September 4, 2013

Meet Barret Brown: Jailed Anti-surveillance state activist, now has been gagged!

This is getting so obscene and blatantly Orwellian.

Jailed Activist Barrett Brown Fights Government Attempt to Gag Him
Anti-surveillance state activist already faces 100 years—now prosecutors want to silence him as well.
The Guardian * Sept. 4, 2013 * By Ed Pilkington

Federal prosecutors will attempt to place a gag order on the jailed activist-journalist Barrett Brown and his legal team on Wednesday that would prevent them from talking to the media about his prosecution.

The US attorney Sarah Saldana will call on the federal court for the northern district of Texas, in Dallas, to impose a stringent gagging order on Brown and his lawyers. Brown faces up to 100 years in prison for alleged offences relating to his work exposing online surveillance.

In legal papers lodged with the court last month, the government asked the judge to instruct the defence to refrain from making "any statement to members of any television, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet(including, but not limited to, bloggers), or other media organization about this case".

Media observers will be watching the hearing closely as it is widely seen as the latest in a succession of prosecutorial moves under the Obama administration to crack down on investigative journalism, official leaking, hacking and online activism.

Brown's lead defence attorney, Ahmed Ghappour, has countered in court filings, the most recent of which was lodged with the court Wednesday, that the government's request for a gag order is unfounded as it is based on false accusations and misrepresentations. The lawyer says the attempt to impose a gagging order is a breach of Brown's First Amendment rights as an author who continues to write from his prison cell on issues unconnected to his own case for the Guardian and other media outlets.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/barrett-brown-fights-gag-order

September 3, 2013

Chomsky: Bombing Syria Would be a "War Crime"

Noam Chomsky: Bombing Syria Would Be a 'War Crime'
The nation's leading left-wing thinker had harsh words on the plans to bomb Syria.
September 3, 2013 * Altenet * By Alex Kane

A U.S. strike on Syria without a United Nations mandate would be a war crime, Noam Chomsky told the Huffington Post. The nation’s leading left-wing thinker made the comments after President Barack Obama announced that he would go to Congress to ask for authorization for an attack on Syria in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack.

“As international support for Obama’s decision to attack Syria has collapsed, along with the credibility of government claims, the administration has fallen back on a standard pretext for war crimes when all else fails: the credibility of the threats of the self-designated policeman of the world,” said Chomsky. “That aggression without UN authorization would be a war crime, a very serious one, is quite clear, despite tortured efforts to invoke other crimes as precedents.”

Before he decided on a Syria strike, President Barack Obama weighed in on the UN mandate issue in an interview with CNN.Obama said that “ if the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it.” While the president has presented evidence that he says shows the Assad regime carried out a chemical weapons attack, there’s no chance of a UN resolution authorizing force. Russia and China are adamantly opposed to striking Syria.

Chomsky’s comments come as Congress is debating whether to approve Obama’s resolution that would authorize a Syria strike. The legality of the strike under the laws of war, though, is not something that has been a key point of debate.

http://www.alternet.org/world/noam-chomsky-syria-attack

September 3, 2013

Which Syrian Chemical Attack Account Is More Credible?

Which Syrian Chemical Attack Account Is More Credible?
Monday, September 2, 2013 * Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) * Jim Naureckas

Let's compare a couple of accounts of the mass deaths apparently caused by chemical weapons in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August 21. One account comes from the U.S. government (8/30/13), introduced by Secretary of State John Kerry. The other was published by a Minnesota-based news site called Mint Press News (8/29/13).

The government account expresses "high confidence that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack" on August 21.

v.

The Mint report bore the headline "Syrians in Ghouta Claim Saudi-Supplied Rebels Behind Chemical Attack." Which of these two versions should we find more credible?

The U.S. government, of course, has a track record that will incline informed observers to approach its claims with skepticism–particularly when it's making charges about the proscribed weapons of official enemies. Kerry said in his address that "our intelligence community" has been "more than mindful of the Iraq experience"–as should be anyone listening to Kerry's presentation, because the Iraq experience informs us that secretaries of State can express great confidence about matters that they are completely wrong about, and that U.S. intelligence assessments can be based on distortion of evidence and deliberate suppression of contradictory facts.

Comparing Kerry's presentation on Syria and its accompanying document to Colin Powell's speech to the UN on Iraq, though, one is struck by how little specific evidence was included in the case for the Syrian government's use of chemical weapons. It gives the strong impression of being pieced together from drone surveillance and NSA intercepts, supplemented by Twitter messages and YouTube videos, rather than from on-the-ground reporting or human intelligence. Much of what is offered tries to establish that the victims in Ghouta had been exposed to chemical weapons–a question that indeed had been in some doubt, but had already largely been settled by a report by Doctors Without Borders that reported that thousands of people in the Damascus area had been treated for "neurotoxic symptoms."

-snip-

Unlike the U.S. government, Mint does not have much of a track record, having been founded only about a year and a half ago (CJR, 3/28/12). The founder of the for-profit startup is Mnar Muhawesh, a 24-year-old Palestinian-American woman who believes, reasonably enough, that "our media has absolutely failed our country" (MinnPost, 1/18/12). One of its two reporters on its Syrian chemical weapons piece, Dale Gavlak, is a longtime Associated Press Mideast stringer who has also done work for NPR and the BBC. AP was one of the few US corporate media outlets to question official assertions about Iraqi WMDs, contrasting Powell's assertions with what could be discerned from on-the-ground reporting (Extra!, 3-4/06).

Mint takes a similar approach to the Syrian story, with a reporter in Ghouta–not Gavlak but Yahya Ababneh, a Jordanian freelancer and journalism grad student–who "spoke directly with the rebels, their family members, victims of the chemical weapons attacks and local residents." The article reports that "many believe that certain rebels received chemical weapons via the Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and were responsible for carrying out" the chemical attack. The recipients of the chemical weapons are said to be Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda-linked rebel faction that was caught possessing sarin nerve gas in Turkey, according to Turkish press reports (OE Watch, 7/13).


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/02-3

September 2, 2013

Will USA's "CARE PACKAGE" of 200 Tomahawk Missiles Contain any Depleted Uranium?

This is an old Common Dreams post from 2003, but it illustrates Obama's lose/lose dilemma
regarding Syria and the use of chemical weapons. Depleted Uranium being abbreviated "DU"
is admittedly unfortunate.

```` * ```` * ```` * ```` * ```` * ```` * ```` * ```` * ```` * ```` *

Uranium Warheads May Leave Both Sides a Legacy of Death for Decades
Sunday, March 30, 2003 * Los Angeles Times via Common Dreams * by Susanna Hecht

Although the potential human cost of the war with Iraq is obvious, not many people are aware of a hidden risk that may haunt us for years.

Of the 504,047 eligible veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, about 29% are now considered disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the highest rate of disability for any modern war. And most are not disabled because of wounds.

These guys were rough, tough, buff 20-year-olds a decade ago. The vast majority are ill because of a complex of debilities known as the Gulf War syndrome.

These vets were exposed to toxic material from both sides, including numerous chemicals, fumes and weird experimental vaccines. But the largest number of the more than half a million troops eligible for VA benefits -- 436,000 -- lived for months in areas of the Middle Eastern desert that had been contaminated with depleted uranium.

Depleted uranium, or DU, is a highly toxic heavy metal that continues to emit low levels of alpha radiation. It is a byproduct of nuclear power plants and various military activities.

The United States has hundreds of thousands of tons of DU lying around, and for the Gulf War it developed a new use for the stuff: load it into warheads.

Though not technically "nuclear," because the material is not really fissionable, uranium is a heavy metal ideal for lethally effective "warhead penetrators" that can pierce through armored tanks and fortified positions. When the munitions explode, the area is bathed in a fine dust of DU that can be easily inhaled. These aerosols also taint soil and water and pollute ground water.

If the penetrators do not explode, their casings gradually oxidize, releasing DU into the environment.

DU warheads are essentially dirty bombs -- not very radioactive, but poisonous, and this is why there is an increasing global outcry against using DU in combat as tips for armor-piercing rounds as well as in artillery shells and Tomahawk missiles, among others.

Such warheads were used very successfully by the U.S. in the Gulf War, when more than 350 tons of depleted uranium were dropped on Iraq, and later in Kosovo when about 13 tons of DU were exploded in the conflict there.

The "Balkan syndrome" that emerged among the military and civilians after the U.S. bombing there bears a similarity to the Gulf War syndrome.

Though the findings are controversial, many scientists now see these afflictions as the result of heavy metal poisoning and possibly exposure to very low levels radiation.

DU is implicated in respiratory and kidney problems, rashes and, longer-term, bone cancer, as well as damaged reproductive and neurological systems.

Iraqi civilians -- many more than the 100,000 who died in the conflict or as a result of the war -- also suffer from a range of similar health problems.

Families of soldiers should be very worried.

A huge amount of ordnance has already been unleashed in Iraq, and there is no way of knowing how many thousands of tons of depleted uranium will find "permanent storage" in the rubble of Iraq, its soil and the bodies of its people and U.S. occupying forces.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0330-02.htm

September 2, 2013

Pepe Escobar: Sarin massacre was "pipeline geopolitics ... false flag" by Bandar Bush & Mossad

Agree with Escobar or not, me thinks this whole Bandar Bush thing is not just some wacko RW concoction.

Audio interview of Escobar at link
http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-733-pepe-escobar-on-bandar-bushs-role-in-syria/

ON EDIT: I ran across this TYT broadcast, of Col. Wilkerson also saying that it could easily have been an Israeli-driven false flag.

&feature=player_embedded

September 2, 2013

Moyers: "Losing our democracy to the Mercenary Class..."

Three minutes of pure truth. Thank you Bill Moyers. I'm SO-O
happy you are back in the saddle, speaking truth like it's going
out of style (which it is).

Bill Moyers says the parody and satire of Jon Stewart and Stephen
Colbert pay Washington the disrespect it deserves, but in the end
it’s [Washington DC's] predatory mercenaries who have the last laugh.

http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-the-end-game-for-democracy/

September 1, 2013

Kerry: 'FUCK Congress!! POTUS is bombing the shit out of Syria anyway' <-paraphrase

did I get that right?

"The Obama administration indicated on Sunday that it would launch
military strikes against Syria even if it failed to get the backing of the
US Congress, claiming evidence that sarin gas had been used in
chemical attacks outside Damascus last month."
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/01/obama-strike-syria-congress-kerry

August 29, 2013

Psychedelics Don't Cause Mental Health Problems—And They Might Keep You Sane

Psychedelics Don't Cause Mental Health Problems—And They Might Keep You Sane
New study concludes psychedelics do not increase the risk for mental health problems—and links their long-term use to decreased psychological problems.
Alternet * by April M. Short * August 21, 2013

A recent scientific study concluded that the use of psychedelic substances like LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), and mescaline (peyote and other cacti)—all classified as dangerous drugs with no medicinal value, or Schedule I substances by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)—does not increase the risk for mental health problems—and the long-term use of some of those drugs was linked to decreased psychological problems.

PLoS One, in a study titled Psychedelics and Mental Health: A Population Study on Tuesday. The authors analyzed data of more than 130,000 people and found 'no link' between the use of psychedelics and mental health issues.

Previous studies have proven that psychedelic substances do not cause brain damage are non-addictive, and can in some cases effectively treat addiction.

Raw Story reported that clinical psychologist Pal-Orjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology said psychedelic use is overall “considered to pose a very low risk.”

“Psychedelics can elicit temporary feelings of anxiety and confusion, but accidents leading to serious injury are extremely rare,” he said.

MORE: http://www.alternet.org/drugs/psychedelics-dont-cause-mental-health-problems-and-they-might-keep-you-sane

August 28, 2013

WE'RE AT WAR!! WAR!! WAR!! WAR!!

WE'RE AT WAR!! ..SO SHUT THE FUCK UP! ..WE'RE AT WAR!!



NSA? What's that?

August 28, 2013

Norman Solomon: What the Assault on Whistleblowers Has to Do With War on Syria

What the Assault on Whistleblowers Has to Do With War on Syria
by Norman Solomon * Wednesday, August 28, 2013 * Common Dreams

Without whistleblowers, the mainline media outlets are more transfixed than ever with telling the official story. And at a time like this, the official story is all about spinning for war on Syria.

Every president who wants to launch another war can’t abide whistleblowers. They might interfere with the careful omissions, distortions and outright lies of war propaganda, which requires that truth be held in a kind of preventative detention.

By mid-week, media adrenalin was at fever pitch as news reports cited high-level sources explaining when the U.S. missile attacks on Syria were likely to begin, how long they might last, what their goals would be. But what about other (potential) sources who have documents and other information that contradict the official story?

It’s never easy for whistleblowers to take the risk of exposing secret realities. At times like these, it’s especially difficult—and especially vital—for whistleblowers to take the chance.

When independent journalist I.F. Stone said “All governments lie and nothing they say should be believed,” he was warning against the automatic acceptance of any government claim. That warning becomes most crucial when a launch of war is imminent. That’s when, more than ever, we need whistleblowers who can leak information that refutes the official line.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/28-0