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Active-duty troops, vets launch campaign to help GIs resist Afghanistan war

June 27, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

‘Our Lives, Our Rights’ campaign asserts the right to refuse to fight

In response to the catastrophic, immoral war in Afghanistan and the ceaseless epidemic of military suicides, active-duty U.S. troops along with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have launched a nation-wide campaign to educate and assist service members in their right to refuse to fight. Click here for news coverage of the campaign.

The founders of the campaign are war resisters and active-duty service members who are currently refusing to participate in the war any longer.

Please make a donation to help launch this important campaign.

This campaign is called “Our Lives, Our Rights.” Its purpose is to reach-out to service members throughout the entire U.S. military in everyway we can—passing out flyers on bases, sending care packages, building an online and media presence, creating organizing teams in military units, and more—to spread the message that the officers and politicians do not care about our lives, and that we have rights as service members. Above all, we hold that the most fundamental right we have is to refuse to deploy to the absurd, immoral war in Afghanistan.

As the politicians lie and stumble over themselves to explain why we must endlessly occupy Afghanistan, and while the generals refuse to address the criminal negligence for troops with PTSD, countless lives are literally being thrown away. It’s a critical time for service members to know about their rights and how to exercise them.

Thousands of U.S. service members today qualify to become Conscientious Objectors, whether or not they have deployed before, entitling them to be exempt from deployment and a discharge with full benefits. Others who are compelled to go AWOL also have legal rights and options. Those with psychological trauma, diagnosed or not, have the right to demand adequate treatment and exemption from deployment. But these rights are unknown to most—so we want to make sure all service members know with this campaign.

Those who resist the war or advocate for their interests can face harassment, intimidation and denial of rights by their chain of command, or need help properly exercising their rights. This campaign will provide a community of support from other service members and veterans, expose mistreatment by the chain of command, and assist service members in the process.

We believe this campaign has the potential to save the lives of scores of U.S. service members and present a real challenge to the generals and politicians who are orchestrating the destruction of so many lives at home and abroad. To maximize the potential of the campaign, we need your help.

Here’s how you can help the ‘Our Lives, Our Rights’ campaign reach thousands of U.S. service members all over the world:

A Message To Police And Military

May 24, 2012 in ANON NeWs, Headline, Occupy, Politics, Video Perspective, World News

This is a message to the Police, to the military, to the TSA, to Homeland Security and to members of every other enforcement arm of the government.

Published on Apr 6, 2012 by    :  http://www.waitingforthestorm.com/an-open-message-to-police-military

I know that most of you chose the life in uniform because you love your country; because you believed in what that uniform stood for; because you wanted to serve and protect… but I also know that deep down inside you sense that something has gone terribly wrong.

You’ve watched with the rest of us as elected officials have incrementally legislated our constitutional rights away, you’ve watched as the state surveillance apparatus has expanded like a cancer through the heart of the nation, and you’ve watched as the corruption has become more and more blatant. I can understand why you haven’t wanted to acknowledge the implications of what you are witnessing. To face the reality of what is happening would mean admitting that you’ve been betrayed, and it would mean coming to terms with the fact that you… are working… for criminals.

I don’t envy your position. I know your job depends on you following orders. I know you have families to support and bills to pay, and I know that if you stand up you could loose everything… but what you need to understand is that continuing to submit to unconstitutional, and immoral orders will not protect you from what is coming. Read the rest of this entry →

Build up to WW3 – Philippines & U.S. stage War Games in face of CHINA warning

May 9, 2012 in Headline, Politics, Video Perspective, World News

Published on Apr 30, 2012 by

Build up to WW3 – Philippines & U.S. stage War Games in face of CHINA warning

U.S. and Philippine commandos waded ashore on Wednesday in a mock assault to retake a small island in energy-rich waters disputed with China, part of a drill involving thousands of troops Beijing had said would raise the risk of armed conflict. Read the rest of this entry →

FBI: ‘We are losing to hackers’ Hacktivists Win

March 30, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

rt.com

if you thought hacktivists only messed with the FBI on Fridays, think again.

On Wednesday the Federal Bureau of Investigation admitted they are fighting a losing battle in cyberspace.

Shawn Henry, the FBI executive assistant director said fighting on the future “battleground” has been harder than initially thought.

I don’t see how we ever come out of this without changes in technology or changes in behavior, because with the status quo, it’s an unsustainable model,” Henry told The Wall Street Journal.

Unsustainable in that you never get ahead, never become secure; never have a reasonable expectation of privacy or security,” he added

Henry has gone on record saying he believes “the cyber threat is an existential one, meaning that a major cyber-attack could potentially wipe out whole companies,” said Henry on the FBI news website. Read the rest of this entry →

American Facing Prison for Protesting Killings of Civilians and Children Afganistan

March 13, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

KATHY KELLY  –  accuracy.org Institute for public accuracy
Kelly is just back from Afghanistan and may be sentenced to prison today along with other peace activists for protests outside the base. She is with the group Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She was on “Democracy Now!” this morning along with a representative from the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. She said today: “President Obama and U.S. military brass are depicting a U.S. soldier killing 16 Afghan civilians as an exceptional event. But in fact, this tragedy reflects and encapsulates the U.S. war of choice in Afghanistan. Groups of U.S. soldiers have been breaking into Afghan homes and killing people, without cause or provocation, for the last 11 years. Civilians have been afflicted by aerial bombing by helicopter gunships, drone surveillance and attacks, and night raids.

“In the recent past, Afghan civilians have been appalled and agitated by news of U.S. soldiers that went on killing sprees, cutting off body parts of their victims to save as war trophies. They’ve been repulsed by photos of U.S. soldiers urinating on the corpses of Afghans whom they have killed. The burning of the Quran further enraged civilians. One of the greatest factors contributing to public dismay and hostility towards the foreign forces is the practice of night raids. As many as 40 of these raids happen around the country on some nights, and the U.S. military reports an average of 10 a night. U.S. /NATO soldiers burst into people’s homes and attack people in their sleep.

The U.S. wants the Karzai government to sign a Strategic Protection Agreement that will allow U.S./NATO forces to stay in Afghanistan until 2024 and possibly beyond. This agreement will very likely frustrate possibilities for a negotiated settlement since Taliban forces have repeatedly stated their demand that all foreign troops leave Afghanistan. The Strategic Partnership Agreement has never been presented to the Afghan Members of Parliament for their consideration. No one in the U.S. or Karzai government seems concerned about how ordinary Afghans might view the Strategic Partnership Agreement.

“Arguably, people in Afghanistan are looking for ways to vent long-suppressed anger over having their future dictated by their invaders and occupiers.”

Kelly recently wrote the piece “The Ghost and the Machine: Drone Warfare and Accountability” along with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

Also see from the The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers: “2 Million Candles to End the Afghan War.”

See by Anand Gopal “Night Raids, Hidden Detention Centers, the ‘Black Jail,’ and the Dogs of War in Afghanistan.”

US may use CIA cloak to hide Afghan presence

March 7, 2012 in Headline, Politics, Update, World News

Afghan men walk past by US soldiers in Ghazni province on February 2, 2012 (AFP Photo / Aref Yaqubi)

The Pentagon is reportedly deliberating over putting elite troops and Special Forces in Afghanistan under CIA control. The move would reduce official US presence with a view to meeting Obama’s promise of total withdrawal from the country by 2014.

Top US military sources told Agence France-Presse that the idea had been circulated by senior defense intelligence as a way to reduce US presence in Afghanistan before the 2014 deadline.

It is one of several initiatives currently under discussion in the Pentagon, according to AFP sources. The proposals have not yet been presented to US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Washington has denied the existence of such a proposal, with Pentagon spokesperson George Little calling the claims “simply wrong.”

If the plan were to go ahead, Washington would be able to say it had no soldiers on the ground, as putting troops under CIA control would re-classify them as spies. As such the US could legitimately maintain its military presence in the war-torn country.

Moreover, the US government would not be obliged to inform the American public over funding or military operations of CIA-controlled troops. Administration would fall to the White House, with top intelligence officials effectively turning it into a covert operation.

In order to be approved, the plan would have to pass through the White House, congressional oversight committees and the Afghan government.

Special Forces under the guise of the CIA were used last year in the operation to raid Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

US forces currently stationed in Afghanistan work in tandem with local security forces, training Afghan troops and conducting raids on Al-Qaeda stronghold areas. The Obama administration had promised a complete withdrawal of US presence from the country by 2014, and is currently implementing a gradual handover of security to Afghan hands.

The deteriorating relationship between the two cooperating forces has recently been marred by reports of US troops burning Korans. Over 30 people died, including several Western soldiers, in the ensuing protests across the country.

http://rt.com/news/cia-us-special-forces-829/

Honduras – Resistance Front Forms Political Party

March 1, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

Honduras’s National Front for Popular Resistance (FNRP) gathered in Tegucigalpa February 11-12 to launch a political party. The name, “Liberation and Re-foundation Party (Libre),” is timely: Honduras is mired in catastrophe.

Its murder rate is the world’s highest. Political violence, crime, militarization, poverty, malnutrition, drug trafficking, and police corruption are overflowing. Landowner thugs kill family farmers; the two-year toll of murdered journalists is 13. The economy shrunk 2.1% in 2009. On February 14 a prison fire killed 350 mostly uncharged and untried inmates. Most died behind doors the police didn’t unlock. Read the rest of this entry →

Yet Another NATO Air Raid Kills Afghan civilians, Including Children

February 29, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

By Madison Ruppert  -  Editor of End the Lie

Kapisa province in Afghanistan

An air raid carried out by NATO forces in the Tagab district of the eastern Kapisa province in Afghanistan resulted in at least three civilian deaths and four injuries.

The provincial council representative for the eastern Kapisa province stated that the air raid, conducted by French troops, resulted in two children being among the casualties, according to Khwaja Ghulam Mohammad Zmarai, the deputy provincial council for the Kapisa province, Khaama reports.

Zmarai stated that the French troops had received inaccurate intelligence from local residents as to the presence of suspected Taliban militants. Read the rest of this entry →

Stephen Coleman: The moral dangers of non-lethal weapons

February 22, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Politics, World News

Uploaded by on Feb 7, 2012

http://www.ted.com Pepper spray and tasers are in increasing use by both police and military, and more exotic non-lethal weapons such as heat rays are in the works. At TEDxCanberra, ethicist Stephen Coleman explores the unexpected consequences of their introduction and asks some challenging questions.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate

If you have questions or comments about this or other TED videos, please go to http://support.ted.com

Honduras: Our Continuing Catastrophe

February 22, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

by: Mark Engler

(Photo: davidNallah / Flickr)

Honduras has become a human rights disaster. The country now has the world’s highest murder rate. And impunity for political violence is the norm.

For all this, the United States deserves a good deal of the blame.

I was pleased to see the New York Times recently publish a hard-hitting op-ed by Dana Frank that makes this case. Lest anyone in this country think that things in Honduras have settled into a peaceable, post-coup normality, Frank describes the post-June 2009 chain of events—a coup that the United States didn’t stop, a fraudulent election that it accepted—[that] has now allowed corruption to mushroom.

The judicial system hardly functions. Impunity reigns.

At least 34 members of the opposition have disappeared or been killed, and more than 300 people have been killed by state security forces since the coup, according to the leading human rights organization Cofadeh. At least 13 journalists have been killed since [President Porfirio] Lobo took office, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Read the rest of this entry →

Made in Jordan: Thousands of gunmen preparing to enter Syria?

February 22, 2012 in Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

Soldiers of the Free Syrian Army (AFP Photo / Ricardo Garcia Vilanova)

Over 10,000 Libyans are reportedly being trained in a closed-off zone in Jordan, before being snuck into Syria to fight for the opposition. These men are allegedly paid around US$1,000 a month, funded by Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

­Jordan-based AlBawaba news website says most of the gunmen who are being trained are actually part of the Libyan armed opposition, who have not had the chance to lay down arms following the toppling of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

The allegations of funding from Riyadh and Doha were not attributed to anyone, but AlBawaba did draw attention to the fact that both Saudi Arabia and Qatar actively support the Syrian opposition.

At the same time, several Iranian news sources report that some 50 Turkish officers arrested in Syria last week have confirmed that they were trained by the Israeli Special Forces to carry out insurgent acts against the Syrian government and President Bashar al-Assad.

The arrested officers also, according to Iran’s Fars news agency, admitted to initiating contact with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, inadvertently lending support to the countries’ involvement in the ongoing conflict in Syria. Read the rest of this entry →

In Washington, Fear the Silence, Not the Noise – Crackdown on Whistleblowers in the Military

February 14, 2012 in Uncategorized

One thing is obvious.  No one ever joins the government in order to be a whistleblower or leaker.  Whistleblowers are created, not born.  To offer an example, as Peter Van Buren is happy to admit, before he spent a year on two forward operating bases in Iraq running a State Department provincial reconstruction team, he was “a more or less content Foreign Service Officer.”  It is perhaps typical of whistleblowers and leakers that something they are privy to simply pushes them over the edge.

Read the rest of this entry →

The Afghanistan Report the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to Read

February 13, 2012 in Headline, Politics, Update, World News

Earlier this week, the New York Times’ Scott Shane published a bombshell piece about Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a 17-year Army veteran recently returned from a second tour in Afghanistan. According to the Times, the 48-year-old Davis had written an 84-page unclassified report, as well as a classified report, offering his assessment of the decade-long war. That assessment is essentially that the war has been a disaster and the military’s top brass has not leveled with the American public about just how badly it’s been going. “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?” Davis boldly asks in an article summarizing his views in The Armed Forces Journal.

Davis last month submitted the unclassified report –titled “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leader’s Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort” – for an internal Army review. Such a report could then be released to the public. However, according to U.S. military officials familiar with the situation, the Pentagon is refusing to do so. Rolling Stone has now obtained a full copy of the 84-page unclassified version, which has been making the rounds within the U.S. government, including the White House. We’ve decided to publish it in full; it’s well worth reading for yourself. It is, in my estimation, one of the most significant documents published by an active-duty officer in the past ten years.

Here is the report’s damning opening lines: “Senior ranking U.S. military leaders have so distorted the truth when communicating with the U.S. Congress and American people in regards to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that the truth has become unrecognizable. This deception has damaged America’s credibility among both our allies and enemies, severely limiting our ability to reach a political solution to the war in Afghanistan.” Davis goes on to explain that everything in the report is “open source” – i.e., unclassified – information. According to Davis, the classified report, which he legally submitted to Congress, is even more devastating. “If the public had access to these classified reports they would see the dramatic gulf between what is often said in public by our senior leaders and what is actually true behind the scenes,” Davis writes. “It would be illegal for me to discuss, use, or cite classified material in an open venue and thus I will not do so; I am no WikiLeaks guy Part II.”

Read the rest of this entry →

Al-Qaeda joins ranks of revolt backers in Syria

February 12, 2012 in Headline, Politics, World News

The leader of Al-Qaeda has voiced his support for the Syrian uprising. He called on Muslims to join the opposition in Syria in their drive to oust President Bashar Assad.

­In an eight-minute video address posted on Sunday on a jihadist website, Ayman al-Zawahri called on Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan to aid the Syrian rebels.

“Continue your revolt and anger, don’t accept anything else apart from independent, respectful governments,” the successor of Osama Bin Laden urged the Syrians.

He also called on Syrians not to rely on Western or Arab governments, whom he said would impose a new regime subservient to the West.

The news comes as the Arab League is discussing in Cairo their next step in tackling the Syrian crisis. Earlier Russia and China blocked a draft resolution at the UN Security Council, which called for Assad to step down. Now a plan to send a joint UN-Arab League observer mission to Syria is on the table.

The country has been in turmoil for almost a year now. The government says it fights off foreign-sponsored terrorist groups masquerading as public uprising. Critics of the regime call it a bloody crackdown on Syrian citizens.

­Dr. Hisham Jaber, from the Center for Middle East Studies, told RT that Washington and Al-Qaeda are fighting against a common enemy in Syria.

“It seems that Al-Qaeda and the Western bloc are working in the same way and they have the same target, which is to destroy the regime in Syria and to collapse it,” he said. “Al-Qaeda never denied its presence in Syria. Al-Qaeda never denied its support of insurgents in Syria.”

from  — rt.com

‘Israel a bully on the verge of global isolation’

February 8, 2012 in Editorial, Headline, Politics, Video Perspective, World News

from – rt.com

Israeli soldiers advance during a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the village of Kfar Kadum, near the West Bank city of Nablus, on January 6, 2012      (AFP Photo / Jaafar Ashtiyeh)

Israel should put an end to pointedly hawkish political discourse towards Iran because a preemptive assault might cost it a loss of global legitimacy, warns Elan Baruch, a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa.

­For Baruch, who recently resigned from government on grounds of principle, it is obvious that Iran is pursuing a position of a regional power “to serve interests that go beyond the immediate borders of Iran”. Primarily, Iranian politics is defensive and oriented towards self-protection, but for the domestic political discourse of Israel that is far from obvious.

Read the rest of this entry →

Europe coughing up cash for US military gamble in Iran

February 5, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Politics, Video Perspective, World News

from  –  rt.com

Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) transiting the Arabian Sea. (AFP Photo / Handout / US NAVY / MCS3 Will Tyndall)

Europeans should question why they are being asked to pay for an American-Israeli adventure in Iran during a time of unprecedented austerity, political analyst Chris Bambery told RT.

Iran says it will definitely put a swift stop to oil exports to “certain” European countries. A possible cut in supplies to other EU states is still under discussion.

The move comes in response to an EU oil embargo scheduled to come into force on July 1.

Read the rest of this entry →

Corporations Have No Use for Borders

February 1, 2012 in Editorial, Finance, Headline, Occupy, Politics, World News

By Chris Hedges  -  taken from  truthdig.com

A police officer holds a tear gas launcher at the ready during a standoff with protesters at the G-20 Summit in Toronto in June 2010.

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan.

Read the rest of this entry →

Indefinite detention and torture: US already enforcing NDAA

January 30, 2012 in Headline

Taken from : http://rt.com/

Cuba, Guantanamo Bay: A "non-compliant" detainee is escorted by guards after showering inside the U.S. military prison for "enemy combatants" on October 27, 2009 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (AFP Photo / John Moore)

Not even a month after President Barack Obama signed his name to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, the US government is already using the legislation to justify its ongoing detainment of a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.

Musa’ab al-Madhwani had barely entered adulthood when he first arrived at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2002. But in the months between his capture in Pakistan and transfer to Gitmo, the Yemeni national experienced more than most would see in a lifetime. Before he turned 23, he says he was beaten and kicked, threatened with death and suspended by his hands in an underground torture chamber.

Now for the prisoner, about to celebrate the 10-year-anniversary of his arrival at Gimo, the rest of that lifetime looks to be spent behind bars thanks to the NDAA.

Read the rest of this entry →

White House Approves Bill Allowing Military To Imprison Americans Without Trial

December 1, 2011 in Headline, Politics

Robert Johnson – December 15, 2011| (AP

Despite his promise to veto amendments within the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) President Obama said Wednesday he will approve the law allowing the U.S. military to arrest and hold anyone it deems a terrorist, even on American soil.

Phil Hirschkorn of CBS News reports the Obama administration abandoned its veto saying the final version of the bill had been “softened.” The minor adjustments to the wording now give the President power to issue a waiver of the military detention requirement and allow the White House to use its own judgment in putting the controls into place.