maccabees
High Court Won’t Hear Claims vs Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to allow victims of the Sept. 11 attacks to pursue lawsuits against Saudi Arabia and four Saudi princes over charitable donations allegedly funneled to al-Qaida.
The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries cannot be sued in American courts.
The Obama administration had angered some victims and families by urging the justices to pass up the case.
Obama Detention Plan Tests U.S. Legal Tradition Concept of Preventive Detention is at the Very Bound
President Obama’s proposal for a new legal system in which terrorism suspects could be held in “prolonged detention” inside the United States without trial would be a departure from the way this country sees itself, as a place where people in the grip of the government either face criminal charges or walk free.
There are, to be sure, already some legal tools that allow for the detention of those who pose danger: quarantine laws as well as court precedents permitting the confinement of sexual predators and the dangerous mentally ill. Every day in America, people are denied bail and locked up because they are found to be a hazard to their communities, though they have yet to be convicted of anything.
Still, the concept of preventive detention is at the very boundary of American law, and legal experts say any new plan for the imprisonment of terrorism suspects without trial would seem…
Domestic Extermism Lexicon (FOUO)
alternative media (U//FOUO) A term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.
New Military Command Planned to Improve U.S. Cybersecurity
The Obama administration plans to create a new military command to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, according to current and former officials familiar with the plans.
The initiative will reshape the military’s efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia. The new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks, Pentagon officials said.
The move comes amid growing evidence that sophisticated cyberspies are attacking the U.S. electric grid and key defense programs. A page-one story in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that hackers breached the Pentagon’s biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter, and stole data. Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote to the defense secretary Tuesday requesting a briefing on the matter.
Lockheed Martin Corp., the project’s lead contractor, said in a statement Tuesday…
AIG Execs Left After ‘Retention’ Bonuses, NY Official Says
Buried deep in the article: Obama spared AIG’s new CEO, Edward Liddy, from criticism, saying Liddy got the job “after the contracts that led to these bonuses were agreed to last year.”
But he said the impropriety of the bonuses goes beyond economics. “It’s about our fundamental values,” he said. “All across the country, there are people who are working hard and meeting their responsibilities every single day, without the benefit of government bailouts or multimillion-dollar bonuses. You’ve got a bunch of small-business people here who are struggling just to keep their credit line open,” Obama said.
“And all they ask is that everyone, from Main Street to Wall Street to Washington, play by the same rules. That is an ethic that we have to demand.” Obama said he would work with Congress to change the laws so that such a situation cannot happen again. Then, coughing, he added in jest, “I’m…
Obama Abandons Term ‘Enemy Combatant’
Change We Can Believe In!!!!
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that it is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant.
The Justice Department said in legal filings that it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. But that won’t change much for the detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba — Obama still asserts the military’s authority to hold them.
Human rights attorneys said they were disappointed that Obama didn’t take a new stance. “This is really a case of old wine in new bottles,” the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been fighting the detainees’ detention, said in a statement. “It is still unlawful to hold people indefinitely without charge. The men who have been held for more than seven years by our government must be charged or released.”
In another court filing Thursday, the…
Report: More Young Girls Face Rape in Afghanistan
Is it my imagination, or has there been an exponential increase in the amount of stories like this (and iran too) prepping the american people for a longer/more consuming/new war effort in these theatres?
UNITED NATIONS (CNN): Rapes targeting girls as young as seven are on the increase in Afghanistan where conditions for women are little better than under the Taliban, the U.N. and rights groups say.
In its annual report on human rights, the U.N. warned conditions were deteriorating in the war-ravaged country despite U.S.-led efforts after the 2001 removal from power of the hardline militia.
“Violence is tolerated or condoned within the family and community, within traditional and religious leadership circles, as well as the formal and informal justice system,” said Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights.
The “Afghan government has failed to adequately protect the rights of women despite constitutional guarantees.”
…
CIA Veterans Blast Senate Probe of Operations Under Bush
For a handful of CIA operatives who were on the frontlines of the war on terror in the early months and years after 9/11, it’s the stuff of nightmares. After all, they did their job as their political masters defined it, using tools and techniques approved by their lawyers. Then came an election, and a new set of political masters, who have begun second-guessing everything they did before. Suddenly there is lots of talk about “violations” and “wrong-doing,” the promise of formal investigations and hearings, and the very real possibility that their life savings could go to defense lawyers.
Unfortunately for them, that nightmare looks like it may soon become frighteningly real. Against the wishes of the agency’s popular new leader, the CIA is in the crosshairs of two powerful Democratic Senators who are determined to get to the bottom of the Agency’s more controversial operations. And not even the White…
CIA Veterans Blast Senate Probe of Operations Under Bush
CIA Veterans Blast Senate Probe of Operations Under Bush
By Bobby Ghosh / Washington Friday, Mar. 06, 2009
Inside CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va.
Inside CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va.
Christopher Morris / VII for TIME
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For a handful of CIA operatives who were on the frontlines of the war on terror in the early months and years after 9/11, it’s the stuff of nightmares. After all, they did their job as their political masters defined it, using tools and techniques approved by their lawyers. Then came an election, and a new set of political masters, who have begun second-guessing everything they did before. Suddenly there is lots of talk about “violations” and “wrong-doing,” the promise of formal investigations and hearings, and the very real possibility that their life savings could go to defense lawyers.
Unfortunately for them, that nightmare looks like…
Senate Panel Starts Inquiry into CIA Interrogation Program
WASHINGTON (CNN): The Senate Intelligence Committee has launched a review of the Bush administration’s controversial interrogation and detention program.
Newly appointed CIA Director Leon Panetta says review should not target CIA interrogators.
The purpose of the review is to fully understand the program and to help “shape detention and interrogation policies in the future,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the committee, and Sen. Kit Bond, the committee’s ranking Republican, said in a statement Thursday.
The Senate study will run parallel to one ordered by President Obama shortly after he took office. Obama wants to know whether any of the harsh interrogation methods used against suspected terrorists held by the CIA should be retained.
The so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” included waterboarding, which simulates drowning and is considered torture by the new administration. Bush officials repeatedly insisted detainees were not tortured during questioning.
Senate Postpones Vote on Spending Bill
WASHINGTON (CNN): The U.S. Senate postponed a planned vote on a $410 billion spending plan on Thursday, with Democratic leaders saying they would allow Republican changes to the bill to be considered after coming up just short of the support they needed.
The decision delays a dilemma for President Obama, who was not in office when the bill was being put together. He would have to choose between vetoing it, which some fellow Democrats have suggested, or signing off on a plan that contains the kind of spending projects he’s spoken out against yet provides funding for government operations.
The omnibus bill’s price tag and its nearly $8 billion for local projects &mdash so-called pork-barrel spending or earmarks — have made it a lightning rod for controversy as the government struggles with a tough economy.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert Faces Further Charges
You don’t have to click the link to get the whole story, this is it:
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, should be indicted for an alleged investment scheme, police say.
The recommendation to indict Olmert was issued on Thursday, adding more charges to a series of corruption scandals that have forced his resignation.
A police statement said that during Olmert’s term as trade minister under Ariel Sharon, the former Israeli prime minister, he diverted state money to Uri Messer, a former law partner.
Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, said the anti-fraud unit’s non-binding recommendation included evidence of “fraud and breach of trust”.
Olmert, who resigned in September but is staying on until a new government is formed following a February 10 election, has denied the allegations.
The outgoing prime minister faces six other simultaneous investigations on claims involving bribery, money-laundering and fraud with Morris Talansky, a US businessman.
…
Horses Tamed Earlier Than Thought
Horses were domesticated much earlier than previously thought, according to a team of researchers.
They found evidence suggesting that the animals were used by a culture in northern Kazakhstan 5,500 years ago.
Until now, the earliest evidence of horse riding was metal parts from harnesses dating from the Bronze Age.
Writing in Science, a team from the UK’s Exeter University suggested that the community in Kazakhstan rode their horses 1,000 years earlier.
They also ate them and drank their milk, possibly as an alcoholic brew.
U.S. Officer ‘Stole Iraq Aid Funds’
A US army captain has been charged with stealing nearly $700,000 intended for emergency reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Michael Dung Nguyen, 28, is accused of stealing the money and sending it back home while he was stationed in Iraq between April 2007 and February 2009.
He allegedly spent the money on luxury cars, electronics and furniture.
He has pleaded not guilty to charges including theft of government property and money laundering.
Brazil Church Excommunicates Mom, Doctors After Raped 9-Year-Old Has Abortion
RIO DE JANEIRO — A Roman Catholic archbishop says the abortion of twins carried by a 9-year-old girl who allegedly was raped by her stepfather means excommunication for the girl’s mother and her doctors.
Despite the nature of the case, the church had to hold its line against abortion, Archbishop Jose Cardoso Sobrinho said in an interview aired Thursday by Globo television.
“The law of God is higher than any human laws,” he said. “When a human law — that is, a law enacted by human legislators — is against the law of God, that law has no value. The adults who approved, who carried out this abortion have incurred excommunication.”
Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao rebuked the archbishop, saying, “I’m shocked by two facts: by what happened to the girl and by the position of the archbishop, who in saying he defends life puts another at risk.”
…
Wrestling Legend Accused of Body-Slamming Nursing Home Roommate to Death
MINNEAPOLIS — During his glory days as a pro wrestler, Verne Gagne shared the spotlight with other burly men in trunks, guys with names like Killer Kowalski, Mad Dog Vachon, The Crusher and Baron Von Raschke.
But all of that seemed well in the past until just weeks ago, when authorities say Gagne, 82 and suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, apparently body-slammed a 97-year-old fellow patient at the suburban nursing home where they both lived, causing the man’s death.
Bloomington police are investigating, but not even the victim’s widow wants to see the dementia-stricken Gagne prosecuted.
NATO Bases Censored By Google Earth
On Google Earth, you can look deep into all sorts of things, with a bird’s eye view of all manner of military bases, government agencies like the NSA, CIA, and NCIS. Hell, if you know where to look, you can see our strategic missile defense system (in places).
Yet one thing that they apparently DON’T want you to see is NATO Joint Force Command in Brunssum, The Netherlands.
If you put it into your search bar, and go about a mile south you’ll see a large pixelated area, and another to the east where the air base is. Just something I thought was kinda interesting.
Anthropologist’s War Death Reverberates
In a hostile corner of southern Afghanistan, an American platoon fanned out around a market, forming a protective circle around a petite woman with a notebook. Paula Loyd, a Wellesley-educated researcher, began interviewing villagers about the price of cooking fuel — a key indicator of whether insurgents had hijacked supply lines.
As part of a new military program that uses social scientists to improve the troops’ understanding of the local population, Loyd began interviewing a gregarious stranger who approached her with a jug of cooking fuel in his hands. He talked for 15 minutes, thanking her profusely in English. But just as her guards motioned it was time to leave, he lit his jug on fire and engulfed the 36-year-old Loyd in flames.
Minutes later, her fellow researcher shot and killed the man, adding a violent coda to a case that has already increased debate about the worsening conditions in Afghanistan and…
U.S. Army Human Terrain Systems Program
I wanted to get the Disinfo commenters opinions on this. The army is embedding anthropologists into units in Afghanistan to report on the Afghani cultures there to help it prosecute the war.
HTS Overview: HTS was designed to meet the military’s requirements for socio-cultural knowledge across a spectrum of operations that the U.S. may encounter in today’s world. Most importantly, understanding foreign societies can be critical during stabilization, security, transition and reconstruction (SSTR) operations in order to identify flash points, deter war, reduce violence, and promote peaceful economic and social development.
In a counterinsurgency — such as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan — one of the military’s objectives is to influence the population through non-lethal means (such as economic development), to support the host nation government and/or to reduce support for insurgent groups (like the Taliban). Thus, the commander and staff must look beyond their traditional military mission focus (enemy, terrain, weather,…
