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Post by Tired in CV on May 1, 2012 3:06:17 GMT -5
it might also be a cynical ploy to tout Obama as being "tough" on terrorism in an election year. Consider it so! Anything for a vote!
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Post by jdredd on Jun 27, 2012 12:11:12 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-polio-20120625,0,4349660.story "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan— The war between the CIA and Pakistani militant groups threatens to produce an unlikely casualty: thousands of children who are being denied polio vaccinations in one of the few places on Earth where the disease is still a menace. A phony inoculation program orchestrated by the CIA last year to help it track down Osama bin Laden bolstered long-standing claims by hard-line clerics that vaccination campaigns are a Western plot against Pakistanis." I'm sure the CIA thought the ends justified the means. They don't.
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Post by Tired in CV on Jun 27, 2012 15:53:36 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-polio-20120625,0,4349660.story "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan— The war between the CIA and Pakistani militant groups threatens to produce an unlikely casualty: thousands of children who are being denied polio vaccinations in one of the few places on Earth where the disease is still a menace. A phony inoculation program orchestrated by the CIA last year to help it track down Osama bin Laden bolstered long-standing claims by hard-line clerics that vaccination campaigns are a Western plot against Pakistanis." I'm sure the CIA thought the ends justified the means. They don't. APPROVED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION!
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Post by jdredd on Jun 27, 2012 20:50:18 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-polio-20120625,0,4349660.story "ISLAMABAD, Pakistan— The war between the CIA and Pakistani militant groups threatens to produce an unlikely casualty: thousands of children who are being denied polio vaccinations in one of the few places on Earth where the disease is still a menace. A phony inoculation program orchestrated by the CIA last year to help it track down Osama bin Laden bolstered long-standing claims by hard-line clerics that vaccination campaigns are a Western plot against Pakistanis." I'm sure the CIA thought the ends justified the means. They don't. APPROVED BY THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION! Which is exactly why Obummer will not get my vote in November.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 27, 2012 12:17:47 GMT -5
www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestoryamericas/2012/10/2012102784048632369.html"Earlier this year, Ben Emmerson, the United Nations special rapporteur on counter-terror operations, warned that the US may have committed war crimes with drone strikes that have killed civilians in Pakistan. On Thursday, he announced that a special investigations unit is being established to look into the legality of such strikes. But all evidence suggests that far from being concerned, the Obama administration is actually increasing the ferocity of what it calls a "targeted killing programme". The Washington Post has revealed that the US government has compiled a database called the 'disposition matrix' to "augment" the existing "kill lists", which will focus on suspects beyond the reach of American drones." Here's one subject I'll agree with you that Romney can't do any worse than Obama. Of course neither of them have anything to fear from a toothless UN.
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Post by jdredd on Feb 5, 2013 22:15:50 GMT -5
I see war criminal Eric Holder is on TV defending assassination drones again. I think the noose is beginning to tighten around this whole infamous "fighting terror with terror" campaign, and eventually even the geniuses behind killer drones will realize how counterproductive they are, even if they don't care about their legality or morality.
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Post by jdredd on Mar 6, 2013 18:25:46 GMT -5
www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/6/rand-paul-filibusters-brennan-nomination-cia-direc/"Sen. Rand Paul took to the floor of the U.S. Senate just before noon Wednesday and vowed to stay there “at length” in order to filibuster John O. Brennan, whom President Obama has nominated to be the next CIA director. The Kentucky Republican said he will hold up the nomination until he gets more information about the U.S. drone execution program, which has become a major sore point for many lawmakers on Capitol Hill." Finally, cracks are starting to appear in the Democrat-Republican consensus about the endless "War on Terrorism", almost a dozen years after 9/11. Sad that it had to be a Libertarian dissenting. Shame on Liberals.
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Post by jdredd on Mar 22, 2013 2:52:10 GMT -5
www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drone-base-in-niger-gives-us-a-strategic-foothold-in-west-africa/2013/03/21/700ee8d0-9170-11e2-9c4d-798c073d7ec8_story.html?hpid=z1"The harsh terrain of North and West Africa is rapidly emerging as yet another front in the United States’ long-running war against terrorist networks, a conflict that has fueled a revolution in drone warfare. Since taking office in 2009, President Obama has relied heavily on drones for operations, both declared and covert, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya and Somalia. U.S. drones also fly from allied bases in Turkey, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. Now, they are becoming a fixture in Africa. The U.S. military has built a major drone hub in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, and flies unarmed Reaper drones from Ethiopia. Until recently, it conducted reconnaissance flights over East Africa from the island nation of the Seychelles."
Just when you thought the American Empire was starting to shrink...
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Post by jdredd on May 23, 2013 15:55:46 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-restricts-drone-strikes-overseas-20130523,0,987509.story "His administration has faced skepticism from Congress, which has held a series of hearings on targeted killings. None of America’s major allies have fully embraced the U.S. legal theory of why the strikes are justified. The policy reasons driving the change, aides said, are that the core group of Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan is all but defeated and the war in Afghanistan is winding down. That means there is less reason to hit massed groups in Pakistan under a tactic known as “signature strikes,” in which the CIA fired missiles at groups of suspected militants whose identities were unknown." Better late than never, I suppose. Kind of like a serial killer who slows down in his old age, we have to be thankful for a lower body count. He'd still be on trial as a war criminal if it was in my power, along with his CIA hit men.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 3, 2013 2:47:16 GMT -5
www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201381141830129979.html"America’s actions are legal" claimed President Obama in a speech on drones earlier this year. It was the latest in a string of attempts made by his administration to justify covert strikes carried out by the US overseas - in countries including the Arab peninsula’s poorest nation, Yemen. But back in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, it appears the country’s civil society disagrees. Members of Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference (NDC) - a US-supported initiative which will map out Yemen’s post-Arab Spring future - overwhelmingly voted to criminalise drone strikes in Yemen. The Yemeni people have spoken. Now Presidents Hadi and Obama must listen - for their own sake, as much as that of Yemen. While it is clear that no leader may lawfully authorise another sovereign to slaughter his own people, the decision to criminalise drones strikes sends a clear warning message to Hadi - if the current practice is to continue, it may well lead to a criminal prosecution." The CIA's murder drone campaign is starting to run into some headwinds.
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Post by jdredd on Dec 22, 2013 0:45:05 GMT -5
www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/12/21/covert-action-in-colombia/?hpid=z1"The 50-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), once considered the best-funded insurgency in the world, is at its smallest and most vulnerable state in decades, due in part to a CIA covert action program that has helped Colombian forces kill at least two dozen rebel leaders, according to interviews with more than 30 former and current U.S. and Colombian officials. The secret assistance, which also includes substantial eavesdropping help from the National Security Agency, is funded through a multibillion-dollar black budget. It is not a part of the public $9 billion package of mostly U.S. military aid called Plan Colombia, which began in 2000. The previously undisclosed CIA program was authorized by President George W. Bush in the early 2000s and has continued under President Obama, according to U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic officials. Most of those interviewed spoke on the condition of anonymity because the program is classified and ongoing." Does this shock anyone? It's just business as usual since 1945 when the right wing seized our foreign policy, and we took up where Hitler left off.
I got out of having to put my ass on the line in Vietnam, so what do I care?
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Post by jdredd on May 21, 2014 1:50:20 GMT -5
www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-27489045"The CIA has ended the use of vaccine programmes in its spying operations amid concerns for the safety of health workers, the White House has said. In a letter to US public health schools, a White House aide said the CIA stopped such practices in August. The CIA used a fake vaccine programme to try to find Osama Bin Laden before US special forces killed him in 2011. The CIA's move comes after a wave of deadly attacks by militants on polio vaccination workers in Pakistan."By publicising this policy, our objective is to dispel one canard that militant groups have used as justification for cowardly attacks against vaccination providers," CIA spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement to the BBC." The CIA, which believes the ends justify the means, now has to publicly self-criticize for one instance of immorality. Hopefully it's just a start. And how can it be a "canard" if it was true?
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Post by jdredd on Jun 8, 2014 13:34:02 GMT -5
www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/08/bowe-bergdahl-guantanamo-detainees-target-captivity"Secretary of state John Kerry has indicated that five Guantánamo Bay detainees released in exchange for an American soldier could be killed by drone strike if they return to the battlefield in Afghanistan. Kerry’s implied threat to the five Taliban fighters came as Republicans ramped-up their criticism of the deal to release Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, a prisoner of the Taliban for five years until he was freed last week." Let me get this straight: We couldn't put these guys on trial while they were in Guantanamo, but once we let them go we can murder them without any trial by remote control. And this from a so-called "lib". I still haven't figured out why we are at war with the Taliban to begin with, but whatever, it's old news now. Every country has to have a hobby, I guess.
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Post by jdredd on Aug 6, 2014 2:14:02 GMT -5
www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/05/us-usa-cia-senate-security-idUSKBN0G527X20140805"(Reuters) - The U.S. State Department is increasing security at some American embassies in anticipation of the public release of a long-awaited Senate report detailing the CIA's use of harsh interrogation techniques, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the additional security measures reflected concerns that the report could prompt protests in countries where the CIA operated secret prisons that were used to conduct interrogations." Gosh, are some chickens coming home to roost? Too bad none of those CIA sadists will ever go on trial.
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Post by jdredd on Oct 1, 2014 22:34:58 GMT -5
america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/10/1/syria-civilian-casualties.html"A U.S. policy requiring the military to avoid civilian casualties as much as possible does not apply to the current operations in Syria and Iraq, White House officials said. The policy, announced last year by President Barack Obama, bars drone strikes unless there is “near certainty” that they would not cause civilian deaths. Obama had been criticized for his administration’s campaign of drone strikes — which have killed at least 2,400 people, including many civilians — in countries including Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. But that policy will not apply to U.S. strikes in Syria, the White House confirmed in a statement sent to Yahoo News on Tuesday. Syria's war The “near certainty” standard only applies “when we take direct action ‘outside areas of active hostilities,’ as we noted at the time,” Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council, told Yahoo News." Hey, Caitlin, how does it feel to be an accessory to war crimes? Oh, I'm sure you've rationalized the guilt away. Everyone does.
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