On Wednesday this week, protesters outside the White House in Washington will wage a demonstration ten years to the day after a military prison was opened at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. - For a decade, hundreds of men have been held and tortured without charge in one of the biggest breaches of human rights ever conducted by the American government, and also the largest in recent times internationally. Another anniversary for Gitmo will come later this month, however. In less than two weeks on January 22, Americans will remember the three-year anniversary of US President Barack Obama vowing to shut down the prison — a promise that has still gone unfilled.

Stanford law professor analyzed all murder cases in California over a 34-year period: There is no rational distinction between inmates on death row and the equally violent offenders who were not sentenced to death -- it is "utterly arbitrary and discriminatory".

An American billionaire and a close ally of Israeli Premier Binyamin Netanyahu has donated USD five million to the electoral campaign of US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, infamous for his hawkish anti-Iran stances. - Gingrich's campaign had faltered after he was targeted by a USD 3-million advertising barrage sponsored by Restore Our Future, a Super PAC (political action committee) supporting another presidential hopeful, Mitt Romney. However, on Friday, billionaire Sheldon Adelson rushed to Gingrich's aid by giving a USD five-million check to Winning Our Future, a Super PAC that supports Gingrich.

AWIP: US election 2012: Newt Gingrich allies launch half-hour film slating Mitt Romney

Just one year before the first Zionist Congress...

The same old drug war tactics lead to more powerful cartels and illicit activity by US authorities. - U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents laundered millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday. With the help of Mexican federal police officers, the DEA agents and their Colombian informant conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China and smuggled about $2.5 million in the United States. Money laundering is a favored tactic of the DEA. The illicit activity – specifically sanctioned as Attorney General Exempt Operations – often violates Mexican sovereignty, facilitates additional criminal activity on the part of the drug cartels, and may be counterproductive, especially in the shadow of the failed gun-running operation Fast and Furious. Mexican military and law enforcement, trained and armed by the U.S., typically assist the Americans. But Mexico’s over-reliance on harsh law enforcement and militaristic approaches to the drug war – actively promoted by the United States – has resulted in a dramatic increase in violence and an unaccountable police and military force that is responsible for widespread human rights violations.

KTAR.com: US agents helped launder millions in drug proceeds

Reports coming out of the Express Tribune say that the United States is close to finalizing a secret deal with the Zardari government which would allow them to resume drone strikes against Pakistan's tribal areas, but under new conditions. Under the deal, the U.S. would resume the strikes but launch them less frequently, with officials saying that the frequency of the strikes was a big source of public opposition. The U.S. halted all strikes after they attacked a Pakistani military base in November, killing 24 soldiers. U.S. officials have touted the strikes as a key part of their overall strategy, and a recent study revealed that they launched 75 attacks in 2011, killing 609 people. The vast majority of the victims were never identified publicly, but only three were ever confirmed to be al-Qaeda “commanders.”

Jason Ditz: Report: US Likely to Resume Pakistan Drone Strikes Soon

Some 100 soldiers and unit leaders remained on a restricted lockdown for a sixth day at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state on Monday while Army investigators probed the theft of sensitive optics equipment, a base spokesman said. - The missing gear includes hundreds of night-vision goggles and missing weapons accessories worth about $630,000, said Major Chris Ophardt, a spokesman for the U.S. Army's I Corps at the base, about 9 miles south of Tacoma. Ophardt said base confinement is an extreme measure of punishment meant to elicit information.0

On both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, the reckless and incendiary policies of the Obama administration have set the stage for another year of carnage and deepening mass opposition. - The crisis besetting the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan has been deepened over recent days. Its own puppet government, headed by President Hamid Karzai, has publicly accused the American military of torture and arbitrary detention at the largest US-run prison in the country.

Watch more Capital Account @ www.youtube.com twitter.com twitter.com The Iowa caucuses are tonight. Iowans will head to the polls to cast their first votes in the US primary season. The horse race is really underway here, but what real options do the American people have? What choice can they make that will have a positive effect on their financial future, not to mention their constitutional rights and civil liberties? It doesn't look to us like there is any leader who can unify the country. Obama had the political currency and the skill to do that 3 years ago, but he squandered it. So where does that put the rest of us now exactly? Feels kind of like the Twilight Zone, and we will bring in former assistant treasury secretary Paul Craig Roberts to tell us what he thinks. And speaking of the twilight zone, let's talk a bit about Iran. After all, it is center stage once again as the candidates look to out gun each other. Iran has threatened to act if the US navy moves an aircraft carrier into the gulf. This as New US and EU sanctions target the Islamic Republic. What doe this mean for Oil prices for you and I and is the US sabre rattling worth the cost? Well, again, we will speak to Paul Craig Roberts, an assistant treasury secretary under the Reagan Administration for answers to that questions.

During Pfc. Bradley Manning's legal hearing last month, many observers thought the proceedings seemed scripted. It turns out that, at least in part, they were. - POLITICO has obtained the script, which extends to 18 pages, including various addenda dealing with the handling of classified information. The script lays out statements for the Investigating Officer Lt. Col Paul Almanza and for the prosecutors, while places for comments by defense counsel were generally left blank. The script was generally adhered to but not entirely. For example, when Almanza closed the hearing to hear classified evidence he said representatives of "relevant government agencies" would be allowed to stay in the courtroom. The script says "relevant victim agencies." The script, submitted as part of a public court filing, is posted here.

Greeks Go Back To The Land --- University graduates become snail farmers. A nuclear physicist trains to become a ship engineer. Not such unusual stories when urban employment is so high. Many are returning to rural areas, others are going to sea. - Nikos Gavalas and Alexandra Tricha, both 31 and trained as agriculturalists, were frustrated working on poorly paying, short-term contracts in Athens, where jobs are scarce and the cost of living is high. So last year, they decided to start a new project: growing edible snails for export. As Greece’s blighted economy plunges further into the abyss, the couple are joining with an exodus of Greeks who are fleeing to the countryside and looking to the nation’s rich rural past as a guide to the future. They acknowledge that it is a peculiar undertaking, with more manual labor than they, as college graduates, ever imagined doing. But in a country starved by austerity even as it teeters on the brink of default, it seemed as good a gamble as any.