Pakistan

The TSA, the Right, and My Busted Watch

26 November 2010 - For the last several days, I have been trying to locate what would appear to be the appropriate and necessary level of angst and fury over the issue of heavy-handed TSA searches at American airports. I say "appropriate and necessary" because, well, all the noise surrounding the matter seems to suggest I have no alternative other than outrage, and if I fail to react that way, I am some sort of dupe, a fool who doesn't understand the Constitutional issues at hand or the dangers represented by what has been described as a glaring governmental over-reach.

AUSTRALIAN officials are bracing for a massive leak of classified US State Department cables.

November 26, 2010 - These cables could include embarrassing disclosures about Canberra's secret diplomacy on controversial issues, such as the war in Iraq.

The Gillard government was one of several foreign governments put on notice about the leaks, expected to be released within days by whistleblower group WikiLeaks.

So seriously is the issue being taken that several sources told The Australian it was raised during a phone call yesterday morning between Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to discuss the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

Scahill once again is reading the quagmire right on! Maybe a few do remember or sought out the lessons, the real ones, of our quagmire Vietnam!! If we had stayed, no Iraq total destruction, and helped start rebuilding while searching out al Qaeda, as we promised once again we would, just think!!

Nov. 23: Jeremy Scahill, writer for The Nation and author of Blackwater, talks with Chris Hayes about what it means that NATO was trying to negotiate peace with a Taliban imposter.

 

Especially for those in this Country, who don't visit nor mention except at pointing their own hate towards others, others they don't even know nor care to understand. Who've led in the failed policies while now they whine about their personal freedoms being infringed on with body pat downs, not torture, a direct result of the enhancing of the hatreds by the death and destruction wrought for a decade now and still no call for accountability!

Close Watch on Casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq

21 November 2010 - “EVERY morning I wake up and go looking for dead people,” says Michael White, a computer programmer from Stone Mountain, Ga., who publishes the Web site iCasualties.org, which tracks deaths and injuries among coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gonzales once again implicates self in Bush torture program

November 22nd, 2010 - Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has implicated himself - yet again - in the Bush administration's torture program.

Gonzales told Talking Points Memo that he knew "enhanced interrogation techniques" were used against suspected terrorists.

And it's is too bad this came from a Brit, bush is so arrogant and lacking in intelligence he would have thought England was a safe bet, he still thinks he's a great leader of the free world, to visit and add to his wealth. But it was the thoughts of millions around this planet, especially the International Lawyers who have been building cases now for years. There's enough, even though not a criminal inquiry nor about the U.S., in the Chilcot Iraq War Inquiry alone and still ongoing to hang that whole administration and anyone around them! Not to mention the other inquiries, Dutch etc., as well as the tons of evidence that have come out these years! Perp walks alone would have started the cleansing of what they did to the World community and minimized the blowback!

Well what do ya know, Justice {Civilian Courts} still works in the U.S.! Another of the Gitmo detainee's, only this one went to trial, was found that the U.S. Government didn't have much evidence of his guilt. Same for the hundreds let go after years being held and most likely tortured after the bush admin picked them off the streets or wherever and whisked them away to other countries prisons, so the U.S. could denie the torture, and to Guantanamo and held incommunicado from the outside world, human rights, defense of charges and any evidence of what they were charged with!

See we don't do that, certainly not for terror waged with death and destruction as well as now the World knowing we torture and hold others with no trials and miles from their Countries and Families!! Our society is geared to who's buying those we hire as we fear that word 'accountability', would mean the death of political opportunity for those hired reps to work for the wealthy and corporations while we whine about getting hand searched at airports {while our soldiers are getting killed and maimed, we also don't do 'sacrifice' even for the veterans}, seems many now are still seeking retaliation!

Accountability for Torture (in Britain)

November 16, 2010 - The contrast could not be more distressing.

Guantánamo payout deal is climax of years of denials of UK role in rendition

Analysis: Settlement means no more damaging documents or information will be released by the courts

16 November 2010 - The disclosure that UK citizens and residents incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay are to receive millions of pounds in compensation is the climax of years of official denials of Britain's role in the secret transfer of terror suspects to prisons where they risked being tortured – the CIA practice of "extraordinary rendition".

''These abuses occurred on European soil. We simply can't allow Europe to join the US in becoming an accountability-free zone.''

EU complicit in torture: report

November 17, 2010 - A LEADING human rights group has sharply criticised the European Union for failing to call to account member states, including Britain, for their complicity in the CIA's rendition and secret detention program.

The charge is made by Amnesty International ahead of an EU-US summit in Portugal on Saturday in a 53-page report, Open Secret, which, it says, contains evidence of European complicity in the program.

All the rendition victims interviewed by Amnesty say they were tortured or ill-treated in custody.
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Amnesty says EU 'failing' over CIA renditions

15 November 2010 - Amnesty International has accused the EU of failing to hold its members to account for their role in the detention of terrorism suspects by the CIA.

It calls for European governments to ensure justice for suspects who were interrogated under the programme known as extraordinary rendition.

Countries including Poland have been accused of hosting secret CIA prisons.

Many suspects are alleged to have been taken to other countries where they were tortured or disappeared.

Several European nations have been accused of co-operating by hosting secret CIA prisons or allowing CIA flights carrying the prisoners to use airports on their way to other countries.

Why this toadying to Bush the bungler?

{Lest we forget: George W. Bush is responsible for dragging us into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan}

15th November 2010 - As we mourned the dead of two world wars and more recent conflicts, our Chief of the Defence Staff General Sir David Richards said the ‘war on terror’ can never be won.

The best we can do is keep our Al Qaeda enemies at bay. We’ll be in Afghanistan (invaded in 2001) for the next five years, at least.

As for Iraq (invaded in 2003), that’s likely to remain a bloody mess into the foreseeable future.

Not to mention, of course, the ­everyday threat of terrorism in ­aviation, our transport systems and our cities.

MEPs pressing for Wikileaks Iraq torture follow-up at US summit

11 November 2010 - Euro-deputies on Thursday (11 November) called for a "transatlantic inquiry" into Iraqi torture cases described in US war logs published by Wikileaks and pressed EU leaders to follow up on the issue at a meeting with US President Barack Obama next week.

The European Parliament is "highly concerned over the recent serious allegations that torture has been condoned in Iraq" and demands an "independent transatlantic inquiry," a resolution adopted Thursday in the plenary reads. MEPs also call for this issue "to be raised in the context of the EU-US summit," which is set to take place on 20 November in Lisbon.

Will an anti-war era follow the unpopular, unwinnable and unaffordable wars of today?

By Kevin Zeese

Is the United States on the verge of an anti-war era? It sounds impossible with the multiple war fronts the U.S. is fighting, the massive weapons industry and talk of a “Long War” on terrorism. But, these wars are unpopular, unwinnable and unaffordable. They are the types of wars that can lead to strong opposition to war.

An example of an unpopular war that led to opposition to war, is the war which began the celebration of Armistice Day, now known as Veterans Day.

On the 11th hour, on the 11th day of the 11th month armistice was declared in World War I. It was made into a holiday to commemorate the end of the “war to end all wars.” Unfortunately, World War I was not the final war and after World War II the holiday was re-named Veterans Day.

{Click on banner to view the trailer, film clips and more}

Veterans Day 2010: "Caring for the invisible wounds"

{This video is some twenty two minutes long so you might want to visit the stories at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette and view each separately, links below, as you have the time}

November 10, 2010 - Don Bankosh stands next to the bathroom door in his bedroom and points to large holes he punched into it during a fit of rage several years ago.

He could have replaced the door. Instead, he keeps it damaged so he won't forget that day and others like it.

It is a daily reminder of his shame at that outburst, a warning to hold at bay the anger, fear, guilt and other effects of the post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, he acquired after nearly two decades as an Army helicopter medevac soldier rendering aid to casualties.

But we, veterans of other conflicts, do know at least one major reason, multiple tours. The others come from what they've lived through and until very recently the DoD, the previous administration, bush, and those congresses, republican, ignored. As well as the citizens of who refuse to pony up for the results of the wars they want and send us into.

Of Principalities and Powers ~ “War? What War?”

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again
be any war. 

Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military
censored graphic footage from the Gulf War

* * * *

“Ace! Bob’s on the phone!” called Patty.

Bob didn’t waste any time. “Ace!” he barked out. “Get over to the courthouse right now. There are half a dozen people down there carrying anti-war signs. It’s the biggest peace protest here in years, and I want you to get some pictures and interview them before they get too cold and head home.”

“I’m on it, Chief,” I assured him, then grabbed my coat and headed out the door.

One of my neighbors, Uncle Whitt, was just walking past the house, dragging his rat terrier Roscoe, who--as usual--was doing his best to lift his leg at every tree, bush, hydrant, gate, and signpost they passed.

I received three robocalls from Barack Obama in the days before the election. I listened to the first and cut short the second and third. The President implored me to vote because so much was at stake.

I had a brief conversation with the man who phoned on behalf of Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. John Sarbanes. He wanted to know if the two could count on me. I explained that I've called their offices many times to ask that they stop funding war. And that I’ve always received the obligatory acknowledgment, thanking me for my input. Then, I told the caller, “But they continue to vote for war, so, no, since I can’t count on them, they cannot count on me.”

The occupiers and the occupied, both theaters, within and regional!!

New generation of troops inherit long Afghan war

November 06, 2010 - The war is also being passed down among Afghan generations - most of whom have spent their entire lives watching their country engulfed in fighting that stretches back to the Soviet invasion in 1979

LANCE Cpl. Jacob Adams was in 5th grade math class when hijacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. His parents took him out of school early that day.

Adams, 20, is now serving in a Marine battalion battling Taliban gunmen, many of whom were also just kids on Sept. 11, 2001. He’s part of a new generation of U.S. troops inheriting the wars spawned by the terror attacks.

United States placed in human rights hot seat

Nov 5, 2010 - The United States has been defending its human rights record before the Geneva-based United Nations Human Rights Council.

A 30-strong US delegation was grilled by more than 80 states on issues ranging from the Guantanamo detention centre to racial discrimination. Switzerland called for a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

The US was the 136th UN member state to be scrutinised by allies and adversaries in the UN rights body, as the Obama administration opens itself up to a council that was shunned by his predecessor.

US Assistant Secretary of State Esther Brimmer, head of the high-level delegation, said she was honoured to present the first US Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

So this is the game they want to keep playin, just heard on the News they're going to try and do a Clinton on this Administration investigative hearings every week!! OK Now's the time for the DoJ to open up criminal investigations into the crimes of the bush administration and the republican congresses especially as to the Wars and especially Iraq, the Brits and others already have a ton of testimony to start picking from on what was going on here and there!! Way over time for Accountability as the World, and especially Iraqi's and Afgans, has been watching and waiting!!!!

Mitch McConnell Challenges Obama With Bold Speech

To Our Reality!

All you younger Vets to another, of many, DeJa-Vu moments, this time the Country can't afford what's comin!!

With the house take over and actually now, not in numbers except just enough, they also control the senate, no need to filibuster just vote in lockstep as they did the previous decade they controlled, and especially under the bush, as well as the total obstruction the last four years.

Got Veterans needs, there are still plenty, forget about even Hearings let alone Congressional Investigations into, as to any tweaking of the GI Bill more likely rollback on that and much that has been happening in the VA and from the Administration as to Military their Families and Veterans. These so called 'teabaggers' Don't Want To Pay, Even The Vets Within!

I refer you to two recent articles:

Military families feel disconnect on Memorial Day

UNHCR worried about growing number of conflict IDPs

{Photo: Akmal Dawi/IRIN
Shah Wali, a father of five, forced by fighting to leave Helmand Province and come to Kabul}

3 November 2010 (IRIN) - The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) says it is concerned about the growing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) caused by conflict in Afghanistan, and the fact that it is often too dangerous to assist them.

Between June 2009 and September 2010, 120,000 people were forced out of their homes by armed conflict, increasing the number of IDPs to 319,000, it said.

The face of war (don't look!)

Nov 2, 2010 - A new isolationism is metastasizing in the American body politic. At its heart lies not an urge to avoid war, but an urge to avoid contemplating the costs and realities of war. It sees war as having analgesic qualities - as lessening a collective feeling of impotence, a collective sense of fear and terror. Making war in the name of reducing terror serves this state of mind and helps to preserve it. Marked by a calculated estrangement from war's horrific realities and mercenary purposes, the new isolationism magically turns an historic term on its head, for it keeps us in wars, rather than out of them.

U.S. can't untangle billions in Bush-era Afghan spending

October 27, 2010 - The U.S. government knows it's awarded nearly $18 billion in contracts for rebuilding Afghanistan over the last three years, but it can't account for spending before 2007.

Thousands of firms received wartime contracts, but the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction found it too difficult to untangle how billions of additional dollars had been spent because of the U.S. agencies' poor recordkeeping.

"Navigating the confusing labyrinth of government contracting is difficult, at best," the inspector general says in a report that was released Wednesday.

The finding raises doubts about whether the U.S. government ever will determine whether taxpayers' money was spent wisely in Afghanistan.

If those who still call themselves republicans have managed to extend on the brain dead population of this country, quickly forgetting their two wars of choice and the emptying of the treasury, and even just win seats in congress the only thing left for this Country to do is Finally hold those Accountable for the already proven crimes against humanity and more, including those congressional republicans who walked in lock step with the previous administrations wants! Everything else related to this Country moving forward will be Stopped dead in it's tracks, what the World Community has sought is the only thing left, Accountability!!

UN official calls for ''full investigation'' into US torture

Terror suspect gets victim status in Polish probe

27 October 2010 - Polish officials investigating a now-shuttered secret CIA prison in this country have given a Saudi terror suspect victim status, a legal advance in the detainee's effort to show he was mistreated by interrogators, officials said Wednesday.

Legal experts said Poland's move to grant the status of victim to Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri recognizes the validity of his claims even as U.S. courts have refused to allow cases involving rendition to move forward for national security reasons.

26 October 2010 - The Berlin-based watchdog monitors perceived corruption and has published its annual report, based on a poll of businesses and people in 178 nations.

The worst country is Somalia, followed by Burma, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore tie for top place as the world's least corrupt countries, with the UK 20th.

'Good governance needed' {read rest}