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"Astoundingly Disturbing": Obama Administration Claims Power to Wage Endless War Across the Globe

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - May. 17 (News Analysis) - A Pentagon official predicted Thursday the war against al-Qaeda and its affiliates could last up to 20 more years. The comment came during a Senate hearing revisiting the Authorization for Use of Military Force, or AUMF, enacted by Congress days after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. At the hearing, Pentagon officials claimed the AUMF gives the president power to wage endless war anywhere in the world, including in Syria, Yemen and the Congo. "This is the most astounding and most astoundingly disturbing hearing that I've been to since I've been here," said Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine. "You guys have essentially rewritten the Constitution here today." We play excerpts of Thursday's Senate hearing and our recent interview with Jeremy Scahill, author of the new bestseller, "Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield."

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The real Obama scandal: fighting illegal wars in Libya and Pakistan

Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Michael Cohen - May. 16 (Comment) - The AP, IRS and Benghazi controversies are political sideshows. Obama's use of illegal force abroad is true concern Washington DC appears to have reached peak hysteria this week. The confluence of not one, not two, but three potential scandals involving the White House has given practically every Beltway scribe a case of the vapors as they don their Woodward/Bernstein capes and doggedly uncover the truth behind the Obama Administration's lies. What's missing, however, is actual evidence of wrongdoing. The IRS scandal is certainly the most politically toxic, but it remains unclear that anyone from the Obama Administration knew what the IRS was doing or that the agency was even targeting conservative groups for partisan political reasons. The Department of Justice's subpoena of phone records from the Associated Press is far more troubling because it offers a glimpse into the prosecutorial zeal that has defined DoJ's investigation of leaks from within the Obama Administration. Finally, there ...

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Syria denies role in Turkey car bombing that killed 46 (PHOTOS)

Sun, 12 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

GlobalPost - By Alexander Besant, Tracey Shelton - May. 12 (News Report) - Syrian government officials have denied the country's role in a deadly car bombing in southern Turkey. In a press conference Sunday, Syria's information minister Omran al-Zoubi said that the attack was incompatible with the government's values.

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The Great Degrader

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - Apr. 27 (Opinion) - I’ve been focused on economic policy lately, so I sort of missed the big push to rehabilitate Bush’s image; also, as a premature anti-Bushist who pointed out how terrible a president he was back when everyone else was praising him as a Great Leader, I’m

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South Korea proposes Kaesong talks with North

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 25 (News Report) - Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk warned of "grave measures" if the North did not agree to the talks. Pyongyang blocked South Korean access to the site and pulled out its 53,000 workers earlier this month.

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The World Is a Battlefield: Jeremy Scahill on "Dirty Wars" and Obama's Expanding Drone Attacks

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Jeremy Scahill, amy Goodman - Apr. 24 (Special Report) - Scahill charts the expanding covert wars operated by the CIA and JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command, in countries from Somalia to Pakistan. "I called it 'Dirty Wars' because, particularly in this administration, in the Obama administration, I think a lot of people are being led to believe that there is such a thing as a clean war," Scahill says. He goes on to discuss secret operations in Africa, the targeting of U.S. citizens in Yemen and the key role WikiLeaks played in researching the book.

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Resource Shock: How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Michael T. Klare - Apr. 22 (Special Report) - Two nightmare scenarios -- a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change -- are already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition, and conflict.

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Obama Whistleblower Prosecutions Lead To Chilling Effect On Press

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - By Matt Sledge - Apr. 16 (News Report) - It was an investigative story clearly in the public interest, shedding new light on the government’s long-running targeted-killing program in Pakistan. But now Landay, a veteran national security reporter for the McClatchy newspaper chain, is concerned that the Obama administration could next investigate him in hopes of finding the sources for “top-secret U.S. intelligence reports” cited in the story. “Do I think that they could come after me?” Landay asked, in an interview with The Huffington Post. “Yes.”

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Opinion: N. Korea endgame: 3 scenarios

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Michael J. Green - Apr. 13 (Opinion) - Hyperbolic North Korean threats of war are not new. What is new is the intensity and persistence of those threats this time around. Add to that an untested 29-year-old leader who is suddenly a four-star general with lots to prove. How does this end? Consider these three possibilities:

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North Korea May Have Nuclear Missile Capability, U.S. Agency Says

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Thom Shanker, David E. Sanger, Eric Schmitt - Apr. 12 (News Analysis) - A report by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm concluded North Korea has learned to make a nuclear weapon small enough to be carried by missile. Whether other agencies agree is unclear.

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North Korea issues fresh warning of war

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 11 (Special Report) - North Korea has warned that war could break out at any moment, as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula. South Korea had raised its alert level amid indications that the North is preparing for a missile test.

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South Korea raises alert with North to 'vital threat'

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - Apr. 10 (Special Report) - 'Anytime now' North Korea is believed to have completed preparations for a missile launch after it moved two Musudan missiles to its east coast, In anticipation, the South Korea-US Combined Forces have raised their alert level to Watchcon 2, to increase surveillance monitoring, Yonhap quoted a senior military official as saying..

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The Bombing of al-Bara | Syria Behind the Lines |

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Frontline - By Azmat Khan, Olly Lambert - Apr. 09 (News) - Though the first blast knocked him to the ground, Lambert kept his camera rolling. He spent the next hour documenting the impacts of the Oct. 28, 2012 bombing of al-Bara, a village in Idlib province an hour south of Aleppo. The result is a rare, immersive portrait of the immediate aftermath of Syrian government air strikes on a civilian population. FRONTLINE has condensed the footage into this 36-minute digital feature, vividly narrated by Lambert

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Iraq War Actors Have No Shame

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Consortium News - By Adil E. Shamoo - Apr. 04 (Opinion) - As wretched as the Iraq War was, the absence of any meaningful accountability for the U.S. policymakers and pundits who made the catastrophe happen is nearly as stomach-turning. Every day the same faces show up on the TV talk shows and Op-Ed pages spouting more of their “wisdom,”

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American Special Ops Forces Now Operating in 71 Countries

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Laleh Khalili - Mar. 31 (Special Report) - More than a year ago, in January 2012, President Obama inaugurated the US Defense Strategic Guidance. The document was strategically significant because it announced the "pivot to Asia" alongside continued commitments to the oil sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf. Militarily, it clearly signalled the end of large-scale invasion and occupation of troublesome or intransigent countries in favour of the kind of operations in which the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and its counterterrorism component, the JSOC, excel. This ascendancy is confirmed by the planned expansion of the SOCOM by around 7.5 percent by 2015, from 66,100 civilian and military personnel in 2011 to 71,100 by 2015.

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David Stockman, Ex-Reagan Budget Director: George W. Bush's Policies Bankrupt The Country

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Mar. 31 (News Report) - A former adviser of Ronald Reagan has some choice words for George W. Bush. David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director from 1981 to 1985, slammed Bush and his former boss in an op-ed in The New York Times Sunday. Stockman argued in the piece that Reagan’s

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Religious Leaders Call on President Obama to Reconsider His Position on Drone Strikes

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - Mar. 30 (Opinion) - Six religious leaders from across the country joined together during the week of Easter to call on President Obama to reexamine his position on drone strikes. In briefings and explanations to the American public President Obama's administration has used Just War Theory to justify CIA and U.S. military use of drone strikes throughout the world. Joining forces with director and producer Robert Greenwald, these rabbis, reverends, and priests created a short video sharing why drone strikes in Pakistan violate Just War Theory.

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Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Ernesto Londoño - Mar. 29 (Special Report) - The U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will cost taxpayers between $4 trillion to $6 trillion, taking into account the medical care of wounded veterans and expensive repairs to a force depleted by more than a decade fighting, according to a new study by a Harvard researcher. Read full article >>

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Obama Sarcastically Asks How Israel Afforded Such A Great Missile Defense System

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

theonion.com - Mar. 22 (Comedy News) - While touring Israel’s “Iron Dome” all-weather missile defense system Wednesday, President Barack Obama sarcastically asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where he got all the money to build such technologically advanced equipment. “Boy, you’ve gotta have some pretty deep pockets to afford something like this—how much did you say this ran you guys?” asked Obama,

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Phil Donahue on His 2003 Firing from MSNBC, When Liberal Network Couldn't Tolerate Antiwar Voices

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Juan Gonzales, Amy Goodman, Phil Donahue - Mar. 21 (Interview) - In 2003, the legendary television host Phil Donahue was fired from his prime-time MSNBC talk show during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The problem was not Donahue's ratings, but rather his views: An internal MSNBC memo warned Donahue was a "difficult public face for NBC in a time of war," providing "a home for the liberal antiwar agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity." Donahue joins us to look back on his firing 10 years later. "They were terrified of the antiwar voice," Donahue says. [includes rush transcript]

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Dying Iraq War Veteran Tomas Young Explains Decision to End His Life

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Tomas Young - Mar. 21 (Interview) - In the week marking the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we spend the hour looking at the remarkable life and imminent death of Iraq War veteran Tomas Young. Citing his overwhelming physical pain from wounds that left him paralyzed in Iraq, Young recently announced he has decided to end his life by discontinuing his medicine and nourishment, which comes in the form of liquid through a feeding tube

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Why invading Iraq was a terrible mistake

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

CNN - By Hans Blix - Mar. 19 (Opinion) - I headed the U.N. inspections in Iraq at the time of the war 10 years ago. Today, I look again at the reasons why this terrible mistake -- and violation of the U.N. charter -- took place and explore if any lessons be drawn. Here are my thoughts.

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11 Years Later, Senate Wakes Up to War on Terror's 'Battlefield America'

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Wired - Mar. 07 (Opinion) - 11 Years Later, Senate Wakes Up to War on Terror's 'Battlefield America'

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Bernanke joins the ranks of economic ‘hippies’

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

seattletimes.com - By Paul Krugman - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - Now, as then, this consensus has seemed impenetrable to counterarguments, no matter how well grounded in evidence. And now, as then, leaders of the consensus continue to be regarded as credible even though they’ve been wrong about everything (why do people keep treating Alan Simpson as a wise man?) while critics of the consensus are regarded as foolish hippies even though all their predictions — about interest rates, about inflation, about the dire effects of austerity — have come true.

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Bradley Manning: The Face of Heroism

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0800

AlterNet - By Glenn Greenwald - Mar. 02 (Opinion) - "Manning's motivations in leaking, he said, was to 'spark a domestic debate of the role of the military and foreign policy in general', he said, and 'cause society to reevaluate the need and even desire to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore their effect on people who live in that environment every day.'

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