Joseph Kishore

The Obama administration is discussing the expansion of its drone program into Algeria and other countries in northwest Africa, according to media reports. The preparations to extend the military and CIA “kill lists” takes place amidst proposals to more securely institutionalize the global program of assassination.

According to a front-page report in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Push to Expand US ‘Kill List,’” the immediate target of the extension of the drone program is Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who has claimed responsibility for the operation to seize control of a natural gas facility in Amenas, Algeria in January. An Algerian military raid on the compound—a critical energy facility operated in collaboration with multinational companies—led to the death of 69 people.

According to the Journal, “Some US officials are pressing for a more direct involvement in the hunt for Mr. Belmokhtar, whether with drones, other aircraft or American forces. Such an effort could rely on the military’s special-operations units, with help from the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said.”

Assassinations have thus far focused on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and the northeast African nation of Somalia. The expansion of drone killing to northwest Africa is part of an intensified focus of all the major imperialist powers on northern Africa—including the US-led war in Libya in 2011 and the French-led operation currently underway in Mali. The US government has already secured a status of forces agreement to establish a drone base in Niger, which is bordered by Algeria on the North and Mali on the West.

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Stephen Lendman

In May 2010, Israeli commandos committed premeditated murder. They killed nine humanitarian activists in cold blood. They did so in international waters. They were trying to bring vitally needed aid to besieged Gazans. Israel wants them isolated. It wants them suffocated. Slow-motion genocide is longstanding policy.

A Human Rights Council investigation followed. It criticized

Israel's "outrageous attack on aid ships attempting to breach a blockade on the Gaza Strip." It called doing so "piracy, (an) act of aggression, (a) brutal massacre, (an) act of terrorism, (a) war crime, (a) crime against humanity, unprovoked....unwarranted....atrocious, (and) brutal." It said onboard humanitarian activists were "peaceful, innocent, noble, unarmed, (and) defenseless." Attacking them "was unnecessary, disproportionate, excessive, inappropriate and resulted in the wholly avoidable killing and maiming of a large number of civilian passengers." "Israel made "a deliberate attempt....to suppress or destroy evidence." Its own version of events was fabricated. Fake videos and other falsified materials were used.

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Paul Craig Roberts

The police state is real.

The Bush regime’s response to 9/11 and the Obama regime’s validation of this response have destroyed accountable democratic government in the United States. So much unaccountable power has been concentrated in the executive branch that the US Constitution is no longer an operable document.

Whether a person believes the official story of 9/11 which rests on unproven government assertions or believes the documented evidence provided by a large number of scientists, first responders, and structural engineers and architects, the result is the same. 9/11 was used to create an open-ended “war on terror” and a police state. It is extraordinary that so many Americans believe that “it can’t happen here” when it already has.

We have had a decade of highly visible evidence of the construction of a police state: the PATRIOT Act, illegal spying on Americans in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the initiation of wars of aggression–war crimes under the Nuremberg Standard–based on intentional lies, the Justice Department’s concocted legal memos justifying the executive branch’s violation of domestic and international laws against torture, the indefinite detention of US citizens in violation of the constitutionally protected rights of habeas corpus and due process, the use of secret evidence and secret “expert witnesses” who cannot be cross-examined against defendants in trials, the creation of military tribunals in order to evade federal courts, secret legal memos giving the president authority to launch preemptive cyber attacks on any country without providing evidence that the country constitutes a threat, and the Obama regime’s murder of US citizens without evidence or due process.

As if this were not enough, the Obama regime now creates new presidential powers by crafting secret laws, refusing to disclose the legal reasoning on which the asserted power rests. In other words, laws now originate in secret executive branch memos and not in acts of Congress. Congress? We don’t need no stinking Congress.

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William Blum

Over the past four decades, of all the reasons people over a certain age have given for their becoming radicalized against US foreign policy, the Vietnam War has easily been the one most often cited. And I myself am the best example of this that you could find. I sometimes think that if the war lovers who run the United States had known of this in advance they might have had serious second thoughts about starting that great historical folly and war crime.

At other times, however, I have the thought that our dear war lovers have had 40 years to take this lesson to heart, and during this time what did they do? They did Salvador and Nicaragua, and Angola and Grenada. They did Panama and Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan and Iraq. And in 2012 American President Barack Obama saw fit to declare that the Vietnam War was “one of the most extraordinary stories of bravery and integrity in the annals of military history”. [1]

So, have they learned nothing? When it comes to following international law, is the United States like a failed state? The Somalia of international law? Well, if they were perfectly frank, the war lovers would insist that the purpose of all these interventions, and many others like them, was to keep the atheists out of power – the non-believers in America’s god-given right to rule the world – or to at least make life as difficult as possible for them. And thus the interventions were successful; nothing to apologize for; even the Vietnam War achieved its purpose of preventing that country from becoming a good development option for Asia, a socialist alternative to the capitalist model; precisely the same reason for Washington’s endless hostility toward Cuba in Latin America; and Cuba has indeed inspired numerous atheists and their alternatives for a better world.

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Bill Van Auken

John Brennan with Dianne Feinstein, the chairman of the Senate
committee on intelligence. (Photograph: Yuri Gripas/Reuters)

The hearing conducted Thursday afternoon by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the nomination of President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism advisor John Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency served to whitewash Washington’s drone assassination program.

In their questioning of Brennan, both Democratic and Republican senators declared their support and admiration for the CIA and their backing for the “war on terrorism,” while ignoring or skirting the deep-going ramifications of the Obama administration’s arrogation to itself of the authority to order the extra-judicial killing of US citizens.

Not a single member of the committee subjected Brennan to criticism or even harsh questioning, and there was no indiction that any of them would vote against his confirmation. In that sense, the hearing provided a vivid measure of the sharp shift to the right by the entire political establishment, and the Democratic Party in particular, after four years of the Obama presidency.

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Herbert W. Titus & William J. Olson

Exercising a power that no prior president ever thought he possessed — a power that no prior president is known to have exercised — President Obama admitted that he ordered the execution of American citizens, not on a battlefield, based on his belief that they were involved in terrorist activities. It is known that at least three U.S. citizens, including a 16-year old boy, were killed on the president's order in drone strikes in Yemen in 2011.

As the worldwide drone program ramps up, there have been increasing calls for the president to reveal the basis for his claimed authority. Only a few weeks ago, U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon denied both the ACLU's and New York Times' requests under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain any and all legal documents prepared in support of the president's claim of unilateral powers. While Judge McMahon was concerned that the documents "implicate serious issues about the limits on the power of the Executive Branch under the Constitution and laws of the United States, and about whether we are indeed a nation of laws not of men," she felt constrained by precedent to withhold them. Now, a bipartisan group of 11 senators has written a letter to president Obama asking for "any and all legal opinions" that describe the basis for his claimed authority to "deliberately kill American citizens."

However, not until the Senate began gathering information for hearings on John Brennan's confirmation as CIA director has public attention finally been focused on this remarkable presidential usurpation of power.

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Andrew P. Napolitano

After stonewalling for more than a year federal judges and ordinary citizens who sought the revelation of its secret legal research justifying the presidential use of drones to kill persons overseas – even Americans – claiming the research was so sensitive and so secret that it could not be revealed without serious consequences, the government sent a summary of its legal memos to an NBC newsroom earlier this week.

This revelation will come as a great surprise, and not a little annoyance, to U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon, who heard many hours of oral argument during which the government predicted gloom and doom if its legal research were subjected to public scrutiny. She very reluctantly agreed with the feds, but told them she felt caught in "a veritable Catch-22," because the feds have created "a thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret."

She was writing about President Obama killing Americans and refusing to divulge the legal basis for claiming the right to do so. Now we know that basis.

The undated and unsigned 16-page memo leaked to NBC refers to itself as a Department of Justice white paper. Its logic is flawed, its premises are bereft of any appreciation for the values of the Declaration of Independence and the supremacy of the Constitution, and its rationale could be used to justify any breaking of any law by any "informed, high-level official of the U.S. government."

The quoted phrase is extracted from the memo, which claims that the law reposes into the hands of any unnamed "high-level official," not necessarily the president, the lawful power to decide when to suspend constitutional protections guaranteed to all persons and kill them without any due process whatsoever. This is the power claimed by kings and tyrants. It is the power most repugnant to American values. It is the power we have arguably fought countless wars to prevent from arriving here. Now, under Obama, it is here.

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Wayne Madsen

President Obama ran for president in 2008 on a promise of closing down the U.S. prisoner detention center at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Recently, Obama went back on his word by ordering closed down the State Department office in charge of closing down the detention camps. On January 22, 2009, two days after Obama was sworn in as president, he issued an Executive Order that stated; «The detention facilities at Guantánamo for individuals covered by this order shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than one year from the date of this order.» Four years later, the Guantánamo detention centers remain open…

Shortly after Obama was sworn in for his second term, the State Department announced the special envoy for closing Guantánamo, Daniel Fried, was being reassigned and would not be replaced. Adding insult to injury, the Obama administration named Fried as the head of U.S. sanctions policy, which includes the over five decade long economic blockade of Cuba.

Obama clearly has other plans for Guantánamo that have nothing to do with closing the book on a shameful American legacy of maintaining a tropical gulag in the Caribbean Sea.

The Obama administration clearly foresees as political change coming to Cuba during his second term. Just as the United States used its bases in West Germany and West Berlin to facilitate NATO’s absorption of East Germany and the other Eastern European nations, it sees Guantánamo as a salient within Cuba to transition the socialist island nation back into an American «banana republic», akin to Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Guatemala. It is for such a reason that the United States has remained in illegal possession of Guantánamo Bay more than a decade after its 99-year lease expired. For the United States, Guantánamo or «Gitmo» as it is known to U.S. military personnel, is a forward base for U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean and, more widely, in Latin America.

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Dave Hyland

John Dines, an undercover police sergeant, as he appeared
in the early 1990s when he posed as John Barker, a pro-
tester against capitalism

Undercover police officers working for Britain’s largest force used the identities of dead children and issued fake passports in their names.

Scotland Yard said it is investigating “past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS (Special Demonstration Squad) officers”.

The Guardian reports that the Metropolitan Police authorised the practice for covert officers infiltrating protest groups without consulting or informing the children’s parents. Over three decades, officers went through national birth and death records in search of suitable matches, the newspaper said. The creation of aliases resulted in officers being issued with official documents such as driving licences and national insurance numbers.

On Sunday night, Scotland Yard said the practice was not “currently” authorised. It also announced an investigation into “past arrangements for undercover identities used by SDS (Special Demonstration Squad) officers”.

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Stephen Lendman

LRAD Sonic Weapon The LRAD, another sonic weapon,
has been used successfully to disperse protestors.

State terror is official Israeli policy. Community incursions, assaults, and other violent incidents occur daily. Palestinian suffering follows. They have no rights. Peaceful demonstrators are attacked.

In August 1967, Israel issued Military Order No. 101 ("Order Regarding Prohibition of Incitement and Hostile Propaganda Actions," as later amended).

Public or private political gatherings, assemblies, processions, or vigils of more than 10 Palestinians without permission are prohibited. Any attempt to "influence public opinion….in a manner liable to harm public safety or public order" is considered lawless. Publications "contain(ing) material with political significance" are banned. They include printed, photographed, recorded, filmed, online, or other materials. Displaying national symbols is prohibited. Military commanders have full authority. They "may empower any soldier or police officer….to exercise his powers in accordance with this order." "(A)ny soldier shall have the authority to use the force necessary" for enforcement.

Violators face up to 10 years imprisonment, a heavy fine, or both. Palestinians have no legal right to demonstrate, express views freely, or engage in nonviolent peaceful protests. Police state terror confronts those who try. Palestinians' rights are systematically denied.

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Gilad Atzmon

A poorly-written but still revealing briefing was published a few days ago by J-BIG. J-BIG may sound like an Israeli penis enlargement clinic but is in fact an acronym for Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods - a Jews Only political organisation set up to promote Jewish interests amongst Palestinian solidarity in general and the BDS movement in particular. The briefing was apparently published in order to “help BDS campaigners to defy the accusation of antisemitsm” and to explain “how the charge of antisemitism applies (actually) to Zionism itself.”

It doesn’t take long for an intelligent person to grasp that Zionism is fuelled by anti-Semitsm. In fact, early Zionists were candid enough on occasions to admit that the enemies of the Jews may actually have a point.

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Bill Van Auken

What is spelled out here is a presidency which has arrogated to itself the “right” to act as judge, jury and executioner in carrying out secret assassinations of American citizens as well many thousands of other human beings around the globe. The overturning of any limitations on this power of life and death lays the groundwork for a police-state dictatorship.

A confidential Justice Department white paper on the legality of “lethal operations” against US citizens made public Monday night argues that virtually unlimited power is placed in the hands of the American president to order the assassination of perceived enemies of the state anywhere around the globe.

While spelling out certain conditions that would purportedly make the targeted killing of an American citizen legal—such as the target being an “operational leader of Al Qaeda or an associated force” who poses an imminent threat of violent attack and whose capture is not feasible—the paper goes on to provide arguments that essentially render these conditions meaningless and non-restrictive.

As if that were not enough, the term “associated force” is defined so broadly that a member of virtually any armed movement deemed hostile to US interests can be targeted. Moreover the paper specifically states that while the conditions it presents are “sufficient” to make such a state killing legal, the absence of one or all of them does not mean that an assassination would be illegal.

“This paper does not attempt to determine the minimum requirements necessary to render such an operation lawful, nor does it assess what might be required to render a lethal operation against a US citizen lawful in other circumstance, including an operation against … a US citizen who is not a senior operational leader of such [Al Qaeda] forces.” it states.

In other words, the document leaves the selection of assassination victims—including non-Al Qaeda opponents of US imperialism—to the discretion of the president and his military and intelligence operatives.

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Stephen Lendman

Throughout his tenure, Obama governed lawlessly for the monied interests that own him. He's waged no-holds-barred war on humanity. Strategy includes homeland tyranny, fear-mongering, saber rattling, hot wars, proxy ones, drone ones, domestic political ones, geopolitical ones, financial ones, anti-populist ones, sanctions, subversion, sabotage, targeted assassinations, mass murder, cyberwar, and more.

In May 2009, Obama prioritized cybersecurity. He called cyber-threats "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation." "America's economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cybersecurity." He ordered a top-to-bottom review. A Cyberspace Policy Review report followed. He waged cyberwar on Iran. He did so cooperatively with Israel.

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Nicolas J.S. Davies

By selecting its senior officials through “legalized bribery” within a superficially democratic system, the United States has developed a more sophisticated way to institutionalize and justify ever-expanding plutocracy, militarism and war crimes.

One family stands out as playing exactly that role in the political career of Barack Obama: the Crown family of Chicago. The importance of this relationship in Obama’s career exposes some of the roots of his subservience to the government of Israel, his threats of aggression against Iran, his expansion of the JSOC/CIA targeted killing program, and his unswerving commitment to record military budgets in a time of economic and fiscal crisis.

Americans who went to the polls in 2008 believing that a vote for Barack Obama was a vote for peace, now face the prospect of a presidential election in which both major party candidates will be openly wedded to endless war, cold-blooded “targeted killings,” record military budgets, and the systematic violation of U.S. and international law.

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Stephen Lendman

On February 1, Hillary Clinton ended her tenure as Secretary of State. John Kerry was sworn in to replace her. Two recent articles discussed him. One called him a reliable imperial warrior. The other said he's Israel's man at State. He was chosen to further America's imperium. He'll do what he's told.

He supports global wars. He endorses unchallenged US dominance. Hardline administration policies will continue seamlessly on his watch.

Throughout his Senate tenure, his pro-Israeli voting record was impeccable. His support is unwavering. He endorses strengthening Israel's security. He values America's special relationship. He backs generous financial and military aid. He calls Jerusalem "Israel's indisputable capital." He favors moving America's embassy there from Tel Aviv. Doing so is illegal. In 1947, the UN declared it an international city. It remains so today.

He's no friend of Palestine. He called Arafat a failed leader and unfit peace partner. He supports militarized occupation harshness. He's comfortable with settlement expansions. He's silent about stolen Palestinian land. Dispossessed Palestinians don't bother him. Nor does stealing their resources. He deplores Palestinian liberation. He supports wrong over right. He's against humanitarian missions to besieged Gaza.

After Israel's May 2010 Mavi Marmara massacre, he said Israel "has every right in the world to make certain weapons are not being smuggled in." Activists on board had none. They brought food, toys, stationary, kitchen utensils, mattresses, towels, construction materials, and other vital items Gazans need. Other blocked and successful missions did the same thing. Kerry knows but won't say. Nor do other US and Israeli officials.

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