David Swanson

Tehreek-e-Insaf (Movement for Justice) activists hold up placards as
they gather for a party rally in Peshawar on April 2011. U.S. carried
out its first drone attack in Pakistan since [the alleged death of OBL]
in an American raid, killing 10 people in a hail of missiles near the
Afghan border. (Photo: Majeed/AFP/Getty. Caption: ABC News)

'War is legal,' but pointing out its illegality is not mistaken; it's irrelevant and un-strategic. That's the argument I'm hearing from a number of quarters.

Chase Madar has a terrific new book on Bradley Manning in which he argues that many of the offenses Bradley Manning allegedly revealed through Wikileaks (the murder in the collateral murder video, the turning over of prisoners to be tortured by Iraq, etc.) are immoral but legal. When I pointed out to Madar that the Kellogg Briand Pact banned all war, that the U.N. Charter legalized only two narrow categories of war that our government does not meet (defensive wars and wars authorized by the U.N.), and that the Constitution of the United States bans wars not declared by Congress, Madar did not try to argue that I was mistaken. Instead he said it wasn't important to point out war's illegality, because Americans don't care; instead we have to point out its immorality. But if war's illegality is unimportant, why was its supposed legality important enough to develop as a significant part of a book? Why couldn't war's illegality be of help in the movement to oppose it on primarily moral grounds?

I attended a wonderful event on Saturday in Washington, D.C., a "Drone Summit" organized by Code Pink, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Reprieve -- terrific organizations all, some of the best. Included in the summit were speakers from organizations that have concerns about drones but do not oppose war. It's important to work with organizations and individuals who agree on the matter at hand, even if broad differences in world view divide you. I give great credit to every ban-the-drones or reform-the-drones organization that supports war or avoids the topic of war, yet works in coalition with antiwar groups. More credit and gratitude to them.

But many more people than attend one event in one city have these questions running through their minds, and the differences in viewpoint within the anti-drone movement may be helpful in forming one's own view.

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Kourosh Ziabari

US deploying fighter jets to the Gulf - The US says it has deployed a number of its most modern jet fighters to an air base in Southwest Asia. The announcement alarmed many, who suspect the base is actually in the United Arab Emirates just 200 hundred miles from Iran. The Air Force did not specify the exact number or location of the recently-deployed F-22 Raptors, but confirmed that they had been sent to a region that includes the UAE. - RT

The United Arab Emirates officials are burning with a low blue flame. They have once again started insulting the Iranian nation using an arrogant and offensive language. What has irritated them this time is the recent visit paid by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranian island of Abu Musa in the Persian Gulf as part of his provincial trip to the southern province of Hormozgan on April 11. They claim that the island belongs to the UAE and that Iran has violated their territorial integrity by continuing its "occupation" of this strategic island.

Of course fueling anti-Iranian sentiments has been constantly on the UAE officials' political agenda. The statesmen of the newborn, tiny Arab sheikhdom think that by launching verbal attacks against Iran, they can gain power and popularity. But they have brought their eggs to the wrong market. Hostility and rivaling with Iran will backfire and fail. The hullabaloo of the Emirati officials is a tempest in a teapot and there's no trace of logic and rationality in it. What is annoying and painful is that by credulously neglecting the principle of peaceful neighborhood and coexistence, the Arab officials are muttering the words of Israel, the U.S. and UK about Iran and upsetting a neighbor which has always contributed to their progress and development.

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Stephen Lendman

NATO's "responsibility to protect" (R2P) was subterfuge to wage war. Months of terror bombing left Libya a charnel house.

Africa's most developed country was ravaged, not liberated. Protracted struggle continues. Expect it to persist for years.

When is war not war? It's when mass killing and destruction are called the right thing. It's also when terrorizing and traumatizing an entire population continues unaddressed.

Libya was developed and peaceful until NATO intervened. It arrived on cruise missiles, bombs, shells, other munitions, depleted and enriched uranium, other terror weapons, fifth column infiltrators, and media scoundrel complicity, as well as coverup and denial.

No nation or alliance may interfere in the internal affairs of another except in self-defense if attacked. NATO R2P authority was Trojan Horse deception. Crimes of war and against humanity followed. They continue out-of-control.

NATO's still involved. Thousands of US forces guard key oil facilities, ports, and perhaps other strategic sites. Occasional air attacks occur. NATO warships occupy Libya's ports. US, Italian, French, and perhaps other forces are involved. January reports from Misrata said Apache helicopters slaughtered rebels trying to scale Brega oil platforms.

Insurgents battle each other and Green Resistance for control. Frequent clashes leave rivals and civilians dead or injured. Militias control local areas and neighborhoods. Thousands of Gaddafi loyalists and Black African guest workers were murdered or held captive and tortured. Dark-skinned Libyans and guest workers are especially threatened.

On October 23, Obama duplicitously "congratulated the people of Libya on today's declaration of liberation. After four decades of brutal dictatorship and eight months of deadly conflict, the Libyan people can now celebrate their freedom and the beginning of a new era of promise."

He's a frontman for power. He's an inveterate liar and war criminal multiple times over. He added another imperial trophy to colonize, plunder and exploit. Keeping it's another matter. Libya's one of history's great crime. Green Resistance struggles to restore Jamahiriya rule.

Obama matched the worst of Bush and exceeded him. Libyans, Afghans, Iraqis, and Syrians revile him. So do millions of others for good reason. Hopefully one day they'll have the last word.

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Bill Van Auken

In a book coming out next week, Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA’s clandestine operations directorate, delivers an unequivocal defense of torture and of his order to destroy tapes recording the agency’s crimes.

Rodriguez’s book, titled Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives, will hit bookstores after the airing of an exclusive interview with him by CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night.

The appearance of this book, which like all writings of former CIA officials had to get pre-publication clearance from the agency, is one more indication of the absolute impunity enjoyed by those who carried out torture and other crimes under the George W. Bush administration, from the former president on down.

As chief of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations (since renamed as the National Clandestine Service), the branch of the agency that carries out covert operations, Rodriguez was directly in charge of the program of extraordinary rendition under which those abducted in the “war on terror” were taken to so-called “black sites,” secret overseas prisons, for interrogation under torture.

Using the euphemism of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the CIA carried out a whole range of torture of its detainees, ranging from waterboarding to beatings, sexual humiliation, imprisonment in dark boxes for prolonged periods, stress positions and exposure to extreme heat, cold and noise.

Rodriguez defends these loathsome practices unconditionally, while stressing that every section of the American political establishment was implicated in the CIA’s crimes. “I am certain, beyond any doubt, that these techniques, approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government, certified by the Department of Justice, and briefed to and supported by bipartisan leadership of congressional intelligence oversight committees, shielded the people of the United States from harm and led to the capture of killing of Osama bin Laden.”

There is no evidence that torture produced information leading to the [alleged] assassination of Bin Laden. However, it has been established that, far from “shielding” the American people or “saving lives,” much of this secret program was aimed at producing a pretext for war against Iraq by forcing false confessions out of the agency’s detainees that the regime of Saddam Hussein was in league with Al Qaeda.

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