Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch

Source: TomDispatch

by Pratap Chatterjee
February 7, 2010

Sitting in air-conditioned comfort, cans of Coke and 7-Up within reach as they watched their screens, the ground controllers gave the order to strike under the cover of darkness. There had been no declaration of war.  No advance warning, nothing, in fact, that would have alerted the “enemy” to the sudden, unprecedented bombing raids. The secret computer-guided strikes were authorized by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, just weeks after a new American president entered the Oval Office.  They represented an effort to wipe out the enemy’s central headquarters whose location intelligence experts claimed to have pinpointed just across the border from the war-torn land where tens of thousands of American troops were fighting daily. Read the full story

Fuente: World Socialist Web Site
Traducción: Felisa Sastre, La Haine

Los agentes de la CIA ejecutados eran los responsables de la elección de objetivos para los ataques con Predator

por Bill Van Auken
7 de enero, 2010

Desde el ataque suicida que acabó con la vida de 7 agentes de la CIA y un espía jordano, se ha producido una aparente campaña de represalias en Pakistán, y al menos 20 personas han muerto debido a ataques con misiles procedentes de aviones teledirigidos.

El más letal de los ataques de los aviones de la CIA tuvo lugar el miércoles en la región de Datta Khel en Waziristan del norte, cerca de la frontera con Afganistán. Read the full story

Published in Amauta with special permission from TomDispatch

Source: TomDispatch

by Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse
January 10, 2010

It was a Christmas and New Year’s from hell for American intelligence, that $75 billion labyrinth of at least 16 major agencies and a handful of minor ones.  As the old year was preparing to be rung out, so were our intelligence agencies, which managed not to connect every obvious clue to a (literally) seat-of-the-pants al-Qaeda operation.  It hardly mattered that the underwear bomber’s case — except for the placement of the bomb material — almost exactly, even outrageously, replicated the infamous, and equally inept, “shoe bomber” plot of eight years ago. Read the full story

Source: TomDispatch

(Image: truthout)

by Tom Engelhardt & Nick Turse
January 3, 2010

According to the Chinese calendar, 2010 is the Year of the Tiger.  We don’t name our years, but if we did, this one might prospectively be called the Year of the Assassin.

We, of course, think of ourselves as something like the peaceable kingdom.  After all, the shock of September 11, 2001 was that “war” came to “the homeland,” a mighty blow delivered against the very symbols of our economic, military, and — had Flight 93 not gone down in a field in Pennsylvania — political power.

Since that day, however, war has been a stranger in our land.  With the rarest of exceptions, like Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan’s massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, this country has remained a world without war or any kind of mobilization for war.  No other major terrorist attacks, not even victory gardens, scrap-metal collecting, or rationing.  And certainly no war tax to pay for our post-9/11 trillion-dollar “expeditionary forces” sent into battle abroad.  Had we the foresight to name them, the last few years domestically might have reflected a different kind of carnage — 2006, the Year of the Subprime Mortgage; 2007, the Year of the Bonus; 2008, the Year of the Meltdown; 2009, the Year of the Bailout.  And perhaps some would want to label 2010, prematurely or not, the Year of Recovery. Read the full story

In this 2001 image made available on Monday Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab poses with a group of fellow pupils from Lome's International School, Togo, while on a school trip to London. (AP)

see article U.S. Widens Terror War to Yemen, a Qaeda Bastion below

Source: Glenn Greenwald

by Glenn Greenwald
December 29, 2009

“In all their alleged allegedness, this Administration has an allergy to the concept of war, and thus to the tools of war, including strategy and war aims” — Supreme Tough Guy Warrior Mark Steyn, National Review, yesterday.

“The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan” — New York Times, December 4, 2009.

“In the midst of two unfinished major wars, the United States has quietly opened a third, largely covert front against Al Qaeda in Yemen” — New York Times, yesterday. Read the full story

Source: Brave New Foundation

Director: Robert Greenwald

Rethink Afghanistan is a ground-breaking, full-length documentary focusing on the key issues surrounding this war. President Obama has committed 35,000 more troops to Afghanistan. This decision raises serious questions about troops, costs, overall mission, and exit strategy. Historically, it has been Congress’ duty to ask questions in the form of oversight hearings that challenge policymakers, examine military spending, and educate the public. After witnessing the absence of oversight regarding the Iraq war, we must insist Congress hold hearings on Afghanistan.
Watch our full-length documentary that will serve as a driving force to help make oversight hearings a reality. Sign the petition urging oversight and tell us what questions you would ask. Part two to six below.

Sign the petition: http://rethinkafghanistan.com Read the full story

(Photo: The U.S. Army)

Source: t r u t h o u t

by Marjorie Cohn
December 21, 2009

President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced he would send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. His escalation of that war is not what the Nobel committee envisioned when it sought to encourage him to make peace, not war.

In 1945, in the wake of two wars that claimed millions of lives, the nations of the world created the United Nations system to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The UN Charter is based on the principles of international peace and security as well as the protection of human rights. But the United States, one of the founding members of the UN, has often flouted the commands of the charter, which is part of US law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Read the full story

Fuente: Prensa Latina / Noticias de Seguridad Informática / Rebelión

17 de diciembre de 2009

Insurgentes iraquíes, transitoriamente convertidos en hackers, usaron programas informáticos de 26 dólares para interceptar comunicaciones de aviones militares estadounidenses.

La noticia acaparó titulares de la prensa norteamericana este jueves, puso a cavilar al Pentágono, y en aprieto a fabricantes de aeronaves que valen casi 12 millones de dólares.

El acceso a vídeos transmitidos por drones (aviones sin tripulación) representa una brecha de seguridad importante para la Fuerza Aérea porque sus enemigos pueden modificar escenarios de defensa, señaló el diario The Wall Street Journal. Read the full story

Source: Antiwar

Officials: ‘Real Discussion’ of Attacking Quetta

by Jason Ditz
December 13, 2009

Top US officials say there is a “real discussion” going on right now about launching drone attacks against the Balochistan capital city of Quetta. The comments are the latest in a series of threats against the city, one of Pakistan’s largest. Read the full story

Source: TomDispatch

How to Escalate in Afghanistan

by Tom Engelhardt
December 10, 2009

In his Afghan “surge” speech at West Point last week, President Obama offered Americans some specifics to back up his new “way forward in Afghanistan.”  He spoke of the “additional 30,000 U.S. troops” he was sending into that country over the next six months.  He brought up the “roughly $30 billion” it would cost us to get them there and support them for a year.  And finally, he spoke of beginning to bring them home by July 2011.  Those were striking enough numbers, even if larger and, in terms of time, longer than many in the Democratic Party would have cared for.  Nonetheless, they don’t faintly cover just how fully the president has committed us to an expanding war and just how wide it is likely to become. Read the full story