This video from 2007 in the USA is called The Cost of War.
Nuclear War or Real Security? Joseph Gerson, Truthout: “In the months leading up to the debt deal struck on August 2, we grew accustomed to news of our government on the verge of bankruptcy, and news that failing to lift the debt ceiling would trigger a second recession – or worse – and that the best we could hope for was the nightmare of $2.7 trillion in cuts to Social Security benefits, Medicare and essential social services. Talk about national decline! When I return to Hiroshima to mark the August 6 anniversary of the atomic bombing that destroyed that city in nine seconds, people will ask, ‘How can the US plan to spend still more to prepare for nuclear war?’ Here’s what I will have to tell them: We can invest to intimidate the world, but not to create jobs, keep people in their homes, or to build the 21st century infrastructure our children deserve”: here.
Nick Turse, TomDispatch and AlterNet: “Last year, Karen DeYoung and Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post reported that U.S. Special Operations forces were deployed in 75 countries, up from 60 at the end of the Bush presidency. By the end of this year, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me, that number will likely reach 120. ‘We do a lot of traveling – a lot more than Afghanistan or Iraq,’ he said recently. This global presence – in about 60% of the world’s nations and far larger than previously acknowledged – provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite waging a secret war in all corners of the world”: here.
US-Iraqi forces kill a child. Protests swept the MidEast and that included Iraq. Nouri al-Maliki tried to distract (his 100 days), tried to suppress (beating and jailing reporters covering the protests) and his assault continues: here.
An influential Iraqi cleric called on US occupation forces on Tuesday to pull out of the country by the end of this year in line with the Status of Forces Agreement signed by US and Iraqi officials in 2008: here.
Violence Spikes in Iraq as U.S. Considers Ways to Extend Occupation Past December Deadline: here.
Key creditor China warned Washington today that its military meddling abroad is undermining the US economy and could “seriously impede stable development of the global economy”: here.
Cheney, Rumsfeld and the Dark Art of Propaganda | by Amy Goodman. Common Dreams: here.
TV Analysts’ Collusion With the Military: Disgraceful but Legal? Dina Rasor, Truthout: “The Department of Defense’s Inspector General’s (DoD IG) office had finished a report saying no harm, no foul when Rumsfeld’s Pentagon used 74 military analysts, mainly retired generals, to push for the Iraq war and advocate more war spending and more DoD budget spending as national television commentators…. The report found that at least 43 of the military analysts were affiliated with defense contractors”: here.
We are concerned and disappointed at the proposal of the BBC executive to close the BBC Wildlife Fund (Environment blog, 2 August). The fund, in its relatively short life, has been an extraordinary success both in raising some £3m for conservation in the UK and overseas, and in bringing together a large number of environmental and development NGOs in support. Many have given a great deal of their time and support to the board of trustees and the excellent small staff team. Together they have attracted substantial public support.
The major factor in bringing such a group together has been recognition of the unique position, role and reputation of the BBC in being able to promote the need for conservation of the natural world to so many across the world, and its ability to engage the public and generate much needed additional resources to enable more conservation work to be achieved. Indeed, in establishing the fund, we believe the BBC recognised the respect in which its natural history unit is so widely held and the value of its wonderful and groundbreaking wildlife documentaries to the corporation over several decades.
The fund provided a mechanism to further this influence and put something back into environmental conservation, as well as championing sustainable outcomes which enable economic betterment for local communities. At a time of obvious crisis for the world’s biodiversity, we can only ask what message it sends for such an iconic and respected organisation as the BBC to appear to be drawing back from its support of the living world. It is our hope that the tremendous work already achieved can continue and that the decision to close the fund can be reversed.
Lockdown at Virginia Tech University after gunman reported on campus
Agencies | Aug 4, 2011, 08.18PM IST
BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA: Authorities issued a lockdown on Thursday at the campus of Virginia Tech, site of a 2007 mass shooting that killed 32 people, the school said.
An alert on the school’s website said: “Person with a gun reported near Dietrick (a campus building). Stay inside. Secure doors. Emergency personnel responding. Call 911 for help.”
A subsequent crime alert said three juveniles attending a camp on campus reported seeing a white man who appeared to have a gun covered with a cloth.
The university issued an alert on its website at 9:37 a.m. Thursday telling students and employees to stay inside and secure doors.
The alert says the gunman was reported near Dietrick Hall, a three-story dining facility. The dining hall is steps away from the dorm where the first shootings took place in the 2007 that left 33 dead.
The school says on its website that three young people attending a camp at the school reported seeing a man holding what may have been a handgun. They said it was covered by a cloth or covering of some sort, and that the man was walking in the direction of the volleyball courts.
“Officers responded immediately to the area but found no one matching the description,” the crime alert said.
“We have been told to stay put until we get more information,” Virginia Tech communications officer Lynn Davis told CNN.
British BNP nazis and Breivik: here. And here. And here. And Swedish nazi singer Saga: here.
USA: If Pamela Geller’s “they had it coming” response to the young victims of the Utøya massacre wasn’t enough to turn your stomach, LoonWatch draws our attention to this unspeakable article by Debbie Schlussel: here.
A Norwegian prosecutor has said he is concerned that the man who has confessed to killing 77 people is declining to give information that could determine if he had accomplices.
Seven dead in shooting at Christian college in northern California: here.
The veteran’s identity is withheld in court filings, but he worked for an American contracting company as a translator for the Marines in the volatile Anbar province before being detained for nine months at Camp Cropper, a U.S. military facility near the Baghdad airport dedicated to holding “high-value” detainees.
The government says he was suspected of helping get classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces enter Iraq. But he was never charged with a crime and says he never broke the law.
Lawyers for the man, who is in his 50s, say he was preparing to come home to the United States on annual leave when he was abducted by the U.S. military and held without justification while his family knew nothing about his whereabouts or even whether he was still alive.
Court papers filed on his behalf say he was repeatedly abused, then suddenly released without explanation in August 2006. Two years later, he filed suit in U.S. District Court in Washington arguing that Rumsfeld personally approved torturous interrogation techniques on a case-by-case basis and controlled his detention without access to courts in violation of his constitutional rights.
Chicago attorney Mike Kanovitz, who is representing the plaintiff, says it appears the military wanted to keep his client behind bars so he couldn’t tell anyone about an important contact he made with a leading sheik while helping collect intelligence in Iraq.
“The U.S. government wasn’t ready for the rest of the world to know about it, so they basically put him on ice,” Kanovitz said in a telephone interview. “If you’ve got unchecked power over the citizens, why not use it?”
The Obama administration has represented Rumsfeld through the Justice Department and argued that the former defense secretary cannot be sued personally for official conduct. The Justice Department also argued that a judge cannot review wartime decisions that are the constitutional responsibility of Congress and the president. And the department said the case could disclose sensitive information and distract from the war effort, and said the threat of liability would impede future military decisions.
But U.S. District Judge James Gwin rejected those arguments and said U.S. citizens are protected by the Constitution at home or abroad during wartime.
“The court finds no convincing reason that United States citizens in Iraq should or must lose previously declared substantive due process protections during prolonged detention in a conflict zone abroad,” Gwin wrote in a ruling issued Tuesday.
“The stakes in holding detainees at Camp Cropper may have been high, but one purpose of the constitutional limitations on interrogation techniques and conditions of confinement even domestically is to strike a balance between government objectives and individual rights even when the stakes are high,” the judge ruled.
In many other cases brought by foreign detainees, judges have dismissed torture claims made against U.S. officials for their personal involvement in decisions over prisoner treatment. But this is the second time a federal judge has allowed U.S. citizens to sue Rumsfeld personally.
U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen in Illinois last year said two other Americans who worked in Iraq as contractors and were held at Camp Cropper, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, can pursue claims that they were tortured using Rumsfeld-approved methods after they alleged illegal activities by their company. Rumsfeld is appealing that ruling, which Gwin cited.
The Supreme Court sets a high bar for suing high-ranking officials, requiring that they be tied directly to a violation of constitutional rights and must have clearly understood their actions crossed that line.
The case before Gwin involves a man who went to Iraq in December 2004 to work with an American-owned defense contracting firm. He was assigned as an Arabic translator for Marines gathering intelligence in Anbar. He says he was the first American to open direct talks with Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who became an important U.S. ally and later led a revolt of Sunni sheiks against al-Qaida before being killed by a bomb.
In November 2005, when he was to go on home leave, Navy Criminal Investigative Service agents questioned him about his work, refusing his requests for representation by his employer, the Marines or an attorney. The Justice Department says he was told he was suspected of helping provide classified information to the enemy and helping anti-coalition forces attempting to cross from Syria into Iraq.
He says he refused to answer questions because of concern about confidentiality, and the agents handcuffed and blindfolded him, kicked him in the back and threatened to shoot him if he tried to escape. He was then transferred to an unidentified location for three days before being flown to Camp Cropper.
For his first three months at Camp Cropper he says he was held incommunicado in solitary confinement with a hole in the ground for a toilet. He says he was then moved to cells holding terrorist suspects hostile to the United States who were told about his work for the military, leading to physical attacks by his cellmates that left him in constant fear for his life.
He claims guards tortured him by repeatedly choking him, exposing him to extreme cold and continuous artificial light, blindfolding and hooding him, waking him by banging on a door or slamming a window when he tried to sleep and blasting music into his cell at “intolerably loud volumes.”
He says he always denied any wrongdoing and truthfully answered questions but interrogators continued to threaten him. Both sides say a detainee status board in December 2005 determined he was a threat to the multinational forces in Iraq and authorized his continued detention, but he says he was not allowed to see most of the evidence against him. Documents the government filed with the court only say he is suspected of a crime, without providing details.
US Navy Vet Sues Donald Rumsfeld for Torture in Iraq, Court Allows Case to Move Forward (Video): here.
Countering Rumsfeld Lie — Detainees Were Waterboarded: here.
More Evidence of Water Torture “Depravity” in Rumsfeld’s Military. Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout: “There have been a number of cases of detainees held by the Department of Defense (DoD) who have been subjected to water torture, including some that come very close to waterboarding, according to an investigation by Truthout. The prisoners have been held in a number of settings, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Guantanamo Bay”: here.
USA: Inspector General: Army Improperly Tested Body Armor Plates: here.
Truthout Contributor Jeffrey Kaye Discusses Guantanamo Water Torture and Rumsfeld’s Denials (Video). Jeffrey Kaye, RTAmerica: “A new report published by Truthout last week suggests that there may be much more to interrogation techniques and where they were used. This includes a little known testimony by former Guantanamo detainee Murat Kurnaz before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he described not waterboarding, but a form of water treatment. Jeffrey Kaye, the Truthout contributor who authored the groundbreaking report, discusses”: here.
Desperate for Democracy in Iraq. Protesters fight for what U.S. media say they already have: here.
TEN leading human rights organisations, along with victims of torture and their lawyers, have withdrawn from the British government’s Detainee Inquiry because they believe that its purpose is to hide the truth, not to get to it: here.
Secret interrogation policy confirms UK government’s complicity in war crimes: here.
Britain: Government proposals to introduce secret evidence in compensation cases alleging British complicity in torture are an attempt to ensure dirty secrets remain swept under the carpet, Reprieve said today.
After the killing of 76 people in Norway by the fascist Anders Breivik, Norwegian authorities ruled out any connection between Breivik and other right-wing groups. This was a startling and highly peculiar decision, as Breivik mentioned many far-right individuals and groups in the 1,500-page “manifesto” he authored and released just before the killings.
It has been established that Breivik was a member of the far-right Progress Party and its youth wing in Norway from 1997 to 2007. In 2009 he registered to be a member of Nordisk, an online forum. Nordisk was set up in 2007 by the Nordiska Förbundet (Nordic League), established in 2004 by the Nazi Swedish Resistance Movement.
On July 26 it was revealed that at 2:09 PM on the day of the attack, less than 90 minutes before he detonated a bomb outside government buildings in Oslo, Breivik e-mailed his document to 1,003 addresses. The message alongside the attached document addressed each recipient as a “Western European patriot” and read: “It is a gift to you … I ask you to distribute it to everyone you know”.
This e-mail was sent to 250 British contacts, including leading EDL and BNP figures. It was also sent to others connected to a fascist front outfit, Stop Islamification of Europe (SIOE). In an online posting two years ago, Breivik stated: “I have on some occasions had discussions with SIOE and EDL and recommended them to use certain strategies”.
Support for Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s Labor Party, targeted by Breivik in the July 22 bombing and shootings that left 77 dead, soared to more than 40 percent, two polls showed this week. If a vote were held today, that would be the best result since the 1985 election. Approval of Stoltenberg’s handling of the crisis is at more than 90 percent, polls show: here.
The unexplained killing last week of the Libyan rebel military commander, General Abdel Fatah Younis, has highlighted the divided and unstable character of the NATO-backed Transitional National Council (TNC) and the military stalemate in its efforts to oust the regime of Muammar Gaddafi. The assassination has provoked a series of comments by British and French ministers that effectively reverse months of US and NATO propaganda predicting the imminent fall of Gaddafi.
Speaking on Monday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague declared: “We don’t know how long it will be. We don’t know when Colonel Gadaffi will see that he has to go. We don’t know when members of his regime will come to that conclusion.” While expressing the British government’s determination to continue the war, Hague warned that “in a conflict, things do not go in an even manner.”
Hague’s comments followed those on Sunday of British Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who conceded that the Libyan rebels were unlikely to topple Gaddafi.
The French navy announced today that it is to pull the mammoth Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier out of the Libya war for months of repair work: here.
In NATO’s oh so humanitarian war on Libya, “100 fleeing Libyan refugees ‘die of dehydration’ on boat bound for Italy”: here.
Italy demands to know if Libya blockade warship ignored refugees: here.
H. Patricia Hynes, Truthout: “Worldwide, the military is the most secretive, shielded and privileged of polluters because the hallowed mantra, national security, trumps the public’s right to know. Thus, most of the extant data on pollution from US-military-related sites is available solely because of citizen pressure on the Department of Defense (DoD), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Congress to inventory, assess, and divulge the extent of the military’s environmentally hazardous activities. By the late 1980s, public data revealed that the Pentagon was generating a ton of toxic waste per minute, more toxic waste than the five largest US chemical companies combined, making it the largest polluter in the United States”: here.
‘For too long, middle-class Americans and their families have been held hostage while anti-tax crusaders threaten American default unless vital programmes, like Social Security and Medicare, are slashed.
‘Unfortunately under this debt deal, those programmes will still be under attack – this time by a newly-created ‘Super Committee’ of just 12 members of Congress tasked to cut programmes by $1.5 trillion dollars. This committee plan will be fast-tracked to force it through Congress with no amendments allowed and little time for debate.
‘Our work is clearly cut out for us. The House Speaker has said he will appoint only ‘Super Committee’ members opposed to revenue increases. Leaving the debate right where we started . . . 100% benefit cuts and 0% revenue . . . except this time, the proposal will bypass the normal Congressional process. That makes it even easier to force middle-class benefit cuts to pay for billionaire tax breaks and corporate loopholes. This is no way to run a country. And the over three million members and supporters of the National Committee will continue to deliver that message loud and clear . . .’
The verdict of international capital on the deal was a huge sell-off of shares, and yet another increase in the price of gold, now above $1,664 an ounce, as banks and other lenders trembled at the further weakening of the US dollar, and that its interpenetrating with the financial crisis of the eurozone, could only lead to a greater financial disaster and a worldwide slump.
The federal budget deal targets critical social programs that are already under duress at the state level: here.
Women are hurt most by debt deal cuts to Medicare, Social Security, tuition aid: here.
JUST one day before Democrats and Republicans were set to forge a trillion dollar debt deal that would impose savage cuts on the American working class, US workers took decisive strike action to defend their living standards.
The strike came after AMO’s contract with the company expired at midnight July 31.
‘This strike is the result of American Steamship’s Company refusal to negotiate in good faith, or even present a proposal that recognises the professionalism of the AMO officers and stewards and their value to a company that operates very profitably with AMO on board its ships,’ said AMO National President Tom Bethel.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 