idea just how bad our economic decline has been or how much trouble we are going to be in if we don't make dramatic changes immediately. If we do not educate the American people about how deathly ill the U.S. economy has become, then they will just keep falling for the same old lies that our politicians keep telling them. Just "tweaking" things here and there is not going to fix this economy. We truly do need a fundamental change in direction. America is consuming far more wealth than it is producing and our debt is absolutely exploding. If we stay on this current path, an economic collapse is inevitable. Hopefully the crazy economic numbers from 2011 that I have included in this article will be shocking enough to wake some people up.

At this time of the year, a lot of families get together, and in most homes the conversation usually gets around to politics at some point. Hopefully many of you will use the list below as a tool to help you share the reality of the U.S. economic crisis with your family and friends. If we all work together, hopefully we can get millions of people to wake up and realize that "business as usual" will result in a national economic apocalypse.
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Chess

Iraq issues arrest warrant for vice-president


Al Jazeera
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:36 UTC
Nouri al-Maliki
© ReutersMembers of the Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc say Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, is consolidating power
Shia-led government accuses Tareq al-Hashimi, Iraq's highest ranking Sunni official, of involvement in bomb plot.

Iraq's Shia-led government has issued an arrest warrant for Tareq al-Hashimi, the country's vice-president and highest ranking Sunni official, on "terrorism" charges.

Adil Daham, spokesman for Iraq's interior ministry, told reporters about the warrant on Monday and state-run television aired what it characterised as confessions by alleged "terrorists" linked to Hashimi.

The move, a day after the last US combat troops left Iraq and ended the nearly nine-year war, signalled a sharp new escalation in sectarian tensions that drove Iraq to the brink of civil war just a few years ago.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-dominated Baath party, the Sunni minority has constantly complained of attempts by the Shia majority to sideline them.

Hashimi is one of the leaders of the Sunni-backed political bloc Iraqiya, which has just suspended its participation in parliament to protest the control of key posts by Nouri al-Maliki, the Shia prime minister.
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Bad Guys

US: Who's Footing the Bill for the Obama Family's Estimated $4 Million Hawaii Vacation?

Billy Hallowell
The Blaze
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:46 UTC
First Family
© The Blaze
So, just how much will President Barack Obama's Hawaiian vacation cost this year? That's a question that can't be definitively answered until the costs are in and the trip has concluded, but an assessment of the numbers shows that it will likely be the 44th president's most expensive vacation to date.

The Hawaii Reporter has estimated that travel, alone, will cost $3,629,622 - a startlingly large figure considering the length of the trip. And, yes, in case you were wondering: Taxpayers will be footing a chunk of the bill. After all, it's not cheap to ensure that the world's most powerful leader is safe as he travels and enjoys time away from the grind.

To begin, the family is traveling separately, as Obama has had plenty to wrap up in Washington, D.C. before the holidays (i.e. the payroll tax cut drama). So, First Lady Michelle Obama already left for the family's tropical getaway - a $100,000 expenditure, including personnel, travel and security.
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Stormtrooper

US: Newt Gingrich Would Send U.S. Marshals To Arrest 'Activist' Judges

Zack Ford
ThinkProgress
Mon, 19 Dec 2011 06:57 UTC
Continuing his crusade against the courts, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich railed against judges "imposing secularism" on the country on this morning's Face The Nation. Arguing that "activist judges" who make disagreeable decisions should be held accountable before Congress, he told Bob Schieffer that he would send a U.S. Marshal or Capitol Police officer to arrest judges if that's what it took to reign them in, and then encourage impeachment:

SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don't like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a Congressional hearing... how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?

GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you'd instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.
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MIB

Iran State TV Airs "Confession" of Detained CIA Spy


Reuters
Sun, 18 Dec 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Reuters/IRIBA man, who identifies himself as Amir Mirzayi Hekmati and described as a CIA-spy by Iran's Intelligence Ministry, is seen speaking about his mission on Iranian state television in an unknown location in Iran, in this still frame taken from a video acquired December 18, 2011.
Iranian state television on Sunday aired what it described as the confession of an Iranian man detained for spying for the CIA.

State television broadcast a taped interview with Amir Mirza Hekmati, in which he said he had received training by the U.S. intelligence services. The channel said he had been sent to Iran to provide misinformation to Iranian intelligence.

Iran's Intelligence Ministry said Saturday it had captured a CIA spy of Iranian origin who had received training in the U.S. Army's intelligence units and spent time at U.S. military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan.

State television showed Hekmati seated, wearing an open-necked shirt.
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