An op-ed in the Washington Post makes a good case as to why the use by the US government of drone strikes is so problematic
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Mano Singham
Just another Freethought Blogs site
An op-ed in the Washington Post makes a good case as to why the use by the US government of drone strikes is so problematic
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When the Bush-Cheney regime went on an orgy of torture, they denied that what they were doing deserved that label and the US media became extremely coy about calling it that, although the practices such as waterboarding had been unambiguously condemned as torture when done by Japanese on American prisoners of war and the perpetrators had been executed. The New York Times was one of the worst culprits during that period, routinely using the phrase ‘enhanced interrogation’ that the Bush administration wanted them to use instead of calling it torture.
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In a post on July 25, I mentioned early reports of a possible massacre by Israeli troops in the town of Khuza’a near the Israeli border, with social media providing gruesome stories. In a new report, Human Rights Watch confirms it, saying that between July 23 and 25, Israeli troops deliberately targeted civilians, killing them as they walked with their hands up or carrying white flags or were running away.
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Yesterday’s The Intercept story by Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux about the numbers of people caught up in the various government’s watch lists was based on confidential documents from the National Counterterrorism Center that was leaked to them. What was interesting is that these were not part of the trove of documents released by Edward Snowden and the date of the documents is August 2013 showing that they were created after Snowden left the NSA.
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The Daily Show exposes the hypocrisy of the US government in that, while calling for an end to hostilities in Gaza, it is also rushing more weapons and ammunition to enable Israel to replenish the weapons stocks it has used up in the massive bombardment of Gaza so that it can keep bombing at the same high rate if the current ceasefire should break down. The assault has already resulted in the deaths of more than 1,800 Gazans of whom nearly 400 are children.
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Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux of The Intercept have a detailed analysis based on confidential documents that they have received that about 40% of the 680,000 people on the US government’s Terrorist Screening Database have no recognized terrorist group affiliation. The TSDB is the ‘watch list’ that the government uses and one can land up on it merely if some government agency somewhere decided that you are suspicious.
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We already know that the CIA’s use of a fake anti-vaccination program in Pakistan to try and find Osama bin Laden has caused the entire polio vaccination campaign in that country to become the target of the Taliban who have used that appalling strategy to portray all vaccination campaigns as potential CIA plots and even kill heath workers in those programs..
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The bombing by Israel of yet a third UN school that was being used as a shelter by people seeking refuge from Israeli bombing elsewhere has enraged even more people who normally give Israel unquestioned support. The UN Secretary General has called it a “moral outrage”, a statement signed by the EU and European commission presidents on behalf of 28 members said that Gazans were suffering “intolerable violence”, and even British prime minister David Cameron, goaded by condemnations by the Labor and Liberal party leaders for not speaking out more strongly, has said, “I’m not an international lawyer… but international law is very, very clear that use of force always has to be proportionate and civilians should not be targeted.” The French foreign minister Laurent Fabius said “How many more deaths will it take to stop what must be called the carnage in Gaza? The tradition of friendship between Israel and France is an old one and Israel’s right to security is total, but this right does not justify the killing of children and the slaughter of civilians.” Some of these statements are accompanied by calls for Hamas to stop sending missiles into Israel but these are sounding increasingly like pro-forma balancing statements.
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Campbell Brown is a former TV personality who used to masquerade as a journalist who now has become part of a group that is seeking to bust teacher unions. Andy Kroll exposes the secretive anti-teacher groups backing her. (She also happens to be married to Dan Senor, one of the Bush administration’s team that lied to people about the Iraq war during the US occupation of that country, and together they form part of the incestuous government-media complex.)
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