Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.
Archive for July, 2011
The CIA’s Secret Sites in Somalia
July 14, 2011INDONESIA: The military ignores agreed settlement with an assault victim
July 14, 2011ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, July 12, 2011
Urgent Appeal Case: AHRC-UAC-121-2011
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INDONESIA: The military ignores agreed settlement with an assault victim
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Dear friends,
Two members of 756th Wimaneseli infantry battalion of the Indonesian National Military (TNI) in West Papua assaulted and threatened Yani Meage on 31 May, 2011 in the Kurima district, Yahukimo. After a quarrel between the victim and the TNI members, the soldiers threatened and attacked the victim by beating and kicking him which resulted in several injuries. The victim reported this incident with the support of a local NGO. While the deputy post commander (wadanpos) of the 756th Wimaneseli infantry battalion accepted responsibility for the violence in a statement letter, no further action has been taken against the perpetrators to-date. Impunity for military violence is widespread in West Papua.
America’s Dirty War on Islam
July 12, 2011Stephen Lendman, MWC News, July 12, 2011
America’s dirty war, in fact, targets Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, political activists, and Muslims for their faith, ethnicity, and at times prominence and charity, exploiting them as “war on terror” scapegoats.
On July 9, a Press TV US prison system racket interview highlighted the problem and urgency to address it.
America’s media ignore how unjustly it harms millions of disadvantaged people. Instead, they regurgitate spurious high-profile case accusations, always when Muslims are affected. Most often they’re men, occasionally women, bogusly charged with terrorism or conspiracy to commit it, when, in fact, they’re guilty only of being targets of choice and/or being in America at the wrong time.
American drone strikes kill 45 in Pakistan
July 12, 2011By Haji Mujtaba, uruknet.info, July 12, 2011
MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – At least 45 suspected militants were killed by missiles launched by U.S. drone aircraft in Pakistan’s northwest, local intelligence officials said on Tuesday, one of the largest death tolls to date in the controversial air bombing campaign.
Coming a day after Washington announced an $800 million delay in military assistance amid worsening U.S.-Pakistan ties, the attacks could exacerbate tension between the two uneasy allies in the war against militants.
The attacks started on Monday night, when remotely piloted drones fired nine missiles into a militant compound and at a vehicle in North Waziristan, killing 25 suspected insurgents, local intelligence officials said.
Another strike hours later in South Waziristan killed five suspected militants.
Zionism And The Birth Of Modern Terrorism
July 12, 2011Bombing of the King David Hotel
This clip is from episode one of a British-made documentary from 2002 titled ‘The Age Of Terror’, and examines the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on 22nd July 1946 by Zionists, in which the south wing of the hotel, then occupied by British civil-military authorities, was bombed killing ninety-one people. Twenty-eight of the victims were British, forty-one Arabic, while seventeen were Jewish.
The Zionist who carried-out the attack were known as the Irgun, and were led by a future prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin. The King David Hotel bombing was an act of terrorism that is widely-considered to be the first real incidence of 20th century terrorism.
Information Clearing House, July 11, 2011
Panetta: We Need US Troops to Stay in Iraq to Fight Iran
July 12, 2011“The Reason You Guys Are Here is Because on 9/11 We Got Attacked”
By Patrick Cockburn, Counterpunch, July 12, 2011
The United States could take unilateral military action against Shia militias armed by Iran if they continued to attack US troops, Leon Panetta, the new US Defense Secretary, said on a visit to Iraq yesterday. The threat marks an escalation in the long-running battle for influence in Iraq between Washington and Tehran that has gone on since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The US has long accused Iran of supplying weapons to Shia militia groups, which it holds responsible for attacks in which some 18 US soldiers have died since the beginning of June. Washington would also like to keep between 8,500 and 10,000 troops in Iraq after the end of the year, despite an agreement for all US soldiers to be out by that date.
George W Bush should be prosecuted over torture, says human rights group
July 12, 2011Human Rights Watch claims Obama administration ‘failing to act on evidence’, and also names Cheney and Rumsfeld in report
Chris McGreal in Washingto, The Guardian, July 12, 2011
A US human rights group has called on foreign governments to prosecute George W Bush and some of his senior officials for war crimes if the Obama administration fails to investigate a growing body of evidence against the former president over the use of torture.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Tuesday that the US authorities are legally obliged to investigate the top echelons of the Bush administration over crimes such as torture, abduction and other mistreatment of prisoners. It says that the former administration’s legal team was part of the conspiracy in preparing opinions authorising abuses that they knew to have no standing in US or international law.
Israeli soldiers blocked Icelandic FM’s car with rocks
July 11, 2011IceNews, July 11, 2011.
Ossur Skarphedinsson, Icelandic Minister for Foreign Affairs, and his entourage had their trip to Gaza interrupted yesterday when Israeli soldiers obstructed the path of their cars with large rocks.
The Icelandic FM’s visit to Palestine has now drawn to a close with one of the biggest headlines being Skarphedinsson’s declaration that Iceland would support any UN resolution on Palestinian independence and UN membership.
Skarphedinsson met with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and aides on Saturday. On his way to Gaza, the Icelandic delegation took a protracted route which avoided Israel; but the minister claims Israeli soldiers in the militarised zone were rude and un-cooperative.
Gaza and a Liturgy for Justice
July 11, 2011Exclusive: The Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat among a small flotilla seeking to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza, was turned back by Greek authorities doing the bidding of Washington and Tel Aviv. However, for ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, who was among the passengers, the endeavor demonstrated the commitment of Americans from a variety of backgrounds to fight injustice.
By Ray McGovern, Consortium News, July 8, 2011
We passengers on the U.S. Boat to Gaza represent a cross-section of America. Yet, if there is an emblematic trait that sets us apart from “mainstream” America, it is a common, radical determination to take risks to bring Justice for the oppressed — in this case, the 1.6 million people locked in an open-air prison on a narrow strip of land called Gaza.
While most of those calling us “radical” hurl the word as a barb, we welcome the label — but radical as derived from the underlying meaning of this word, “root.” Like radishes, we are rooted in soil, the soil of Justice.
“Extremist?” Yes, we confess to that too — as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. did in his Letter From the Birmingham City Jail.
The True Cost of America’s Wars
July 11, 2011by Jack A. Smith, Foreign Policy Journal, July 11, 2011
During his speech on Afghanistan June 22, President Obama revealed that “Over the last decade, we have spent a trillion dollars on war.” He knew this was a deceptive understatement, as did everyone who has kept close watch on the Bush-Obama wars all these years.
Few Americans, however, have closely followed Washington’s 21st century wars of choice, so a trillion probably sounds right to them, but that amount in 10 years — when the annual cost of air conditioning alone for the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq amounts to $20.2 billion a year — is way off base.
Peace and Justice Post 