US

Demonstrators Denounce Civilian Deaths In Syria, Airstrikes Continue

September 30, 2014 Liz Fields, www.news.vice.com Resist! ISIS, US, Wars and Militarism

Coalition warplanes launched a fresh wave of airstrikes against Islamic State targets across Syria on Saturday, despite demonstrations in the town of al Atareb condemning the US-led assault, which residents have blamed for the deaths of at least 27 people, including civilians, in the area. The protests in al Atareb on Friday brought together dozens of people who marched and chanted through the streets, some holding placards. One sign written in English read: "Don't kill our children by your aircrafts." The outcry from residents comes three days after coalition forces conducted joint drone and plane strikes against a militant base. The bodies of at least 27 locals were pulled out of the rubble, including an unspecified number of civilians, according to a report from a group called the al Atareb Civil Defense.

Syrian Civil Society Reacts To Coalition Bombings

September 30, 2014 Dan Wilkofsky, www.syriadirect.com Educate! ISIS, US, Wars and Militarism

“There are a multitude of opinions and analyses around these attacks. The attackers say that they are targeting terrorism, represented by the Islamic State, but when everyone sees how the coalition warplanes target other brigades which are fighting the regime, and avoid hitting the regime or its terrorist militias, the [aforementioned opinions and analyses] become muddled. Destroying terrorism needs to begin from the top, in the palaces of the Assad regime, and putting an end to the flow of Syrian blood begins with the fall of this regime.”

Journalists: Obama Administration Secretive And Vindictive

September 26, 2014 Mike Masnick, www.techdirt.com Educate! Journalism, Obama, US

Earlier this year, then NY Times Executive Editor Jill Abramson called out the Obama administration for being the most secretive in history, despite the claims of Obama himself that his would be "the most transparent administration in history." Not only has this administration used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers more times than every other administration in history combined, it's currently fighting a legal battle to put NYT journalist Jim Risen in jail for refusing to reveal a source. It's also denied more FOIA requests than any other administration in history. The White House has ridiculously tried to defend its "most transparent in history" claims by pointing to the fact that unlike previous administrations, this one releases visitor logs. Whoop. De. Doo.

Police Sign Gag Order Before Getting FBI Spy Equipment

September 26, 2014 Shawn Musgrave, www.muckrock.com Educate! Capitalism, Surveillance, US

Advanced cell phone tracking devices known as StingRays allow police nationwide to home in on suspects or to log individuals present at a given location. But before acquiring a StingRay, state and local police must sign a nondisclosure agreement with the FBI, documents released last week reveal. The document released by the Tacoma Police Department is heavily redacted — four of its six pages are completely blacked out — but two unredacted paragraphs confirm the FBI’s intimate involvement with StingRay deployment. The StingRay family of trackers are manufactured by the Harris Corporation, a company with $5 billion in annual revenue and headquarters in Melbourne, Florida. As “cell site simulators,” the trackers trick mobile phones into connecting to a StingRay as if it were a cell tower. This allows police to determine the cell phone’s location, and thus its owner’s.

$554 Million Landmark Settlement With Navajo Tribe

September 26, 2014 Steve Gorman, www.reuters.com Organize! Colonialism, Indigenous Rights, Reparations, US

The Obama administration has agreed to pay the Navajo Nation a record $554 million to settle longstanding claims by America's largest Indian tribe that its funds and natural resources were mishandled for decades by the U.S. government. The accord, resolving claims that date back as far as 50 years and marking the biggest U.S. legal settlement with a single tribe, will be formally signed at a ceremony on Friday in Window Rock, Arizona, the capital of the sprawling Navajo reservation. The deal stems from litigation accusing the government of mismanaging Navajo trust accounts and resources on more than 14 million acres (5.7 million hectares) of land held in trust for the tribe and leased for such purposes as farming, energy development, logging and mining.

Maduro: ‘We’re In The Same Struggle’

September 25, 2014 Margaret Kimberley, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Maduro, Solidarity, US, Venezuela

In the Bronx, New York, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro reminded black Americans what they have lost as a result of following misleaders and worshipping Barack Obama. Before corporate dollars and Barack Obama delivered a crippling blow to black politics, African Americans were in the forefront of opposition to United States foreign policy. More than any other group in the country, black people could smell a foreign policy rat as soon as it was spawned by Washington. Any claims of dangers to American interests were met with skepticism and outright disdain. Every declaration of criminality from the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to Operation Just Cause to Operation Iraqi Freedom were known to be frauds meant only to keep the rest of the world under America’s thumb.

Veterans For Peace Opposes Bombing Of Syria And Iraq

September 24, 2014 Veterans for Peace, www.veteransforpeace.org Organize! ISIS, US, Veterans, Wars and Militarism

The U.S. is racing down a slippery slope towards war in Iraq and Syria. Since Aug. 8, the U.S. has conducted more than 124 airstrikes in Iraq. Approximately 1,000 U.S. troops are now on the ground in Iraq, with at least 350 more currently on their way. President Obama initially said the bombing was part of a humanitarian mission to assist the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq being threatened by ISIS, the fundamentalist Islamic army that now controls wide swaths of Iraq and Syria. But Obama has now announced an open-ended bombing campaign, and he has ordered Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Secretary of State John Kerry into the region to build military and political coalitions to sustain a long term war against ISIS.

The Absurdity Of US Policy In Syria

September 23, 2014 Patrick Cockburn, www.counterpunch.org Educate! ISIS, US, Wars and Militarism

If the United States and its allies want to combat the Islamic State jihadists (IS, formerly known as Isis) successfully, they should arrange a ceasefire between the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the non-IS Syrian opposition. Neither the Syrian army nor the “moderate” Syrian rebels are strong enough to stop IS if they are fighting on two fronts at the same time, going by the outcome of recent battles. A truce between the two main enemies of IS in Syria would be just that, and would not be part of a broader political solution to the Syrian crisis which is not feasible at this stage because mutual hatred is too great. A ceasefire may be possible now, when it was not in the past, because all parties and their foreign backers – the US, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran – are frightened of the explosive advance of the Islamic State. US Secretary of State John Kerry told the US Security Council on Friday that there is room for everybody “including Iran” in an anti-IS coalition.

US Bombs Syria Without UN Or Congressional Authorization

September 23, 2014 Jason Ditz, www.news.antiwar.com Educate! ISIS, Syria, US, Wars and Militarism

The American war on ISIS has expanded into Syria tonight, with Pentagon officials issuing a brief statement claiming credit for a round of about 20 targets hit in northeastern Syria this evening. The attacks involved both the use of US bombers, including F-22 and B1s, fighter warplanes including F-16s, F-15s, and F/A-18s. They’ve also fired Tomahawk cruise missiles from the USS Arleigh Burke in the Red Sea. Details of what was hit are not clear so far, though some reports say that an ISIS headquarters was among the targets. The Pentagon insisted it wouldn’t provide addition details about the “ongoing operations,” but plenty of information continued to emerge in the hours that followed the strike.

US Police Get Antiterror Training In Israel

September 23, 2014 Ali Winston, Center For Investigative Reporting, www.beta.cironline.org Educate! Israel, Police, US

The clouds of tear gas, flurries of projectiles and images of police officers outfitted in military-grade hardware in Ferguson, Missouri, have reignited concerns about the militarization of domestic law enforcement in the United States. But there has been another, little-discussed change in the training of American police since the 9/11 attacks: At least 300 high-ranking sheriffs and police from agencies large and small – from New York and Maine to Orange County and Oakland, California – have traveled to Israel for privately funded seminars in what is described as counterterrorism techniques. For some, dispatching American police to train in a foreign country battered by decades of war, terror attacks and strife highlights how dramatically U.S. law enforcement has changed in the 13 years since al-Qaida airplane hijackers crashed into New York’s World Trade Center. In many places, the image of the friendly cop on the beat has been replaced by intimidating, fully armed military-style troops. And Israel has played part in that transition.

America’s Rotting Empire

September 20, 2014 CJ Werleman, www.salon.com Educate! Empire, US

“The game is rigged,” writes Senator Elizabeth Warren in her new book A Fighting Chance. It’s rigged because the rich and their lobbyists have rigged the rules of the game to their favor. The rules are reflected in a tax code and bankruptcy laws that have seen the greatest transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich in U.S. history. The result? America has the most billionaires in the world, but not a single U.S. city ranks among the world’s most livable cities. Not a single U.S. airport is among the top 100 airports in the world.

Who’s Your Daddy, ISIS?

September 19, 2014 Glen Ford, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! ISIS, US, Wars and Militarism

Let us be clear, if that is possible, about President Obama’s plan to deal with ISIS, the boogeyman of America’s own making. The president last week swore that he would “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State, after having spent three years providing weapons and money to jihadists fighters, including ISIS, in hopes that they would “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Syrian state of president Bashar Assad. So, the Americans set out to destroy one state, in Syria, whose government had never presented any danger to the U.S., and wind up creating another state, a caliphate astride the borders of Syria and Iraq, that openly declares its intention to do battle with the U.S.

Vertigo, PTSD, And The Loss Of The Car Keys

September 16, 2014 Veena Trehan, www.us5.campaign-archive2.com Educate! Peace, US, Wars and Militarism

Four years ago, President Obama described Republicans as bad drivers who sought the keys to the car after driving it into the ditch. America’s use of military weapons has resulted in more terrorists and millions of destitute, displaced, and dead civilians. The chaos, which has left many discombobulated and stressed, demonstrates why the US government’s access to the military machine must be limited. As with an irresponsible teenager, exceptions could be made (for example, for a grounded adolescent’s emergency trip to the hospital). But no such clarity or call to action exists. We don’t know what we plan to do, with whom, where, or why. “There is no military solution to the larger crisis in Iraq,” President Barack Obama said a month ago. The eleven recaps below illustrate why we must abandon our military might. Instead, we should pursue a diplomatic, humanitarian and de-militarized approach.

James Foley Is Not A War Ad

September 13, 2014 David Swanson, www.warisacrime.org Educate! ISIS, US, Wars and Militarism

To the extent that the U.S. public is newly, and probably momentarily, accepting of war -- an extent that is wildly exaggerated, but still real -- it is because of videos of beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff. When 9-11 victims were used as a justification to kill hundreds of times the number of people killed on 9-11, some of the victims' relatives pushed back. Now James Foley is pushing back from the grave. Here is video of Foley talking about the lies that are needed to launch wars, including the manipulation of people into thinking of foreigners as less than human. Foley's killers may have thought of him as less than human. He may not have viewed them the same way. The video shows Foley in Chicago helping Haskell Wexler with his film Four Days in Chicago -- a film about the last NATO protest before the recent one in Wales. I was there in Chicago for the march and rally against NATO and war. And I've met Wexler who has tried unsuccessfully to find funding for a film version of my book War Is A Lie.

America’s Deadliest Export And The Endless War On Terror

September 13, 2014 William Blum, www.roarmag.org Educate! US, Wars and Militarism

Supporters of US foreign policy have been repeating the point ever since the attacks of September 11, 2001: US counterterrorism policy has worked. How do they know? Because there haven’t been any successful terrorist attacks in the United States in all the years since that infamous day. True, but there weren’t any terrorist attacks in the United States in the six years before September 11, 2001 either, the last one being the Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995. The absence of terrorist attacks in the US appears to be the norm, with or without a War on Terror. More significantly, in the years since 9/11 the United States has been the target of terrorist attacks on scores of occasions, not even counting those in Iraq or Afghanistan — attacks on military, diplomatic, civilian, Christian, and other targets associated with the United States; in the Middle East, South Asia, and the Pacific; more than a dozen times in Pakistan alone.

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