Ken Silverstein has a series of articles where he notes how people associated with the national security state are benefiting from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the never-ending war on terror that we are engaged in. In the first, he looks at what former head of the CIA George Tenet and former head of the FBI Louis Freeh have been up to.
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Matt Taibbi has an interesting article about the surreal aspects of the work slow down organized by the New York City police, where they have stopped arresting and ticketing people for minor offenses or what are often called offenses against the ‘quality of life’ which is part of the controversial ‘Broken Windows’ theory of policing. As a result, those arrests and citations have dropped by a staggering 94%. He says that it exposes an underlying issue about the proper use of police.
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Glenn Greenwald looks at how rapidly the US media accepted and spread the US government’s story (confidently affirmed by president Obama) that North Korea was behind the Sony hack without any evidence being presented in support. Those of us who follow the news almost minimally know how the government has brazenly lied in the past and some may marvel that the media could have such short memories or be so obtuse as to accept these claims at face value. While there is a small possibility that North Korea was behind the attack, the fact that a week has gone by since the supposedly offending film The Interview was shown and the promised apocalypse still hasn’t occurred suggests that a non-state actor was behind the original hack and other players later exploited the situation and sowed confusion for who knows what reason.
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A few days ago, I wrote about how corruption in Sri Lankan politics has become so brazen that politicians argue that it is better to return incumbents who have become wealthy while in office rather than elect new people who are seeking to join the ranks of the affluent and will thus initiate a new round of bribery and theft.
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James Fallows has a long cover story in the latest issue of The Atlantic magazine titled The Tragedy of the American Military where he attacks the current attitude in the US where it has become obligatory to talk about the military in hushed and reverential tones as an institution whose members and actions are above criticism, saying that it results in a lack of critical self-examination that leads to the rise of careerists in the ranks and a general ineptitude.
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The US is holding a large number of undocumented immigrant children in various locations around the country. In order to cope with their needs, the Department of Homeland Security has issued a call for bids to supply 42,000 pairs of underwear to them. One anti-immigrant group known as the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC) has started “Underwear for Illegals” and called on its followers to send in dirty underwear instead.
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Democracy Now! reports that there have been some encouraging signs about prosecuting key US officials for war crimes.
A human rights group in Berlin, Germany, has filed a criminal complaint against the architects of the George W. Bush administration’s torture program. The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights has accused former Bush administration officials, including CIA Director George Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, of war crimes, and called for an immediate investigation by a German prosecutor. The move follows the release of a Senate report on CIA torture which includes the case of a German citizen, Khalid El-Masri, who was captured by CIA agents in 2004 due to mistaken identity and tortured at a secret prison in Afghanistan. So far, no one involved in the CIA torture program has been charged with a crime — except the whistleblower John Kiriakou, who exposed it.
Sri Lanka holds presidential elections on January 8, 2015 with the incumbent party being accused of rampant corruption. This is actually being used as an argument in favor of returning the ruling party to power, if you can imagine it.
In this context, a southern ruling party MP’s remarks are highly revealing for their bluntness. He is reported to have advised voters to support the SLFP because, as he put it: “We have made enough money not to be greedy next time. But if you elect the opposition, they will make money hand over fist.”
Now there’s an inspiring slogan: Vote for us because we have already stolen as much money as we need. You have got to admire the brazenness of such a claim and the logic behind it.
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I am not a huge fan of the retrospectives that are so common at this time of year but I will make an exception for one of my favorite political cartoonists Tom Tomorrow, who lists the favorite ones he drew over the past year that dealt with a whole range of the important news stories. Here’s just one.
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