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“We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. – Harold Pinter

British playwright Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2005. His powerful acceptance speech exposed the United States for its fascist, imperialist policies since World War II. His speech (delivered three years before he died in 2008) was an important glimpse into – and a reasonable summary of -- the innumerable documentable US imperialistic crimes that have been secretly facilitated by our multinational corporations, our national security apparatus, our military leaders, our wealthy elites and the craven politicians who are beholden to those four realities that have shaped American foreign policy over the past 60 years.

Back in September I wrote about cleaning up your phone settings to keep your photos and personal information safe. (And if you got a new phone, tablet, or even laptop over the holidays, you might want to give that article another look!)  But with cloud storage becoming more and more popular as we juggle an assortment of connected devices, it’s important to be mindful of where you’re putting not just your naked selfies but also your credit card and banking information, your passwords, and the 12,000-word Captain America/Iron Man slashfic you don’t want anyone to see. 

In terms of losses in human lives, 2014 has been a horrific year for Palestinians, surpassing the horrors of both 2008 and 2009, when an Israeli war against the Gaza Strip killed and wounded thousands.  

While some aspects of the conflict are stagnating between a corrupt, ineffectual Palestinian Authority (PA), and the criminality of Israeli wars and occupation, it would also be fair to argue that 2014 was also a game changer to some degree - and it is not all bad news. 

To an extent, 2014 has been a year of clarity for those keen to understand the reality of the ‘Palestinian-Israeli conflict’ but were sincerely confused by the contrasting narratives. 

Here are some reasons that support the argument that things are changing.  

1. A Different Kind of Palestinian Unity 

Once again we come to the end of our time in Middle-earth. Like the Lord of the Rings movies before it, the Hobbit trilogy—adapted from the predecessor to the Lord of the Rings novels—is, with the release of The Battle of the Five Armies, now complete. But is the finale worth five and a half hours of lead-up? 

The Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies have all been long, ridiculously so when the “extended” versions are taken into account, so it’s no surprise that The Battle of the Five Armies clocks in at two and a half hours. But in this case it doesn’t feel drawn out or overlong—for a change. The only part that feels at all extraneous is the several minutes at the beginning spent wrapping up the cliffhanger from the end of The Desolation of Smaug. It’s an exciting, stand-out scene, full of suspense and property damage, but it feels like it should have been the climax of the previous movie instead of the beginning of this one. 

“This is not who we are. This is not how we operate,” were the words of President Barack Obama commenting on the grisly findings of a long-awaited congressional report on the use of torture by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).  

But what if this is exactly who we are? 

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has been taking bows for being the guardian of American law, decency, and character. It’s not. It’s not even close. American law, decency, and character have yet to be redeemed. Worse, only a small percentage of Americans in or out of power seems to care enough to act against the pall of moral failure still spreading through the culture.

The intelligence committee has done a good, small thing in its effort to make some partial truth somewhat better known, but its report is fundamentally short on meaningful intelligence. This is a committee divided against itself that nevertheless managed to exceed expectation by a bit. But this committee is no truth commission. The committee’s report is a negotiated settlement in which the perpetrators exercised too much control over the content.

The shock resonating from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report isn’t due so much to the revelations themselves, grotesque as the details are, but to the fact that they’re now officially public. National spokespersons (except for Dick Cheney) can no longer deny, quite so glibly, that the United States is what it claims its enemies to be.

We’re responsible for the worst sort of abuses of our fellow human beings: A half-naked man freezes to death. A detainee is chained to the wall in a standing position for 17 days. The stories have no saving grace, not even “good intelligence.”

The Axis of Evil smiles, yawns: It’s home.

The question is, what do we do with this moment of national self-awareness? Beyond demanding the prosecution of high-level perps, how about really changing the game? I suggest reviving S. 126, a bill introduced into the U.S. Senate on Jan. 4, 1995 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, titled: Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Senator Ron Wyden has a petition up at MoveOn.org that reads "Right now, torture is banned because of President Obama's executive order. It's time for Congress to pass a law banning torture, by all agencies, so that a future president can never revoke the ban." It goes on to explain:

"We live in a dangerous world. But when CIA operatives and contractors torture terrorist suspects, it doesn't make us safer -- and it doesn't work. The recent CIA torture report made that abundantly clear. Right now, the federal law that bans torture only applies to the U.S. military -- not our intelligence agencies. President Obama's executive order barring all agencies from using torture could be reversed, even in secret, by a future president. That's why it's critical that Congress act swiftly to pass a law barring all agencies of the U.S. government, and contractors acting on our behalf, from engaging in torture. Without legislation, the door on torture is still open. It's time for Congress to slam that door shut once and for all."

Why in the world would anybody object to this unless they supported torture? Well, let me explain.