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Some in Congress want changes in military law as a result of sex scandals

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Craig Whitlock - May. 16 (News Report) - Members of Congress said they are so angry about the crescendo of sex-crime scandals in the armed forces that they are considering fundamental changes to military law and other measures that the Pentagon has resisted for years. ...

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Ríos Montt Guilty of Genocide: Are Guatemalan President Pérez Molina, U.S. Officials Next?

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 13 (News Report) - In a historic verdict, former U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has been sentenced to 80 years in prison after being found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity. Ríos Montt was convicted of overseeing the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after seizing power in 1982. The ruling marks the first time a former head of state had been found guilty of genocide in his own country. The judge in the case has instructed prosecutors to launch an immediate investigation of "all others" connected to the crimes

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Nuclear Weapons Will be Used -- If We Don't Do Something to Get Rid of the Damn Things

Mon, 13 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Tom Engelhardt - May. 13 (Opinion) - Has a weapon ever been invented, no matter how terrible, and not used? The crossbow, the dreadnought, poison gas, the tank, the landmine, chemical weapons, napalm, the B-29, the drone: all had their day and for some that day remains now. Even the most terrible weapon of all, the atomic bomb, that city-buster, that potential civilization-destroyer, was used as soon as it was available. Depending on your historical interpretation, it was either responsible for ending World War II in the Pacific or rushed into action before that war could end. In either case, it launched the atomic age.

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Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 08 (Special Report) - A shocking new report by the Pentagon has found that 70 sexual assaults may be taking place within the U.S. military every day. The report estimates there were 26,000 sex crimes committed in 2012, a jump of 37 percent since 2010. Most of the incidents were never reported. The findings were released two days after the head of the Air Force's sexual assault prevention unit, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, was arrested for sexual assault. We air highlights from Tuesday's Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assault and speak with Anu Bhagwati, executive director and co-founder of Service Women's Action Network. "The numbers are outrageous, and I think we've reached a tipping point," Bhagwati says. "The American public is furious."

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Chief of the U.S. Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Charged with... Sexual Battery

Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Katie McDonough - May. 08 (News Report) - Krusinski is accused of drunkenly fondling a woman in a parking lot, according to Arlington County police

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The World Is a Battlefield: Jeremy Scahill on "Dirty Wars" and Obama's Expanding Drone Attacks

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Jeremy Scahill, amy Goodman - Apr. 24 (Special Report) - Scahill charts the expanding covert wars operated by the CIA and JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, in countries from Somalia to Pakistan. "I called it 'Dirty Wars' because, particularly in this administration, in the Obama administration, I think a lot of people are being led to believe that there is such a thing as a clean war," Scahill says. He goes on to discuss secret operations in Africa, the targeting of U.S. citizens in Yemen and the key role WikiLeaks played in researching the book.

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277 Million Boston Bombings

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Scheer - Apr. 24 (Opinion) - I list all those dreary statistics to drive home the point that the horror of two pressure cooker bombs in Boston that has so traumatized us should help us grasp the significance of the 1.8 million bomblets dropped in Iraq over a three-week period. Obama was right to blast the use of weapons that targeted civilians in Boston as inherent acts of terrorism, but by what standard do such weapons change their nature when they are deployed by governments against civilians?

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Jeremy Scahill: The Secret Story Behind Obama's Assassination of Two Americans in Yemen

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman - Apr. 23 (News Analysis) - While the Obama administration has defended the killing of Anwar, it has never publicly explained why Abdulrahman was targeted in a separate drone strike two weeks later. Scahill reveals CIA Director John Brennan, Obama’s former senior adviser on counterterrorism and homeland security, suspected that the teenager had been killed "intentionally." "The idea that you can simply have one branch of government unilaterally and in secret declare that an American citizen should be executed or assassinated without having to present any evidence whatsoever, to me, is a — we should view that with great sobriety about the implications for our country,"

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Exclusive: Allan Nairn Exposes Role of U.S. and New Guatemalan President in Indigenous Massacres

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Allan Nairn - Apr. 19 (News Report) - Ríos Montt was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982. His 17-month rule is seen as one of the bloodiest chapters in Guatemala’s decades-long campaign against Maya indigenous people, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. The trial took a surprising turn last week when Guatemala President Gen. Otto Pérez Molina was directly accused of ordering executions

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Genocide Trial of Former Dictator Ríos Montt Suspended After Intervention by Guatemalan President

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzalez - Apr. 19 (News Report) - A historic trial against former U.S.-backed Guatemalan dictator Efraín Ríos Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity came to an abrupt end Thursday when an appeals court suspended the trial before a criminal court was scheduled to reach a verdict. Ríos Montt on was charged in connection with the slaughter of more than 1,700 people in Guatemala’s Ixil region after he seized power in 1982

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Twisting Feinstein’s Words on Military Vets

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

FactCheck - By Eugene Kiely - Apr. 18 (Fact Check) - Q: Did Sen. Dianne Feinstein say all military veterans are mentally ill and should not be allowed to own guns? A: No. She said veterans should not be exempt from her proposed assault weapons ban, citing post-traumatic stress disorder as a concern. She did not say all veterans suffer from … More >>

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U.S. Practiced Torture After 9/11, Nonpartisan Review Concludes

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By SCOTT SHANE - Apr. 16 (News Report) - WASHINGTON — A nonpartisan, independent review of interrogation and detention programs in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks concludes that “it is indisputable that the United States engaged in the practice of torture” and that the nat

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Contrasting Views on North Korea Underscore Sensitivities and Lack of Evidence

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt - Apr. 13 (News Analysis) - A sudden round of finger-pointing highlighted the sensitivity surrounding intelligence estimates in the wake of failures leading up to the Iraq war, and some subsequent missteps involving North Korea.

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North Korea May Have Nuclear Missile Capability, U.S. Agency Says

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt - Apr. 12 (News Analysis) - A report by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm concluded North Korea has learned to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be carried by missile. Whether other agencies agree is unclear.

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South Korea raises alert with North to 'vital threat'

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 10 (Special Report) - 'Anytime now' North Korea is believed to have completed preparations for a missile launch after it moved two Musudan missiles to its east coast, In anticipation, the South Korea-US Combined Forces have raised their alert level to Watchcon 2, to increase surveillance monitoring, Yonhap quoted a senior military official as saying..

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US moving ships, radar systems in response to N. Korean threat

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Fox News - Apr. 02 (News Report) - The Pentagon confirmed Tuesday that it is positioning an array of military assets near the Korean Peninsula, as the White House stressed that the "entire national security team" is focused on the escalating threats out of Pyongyang -- with the latest being a pledge to restart a key nuclear reactor.

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American Special Ops Forces Now Operating in 71 Countries

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Laleh Khalili - Mar. 31 (Special Report) - More than a year ago, in January 2012, President Obama inaugurated the US Defense Strategic Guidance. The document was strategically significant because it announced the "pivot to Asia" alongside continued commitments to the oil sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf. Militarily, it clearly signalled the end of large-scale invasion and occupation of troublesome or intransigent countries in favour of the kind of operations in which the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and its counterterrorism component, the JSOC, excel. This ascendancy is confirmed by the planned expansion of the SOCOM by around 7.5 percent by 2015, from 66,100 civilian and military personnel in 2011 to 71,100 by 2015.

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The Most Expensive Fighter Jet Ever Built, by the Numbers

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

ProPublica - By Theodoric Meyer - Mar. 29 (Special Report) - Thanks to the sequester, the Defense Department is now required to cut more than $40 billion this fiscal year out of its $549 billion budget. But one program that's unlikely to take a significant hit is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, despite the fact that it's almost four times more expensive than any other Pentagon weapons program that's in the works. We've compiled some of the most headache-inducing figures, from the program's hefty cost overruns to the billions it's generating in revenue for Lockheed Martin.

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Obama Sarcastically Asks How Israel Afforded Such A Great Missile Defense System

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

theonion.com - Mar. 22 (Comedy News) - While touring Israel’s “Iron Dome” all-weather missile defense system Wednesday, President Barack Obama sarcastically asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where he got all the money to build such technologically advanced equipment. “Boy, you’ve gotta have some pretty deep pockets to afford something like this—how much did you say this ran you guys?” asked Obama,

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Dahr Jamail Returns to Iraq to Find Rampant Torture and a Failed State Living in "Utter Devastation"

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Nermeen Shaikh, Amy Goodman, Ghali Al-Atwani, Dahr Jamail - Mar. 20 (Special Report) - Investigative journalist Dahr Jamail reported for Democracy Now! throughout the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq 10 years ago. Now with Al Jazeera, Jamail has just returned from Iraq once again, finding what he calls a "failed state" living in "utter devastation." In part one of our interview, Jamail discusses the harrowing security situation for Iraqis living in fear of bombings, executions and kidnappings, the widespread torture in Iraq's prisons, and the breakdown of security in what he calls a "lawless state." Jamail is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq" and "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan." [includes rush transcript]

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Why invading Iraq was a terrible mistake

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Hans Blix - Mar. 19 (Opinion) - I headed the U.N. inspections in Iraq at the time of the war 10 years ago. Today, I look again at the reasons why this terrible mistake -- and violation of the U.N. charter -- took place and explore if any lessons be drawn. Here are my thoughts.

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As Gitmo Prisoners Revolt, Obama Admin Challenged on Indefinite Detention at OAS Hearing

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Mar. 13 (News Report) - As more than 100 Guantánamo Bay prisoners enter the fifth week of their hunger strike, the Obama administration has defended their detention at a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. A number of prisoners have been held without charge for more than 11 years, and more than half have been cleared for release. Attorneys for the prisoners told the hearing that the lack of hope for release among those who do not face charges has created a climate of despair.

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Bradley Manning: The Face of Heroism

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Glenn Greenwald - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - "Manning's motivations in leaking, he said, was to 'spark a domestic debate of the role of the military and foreign policy in general', he said, and 'cause society to reevaluate the need and even desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore their effect on people who live in that environment every day.'

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‘Homeland Security’

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

nationofchange.org - By Chris Hellman, Mattea Kramer - Mar. 01 (News Analysis) - Homeland security is supposed to be the actual “defense” department—since the Pentagon is essentially a Department of Offense—and it’s rife with all the same issues and defects that critics of the military-industrial complex have decried for decades. In other words, “homeland security” has become another obese boondoggle.

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American 'Bloodlust' Led to Secrets Leak, Says Manning

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Ed Pilkington - Mar. 01 (News Report) - "We were obsessed with capturing and killing human targets on lists and ignoring goals and missions. I believed if the public, particularly the American public, could see this it could spark a debate on the military and our foreign policy in general [that] might cause society to reconsider the need to engage in counter-terrorism while ignoring the human situation of the people we engaged with every day."

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