Meet Zbigniew Brzezinski, Conspiracy Theorist

Breaking Private Manning

CounterPunch

by MICHAEL RATNER

By the time the 23-year-old soldier’s court martial starts on February 4, 2013, Bradley Manning will have spent 983 days in prison, including nine months in solitary confinement, without having been convicted of a single crime. This week, in pre-trail hearings, a military court is reviewing evidence that the conditions under which he has been held constitute torture. These conditions include the nine-month period spent 23 hours a day in a six-by-eight-foot cell where he was forbidden to lie down or even lean against a wall when he was not sleeping – and when he was allowed to sleep at night, officers woke him every five minutes – and where he was subjected to daily strip searches and forced nudity. The UN Special Rapporteur for Torture has already found this amounted to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and possibly torture.

For almost three years Manning has endured intense physical and mental pressure, all designed to force him to implicate WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange in an alleged conspiracy to commit espionage. It is also a message to would-be whistleblowers: the U.S. government will not be gentle.

“[If] you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington, D.C.… what would you do? … It’s important that it gets out…it might actually change something… hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms…”

These are purportedly Manning’s words*, and that is change many of us would like to believe in: that if you give people the truth about their government’s unlawful activities, and the freedom to discuss it, they will hold their elected officials accountable.

But it is one thing to talk about transparency, the lifeblood of democracy, and even to campaign on it – in 2008, candidate Obama said, “Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal” – and another thing to act on it. On a fundamental level, Manning is being punished, without being convicted, for a crime that amounts to having the courage to act on the belief that without an informed public our republic is seriously compromised. Or, as he is quoted saying, for wanting  “people to see the truth…

regardless of who they are… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”
The U.S. government is intent on creating a portrait of Manning as a traitor who aided and abetted Al Qaeda by releasing classified information into the public domain. But what actually occurred was that documents were sent anonymously to WikiLeaks, which published them in collaboration with The New York Times, The Guardian and other news media for the benefit of the general public, much like the Pentagon Papers were published a generation ago.

The emails the prosecution is using to try to prove Manning was the source of the leaks also depict the side of the story they want to hide, that of a young soldier grappling with the dilemma of a would-be whistleblower who knows he is taking great risks by exposing the state-sponsored crimes and abuses he witnessed, the “almost criminal political back-dealings… the non-PR-versions of world events and crises,” as he is quoted describing them to the confidant who ultimately betrayed him.

“I will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens.”  One can’t help wondering what Manning must think now, after so long under such brutal conditions of confinement. Did he expect the government to punish him in such a disproportionate and unlawful manner?

Manning’s abusive pre-trial treatment is a clear violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and even U.S. military law. In fact, Manning’s defense attorney David Coombs is arguing in the pre-trail hearings this week that in view of this blatant disregard for his client’s most fundamental rights, all charges should be dismissed.

The government claims this was all done to prevent Manning from committing suicide, though any rational observer might point out that these conditions are more likely to drive someone to suicide than keep him from it. The more likely explanation is the obvious one: the government wants to break Manning enough to force him to implicate WikiLeaks and Assange, and make enough of a show of it to deter other whistleblowers. At stake is the foundation of our democracy, a robust free press, and the fate of a true American hero.

*Disclaimer: Bradley Manning has not been convicted of any charges, nor has he admitted to any of the allegations against him. Likewise, he has not acknowledged the chat logs that purport to be his words.

Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents WikiLeaks and Julian Assange as well as other journalists and major news organizations seeking to make the documents from the Manning trial public.

Assange: Reelected Obama a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Russia Today

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sees no reason to celebrate the reelection of US President Barack Obama. The US aggressively pursued and “persecuted” the whistleblower site under a Democratic administration, he explained.

“Obama seems to be a nice man, and that is precisely the problem,” the 41-year-old told AFP, speaking from his room in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. “It's better to have a sheep in wolf's clothing than a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said. “All of the activities against WikiLeaks by the United States have occurred under an Obama administration.”

Assange was equally critical of the Republican, saying it “has not been an effective restraining force on government excesses over the last four years.” "There is no reason to believe that will change – in fact, the Republicans will push the administration into ever greater excesses," he added.

The WikiLeaks founder sounded hoarse, but refused to comment on his health. Last month, Ecuador said it had requested a meeting with British officials to discuss claims that Assange was losing weight and suffering vision problems.

Assange claimed asylum in the embassy in June to escape extradition to Sweden for questioning over sex crimes allegations. He denies the charges, and believes that if extradited he would then be sent to the US, which regards him as an enemy of the state, where he would face prosecution and possibly the death penalty.

WikiLeaks angered Washington in 2010 by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified US documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world. Washington retaliated by forcing companies to cut off WikiLeaks’ sources of funding.

Wouldn't It Be Nice

Wouldn't it be nice if there actually was a band of technically savvy, ideologically committed, intellectually honest students of the harsh discipline of objectivity sporting Guy Fawkes masks and willing to play the role of vigilante superheroes to wage a fierce, personal battle against war criminals and treasonous banksters?

Unfortunately, it is probably the war criminals and treasonous banksters behind these vague messages from Anonymous serving as the last ditch effort to console an unknown percentage of those who know enough to be dangerous.

Let's be even more dangerous and acknowledge that no matter how many soothing mono-toned, Guy Fawkes YouTubes promising justice, regardless of what eventually drips out as public record from the likes of Wikileaks and no matter what moving concession goes viral from the next ineffectual liberal du jour, there will be no change.

Not until we are able to look into the mirror with our own unmasked faces and believe one simple thing: "I like what I see."

Here is anonymous putting our fears to rest about Karl Rove's work to disenfranchise voters in this upcoming election.  It shouldn't be enough for any of us.

Mexican Diplomat Says America Pretty Much Invited The Sinaloa Drug Cartel Across The Border

Business Insider
Michael Kelley

Leaked emails from the private U.S. security firm Stratfor cite a Mexican diplomat who says the U.S. government works with Mexican cartels to traffic drugs into the United States and has sided with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico.

Many people have doubted the quality of Stratfor's intelligence, but the information from MX1—a Mexican foreign service officer who doubled as a confidential source for Stratfor—seems to corroborate recent claims about U.S. involvement in the drug war in Mexico.

Most notably, the reports from MX1 line up with assertions by a Sinaloa cartel insider that cartel boss Joaquin Guzman is a U.S. informant, the Sinaloa cartel was "given carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago," and Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the Sinaloa cartel in exchange for information used to take down rival cartels.

An email with the subject "Re: From MX1 -- 2" sent Monday, April 19, 2010, to Stratfor vice president of intelligence Fred Burton says:

I think the US sent a signal that could be construed as follows:

"To the [Juárez] and Sinaloa cartels: Thank you for providing our market with drugs over the years. We are now concerned about your perpetration of violence, and would like to see you stop that. In this regard, please know that Sinaloa is bigger and better than [the Juárez cartel]. Also note that [Ciudad Juárez] is very important to us, as is the whole border. In this light, please talk amongst yourselves and lets all get back to business. Again, we recognize that Sinaloa is bigger and better, so either [the Juárez cartel] gets in line or we will mess you up."

In sum, I have a gut feeling that the US agencies tried to send a signal telling the cartels to negotiate themselves. They unilaterally declared a winner, and this is unprecedented, and deserves analysis.

Bill Conroy of Narco News reports that MX1's description matches the publicly available information on Fernando de la Mora Salcedo — a Mexican foreign service officer who studied law at the University of New Mexico and served at the Mexican Consulates in El Paso, Texas, and Phoenix.

In a June 13, 2010, email with the subject "Re: Get follow up from mx1? Thx," MX1 states that U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sent their "signal" by discretely brokering a deal with cartels in Tijuana, just south of San Diego, Calif., which reduced the violence in the area considerably. 

It is not so much a message for the Mexican government as it is for the Sinaloa cartel and [the Juárez cartel] themselves. Basically, the message they want to send out is that Sinaloa is winning and that the violence is unacceptable. They want the CARTELS to negotiate with EACH OTHER. The idea is that if they can do this, violence will drop and the governments will allow controlled drug trades.

The email went on to say that "the major routes and methods for bulk shipping into the US" from Ciudad Juárez, right across the border from El Paso, Texas, "have already been negotiated with US authorities" and that large shipments of drugs from the Sinaloa cartel "are OK with the Americans."

In July a Mexican state government spokesman told Al Jazeera that the CIA and other international security forces "don't fight drug traffickers" as much as "try to manage the drug trade." A mid-level Mexican official told Al Jazeera that based on discussions he's had with U.S. officials working in Ciudad Juárez, the allegations were true.

WikiLeaks has published 2,878 out of what it says is a cache of 5 million internal Stratfor emails (dated between July 2004 and December 2011) obtained by the hacker collective Anonymous around Christmas.

Assange slams Obama's claims of advocating freedom of speech

PressTV

The founder of the WikiLeaks website has ridiculed US President Barack Obama’s claim of supporting free speech in the Middle East while persecuting his group for publishing leaked US diplomatic cables.

Speaking Wednesday in a New York event via a video feed from the Ecuadorean embassy in London, where he is holed up for fear of being extradited to the US by British officials, Julian Assange mocked President Barack Obama for defending free speech in Muslim nations during his Tuesday address to the UN General Assembly as he underlined his own case of being targeted by US authorities for exercising his right of free speech.

Assange reportedly insisted that Obama has "done more to criminalize free speech than any other US president."

"It's time for President Obama to keep his word... and for the US to cease its persecution of WikiLeaks," he said.

Assange described as 'audacious' the US government efforts "to take credit for the last two years of progress," given the history of US sponsorship of toppled Arab dictators.

Assange further emphasized, "It must have come as a surprise to the Egyptian teenagers who washed American teargas out of their eyes (during the revolution that toppled US-backed regime of Hosni Mubarak) to hear that the US supported change in the Middle East."

Citing Obama's rhetoric at his UN address glorifying the freedom of expression, Assange also pointed to the reported treatment of US soldier Bradley Manning in a US prison, where he was allegedly held in isolation, stripped and left unclothed for hours in his cell, as well as the harsh condemnation of Wikileaks by senior American officials.

The remarks came at a packed gathering of diplomats on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly and hosted by Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who announced that he would meet with his British counterpart William Hague on Thursday to again demand a safe passage to Ecuador for Assange by the UK.

Patino also blamed British authorities for violating Assange’s rights, reiterating that he may have to remain in the embassy in London for up to ten years.

Assange sought refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London three months ago from extradition to Sweden and eventually to the US, where he has been harshly condemned by top officials for leaking classified American military and diplomatic documents that reveal targeting of Iraqi civilians by invading American troops as well as backing despotic rulers in the Middle East and elsewhere, among other things.

Meanwhile, the Sydney Morning Herald has reportedly published “declassified US air force counter-intelligence reports,” that refer to Assange and Wikileaks as "enemies of the United States," placing him and his website in a similar legal category as al-Qaeda and the Taliban. 

Julian Assange threatened legal action over WikiLeaks documentary

South by Southwest film festival was warned against showing the film, titled WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies

Guardian
Josh Halliday

Julian Assange threatened to sue the film festival South by Southwest
if it aired a documentary titled WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies.

Julian Assange threatened legal action against a film festival in an attempt to pressure them not to show a documentary on the history of WikiLeaks.

Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, threatened to sue the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in the United States if they broadcast the documentary, WikiLeaks: Secrets and Lies, earlier this year.

The legal threats came to light after media regulator Ofcom rejected a detailed complaint from Assange about the programme on Monday.

Assange had complained that the programme, which first aired on More4 in the UK on 29 November 2011, was libellous, unfair and had invaded his privacy.

The Australian whistleblower, who is fighting extradition to Sweden where he faces sexual assault allegations, attempted to get the programme banned from public screenings in the US, sending a tersely-worded email, seen by the Guardian, headed "LETTER BEFORE ACTION" to festival organisers. Assange is understood to have sent a similar email to US cable news broadcaster CNBC.

In the email, which carried Assange's signature, he told a SXSW organiser: "Please also send me full details of SXSW's formal complaints procedure. This latter request is made without prejudice to any subsequent legal action I may take against SXSW for the screening of this libellous programme."

He claimed in the email that Oxford Film & Television, the independent British production firm behind the programme, was "under investigation by the UK statutory regulator Ofcom for multiple breaches of the Broadcasting Code".

Ofcom had undertaken an investigation into whether Assange's complaints about the programme were justified and ruled on Monday they were not.

SXSW aired the feature film version of the programme as planned on 9 March and CNBC showed a shortened version of the documentary in the US on 1 March.

Patrick Forbes, the head of documentaries at Oxford Film & Television, welcomed the Ofcom ruling and praised SXSW and CNBC for not caving in to legal pressure from Assange.

Forbes said the threat of a lawsuit meant his company had to pay for costly legal insurance, and that Assange's threats may have hampered the programme's chances of attracting a US cinema deal.

"Julian Assange attacked this film and accused us of being unfair to him. I am delighted that Ofcom has rejected his detailed complaints about our methods and entirely vindicated the programme and its making," Forbes told the Guardian.

"The film provides the definitive account of a turning point in history. As is the way with such moments, passions run high. But we have striven to make it as a accurate and fair a film to everyone involved as is possible. And I am very glad that Ofcom has recognised that."

Assange responded to the Ofcom ruling in a lengthy statement on the WikiLeaks website late on Monday. He said the ruling "glosses over many substantive points of fact" and accused the programme-makers of a producing a "biased and one-sided smear documentary".

A spokesman for Assange declined to comment further. WikiLeaks had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

Assange is currently taking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden. His most recent public appearance, on the balcony of the embassy in Knightsbridge, included a lengthy attack on critics of WikiLeaks, whom he described as a threat to freedom of expression.

He wrote to the Leveson inquiry into press standards in April, claiming he had "suffered extensive libels" comparable to Gerry and Kate McCann, who received significant damages from a number of national newspapers over coverage of the search for their missing daughter Madeleine.

He had previously had a complaint not upheld by the Press Complaints Commission about 45 articles, in publications including the Guardian and the Independent, which he claimed were inaccurate and unfair.

America’s War. Next Stop Iran: Who Will Save Us?

Global Research
Colin Todhunter

One of the most awe inspiring photographs ever taken was by a machine, not a person. The ‘Pale Blue Dot’ is the name of the photograph.It is an image of the Earth taken in 1990 by the Voyager spacecraft, some six billion kilometers away from our planet as the craft was about to leave the Solar System. The Earth appears as a miniscule dot, almost lost in the vastness of space.

The ‘Blue Marble’ is another image from space that also shows the Earth. It was taken by the US Apollo 17 spacecraft in 1972. The entire planet is a vivid, enchanting swirl of deep blue oceans, scattered white clouds and solid green land masses set in stark contrast against the apparent emptiness of space.

To see the magnificent fragility of Earth hanging in a mind boggling expanse of blackness is as wondrous as it is humbling.

The late astrophysicist Carl Sagan commented on the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ by saying that from out there in space, there is no inkling, no clue whatsoever, that there is life here. There is no hint of humankind’s squabbles, posturings, religions, civilizations or doctrines. There is no possible comprehension of the intensity or magnitude of human joys and wonder, prejudices and sufferings.

Beneath Earth’s colourful blue mask from space, lies a sorry tale. It’s a tale about the hundreds of millions of deaths due to pointless wars and conflicts that have taken place down the ages. We have had little compulsion in destroying living creatures in their droves and gorging on and depleting finite natural resources. And we destroyed in a blink of an eyelid what took the Earth millions of years to nurture.

Sagan once asked us to consider how much blood has been spilled by generals and emperors just to become temporary masters of one part of this small blue dot and how much cruelty has been visited time and time again by one set of the planet’s inhabitants on a barely indistinguishable other set of inhabitants. Sagan is not alone. During our more self reflective moments, each of us may care to chew over such sentiments ourselves.

But how easy those sentiments fall prey to hate, fear and anger and how easy we turn to killing and violence.

As we watch the possible build up to a US-led war with Iran and bear witness to the wail of propaganda and the deception of peace through the barrel of a gun, the world is told that Iran threatens global stability. Due to what is becoming an incessant pro war media onslaught, an increasing number of US citizens now favour a military attack on Iran’s nuclear installations, despite no credible evidence that indicates Iran is actually developing nuclear weapons at all.

One news report by a US channel even showed a US aircraft carrier passing through the Strait of Hormuz saying the ship was ‘the world’s’ first line of defence in case non-nuclear-armed Iran decided to rein down ‘terror’ on nuclear-armed Israel in response to any first strike attack on Iran by Tel Aviv. What twisted logic. What arrogance. In the case outlined, any ‘terror’ would be instigated by the said Israeli attack itself on Iran. That was conveniently brushed aside. And for ‘the world’ read only the US and its client states. And by what sort of garbled reasoning is Iran a threat to the US, the most militarily powerful country the world has ever seen – notwithstanding the fact that the US has military bases encircling Iran in neighbouring countries. Yet, the US media, like it did over Iraq, is convincing large sections of the public that Iran, on the opposite side of the world, is a direct threat to the US.

The threat to global peace and stability does not lie with Iran, or with China for that matter or any other bogeyman the Pentagon cares to dream up. Historian William Blum last year wrote that, since 1945, the US has attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of them democratically elected. It has attempted to suppress a populist or national movement in 20 countries. It has grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries. And it has attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Iran is destabilising the world and its aggression must be stopped. No mention from Israel of the assassinations of nuclear scientists in Iran. No mention of cyber attacks on Iran, the funding of anti-government militias inside Iran or other destabilisation strategies waged against Tehran by the US, Mossad, the CIA or MI6.

It’s not a case of who will save us from Iran, but who will save us from the type of terror and instability we have seen instigated by US or US-backed forces in Pakistan, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq. Who will save us from militarism and imperialism? Who will save us from the economic terror brought to Greece or any other number of countries, including the US itself, by the corporate cartels and the financial institutions who silt away profits in tax havens while expecting ordinary people to bear the brunt of their criminality?

With Washington already having done its level best to destabilise Iran, a huge build up of US troops has been taking place in the region for many months. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) may also be crying wolf over Iran’s intention to acquire a nuclear weapon, which is hardly surprising given that a US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks describes the Director General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano as “solidly in the US court” and “ready for prime time.”

China’s ambassador to the UN has already warned Yukiya Amano not to create “unfounded” evidence to justify a military attack on Iran in the name of halting its nuclear programme.

Having had its influence curtailed in Libya, a top Chinese government official has already warned that any threat to Pakistan would be taken as a direct threat to China, according to the JunshiJia website, which some months ago cited a report by China’s Central TV. The report also stated that as the US war in Afghanistan deepens and the threat of military action against Iran becomes stronger, the threat of confrontation with China increases.

As the West contemplates another dose of murder and mayhem, surely the lies in the build up to the invasion of Iraq are too fresh in the mind for the Western public to be fooled once again. By now they should have seen through the ongoing US-led deception of perpetual war for perpetual peace. Ultimately, there’s no peace to be found in Armageddon.

Let’s hope so because, in all our obscurity and isolation on this insignificant blue dot, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere. We must act to save us from ourselves.

Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald, New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in many other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest site is at: http://colintodhunter.blogspot.com

America’s Secret Deal with Mexican Drug Cartels

Global Research
Tom Burghardt

In a story which should have made front page headlines, Narco News investigative journalist Bill Conroy revealed that “A high-ranking Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization member’s claim that US officials have struck a deal with the leadership of the Mexican ‘cartel’ appears to be corroborated in large part by the statements of a Mexican diplomat in email correspondence made public recently by the nonprofit media group WikiLeaks.”

A series of some five million emails, The Global Intelligence Files, were obtained by the secret-spilling organization as a result of last year’s hack by Anonymous of the Texas-based “global intelligence” firm Stratfor.

Bad tradecraft aside, the Stratfor dump offer readers insight into a shadowy world where information is sold to the highest bidder through a “a global network of informants who are paid via Swiss banks accounts and pre-paid credit cards. Stratfor has a mix of covert and overt informants, which includes government employees, embassy staff and journalists around the world.”

One of those informants was a Mexican intelligence officer with the Centro de Investigación y Seguridad Nacional, or CISEN, Mexico’s equivalent to the CIA. Dubbed “MX1? by Stratfor, he operates under diplomatic cover at the Mexican consulate in Phoenix, Arizona after a similar posting at the consulate in El Paso, Texas.

His cover was blown by the intelligence grifters when they identified him in their correspondence as Fernando de la Mora, described by Stratfor as “being molded to be the Mexican ‘tip of the spear’ in the U.S.”

In an earlier Narco News story, Conroy revealed that “US soldiers are operating inside Mexico as part of the drug war and the Mexican government provided critical intelligence to US agents in the now-discredited Fast and Furious gun-running operation,” the Mexican diplomat claimed in email correspondence.

Those emails disclosed “details of a secret meeting between US and Mexican officials held in 2010 at Fort Bliss, a US Army installation located near El Paso, Texas. The meeting was part of an effort to create better communications between US undercover operatives in Mexico and the Mexican federal police, the Mexican diplomat reveals.”

“However,” Conroy wrote, “the diplomat expresses concern that the Fort Bliss meeting was infiltrated by the ‘cartels,’ whom he contends have ‘penetrated both US and Mexican law enforcement’.”

Such misgivings are thoroughly justified given the fact, as Antifascist Calling reported last spring, that the Mexican government had arrested three high-ranking Army generals over their links to narcotrafficking organizations.

In Conroy’s latest piece the journalist disclosed that the “Mexican diplomat’s assessment of the US and Mexican strategy in the war on drugs, as revealed by the email trail, paints a picture of a ‘simulated war’ in which the Mexican and US governments are willing to show favor to a dominant narco-trafficking organization in order to minimize the violence and business disruption in the major drug plazas, or markets.”

A “simulated war”? Where have we heard that before? Like the bogus “War on Terror” which arms and unleashes throat-slitting terrorists from the CIA’s favorite all-purpose zombie army of “Islamist extremists,” Al Qaeda, similarly, America’s fraudulent “War on Drugs” has been a splendid means of managing the global drug trade in the interest of securing geopolitical advantage over their rivals.

UN Security Council has no authority to support revolution in Syria – Lavrov

Russia Today

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov

The UN Security Council has no right to support a revolution or foreign intervention in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned. Any plan to withdraw government troops while fighting continues is untenable, and naïve at best, he added.

The demand for President Bashar al-Assad to resign as a precondition to resolving the Syrian crisis is a completely unrealistic approach, Lavrov said during a public appearance at the Moscow State University of Foreign Affairs.

“There are different attitudes towards the Syrian regime. But while fighting in the streets continues, it is absolutely unrealistic to say that the only way out is for one side to unilaterally capitulate. It is not a matter of ideology, we don’t support any political figures in Syria. We just reason from what is realistic,” Lavrov said to the students of the diplomatic university.

Harking back to the summit in Geneva in June, Lavrov noted that despite differing opinions on the conflict, all the participating countries agreed to work for a “free, stable, independent and democratic” Syria. However, “our western partners and some nations in the region are almost openly pushing for outside intervention,” said Lavrov.

“Outside intervention should be positive. Every international player should push for both sides of the Syrian conflict to cease violence,” stressed Lavrov. “Saying that the government should be the first to pull out its troops from towns and then the opposition is not a viable plan.”
The Russian foreign minister added that those foreign players who insist on inciting the opposition forces “are not working in the interests of the Syrian people. They are motivated by their own geopolitical interests.”

Lavrov cited the fact the Security Council dismissed a vote on the Geneva accord as evidence that a number of countries were not working for the Syrian people.
Ecuador, Assange’s rights must be respected WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s rights as a political refugee must be respected, Lavrov said, adding that under international law, it would be illegal for UK police to storm the Ecuadorian embassy.

“As long as he is inside Ecuadorian territory, I think no one will try any rash actions, and the rights of the refugee [Assange] must be respected. No one can challenge the judicial process. But when the Ecuadorian embassy is threatened with being stormed, just like the Winter Palace was, I think it’s a little outside the rule of law,” Lavrov said in his talk to the students, alluding to the Bolshevik storming of the Winter Palace during Russia's 1917 revolution.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been holed up inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June. The whistleblower is currently in the center of an international stalemate insofar as Ecuador has granted him asylum but the UK has pledged to arrest him if he sets foot outside the building.

Assange estimates that he could potentially get out of the Ecuadorian embassy in a year’s time if Sweden drops the extradition order against him. The 41-year-old Australian is wanted for questioning over charges of sexual assault and rape in Sweden.

Assange has said that if Sweden drops the extradition order against him he could potentially leave the embassy in a year’s time. The 41-year-old Australian is wanted for questioning over charges of sexual assault and rape in Sweden.

Commenting on the WikLeaks whistleblowing scandal that precipitated Assange’s asylum request, Lavrov said that the information in the WikiLeaks cables “brought to light how governments relate to their partners, and what they think of them.” The document dump hadn’t harmed or threatened the safety of any particular government, he said.

“It was curious,” Lavrov said. “But nothing more. Many of our impressions were simply confirmed.”

US withheld evidence in WikiLeaks case

The Examiner

FORT MEADE: Lawyers for the US soldier charged with passing a trove of classified documents to WikiLeaks accused the military Tuesday of withholding hundreds of emails over fears of a publicity nightmare.

The defense team for Private Bradley Manning, who could be jailed for life for "aiding the enemy" over the massive security breach, alleged that more than 1,300 messages were ignored by prosecutors for at least six months.

The emails relate to the conditions the 24-year-old trooper was held in during military detention at Quantico, Virginia, where he was sent after a spell in a US Army jail in Kuwait following his arrest while on duty in Iraq in 2010.

Manning's civilian lawyer David Coombs told a pre-trial hearing that 84 emails were released to the defense team on July 25, but he later discovered that 1,290 other messages remained on file.

The government "chose to let these emails collect dust somewhere," Coombs said on the first day of the three-day hearing at a military base in Fort Meade, Maryland, 30 miles (48 kilometers) from the US capital.

Military prosecutors then suddenly announced that 600 other messages had been handed to Manning's legal team on Monday, ahead of the hearing, but Coombs persisted with his attack.

"It is the defense position that the government has been playing word games," the lawyer said, implying that the emails were held back because the government adopted a deliberately narrow definition of their relevance.

"That is the absurd nature of that excuse. That is 'the dog ate my homework' excuse," Coombs added.

The defense maintains that Manning was mistreated at Quantico, and even alleged Tuesday that the former intelligence analyst had been ordered by guards to stand at attention while completely naked.

Coombs then took aim at top Marine officers responsible for running the jail, who he said had put their concerns about bad publicity ahead of their duty to provide fair treatment to detainees.

The emails go as high up the chain as General George Flynn, the then commanding general of the US Marine Corps, who insisted that Manning be placed on suicide watch.

Top officers at Quantico regularly sent emails to Flynn informing him of Manning's confinement, which the defense says was unnecessarily harsh, and told the Marine commander who the jailed WikiLeaks suspect's visitors were.

"They didn't want any negative publicity," Coombs said, reading out an official list that placed media risks at the top of eight concerns at Quantico.

After his detention at the Marine Corps Brig from July 2010 to April 2011, Manning was transferred to a prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, where he was placed under less restrictive conditions.

If the court finds he was abused, the case could potentially be thrown out, or any eventual sentence reduced.

However, Major Ashden Fein, lead counsel for the government at Fort Meade, denied that the emails were withheld, insisting the prosecution simply had more pressing issues to deal with.

Most of the emails amount to nothing more than "argument and conjecture" among the military commanders involved, he said.

"They were concerned about public affairs (media handling) but they were also concerned about Private First Class Manning," Fein said of officers at Quantico, describing Flynn as "being informed but not necessarily directing" control.

Colonel Denise Lind, the case judge, however said the months-long delay over disclosure of the emails remained unexplained.

"I still wonder why you waited until July," Lind asked Fein, before ruling that she would examine the estimated 700 emails from the original bundle that remain in government hands, before deciding if they too should be handed over.

The publishing by WikiLeaks of official documents, including military logs concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, triggered a diplomatic firestorm that hugely embarrassed American officials and rankled the nation's allies.

Manning, who is attending this week's hearing, has not yet entered a plea in the case and his trial now looks set to start in February -- five months later than originally thought.

The British Siege of the Ecuadorian Embassy: Déjà Vu: Anglo-American disregard for International Law

Global Research
Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

When Iranian student activists occupied the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 as a result of the Iranian Revolution, the US and Britain condemned the Iranian provisional government of Prime Minister Bazargan even though it was not responsible. The US, UK, and their allies ranted and raved about the sanctity of foreign diplomatic missions, calling the activists “terrorists” and “anarchists.” Today, however, they endorse the storming of embassies and consulates themselves. It is also important to note that Anglo-American disregard for diplomatic sanctity is conducted at the official level while the taking of the US Embassy in Tehran was not an official act executed or sanctioned by the Iranian government.

In regard to British threats to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy to the United Kingdom in London, the focus should not be on Julian Assange, the controversial founder of WikiLeaks. The real focus of the British government’s threats should be on something much bigger and more important than one man. The real issue at hand is the total disregard for international law that has clearly emerged in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.

The United States and Soviet Union never violated the diplomatic sanctity and extraterritoriality of one another’s diplomatic missions by storming them with their state security forces, even during the tensest periods of the Cold War. Embassies were consistently and securely used to relocate spies, defectors, and dissidents around the world. Many ruthless regimes and dictators during the Cold War even observed the international laws that protected the diplomatic sanctity of the diplomatic missions of other countries, even if their own dissidents sought refuge in the embassies and consulates of other countries.

The world is divided into two: those that are part of a system of empire and those that are not. The warning that British Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats has issued to the government of Ecuador that it will assault Quito’s diplomatic mission in London if Assange is not turned over to the British government is in total disregard for international law and signifies a feeling of impunity felt within the system of empire that includes the UK. Cameron’s government is making threats to ignore and breach international law at the behest of Washington, DC. The Ecuadorian government, with the support of all Latin America, has responded by telling Britain that it is not a “British colony.” Quito should have re-worded its comments and said it is not an “American colony or dependency like the UK.”

International Law, Diplomatic Immunity Mean Nothing to the US Empire

It should be clear to all by now that international law is only selectively applied and that double-standards are in exercise. There are two standards in the world too. One set of standards is for those that have to follow the law and the other is for those that are above the law. Some countries see international laws as tools to be manipulated in their favour and cited only when it suits them. The governments of these countries pick and choose when to follow international law and when to apply it. These countries include the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and, first and foremost, the United States of America. These nations act as if it is acceptable and natural for them to have weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), illegally invade other countries, commit crimes against international peace, kill foreign nationals with impunity, and interfere in the affairs of other countries.

Diplomatic immunity and international law means nothing to the individual’s controlling the American Empire. When Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng sought political asylum in the US Embassy to China, the Chinese government did not threaten to violate Washington’s diplomatic immunity. The behaviour of the Chinese government has been in stark contrast to that of the British government’s threats to storm the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

London’s Threats are a Repeat of Washington’s Actions: A Look Back at 2007

No one should be surprised about the US role in the threats to violate the diplomatic immunity of the Ecuadorian Embassy to the United Kingdom. The UK is merely following in the footsteps of the US in violating the extraterritoriality of diplomatic missions. In fact, the US raided an Iranian Consulate in Iraq on January 11, 2007.

The Iranian diplomatic mission that the US stormed was in Arbil (Hewler), the capital of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and had been representing Tehran’s interests in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1992. US forces arrested and detain five Iranian diplomats without charges and ransacked the Iranian mission taking all the Iranian diplomatic files they could get their hands on, including the office computers. Aside from the Iranians, KRG officials have also acknowledged that US forces stole the mission’s files. The US government claimed it was acting on behalf of Iraq, but both the Iraqi federal government and KRG rejected this outright.

Despite their diplomatic immunity, the Iranian diplomats from Arbil would be illegally held until July 9, 2009. To justify its breach of international law, the US would claim that the Iranian diplomatic mission was only a liaison office that was in the process of becoming recognized as a diplomatic consulate. Both Iran and Iraq rejected this. In reality, the Iranian mission in Arbil had not only been operational since the Gulf War ended, but had been given recognition by the new political establishment in Iraq after the ouster of President Saddam Hussein and the Baathist government in Baghdad.

More Anglo-American Double-Standards and Breaches of International Law in 2007

On March 23, in the same year that the US military stormed the Iranian consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan, members of the British military ventured into Iranian territorial waters and were subsequently arrested by the Iranian military for trespassing. Instead of quietly obtaining their freedom, the British government politicized the issue and openly mislead the British public into thinking that the Britons were kidnapped by Iran and had never entered Iranian territory. What happened to the Iranians was illegal, but what happened to the British military personnel was legal under international law.

The treatment of the British “detainees” and “kidnapped” Iranian diplomats was not the same either. While Tehran did use the opportunity to taunt the British government, it eventually freed the captured Britons as an “Easter gift” and sign of Iranian good will. The British press seemed to have a memory lapse that the Britons were prisoners when it saw that the British military personnel showed no signs of duress or stress and that they were well treated by the Iranians (see Annex). Instead the British press began to focus on Iranian political opportunism and began to mock the badly fitted grey civilian dress suits that the Iranians had given the British prisoners as gifts.

Parallel to the arrest of the British military personnel, the Iranian diplomat Jalal Sharafi was kidnapped in Baghdad by a US-controlled group of Iraqi commandos who handed him over to the CIA on January 6, just a few days before the US raid on the Iranian consulate in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both the raid on the Iranian mission in Arbil and Sharafi’s kidnapping in Baghdad are not isolated incidents; the US government had initiated a campaign to blame Iran and Syria for Anglo-American failures in Iraq when the events happened. As a diplomat, Sharafi was illegally captured. Moreover, the Iranian diplomat was intensely tortured by the CIA through such acts as the piercing of his feet with electric drills (see Annex). In contrast the British detainees were given proper quarters and treated as guests in Tehran. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) also acknowledged that Sharafi, who would be freed on April 3, was badly tortured. Two different standards were clearly applied.

America Trying to Impose it Domestic Laws on the Rest of the World

Utter disrespect for any equally applied international standards or law is at play. We see that it is not countries like China and Iran that breach international law regularly, but countries like the US and UK. The matter also goes further, because the United States tries to impose its laws on the rest of the world.

Both the governments of the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation, amongst others, have condemned the government of the United States for trying to repeatedly impose its domestic laws on the rest of the world. US domestic laws that are imposed internationally are what the enforcement of the US sanction regimes against countries like Iran and Cuba are in essence. The US is even trying to impose the verdicts and rulings of its domestic courts on the rest of the world.

No country has the right to impose its domestic laws on other countries. This is a flagrant violation of the sovereignty of other countries. It an act of arrogance that implies that the rest of the world is part of a single country’s realm. In short this is how an empire acts. This behaviour, however, is also a sign of desperation as the American Empire tries exerting itself with greater force to hide the fact that it is crumbling.
ANNEX: Photographs of the British Military Prisoners of Iran and the Kidnapped Iranian Diplomat

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya is an award-winning author, sociologist, and geopolitical analyst. He is the author of The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) and a forthcoming book The War on Libya and the Re-Colonization of Africa. He has also contributed to several other books ranging from cultural critique to international relations. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), a contributor at the Strategic Culture Foundation (SCF) in Moscow, and a member of the Scientific Committee of Geopolitica in Italy. He has also addressed the Middle East and international relations issues on several news networks including Al Jazeera, teleSUR, and Russia Today. His writings have been translated into more than twenty languages. In 2011 he was awarded the First National Prize of the Mexican Press Club for his work in international journalism.

The Globalization of NATO (Clarity Press) by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya.
Foreword by Denis J. Halliday.

NYT: Investigate Four Questions Surrounding Assange Case

Editor's Note:  Here's an interesting side note for the Assange/Wikileaks puppet show.

Just Foreign Policy

Until now, major media have allowed U.S., British and Swedish officials to get away with claiming that the British and Swedish legal pursuit of Julian Assange has nothing to do with the prospect of a U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks, even though there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Recent developments in the case have given media an opportunity to revisit the issue.

Join us in urging the New York Times to pursue four basic questions whose answers are crucial to judging claims that there is no connection between the cases, and no danger that Assange would be extradited from Sweden to the United States, by signing the petition below.

We, the undersigned, urge you to work to establish answers to four questions which are crucial to judging official claims that there is no connection between the British/Swedish legal case against Julian Assange and the prospect of a U.S. prosecution of WikiLeaks, and that there is no danger that Assange would be extradited from Sweden to the United States:

1. Why won't Sweden agree to question Julian Assange in the U.K.?

2. Why won't Sweden say that it won't extradite Assange to the United States if he voluntarily goes to Sweden?

3. Why won't Britain say that they won't agree to a U.S. extradition request for Assange from Sweden?

4. Why won't the U.S. say that it will not seek Julian Assange's extradition from Sweden?

Assange Fracas: All About Establishing Legitimacy of International Criminal Court?

Daily Bell

Ecuador might take the case to the International Court of Justice, but would first try to convince London that it should allow Assange to travel to the South American country or give him guarantees he would not be extradited to the United States. "We're states with responsible governments that can negotiate directly about this problem. We have always been open to negotiations with the British and Swedish governments," Correa told state-run television on Monday night. Correa's government, however, says there have been no talks since August 15. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: It's a new era of globalization, and these delicate matters should be decided at the highest international levels.

Free-Market Analysis: Is the Julian Assange extradition standoff nothing more than a way of further establishing the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court?

This could make sense. We've been puzzled with the way things have played out regarding Assange but now we believe we may have the key.

If one accepts that Assange and WikiLeaks are at the highest level connected to representatives of a global power elite, then what's going on becomes clear.

This elite seeks to run the world and has been challenged in this effort by what we call the Internet Reformation that has exposed the globalist conspiracy for those who wish to see. As they did long ago when attempting to combat the information made available by the Gutenberg Press, the powers-that-be are once again trying to muddy the proverbial waters, or so it seems to us.

WikiLeaks is perhaps just one of a number of so-called false flag projects that have been developed to confuse people about what is really going on. Anonymous is another one, apparently. So is Occupy Wall Street, which is reportedly funded at least in part by elitist apparatchik George Soros.

All of these entities and many more seek to combat the free-market thinking and disciplined philosophical anarchy that was making it impossible to justify elitist mercantilism.

The elite conspiracy is based on control of government. No government, no conspiracy. So when one studies false-flag events, one must look to see if the individual or group is mouthing radical or fashionable rhetoric while still suggesting public solutions to private problems.

This is one of the dividing lines between elite dominant social themes and the reality of credible and sincere change making.

Occupy Wall Street utilizes much of the rhetoric of "rebellion" and proposes seemingly anti-establishment points of view. But when one unpacks the rhetoric one begins to see that almost all the solutions are government oriented.

The hacker group Anonymous claims to be motivated by Internet anarchism but their targets are often corporate and rarely government oriented. They have surely not taken aim at the West's military-industrial complex.
The elites understand this and only turn to violence as a last resort, preferring to motivate people via fear-based propaganda. But because of the Internet, these scarcity-based memes have become obvious and increasingly transparent.

This does not mean the elites have ceased to try to regenerate these approaches. Julian Assange would seem to be a case in point.

As a young man, Assange went to work for the government after losing a hacking case. Eventually, he wrote for the power-elite controlled Economist magazine and won several prizes.

Somehow, later, in the first decade of the 21st century, he burst full-blown onto the alternative journalism scene with something called WikiLeaks.

We've chronicled, as have many others, the idea that WikiLeaks is a triumph of style over substance. Having a supposedly radical "news" outlet controlled by Western Intel agencies allows the powers-that-be to leak information to the media in a credible way.

And who are Assange's partners in all of this? Why, the traditional mainstream media including such names as theNew York Times and the Washington Post.

Assange is providing credibility to facilities of elite information. The mainstream media, bought and paid for by the power elite, is foundering around the world, but these are the instruments that Assange chooses to work with nonetheless.

We won't go on about this. It's fairly evident at this point who Assange is and how he is being positioned, in our view anyway. For more on Assange, just search the Internet for Assange and the Daily Bell. Or search for Assange and "false flag." There's plenty of information out there.

Again, exposure in multiple times and ways hasn't slowed the Assange promotion. He is tall, blond, handsome and arrogant. He continues to be useful to the power elite in numerous ways. And now it would seem he's going to be used to provide credibility to the International Criminal Court.

A friend of the Daily Bell's pointed this out to us yesterday and it makes a lot of sense. The Soros-funded ICC has not met with a rapturous reception and even many developing country leaders are wary of it.

But if Ecuador can draw in the ICC as a protector of Ecuador against the big British bully that is standing in the way of Assange's legal extradition, it would be a tremendous way of positioning the Court as a friend of the developing world.

Already the Assange extradition is being seen as a struggle between North and South. People have not been able to explain the bad behavior of British officials but it all becomes clear if one looks on it as an elaborate psy-op.

US drone strikes target rescuers in Pakistan – and the west stays silent

Guardian
Glenn Greenwald

The US government has long maintained, reasonably enough, that a defining tactic of terrorism is to launch a follow-up attack aimed at those who go to the scene of the original attack to rescue the wounded and remove the dead. Morally, such methods have also been widely condemned by the west as a hallmark of savagery. Yet, as was demonstrated yet again this weekend in Pakistan, this has become one of the favorite tactics of the very same US government.

A 2004 official alert from the FBI warned that "terrorists may use secondary explosive devices to kill and injure emergency personnel responding to an initial attack"; the bulletin advised that such terror devices "are generally detonated less than one hour after initial attack, targeting first responders as well as the general population". Security experts have long noted that the evil of this tactic lies in its exploitation of the natural human tendency to go to the scene of an attack to provide aid to those who are injured, and is specifically potent for sowing terror by instilling in the population an expectation that attacks can, and likely will, occur again at any time and place:

"'The problem is that once the initial explosion goes off, many people will believe that's it, and will respond accordingly,' [the Heritage Foundation's Jack] Spencer said … The goal is to 'incite more terror. If there's an initial explosion and a second explosion, then we're thinking about a third explosion,' Spencer said."

A 2007 report from the US department of homeland security christened the term "double tap" to refer to what it said was "a favorite tactic of Hamas: a device is set off, and when police and other first responders arrive, a second, larger device is set off to inflict more casualties and spread panic." Similarly, the US justice department has highlighted this tactic in its prosecutions of some of the nation's most notorious domestic terrorists. Eric Rudolph, convicted of bombing gay nightclubs and abortion clinics, was said to have "targeted federal agents by placing second bombs nearby set to detonate after police arrived to investigate the first explosion".

In 2010, when WikiLeaks published a video of the incident in which an Apache helicopter in Baghdad killed two Reuters journalists, what sparked the greatest outrage was not the initial attack, which the US army claimed was aimed at armed insurgents, but rather the follow-up attack on those who arrived at the scene to rescue the wounded. Fromthe Guardian's initial report on the WikiLeaks video:

"A van draws up next to the wounded man and Iraqis climb out. They are unarmed and start to carry the victim to the vehicle in what would appear to be an attempt to get him to hospital. One of the helicopters opens fire with armour-piercing shells. 'Look at that. Right through the windshield,' says one of the crew. Another responds with a laugh.

"Sitting behind the windscreen were two children who were wounded. 

"After ground forces arrive and the children are discovered, the American air crew blame the Iraqis. 'Well it's their fault for bringing kids in to a battle,' says one. 'That's right,' says another. 

"Initially the US military said that all the dead were insurgents."

In the wake of that video's release, international condemnation focused on the shooting of the rescuers who subsequently arrived at the scene of the initial attack. The New Yorker's Raffi Khatchadourian explained:

"On several occasions, the Apache gunner appears to fire rounds into people after there is evidence that they have either died or are suffering from debilitating wounds. The rules of engagement and the law of armed combat do not permit combatants to shoot at people who are surrendering or who no longer pose a threat because of their injuries. What about the people in the van who had come to assist the struggling man on the ground? The Geneva conventions state that protections must be afforded to people who 'collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe.'"

He added that "A 'positively identified' combatant who provides medical aid to someone amid fighting does not automatically lose his status as a combatant, and may still be legally killed," but – as is true for drone attacks – there is, manifestly, no way to know who is showing up at the scene of the initial attack, certainly not with "positive identification" (by official policy, the US targets people in Pakistan and elsewhere for death even without knowing who they are). Even commentators who defendedthe initial round of shooting by the Apache helicopter by claiming there was evidence that one of the targets was armed typically noted, "the shooting of the rescuers, however, is highly disturbing."

But attacking rescuers (and arguably worse, bombing funerals of America's drone victims) is now a tactic routinely used by the US in Pakistan. In February, the Bureau of Investigative Journalismdocumented that "the CIA's drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals." Specifically: "at least 50 civilians were killed in follow-up strikes when they had gone to help victims." That initial TBIJ report detailed numerous civilians killed by such follow-up strikes on rescuers, and established precisely the terror effect which the US government has long warned are sown by such attacks:

"Yusufzai, who reported on the attack, says those killed in the follow-up strike 'were trying to pull out the bodies, to help clear the rubble, and take people to hospital.' The impact of drone attacks on rescuers has been to scare people off, he says: 'They've learnt that something will happen. No one wants to go close to these damaged building anymore.'"

Since that first bureau report, there have been numerous other documented cases of the use by the US of this tactic: "On [4 June], USdrones attacked rescuers in Waziristan in western Pakistan minutes after an initial strike, killing 16 people in total according to the BBC. On 28 May, drones were also reported to have returned to the attack in Khassokhel near Mir Ali." Moreover, "between May 2009 and June 2011, at least 15 attacks on rescuers were reported by credible news media, including the New York Times, CNN, ABC News and Al Jazeera."

In June, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns, said that if "there have been secondary drone strikes on rescuers who are helping (the injured) after an initial drone attack, those further attacks are a war crime." There is no doubt that there have been.

(A different UN official, the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson, this weekend demanded that the US "must open itself to an independent investigation into its use of drone strikes or the United Nations will be forced to step in", and warned that the demand "will remain at the top of the UN political agenda until some consensus and transparency has been achieved". For many American progressives, caring about what the UN thinks is so very 2003.)

The frequency with which the US uses this tactic is reflected by this December 2011 report from ABC News on the drone killing of 16-year-old Tariq Khan and his 12-year-old cousin Waheed, just days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest US drones:

"Asked for documentation of Tariq and Waheed's deaths, Akbar did not provide pictures of the missile strike scene. Virtually none exist, since drones often target people who show up at the scene of an attack."

Not only does that tactic intimidate rescuers from helping the wounded and removing the dead, but it also ensures that journalists will be unwilling to go to the scene of a drone attack out of fear of a follow-up attack.

This has now happened yet again this weekend in Pakistan, which witnessed what Reuters calls "a flurry of drone attacks" that "pounded northern Pakistan over the weekend", "killing 13 people in three separate attacks". The attacks "came as Pakistanis celebrate the end of the holy month of Ramadan with the festival of Eid al-Fitr." At least one of these weekend strikes was the type of "double tap" explosion aimed at rescuers which, the US government says, is the hallmark of Hamas:

"At least six militants were killed when US drones fired missiles twice on Sunday in North Waziristan Agency. 

"In the first strike, four missiles were fired on two vehicles in the Mana Gurbaz area of district Shawal in North Waziristan Agency, while two missiles were fired in the second strike at the same site where militants were removing the wreckage of their destroyed vehicles."

An unnamed Pakistani official identically told Agence France-Presse that a second US drone "fired two missiles at the site of this morning's attack, where militants were removing the wreckage of their two destroyed vehicles". (Those killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan are more or less automatically deemed "militants" by unnamed "officials", and then uncritically called such by most of the western press – a practice that inexcusably continues despite revelations that the Obama administrationhas redefined "militants" to mean "all military-age males in a strike zone".)

It is telling indeed that the Obama administration now routinely uses tactics in Pakistan long denounced as terrorism when used by others, and does so with so little controversy. Just in the past several months, attacks on funerals of victims have taken place in Yemen (purportedly by al-Qaida) and in Syria (purportedly, though without evidence, by the Assad regime), and such attacks – understandably – sparked outrage. Yet, in the west, the silence about the Obama administration's attacks on funerals and rescuers is deafening.

But in the areas targeted by the US with these tactics, there is anything but silence. Pakistan's most popular politician, Imran Khan, has generated intense public support with his scathing denunciations of US drone attacks, and tweeted the following on Sunday:

As usual, US policies justified in the name of fighting terrorism – aside from being rather terroristic themselves – are precisely those which fuel the anti-American hatred that causes those attacks.

The reason for the silence about such matters, and the reason commentary of this sort sparks such anger and hostility, is two-fold: first, the US likes to think of terror as something only "others" engage in, not itself, and more so; second, supporters of Barack Obama, the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, simply do not want to think about him as someone who orders attacks on those rescuing his victims or funeral attendees gathered to mourn them.

That, however, is precisely what he is, as this mountain of evidence conclusively establishes.

This Is How We Know The Shocking Facts About Spy Campaign 'TrapWire' Are True

Business Insider
Michael Kelley

Last week WikiLeaks published internal emails from the U.S. private security firm Stratfor that describe a widespread surveillance network called TrapWire that was created and is run by former members of the CIA.

RT first broke the story about the system's staggering reach into the privacy of passersby and informative stories followed.

Then several news outlets claimed that the growing dismay was misguided, specifically the claim that cameras linked to TrapWire utilizes facial recognition software.

Ryan Gallagher of Slate said the reports are "rooted in hyperbole and misinformation" and Scott Shane of the New York Times called them "wildly exaggerated."

But one thing – besides the fact that the founder of TrapWire's parent company said the software "can collect information about people and vehicles that is more accurate than facial recognition" – proves to us that the reporting on TrapWire is rooted in reality: Mickey Mouse does it. 

A Naomi Wolf article in the Guardian about the rise of security cameras at Occupy hangouts and multi-billion dollar biometric technologies industry includes this story: 

A software engineer ... visited Disneyland, and ... the theme park offered him the photo of himself and his girlfriend to buy – with his credit card information already linked to it. He noted that he had never entered his name or information into anything at the theme park, or indicated that he wanted a photo, or alerted the humans at the ride to who he and his girlfriend were – so, he said, based on his professional experience, the system had to be using facial recognition technology. He had never signed an agreement allowing them to do so, and he declared that this use was illegal. He also claimed that Disney had recently shared data from facial-recognition technology with the United States military.

It turns out that Disney applies biometrics – that is, the statistical analysis of biological data – in the form of scanning visitor fingerprint information and identifying people with facial recognition software.

In fact, "Walt Disney World is responsible for the nation’s largest single commercial application of biometrics" and after 9/11 the government sought "Disney’s advice in intelligence, security and biometrics," as reported in 2006 by Karen Hamel of News 21.

Hamel listed several former Disneyland employees that have gone on to fill "some of the most sensitive positions in the U.S. intelligence and security communities," including:

• Disney executive Gordon Levin, who was part of a group convened by the Federal Aviation Administration and other federal agencies to help develop a plan for "Passenger Protection and Identity Verification" at airports by using biometrics.

• Eric Haseltine, who left his post as executive vice president of research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering in 2002 to become associate director for research at the NSA and then became National Intelligence Director John Negroponte’s assistant director for science and technology.

• Bran Ferren, who served on advisory boards for the Senate Intelligence Committee and offered his technological expertise to the NSA and the DHS.

So if Mickey does it at "the most wonderful place on Earth" – and willingly shares his biometrics secrets with the government – then it's no stretch that TrapWire actively spies on people all over the world.