Advertisement

The United States government continued its attack on internet activists this week, attempting to gag imprisoned journalist Barrett Brown and his defense team while forcing the shuttering of several popular secure mail services and an exit node of TOR, the internet’s most widely used anonymous proxy service.

If the U.S. public began to raise a fuss about U.S. missile strikes that blow up large numbers of civilians at wedding parties abroad, it's not beyond the realm of the imaginable that the U.S. government would begin blaming the explosions on faulty candles in the wedding cakes. A similarly implausible excuse was used to explain the 1996 explosion of TWA flight 800 off Long Island, New York, and the U.S. public has thus far either swallowed the story whole or ignored the matter.

If you watch Kristina Borjesson's new film, TWA Flight 800, you'll see a highly persuasive case that this passenger jet full of passengers was brought down by missiles, killing all on board.

A CIA propaganda video aired by U.S. television networks fits with none of the known facts, makes the claim that there were no missiles, and offers no theory as to what then did cause the explosion(s) and crash into the sea.

Hammer in hand, one sees nails everywhere. Successful unpunished genocide at home in hand, the Pentagon sees Indian Country on six continents. But don't imagine the U.S. military is finished with the original Indian Country yet, including Native American reservations and territories, and including the places where the rest of us now live.

Compare and contrast:

Exhibit 1 from the New York Times:

"Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent."

Exhibit 2 from a U.S. Army dispatch in 1864:

"All Apache . . . large enough to bear arms who may be encountered in Arizona will be slain whenever met unless they give themselves up as prisoners."

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.”
George Orwell "Politics and the English Language," 1946

Two months ago General Clapper sat before his bosses at the Senate Intelligence Committee to answer questions. They were engaging in a ritual called robust oversight. The ritual has a number of significant acts. First, the generals representing the intelligence community hold their hands in the air and promise not to lie, invoking the Almighty God. Then the representatives of the people ask questions that they think they know the answers to. The General then gives an answer which any of us would call a lie. The Senators then pretend to believe him.

We were saddened to learn of the death of Columbus activist and nationally recognized poet Elizabeth Ann James last Sunday, August 4. Elizabeth was a long time supporter of the Free Press and other local independent media. where she covered the local cultural arts scene. At one time she was a regular contributor to the FP and in the mid-late 1980s we shared a poetry column here.

"Pakistani authorities have long denounced the strikes, out of concern that civilian deaths caused by drone strikes inflame the local population, bolster militant groups and violate Pakistan’s sovereignty." - CNN [2], July 26

"Analysts said the administration was still grappling with the fact that drones remained the crucial instrument for going after terrorists in Yemen and Pakistan — yet speaking about them publicly could generate a backlash in those countries because of issues like civilian casualties." – New York Times [3], Aug. 2

Oh, the serious news! I read it with ever-fresh incredulity. It’s written for gamers. It reduces us to gamers as it updates us on the latest bends and twists in the geopolitical scene. We’re still playing War on Terror, the aim of which is to kill as many insurgents as possible; when they’re all dead, we win (apparently). The trick is to avoid inflaming the locals, who then transition out of passive irrelevance and join the insurgency. They get inflamed when we kill civilians, such as their children.

The anonymous browser TOR is the most popular end user security tool in the world. Using this browser allows people to surf the internet anonymously. The service is used worldwide to avoid secret police surveillance by dissidents living under repressive regimes in places like Syria, Turkey and the United States. It is also used by hackers and others to conceal their identities. According to Wired Magazine's security blog “Threat Level,” the service was compromised by a hack Sunday night.

The malware inserted itself into the browser via a compromised website and immediately began broadcasting the infected computer's MAC address, user name, IP address, and any websites visited subsequently to an IP address in Herndon Virginia owned by Verizon and block leased to SAIC, a major defense and intelligence contractor.

With the closing of American embassies across the Middle East and Africa, the latest terror threat emanating from Yemen is severe enough to give U.S. security officials pause. In the meantime, as many people curiously seek out Yemen on a world map, we might ask ourselves why a terror threat this serious should arise from such a small player on the world stage. As the United States has withdrawn its troops from Iraq and plans an organized withdraw from Afghanistan, this broad security threat against American diplomatic posts seems unwarranted at the very least, and still has nothing whatever to do with Yemen.

After suffering another loss on the national stage in 2012 the Republican Party seemed ready for a period of serious reflection. Thereafter, Republicans in the House of Representatives re-launched their numerous attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and reassured the American people that any real immigration reform is out of the question. Both political maneuvers call into question the earnestness of that reflective period after the 2012 Presidential Election. A recent squabble between two Republicans concerning national security and personal privacy, however, has resurrected that period for thoughtful contemplation about the GOP’s future direction.

An interview with Jill Stein, President of the Green Shadow Cabinet: The Green Shadow Cabinet calls on President Obama to pardon Bradley Manning for his courageous work exposing U.S. war crimes and State Department deception. Thanks to Manning’s revelations of Iraqi deaths and human rights abuses by the American military, Iraq refused to renew immunity for U.S. soldiers, forcing President Obama to pull out at the end of 2011. Thus, Manning deserves much of the credit for ending the immoral, devastating, multi-trillion dollar U.S. occupation of Iraq. (read full statement here)
Video

Pages

Subscribe to Freepress.org RSS