The Pentagon says it is creating the Distinguished Warfare Medal that can be awarded to those US troops who launch assassination drone strikes and direct cyber attacks. - The outgoing US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, said on Wednesday that the US drone operators and those who direct cyber attacks would be eligible to receive the medal for their direct impact on a US military operation from afar. The United States uses its assassination drones in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Somalia, claiming that they target ‘terrorists.’ The attacks, however, have mostly led to massive civilian casualties. According to the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent organization, the US administration has used 363 of its assassination drones to hit targets in Pakistan since 2004. In September 2012, a report by the Stanford Law School and the New York University School of Law gave an alarming account of the effect that assassination drone strikes have on ordinary people in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The US drone strikes were initiated under former US President George W. Bush, but have escalated under President Barack Obama.

A US airstrike in eastern Afghanistan Wednesday killed 10 civilians, including five children. The deadly attack came just hours after the State of the Union speech in which President Barack Obama falsely claimed that the more than decade-long US war and occupation in Afghanistan “will be over” by the end of next year. Afghanistan’s Pajhwok Afghan News agency (PAN) reported that the civilian victims of the strike included five children, four women and one man. The overnight raid targeted two houses in the village of Chawgam in the Shigal district of Kunar province. Four other civilians were wounded. The civilian victims, referred to by the US military as “collateral damage,” far outnumbered the three Taliban fighters said to have been killed in the bombing. The spokesman for the US-led occupation force issued its stock response, claiming to have no information about the killing of women and children, but insisting that it “takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously.”

Tony Cartalucci: Hypocrisy: US Arms Al Qaeda in Syria, Mass-Slaughters Civilians in Afghanistan - AFP has reported that a recent NATO airstrike in Afghanistan has killed over 10 civilians in an all-too-familiar headline glossed over by the Western media in an exercise of both depravity and hypocrisy. RT's article, "NATO airstrike kills 10 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children - officials," notes in particular that up to 11,864 civilians were killed in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2011, and that civilian deaths before 2007 were not even tracked by the UN. Such facts reveal alarming hypocrisy as the UN keeps almost daily, inflated tallies of civilian deaths elsewhere, in particular, in nations like Libya and Syria where Western interests have been heavily involved in regime change and in dire need of manipulating public perception worldwide. The United Nations had in fact pieced together a dubious report crafted from "witness accounts" compiled not in Syria, or even beyond its borders in a refugee camp, but instead, in Geneva by "witnesses" supplied by the so-called Syrian "opposition."

US President Barack Obama has vowed his ‘firm commitment’ to protect Japan against a potential nuclear attack in light of the fact that his nation is the only one that has ever used atomic bombs, which leveled two Japanese cities in 1945 and killed nearly 180,000 people. In a telephone conversation with new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday, Obama pledged the US military’s “steadfast” resolve to offer Japan protection against threats, including a nuclear one, according to a White House statement. Meanwhile, the Japanese prime minister is due to pay a visit to Washington later this month for major talks with the US president and other top officials and lawmakers. During the telephone call, Obama and Abe also discussed ways to respond to what the White House statement referred to as “highly provocative violation of North Korea’s international obligations,” according to press reports. The development comes following a reported underground nuclear test conducted by North Korea on Tuesday, triggering the usual strong reaction by the US and its major allies in the region, namely South Korea and Japan.

John V. Walsh: U.S. Goading Japan into Confrontation with China - Will Japan Take the Bait?

Army units on Wednesday carried out a series of operations targeting terrorists' gatherings and hideouts in Douma and its farms and Zamalka in Damascus Countryside Province. Heavy losses were inflicted upon the terrorists. - An official source told SANA reporter that several terrorists were killed on the farms that surround al-Shifonyeh and al-Rihan towns in Douma, including a terrorist group leader of the so-called ' Hamza Battalion in Eastern Ghouta' Mohammad al-Tair, in addition to the terrorists Mohammad Shaddad, Khalil Bilal, Mohammad al-Homsi, Khaled Awwad and Omar Farhoud. The source added that army units continued hunting terrorists in Zamalka, killing many of them including Bashir Ahmad, Omar Moustafa Arab, Shadi Msallam, Khalil Eid, Mazen Fouad Hijab, Zaher Deeb Dawara and Shadi al-Dabbas. The source added that terrorists' vehicles were destroyed with all weapons and ammunition inside at Zamalka crossroad.

SANA: Heavy Losses Inflicted upon Terrorists in Several Provinces
NaharNet: Britain Warns of Western Jihadists Returning from Syria
IRDIPLOMACY.com: Opponents of Bashar Assad Frustrated
Washington Post: Syrian rebels loot artifacts to raise money for fight against Assad
Hervé Bar: "Revolution betrayed": Corrupt rebel leaders confiscate Syria dream of freedom

Israel confirms it held ‘Mossad agent’ known as Prisoner X - The Israeli regime confesses that it had secretly imprisoned a reportedly Australian ‘Mossad agent’ who was later found hanged in solitary confinement nearly two years ago. - The Tel Aviv regime was forced to admit on Wednesday that the man, known as ‘Prisoner X,’ had been jailed under a false identity “for security reasons” after Australian media disclosed the secret despite Israel’s great efforts to cover it up. On February 12, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that Ben Zygier was “found hanged in a cell with state-of-the-art surveillance systems” near Tel Aviv in late 2010. Originally born in Melbourne, the 34-year-old man with a dual Australian-Israeli citizenship had worked for the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, the ABC reported. The Israeli justice ministry said, “Following an extensive investigation it was ruled six weeks ago that it was suicide. The prisoner was held in jail under a warrant issued by a court.”

Russia Today: 'Prisoner X' took part in Mossad operation of killing Hamas operative in Dubai?
Al-Manar News: “Israel” Admits it was Secretly Holding Hanged Mossad Agent
Russia Today: Prisoner X's suicide in secret custody amid censorship claims
ABC News: Israel breaks silence on Prisoner X case
ABC News: Australia must pursue the truth about Prisoner X

A prominent Iranian legislator refuted Washington's offer to hold direct talks with Iran as a "cunning move", and said that the US should first halt its hostile policies against Iran to show goodwill for negotiations. - "Had the US been sincere in its proposal, it should have lifted the sanctions, avoided setting preconditions, stopped hostility towards Iran, given up support for the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), freed Iran's frozen assets and done many other things, but it has, of course, none of these," Razan's deputy at the parliament Ataollah Soltani Sabour told FNA on Wednesday. The lawmaker noted that as long as the US continues being a wolf, negotiations will be meaningless. Soltani Sabour's remarks came after the US renewed its offer of direct talks with Tehran officials. Vice-President Joe Biden, speaking at this year's Munich Security Conference, reiterated previous indications that the US was prepared to talk one-on-one with Iran.

OnlineCollegeCourses.com info-graphic.

Dorner manhunt: Incendiary tear gas reportedly used on cabin. - Faced with regular barrages of gunfire, officers confronting suspected killer Christopher Dorner lobbed incendiary tear gas into the cabin where Dorner allegedly was holed up, said law enforcement officials with knowledge of the situation. The cabin caught on fire and authorities believe Dorner was burned inside. A body was discovered but authorities have not confirmed it was Dorner. Law enforcement sources said the officers got into several gun battles with Dorner during a nearly four-hour siege at the cabin in the Big Bear area. The standoff began when Dorner allegedly fatally shot a San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputy and seriously injured another. Hoping to end the standoff, law enforcement authorities first lobbed “traditional” tear gas into the cabin. When that did not work, they opted to use CS gas canisters, which are known in law enforcement parlance as incendiary tear gas. These canisters have significantly more chance of starting a fire. This gas can cause humans to have burning eyes and start to feel as if they are being starved for oxygen. It is often used to drive barricaded individuals out.

George Ciccariello-Maher & Mike King: The Execution of Christopher Dorner

Daniel Ellsberg speaks at the press conference after the hearing for the second circuit court of appeals in the NDAA lawsuit, Hedges v Obama. He speaks about what is happening in the lawsuit, the erosion of the Bill of Rights and Bradley Manning. Daniel Ellsberg is a former United States military analyst turned whistleblower, most known for publishing the Pentagon Papers.