position:colonel

Space Oddity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo#

A revised version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield on board the International Space Station.

With thanks to Emm Gryner, Joe Corcoran, Andrew Tidby and Evan Hadfield for all their hard work.

Bon, faut avouer que #space_oddity est probablement mon album favori de Bowie ;-)

Former Bush administration official: Israel may be behind use of chemical arms in Syria - West of Eden Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/west-of-eden/former-bush-administration-official-israel-may-be-behind-use-of-chemical-ar

Retired U.S. Army Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who once served as Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, believes that the chemical weapons used in Syria may have been an Israeli “false flag” operation aimed at implicating Bashar Assad’s regime.

Wilkerson made his astounding assertion in an interview on Current TV, the network once owned by former Vice President Al Gore and recently purchased by Al-Jazeera.

Wilkerson said that the evidence that it was Assad’s regime that had used the chemical weapons was “flaky” and that it could very well have been the rebels or Israel who were the perpetrators. Asked why Israel would do such a thing, Wilkerson said: “I think we’ve got a basically geostrategically, geopolitical inept regime in Tel Aviv right now.”

Long mais intéressant reportage en anglais de Fisk auprès de soldats de l’armée syrienne :
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/they-may-be-fighting-for-syria-not-assad-they-may-also-be-winning-rob

Guerre d’Iraq. Portrait au vitriol de Tony Blair (actuellement Envoyé spécial du Quartet pour le processus de paix au Proche Orient) pour son rôle avant et pendant l’invasion de l’Iraq. Abdel Bari Atwan (Editeur en chef d’AlQuds Alarabi) demande son expulsion de la région et le retrait de son mandat dans le cadre du Quartet. Il plaide pour une enquête sur les responsabilités des dirigeants arabes pendant la guerre d’Iraq qui serait placée sous la supervision de la Ligue arabe. Tout en soulignant les hypocrisies arabes, il dénonce les conspirations de l’Occident soupçonné de vouloir détruire la nation arabe en favorisant l’expansion des affrontements intercommunautaires, entreprise qui aurait commencé en Iraq en 2003 et qui se poursuivrait aujourd’hui en Syrie avant d’affecter l’Egypte.

AlQuds Alarabi est un quotidien édité à Londres, indépendamment de l’Arabie saoudite contrairement aux deux autres publications panarabes Al-Hayat et Asharq Al-Awsat. Les commentaires d’Abdel Bari Atwan sur Tony Blair ne sont que l’écho de ce que l’on entend dans les pays arabes.

http://www.bariatwan.com/english/?p=1549

Blair’s further lies revelation as Arabs fooled again
Abdel Bari Atwan

Apr 8 2013

More humiliating revelations for Arab people in this week’s Independent on Sunday which showed how the invasion of Iraq was an ugly intervention designed solely to serve Western interests and strengthen Israel’s regional domination. The IoS detailed how British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, had no intention of going to war with Iraq until he visited George W. Bush in April 2002. MI6 officers told the paper that Blair was ’star struck’ by Bush, with whom he spent an evening alone, and returned from the trip ’a changed man’. The same sources also revealed that Blair went to visit Bush on his ranch thinking they would be planning a war against Libya’s Colonel Gadhafi, whom Blair considered much more dangerous. He knew from the outset that what little stocks of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Saddam possessed would fit ’in the back of a small truck’. Blair, having overcome his surprise that the target was to be Saddam Hussein and not Gadhafi, and being a paragon of democracy, like the overwhelming majority of Western rulers, returned to London and prepared a series of lies in order to rally the British public behind a war on Iraq. A war against a besieged country, with a starved people, on the pretext of a lie. (…) On the tenth anniversary of the occupation of Iraq, the prominent role played by Rafid Janabi was revealed. Rafid is the Iraqi who fabricated – following instructions from the CIA and German intelligence – the lie of mobile biological and chemical weapons laboratories.

(…) We now demand an investigation, conducted by Arabs, into the role of our Arab leaders in this war, which led to the martyrdom of millions of Iraqis, orphaned four million children, and destroyed an Arab country.

(…) As long as the league is active in support of Arab Spring revolutions, we call upon them and the secretary general once again, to expel Tony Blair from the entire region, and relinquish his ridiculously inappropriate job as International Peace Envoy for the Middle East. His hands are stained with the blood of Iraqis. The man is a war criminal, and above all he is a liar who spread lies and fabrications. The only thing he does not conceal is his bias towards Israel; he even works as a consultant to Benjamin Netanyahu, giving him advice on how to deal with Western campaigns aimed at delegitimising Israel internationally and morally. (…) We know about the hypocrisy, the deception and brainwashing that is going on in the Arab region (…) North Korea defends its dignity, saying a big “no” to USA and does not hesitate to go to war in defence of its dignity and people, just as the Afghani resistance and then the Iraqi resistance did. Will the Arabs rise up for their dignity?

The Alawite Dilemma in Homs
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/11122/the-alawite-dilemma-in-homs

This study is based on observations and interviews conducted with members of the Alawite community in the Homs area during the summer of 2012. The interviewees range from army officers to paramilitaries and civilians, including students, academics, businessmen and individuals from diverse backgrounds. While some identified themselves explicitly as religiously observant Alawites, others consider themselves trapped in the »Alawite box« as a result of the current crisis. Some interviewees were aware of the research, whereas others were not aware of the aims of our discussions. This was particularly true of the Shabiha with whom I spent time as a »participant observer«. Some of the interviews and observations gathered in outlying villages were provided by intermediaries. The interviewed sample is not representative in that it does not reflect a broad cross sectional range of views by Alawites, although it nevertheless provides some insight into the Alawite community in Homs. The objective is neither to censure nor to defend but to shed light on the multifaceted and often complex political and social realities of the Alawite community in Homs today.

The west’s alliance against Assad is riddled with contradictions
Claire Spencer
The Guardian, Tuesday 26 March 2013 19.36 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/26/international-community-fails-syria-local-agendas

The tragedy in Syria lies as much in the dysfunctional international response as in the war on the ground
Over the past week there has been much wringing of hands over Syria, and rightly so. At every turn, the Gordian knot has been tightening, with little prospect of it being cut.

Monday’s grim news was that the founder of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), the erstwhile Syrian army colonel Riad al-Asaad, was seriously wounded in a targeted car bomb just before the Syrian National Coalition assumed Syria’s seat in place of the Assad regime at the Arab League meeting in Doha.

In war things rarely run smoothly, but the tragedy of Syria lies as much in the fragility of the coalition supporting the rebels as in the inconclusiveness of the rebels’ own political and military battles. Since the Russian and Chinese vetoes at the UN in early 2011, there has been no single “international community” voice on Syria. On team A we have the US, EU, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Russia, China, Iran and sundry others make up team B. Far from resolving the crisis, these competing actors cancelled out each other’s efforts over the ensuing two years. As the main instigators of Libya’s liberation from Muammar Gaddafi, the French and British clearly want to do more than train rebel soldiers in Jordan, or increase humanitarian assistance to refugees. In pushing for arms to reach the FSA in Syria, however, they are failing to manage their own allies, much less the opposing team.

The Arab League, meeting this week, is once again calling for more robust UN action, but this reflects neither diplomatic realities nor developments on the ground. Journalists covering Syria from the inside have revealed how Turkey and the Gulf states are already training, funding and arming rebel groups; but from a Franco-British perspective, they are clearly the wrong ones. Last week’s news that a low-level, chlorine-based chemical weapons may have been deployed from an area controlled by Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamist militia supported by Qatar, sits uneasily with the more secular FSA’s appeals for hardware from the west.

So far, the US is sitting on the fence – the new secretary of state, John Kerry, having failed to convince President Obama that inserting more weaponry into Syria will save lives down the line. The alliance struck with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey over Syria remains circumstantial. It is not clear that all of team A wants the same thing. Opposing Iranian, or indeed Russian, influence in Syria is not the same thing as securing the best outcome for the Syrian people. With the shadow of 2003 Iraq hanging heavily over western intervention, which lacks domestic support in both Europe and the US, the next best options remain no-fly zones and humanitarian corridors. Neither is anywhere close to being legally viable or practical on the ground.

What worked in Libya in 2011 now looks like a fortuitous sleight of hand. Given the EU’s tensions with Russia over Cyprus, the solid veto of China, and the regional activism of Qatar and Turkey, the Nato-led Libyan campaign may go down in history as one of the last actions of a consensus-based “international community”. The closer the crisis, the more local agendas prevail. Whether this means the Gulf favouring jihadist strongmen over democracy, or Turkey backing some of Syria’s ethnic and sectarian communities over others, it is not the Syrian people who will emerge victorious in any of the senses championed by the US and EU.

Facing up to the dysfunctionality of its own alliance over Syria should now be the priority of any UK-French plan. The alternative is to continue to back one increasingly narrow, divided and poorly resourced set of Syrians against another armed and championed by the west’s own regional allies

Avant de penser que l’internet puisse être une institution signifiante de défense des libertés publiques, peut-être vaudrait-il mieux constater qu’il est fragile, en constatant que trois pauvres malheureux semblent pouvoir déconnecter peut-être involontairement 75.000.000 d’usagers

Col. Ahmed Mohammed Ali said on his Facebook page that the three men had been caught diving from an inflatable dinghy as they worked underwater to try and cut the cable at a point just north of the port city of Alexandria, AP reports. Alexandria is the main entry point for the multiple submarine cables that bring internet connectivity to Egypt.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/27/egypt_cables_cut_arrest

Military Academy admits students from Brotherhood Families

Daily News Egypt

http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/03/18/military-academy-admits-students-from-brotherhood-families

Military Academy admissions have stirred public concern amid reports of accepting students who are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Major General Esmat Mourad, the director of the Military Academy, confirmed the admission of President Mohamed Morsi’s nephew into the academy saying that applicants are judged only upon their skills.

Trained Killers, from the Americas to Afghanistan by Kelley B. Vlahos — Antiwar.com
http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2013/03/18/trained-killers-from-the-americas-to-afghanistan

For most Americans the death squads and torture chambers that killed thousands in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua in the 1980’s are difficult to understand and easy to forget because, aside for an apology by President Bill Clinton in 1999 – the United States has never fully acknowledged nor taken responsibility for its role in them.

Syria Comment » Archives » The Free Syrian Army doesn’t exist
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=18104

Important article du Akhbar sur les groupes armés syriens et le 14 Mars (y compris l’extrême-droite chrétienne) : Wadi Khaled : al-Nusra Front and March 14 Form Bonds
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/wadi-khaled-al-nusra-front-and-march-14-form-bonds

In Lebanon’s northeastern Wadi Khaled, one finds what could be called the extension of al-Nusra Front inside March 14. Under the pretext of toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Phalanges’ homebase of Bikfaya and the Lebanese Forces’ homebase of Maarab are both creating links with extremists.

Le Pentagone derrière les centres de torture en Irak

http://www.courrierinternational.com/une/2013/03/07/le-pentagone-derriere-les-centres-de-torture-en-irak

►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link

Revealed : Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres | World news | The Guardian
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link

The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the “dirty wars” in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war.

Colonel James Steele was a 58-year-old retired special forces veteran when he was nominated by Donald Rumsfeld to help organise the paramilitaries in an attempt to quell a Sunni insurgency, an investigation by the Guardian and BBC Arabic shows.

After the Pentagon lifted a ban on Shia militias joining the security forces, the special police commando (SPC) membership was increasingly drawn from violent Shia groups such as the Badr brigades.

A second special adviser, retired Colonel James H Coffman, worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding.

#irak #torture #états_unis

déjà signalé par Grommeleur ici
http://seenthis.net/messages/119682

Revealed : Pentagon’s link to Iraqi torture centres
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/pentagon-iraqi-torture-centres-link

The Pentagon sent a US veteran of the “dirty wars” in Central America to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war.

#irak

How to Start a Battalion (in Five Easy Lessons)
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n04/ghaith-abdul-ahad/how-to-start-a-battalion-in-five-easy-lessons

Alors que les « djihadistes » étrangers reçoivent fonds et armes des pays du Golfe, les rebelles syriens, désunis, en sont sevrés.

...

After giving up on the Turks and their Armament Room, Abu Abdullah and his friends turned to the Libyans. Libya is both a fervent revolutionary power and a huge weapons market. ‘In Iraq we buy a certain number of bullets but in Libya they sell them by the weight, by the ton, and it’s dirt cheap. But we can’t ship them by sea. Thirteen countries control the waters in the Mediterranean and we need permission from all of them or from the Americans. So the Qataris fly the weapons to Doha and then they ship them down from Turkey.’

...

(...) foreign jihadis [are] the only people, as Abu Abdullah complained, (...) getting money and equipment these days. Hakim al-Mutairi, a Kuwaiti Salafi preacher, was sending them millions of dollars. ‘I confronted him at a meeting a few weeks ago,’ Abu Abdullah said. ‘I told him you are hijacking our revolution. The jihadis are buying weapons and ammunition from the other units. They have no problem with money.’

At the end of January, I met a friend of Abu Abdullah; he’d once been a wealthy man, a merchant, but he’d seen his wealth dwindle as all his businesses came to a halt. His lips were quivering with anger and he kept thumping the table with his fist.

‘Why are the Americans doing this to us? They told us they wouldn’t send us weapons until we united. So we united in Doha. Now what’s their excuse? They say it’s because of the jihadis but it’s the jihadis who are gaining ground. Abu Abdullah is $400,000 in debt and no one is sending him money anymore. It’s all going to the jihadis. They have just bought a former military camp from a battalion that was fighting the government. They went to them, gave them I don’t know how many millions and bought the camp. Maybe we should all become jihadis. Maybe then we’ll get money and support.’

Un personnage de Quentin Tarantino dans la réalité des Etats Unis

Chris Kyle, Author of ‘American Sniper’ Reported Killed in Texas - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/us/chris-kyle-american-sniper-author-reported-killed.html?_r=0

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/02/04/us/04author_2/04author_2-articleLarge.jpg

... two weeks into his time in Iraq, he found himself staring through his scope into the face of an unconventional enemy. A woman with a child standing close by had pulled a grenade from beneath her clothes as several Marines approached. He hesitated, he wrote, then shot.

“It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it,” he wrote. “My shots saved several Americans, whose lives were clearly worth more than that woman’s twisted soul.”

Over time, his hesitation diminished and he became proficient at his job, credited with more than 150 kills. In his book, he describes shooting a fighter wielding a rocket launcher 2,100 yards away, a very long distance for a sniper and his farthest ever.

Dans son film Inglorious Basterds Quentin Tarantino décrit un jeune soldat assez sympathique qui devient la vedette des médias sous le contrôle de Goebbels. Vu qu’Inglorious Basterds est une sorte de fable sanguinaire marqué par un sarcasme omniprésent, il me semble permis de comparer ce personnage avec le vétéran américain qui vient de se faire tuer par un camarade.

Fredrick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), (is) a German sniper whose exploits are to be celebrated in a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (Nation’s Pride), starring as himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inglourious_Basterds

Mr. Kyle’s autobiography was published in January 2012 and became a nonfiction best seller. It turned Mr. Kyle into a celebrity, appearing on talk shows like “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.”

The sudden success of the book surprised no one more than Mr. Kyle, the son of a church deacon who was initially rejected by the Navy when he tried to join in the mid-1990s, because of pins in his arm from a rodeo injury. His first book signing drew 1,200 people. About 850,000 print and e-book editions were sold.

In an interview with The New York Times in March, Mr. Kyle — who received two Silver Stars and five Bronze medals for valor — said he had hesitated to write about his experiences. But he was persuaded to move forward after hearing that other books about members of the SEALs were in the works.

“I wanted to tell my story as a SEAL,” he said. “This is about all the hardships that everybody has to go through to get the respect and the honor.”

Allez voir le film de Tarantino, vous y découvrirez une forte ressemblance des attitudes affichés par les protagonistes et une déscription de l’explolitation des héros par la machine de propagande nazie digne des médias du pouvoir actuel.

A lire aussi : http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-sniper-chris-kyle-investigation-20130203,0,4541295.story

Son assassin présumé ...

... Routh appeared to be one of the nation’s numerous unemployed veterans, and Kyle was one of the crop of Navy SEALs to leave the anonymity of military service and enter the public sphere.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-510ee6a5/turbine/la-na-nn-sniper-chris-kyle-investigation-20130-001/580/580x499.jpg

Tarantino s’intéresse indirectement aux conséquences de la violence, il décrit comment ses protagonistes utilisent des symboles afin de pouvoir vivre avec la violence qu’ils excercent. C’est également décrit dans l’autobiographie du tireur d’élite. D’après les reportages connus à cette heure un soldat risque de « déraper » s’il ne sait pas employer cette méthode - les mots et symboles idéologiques sont nécessaire afin de digérer la contradiction entre sa vie personelle humaine et la tâche inhumaine à accomplir.

His autobiography was unapologetically politically incorrect, reflecting the man: During one visit home between deployments, Kyle got a tattoo of a crusader cross on his arm.

“I wanted everyone to know I was a Christian,” Kyle wrote. “I had it put in in red, for blood. I hated the damn savages I’d been fighting. I always will. They’ve taken so much from me.”

Kyle won adulation and a spotlight and appeared on the NBC reality show “Stars Earn Stripes,” in which “celebrities are challenged to execute complicated missions inspired by real military exercises.”

Le résumé des événement est court : Ce sont toujours le petits gens qui paient avec leur vie pour le profit des grands.

Sur le même thème que http://seenthis.net/messages/109257
Unless Ricky Tomlinson is working for al-Qa’ida, ’national security’ is an odd reason for secrecy
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/unless-ricky-tomlinson-is-working-for-alqaida-national-security-is-an

So it’s peculiar that the Government has decided to keep documents about the 1972 building workers’ strike secret for another 10 years. The strike was for increased pay, and 24 of the strikers were charged under the Conspiracy Act, with two of them jailed as a matter of “national security”. Presumably, their demands were for a 10 per cent rise, double-time for Sundays, and the handing over of state power to Colonel Gaddafi, with all plastering to be under the control of an alliance of Angolan guerrillas.

The Humiliation of Bradley Manning

by RAY MCGOVERN

It is a bitter irony that Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose conscience compelled him to leak evidence about the U.S. military brass ignoring evidence of torture in Iraq, was himself the victim of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment while other military officers privately took note but did nothing.

That was one of the revelations at Manning’s pre-trial hearing at Ft. Meade, Maryland, on Tuesday, as Manning’s defense counsel David Coombs used e-mail exchanges to show Marine officers grousing that the Marines had been left holding the bag on Manning’s detention at their base in Quantico, Virginia, though he was an Army soldier.

At Quantico, Manning, who is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of pages of classified material to WikiLeaks, was subjected to harsh treatment. He was locked in a 6-foot-by-8-foot cell for 23 hours a day and was kept naked for long periods. His incarceration led the UN Rapporteur for Torture to complain that Manning was being subjected to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.

According to the e-mail evidence, the controversy over the rough handling of Manning prompted Quantico commander, Marine Col. Daniel Choike, to complain bitterly that not one Army officer was in the chain of blame. Choike’s lament prompted an e-mail reply from his commander, Lt. Gen. George Flynn, offering assurances that Choike and Quantico would not be left “holding the bag.”

However, concerns about possible repercussions from softening up Manning did little to ease the conditions that Manning faced. His Marine captors seemed eager to give him the business and make him an example to any other prospective whistleblowers. Only after a sustained public outcry was Manning transferred to the Army prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

Though his treatment was less harsh there, Manning still has faced 2 ½ years of incarceration without trial and could face up to life imprisonment after a court martial into his act of conscience, i.e., releasing extensive evidence of wrongdoing by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan and questionable foreign policies carried out by the U.S. State Department.

The release of the documents led to hundreds of news stories, including some that revealed the willful inaction of U.S. military brass when informed of torture inflicted on Iraqi prisoners held by the U.S.-backed Iraqi military.

Manning’s Conscience
As a young intelligence analyst in Iraq, Pvt. Manning grew disgusted with evidence passing through his computer terminal revealing the secretive dark side of the U.S. military occupation, including this pattern of high-level disinterest in Iraqi-on-Iraqi torture, which resulted from a directive known as Frago 242, guidelines from senior Pentagon officials not to interfere with abusive treatment of Iraqi government detainees.

As the UK Guardian reported in 2010 based on the leaked documents, Frago 242 was a “fragmentary order” summarizing a complex requirement, in this case, one issued in June 2004 ordering American troops not to investigate torture violations unless they involved members of the occupying coalition led by the United States.

When alleged abuse was inflicted by Iraqis on Iraqis, “only an initial report will be made … No further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ,” the Guardian reported, adding: “Frago 242 appears to have been issued as part of the wider political effort to pass the management of security from the coalition to Iraqi hands. In effect, it means that the [Iraqi] regime has been forced to change its political constitution but allowed to retain its use of torture.”

Some cases of torture were flagrant, according to the disregarded “initial” reports. For instance, the Guardian cited a log report of “a man who was detained by Iraqi soldiers in an underground bunker [and] reported that he had been subjected to the notoriously painful strappado position: with his hands tied behind his back, he was suspended from the ceiling by his wrists.

“The soldiers had then whipped him with plastic piping and used electric drills on him. The log records that the man was treated by US medics; the paperwork was sent through the necessary channels; but yet again, no investigation was required. …

“Hundreds of the leaked war logs reflect the fertile imagination of the torturer faced with the entirely helpless victim – bound, gagged, blindfolded and isolated – who is whipped by men in uniforms using wire cables, metal rods, rubber hoses, wooden stakes, TV antennae, plastic water pipes, engine fan belts, or chains.

“At the torturer’s whim, the logs reveal, the victim can be hung by his wrists or by his ankles; knotted up in stress positions; sexually molested or raped; tormented with hot peppers, cigarettes, acid, pliers, or boiling water – and always with little fear of retribution since, far more often than not, if the Iraqi official is assaulting an Iraqi civilian, no further investigation will be required.

“Most of the victims are young men, but there are also logs which record serious and sexual assaults on women; on young people, including a boy of 16 who was hung from the ceiling and beaten; the old and vulnerable, including a disabled man whose damaged leg was deliberately attacked. The logs identify perpetrators from every corner of the Iraqi security apparatus – soldiers, police officers, prison guards, border enforcement patrols.

“There is no question of the coalition forces not knowing that their Iraqi comrades are doing this: the leaked war logs are the internal records of those forces. There is no question of the allegations all being false. Some clearly are, but most are supported by medical evidence and some involve incidents that were witnessed directly by coalition forces.”

Possessing such evidence – and knowing that the U.S. high command was systematically ignoring these and other crimes – Manning was driven by a sense of morality to get the evidence to the American people and to the world.

Punishing Morality
For his act of conscience, Manning has become the subject of harsh incarceration himself, as some U.S. pundits and even members of Congress have called for his execution as a traitor. At minimum, however, he has been made an example to anyone else tempted to tell hard truths.

Many in Official Washington find nothing wrong with humiliating Manning with forced nudity and breaking down his psychiatric health through prolonged isolation. After all, they say, his release of classified information might have put the lives of some U.S. allies at risk (although there is no known evidence to support that concern).

There also are legal constraints upon the United States dishing out particularly nasty treatment to Pvt. Manning. Cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners is expressly banned by the UN Convention Against Torture, which was signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 and ratified by the Senate in 1994.

And there are no exceptions for “wartime” whistleblowers like Manning. Here’s what the Convention says: “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture” and “an order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture” (Art. 2 (2-3)).”

Personally, when I attended the Tuesday proceeding, I dreaded sitting through another “pre-trial hearing,” having been bored stiff at earlier sessions. But it was a welcome surprise to witness first-hand proof that military courts can still hold orderly proceedings bereft (on Tuesday, at least) of “command influence.”

Most illuminating at Tuesday’s hearing was the central fact that the virtually indestructible nature of e-mail facilitates the kind of documentary evidence that lawyers lust after – whether they be attorneys, FBI investigators or just plain folks fed up with lies and faux history.

To the Marine Corps’ credit, I suppose, there was no evidence at the hearing that anyone had tried to expunge the e-mail correspondence revealing the fears about being left “holding the bag” on the harsh treatment of Manning.

E-Mail vs. Petraeus
So the availability of e-mail is the major new reality playing out in several major ways. As we have seen, former Gen. David Petraeus is a notable recent victim of the truth that can turn up in e-mail.

I used to call him “Petraeus ex Machina” for the faux-success of the celebrated “surge” in Iraq, which cost almost 1,000 additional U.S. troops dead (and many more Iraqis) to buy a “decent interval” for George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to get out of town without a clear-cut military defeat hung around their necks.

As it turned out, “Petraeus ex Machina,” after a little more than a year as CIA director, was undone in a sex scandal exposed by the modern “machine” of e-mail.

More to the point, the torrent of e-mail and the “Collateral Murder” video that Manning now acknowledges giving to WikiLeaks as a matter of conscience were, of course, highly illuminating to students of real history. And the e-mails (and State Department cables) also were rather unflattering regarding the aims of U.S. policy and military actions around the globe.

So how did the White House, the State Department and military brass respond? There was a strongly felt need to make an object lesson of Bradley Manning to show what happens to people whose conscience prompts them to expose deceit and serious wrongdoing, especially through official documents that can’t be denied or spun.

In Manning’s case, he was delivered to the Marines, famous for their hard-headed determination to follow orders and to get the job done. So, his jailers took Manning’s clothes away and made him stand naked, supposedly out of concern that otherwise he might be “a risk to himself.” To further “protect” him, he was kept in a 23-hour lockdown in a tiny cell.

The treatment of Manning at Quantico was too much for State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley, a 26-year Air Force veteran and former colonel. Crowley was of the old school on the treatment of prisoners; his father, a B-17 pilot spent two years in a German POW camp.

On March 10, 2011, Crowley went public, telling an audience that Manning was being “mistreated” by the Defense Department; Crowley branded Manning’s treatment “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.”

Three days later, Crowley resigned with this parting shot: “The exercise of power in today’s challenging times and relentless media environment must be prudent and consistent with our laws and values.”

At Ft. Meade, the pre-trial hearings are continuing, including testimony about how the advice of health professionals regarding Manning was disregarded by the Marine officers and his jailers at Quantico. Later this week, Manning himself is expected to take the stand.

Again, the fair and orderly manner in which Tuesday’s hearing was conducted was a reassuring sign that not everyone is prepared to cave before “command influence.” The judge, Col. Denise Lind, upon whom all depends, listened attentively and asked several good questions at the end.

Let’s hope the kangaroos can be kept at bay.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/11/29/the-humiliation-of-bradley-manning

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer in the early 60s, and then served for 27 years as a CIA analyst. He also serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

For Afghan troops, donkeys are the new helicopters - The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/for-afghan-troops-donkeys-are-the-new-helicopters/2012/11/08/d221c2de-28bd-11e2-aaa5-ac786110c486_story.html

Before U.S. forces arrived here in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the instruments of war were rudimentary things: mud-brick outposts and aging Kalashnikovs. The American invasion brought with it a shiny arsenal of 21st-century technology, including advanced helicopters to navigate the treacherous landscape.

But as the U.S. military drawdown continues, the sky is emptying of the foreign aircraft that have kept remote outposts stocked with food, water and weaponry. Afghan troops are being handed the outposts, but not the sleek helicopters that have soared overhead, delivering supplies.
Afghans searching for a substitute have found an ancient solution: the plodding, dutiful animals that have navigated these high and frigid mountain passes for centuries.

“Donkeys are the Afghan helicopter,” said Col. Abdul Nasseeri, an Afghan battalion commander here in Konar province.

#Afghanistan #transport #armement #Etat-Unis

http://www.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2012/11/07/Foreign/Images/IMG_9899-11352314992.JPG

29 octobre 1956, massacre de Kafr Qasim :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Qasim_massacre

The Kafr Qasim massacre took place in the Israeli Arab village of Kafr Qasim situated on the Green Line, at that time, the de facto border between Israel and the West Bank on October 29, 1956. It was carried out by the Israel Border Police (Magav) and resulted in 48 Arab civilians dead, including 6 women and 23 children aged 8–17. Arab sources usually give the death toll as 49, as they include the unborn child of one of the women.

The border policemen who were involved in the shooting were brought to trial and found guilty and sentenced to prison terms. The Israeli court found that the command to kill civilians was “blatantly illegal”. Two officers were sentenced to 17 and 15 years imprisonment, later reduced to 5 years, and served a short term.

Yigal Carmon, the Mossad and MEMRI
http://angryarab.blogspot.fr/2012/10/yigal-carmon-mossad-and-memri.html

For the other side of Carmon, see Alain Menargues, Les Secrets De La Guerre Du Liban. Regarding the writings of Menargues on Lebanon (he has a second book out): I was cautious in using them because I was not able to verify the reliability. But I was able recently to verify reliability by learning of his method of documentation. Menargues simply paid money to senior former Lebanese Forces commander to obtain detailed documents and minutes of meetings.

Très important : le Akhbar publie une interview avec le chef de la branche armée du Courant du Futur de Saad Hariri : Exclusive : The Man Behind Hariri’s Secret Army
http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/amid-hammoud-leading-future-army

In his first interview with the press, former Lebanese Army Colonel Amid Hammoud, the commander of the Future Movement military wing, denies any role in the recent violence that has rocked Beirut and Tripoli, but admits he would not hesitate to arm Sunnis as he believes it is their right to protect themselves.

In Brazil, police massacre case turns back tide of injustice - latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-amazon-massacre-20121007,0,4160990,full.story

Police massacre case turns back tide of injustice in Brazil
Nineteen sharecroppers demanding land were gunned down by police in 1996. In a stunning result, two top officers involved have been imprisoned, signaling a shift from impunity to accountability.

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In Brazil, accountability for massacre

At the scene of the massacre, 19 burned trunks of Brazil nut trees stand as a roadside monument to the dead. (Matthew Teague, Los Angeles Times / October 7, 2012)

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By Matthew Teague, Los Angeles Times

October 6, 2012, 5:16 p.m.

ELDORADO DOS CARAJAS, Brazil — At 4 in the afternoon on April 17, 1996, a 13-year-old girl with blond hair climbed onto a truck stopped on a road in the Amazon basin. From the top, Ana Paula Silva — known for a long time after as “the girl” — could see everything.

More than a thousand protesters had gathered on the road outside a village called Eldorado dos Carajas. People called them the sem terra, the landless. They sharecropped for large landowners, and they were among the poorest people in a country of very many poor and very few rich.

They wanted to make their way to Belem, the capital of Para state, to contend for land of their own, but the horizon seemed to retreat forever. When a pregnant woman could go no farther, they stopped to devise a new plan.

The women sat along the shoulders of the road and tended to the children, washing, nursing, rocking them to sleep. The men stood in the road and stopped trucks passing on the highway. That was the plan: They would block the road with the trucks to get the attention of the military police.

The police soon arrived in the form of Col. Mario Pantoja. He had a congenial, hangdog appearance, and met some of the leading protesters to hear their demands. They wanted buses to the next city, Maraba, if not all the way to Belem. And they wanted water.

Fair enough, the colonel told them. You’ll get water and buses.

From the policeman’s perspective, some of the landless men cast impressive shadows on the road. Josemar Pereira was an ox of a man. Everything about him stood broad, from his forehead to his boots. He wore canvas trousers, a shirt open to his torso, and a flopping felt hat. With his scythe in his hand, he was the archetypal South American peasant.

Less so Jose dos Santos. The thin 16-year-old hovered, listening in on the men’s negotiations. He had no great stake in the sem terra cause, but a protest sounded like fun, and fun was hard to come by in the Amazon basin.

From her perch, the girl watched as the buses arrived from north and south. When they came to a stop, scores of policemen poured out with weapons drawn. Friendly Col. Pantoja led them, along with a major called Jose Oliveira.

The workers held up their machetes, their pitchforks and their fists. In the chaos, Jose noticed that one officer had torn his name tag from his uniform.

As he watched the officer lift his rifle and level it at his face, he wondered: Why would he remove his name?

Kuwaiti Gitmo detainee in limbo « freedetainees.org
http://freedetainees.org/2012/10/05/kuwaiti-gitmo-detainee-in-limbo

Kuwaiti Gitmo detainee in limbo

Fayiz Al-Kandari

PITTSBURG/KUWAIT: Lt Col Barry Wingard has spent four years fighting a losing battle. Col Wingard, a military attorney and Allegheny County public defender, represents Fayiz Al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti who has been held at Guantanamo Bay detention center since 2002.

In June, the charges against Al-Kandari were dropped with no explanation. In just about any judicial realm, that’s a victory.

In Guantanamo, it means instead that Col Wingard’s client is now in the group of prisoners on indefinite detention. Since the government planned no prosecution against his client, it saw no reason for Col Wingard to work on the case.

Col Wingard’s access to Al-Kandari was reduced. He can no longer travel to Kuwait or elsewhere to investigate the case. His correspondence with his client is reviewed. Government translators/interpreters are no longer provided to enable him to communicate with his client. He has regularly traveled to Guantanamo since taking the case, spending a week of each month there. His most recent planned military transport flight was canceled.

These restrictions began about the same time as a new protocol for civilian attorneys representing Guantanamo prisoners was put into effect. Lawyers were told they had to sign a memorandum of understanding in which they agreed to certain restrictions in order to continue to see their clients.

Col Wingard, 45, long maintained that the charges against his client — material support of terrorism and conspiracy — were based on flimsy, third-hand evidence. But now that they have been dropped, his client’s situation is worse, since there is now no real hope of a judicial proceeding, and his ability to advocate for Al-Kandari is reduced.

Air National Guard Col Wingard served in the Army and then as a US Air Force JAG (Judge Advocate General) attorney. He prosecuted more than 100 cases in Iraq involving more than 170 individuals who had attacked coalition forces in Iraq. He also investigated various crimes in Bosnia during the conflict there.

Col Wingard, of Dormont, is married and has two children, ages 3 and 5. He lives mostly in Washington, DC, where he works in the Office of Military Commissions (the military judicial system in place to handle Guantanamo). He intends to return to his job as an Allegheny County public defender when his Guantanamo work is done. There is no set date for that, but the colonel hopes to finish next year.

Government rationale
Al-Kandari is one of the 166 men still held at Guantanamo Bay. The prisoners now fall into three rough groups: those the government says can be tried; those that are cleared for release, but have not been released because there is nowhere for them to go; and the 40-plus who are to be detained indefinitely.

Since it opened as a detention center for terrorism suspects in 2002, Guantanamo has spurred a torrent of litigation. (“They litigate everything but the breakfast cereal down there,” one Department of Defense official said — off the record.)

At the heart of much of it is the question of whether the US government can lawfully hold prisoners without charging them or giving them an opportunity to appear in a judicial proceeding to hear the evidence and defend themselves.

Department of Defense spokesman David Oten gave the rationale for the government’s position: “The United States is detaining individuals at Guantanamo Bay pursuant to the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, as informed by the law of war. Detention in wartime has long been recognized as legitimate under international law. We hold at Guantanamo detainees we assess as continuing to pose a threat in our ongoing armed conflict. And we will continue to hold these individuals in a manner that complies with our domestic and international obligations, and is consistent with our values.”

Though President Barack Obama came into office saying he would shut the facility down, in the end his administration has taken much the same stance as that of the Bush administration regarding the need for the facility and the practice of indefinite detention for prisoners. It has vigorously defended a raft of legal challenges. Although detainees won a number of them — gaining the right to make habeas challenges in US courts — the practical effect has been negligible. Only four men charged have been tried. Men cleared for release remain imprisoned. And the group of men the government says it doesn’t plan to charge have no clear path to trial or release.

Of the review procedures for detainees, Oten of the Defense Department said, “As a discretionary matter, the United States has reviewed the cases of each individual at Guantanamo and determined that some could be eligible for transfer, pending appropriate, credible security assurances from receiving governments. Just as we do with prisoners of war in more traditional armed conflicts, we acknowledge that the threat they pose may change over time.

“In today’s conflict, the threat posed by a particular detainee may be mitigated through participation in a reintegration program or through other focused measures to prevent re-engagement. That is why we have transfer policies in place and review mechanisms to ensure we only detain those whose threat cannot otherwise be mitigated.”

Limiting access
But in claiming it has the right to restrict access to prisoners by their lawyers, the government was saying that it had control of how legal review of cases was to go forward.

The Memorandum of Understanding requirement was challenged and on Sept 5, US District Judge Royce Lamberth said the government has no right to deny counsel access to detainees, issuing a stinging rebuke in his ruling. Writing that the federal government is confusing “the roles of the jailer and the judiciary,” Judge Lamberth struck down the military’s assertion that it could veto meetings between lawyers and detainees.

The judge said the government has the right to run the facility at Guantanamo, but that the courts have authority to make sure prisoners have access to the courts, and that can’t happen unless they have access to their lawyers.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said, “We have no comment on whether the Department plans to appeal the Lamberth decision on counsel access to GTMO detainees.”

The nature of restrictions on military lawyers like Col Wingard is different, but the effect is the same.

“They say, ‘We have no intention of prosecuting, so your request for travel is denied,’ ” he said.

Similarly, translators and interpreters are denied. Though Col Wingard has top security clearance, his correspondence with his clients (he also represents an Afghani and a second Kuwaiti) is now being reviewed.

Oten said the detention of Al-Kandari is legal — he filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court and the court ruled he was legally detained. The US Supreme Court declined further review of his case.

“There is no precedent for indefinite detention,” said Col Wingard. However, he said, “if the government says it can hold prisoners forever, don’t they get a lawyer forever?

“I take the position that I am still their attorney.”

He acknowledges his ability to act in his clients’ behalf or take action to change his status is extremely limited. “It’s frustrating from our end. They are strangling our ability to do our jobs,” he said. “We’re pretty much on the ropes as far as defending these guys.” But, he said, he and other attorneys in the defense section of the Office of Military Commissions are close to one another and united in what they are trying to do.

He has written opinion pieces for news organizations, including the Post-Gazette, and is active on social media in behalf of his clients and Guantanamo-related issues. What worries him most is what he sees as the acceptance within government and military circles of a situation that goes against basic American principles. “It has sunk in as the new norm.”

Many people came into the military or into government positions after 9/11, he said. “For them Guantanamo, indefinite detention is the norm. They don’t know another system.”

Once people accept the concept, “putting people away forever is the easy part.”

He said the debate has moved from whether it’s legal or justified to detain foreign combatants on an indefinite basis to whether it’s acceptable to do so to US citizens.

“The scariest development in the indefinite detention battle is that under the National Defense Reauthorization Act of 2012 recently signed, you as an American citizen can be detained forever without trial, while the allegations against you go uncontested because you have no right to see them.”

On Sept 12, US District Judge Katherine Forrest of New York ruled against the administration and the National Defense Reauthorization Act on the basis that the practice of indefinite detention violates the First and Fifth Amendments. On Sept 17, Judge Raymond Lohier of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals stayed the ruling until Friday, when a 2nd Circuit motions panel took up the government’s request for stay pending appeal.

His work as a military defense attorney has put him at odds with the military. “Once I’m done here I will probably never get promoted. But what can you do? They hired me to represent these guys. I’m going to do it to the best of my ability,” said Col. Wingard. “In the big picture, it definitely looks like we’re losing. [But] here’s the deal: You don’t fight on issues in hopes you’ll win. You fight on whether they’re right.” – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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C’est le cinquantenaire de 007 bientôt et il se trouve que j’ai une question : pourquoi les super agents ont toujours J. B. pour initiales ?

Jason Bourne
Jack Bauer
James Bond

ll se passe un truc non ?

Casino Royale was written by Ian Fleming in Jamaica over a period of around two months in 1952. On 13 April 1953 Casino Royale was released in the UK in hardcover, priced at 10s, 6d, with a cover designed by Fleming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Fleming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_(novel) http://static.guim.co.uk/Guardian/books/gallery/2008/may/07/1/5first-edition-casinoroyale-368.jpg