Monday, 1 February 2010

News For February 01, 2010

US Killed 123 Civilians, Three al-Qaeda Men in January

By By Amir Mir

Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans. Continue


Welcoming the Taliban with Open Arms:
Defectors and Deception in Afghanistan

By Douglas Valentine

In reality, defectors programs like the one proposed for Afghanistan are an essential part of the traditional U.S. pacification policy. For example, the so-called Chieu Hoi "Open Arms" program is touted by military historians as having produced positive results throughout the Vietnam War by offering "clemency to insurgents." Continue


CIA Assassination Squads Target US Citizens
U.S. Citizen in CIA's Cross Hairs

By Greg Miller

The U.S. military, which has expanded its presence in Yemen, keeps a separate list of individuals to capture or kill. Awlaki is already on the military's list, which is maintained by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command. Awlaki apparently survived a Dec. 24 airstrike conducted jointly by U.S. and Yemeni forces. Continue


Imam Killed In FBI Sting Was Shot 21 Times: Report

By Daniel Tencer

A Detroit-area imam who died in a shootout with the FBI in October was shot 21 times -- at least once in the back -- and found by police lying down with his wrists in handcuffs behind him, says a local Detroit news report. Continue


US Frame-up of Aafia Siddiqui Begins to Unravel

Pakistani victim of rendition and torture

By Ali Ismail

Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui went on trial in a federal courtroom in New York City on January 19, charged with the attempted murder of US personnel in Afghanistan’s Ghazni Province in 2008. The case against Dr. Siddiqui, 37, is rapidly unraveling due to lack of evidence and discordant testimony from witnesses. Continue


9/11, Deep Events, and the Curtailment of U.S. Freedoms

By Prof Peter Dale Scott

The war on terror and the war on drugs have this in common: both are ideological attempts to justify the needless killings of thousands – including both American troops and foreign civilians -- in another needless war. Continue


Blair the British Neo-con

By Alan Hart

Though the Chilcot Inquiry is concerned only with Iraq - how Blair’s government made the decision to go to war and what lessons should be learned – Blair could not resist beating the drum for war on Iran.
Continue


Plan to oust Saddam drawn up two years before the invasion

By Michael Savage

The document, headed "confidential UK/US eyes", was finalised on 11 June 2001 and approved by ministers. It has not been published by the Iraq inquiry but a copy has been obtained by The Independent and can be revealed for the first time today. Continue


War Spending Surges in President Obama's Budget

By DAVID ROGERS

In 2011 alone, the revised numbers are triple what the president included in his spending plan a year ago. Continue


Colorado Springs Cuts into Services Considered Basic by Many

By Michael Booth

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled. Continue


The Creed of Objectivity Killed the News

By Chris Hedges

The symbiotic relationship between the press and the power elite worked for nearly a century. It worked as long as our power elite, no matter how ruthless or insensitive, was competent. But once our power elite became incompetent and morally bankrupt, the press, along with the power elite, lost its final vestige of credibility. The press became, as seen in the Iraq war and the aftermath of the financial upheavals, a class of courtiers. Continue


Court Tosses NSA Spy Suits, Sides with White House Over Illegal Surveillance

By Tom Burghardt

Despite overwhelming evidence of lawbreaking by the secret state and their corporate partners, on January 21 U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn Walker tossed out the EFF's lawsuit, Jewell v. NSA, filed on behalf of AT&T customers fighting the National Security Agency's illegal operations that target millions of citizens' phone calls, emails and web searches. Continue


The US Game in Latin America

By Mark Weisbrot

When I write about US foreign policy in places such as Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who find it difficult to believe that the US government would care enough about these countries to try and control or topple their governments. Continue


“We Can Make Him Disappear”
America’s Secret Prisons for Undocumented Immigrants

By Andrew Joad

Legal professionals struggling to assist these people found captives chained together. They are continuously rotated between the below-ground parking ramp detention pen and locals jails, to which they are transported in unlabeled and windowless vans. Continue


Would You Work the Graveyard Shift at a Chicken Slaughterhouse in Alabama?

By Bill Berkowitz

"Have you ever wondered why poultry plant workers don't hang their plastic smocks outside on a line to dry after a shift spent covered in chicken juice and meat?" Gabriel Thompson asked in a recent e-mail. "The answer: red ants." Continue


Iraqi police: Female suicide bomber kills 54: A female suicide bomber walking among Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad detonated an explosives belt on Monday, killing at least 46 people and wounding more than 122, officials said.

Iraq to sue US, Britain over depleted uranium bombs: Iraq's Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment.

20 militants killed in Pak clashes: Twenty militants and a solider were killed in clashes in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region while a dozen suspected militants were captured during operations across the country's northwest, authorities said on Monday.

US Attack Kills 15 In Pakistan: US drones have fired three missiles in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 15 people and injuring several others, Press TV reported.

2 Pakistani soldiers killed in bomb attack: At least two Pakistani soldiers were killed and two others injured in a bomb attack in a tribal region on Sunday.

Seven militants killed in southern Afghanistan: Nato and Afghan forces killed seven militants in a gunbattle in the south of the country, the Afghan army said Monday

Afghan resistance kills three US, NATO occupation force soldiers: Bomb attacks and a firefight killed three foreign soldiers, one of them identified as an American, in separate incidents in war-torn Afghanistan on Monday, NATO said.

Two British occupation force soldiers killed in Afghanistan: ministry: A total of eight have now died since the beginning of this year.

One Spanish occupation force soldier killed, 6 wounded in Afghanistan: The ministry says the Spanish troops were part of a convoy that was escorting a UN relief convoy in western Afghanistan near the town of Qali i Naw

Afghanistan War Shapes Engorged Defense Budget While Domestic Programs Freeze: War spending is exempt from the president’s proposed spending freeze, despite President Obama’s statement at West Point that, “we can’t simply afford to ignore the price of these wars.”

Obama seeks record $708 billion in defense budget: President Barack Obama on Monday asked Congress to approve a record $708 billion in defense spending for fiscal year 2011, including a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget and $159 billion to fund U.S. military missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At least 16 killed, many wounded in Somali capital: At least 16 civilians have been killed and more than 70 others wounded in mortar attacks in the Somali capital city of Mogadishu, officials say.

Yemen: Opposition politician 'slain in south': Gunmen have shot dead a provincial opposition politician believed to have been active in a separatist movement in south Yemen, his party and local residents said on Monday. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the killing.

'Fresh clashes' reported in Yemen with Houthi rebels: There have been reports of renewed clashes with rebels in northern Yemen, days after a ceasefire offer was turned down by the government in Sanaa.

Saudi jets raid Yemen despite ceasefire: Houthi fighters in Yemen said on Monday that Saudi warplanes have continued raids on northern villages after they accepted a ceasefire last week.

Hamas calls for legal action against Israel at ICC: Hamas called for the prosecution of Israeli leaders at the International Criminal Court (ICC), after Tel Aviv admitted the use of phosphorous munitions against Palestinians during the Gaza war.

Neocon junket: ‘live penetration raids in Arab territory’: Below is an ad that was in Haaretz lately for the Ultimate Mission to Israel. The trip is a red-meat propaganda trip of a retro-masculine character–"live exhibition of penetration raids in Arab territory"– pitched to American professionals, accountants, doctors, lawyers.

U.S. missile test mimicking Iran strike fails: – A U.S. attempt to shoot down a ballistic missile mimicking an attack from Iran failed after a malfunction in a radar built by Raytheon Co, the Defense Department said.

Libya strikes arm deal with Russia: Libya has struck a deal to buy Russian arms worth almost two billion dollars, Russian news agencies quoted Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, as saying.

US deal forces China to boost defense budget: It would be justified and proper for China to increase military expenditure as the US has posed a threat and challenged China's core strategic interest by planning a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan, Chinese experts said.

Sometimes you just got to laugh! China, Iran Spur U.S. to Develop Air-Sea Battle Plan: The U.S. military is drawing up a new air-sea battle plan in response to threats such as China’s persistent military build-up and Iran’s possession of advanced weapons, according to the Pentagon’s latest strategy review.

Child slaves in Haiti: Given away to other families by parents too poor to feed and clothe them, they cook, clean and fetch water without any payment.

Spanish judge to probe Guantanamo torture claims: The judge will be acting on complaints lodged by a number of associations, focussing on one prisoner, Ahmed Abderraman Hamed, who has Spanish nationality, the source added, confirming a report published in daily El Pais

Judge: Italian spies likely knew of CIA kidnap: An Italian judge said Monday it is likely that Italy's military intelligence agency was aware, or maybe even complicit in, the CIA-led kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect from the streets of Milan.

CIA moonlights in corporate world: In the midst of two wars and the fight against Al Qaeda, the CIA is offering operatives a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side — a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nation’s top-level intelligence talent, POLITICO has learned.

Enigma - Return to innocence: 3 Minute music video

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