Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney has said much about torture as part of terrorism investigations during the 2012 general campaign. But the future of American government practices when interrogating high-level terrorism suspects appears likely to turn on the outcome of the election. In one of his first acts, President Obama issued an executive order restricting interrogators to a list of nonabusive tactics approved in the Army Field Manual. Even as he embraced a hawkish approach to other counterterrorism issues — like drone strikes, military commissions, indefinite detention and the Patriot Act — Mr. Obama [allegedly] has stuck to that strict no-torture policy. By contrast, Mr. Romney’s advisers have privately urged him to “rescind and replace President Obama’s executive order” and permit secret “enhanced interrogation techniques against high-value detainees that are safe, legal and effective in generating intelligence to save American lives,” according to an internal Romney campaign memorandum.

Ray McGovern: Obama Ruling Shields Torturers

Israel's prime minister tells UN general assembly that Iran is more than 70% of the way to producing a nuclear weapon.

Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has called on the international community to set a "clear, red line" to stop Iran making a nuclear weapon, a line he claimed would be reached as early as next spring. To illustrate those claims, Netanyahu presented the UN general assembly in New York with a diagram of a cartoon bomb, complete with a burning fuse, and used a red felt pen to mark a line near the top of the bomb beyond which he said Iran should not be allowed to pass. That line, representing 90% of the way to making a warhead, would be reached "by next spring, at most by next summer".

As Israeli PM Netanyahu Discusses Iran’s Nukes, Let’s Not Forget His Lies About Iraq’s WMD’s
Russia Today: Netanyahu: 'Nuclear Iran same as nuclear-armed al-Qaeda'
PressTV: Israelis in poll: War is a threat to Israel existence
Justin Raimondo: Bibi’s Crazy UN Speech
Barry Grey: US elections conceal preparations for war with Iran

Harriet Sherwood: Netanyahu's bomb diagram succeeds – but not in the way the PM wanted - Binyamin Netanyahu's cartoon nuclear bomb certainly grabbed attention, but not necessarily the kind he wanted. No doubt it was intended as a bold and graphic way of presenting the Iranian nuclear threat, but much of the initial response – on Twitter, at least – was ridicule. In his speech to the UN general assembly, the Israeli prime minister adopted the persona of an elementary school science teacher talking to a particularly dim class to explain Iran's nuclear programme and the point at which it must be stopped.

Joseph Kishore: Israeli prime minister lays out path to war with Iran - Speaking as the head of state for a government that, in close alliance with the United States, is responsible for military aggression throughout the Middle East and beyond, and is engaged in a brutal occupation of Palestine, Netanyahu said that Israel “cherishes peace.” Israel currently has a stockpile of some 400 atomic bombs and has refused to submit to international inspections. [...] Israeli-US plans for war—which would have devastating and incalculable consequences—are being carried out entirely behind the backs of the American people. One of the principal concerns of the Obama administration has been to delay actions until after the US elections in November, to ensure that the population has no say in the matter.

The US Defense Department will soon be equipped with new unmanned aerial vehicles that will operate more “autonomously” at a greater pace. - The Pentagon is reportedly investing heavily in the new smarter robotic weapons that will get rid of their remote operators on the ground to work virtually without human intervention and with minimum supervision. "Before they were blind, deaf and dumb. Now we're beginning to make them to see, hear and sense," says Mark Maybury, chief scientist for the US Air Force. The future drones will have a longer range, more powerful jet engines and a radar-evading stealth design. Using drones as a weapon started under George W. Bush but the trend escalated dramatically after Barak Obama took office with Pakistan, along with Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia, as the spotlight of the remote warfare.

A new study released this week by researchers at Stanford and NYU has found that American drone strikes in Pakistan are killing far more civilians than advertised, taking out few high value targets, and have become the primary recruiting tool for the terrorist groups the policy is aimed at combating. The report, “Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians From US Drone Practices in Pakistan,” is based on “more than 130 interviews with victims, witnesses, and experts, and review of thousands of pages of documentation and media reporting” conducted over nine months. The research found that, over the last eight years, drone strikes have “killed 2,562-3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474-881 were civilians, including 176 children.” Meanwhile, only 2 percent of those killed were “high-level” targets. This means that the strikes have killed three times as many children as terrorist leaders. The report also shows that the impact of the drone war isn't limited to those directly affected by strikes because the constant presence of drones overhead "terrorizes men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. " People in these regions have become afraid to render assistance to innocent victims or to attend funerals, as both rescuers and mourners have been targeted for secondary strikes. The report’s findings are irrefutably stunning. Even more so is the fact that these revelations won’t play any role at all in the pending presidential campaign.

Ernst Wolff: The terror of US drone warfare
Stephen Lendman: Drones: Instruments of State Terror
Medea Benjamin: Obama and Drone Warfare: Will Americans Speak Out?
AWIP: Drone strike kills ten in South Waziristan

US military's new legal theory threatens to convert unauthorized leaks into a capital offense. Who is the real 'enemy'? - A US air force systems analyst who expressed support for WikiLeaks and accused leaker Bradley Manning triggered a formal military investigation last year to determine whether she herself had leaked any documents to the group. Air Force investigative documents, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, show that the analyst was repeatedly interviewed about her contacts with and support for WikiLeaks - what investigators repeatedly refer to as the "anti-US or anti-military group" - as well as her support for the group's founder, Julian Assange. The investigation was ultimately closed when they could find no evidence of unauthorized leaking, but what makes these documents noteworthy is the possible crime cited by military officials as the one they were investigating: namely, "Communicating With the Enemy", under Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). That is one of the most serious crimes a person can commit - it carries the penalty of death - and is committed when a person engages in "unauthorized communication, correspondence, or intercourse with the enemy".

Russian President Vladimir Putin says West's policies have destabilized a number of Arab states and are now creating chaos in Syria. - "They have already created a situation of chaos in many territories and are now continuing the same policy in other countries -- including Syria," Putin said on Thursday. The remarks came one day after British Prime Minister David Cameron used the UN General Assembly podium to attack nations like Russia and China who vetoed sanctions resolutions against Syria.