Slain as she left an election rally, with at least 16 more dead, in Pakistan.
Bhutto was the first woman elected to head a Muslim nation.

RECENTLY I posted on YouTube’s yanking of a vlogger’s account due to the torture practices he was exposing that are perpetrated by Egyptian police. I was definitely disappointed in YouTube, although I sort of expect any large corporate entity to ultimately suppress free speech, because inevitably, free speech involves telling the truth, and at the end of that road can be found many ideas that might not support the agenda and behavior of corporate entities. As the RAND Corporation, “a California based think-tank with close ties to the military-industrial-intelligence complex” sees it:

RAND maintains “homegrown terrorism” will not be the result of jihadist sleeper cells. Rather, it will result from anti-globalists and radical environmentalists who ’challenge the intrinsic qualities of capitalism, charging that in the insatiable quest for growth and profit, the philosophy is serving to destroy the world’s ecology, indigenous cultures, and individual welfare.’ …

Further, RAND claims anti-globalists and radical environmentalists ’exist in much the same operational environment as al Qaida’ and pose ’a clear threat to private-sector corporate interests, especially large multinational business.’

—Truthout.org, The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act: A Tutorial in Orwellian Newspeak

So through these types of statements, we begin to see it all come together. The War of the future, already taking place now. Those who refuse to consider any ill effects upon the world and the animals and the poor and simply the common gente, a breed who refuses to let go of a philosophy of greed, despite the mounting consequences of such a failed paradigm vs. those of us concerned first and foremost with the weakest of us, the meekest of us, the poorest of us, and Mother Earth herself.  Read more 

THE DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY is now training firefighters to inspect your home and your behavior when you are visited by them, even for emergency purposes! According to FOX “News,” aside from blueprints, chemicals, flight manuals, and bomb-making books, one of the things they are going to be on the lookout for is “hostility to Americans.”

So! Word to the wise. Make sure you are only nasty to fireman without green cards. Maybe you can suss this out with some small talk at the hydrant. But even if not, if one day your kitchen explodes and your roof is on fire and you happen to be talking, yelling, or otherwise communicating with the brave men who are lugging their hoses into your driveway, it’s probably best to sprinkle a few pleasant words about the country and the government in there while you’re at it. You know, like right after you scream “my cousin is trapped in the attic!” just drop in a “God bless America!’ or something. Just slide it right in there. “HELP! We want to keep on living in the USA! Help us!” Something casual. Something that clears you right away. Because the last thing your cousin needs is for the firemen to get caught up rooting through your junk drawer on their way upstairs.  Read more 

From: AMY GOODMAN Last September, a black high school student requested the school’s permission to sit beneath a broad, leafy tree in the hot schoolyard. The next morning, three nooses were hanging from the tree. The black students responded en masse. Justin Purvis, the kid who first sat under the tree, told filmmaker Jacquie Soohen: “They [other black students] said, ‘Y’all want to go stand under the tree?’ We said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘If you go, I’ll go. If you go, I’ll go.’ One person went, the next person went, everybody else just went.” Then the police and the district attorney showed up. Substitute teacher Michelle Rogers recounts: “District Attorney Reed Walters proceeded to tell those kids that ‘I could end your lives with the stroke of a pen.’ “  Read more 

No, really. No one.

hrough April 2006, DOD has reported about $273 billion in incremental costs for GWOT-related operations overseas—costs that would not otherwise have been incurred. DOD’s reported GWOT costs and appropriated amounts differ generally because DOD’s cost reporting does not capture some items such as intelligence and Army modular force transformation. Also, DOD has not yet used funding made available for multiple years, such as procurement and military construction. GAO’s prior work found numerous problems with DOD’s processes for recording and reporting GWOT costs, including long-standing deficiencies in DOD’s financial management systems and business processes, the use of estimates instead of actual cost data, and the lack of adequate supporting documentation. As a result, neither DOD nor the Congress reliably know how much the war is costing and how appropriated funds are being used or have historical data useful in considering future funding needs.  Read more 

Horror.

He began the long journey to Guantanamo Bay soon after.

But first there was an inspection and interrogation in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

He says he was stripped, shaved and covered in a mysterious liquid applied by sponge, photographed, and then had a piece of plastic forced into his rectum “for no apparent reason”. As it was inserted, a US soldier taunted him, saying the device was “extra ribbed” for his pleasure.

Mr Hicks says his introduction to Guantanamo was one of silent, disoriented dread. Injected with drugs, hooded, tightly bound and wearing goggles and ear muffs and the infamous orange overalls, he was thrown into one of the small, open-air cages of Camp X-Ray.

For weeks, he says, he and other prisoners were forbidden to talk and permitted to lie in only two positions - prone and looking up, or sitting looking straight down. No other movement was permitted other than at meal times, and any deviations from the edict, or muttered conversations, were met with savage beatings by the guards.  Read more 

I’d missed this. Color me totally unsurprised to find the British taking the lead from the clowns over here in Torture America:

“This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed.”

Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. “The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop.” The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is “very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation,” said Lt. Col. Wylde.  Read more 

No! They would never do that!

Ryan R. Jones Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Senior Syrian government official have accused the US of being behind Tuesday’s assault on its own embassy in downtown Damascus.
A Baath party official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told WorldNetDaily, “We in the government are 100 percent sure America was behind this attack, which is not the same as other attacks by Islamic groups.”  Read more 

How real is the war on terror?

Is Bush only 75% cynical about the “war on terror,” or 100% cynical?

Sure, Bush hasn’t protected the ports against loose nukes (they’re Blue), butchered the Department of Homeland Security (thanks for that one, Joe), and turned “terror” funding into a pork barrel. But what did we ever expect from Republicans?

And sure, the Republican gaslighting tactic has politicized every terror alert. But what we ever expect from Republicans? And, give them credit, they were “firm,” and “strong,” and “stood up for America” [Down, Rush! Oh, you can’t?]

And then there’s the whole Iraq Clusterfuck. The Republicans have wanted to go to war in Iraq for years (Project for a New American Century), and when 9/11 gave them an excuse, they grabbed it (on the very same day).

So, I’ve always been prepared to believe that Bush was 75% cynical about the war on terror; after all, it has been working out very well for Him, as the Republican effort to replace our Constitutional system with authoritarian rule has been driven by the (putative) requirements of “a new kind of war.”

But 100% cynical? Could the whole Fucking thing be a scam? Way, way too foily! They would never do that. Well, an establishment organ, Foreign Affairs, finally asks the unasked question:

Is There Still a Terrorist Threat?

Rarely it the question asked. What’s the answer?  Read more 

Terror alerts, terror threats, terror among us, terror without us, terror around us, terror, terror, terror.

Headline from today’s Meet The Press: Terror is a word worn-out from over and inaccurate use; in a word, terror, and all the attached isms have become a bore.  Read more 

Tirman:

Six Lessons from the London Airline Bombing Plot

What we now know about the London-based plot to destroy ten civilian airplanes points to six conclusions.

First, what stopped this plot was law enforcement. Law enforcement. Not a military invasion of Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, or Iraq. Old-fashioned surveillance, development of human sources, putting pieces together, and cooperation with foreign police and intelligence services.

Second, the conspiracy—if it resembles the London bombings of last summer—will likely be home-grown, another of the growing jihad “fashion” in Europe that comprises the new street gangs of this world. It is not a religious movement, it is not fundamentalism.  Read more