By David Swanson: Screaming in Bradley Manning's Trial!

I sat in the courtroom all day Wednesday as Bradley Manning's trial wound its way to a tragic and demoralizing conclusion. I wanted to hear Eugene Debs, and instead I was trapped there, watching Socrates reach for the hemlock and gulp it down. Just a few minutes in and I wanted to scream or shout. I don't blame Bradley Manning for apologizing for his actions and effectively begging for the court's mercy. He's on trial in a system rigged against him. The commander in chief declared him guilty long ago. He's been convicted. The judge has been offered a promotion. The prosecution has been given a playing field slanted steeply in its favor. why should Manning not follow the only advice anyone's ever given him and seek to minimize his sentence? Maybe he actually believes that what he did was wrong. But, wow, does it make for some perverse palaver in the courtroom. This was the sentencing phase of the trial, but there was no discussion of what good or harm might come of a greater or lesser sentence, in terms of deterrence or restitution or prevention or any other goal. That's one thing I wanted to scream ay various points in the proceedings. This was the trial of the most significant whistle-blower in U.S. history, but there was no mention of anything he'd blown the whistle on, any of the crimes exposed or prevented, wars ended, nonviolent democratic movements catalyzed. Nothing on why he's a four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Nothing. Every time that wars are mentioned, I wanted to scream. war was like air in this courtroom, everybody on all sides militarized, and it went unnoticed and unmentioned. What 'was' discussed on Wednesday was what wasn't. Psycho-therapists, and relatives, and Bradley Manning himself, defense witnesses all, testified that had been wrong to do what he'd done, that he'd not been in his right mind, and that he is a likable person to whom the judge should be kind. Should likable people get lesser sentences? The
prosecution focused, with much less success I think, on depicting Manning as an unlikable person. Should unlikable people get heavier sentences? What, I wanted to scream, about the likability of blowing the whistle on major crimes? Shouldn't that be rewarded, rather than being less severely punished? There were some 30 of us observing the trial on Wednesday in the courtroom, many with "TRUTH" on our t-shirts, plus six members of the news media. another 40 some people were watching a video feed in a trailer outside, and another 40 media folks were watching a video in a separate room. The defense and prosecution lawyers sat a few feet apart from each other, and I suppose the politeness of the operation was preferable to the violence that had led to it. But the gravity of threatening Manning with 90 years in prison seemed belied by the occasional joking with witnesses.    

By William Boardman: Fukushima Forever?

Almost two and a half years after the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima, the head of Japan's Nuclear Regulatory Authority (NRA) raised concern on August 5 about the continued flow of radioactive water from the plant going into the Pacific Ocean, telling Reuters, "Right now we have a state of emergency." Shinji Kinjo, head of the NRA task force, was following the apparent script for the current performance of the familiar kabuki theatre of nuclear power agencies everywhere, the stylized dance of suggesting meaning without actually clarifying it. Kinjo heads a task force set up after the March 2011 Fukushima meltdowns, a body with no authority to do anything, which was put in place by the NRA, the nuclear regulator that doesn't really regulate. "Right now we have a state of emergency," said Kinjo, allowing one to think perhaps there had not been any state of emergency since the meltdowns. "Right now we have a state of emergency," said Kinjo, three days after the most recent task force meeting, during which time there were no significant new developments at Fukushima, although the task force concluded that new measures were needed to stop the radioactive pollution. "Right now we have a state of emergency," said Kinjo, as he proposed absolutely no immediate emergency responses. Or, as Masayuki Ono, TEPCO's general manager told a press conference the following day: "We understand that this discharge is beyond our control and we do not think the current situation is good." At What Point Does a Constant Condition with Varying Intensity Become an Emergency? Kinjo's oddly-timed declaration of an "emergency" radioactive water flowing into the Pacific, raises more questions about the task force's assessment of reality than about the obvious seriousness of an obvious seriousness of an obvious seriousness of an obvious danger that was well known paying much attention to the 29-month disaster at Fukushima, which has no end in sight. The declaration of an emergency actually serves as a distraction of the actual, on going emergency. All of that is just the way political kabuki is supposed to work: impress the audience with the intensity of official concern, deflect attention to some "emergency" that is really just more of the same, make credible-sounding concern, deflect attention to some "emergency" that is really just more of the same, make credible-sounding promises that won't make much difference even if they are implemented in some unspecified future. As of August6, the Japanese government was considering including $300 million or more in its 2014 budget request to pay for controlling the radioactive water flow. That would be impossible $300 million for an unknown remedy, since TEPCO, the government, and TEPCO and the NRA have all indicated they have no idea what to do, even though they heartily agree that they should do something.

ECP: Owner of Email Service Snowden Used Faces Arrest!

The owner of an encrypted email service used by ex-NSA contractor Edward Snowden said he has been threatened with criminal charges for refusing to comply with a secret surveillance order to turn over information about his customers, NBC News is reporting. "I could be arrested for this action," Ladar Levison told NBC News about his decision to shut down his company, Lavabit, in protest over a secret court order he had received from a federal court that is overseeing the investigation into Snowden. Levison said he is barred by federal law from elaborating on the order or any of his communications with federal prosecutors. But a source familiar with the matter told NBC News that James Trump, a senior litigation counsel in the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, Va., sent an email
to Levison's lawyer last Thursday, the day Lavabit was shuttered, stating that Levison's lawyer last Thursday, the day Lavabit was shuttered, stating that Levison may have "violated the court order," a statement that was interpreted as a possible threat to charge Levison with contempt of court. CNBC reports: "Because the government has barred Lavabit from disclosing the nature of its demands, we still don't know what information the government is seeking it," said said Ben Wizner, a national security lawyer for the ACLU. "It's hard to have a debate about the reasonableness of the government's actions, or of Lavabit's response, for that matter, when we don't know what we are debating." Levison said he started Lavabit 10 years ago to capitalize on public concerns about the Patriot Act, offering customers a paid service, between $8 and $16 a year, that would encrypt their emails in ways that would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement agents to decipher. He said that until he shut down, his small company was a generating about $100, 000 in revenue annually, with about 10,000 users paying for the encryption service. One who appears to have been a customer was Snowden. When the ex-NSA contractor invited human rights groups to a press conference at the Moscow airport on July 11, his message was communicated from a Lavabit.com email address: edsnowden @lavabit.com. Snowden himself told Greenwald of the Guardian last week that he found Levison's decision to close rather than provide information to the government "inspiring" and asked why other larger companies such as Google "aren't fighting for our interest the same way small businesses are." Levison stressed that he has complied with "upwards of two dozen court orders" for information in the past that were targeted at "specific users"and that "I never had a problem with that." Bit without disclosing details, he suggested that the order he received
more recently was markedly different, requiring him to cooperate in broadly based surveillance that would scoop up information about all the users of his service.
      

Patrick J. Buchanon: Egypt's Army Crosses The Rubicon!

“Sire, clear the square with gunfire or abdicate.”
That was the message one of his generals gave the young czar Nicholas I in December of 1825, as thousands of civilians and soldiers massed in Senate Square to challenge his claim to the throne.
Nicholas gave the order, the cannons fired, and he and his heirs ruled Russia for another century, until Nicholas II was overthrown and murdered by Bolsheviks.
Such was the moment Egypt’s army faced on Wednesday, with thousands of backers of the Muslim Brotherhood encamped in Cairo, challenging its rule. The slaughter that ensued, 500 dead the first day and thousands wounded, means there is no going back.
The die is cast. The Egyptian army has crossed the Rubicon.
Egypt’s generals cannot now hold elections that a coalition of the Brotherhood and Salafis might win. Were that to happen, many of them could wind up like the shah’s generals, on trays in the morgue.
So where does Egypt and where do we go from here?
While we Americans are babbling about a new politics of “inclusiveness,” even some of the Twitter-Facebook liberals of Tahrir Square are coming to see Egypt as it is. Us or them.
And the one issue on which Egypt’s Muslim militants and Egypt’s militarists seem to agree is that the Americans cannot be trusted.
Two years ago, the United States celebrated an Arab Spring that began with the overthrow in Tunis and Cairo of dictators who had been our loyal allies. We then became the champions of free elections in Egypt, as we had been the champions of free elections in Palestine, until Hamas swept the board in Gaza.
When half of Egypt voted for the Brotherhood and a fourth for the more militant Salafis, we accepted the results and pledged to work with President Mohamed Morsi.
But Morsi failed as badly as Hosni Mubarak. So, when millions massed in Cairo’s streets to demand Morsi’s overthrow, we signaled our approval for a military coup.
Then, when Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi seized power, imprisoned Morsi, jailed Brotherhood leaders and installed a puppet government, we refused to call it a coup.
Secretary of State John Kerry provided the comic relief by assuring us that the Egyptian army was “restoring democracy.”
For two years, America has been loyal to no one and consistent in nothing. Thus, Egypt’s soldiers decided to do what they had to do to save their country. And if new elections are likely to produce a regime that threatens their Egypt, they will dump the democratic procedures rather than lose Egypt to the Brotherhood.
They will comply with our wishes to the extent that they do not imperil what the Egyptian army regards as vital. Gen. Sisi either did not believe we would cut off his military aid, or was willing to take that risk when he gave the order to fire on the protesters.
He read the Americans right. What do we do now?
As our interests dictate maintaining the peace between Egypt and Israel, keeping Egypt as an ally against Islamic terrorism and protecting Christians, we cannot sever ties to the army that runs the country. In these goals, Egypt’s military, no matter the brutality with which it behaved on Wednesday against the Brotherhood, is an ally.
But if we were to retain any credibility as the champion of peaceful protest, we had to signal that what was done by Egypt’s security forces was done without our approval. President Obama did that by canceling the military exercises with the Egyptian army in Sinai.
Yet Egypt has problems we cannot solve. It is divided between secularists and fundamentalists, whose visions are irreconcilable. It is divided between a middle class and millions of poor for whom neither Mubarak nor Morsi was able to create any measure of prosperity.
Without constant infusions of aid, Egypt, a country whence the tourists and investors alike have fled, cannot create a robust economy until radicalism and extremism are in the past.
Egypt today cannot sustain itself. But America’s role as primary foreign aid provider is coming to an end. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Gulf states are today sending many times the aid we are sending to Cairo.
Let them take the lead. The fate of Arab peoples is far more tied up in what happens along the Nile than is the fate of America.
While we do not know what will succeed in the Middle East, we do know what has failed. Nation-building in Afghanistan and Iraq has left us bleeding and near bankrupt. Our flipping and flopping in Egypt’s turmoil has alienated all sides. Our wars have accomplished what?
Perhaps lowering our profile and shutting up would serve us better. This part of the world will be decades sorting out its future in light of the political, religious, ethnic and ideological forces unleashed by the Arab Spring and the rise of Islamism.
A phrase from the America of a century ago, when Mexico was in turmoil, comes to mind. Why not a period of watchful waiting?

AlterNet: The Guardian, By Patrick Kingsley, Egyptian PM Defends Crackdown as Death Toll Rises, More than 525 Dead!

Egypt's interim government and its backers remain defiant amid a rising death toll and widespread international condemnation of Wednesday's massacre of Islamist supporters of the ousted president Mohamed Morsi, the country's third mass killing in six weeks. The prime minister, Hazem Beblawi, said the crackdown was essential to create stability, and praised security forces for what he characterised as maximum restraint, despite Egypt's health ministry on Thursday saying 525 had died in the violence that ensued when pro-Morsi camps on either side of Cairo were cleared. "Egypt cannot move forward, especially economically, in the absence of security," Beblawi said in a televised statement. In 2011 Beblawi resigned from a previous government after a massacre of Coptic Christians. The interior minister, Mohamed Ibrahim, said the protesters had "threatened national security, incited violence and tortured and killed people". Protesters at both camps had been largely peaceful. The vice-president, Mohamed ElBaradei, appointed last month in an attempt to give the new military regime a respectable face, resigned in protest ay Wednesday's events. But in an indication that public sentiment remains strongly behind the military, even the liberal coalition he once led, the National Salvation Front, distanced itself from his decision and saluted the police's actions. A television host later called for ElBaradei to be placed under house arrest. Dissenting voices were few and far between. But Egypt's Revolutionary Socialists, active during the 2011 uprising against the Mubarak regime, said the day's events were counter-revolutionary, "part of a plan to liquidate the Egyptian revolution and restore the military police state of Mubarak regime". The first night of a dusk-till-dawn curfew, enacted under Mubarak-era laws, achieved mixed results. The usually bustling streets of central Cairo were largely empty on Wednesday night and Thursday morning. Military roadblocks restricted access between parts of the city. Elsewhere Islamists vowed to defy the curfew, and there were reports of clashes outside the finance ministry and other parts of Cairo. Fighting spread to several provinces. On Wednesday, several Christian churches were reported to have been attacked. Christians, who make up 10% of Egypt's population, are blamed by some Islamists for Morsi's downfall. The United States has led a chorus of international concern about the crackdown, publicly condemning the violence that resulted in the worst loss of life on a single day since the overthrow of Morsi. The White House said "the world is watching", but there was still no sign that the US was prepared to characterize Morsi's removal by the army as a coup, which would trigger an automatic congressional ban on $1.3bn in annual aid to the Egyptian military.

AlterNet: By Alex Kane: CIA Targeted Noam Chomsky, Documents Reveal!

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) spied on famed activist and linguist Noam Chomsky in the 1970s, documents obtained by Foreign Policy confirm. While the CIA long denied it kept a file on Chomsky, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by an attorney and given to reporter John Hudson has confirmed that the CIA snooped on the professor from MIT. Furthermore, the CIA appears to have scrubbed its record on Chomsky, a potential violation of the law. For many years , similar requests for Chomsky's CIA file were met with responses denying that the record existed. But FOIA attorney Kel McClanahan sent a request to the Federal Bureau if Investigation, and it garnered a document showing FBI and CIA communication about Chomsky. The 1970 document is about Chomsky's anti-war activities and asks the FBI to gather more information about a trip to North Vietnam by anti-war activists. The memo notes that Chomsky endorsed the trip. "The June 1970 CIA communication confirms that the CIA created a file on Chomsky," Allan Theoharis, an expert on FBI-CIA communication to the FBI and the report on Chomsky that the FBI prepared in response to this request." Theoharis added that it was clear the CIA "tampered" with the file. "The CIA's response
to the FOIA requests that it has no file on Chomsky confirms that its Chomsky file was destroyed at an unknown time" he said, referring to the fact that past FOIA requests to the CIA were met with responses that no file on Chomsky existed. Destroying records could run afoul of a 1950 law that requires government agencies to obtain advance approval before from the national archives before destroying records. Theoharis also said the possible destruction of Chomsky's file means that other files compiled by the CIA were also likely destroyed. A more recent precedent for that type of behavior was the 2005 destruction of CIA tapes showing high-level terrorism suspects being water-boarded. In response to the revelation, Chomsky told Foreign Policy: "Some day it will be realized that systems of power typically try to extend their power in any way they can think of."   

By Greg Guma: "Nuclear Guinea Pigs": Deadly Experiments and Contaminated Reality!

Half a century ago, on the spurious grounds that extreme sacrifices were required in the battle to prevent a communist takeover of the world, the US government decided to use citizens of Nevada as nuclear guinea pigs. Although atomic testing was pursued there for several years in the 1950's, notification would have alarmed area residents. as a result, they weren't even advised to go indoors. Yet, according to declassified documents, some scientists studying the genetic effects of radiation at the time were already concerned about the health risks of fallout. For most of those committed to the US nuclear program, the need to keep this type of research secret was a no-brainer. After all, if the public realized that the technology used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki had led to experiments at home, early nuclear research not to mention weapons development might have met stronger opposition. The government badly wanted its nukes, and the scientists yearned to unlock the secrets of human mutation. Thus, an unholy alliance was struck. US citizens, and the thousands of soldiers who took dangerous doses of radiation as part of other studies, haven't been the only victims of science run amuck. Between 1964 and 1968, for example, at least a dozen covert tests of nerve and chemical agents were carried out on servicemen in the Pacific Ocean, then concealed and denied for more than 20 years. Crews were used to gauge how quickly various poisons could be detected, how rapidly they would disperse, and the effectiveness of protective gear and decontamination procedures.
Three tests used sarin, a deadly nerve gas subsequently employed by a cult to kill a dozen people in a Tokyo subway in 1995, or VX, the nerve gas that the later US accused Iraq of developing. One test used staphylococcal enterotoxin B, known as SEB, a crippling germ toxin, another used a simulant believed to be harmless but subsequently found to be dangerous. We do not see things like informed consent or individual protection, noted Michael Kilpatrick, a Defense Department medical official. We don't have the records for what, if any, protection, noted Michael Kilpatrick, a Defense Department medical official. We don't have the records for what, if any, protection, noted Michael Kilpatrick, a Defense Department medical official. "We don't have the records for what, if any protection was given to people."In a test called Fearless Johnny, carried out southwest of Honolulu during 1965, a Navy cargo ship was sprayed with VX nerve agent to "evaluate the magnitude of exterior and interior contamination levels" under various conditions of readiness, as well as study "the shipboard wash-down system," according to documents declassified in 2002. Like all nerve agents, VX gas penetrates the skin or lungs to disrupt the body's nervous system and stop breathing. Exposure can kill. Another test, known as Flower Drum, involved spraying sarin gas into the ventilation of a ship. 

DW: NSA Scandal: US could exploit trade deal to expand spying!

US spying on Europeans will be expanded if the Transatlantic Trade deal gives a free pass to PRISM's enablers, writes Jeff Chester, and urges the EU not to allow the privacy of its citizens to be negotiated away. The giant US-based technology companies alleged to have helped the National Security Agency (NSA) digitally eavesdrop on the public through its PRISM program, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, and AOL have positioned themselves as largely helpless in opposing the release of their user data for national security purposes. These massive data gathers are not victims, however. American Internet advertising and technology companies are the architects of a digital media system that continually expands in its ability to stealthily gather, analyze, and make actionable our information. They know what we do online and offline, where we are and the places we go, what we buy, our health and medical concerns, who are our friends and social connections are, and much more. Through their growing use of geo-location technologies, the overall activities of our neighborhoods and communities are also increasingly placed under their digital lens as well. They have purposely developed a system of commercial surveillance on individuals that is unprecedented. Steal industry: Steeling other peoples' data has become one of America's few growth industries. US digital marketing companies are the global leaders in shaping a world where the continuous collection
and use of our personal information are purposefully embedded in our technologies and harvested to help shape our daily experiences. Google, Facebook, and the others may claim to be hamstrung regarding NSA demands for our digital profiles, but they are also clamoring for the Obama Administration to help them expand without restraint the data they can collect from EU citizens. They
now seek a bevy of favorable policies on e-commerce, trans-border data flows, and data protection as an outcome of the recently launched Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade negotiations. US tech companies want the TTIP to sanction as bypassing of the EU's data protection rules. They also want it to undo EU policy requiring local oversight or control over data processing practices. In a letter sent to the new US Trade Representative in June by the Internet Association, a lobbying group that includes Yahoo, AOL, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and many others, they laid out their goal: "the creation of a single global digital information marketplace," with no "impediments" or "offline barriers," transporting EU information anywhere their cloud can process it.
Europeans should reject this self-serving vision of a border-less digital world, where legal frameworks protecting civil liberties and the distinctions of country and culture are tossed aside in the name of increased profits for US-based transnational data marketers. Their claims that there's a "robust US approach to privacy" equivalent to the more effective EU data protection framework is nothing more than a digital fairy tale. Not only is there no national data protection law in the US, but regulatory enforcement protecting consumer privacy by our Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is feeble.     

Noam Chomsky: Issues that Obama and Romney Avoid!

With the quadrennial presidential election extravaganza reaching its peak, it's useful to ask how the political campaigns are dealing with the most crucial issues we face. The simple answer is: badly, or not at all. If so, some important questions arise: why, and what can we do about it? There are two issues of overwhelming significance, because the fate of the species is at stake: environmental disaster, and nuclear war. The former is regularly on the front pages. On Sept. 19, for example, Justin Gillis reported in The New York Times that the melting of Arctic sea ice had ended for the year,"but not before demolishing the previous record, and setting off new warnings about the rapid pace of change in the region." The melting is much faster than predicted by sophisticated computer models and the most recent U.N. report on global warming. New data indicate that summer ice might be gone by 2020, with severe consequences. Previous estimates had summer ice disappearing by 2050. "But governments have not responded to the change with any greater urgency about limiting greenhouse emissions," Gillis writes. "To the contrary, their main response has been to plan for exploitation of newly accessible minerals in the Arctic, including drilling for more oil" that is, to accelerate the catastrophe. This reaction demonstrates an extraordinary willingness to sacrifice the lives of our children and grandchildren for short-term gain. Or, perhaps, an equally remarkable willingness to shut
our eyes so as not to see the impending peril. That's hardly all. A new study from the Climate Vulnerability Monitor has found that "climate change caused by global warming is slowing down world economic output by 1.6 percent a year and will lead to a doubling of costs in the nect two decades." The study was widely reported elsewhere but Americans have been spared the disturbing news. The official Democratic and Republican platforms on climate matters are reviewed in Science magazine's Sept. 14 issue. In a rare instance of bipartisanship, both parties demand that we make the problem worse. In 2008, both party platforms had devoted some attention to how the government should address climate change. Today, the issue has almost disappeared from the Republican platform
which does, however, demand that Congress"take quick action" to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency, established by former Republican President Richard Nixon in saner days, from regulating greenhouse gases. And we must open Alaska's Arctic refuge to drilling to take "advantage of all our American God-given resources." We cannot disobey the Lord, after all. The platform also states that "We must restore scientific integrity to our public research institutions and remove political
incentives from publicly funded research" code words for climate science. The Republican candidate Mitt Romney, seeking to escape from the stigma of what he understood a few years ago about climate change, has declared that there is no scientific consensus, so we should support more debate and investigation, but not action, except to make the problems more serious.
        

By Robert Scheer: Resore Honor and Pardon Edward Snowden:

How do you justify criminally charging a government contractor for revealing an alarming truth that the public has every right to know? That is the contradiction raised by President Obama now that he has, in effect, acknowledged that Edward Snowden was an indispensable whistle-blower who significantly raised public awareness about a government threat to our freedom. Unfortunately, the president didn't have the grace and courage to concede the precise point and remains committed to imprisoning Snowden instead of thanking him for serving the public interest. But Julian Assange, no stranger to unrequited integrity, nailed it. "Today, the president of the United States validated Edward Snowden's role as a whistle-blower by announcing plans to reform America's global surveillance program," the WikiLeaks founder said in a statement posted Saturday, the day after Obama's remarks.While boasting, "I called for a review of our surveillance programs," Obama avoided the obvious fact that this review was compelled not by a sudden burst of respect for the safeguards demanded by our Constitution but rather Snowden's action in making the public cognizant of the astounding breadth and depth of the National Security Agency's spying program. Once again, Obama managed to blame not those responsible for government malfeasance, himself included, but instead the rare insiders driven to do their duty to inform the American people. "Unfortunately, rather than an orderly and lawful process to debate these issues and come up with appropriate reforms, repeated leaks of classified information have initiated the debate in a very passionate but not always fully informed way," he said. How disingenuous, to put it mildly. Without the leaks, there would be no reforms. We, the voters, couldn't initiate a debate about the wisdom of this extensive spying because the government officials who authorized it, from the president on down, kept us in the dark. Those elected officials who were briefed on these nefarious programs never shared that information with the public, and most of them, led by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have branded Snowden a traitor for exposing their own failures to protect our freedoms. "I don't look at this as being a whistle-blower," Feinstein said of Snowden in June. "I think it is an act of treason." The senator added, "He took an outh, that oath is important. He violated the outh, he violated the law. It's an act of treason in my view." What about Feinstein betraying her oath of allegiance to the U.S. Constitution and its Fourth Amendment prohibiting "unreasonable searches and seizures"? If she judged the NSA program to be constitutional, why didn't she reveal the scope of the operation to the spied-upon American public to let the voters decide? Instead, last year, Feinstein joined with the Obama administration in defeating amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that would have compelled the NSA to reveal the extent of its spying.

By David Martosko in Washington: 400 US surface-to-air missiles were "Stolen"

from Libya during the Benghazi attack and are 'now in the hands of Al Qaeda', claims whistle-blower. As the Benghazi compound went up in flames, says Joe diGenova, 400 missiles capable of bringing down jetliners were 'stolen' from U.S. control, possibly at the nearby CIA annex. Four hundred American surface-to-air missiles were 'taken from Libya' during the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, a former U.S. Attorney who represents whistle-blowers claimed on Monday. He added that the U.S. intelligence community is terrified they might be used to shoot downn airliners. Joe diGenova, whose wife Victoria Toeansing, a former deputy assistant general, also represents Benghazi witnesses and others with knowledge of the terror attack, told WMAL radio that the loss of those missiles is also one of the reason the U.S. State Department shut down 19 embassies across the Middle East last week. 'A lot of people have come forward to share information with us,' he said during the radio station's 'Mornings On The Mall' program Monday morning. 'We have learned that one of the reasons the administration is so deeply concerned' is that 'there were 400 surface-to-air missiles stolen, and that they are in the hands of many people, and that the biggest fear in the U.S. intelligence community is that one of these missiles will be used to shoot down an airliner. 400 missiles, surface-to-air missiles, taken from Libya.' Asked if the missiles are now 'in the hands of al-Qaeda operatives, DiGenova replied, 'That is what these people are telling us'. DiGenova said his sources are 'former intelligence officials who stay in constant contact with people in the Special Ops and intelligence community.' 'And it's pretty clear that the biggest concern right now are 400 missiles which have been diverted in Libya and have gotten in the hands of some very ugly people.' diGenova said that while he was uncertain whether the stolen weapons were being kept at the U.S. Consulate CIA annex, 'it is clear that the annex was somehow involved in the process of the distribution of those missiles.' A longtime legal fixture inside the beltway, diGenova was U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for four years beginning in 1983. and later was an Independent Counsel appointed to investigate a State Department official who ordered politically embarrassing searches of the passport files of Bill Clinton, Clinton's mother and Ross Perot before the 1992 presidential election. In 2007 the New York State Senate retained him too investigate then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer over allegations that he ordered the State Police to track the whereabouts of Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno when he used police escorts to travel to and around New York City. President Obama and then-Secretary of State Clinton originally maintained that the terror attack was the product of a spontaneous protest, a line that diGenova thinks was calculated to conceal the loss of so much military hardware to enemies of the United States.             

by Patrick J. Buchanan: Post V. Putin: Whose side are you on?

Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and 2000. He is also a founder and editor of The American Conservative. Buchanan served three terms in the House, was a founding panelist of three national TV shows, and is the author of nine books about a Superpower: "Will America Survive to 2025?"The culture war has gone global. And the divisions are not only between, but within nations. "Suddenly, homosexuality is against the law," wailed Jay Leno. "I mean, this seems like Germany. Let's round up the Jews. Let's round up the gays. I mean, it starts like that." Leno was speaking of Vladimir Putin's Russia. Obama eagerly agreed: "I have no patience for countries that treat gays or lesbians in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them. Nobody is more offended than me by some of the antigay and lesbian legislation that you've been seeing in Russia." Leno and Obama were referring to a new Russian law prohibiting "homosexual propaganda." Moscow is also warning foreigners, including visitors to the winter Olympics in Sochi, that propagandizing  for gay rights can get them two weeks in detention. No kiss-ins allowed. "Medieval," howled the Washington Post. "Mr. Putin's war" on gays and lesbians is "part and parcel of his lapse into xenophobia, religious chauvinism and general intolerance." Monday's New York Times has a front-page story, "Gays in Russia Find No Haven, Despite Support From the West" featuring photos of roughed-up protesters. Our moral and cultural elites have put Putin on notice: Get in step with us on homosexual rights, or we may just boycott your Sochi games. What this reveals is the distance America has traveled, morally and culturally, in a few short years, and our amnesia about
who we Americans once were, and what it is we once believed. Only yesterday, homosexual sodomy, which Thomas Jefferson said should be treated like rape, was outlawed in many states and same-sex marriage was regarded as an absurdity. Was that America we grew up like Nazi Germany? In the Catholic schools this writer attended, pornography, let alone homosexual propaganda, would get one expelled. Was this really just like Kristallnacht? As Father Regis Scanlon writes in Crisis Magazine, in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI reiterated Catholic doctrine that homosexuality is a "strong tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil," an "objective disorder." That homosexual acts are unnatural and immoral remains Catholic teaching. Thus, if we seek to build a Good Society by traditional Catholic and Christian standards, why should not homosexual propaganda be treated the same as racist or anti-Semitic propaganda? We can no longer even agree on what is good and evil. When Pope Francis said, "Who am I to judge?" he was saying that a sexual orientation is something over which an individual may have control, dating to birth or infancy. Hence homosexuals ought not to be condemned, but welcomed into the community.  
  

   

By Eric Margolis: Kicking Sand In Russia's Face!

The single most important national security imperative for the United States is to maintain correct relations with Russia. It's not al-Qaida, NSA, China, North Korea, or any other issue. That's why President Barack Obama's insulting cancellation of his planned meeting with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, during the 5-6 September Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg is so dismaying. Russia has over 3,000 active nuclear warheads, the majority aimed at North America. The US has a similarly powerful nuclear arsenal, primarily targeted on Russia, or in reserve for a second strike in the event of all-out war. When two men are holding loaded pistols to each other's heads, keeping cool, calm and polite is imperative. But that's just what Washington has not been doing, exposing Americans to an unnecessary national security risk for no apparent gain. Informal meetings between heads of state on the sidelines of major international meetings are common and useful. Such sit-downs serve to smooth over ongoing disputes and send a message of orderly, civilized relations. The tone is often more important than the content. Relations between Washington and Moscow have been growing steadily chillier over recent years. Gone are the days when the credulous George Bush could say he looked into Vlad Putin's eyes and trusted him. A series of disputes, Syria, Palestine, arms control, missile defense, bedevil US-Russian relations. Washington has been blasting Moscow over human rights, which is pretty rich coming after Guantanamo, water-boarding, and massive US spying on the whole world, including Americans. Behind this Big Chill is Washington's ongoing treatment of Russia as a second or third-rate power. The US lectures and hectors Russia and affords scant concern of Mocow's strategic interests or spheres of interest. Europe gets much the same treatment. Whenever Russia refuses to go along with US policy, Syria being a good example, it comes in for barrages of criticism over human and political rights in America's state-influenced media and Congress. President Putin is no angel: he's tough as nails and brooks no opposition. But that's what Russians want. Putin has raised Russia off its knees. In 1989, I was the first western journalist admitted into KGB's Moscow headquarters, the Lubyanka. I was told by senior KGB generals that they were ditching the rotten, corrupt Communist Party. What Russia needed, they said, was a tough, iron-fisted leader like the strongmen then running Chile and South Korea. Shortly after, KGB mounted a palace coup in the Kremlin and installed one of its star officers, Vladimir Putin, as prime minister, then president. Now, President Obama has made clear he is boycotting his planned meeting with Putin because of human rights issues and Syria. The 800-lb gorilla he did not mention is Edward Snowden, now in temporary Russian exile. Given that Washington is in bed with numerous rights violators, think of Uzbekistan, Mubarak's Egypt, Azerbaijan, its squeamishness over Russia rings hollow. 

DW: IRAN Christian cementary under threat in Iran!

Tehran's south is home to Iran's largest Christian cemetery guarded by one elder Muslim. But investors have cast an eye on the property, the city's authorities have revoked the permit and the cemetery is rotting away. Mr Ahmadi stands in front of one of the graves on a Christian cemetery in Tehran and can't believe his eyes. There's yet another broken tombstone. Last fall, there hadn't been a single sign of a crack. "Bloody cold," he mumbles to himself and continues his morning round at the graveyard. Ahmadi has been guarding this Christian cemetery in Tehran's Darvazeh Doulab neighborhood for the past 15 years. He watches over the huge iron gate at the entrance and takes care of duties like cutting grass. No one knows more about tombstones here than he does. "Not even the president has many graves as I do," he says. It's spring in the city. People hustle and bustle in the streets, while diplomats from seven European countries have gathered at the Austrian embassy in Tehran's wealthy north to discuss the future of Ahmadi's cemetery, which has come under threat from the city's construction boom. Saving the cemetery: The Europeans have decided to save the graveyard. "Something needs to be done", says Miklos Karpati, a Catholic priest in Teheran. According to reports by the Christian Iranian news agency Mohabat there have been numerous cases of vandalism targeting Christian monuments and places of worship in Iran. "This kind of destruction is not exceptional. But complaints about it just falls on dead ears with authorities," Karpati says. That's why they have decided to set up an internet website to inform the public. Narrow streets with two-story buildings covered in sandy bricks lead up to the Doulab cemetery. The roadside ditch carries a dirty stream full of trash from the city. Men sit in parks, stretch their legs and spit out sunflower seed husks. Every now and then dice roll over their backgammon board. They then move their checkers, the air is dry and smells like exhaust fumes. The iron gate at the cemetery squeaks loudly as Ahmadi opens it. He sticks out his head, his smile reveals black teeth. Siavesh Rastegar came here to visit the grave of his grandmother. He enters the cemetery and Ahmadi shuts the door behind him. Rastegar works as an architect, he studied at the renowned Architectual Association School of Architecture in London and has done research on the cemetery's history. "The first burial was in 1855," he says. "Dr Louis Cloquet, a Frenchman, he was the personal physician for Nasereddin Shah. And since there was no cemetery for Catholics at the time, the shah built him a mausoleum." Europeans were highly regarded in Iran at the time. The royal court wanted to profit from technical advances and the sciences. Differences in terms of religion were not a problem at all.

By Norman Solomon: Memo from Oslo: If Peace Is Prized, a Nobel for Bradley Manning!

The headquarters of the Nobel Committee is in downtown Oslo on a street named after Henrik Ibsen, whose play "An Enemy of the People" has remained as current as dawn light falling on the Nobel building and then, hours later, on a Fort Meade courtroom where Bradley Manning's trial enters a new stage, defense testimony in the sentencing phase. Ibsen's play tells of mendacity and greed in high places: dangerous threats to public health. You might call the protagonist a whistle-blower. He's a physician who can't pretend that he hasn't seen evidence. He rejects all the pleas and threats to stat quiet, to stay quiet, to keep secret what the public has a right to know. He could be content to take an easy way, to let others suffer and die. But he refuses to just follow orders. He will save lives. There will be some dire consequences for him. The respectable authorities know when they've had enough. Thought crimes can be trivial but are apt to become intolerable if they lead to active transgressions. In the last act, our hero recounts: "They insulted me and called me an enemy of the people."Ostracized and condemned, he offers final defiant words before the curtain comes down: "I have made a great discovery, It is this, let me tell you, that the strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone."Alone Bradley Manning will stand as a military judge proclaims a prison sentence. As I write these words early Monday, sky is starting to lighten over Oslo. This afternoon I'll carry several thousand pages of a petition, filled with the names of more than 100,000 signers, along with individual comments from tens of thousands of them, to an appointment with the Research Director of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The petition urges that Bradley Manning be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Like so many other people, the signers share the belief of Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire who wrote this summer: "I can think of no one more deserving." Opening heart and mind to moral responsibility, seeing an opportunity to provide the crucial fuel of information for democracy and compassion, Bradley Manning lifted a shroud and illuminated terrible actions of the USA's warfare state. He chose courage on behalf of humanity. He refused to just follow orders. "If there's one thing to learn from the last ten year, it's that government secrecy and lies come at a very high price in blood and money," Bradley Manning biographer Chase Madar wrote. "And though information is powerless on its own, it is still a necessary precondition for any democratic state to function." Bradley Manning recognized that necessary precondition. He took profound action to nurture its possibilities on behalf of democracy and peace. No doubt a Nobel Peace Prize for Bradley Manning is a very long long-shot. After all, four years ago, the Nobel Peace Prize gave that award to President Obama.   

By John Shiffman and David Ingram: IRS Manual detailed DEA's use of hidden intel evidence!

Details of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration program that feeds tips to federal agents and then instructs them to alter the investigative trail were published in a manual used by agents of the Internal
Revenue Service for two years. The practice of creating the investigative trail, highly criticized by former prosecutors and defense lawyers after Reuters reported it this week, is now under review by the Justice Department. Two high-profile Republicans have also raised questions abut the procedure. A U.S. tax agency to omit any reference to tips supplied by the DEA's Special Operations Division, especially from affidavits, court proceedings or investigative files. The entry was published and posted online in 2005 and 2006, and was removed in early 2007. The IRS is among two dozen arms of the government working with the Special Operations Division, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency. An IRS spokesman had no comment on the entry or on why it was removed from the manual. Reuters recovered the previous editions from the archives of the Westlaw legal database, which is owned by Thompson Reuters Corp, the parent of this news agency. As Reuters reported Monday, the Special Operations Division of the DEA funnels information from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and a large DEA database of the telephone records to authorities nationwide to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. The DEA phone database is distinct from a NSA database disclosed by former contractor Edward Snowden. Monday's Reuters report cited internal government documents that show that law enforcement agents have been trained to conceal how such investigations truly begin to "recreate" the investigative trail to effectively cover up the original  source of the information. DEA officials said the practice is legal and has been in near-daily use since the 1990s. They have said that its purpose is to protect sources and methods, not to withhold evidence. NEW DETAIL: Defense attorneys and some former judges and prosecutors say that systematically hiding potential evidence from defendants violates the U.S. Constitution. According to documents and interviews, agents use a procedure they call "parallel construction" to recreate the investigative trail, stating in affidavits or in court, for example, that an investigation began with a traffic infraction rather than an SOD tip. The IRS document offers further detail on the parallel construction program. "Special Operations Division has the ability to collect, collate, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate information and intelligence derived from worldwide multi-agency sources, including classified projects, the IRS document says. "SOD converts extremely sensitive information into usable leads ant tips which are then passed to the field offices for real-time enforcement activity against major international drug trafficking organizations."

Matt Sledge: Unhappy With U.S. Foreign Policy? Pentagon Says You Might Be A "High Threat'.

Watch out for "Hema." A security training test created by a Defense Department agency warns federal workers that hey should consider the hypothetical Indian-American woman a "high threat" because she frequently visits family abroad, has money troubles and "speaks openly of unhappiness with U.S. foreign policy." That slide, from Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), is a startling demonstration of the Obama administration's obsession with leakers and other "insider threats." One goal of its broader "Insider Threat" program is to stop the next Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden from spilling classified or sensitive information. But critics have charged that the Insider Threat program, as McClatchy first reported, treats leakers acting in the public interest as traitors, and may not even accomplish its goal of preventing classified leaks. DISA's test, dubbed the "CyberAwareness Challaenge," was produced in October 2012, a month before the Obama administration finalized its Insider Threat policy. The slide about Hema is included in a section of the training about "insider threats," which are defined by an accompanying guide as threats from people who have access to the organization's information systems and may cause loss of physical inventory, data, and other security risks." Both Hema's travel abroad and her political dissatisfaction are treated as threat "indicators."Versions of the training for Defense Department and other federal employees are unclassified and available for anyone to play online. "Catch me if you can," the training dares. In a statement to The Huffington Post, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said, "DISA was sensitive to any civil liberty concerns that might arise from any portion of the curriculum, which is why it coordinated with 26 federal agencies to ensure the maximum amount of input was received before going live." "When considering personnel for a position of trust that requires a security clearance, there are many potential indicators that must be considered when evaluating for insider threat concerns," he explained. "The department takes these variables into consideration based on past examples of personnel who engaged in spying or treasonous acts." Several million people across the federal government have taken the training since it was released, Pickard said, and there has been only one complaint. He added that the next version of security awareness training, to be released in October, is being updated so that its insider threat test focuses more on behavior, "not personal characteristics or beliefs. "Notably, the Cyber Awareness Challenge is given to a wide range of federal employees whose roles have far less to do with security threats than that of a National Security Agency contractor like Snowden. The Department of Housing and Urban Development even requires its private business partners assessing a tenant rental assistance database to complete the training.
 

Matt Sledge, Huffingtonpost.com: Unhappy With U.S. Foreign Policy?

Pentagon Says You Might Be A 'High Threat'. Watch out for "Hema." A security training test created by a Defense Department agency warns federal workers that they should consider the hypothetical Indian-American woman a "high threat" because she frequently visits family abroad, has money troubles and "speaks openly of unhappiness with U.S. foreign policy." That slide, from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), is a startling demonstration of the Obama administration's obsession with leakers and other "insider threats." One goal of its broader  "Insider Threat" program is to stop the next Bradley Manning or Edward Snowden from spilling classified or sensitive information. But critics have charged that the Insider Threat program, as McClatchy first reported, treats leakers acting acting in the public interest as traitors, and may not even accomplish its goal of preventing classified leaks. DISA's test, dubbed the "Cyber Awareness Challenge," was produced in October 2012, a month before the Obama administration finalized its Insider Threat policy. The slide about Hema is included in a section of the training about "insider threats," which are defined by an accompanying guide as "threats from people who have access to the organization's information systems and may cause loss of physical inventory, data, and other security risks." Both Hema's travel abroad and her political dissatisfaction are treated as threat "indicators." Versions of the training for Defense Department and other federal employees are unclassified and available for nyone to play online. "Catch me if you can," the training dares. In a statement to The Huffington Post, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickart said, "DISA was sensitive to any civil liberty concerns that might arise from any portion of the curriculum, which is why it coordinated with 26 federal agencies to ensure the maximum amount of input was received before going live." "When considering personnel for a position of trust that requires a security clearance, there are many potential indicators that must be considered when evaluating for insider threat concerns," he explained. "The department takes these variables into consideration based on past examples of personnel who engaged in spying or treasonous acts." Several million people across the federal government have taken the training since it was released, Pickart said, and there has been only one complaint. He added that the next version of the security awareness training, to be released in October, is being updated so that insider-threat test focuses more on behavior, "not personal characteristics or beliefs."Notably, the Cyber Awareness Challenge is given to a wide range of federal employees whose roles have far less to do with security threats than that of a National Security Agency contractor like Snowden. 

The New York Times. By DAN FROSH: Amid Pipeline Debate, Two Costly Cleanups Forever Change Towns.

MARSHALL, Mich.  As the Obama administration inches closer to a decision on whether to approve construction of the much-debated Keystone XL pipeline, costly cleanup efforts in two communities stricken by oil spills portend the potential hazards of transporting heavy Canadian crude. It has been three years since an Enbridge Energy pipeline ruptured beneath this small western Michigan town, spewing more than 840,000 gallons of thick oil sands crude into the Kalamazoo River and Talmadge Creek, the largest oil pipeline failure in the country's history. Last March, an Exxon Mobil pipeline burst in Mayflower, Ark., releasing thousands of gallons of oil and forcing the evacuation of 22 homes. Both pipeline companies have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to recover the heavy crude, similar to the product Keystone XL would carry. River and floodplain ecosystems have been restored, and neighborhoods are still being refurbished. Legal battles are being waged, and residents' lives have been forever changed. "All oil spills are pretty ugly and not easy to clean up," said Stephen
K. Hamilton, a professor of aquatic ecology at Michigan State University who is advising the Environmental Protection Agency and the state on the cleanup in Marshall. "But this kind of an oil spill is even harder to clean up because of its tendency to stick to surfaces and its tendency to become submerged." Before July 26, 2010, hardly anyone in Marshall had heard of Enbridge Energy Partners, a Houston firm whose parent company is based in Calgary, Alberta. On a recent midsummer morning, the Kalamazoo looked almost the way it once did. Towering oak trees draped over the water in the heat. Hawks patrolled the deep green riverbanks. An elderly couple lugged fishing tackle toward a shady area. If not for two motorboats whirring downstream and three men probing the water with poles, there would have been no sign that anything had gone wrong. Much of Kalamazoo's plant and animal life has returned. But ridding the water of all the oil, some of which sank to the river floor and continues to generate a kaleidoscopic sheen, has proved elusive. Though a 40-mile stretch of the river has reopened after being closed for two years and most of the oil has been recovered or has evaporated, vestiges of the spill are everywhere. "For Sale" signs dot the rolling cornfields and soy farms. Once-coveted riverfront homes sit vacant. Matt Davis, a real estate agent here, said he had struggled to sell homes since the spill. "Enbridge hopes people forget," Mr. Davis said. "But this is my town. This is where I grew up. Enbridge isn't from around here. "We didn't ask for them to have their pipeline burst in our backyard. Make it right. Take care of the mess you made."In Mat, the E.P.A. found that Enbridge had drastically underestimated the amount of oil still in the river. The agency estimated that 180,000 gallons had most likely drifted to the bottom, more than then 100 times Enbridge's projection.  

Dr. Gary G. Kohls: The Hiroshima Myth. Unaccountable War Crimes and the Lies of US Military History.

This coming Tuesday, August 6, 2013, is the 68th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, the whole truth of which has been heavily censored and mythologized ever since war-weary Americans celebrated V-J Day 10 days later. In the pitiful history lessons that were taught by my uninspired bored history teachers which seemed to be mostly jocks came from patriotic and highly centered books where everything the British and US military ever did in war time was honorable and self-sacrificing and everything their opponents did was barbaric. Everybody in my graduating class of 26 swallowed the post-war propaganda in our history books. It was from these books that we learned about the glorious end of the war against Japan. Of course, I know that I had been given false information, orchestrated by war-justifying militarists and assorted ueber-patriotic historians starting with General Douglas MacArthor. MacArthur sucess-fully imposed total censorship of what really happened at Ground Zero. One of his first acts after taking over as viceroy of Japan was to confiscate and/or destroy all the photographic evidence documenting the horrors f the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Back in 1995, the Smithsonian Institution was preparing to correct some of the 50-year-old pseudo-patriotic myths by staging an honest, historically-accurate display dealing with the  atomic bombings. Following the vehement, orchestrated, reactionary out rage emanating from right-wing veterans groups and other patriot groups including Newt Gingrichs GOP-dominated Congress that threatened to stop federal funding of the Institute, the Smithsonian was forced to sensor out all unwelcome but contextually important parts of the story. So again, we had another example of politically-motivated groups heavily altering real history because they were afraid of revealing unpatriotic historical truths that might shake the confidence of Americans in our leaders, sort of like the near-total media black-out about the controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/01 that killed thousands of innocent people and unleashed the dogs of war against innocents in Afghanistan. The Smithsonian historians did have a gun to their heads, of course, but in the melee, the corporate-controlled mainstream media, and therefore the public, failed to learn an important historical point, and that is this: The war could have ended in the spring of 1945 without the summer atomic bombs, and therefore there might have been no Okinawa bloodbath for thousands of American Marines and soldiers. Also there would have been no need for an American land invasion of Japan, the basis of the subsequent propaganda campaign that justified the use of atomic weapons on defenseless civilian populations and meets the definition of an international war crime and a crime against humanity. 
 

Eric Margolis: Kicking Sand in Russai's Face!

The single most important national security imperative for the United States is to maintain correct relations with Russia. It's not al-Qaida, NSA, China, North Korea, or ant other issue. That's why President Obama's insulting cancellation of his planned meeting with Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, during the 5-6 September Group of 20 meeting in St. Petersburg is so dismaying. Russia has over 3,000 active nuclear warheads, the majority aimed at North America. The US has a similarly powerful nuclear arsenal, primarily targeted on Russia, or in reserve for a second strike in the event of all out-war. When two men are holding loaded pistols to each other's heads, keeping cool, calm and polite is imperative. But that's just what Washington has not been doing, exposing Americans to an unnecessary national security risk for no apparent gain. Informal meetings between heads of state on the sidelines of major international meetings are common and useful. Such sit-downs serve to smooth over ongoing disputes and send a message of orderly, civilized relations. The tone is often more important than the content. Relations between Washington and Moscow have been growing steadily chillier over recent years. Gone are the days when the credulous George Bush could say he looked into Vlad Putin's eyes and trusted him. A series of disputes, Syria, Palestine, arms control, missile defence , bedevil US - Russian relations. Washington has been blasting Moscow over human rights, which is pretty rich coming after Guantanamo, water-boarding, and massive US spying on the whole world, including Americans. Behind this Big Chill is Washington's ongoing treatment of Russia as a second or third-rate power. The US lectures and hectors Russia and affords scant concern of Moscow's strategic interest. Europe gets much the same treatment. Whenever Russia refuses to go along with US policy, Syria being a good example, it comes in for barrages of criticisms over human and political rights in America's state-influenced media and Congress. President Putin is no angel: he's tough as nails and brooks no opposition. But that's what Russians want. Putin has raised Russia off its knees. In 1989, I was the first western journalist admitted into KGB's Moscow headquarters, the Lubyanka. I was told by senior KGB generals that they were ditching the rotten, corrupt Communist Party. What Russia needed, they said,was a tough, iron-fisted leader like the strongmen then running Chile and South Korea. Shortly after, KGB mounted a palace coup in the Kremlin and installed one of its star officers, Vladimir Putin, as prime minister, then president. Now, President Obama has made clear he is boycotting his planned meeting with Putin because of human rights issues and Syria.   

AlterNet: By Alex Kane: What's the Pentagon Hiding at a Georgia Military Base?

In recent years, the Pentagon has kept the public from finding out the names of Latin American security forces being trained at an army base in Georgia. And it wants to keep it that way. From 1994-2004, the U.S. military, in response to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, disclosed the nationalities of the security forces it was training at the school. But soon after the feisty activists from School of the Americas Watch (SOAW) shed light on how the U.S. was training known human rights abusers from Latin America in 2004, the Department of Defense stopped telling the public who was attending the institution. It was a bid to keep the public who was attending the institution. It was a bid to keep the public from finding out whether the U.S. continued to facilitate human rights abuses in Latin America through that training, which would be a violation of U.S. law. Now the military is doubling down on that position and is embroiled in a court battle with SOAW over the disclosure of names of trainees at what is now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). (In 2001, after bad publicity was heaped on the institution, the school's name was changed from School of the Americas to WHINSEC.) Although a district judge in California ruled that the DOD had to release the names, the court battle continues. The Obama administration still has not released the names, and is likely to appeal the judge's decision, which could send the case to a higher court. The administration has already filed a "notice of appeal" to the judge's decision but the district court proceedings are not yet over. Some outstanding issues, like the full scope of the DOD's disclosure, remain unsolved, but the plaintiffs got most of what they wanted from the judge. And the district court's order represented a major win for transparency advocates, as the judge rejected the government's assertion that releasing the names of trainees would harm the U.S. "national interest", a claim that usually wins the day. The court dispute between SOAW and the Department of Defense is the activist group's latest salvo in their effort to shine a light on the Georgia
school, which has been responsible for training the perpetrators of a wide range of Latin American human rights abuses, from genocide in Guatemala to the killing of Jesuit priests in El Salvador. And the refusal of the military to release the names is yet another example of the Obama administration's penchant for secrecy. "The soldiers who are being trained at the SOA/WHINSEC are doing the bidding of the Pentagon. Their purpose is to preserve U.S. domination, and to keep Latin America open for U.S. business. The reason why the Pentagon is keeping the names of the graduates secret is that they want to prevent the truth about their actions being made public. Making the names public and exposing the activities of SOA/WHINSEC graduates is one step towards shutting down the school for good."