Puppet MastersS


Padlock

Bradley Manning: A tale of liberty lost in America

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Fri, 30 Nov 2012 16:15 UTC
Bradley ­Manning
© Mark Wilson/Getty Images 'The repressive treatment of Bradley ­Manning is one of the disgraces of Obama’s first term.'
The US does nothing to punish those guilty of war crimes or Wall Street fraud, yet demonises the whistleblower

Over the past two and a half years, all of which he has spent in a military prison, much has been said about Bradley Manning, but nothing has been heard from him. That changed on Thursday, when the 23-year-old US army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks testified at his court martial proceeding about the conditions of his detention.

The oppressive, borderline-torturous measures to which he was subjected, including prolonged solitary confinement and forced nudity, have been known for some time. A formal UN investigation denounced those conditions as "cruel and inhuman". President Obama's state department spokesman, retired air force colonel PJ Crowley, resigned after publicly condemning Manning's treatment. A prison psychologist testified this week that Manning's conditions were more damaging than those found on death row, or at Guantánamo Bay.

Still, hearing the accused whistleblower's description of this abuse in his own words viscerally conveyed its horror. Reporting from the hearing, the Guardian's Ed Pilkington quoted Manning: "If I needed toilet paper I would stand to attention and shout: 'Detainee Manning requests toilet paper!'" And: "I was authorised to have 20 minutes sunshine, in chains, every 24 hours." Early in his detention, Manning recalled, "I had pretty much given up. I thought I was going to die in this eight by eight animal cage."
Read More...
Red Flag

Drones coming to US airspace despite abysmal safety record. Feel safer now?


RT.com
Sat, 01 Dec 2012 07:38 UTC
Image
© libyasos.blogspot.ru
A newly-released internal investigation by the US Air Force has shown a plague of non-mission-related accidents involving drones in its foreign operations. Meanwhile, Washington is pushing ahead with plans to allow drones into US civil airspace.

The report shows Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) crashing consistently and unpredictably due to a wide array of failures from technical malfunction, to complications in dealing with air traffic controllers, to downright incompetence. The documents, obtained by the Washington Post, number several thousand pages, and show that at least seven drones have crashed near airports in the past two years.

One account from April describes a sub-contracted operator launching an $8.9 million MQ-9 Reaper from the runway at the Seychelles International Airport without getting the go-head from the control tower. The same operator then accidentally switched off the engine without noticing and then tried an emergency landing, but did not release the wheels.

The aircraft was a write-off. It was the second similar accident at the site in just five months.
Read More...
Nuke

Confirmed: US planned to nuke the moon


RT.com
Mon, 26 Nov 2012 21:13 UTC
Nuke the Moon
© ReutersA B53 bomb is seen in this handout taken October 19, 2011 and released October 20, 2011.
In a secret project recently discovered, the United States planned to blow up the moon with a nuclear bomb in the 1950s as a display of the country's strength during the Cold War space race.

The secret project, called "A Study of Lunar Research Flights", as well as "Project A119" was never carried out but initially intended to intimidate the Soviet Union after their launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, which demonstrated their technological power, the Daily Mail reports.

The sight of a magnificent nuclear flash from Earth was meant to terrify the Soviet Union and boost US confidence, physicist Leonard Reiffel, 85, told the Associated Press. The nuclear device would have been launched from a missile from an unknown location. It would have ignited upon impact with the moon, causing a massive explosion that was visible from Earth.

The detonation would have been the result of an atom bomb, since a hydrogen bomb was too heavy for a missile to carry the 238,000 miles to the moon.

Astronomer Carl Sagan was responsible for some of the calculations that could cause the nuclear detonation. Sagan, who later became a famous author of popular science, was a young graduate student at the time. He worked as a NASA advisor from the 1950s onward and died in 1996.
Read More...
Handcuffs

Guantanamo can now be closed safely: U.S. has more than enough prisons!

Stephen C. Webster
The Raw Story
Thu, 29 Nov 2012 08:16 UTC
Image
© Flickr/ takomabibelot
The Department of Defense and the Department of Justice together have more than enough prison space within the United States to safely and securely house the remaining 166 prisoners currently held in Guantanamo Bay, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The report (PDF), commissioned by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), details a clear road map to accomplishing President Barack Obama's longtime goal of shuttering the controversial military facility.

"This report demonstrates that if the political will exists, we could finally close Guantanamo without imperiling our national security," Feinstein explained in prepared text. "The GAO report makes clear that numerous prisons exist inside the United States - operated by both the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice - capable of holding the 166 detainees who remain at Guantanamo in an environment that meets the security requirements."
Read More...
Vader

U.S. senate threatens to halt aid to Palestinians after historic UN vote


Press TV
Sat, 01 Dec 2012 21:20 UTC
Image
Palestinians celebrate in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on November 29, 2012 after the General Assembly voted to recognize Palestine as a non-member state.
US senators have warned that Washington will cut its financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if it uses its upgraded position at the United Nations against Israel.

Hours before the historic vote at the General Assembly on the upgrade status on Thurday, four senators presented legislation, threatening to stop the million-dollar assistance.

The 193-member General Assembly voted 138-9 with 41 abstentions at the United Nations for a resolution approving the upgrade. Nine countries, including Canada, Israel, and the United States, voted against it.
Read More...
Dollar

Obama administration pledges more funding for Iron Dome

Ron Kampeas
JTA
Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:50 UTC
iron dome
© EPAOperation: Israeli soldiers take cover as the 'Iron Dome' fires a missile against a Grad missile fired from the Gaza Strip
The Obama administration will seek additional funding for Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile program in the wake of its successes in the most recent Israel-Hamas war.

"This spring, we announced that we would provide $70 million in fiscal 2012 on top of the $205 million previously appropriated to meet Israel's needs for that fiscal year," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said at a Pentagon press conference Thursday with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak. "And we will obviously continue to work together to seek additional funding to enable Israel to boost Iron Dome's capacity further and to help prevent the kind of escalation and violence that we've seen."

Panetta said Iron Dome intercepted 400 rockets during the eight day war, an 85 percent success rate.

On Thursday night, the Senate unanimously approved an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that urges the administration to assess any further Israeli need for additional Iron Dome batteries.

Comment: US tax dollars at work supporting the successful murder of over 160 Palestinians.

Read More...
Handcuffs

'I thought I was going to die in that cage', says Bradley Manning

Sam Masters & Nikhil Kumar
The Independent, UK
Fri, 30 Nov 2012 04:58 UTC
Image
US soldier gives evidence at pre-trial hearing after allegedly passing secrets to WikiLeaks

Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of causing the biggest security breach in American history, finally broke his silence yesterday as he gave evidence at a pre-trial hearing, saying he felt like a doomed, caged animal after he was arrested for allegedly divulging secretes to the WikiLeaks website.

Speaking in court after 917 days in military captivity, Private Manning, who was arrested in Iraq, made the analogy in a reference to his detention in a cell in a segregation tent at a US Army outpost in Kuwait. He was later transferred to a base in Virginia.

"I remember thinking, "I'm going to die. I'm stuck inside this cage'," he said when questioned by defence attorney David Coombs. Employing dramatic language, he shared the distress he suffered after being locked up his former colleagues. "I just thought I was going to die in that cage. And that's how I saw it - an animal cage."


Comment: "Employing dramatic language"? The poor lad is probably struggling to find the words to describe his abominable treatment at the hands of the world's largest banana republic.

Read More...
Star of David

Israel defies UN after vote on Palestine with plans for 3,000 new homes in the West Bank

Dan Williams
The Independent, UK
Sat, 01 Dec 2012 04:38 UTC
Image
© Latuff
Israel plans to build 3,000 new homes for its settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in defiance of a UN vote implicitly recognising Palestinian statehood there, Israeli media reported yesterday.

The Ynet news site said the move had been approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's inner council of nine senior cabinet members on Thursday, as the United Nations General Assembly upgraded the Palestinians to "non-member observer state" from "entity" - a resolution Israel and Washington had opposed.

The Haaretz news site carried a similar report, describing the new homes as a part of a "construction wave" planned by Israel, which deems all of Jerusalem its undivisible capital and wants to keep swathes of West Bank settlements under any eventual peace treaty with the Palestinians.
Read More...
Eye 2

Den of Filth: Accuser comes forward claiming British MP Cyril Smith 'sexually assaulted him in Houses of Parliament' as other politicians walked past

Rob Williams
The Independent, UK
Sat, 01 Dec 2012 04:53 UTC
Image
A grotesque stain:

Cyril Smith, former British MP and pedophile (centre).
An alleged victim of the late Liberal MP, Cyril Smith - who has been accused of sexually abusing boys in his home town of Rochdale - has told the Guardian newspaper that he was assaulted by the MP in the Houses of Parliament as other politicians walked by, unaware of what was happening.

The man, who says he was 17 at the time the assault took place, says the incident followed 18 months of grooming by the MP.

The revelations came as former Liberal leader Lord Steel said he had heard rumours about Smith carrying out corporal punishment on boys, but said the party did not investigate the claims.

Lord Steel told the Guardian he had received no 'substantive complaints' regarding the MP.

The newest allegations are the first that claim Smith abused someone outside of his constituency.
Read More...
Yoda

Best of the Web: Assange: The Internet isn't free, it has been built for absolute totalitarianism


Russia Today
Sat, 01 Dec 2012 04:24 UTC

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says all the necessary physical infrastructure for absolute totalitarianism through the internet is ready. He told RT that the question now is whether the turnkey process that already started will go all the way.

­RT: So you've written this book 'Cypherpunks. Freedom and the Future of the Internet' based on one of the programs that you've made for RT. In it, you say that the internet can enslave us. I don't really get that, because the internet it's a thing, it's a soulless thing. Who are the actual enslavers behind it?

Julian Assange: The people who control the interception of the internet and, to some degree also, physically control the big data warehouses and the international fiber-optic lines. We all think of the internet as some kind of Platonic Realm where we can throw out ideas and communications and web pages and books and they exist somewhere out there. Actually, they exist on web servers in New York or Nairobi or Beijing, and information comes to us through satellite connections or through fiber-optic cables.

So whoever physically controls this controls the realm of our ideas and communications. And whoever is able to sit on those communications channels, can intercept entire nations, and that's the new game in town, as far as state spying is concerned - intercepting entire nations, not individuals.
Read More...