[QUOTE=xilman;521207]There are two related news reports on the front page of the Beeb right now.

The first reports that the UK ambassador the UK has been forced to resign because Trump refuses to have anything to do with him. He's already been frozen out of a couple of social occasions.

The other concerns the US asking allies to do the dirty work protecting shipping in the Gulf while the US sits back and provides only command and control

Anyone else see a certain amount of irony in the juxtaposition of these two reports?[/QUOTE]I can actually see some merit in the idea of having nations escort their own merchant ships. Still, it does seem rather high-handed.

[i]Il Duce[/i]'s approach to the UK Ambassador didn't work so well with his critics on Twitter. Here's the Second Circuit Court of Appeals opinion in [url=https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/50cd2708-7de6-465a-864a-6436b3897c53/note/9f67d853-2343-428b-aa11-56f61320f3a7.pdf]Knight First Amendment Institute, et al v. Donald J. Trump, et al[/url]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;521216]I can actually see some merit in the idea of having nations escort their own merchant ships.[/QUOTE]I entirely agree. It's about time the Panamanian navy started pulling their weight. However, the present display of lack of diplomacy by POTUS is not a good way to win friends and influence people, in my opinion.

[QUOTE=xilman;521227]I entirely agree. It's about time the Panamanian navy started pulling their weight. However, the present display of lack of diplomacy by POTUS is not a good way to win friends and influence people, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
:goodposting: :rofl:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;521216]I can actually see some merit in the idea of having nations escort their own merchant ships.[/QUOTE][url]https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-48946051[/url]

[QUOTE=xilman;521227]I entirely agree. It's about time the Panamanian navy started pulling their weight.[/quote]Haw, haw! I assume you refer to the fact that many merchant ships have Panamanian registry. [quote]However, the present display of lack of diplomacy by POTUS is not a good way to win friends and influence people, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]I agree.

The current Admin isn't into diplomacy. They seem to rely on threats and coercion to try to get their way. Bunch of :censored:ing :censored:s.

During the "tanker war" of the 1980's the USA arranged to have tankers from other countries go through the Strait if Hormuz flying US flags. That way, they fell under the protection of the US Navy. Of course, the Iranians immediately nailed some of them with mines.

Robert Fisk goes on a tear
 

[url]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52005.htm[/url]

[CENTER]Trump is powering the UK’s preparations for war – it is he who needs to be deterred, not Iran[/CENTER]
[QUOTE]It’s about time we wised up to what is going on in this utterly farcical “crisis” in the Gulf, this charade of lies and pomposity which Trump and his doggies in London are presenting to us.

An American president who is a racist, misogynist, dishonest and psychologically disturbed man – assisted by two vicious and equally dishonourable and delusional advisers – is threatening to go to war with Iran while a kipper-waving and equally serial-lying buffoon, who is probably the future British prime minister, prefers to concentrate on the self-destruction of his country rather than the hijacking of his ships.

The Iranians, ever the scheming Shia “terrorists” of the Gulf, have dared to give two fingers to the crackpot president who ratted on his country’s international nuclear agreement with Iran, and now play motor-boats in the Strait of Hormuz to remind both Trump and Johnson – and poor wee Jeremy Hunt – that the Middle East is the graveyard of empires both real and long dead. What mischief! What brazen terroristic crimes will the Persians be up to next?

And we take all this garbage seriously? Perhaps we must blame ourselves. Our commentators and our correspondents, our mighty media empires, gleefully take down the sleazy characters in Washington and London and then – the moment they sniff war – their faces freeze in righteous and patriotic lockjaw as they speak disingenuously of Trump’s “Mid-East policy”, his “Gulf policy”, his close friendship with his blood-boltered Saudi “ally” or his land-grabbing Israeli ally. What tosh. There is no Trump policy on anything. Nor is there a Boris Johnson policy, nor a Jeremy Hunt policy – save, perhaps, a plaintive Gilbert and Sullivan bleat about Iran’s “totally and utterly unacceptable” behaviour in nicking the Stena Impero.

“Impero” was the right word. Indeed, there was nothing sadder or more pitiful than the sound of the commander of HMS Montrose – or “Foxtrot 236” as the Iranians addressed him by the frigate’s bow number – reading his Victorian rulebook to the Revolutionary Guards on Friday. “You must not impair, impede, obstruct or hamper the passage of the MV Stena Impero,” he quoted. Oh but the Iranians could and did impair, impede, obstruct and hamper the passage of the British-flagged tanker.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=xilman;521227]I entirely agree. It's about time the Panamanian navy started pulling their weight. However, the present display of lack of diplomacy by POTUS is not a good way to win friends and influence people, in my opinion.[/QUOTE]
Panama has a navy?! There's precious little mention of such a concept in [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamanian_Public_Forces[/url]
Does 19 patrol boats count as a navy? If so, the sheriff in the county I live in probably has a navy. Heck, the local sailing club has far more boats.

[QUOTE=kriesel;523153]Panama has a navy?! There's precious little mention of such a concept in [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panamanian_Public_Forces[/url]
Does 19 patrol boats count as a navy? If so, the sheriff in the county I live in probably has a navy. Heck, the local sailing club has far more boats.[/QUOTE]

Given the enormous size of their, uh, merchant fleet, it would be profoundly remiss of them to not have a navy up to task of protecting same from Teh Evildoers.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;523171]Given the enormous size of their, uh, merchant fleet, it would be profoundly remiss of them to not have a navy up to task of protecting same from Teh Evildoers.[/QUOTE]One might have similar expectations of the various branches of the military of the Cayman Islands to protect all those offshore accounts. [url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayman_Islands#Defence_and_law_enforcement[/url]

Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, How the U.S. Created the Central American Immigration Crisis
 

[url]http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176598/tomgram%3A_rebecca_gordon%2C_how_the_u.s._created_the_central_american_immigration_crisis/[/url]
[QUOTE]Still, this isn’t really an article about Amílcar,[B][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Red"]**[/COLOR][/SIZE][/B] but about why he -- like so many hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans, Hondurans, and El Salvadorans in similar situations -- was in the United States in the first place. It’s about what drove 225,570 of them to be apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol in 2018 and 132,887 of them to be picked up at or near the border in a single month -- May -- of this year. As Dara Lind observed at Vox, “This isn’t a manufactured crisis, or a politically engineered one, as some Democrats and progressives have argued.”

It is indeed a real crisis, not something the Trump administration simply cooked up to justify building the president's wall. But it is also absolutely a manufactured crisis, one that should be stamped with the label “made in the U.S.A.” thanks to decades of Washington’s interventions in Central American affairs. Its origins go back at least to 1954 when the CIA overthrew the elected Guatemalan government of Jacobo Arbenz. In the 1960s, dictatorships would flourish in that country (and elsewhere in the region) with U.S. economic and military backing.

When, in the 1970s and 1980s, Central Americans began to rise up in response, Washington’s support for right-wing military regimes and death squads, in Honduras and El Salvador in particular, drove thousands of the inhabitants of those countries to migrate here, where their children were recruited into the very U.S. gangs now devastating their countries. In Guatemala, the U.S. supported successive regimes in genocidal wars on its indigenous Mayan majority. To top it off, climate change, which the United States has done the most of any nation to cause (and perhaps the least to forestall or mitigate), has made subsistence agriculture increasingly difficult to sustain in many parts of Central America.[/QUOTE]
[B][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Red"]**[/COLOR][/SIZE][/B] Murdered by San Francisco police, under a false accusation, with NO CONSEQUENCES.

Uncle Sam was Born Lethal -by PAUL STREET
 

[url]https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/08/16/uncle-sam-was-born-lethal/[/url]
[CENTER]For revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.

– Frederick Douglass, July 4, 1852[/CENTER]
I annually curse the air show, which we on the North Side of Chicago are also subjected to. [See postscript below.] This partly due to the reckless flights over densely populated neighborhoods. Air shows have many accidents, some impacting spectators and other civilians. Beyond that, it is the blatant display of the iron fist, with the message, "Be glad you're not in Baghdad, Tripoli, or wherever else among the many places YOU are paying to bomb. Just remember, it Could be You."
[QUOTE]One of the occupational and intellectual hazards of being a historian is that current events often seem far less new to oneself than they do to others. Recently a leftish liberal friend told me that the United States under the Donald Trump had “become a lethal society.” My friend cited the neofascist Trump’s: horrible family separations and concentration camps on the border; openly white-nationalist assaults on four progressive nonwhite and female Congresswomen; real and threatened roundups of undocumented immigrants; fascist-style and hate-filled “Make America Great Again” rallies; encouragement of white supremacist terrorism; alliance with right-wing evangelical Christian fascists.

Another friend received news of the recent mass-shooting of mostly Latinx Wal-Mart shoppers by racist and nativist white male Trump fan in El Paso, Texas by denouncing Trump’s “fascism” and linking to an essay he’d published about the white-nationalist president’s racist and authoritarian behavior.

I agree with my friends about the lethality of the contemporary United States. I largely share their description of Trump and much of his base as fascist or at least fascistic. “Durable fascist tendencies,” the prolific left political scientist Carl Boggs warns in his important book Fascism Old New: American Politics at the Crossroads, “run deep throughout present-day American society…In the absence of powerful counterforces and a thriving democracy, …those tendencies could morph over into something more expansive and menacing – and Donald Trump could serve, wittingly or unwittingly, as a great historical accelerator.”

It’s nothing to sneeze at. The institutional forms and technologies of militarized surveillance and policing and thought control that are available to fascism-prone elites in the United States are daunting indeed. The United States enjoys historically unprecedented global power on a scale the fascist Third Reich’s leaders dreamed of achieving but never remotely approached.

Still, I sometimes worry about reaching beyond American history to label horrors of its own making. Longstanding foundational aristo-republican U.S. white-settler nationalism and its state-military-capitalist, imperialist, and corporatist evolution has long been disastrous and dystopian enough without “charismatic” dictators, Baretta-toting squadristis, single party states, the suspension of elections, the end of bourgeois law, jackbooted brown-shirts, death squads, state propaganda, political executions, shuttered media, and the rest of the full-on fascist nightmare.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]Postscript: This essay was completed in the South Loop of Chicago, beneath the intermittent roar of deadly U.S. fighter jets doing practice flights over and around the Midwestern Metropolis’s downtown lakefront. The pilots are practicing for this weekend’s annual Chicago Air and Water Show, when a disproportionately white crowd of one million metropolitan area residents gather along the Chicago shoreline to ooh and ahh over some of the global American Empire’s most awe-inspiring weapons of air-borne mass destruction. The swoosh of the military planes can he heard in 95% Black ghetto South and West Side neighborhoods where a third and more of children are living at less than half the federal government’s hopelessly inadequate poverty level. The cost of just a single U.S. F-35 B Fighter Jet is $250 million (in 2014 dollars) a sum that could be used to vastly improve Chicago’s poorly funded and hyper-segregated inner-city public schools. Many parts of the U.S. military’s airborne arsenal bear Native-American names: the Blackhawk, Apache, and Chinook helicopters are three examples. The city’s National Hockey League team is named after the Sauk warrior who led the battle against white invaders in 1832, only to see his nation devastated and removed from the fertile planes of northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Many Chicagoland residents wear “chief” Black Hawk’s profile on t-shirts and jerseys. When you ask them who Black Hawk was and what happened to his people, their responses range from embarrassed ignorance to bemused indifference, mild irritation, and overt hostility. One of the very top U.S. military aviation manufacturers, Boeing, is headquartered in downtown Chicago. Its overseas body count over the decades is incalculable but surely ranks in the millions.[/QUOTE]

re: Amilcar Perez-Lopez
[QUOTE=kladner;523781][B][SIZE="3"][COLOR="Red"]**[/COLOR][/SIZE][/B] Murdered by San Francisco police, under a false accusation, with NO CONSEQUENCES.[/QUOTE]
Well, no [i]criminal[/i] charges were brought in the case where the two plainclothes detectives shot him five times in the back in self-defense, giving accounts differing from those of several eyewitnesses.

The city did, however, agree to settle the ensuing wrongful-death suit for $400,000.00 so it seems incorrect to say there were "no consequences."

There may be those who would consider this suit as "politically motivated" and perhaps extortionate, and the settlement a "business decision."

The settlement is a consequence for the taxpayers, not the killers.

[QUOTE=kladner;523802]Beyond that, it is the blatant display of the iron fist, with the message, "Be glad you're not in Baghdad, Tripoli, or wherever else among the many places YOU are paying to bomb. Just remember, it Could be You."[/QUOTE]
Especially if [i]Il Duce[/i] starts talking about "urban renewal."

Trump's Statue of Bigotry is not Cuccinelli's first neo-Confederate assault
 

-by Sidney Blumenthal
[url]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/18/trump-statue-of-bigotry-cuccinelli-confederate[/url]
[QUOTE]Ken Cuccinelli, acting director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), is an aspiring literary critic as well as a revisionist historian. [U]After issuing new draconian policies discriminating against poor immigrants resembling his Italian ancestors[/U], he decided to show off the far-ranging interests of his multifaceted mind with his reinterpretation of the poem engraved inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, whose beacon welcomes “your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore”.

Cuccinelli insisted that the poem should be reworded to read: “Give me your tired and your poor who can stand on their own two feet, and who will not become a public charge.” Then, when asked by the CNN host Erin Burnett to explain his reason for changing the language, he offered his superior knowledge of its history.

“Well, of course,” he said, revealing a slight tone of exasperation, “that poem was referring back to people coming from Europe, where they had class-based societies, where people were considered wretched if they weren’t in the right class.”[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]Cuccinelli’s proposed correction of Lazarus’s poem was not his first attempt to alter patriotic symbols. Nearly a decade ago, he engaged in sleight of hand to shuffle in the Confederate version of the great seal of the commonwealth of Virginia.[/QUOTE]

Re: Chicago Air and Water Show
 

The audience may be "disproportionately white," but [url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-air-and-water-show-20190817-20190817-ozpf3uzbyje4fjix66r6cmmbj4-story.html]not entirely[/url].

Chin up, the article does have a link to [i]another[/i] article about a police shooting
:-D

Long Range Attack On Saudi Oil Field Ends War On Yemen
 

It may eventually end the war, but a lot of blood and oil will be spilled before the end.


[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52119.htm[/URL]
-Moon of Alabama
[QUOTE]Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia’s sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a “limited fire” in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry.

The Saudi acknowledgement of the attack came hours after Yahia Sarie, a military spokesman for the Houthis, issued a video statement claiming the rebels launched 10 bomb-laden drones targeting the field in their “biggest-ever” operation. He threatened more attacks would be coming.
[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Today's attack is a check mate move against the Saudis. Shaybah is some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory. There are many more important economic targets within that range:

The field’s distance from rebel-held territory in Yemen demonstrates the range of the Houthis’ drones. U.N. investigators say the Houthis’ new UAV-X drone, found in recent months during the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen, likely has a range of up to 1,500 kilometers (930 miles). That puts Saudi oil fields, an under-construction Emirati nuclear power plant and Dubai’s busy international airport within their range.

Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them, analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range. The Houthis have used drones, which can be difficult to track by radar, to attack Saudi Patriot missile batteries, as well as enemy troops.
[/QUOTE]AP article on the drone strike:

[URL]https://apnews.com/9edb1f71010847f2b321d1951997e797[/URL]
[QUOTE]Drones launched by Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a massive oil and gas field deep inside Saudi Arabia’s sprawling desert on Saturday, causing what the kingdom described as a “limited fire” in the second such recent attack on its crucial energy industry.


The attack on the Shaybah oil field, which produces some 1 million barrels of crude oil a day near the kingdom’s border with the United Arab Emirates, again shows the reach of the Houthis’ drone program. Shaybah sits some 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) from Houthi-controlled territory, underscoring the rebels’ ability to now strike at both nations, which are mired in Yemen’s yearslong war.

The drone assault also comes amid heightened tensions in the wider Mideast between the U.S. and Iran, whose supreme leader hosted a top Houthi official days earlier in Tehran.
[/QUOTE]How Iran (probably) Acquired A Stealth Drone

[URL]https://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/12/how-iran-probably-acquired-a-stealth-drone.html[/URL]
[QUOTE]It seems that Iran has [URL="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/iran-says-it-downed-us-stealth-drone-pentagon-acknowledges-aircraft-downing/2011/12/04/gIQAyxa8TO_story.html?hpid=z1"]acquired[/URL] a U.S. stealth drone which was illegally flying within its airspace.[INDENT]A secret U.S. surveillance drone that went missing last week in western Afghanistan appears to have crashed in Iran, in what may be the first case of such an aircraft ending up in the hands of an adversary. Iran’s news agencies asserted that the nation’s defense forces brought down the drone, which the Iranian reports said was an RQ-170 stealth aircraft. It is designed to penetrate enemy air defenses that could see and possibly shoot down less-sophisticated Predator and Reaper drones.
...
U.S. officials acknowledged Sunday that a drone had been lost near the Iranian border, but they declined to say what kind of aircraft was missing.
...
The first reports of the drone crash came from Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency. “Iran’s army has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran,” the Arabic-language al-Alam state television network quoted an unnamed source as saying. “The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the armed forces.”
[/INDENT][/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;523857]The audience may be "disproportionately white," but [URL="https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-air-and-water-show-20190817-20190817-ozpf3uzbyje4fjix66r6cmmbj4-story.html"]not entirely[/URL].

Chin up, the article does have a link to [I]another[/I] article about a police shooting
:-D[/QUOTE]
Gotta take comfort where we can find it. [/IRONY]

[QUOTE=kladner;523918]It may eventually end the war, but a lot of blood and oil will be spilled before the end.
[quote]Unlike sophisticated drones that use satellites to allow pilots to remotely fly them, analysts believe Houthi drones are likely programmed to strike a specific latitude and longitude and cannot be controlled once out of radio range.[/quote]
[/QUOTE]My inner pedant forces me to ask: doesn't this make it a cruise missile rather than a drone?

The German WWII V1 had a similar behaviour, though programmed for a specific flight duration rather than terminal position. The V1 is generally regarded as being the first fielded cruise missile.

[QUOTE=xilman;523922]My inner pedant forces me to ask: doesn't this make it a [U]cruise missile rather than a drone?[/U]

The German WWII V1 had a similar behaviour, though programmed for a specific flight duration rather than terminal position. The V1 is generally regarded as being the first fielded cruise missile.[/QUOTE]

Good point. I don't know, though, if some weapons designated as 'cruise missiles' are strictly destination-controlled once launched. If it has satellite guidance does that make it a drone? Perhaps the ability to choose whether to complete the mission is the essence of 'droniness'? If it can return home it's a drone? There was mention of retaining some control while in radio range for the Houthi devices. Are they cruise missiles once they are out of range? :confused2:

[QUOTE=kladner;523945]Good point. I don't know, though, if some weapons designated as 'cruise missiles' are strictly destination-controlled once launched. If it has satellite guidance does that make it a drone? Perhaps the ability to choose whether to complete the mission is the essence of 'droniness'? If it can return home it's a drone? There was mention of retaining some control while in radio range for the Houthi devices. Are they cruise missiles once they are out of range? :confused2:[/QUOTE]My view: cruise missiles may use satellite [b]but not human[/b] guidance after they are launched. Drones have an element of on-going human control over their trajectory after launching. I may be wrong.

When the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department says Wernher von Braun.

[QUOTE=xilman;523951].....
When the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department says Wernher von Braun.[/QUOTE] :smile:
Some have harsh words for this man of renown
But some say our attitude should be one of gratitude
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun

World Statesman Lingers in Jail While a Clownish Thug is in Power
 

I don't really know what is the best place to post this. It does, at least, involve a nightmarish situation in the Amazon.
[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52178.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE]In a wide-ranging, two-hour, world exclusive interview out of a prison room at the Federal Police building in Curitiba, southern Brazil, former president Luis Inacio Lula da Silva not only made the case to global public opinion for his innocence in the whole Car Wash corruption saga, confirmed by the bombshell leaks revealed by The Intercept, but also repositioned himself to resume his status as a global leader. Arguably sooner rather than later – depending on a fateful, upcoming decision by the Brazilian Supreme Court, for which Justice is not exactly blind.

The request for the interview was entered five months ago. Lula talked to journalists Mauro Lopes, Paulo Moreira Leite and myself, representing in all three cases the website Brasil247 and in my case Asia Times. A rough cut, with only one camera focusing on Lula, was released this past Thursday, the day of the interview. A full, edited version, with English subtitles, targeting global public opinion, should be released by the end of the week.

Lula is a visible embodiment of Nietzsche’s maxim: whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Fully fit (he hits the treadmill at least two hours a day), sharp, with plenty of time to read (his most recent was an essay on Alexander von Humboldt), he exhibited his trademark breadth, reach and command of multiple issues – sometimes rolled out as if part of a Garcia Marquez fantastic realism narrative.

The former president lives in a three-by-three-meter cell, with no bars, with the door open but always two Federal policemen outside, with no access to the internet or cable TV. One of his aides dutifully brings him a pen drive every day crammed with political news, and departs with myriad messages and letters.[/QUOTE]

The Queen’s Active Role in the Right Wing Coup
 

i am using this thread for the following, based on the continuity of empire from the UK to the US. Also, Chaos seems to be a signature goal for Boris Johnson.


One question: The article repeatedly refers to "constitutional" choices and duties. To what constitution is Murray referring? Is there a UK Constitution?

[QUOTE]The monarch appoints the UK Prime Minister. The convention is that this must be the person who can command the support of the majority in the House of Commons. That does not necessarily have to be from a single party, it can be via a coalition or pact with other parties, but the essential point, established since Hanoverian times, is that the individual must have a majority in the Commons.

The very appointment of Boris Johnson by Elizabeth Saxe Coburg Gotha was a constitutional outrage. Johnson may have been selected by Conservative Party members, but that is not the qualification to be PM. Johnson very plainly did not command a majority in the House of Commons, proven by the fact that still at no stage has he demonstrated that he does.[/QUOTE][QUOTE]Johnson’s flagship policy was always No Deal Brexit. Contrary to the monarchist propaganda spewed out across the entire MSM, not only is it untrue that the Queen had “no constitutional choice” but to appoint Johnson, the Queen had a clear constitutional duty not to appoint a Prime Minister whose flagship policy had already been specifically voted down time and again by the House of Commons.

The Queen has now doubled down on this original outrage by proroguing the Westminster parliament in conspiracy with old Etonians Rees Mogg and Johnson, specifically so that the House of Commons cannot vote down Johnson.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;524996]One question: The article repeatedly refers to "constitutional" choices and duties. To what constitution is Murray referring? Is there a UK Constitution?[/QUOTE]Unequivocably yes.

The UK constitution is not a single written document, possibly as amended over time.. It is perhaps best described as a conglomeration of legal precedents.

[URL="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom"]Constitution of the United Kingdom[/URL] may be of assistance.

[url=https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/29/film-official-secrets-is-the-tip-of-a-mammoth-iceberg/]Film ‘Official Secrets’ is the Tip of a Mammoth Iceberg[/url] | Consortium News
[quote]Katharine Gun worked as an analyst for Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of the secretive U.S. National Security Agency. She tried to stop the impending invasion of Iraq in early 2003 by exposing the deceit of George W. Bush and Tony Blair in their claims about that country. For doing that she was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act — a juiced up version of the U.S. Espionage Act, which in recent years has been used repeatedly by the Obama administration against whistleblowers and now by the Trump administration against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.

Gun was charged for exposing— around the time of Colin Powell’s infamous testimony to the UN about Iraq’s alleged WMDs – a top secret U.S. government memo showing it was mounting an illegal spying “surge” against other U.N. Security Council delegations in an effort to manipulate them into voting for an Iraq invasion resolution. The U.S. and Britain had successfully forced through a trumped up resolution, 1441 in November 2002. In early 2003, they were poised to threaten, bribe or blackmail their way to get formal United Nations authorization for the invasion. [See [url=https://www.salon.com/2019/08/24/i-never-set-out-to-be-a-whistleblower-katharine-gun-tells-the-true-story-of-official-secrets]recent interview with Gun[/url].]

The leaked memo, published by the [i]British Observer[/i], was big news in parts of the world, especially the targeted countries on the Security Council, and helped prevent Bush and Blair from getting the second UN Security Council resolution they said they wanted. Veto powers Russia, China and France were opposed as well as U.S. ally Germany.

Washington invaded anyway of course — without Security Council authorization — by telling the UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq and issuing a unilateral demand that Saddam Hussein leave Iraq in 48 hours— and then saying the invasion would commence regardless.
...
“Official Secrets” director Gavin Hood is perhaps more right than he realizes when he says that his depiction of the Gun case is like the “tip of an iceberg,” pointing to other deceits surrounding the Iraq war. His record with political films has been uneven until now. Peace activist David Swanson, for instance, derided his film on drones, “Eye in the Sky.” At a D.C. showing of “Official Secrets,” Hood depicted those who backed the Iraq war as being discredited. But that’s simply untrue.

Leading presidential candidate Joe Biden — who not only voted for the Iraq invasion, but presided over rigged hearings on in 2002 – has recently falsified his record repeatedly on Iraq at presidential debates with hardly a murmur. Nor is he alone. Those refusing to be held accountable for their Iraq war lies include not just Bush and Cheney, but John Kerry and Nancy Pelosi.

Biden has actually faulted Bush for not doing enough to get United Nations approval for the Iraq invasion. But as the Gun case helps show, there was no legitimate case for invasion and the Bush administration had done virtually everything, both legal and illegal, to get UN authorization.

Many who supported the invasion try to distance themselves from it. But the repercussions of that illegal act are enormous: It led directly or indirectly to the rise of ISIS, the civil war in Iraq and the war in Syria. Journalists who pushed for the Iraq invasion are prosperous and atop major news organizations, such as [i]Washington Post[/i] editorial page editor Fred Hiatt. The editor who argued most strongly against publication of the NSA document at [i]The Observer[/i], Kamal Ahmed, is now editorial director of BBC News.

The British government — unlike the U.S.– did ultimately produce a study ostensibly around the decision-making leading to the invasion of Iraq, the Chilcot Report of 2016. But that report — called “devastating” by the [i]The New York Times[/i]–made no mention of the Gun case. [See accuracy.org release from 2016: “Chilcot Report Avoids Smoking Gun.”]

After Gun’s identity became known, the Institute for Public Accuracy brought on Jeff Cohen, the founder of FAIR, to work with program director Hollie Ainbinder to get prominent individuals to support Gun. The film — quite plausibly — depicts the charges being dropped against Gun for the simple reason that the British government feared that a high profile proceeding would effectively put the war on trial, which to them would be have been a nightmare.[/quote]
Ah, the chutzpah of the [i]The New York Times[/i] to refer to the 2016 Chilcot Report as “devastating” - not that that's in inaccurate characterization, rather that the NYT was of course one of the leading US "papers of record" leading the charge into the war, behind the 'reporting' of lying Pentagon shills like Judith Miller. And they've not changed one whit as a consequence of any kind of self-examination of their own "devastating" role in helping foment said illegal war. One reader/commenter of the above article notes that the state of the MSM in the UK has actually gotten worse in the "more propagandistic" direction since 2003:

"One thing is certain: [i]The Observer[/i] of 2019 would not publish a story like this. That is one of the major changes since 2003: the capitalist media has tightened up. There are no longer papers competing to attract readers at risk of cozy relations with the State. The Observer/Guardian today – since the Snowden revelations- does what it is told."

So true about the Guardian. The new editor is a lot more pliable.

Venezuelans Gather Eight Million Signatures Against US Blockade
 

[URL]https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuelans-Gather-Eight-Million-Signatures-Against-US-Blockade-20190901-0006.html[/URL]
Just keeping this at least somewhat in the general awareness. There is an ongoing litany of illegal outrages, including piracy against a food ship. Actually, that one's rather stale in news cycle terms.

[QUOTE]At least eight million Venezuelans added their signatures to a document rejecting the U.S. blockade, which will be presented to the United Nations, according to official reports.
Since August 10, Bolivar squares across the country and makeshift stands have seen thousands of Venezuelans reiterate their repudiation of Washington's coercive measures.

The signing of the document is part, along with marches and protests, of the global 'No More Trump' campaign, promoted by the Venezuelan government to denounce to the world the damages of the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Venezuela.

President Nicolas Maduro assured last Friday that this campaign demonstrates courage, the will to fight, desire, passion and what Venezuelans feel towards Trump.
[/QUOTE]

‘Can’t feel my heart:’ IG says separated kids traumatized
 

[URL]https://apnews.com/63e7e47666914bf79eff7366e8eb411b[/URL]
[QUOTE]Separated from his father at the U.S.-Mexico border last year, the little boy, about 7 or 8, was under the delusion that his dad had been killed. And he thought he was next.

Other children believed their parents had abandoned them. And some suffered physical symptoms because of their mental trauma, clinicians reported to investigators with a government watchdog.

“You get a lot of ‘my chest hurts,’ even though everything is fine” medically, a clinician told investigators. The children would describe emotional symptoms: “Every heartbeat hurts,” or “I can’t feel my heart.”

Children separated during the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance policy” last year, many already distressed in their home countries or by their journey, showed more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress symptoms than children who were not separated, according to a report Wednesday from the inspector general’s office in the Department of Health and Human Services.

The chaotic reunification process only added to their ordeal.

Some cried inconsolably. Some were angry and confused. “Other children expressed feelings of fear or guilt and became concerned for their parents’ welfare,” according to the report.

The child who believed his father was killed “ultimately required emergency psychiatric care to address his mental health distress,” a program director told investigators.
[/QUOTE]

[url=https://www.apnews.com/788d664afbfd4565805dc1c0de8d4ffb]Trump fires national security adviser John Bolton[/url][quote]WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has fired national security adviser John Bolton.

Trump tweeted Tuesday that he told Bolton Monday night that his services were no longer needed at the White House. He says Bolton submitted his resignation on Tuesday morning.

Trump tweeted that he “disagreed strongly” with many of Bolton’s suggestions, “as did others in the administration.”[/quote]

@Bolton firing - that couldn't come soon enough. I wonder if the decisive moment when Trump realized that these true-believer neocons are truly, willing-to-burn-the-whole-world nuts was the attempted runup to a hot war with Iran and the done-shootdown incident that got Trump to blink.

The really scary thing is that these warmongering neocon creeps are everywhere in DC, and seem to slither their way around multiple administrations, like unkillable vampires - Bolton was the natsec advisor who got W. Bush to pull the US out of the ABM treaty, among other things. And over the weekend I read a long piece in [i]The Guardian[/i] about the [url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets]CIA's cold-war-era MK/Ultra LSD/mind-control 'research' program[/url], which I highly recommend - when you get to the part about then-president Ford apologizing to the family of the likely-murdered scientist 2 decades later, look who the two named natsec advisors are.

I recommend "Acid Dreams." It is packed and moved so I can't give more details, but it concerns CIA use of hallucinogens in hopes of getting interrogation results. They also dosed each other surreptitiously at cocktail parties. I have other CIA-related books. I remember the title "Endless Enemies." But all that is at our new apartment, to which we are gradually moving.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;525652]@Bolton firing - that couldn't come soon enough. I wonder if the decisive moment when Trump realized that these true-believer neocons are truly, willing-to-burn-the-whole-world nuts was the attempted runup to a hot war with Iran and the done-shootdown incident that got Trump to blink.[/QUOTE]It seems that [i]Il Duce[/i] was not only going to meet with the Taliban (and Afghanistan's president) at Camp David -- Bolton not having been consulted --but had also planned to meet later in New York with Iran's President Rouhani. Bolton's f:censored:ing head must have practically exploded.

[i]Il Duce[/i] was all set to meet the Taliban, almost on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He wanted to "look them in the eye." Like Dubya wanted to do with Putin. I'm pretty sure [i]Il Duce[/i] had Jimmy Carter in mind when he planned secret talks at Camp David. Then, one car bomb, one dead US soldier, and he abandons the whole thing.

I never understood why [i]Il Duce[/i], who has often expressed noninterventionist sentiments, wanted to hire a hawk like Bolton in the first place.

I wonder who [i]Il Duce[/i] will turn to next. Richard "the Prince of Darkness" Perle? Paul Wolfowitz? Like Bolton, they were among Dubya's advisors, and led the charge into war with Iraq. Wolfowitz is the one who said the Iraqis would "greet us as liberators." Which, by longstanding custom, they do by throwing shoes at them.

[url=https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/terrorism-watchlist-lawsuit-ruling/]Secret Terrorism Watchlist Found Unconstitutional in Historic Decision[/url] | The Intercept
[quote]In the dark, nearly two-decade long history of America’s war on terror certain initiatives stand out. The rendition and torture of suspected terrorists around the world. Drone warfare. Warrantless surveillance of private citizens. And the creation of watchlists, shadowy and opaque in their construction, with devastating consequences for communities caught in the dragnet.

In the summer of 2014, The Intercept published the secret rulebook behind those lists. The 166-page “Watchlisting Guidance” detailed the process by which the U.S. national security apparatus adds individuals to the Terrorist Screening Database, or TSDB, better known as “the watchlist” from which other lists — such as the no-fly list — are built.

The document revealed a staggeringly due process-free system in which the government was routinely affixing the word “terrorist” to an individual’s name and disseminating that information to a sprawling network of foreign and private partners, with virtually no evidence required to support the claim.

In a post-9/11 world, this murky system disproportionately impacted Muslims, though U.S. lawmakers and infants were also caught in the mix. Armed with the government’s own rulebook, and the firsthand experiences of nearly two dozen plaintiffs, lawyers at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, began a multiyear challenge to the secretive system. On Wednesday, the attorneys were rewarded a historic ruling, with a federal judge finding that the watchlisting process had violated their clients’ rights.

“I’ve literally never been so happy,” Hassan Shibly, a plaintiff in the lawsuit and attorney at CAIR’s Florida office, said at a press conference Thursday. “For the last 15 years, I, and millions of American citizens like me, have been treated like second-class citizens by the government, and yesterday the court vindicated us. The court said what we’ve been saying all along, what I’ve personally been saying to DHS and CBP and the White House and Congress for the last 15 years: that how DHS has been treating Muslim Americans when they travel, it’s unconstitutional. It’s un-American. It’s unjust. It’s oppressive.”
...
Being added to a watchlist can seriously damage a person’s reputation, Trenga went on to write, describing the cascading effects inclusion on such a list can have on an individual’s interactions with important, often powerful, institutions. When a person is placed on the watchlist (typically unknowingly and frequently without suspicion of links to criminal activity), the judge wrote, that information is shared with more than “18,000 state, local, county, city, university and college, tribal and federal law enforcement agencies,” not to mention an additional “533 private entities” and foreign governments.

“These private entities include the police and security forces of private railroads, colleges, universities, hospitals, prisons, as well as animal welfare organizations; information technology, fingerprint databases, and forensic analysis providers, and private probation and pretrial services,” the judge wrote. “The dissemination of an individual’s TSDB status to these entities would reasonably be expected to affect any interaction an individual on the Watchlist has with law enforcement agencies and private entities that use TSDB information to screen individuals they encounter in traffic stops, field interviews, house visits, municipal permit processes, firearm purchases, certain licensing applications, and other scenarios.”

In other words, Trenga wrote, inclusion on such a widely shared, yet secret and potentially consequential list, raised the possibility that the traumatizing experiences the plaintiffs had at the border and the ports — “being surrounded by police, handcuffed in front of their families, and detained for many hours” — could be replicated in the interior of the country as well. “In short,” he wrote, “placement on the TSDB triggers an understandable response by law enforcement in even the most routine encounters with someone on the Watchlist that substantially increases the risk faced by that individual from the encounter.”

Since The Intercept published the government’s watchlisting guidance five years ago, advocacy groups have steadily chipped away at the system, often in proceedings before Trenga, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2008. In 2015, Trenga found that the government’s redress system for getting off of its no-fly list — which is almost as opaque as the system for getting on the list — was constitutionally inadequate. Trenga’s ruling on Wednesday built on those proceedings, which had previously found that the government’s watchlisting category of “suspected terrorists” was “based to a large extent on subjective judgments.”[/quote]

[QUOTE=ewmayer;525657][url=https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/terrorism-watchlist-lawsuit-ruling/]Secret Terrorism Watchlist Found Unconstitutional in Historic Decision[/url] | The Intercept[/QUOTE]The Wikipedia page on the judge in this case, [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Trenga]Anthony Trenga[/url], has some interesting facts. Nominated by Dubya, confirmed by the Senate, and commissioned in 2008. The "Notable cases" section is interesting.

Makes me wonder if [i]Il Duce[/i] might want to comment on Judge Trenga's latest ruling. :whistle:

Hmm. Summary judgement for Plaintiffs. The Court has [quote]further ORDERED that the parties are to submit any additional briefing as to the outstanding issues to be resolved in this matter within 30 days of the date of this Order, with replies to each other's positions filed within 14 days thereafter.[/quote]I believe the "outstanding issues" are the [i]remedy[/i] that will be imposed by the Court.

Stay tuned...

Some thoughts on 9/11
 

I was reading a "conservative" piece, [url=https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/afghanistan-airport-security-turn-toward-pre-9-11-mindset/]The Turn Toward a Pre-9/11 Mindset[/url] by Andrew C. McCarthy, who opined[quote]There is wisdom in making national-security decisions political rather than legal. The law strives for rigorous logic, a one-size-fits-all balancing of public-safety concerns against individual rights. Over time, judges reliably expand both the ambit of these rights and the categories of entitled individuals -- to include even non-Americans who bear no responsibilities of citizenship, and even enemies who make war on Americans.[/quote]Dude. In the first place, the Plaintiffs in [i]Elhady v. Kable[/i] are all US citizens. In the second place: Read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In particular, the Fifth Amendment, which says [quote]No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.[/quote]That hasn't "expanded over time." It's been there since the founding of the Republic.

What are the first three words? [i][b]No Person shall[/b][/i]. The "due process" clause says that [i][b]No Person shall[/b][/i] be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Yes, what constitutes "due process" differs, depending on whether the person is a citizen or not. But that is moot here, since the Plaintiffs in [i]Elhady v. Kable[/i] are all US citizens.

Political decisions on security can not (lawfully) circumvent the Bill of Rights. And judges are bound by the law. Judge Trenga's summary judgement for Plaintiffs means their claims of violation of "due process" rights and also of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) were valid, i.e. that the TSDB "watchlist" was structurally Constitutionally insufficient and in violation of the APA [i]as a matter of law[/i].

Mr. McCarthy is saying that, if the political winds are blowing favorably, we can simply disregard the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the law into a nullity.

In that case -- if the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the law must bow to the politics of the currently perceived "threat environment" -- then the terrorists have already won. Without individual liberty and the rule of law, there is no USA left to fight for.

For an alternative interpretation, you might like to read [url=https://www.justsecurity.org/66105/elhady-kable-what-happens-next-why-a-judges-terrorism-watchlist-ruling-is-a-game-changer/]
Why a Judge's Terrorism Watchlist Ruling is a Game Changer: What Happens Next[/url].

Craig Murray has some interesting commentary re. weaponized identity politics by the state in [url=https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/09/john-boltons-dismissal/]John Bolton's Dismissal[/url]:
[quote]Which brings me to my point on identity politics. I had to push my way into this event through a crowd of angry students who were picketing the event in protest against the appearance of Julian Assange.

Yet the very night before, serial war criminal John Bolton, one of the most evil men of power in the world, had spoken on the very same platform in the Oxford Union and not one single student had demonstrated against him. His reception inside was also on the fawning side. (Remember this is the venue that spawned the careers of David Cameron, Boris Johnson, William Rees-Mogg and others).

That incident is to me is a microcosm of the use of identity politics by the state. Through self-evidently flimsy allegations, the state can mobilise feminists to silence the world’s most important dissident voices, while warmongers are feted. Enough “progressives” favoured Clinton’s faux-feminism to help ditch (aided by some cheating) Bernie Sanders’ bid for a better life for the mass of people. Here in Scotland the energies of the SNP are routinely diverted into gender and trans issues instead of getting on with Independence, while precisely the same tactics are employed against Alex Salmond as against Julian Assange, to take another major threat to the status quo out of the political game.[/quote]

The World’s Most Important Political Prisoner
 

[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52271.htm[/URL]

I hope that this is not a duplicate. If so, apologies.
It is Craig Murray on Julian Assange.

I am a frequent visitor to Murray's site, but chose to link to the post on Information Clearing House. It is a collector of many other non-MSM views, and I recommend it.

Edit: Sorry for the lack of quotation from the article.
[QUOTE]September 15, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - We are now just one week away from the end of Julian Assange’s uniquely lengthy imprisonment for bail violation. He will receive parole from the rest of that sentence, but will continue to be imprisoned on remand awaiting his hearing on extradition to the USA – a process which could last several years.

At that point, all the excuses for Assange’s imprisonment which so-called leftists and liberals in the UK have hidden behind will evaporate. There are no charges and no active investigation in Sweden, where the “evidence” disintegrated at the first whiff of critical scrutiny. He is no longer imprisoned for “jumping bail”. The sole reason for his incarceration will be the publishing of the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes.

In imprisoning Assange for bail violation, the UK was in clear defiance of the judgement of the UN Working Group on arbitrary Detention, which stated

Under international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in limited instances. Detention during investigations must be even more limited, especially in the absence of any charge. The Swedish investigations have been closed for over 18 months now, and the only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than 6 years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador. Mr. Assange should be able to exercise his right to freedom of movement in an unhindered manner, in accordance with the human rights conventions the UK has ratified,

In repudiating the UNWGAD the UK has undermined an important pillar of international law, and one it had always supported in hundreds of other decisions. The mainstream media has entirely failed to note that the UNWGAD called for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – a source of potentially valuable international pressure on Iran which the UK has made worthless by its own refusal to comply with the UN over the Assange case. Iran simply replies “if you do not respect the UNWGAD then why should we?”[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;525889][URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52271.htm[/URL]
[quote]At that point, all the excuses for Assange’s imprisonment which so-called leftists and liberals in the UK have hidden behind will evaporate. There are no charges and no active investigation in Sweden, where the “evidence” disintegrated at the first whiff of critical scrutiny. He is no longer imprisoned for “jumping bail”. The sole reason for his incarceration will be the publishing of the Afghan and Iraq war logs leaked by Chelsea Manning, with their evidence of wrongdoing and multiple war crimes.[/quote]
[/QUOTE]I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that Assange is being held pending his extradition hearing, on the grounds that he is a flight risk.

[QUOTE=kladner;523918]It may eventually end the war, but a lot of blood and oil will be spilled before the end.


[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52119.htm[/URL]
-Moon of Alabama
AP article on the drone strike:

[URL]https://apnews.com/9edb1f71010847f2b321d1951997e797[/URL]
How Iran (probably) Acquired A Stealth Drone

[URL]https://www.moonofalabama.org/2011/12/how-iran-probably-acquired-a-stealth-drone.html[/URL][/QUOTE]The strikes by these drones turned into flying bombs have jumped to prominence in world news. You will almost certainly notice it at the pump...

[url=https://www.apnews.com/d20f80188e3543bfb36d512df7777cd4]Saudi Arabia: Drone attacks knocked out half its oil supply[/url]

[url=https://www.apnews.com/269744b35e16422fa746b0c1504ceb4f]Trump: US locked and loaded for response to attack on Saudis[/url]

Iran almost certainly does [i]not[/i] bear [i]direct[/i] responsibility for the attacks, but it would be IMO completely idiotic to claim they bear [i]no[/i] responsibility for what their proxies do.

One possible bright spot for all concerned. There are reports that some of the attack drones have been captured. If these reports are accurate, it raises the prospect of devising an effective defense. That would IMO beat a full-scale war all to heck...

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;525923]I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that Assange is being held pending his extradition hearing, on the grounds that he is a flight risk.[/QUOTE]Got it in one.

Let's leave aside that a federal judge has ruled that Wikileaks committed no crime in publishing. The judge based this ruling on the quaint notion of Freedom of the Press, [STRIKE]implicitly[/STRIKE] (or explicitly, not sure) classifying Assange as a journalist.
Oh, here we go:
[URL]https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/us-federal-court-exposes-democratic-party-conspiracy-against-assange-and-wikileaks[/URL]

[QUOTE]The judge labeled WikiLeaks an [U]“international news organization”[/U] and said [U]Assange is a “publisher,”[/U] exposing the liars in the corporate press who declare that Assange is not subject to free speech protections. Judge Koeltl continued: “In [I]New York Times Co. v. United States[/I], the landmark ‘Pentagon Papers’ case, the Supreme Court upheld the press’s right to publish information of public concern obtained from documents stolen by a third party.”[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;525927]The strikes by these drones turned into flying bombs have jumped to prominence in world news. You will almost certainly notice it at the pump...

[url=https://www.apnews.com/d20f80188e3543bfb36d512df7777cd4]Saudi Arabia: Drone attacks knocked out half its oil supply[/url]

[url=https://www.apnews.com/269744b35e16422fa746b0c1504ceb4f]Trump: US locked and loaded for response to attack on Saudis[/url]

Iran almost certainly does [i]not[/i] bear [i]direct[/i] responsibility for the attacks, but it would be IMO completely idiotic to claim they bear [i]no[/i] responsibility for what their proxies do.

One possible bright spot for all concerned. There are reports that some of the attack drones have been captured. If these reports are accurate, it raises the prospect of devising an effective defense. That would IMO beat a full-scale war all to heck...[/QUOTE]
It certainly might be Iran applying "countersanctions by other means" against the U.S., using its Houthi proxies in Yemen - and knocking half of SA's oil production offline for an extended period using a handful of cheap drones and poor-man's cruise missiles was a very cost-effective form of retaliation.

I don't see a strong likelihood of an effective deterrent on the horizon, either - these things are small, low, slow and likely built from low-radar-reflective materials - you can even make large portions from plywood, if you like, much like the old British Mosquito fighter planes of WW2. Basically scaled-up model planes with sophisticated - but cheap to build, once you have mastered the technology (possibly by reverse-engineering a captured U.S. drone, as the Iranians did some years ago) GPS guidance systems: A nightmare for any kind of air defense system, including the latest-greatest. An asymmetric-warfare kind of air force, if you will, in many ways reminiscent of the Japanese kamikazes late in WW2, which of course could not prevent the inevitable defeat but nonetheless did disproportional damage relative to their cost. Modern drone and GPS-tech has amplified the disproportionality, and targeting critical infrastructure of a Saudi state which built said infrastructure in the apparent absence of serious-military-foe considerations was the real hammer. The Saudis are incredibly vulnerable in terms of their dual "life fluids" - oil and water. But they, at the behest of their Clown Prince, started the war against the Yemeni Houthis and have been ruthless in its pursuit, just as Trump et al started the latest ruthless sanctions regime against Iran for no good reason other than the rabid neocons wanted it, so little sympathy from me for either of those two "victims". The Saudis will - sooner or later - be forced to sue for peace and the price will be very high, but the alternative they face is far worse.

Yemen's military warns foreigners to leave Saudi oil plants
 

[URL]https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/09/16/606300/Yemen-Hiuthis-Saudi-Arabia-cowardice-Iran-Aramco-attack[/URL]
It must always be remembered who started this genocidal war: The Clown Prince of Saudi Arabia. It should also be remembered what great powers have aided and abetted this ongoing atrocity. Why do we wonder that the Yemenis seek, and acquire means of striking back at their high-tech attackers?

I have read that Patriot radar arrays also have been destroyed by drones. As to the price of fuel, there's nothing like a price shock to reduce carbon emissions.

[QUOTE]Yemen's military has warned foreigners in Saudi Arabia to leave Aramco's oil processing plants, saying they are still a target and can be attacked "at any moment."

The warning came after Houthis and their allies in the Yemeni army deployed as many as 10 drones to bomb Abqaiq and Khurais oil facilities run by the Saudi state-owned oil company before dawn Saturday.

Spokesman for the Yemeni armed forces, General Yahya Sare'a, said in a tweet Monday that the attacks in the kingdom's eastern region had been carried out by drones with normal and jet engines.

He said Saudi Arabia should stop its "aggression and blockade on Yemen," or see the Yemeni army hit the kingdom "anywhere and anytime" it chooses.

Other Yemeni officials dismissed claims that the country is incapable of carrying out on its own the kind of attacks that targeted two plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, pledged that Yemeni forces will continue to pound the Saudi oil industry until the kingdom ends its deadly war.

The unprecedented attack knocked out more than half of Saudi crude output, or 5% of global supply, prompting Saudi and US officials to claim without any evidence that it probably originated from Iraq or Iran.

Bukhaiti told Iran's Tasnim news agency that blaming the attacks on other countries shows "cowardice" in facing up to the reality of Yemen's military power.[INDENT] "Saudi Arabia declared war against Yemen on the grounds that our missile inventory posed a threat to its security," he said. "Today, we are surprised to see that when we hit Saudi oil wells, they exonerate Yemen from conducting these strikes and accuse others of doing them."
[/INDENT]"This is viewed as an own criminal decree of conviction. It also shows their cowardice," Bukhaiti added.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo was quick to blame Iran for the brazen attacks, claiming there was no evidence the drones had originated from Yemen.
Bukhaiti mocked the proposition, saying Washington resorted to such rhetoric to hide the fact that their radars were simply incapable of tracking Yemeni drones.[/QUOTE]OOPS. The above came from a link in the following Finian Cunningham piece.
[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52278.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE]September 15, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - The devastating blitz on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry has led to a flurry of accusations from US officials blaming Iran. The reason for the finger-pointing is simple: Washington’s spectacular failure to protect its Saudi ally.

The Trump administration needs to scapegoat Iran for the latest military assault on Saudi Arabia because to acknowledge that the Houthi rebels mounted such an audacious assault on the oil kingdom’s heartland would be an admission of American inadequacy.

Saudi Arabia has spent billions of dollars in recent years purchasing US Patriot missile defense systems and supposedly cutting-edge radar technology from the Pentagon. If the Yemeni rebels can fly combat drones up to 1,000 kilometers into Saudi territory and knock out the linchpin production sites in the kingdom’s oil industry, then that should be a matter of huge embarrassment for US “protectors.”

American defense of Saudi Arabia is germane to their historical relationship. Saudi oil exports nominated in dollars for trade – the biggest on the planet – are vital for maintaining the petrodollar global market, which is in turn crucial for American economic power. In return, the US is obligated to be a protector of the Saudi monarchy, which comes with the lucrative added benefit of selling the kingdom weapons worth billions of dollars every year.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Saudi Arabia has the world’s third biggest military budget, behind the US and China. With an annual spend of around $68 billion, it is the world’s number one in terms of percentage of gross domestic product (8.8 per cent). Most of the Saudi arms are sourced from the US, with Patriot missile systems in particular being a recent big-ticket item.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;526030][URL]https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/09/16/606300/Yemen-Hiuthis-Saudi-Arabia-cowardice-Iran-Aramco-attack[/URL][quote]Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of Yemen's Supreme Political Council, pledged that Yemeni forces will continue to pound the Saudi oil industry until the kingdom ends its deadly war.[/quote][/QUOTE]
Actually, he threatened more (my emphasis):
[quote]"These attacks will automatically stop when Saudi Arabia ends its aggression and lifts its blockade against Yemen," he said. "[b]These operations will only expand and target facilities that are more vital and more sensitive than oil facilities.[/b]"[/quote]I'm guessing, desalination plants. You may recall that during Operation Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein nearly incapacitated a major desalination plant simply by putting crude oil in the water. It came uncomfortably close to the intakes.

[QUOTE]I'm guessing, desalination plants.[/QUOTE]One hopes that the Saudis take that possibility into account. Who knows what the maximum ranges of the Yemeni missiles and drones are? Could they maybe put on a warning light show over inhabited areas, just to show their reach? On the other hand, with 100,000 dead compatriots, and many more starving, they might start moving on from the oil facilities. May the head and hand choppers come to some semblance of sense before such things happen. May the monsters in the mis-administration fall into internal discord and immobilize themselves,

Fond hope, I know. Too many of those now in power would rather pull down the temple on the world than admit their own decline

Here is one more bit to ponder.
How Russian And Iran Beat Their Opponents' Strategies
By Moon Of Alabama
[QUOTE]U.S. allies are still asleep.

When NATO extended into east Europe and the U.S. left the Anti-Ballistic-Missile Treaty Russia announced that it would develop countermeasures to keep the U.S. deterred from attacking it. Ten years later Russia delivered on its promise.

It had developed a number of new weapons that can defeat the ballistic missile defense the U.S. installed. It also put emphasis on its own air and missile defense as well as on radar and on electronic countermeasures that are so good that a U.S. general described as "eye-watering".

All this allowed Putin to troll Trump by offering him Russian hypersonic missiles. As we analyzed:[INDENT] Trump is wrong in claiming that the U.S. makes its own hypersonic weapons. While the U.S. has some in development none will be ready before 2022 and likely only much later. Hypersonic weapons are a Soviet/Russian invention. The ones Russia now puts into service are already the third generation. U.S. development of such missiles is at least two generations behind Russia's.

That Russian radar can 'see' stealth aircraft has been known since 1999 when a Yugoslav army unit shot down a U.S. F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft. Russian air and missile defense proved in Syria that it can defeat mass attacks by drones as well as by cruise missiles. U.S.-made air and missile defense in Saudi Arabia fails to take down even the primitive missiles Houthi forces fire against it.

Yesterday, during a press conference in Ankara with his Turkish and Iranian colleagues, Putin trolled Saudi Arabia (video @38:20) with a similar offer as he had made to Trump:

Q: Does Russia intend to provide Saudi Arabia with any help or support in restoring its infrastructure?

Putin: As for assisting Saudi Arabia, it is also written in the Quran that violence of any kind is illegitimate except when protecting one’s people. In order to protect them and the country, we are ready to provide the necessary assistance to Saudi Arabia. All the political leaders of Saudi Arabia have to do is take a wise decision, as Iran did by buying the S-300 missile system, and as President Erdogan did when he bought Russia’s latest S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft system. They would offer reliable protection for any Saudi infrastructure facilities.

President of Iran Hassan Rouhani: So do they need to buy the S-300 or the S-400?

Vladimir Putin: It is up to them to decide.

Erdogan, Rouhani and Putin all laughed over this exchange.
[/INDENT]U.S. allies, who have to buy U.S. weapons, have followed a similar defense investment strategy as the U.S. itself. They bought weapon systems that are most useful for wars of aggression but did not invest in defensive weapon systems that are needed when their enemies prove capable of hitting back.
[/QUOTE]

Media Omit Context Behind Latest North Korean Missile Tests
 

[URL]https://fair.org/home/media-omit-context-behind-latest-north-korean-missile-tests/[/URL]
Having previously been pulverized by US airborne bombardment, with [STRIKE]monsters[/STRIKE] Anti-Communist Heros like Curtis Lemay gloating over slaughtering [B]20%[/B] of the largely peasant population; [B]the North Korean Despots are obviously totally deranged to act in such an unjustifiably threatening, frightening, and utterly incomprehensibly hostile and aggressive manner. [/B][COLOR=Silver]
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Gray]NUKE 'Em[/COLOR][/SIZE][/COLOR]
[QUOTE]
In his 2004 book [I]North Korea: Another Country[/I], historian Bruce Cumings described the irony of corporate media’s perpetual narrative of North Korea as an unhinged or devious adversary of the US with hostile nuclear ambitions:[INDENT]Almost always, media discussion of North Korea assumes that Washington is in a position of original innocence, and the North is assiduously trying to obtain and then to use “weapons of mass destruction”—the ubiquitous media trope for the arsenals of American enemies since the Cold War ended. Yet the American record in Northeast Asia since the 1940s is one of consistent use of, or threats to use, those same weapons.
[/INDENT]Little has changed since then, as FAIR has documented the media’s one-sided tendency to cast Washington’s actions as defensive responses to “threats” from Official Enemies ([B]internal links removed[/B]).
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=kladner;526207][URL]https://fair.org/home/media-omit-context-behind-latest-north-korean-missile-tests/[/URL]
Having previously been pulverized by US airborne bombardment, with [STRIKE]monsters[/STRIKE] Anti-Communist Heros like Curtis Lemay gloating over slaughtering [B]20%[/B] of the largely peasant population; [B]the North Korean Despots are obviously totally deranged to act in such an unjustifiably threatening, frightening, and utterly incomprehensibly hostile and aggressive manner. [/B][COLOR=Silver]
[SIZE=1][COLOR=Gray]NUKE 'Em[/COLOR][/SIZE][/COLOR][/QUOTE]Curtis E. "Bombs away" Lemay didn't participate in Korea. He was commander of SAC from 1948 to 1957.

His quote, from a 1984 interview, that[quote]We went over there and fought the war and eventually burned down every town in North Korea anyway, someway or another, and some in South Korea too.… Over a period of three years or so, we killed off — what — twenty percent of the population of Korea as direct casualties of war, or from starvation and exposure?[/quote] was probably just his opinion on what had happened.

Other estimates indicate that "only" 10% of the civilian populace was killed.

Curiously, Japan, on which Lemay truly did visit "fire and fury like the world has never seen before" during WWII, in 1964 awarded him the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun. Regarding the firebombing of Japan, Lemay said something to the effect that, if we had lost the war, he would probably have been tried as a war criminal.

Of course, he had a difficult problem in Japan: A lot of the civilian residences he burned were also being used to manufacture small parts for planes and other war equipment. That's probably why he also said there were no innocent civilians.

Lemay was probably an inspiration for the character of General Jack D. Ripper in [i]Dr. Strangelove[/i]. The scene where Ripper (portrayed by Sterling Hayden) puffs on his cigar as he explains his lunatic ideas about fluoridation to Lionel Mandrake is a memorable one.

Swamp engulfs detained migrant children...
 

[url=https://www.apnews.com/7b9f754aa2fd4a7ba647aebaa98a0693]Trump admin shifting to privatize migrant child detention[/url][quote]SAN BENITO, Texas (AP) — On a recent day in a remodeled brick church in the Rio Grande Valley, a caregiver tried to soothe a toddler, offering him a sippy cup. The adult knew next to nothing about the little 3-year-old whose few baby words appeared to be Portuguese. Shelter staff had tried desperately to find his family, calling the Brazilian consulate and searching Facebook.

Nearby, infants in strollers were rolled through the building, pushed by workers in bright blue shirts lettered “CHS,” short for Comprehensive Health Services, Inc., the private, for-profit company paid by the U.S. government to hold some of the smallest migrant children.

Sheltering migrant children has become a growing business for the Florida-based government contractor, as the number of minors in government custody has swollen to record levels over the past two years. More than 50 babies, toddlers and teens were closely watched on this day inside the clean, well-lit shelter surrounded by chain link fences.

<snip>

Just over a year later, DC Capital Partners bought CHS, a company with a troubled past. The firm agreed in 2017 to pay out $3.8 million to settle an investigation involving allegations that it double billed and overcharged the federal government for medical services.

Despite the fraud settlement, CHS went on to win a no-bid contract to operate Homestead. At the time, federal officials said they didn’t have to open the bidding to competitors, typically the way taxpayer dollars are spent, because there was “unusual and compelling urgency.”

The government’s justification for the no-bid contract said there could be increased “industry participation” in bidding for migrant child care contracts going forward.

No-bid contracts can lead to higher costs. CHS, a contractor, typically hires locally, staffing up as quickly as it can, hiring hundreds of people through online ads and at community job fairs. In contrast, nonprofits typically are paid through grants. They have screened staffers on call, who can be flown in if a shelter needs to care for a sudden increase of children for a short period.

As a result, although Homestead temporarily closed in August, there are still about 2,000 people working there, said Hayes. In contrast, a nonprofit that operates a now-empty 500-bed shelter in Carrizo Springs, Texas, has just two security guards onsite but is ready to ramp up as needed.

CHS’s business plan going forward depends on having more kids in their shelters, according to a [url=https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1750690/000119312518303218/d632104ds1.htm]prospectus[/url] its parent company Caliburn filed last year to go public with a $100 million stock offering.

“In a recent shift, the U.S. federal government has started to transition to utilizing private contractors for medical and shelter maintenance,” said the prospectus. “We believe that as a result of our past performance and longstanding relationship with HHS, we are positioned to be a leading provider of these services.”

<snip>[/quote]

"CHS, a company with a troubled past" -- Were this a case where the government had been performing the function in question competently, I might be more alarmed. But I certainly wouldn't put it past Trump to take an already-horrific problem and make it worse.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;527557]"CHS, a company with a troubled past" -- Were this a case where the government had been performing the function in question competently, I might be more alarmed. But I certainly wouldn't put it past Trump to take an already-horrific problem and make it worse.[/QUOTE]Perhaps it's a case of making it worse to the second power: First, screw up the government's handling of a problem. Then (based on the government's poor performance) say, "Gee, better turn it over to the private sector!" Then, of course, it's "Out of sight, out of mind."

The issue of how the contracts are assigned is an interesting one. On the one hand, no-bid contracts will likely cost more. On the other hand, bid contracts usually go to the lowest bidder, a practice which has produced a cornucopia of jokes.

On the gripping hand, given a total lack of oversight,...

o [url=https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/11/04/the-war-for-the-future-of-middle-east/]The ‘War’ for the Future of Middle East[/url] | Strategic Culture

o [url=https://lobelog.com/winter-is-coming-castle-black-the-syrian-withdrawal-and-the-battle-of-the-bases/]Winter Is Coming: Castle Black, the Syrian Withdrawal, and the Battle of the Bases[/url] | LobeLog -- The rundown of the various euphemisms for US overseas military bases is useful. Per the article, here is the list of military bases which are not really military bases (the 'really' ones are the so-called Main Operating Bases in Pentagon-speak):

Military Support Sites
Initial Contingency Location
Temporary Contingency Location
Semipermanent Contingency Location
[full-fledged] Contingency Location
Forward Operating Site
Cooperative Security Location
Combat Outpost
Fire Support Base
Patrol Base

The official definitions of these various kinds of not-really-a-base outposts routinely gets stretched to the extreme:
[quote]Such U.S. non-bases also include Forward Operating Sites (FOSes), which are officially defined as “scalable” locations intended for “rotational use by operating forces.” While “rotational use” might make such a place sound like a distinctly temporary location, possibly one abandoned for long stretches, that’s hardly the case. Camp Lemonnier in the sun-bleached Horn-of-Africa nation of Djibouti, for example, is not only an FOS, but also America’s largest base on the African continent and the headquarters for Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), which includes soldiers, sailors, and airmen, some of them members of the Special Operations forces. The camp — which also supports CENTCOM — couldn’t be less temporary, having expanded from 88 acres to 600 acres, while the number of troops stationed there has jumped by more than 500%, to 5,500, since 2002.

Another type of outpost is a cooperative security location, or CSL, which is supposedly neither “a U.S. facility or base.” According to the Pentagon’s official definition, it has “little or no permanent United States presence” and “is maintained by periodic Service, contractor, or host nation support.” This, too, is completely disingenuous. A CSL in the remote smuggling hub of Agadez, Niger, for example, is the premier U.S. military outpost in West Africa. That drone non-base, located at Nigerien Air Base 201, not only boasts a $100 million-plus construction price tag but, with operating expenses, is expected to cost U.S. taxpayers more than a quarter of a billion dollars by 2024 when the 10-year agreement for its use ends.[/quote]

Released Lula in for greatest fight of his life -Pepe Escobar
 

[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52526.htm[/URL]

[CENTER] "Better not mess with the former Brazilian president; Putin and Xi are his real top allies in the Global Left"
[/CENTER]

Spoiler Alert: Escobar does get down to the elephant: the Military. Lula could be put back in prison, or simply assassinated.

[QUOTE]Only two days after his release from a federal prison in Curitiba, southern Brazil, following a narrow 6×5 decision by the Supreme Court, former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva delivered a fiery, 45-minute long speech in front of the Metal Workers Union in Sao Bernardo, outside of Sao Paulo, and drawing on his unparalleled political capital, called all Brazilians to stage nothing short of a social revolution.
[/QUOTE][QUOTE]His first speech to the nation after the prison saga – which is far from over – could never be solemn; in fact he promised a detailed address for the near future. What he did, in his trademark conversationalist style, was to immediately go on the offensive taking down a long list of every possible enemy in the book: those who have mired Brazil into an “anti-people agenda.” In terms of a fully improvised, passionate political address, this is already anthology material.

Lula detailed the current “terrible conditions” for Brazilian workers. He ripped to pieces the economic program – basically a monster sell-out – of Finance Minister Paulo Guedes, a Chicago boy and Pinochetist who’s applying the same failed hardcore neoliberal prescriptions now being denounced and scorned every day in the streets of Chile.

He detailed how the Brazilian right wing openly bet on neo-fascism, which is the form that neoliberalism recently took in Brazil. He blasted mainstream media, in the form of the so far all-powerful, ultra-reactionary Globo empire. In a stance of semiotic genius, Lula pointed to Globo’s helicopter hovering over the masses gathered for the speech, implying the organization is too cowardly to get close to him on ground level.

And, significantly, he got right into the heart of the Bolsonaro question: the militias. It’s no secret to informed Brazilians that the Bolsonaro clan, with its origins in the Veneto, is behaving as a sort of cheap, crude, eschatological carbon copy of the Sopranos, running a system heavy on militias and supported by the Brazilian military. Lula described the president of one of the top nations in the Global South as no less than a militia leader. That will stick – all around the world.
[/QUOTE]

[url=http://thealtworld.com/caitlin_johnston/propaganda-narratives-are-custom-made-for-each-ideological-echo-chamber]Propaganda Narratives Are Custom-Made For Each Ideological Echo Chamber[/url] | Caitlin Johnstone, TheAltWorld
[quote]Every political sector has been given a custom-made reason to hate Assange by the narrative management network whose sole interest is imprisoning a journalist for telling the truth. And it’s been done so brilliantly that people never even stop and question who these new beliefs they’ve suddenly espoused are really serving. The science of propaganda is truly awe-inspiring sometimes…. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because it will hurt the Deep State. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because he’s a Russian agent. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because he’s a rapist. It’s good for Assange to be locked up because he’s a fascist enabler. The only common denominator in all these wildly different narratives is the belief that it’s good for Assange to be locked up. Which tells you that this is all it’s really about. Turn off the narrative soundtrack and what do you have? A man locked in a cell and no one coming to his rescue.
...
It’s just like the illegal US occupation of Syria. US troops need to be in Syria because of humanitarian concerns. US troops need to be in Syria because of chemical weapons. US troops need to be in Syria to stop ISIS. US troops need to be in Syria to counter Iranian influence. US troops need to be in Syria to counter Russian influence. US troops need to be in Syria to protect the Kurds. US troops need to be in Syria because of oil. There’s a different reason for every ideological echo chamber.

But take away the narrative soundtrack and what do you have? US troops staying in Syria. That tells you what this is actually about.

Simply mentally muting the narrative soundtrack that babbles about all the endless justifications for the US-centralized empire’s behaviors, and instead looking at the actual behaviors themselves, is a great way to see the empire’s true motives for yourself. Ignore all the stories about why things need to be as they are and you just see things as they are.[/quote]

Here's a slightly different take.

Julian Assange, like [i]Il Duce[/i], thinks the rules don't apply to him. He's egotistical and self-centered, every bit the "spoiled brat" Ecuador's President Moreno described him as being when, after giving him political asylum in their London Embassy for seven years, the Ecuadorians got sick of Assange disregarding the conditions of his being allowed to stay there, revoked his asylum, and invited the UK authorities in to remove him. Apparently Assange just didn't get that "My house, my rules" actually [i]did[/i] apply to him when he was staying in someone else's house at their sufferance. He probably still doesn't think it's "equitable."

Besides, my sainted mother thought not only that he was a self-centered little malignancy, but also a physically repulsive creature whose pallid appearance reminded her of some sort of fungus. None of this is good grounds for locking him up, of course. Having him stood against the nearest wall and shot, maybe, but not locked up.

As to why it's a good thing to have him locked up at present, his seven years of mooching off the Ecuadorians included failing to appear in court as he had agreed to do as a condition of being released from custody. Of course, thinking the rules don't apply to him, he didn't think failing to appear was that big a deal. Courts of law, however, take a dim view of this sort of thing. Bail jumpers are, [i]ipso facto[/i], flight risks, hence often kept locked up while they have legal matters pending. And Julian Assange does have legal matters pending. The US has requested his extradition. The original charges against him weren't all that serious, but now a whole laundry list of much heavier charges has been added, and he's looking at the prospect of being locked up for the rest of his life.

Julian Assange's next court date is December 19. His extradition hearing is scheduled for February. He is likely to appear in court for these.

Re: MH17
 

[url=https://www.om.nl/onderwerpen/mh17-crash/@107091/jit-releases-witness/]JIT releases witness appeal MH17[/url][quote]The JIT witness call of June 2019 showed that the leadership of the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ (DPR) maintained contact with Russian officials about military support in Eastern Ukraine. Recent analysis of information obtained by the JIT, including witness statements by former DPR-members, revealed that Russian influence on the DPR went beyond military support. This is supported by recorded telephone calls between the leaders of the DPR and high-ranking Russian officials.
<snip>
The indications of close ties between Russian government officials and leaders of the DPR raise questions about their possible involvement in the deployment of the BUK-TELAR, which brought down flight MH17 on 17 July 2014. The JIT already concluded this BUK TELAR originated from the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, a unit of the Russian armed forces from Kursk in the Russian Federation. The JIT is looking for witnesses who can share information about those who commanded the deployment of this BUK-TELAR.[/quote]

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;530462]Here's a slightly different take.

Julian Assange, like [I]Il Duce[/I], thinks the rules don't apply to him. He's egotistical and self-centered, every bit the "spoiled brat" Ecuador's President Moreno described him as being when, after giving him political asylum in their London Embassy for seven years, the Ecuadorians got sick of Assange disregarding the conditions of his being allowed to stay there, revoked his asylum, and invited the UK authorities in to remove him. Apparently Assange just didn't get that "My house, my rules" actually [I]did[/I] apply to him when he was staying in someone else's house at their sufferance. He probably still doesn't think it's "equitable."

Besides, my sainted mother thought not only that he was a self-centered little malignancy, but also a physically repulsive creature whose pallid appearance reminded her of some sort of fungus. None of this is good grounds for locking him up, of course. Having him stood against the nearest wall and shot, maybe, but not locked up.

As to why it's a good thing to have him locked up at present, his seven years of mooching off the Ecuadorians included failing to appear in court as he had agreed to do as a condition of being released from custody. Of course, thinking the rules don't apply to him, he didn't think failing to appear was that big a deal. Courts of law, however, take a dim view of this sort of thing. Bail jumpers are, [I]ipso facto[/I], flight risks, hence often kept locked up while they have legal matters pending. And Julian Assange does have legal matters pending. The US has requested his extradition. The original charges against him weren't all that serious, but now a whole laundry list of much heavier charges has been added, and he's looking at the prospect of being locked up for the rest of his life.

Julian Assange's next court date is December 19. His extradition hearing is scheduled for February. He is likely to appear in court for these.[/QUOTE]


I am a bit confused. What is he now supposed to get accused of?

[QUOTE=Till;530594]I am a bit confused. What is he now supposed to get accused of?[/QUOTE]

Offending DrS's personal standards of modesty and decorum, apparently. Clearly behaving in a manner which DrS deems egotistical is a capital crime worthy of rendition, solitary confinement and slow torture to death.

I find it rather telling that the [url=https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/10/assange-in-court/]obviously extralegal farce constituted by the UK "legal proceedings"[/url] does not in any way appear to offend the good Doctor's sense of propriety. Being an apologist for The Empire requires a strict adherence to double standards, it would seem.

[QUOTE=Till;530594]I am a bit confused. What is he now supposed to get accused of?[/QUOTE]
He is charged with threatening the entrenched power and money structures of the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex, and of the US Empire in general. These are the same charges lodged against Manning and Snowden.

[quote=Till;530594]I am a bit confused. What is he now supposed to get accused of?[/quote]
In case you're interested in what will actually matter in court, you can read the [url=https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6024842/Assange-superseding-indictment.pdf]superseding indictment[/url] that was unsealed in May 2019. It alleges that Assange did not merely [i]receive and publish[/i] classified information (which, stipulating that he is a journalist, he could not be prosecuted for), but that he [i]solicited[/i] disclosure of classified information, and [i]actively participated[/i] in obtaining and attempting to obtain it.

He had originally been charged with [url=https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1153486/download]conspiracy to commit computer intrusion[/url], which carried a maximum five-year sentence. The espionage charges carry a maximum of ten years for each count, and there are 17 counts.

The DOJ has already bungled the case WRT the sealed superseding indictment -- they inadvertently revealed its existence in another, unrelated court filing. Oops!

IMO the espionage charges are a stretch. I'm sure Assange's legal counsel will argue at the extradition hearing that the espionage charges are politically motivated. Now I'm generally averse to going into the motives for making allegations, on the grounds that the merits of the complaint are the important thing. However, in a UK extradition hearing, whether the charges are politically motivated, or are political in nature, is pertinent. If the UK court finds that the charges are political in nature, it could deny the extradition request.

I'm pretty sure that, had the DOJ stuck with the computer intrusion charge, there would have been no problem getting Assange extradited, tried and convicted, and salted away for up to five years.

My feelings on the matter are very much mixed. I am very concerned about the DOJ's "creative" use of espionage charges, and would be immensely satisfied if the extradition request were denied on the grounds that they amount to political persecution. However, I would be chagrined at a loathsome little cockroach like Assange once again scuttling away instead of being slapped down. I would, however, blame the Admin if the UK rejected the extradition request.

I would contrast the present case to the Pentagon Papers case. Daniel Ellsberg decided to make public the results of a study he had worked on extensively, showing that the US government had lied to the people about the Vietnam War. He went to the papers -- they didn't come to him. After the contents began appearing in the NYT in 1971, the government tried to stop publication by means of a restraining order. Other papers then published, and the government got injunctions against each in turn. The US Supreme Court soon said, in a 6-3 decision in the case of [i]New York Times Co. v. United States[/i], that the government couldn't do that, and the papers couldn't be punished for publishing the information. Amusingly, the ruling came on June 30, 1971, in close proximity to Independence Day (July 4).

AFAIK there was never any allegation that the papers solicited or participated in the removal of classified information from its lawful repositories.

As to Daniel Ellsberg, he turned himself in and faced the charges against him. Fortunately for him, the government decided they didn't have to play fair. The prosecutorial misconduct was so egregious, in fact (including government thugs breaking into Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office to try to get dirt on Ellsberg), that the entire case was dismissed, and Ellsberg walked. It would not surprise me if something similar happened with Assange -- assuming he actually faces charges in the US.

BTW there are many in the US who, to this day, consider Ellsberg a "traitor" for disclosing the Pentagon Papers to the American public. I am not among them.

[url=https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/15/the-opcw-and-douma-chemical-weapons-watchdog-accused-of-evidence-tampering-by-its-own-inspectors/]The OPCW and Douma: Chemical Weapons Watchdog Accused of Evidence-Tampering by Its Own Inspectors[/url] | Counterpunch

[url=https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/11/opcw-whistleblowers-management-manipulated-reports-douma-chemical-weapon-attack-was-staged.html]OPCW Whistleblowers: Management Manipulated Reports - Douma 'Chemical Weapon Attack' Was Staged[/url] | Moon of Alabama

[url=https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/11/17/the-hugely-important-opcw-scandal-keeps-unfolding-heres-why-no-ones-talking-about-it/]The Hugely Important OPCW Scandal Keeps Unfolding. Here’s Why No One’s Talking About It[/url] | Caitlin Johnstone
Reader comment: “The interesting part is the US spooks, presumably without Trump's blessing, pressuring the OPCW. The whole charade was orchestrated because Trump wanted out of Syria IIRC. If that isn’t confirmation of a deep state, friendly with Al Qaeda no less, I dunno what is. In anything approaching a sane world that would be every headline.”

So the watch dogs have been muzzled, repeatedly. As I recall, this was another "incident" which the "noble" White Helmets played a big role in promoting.

[url=https://apnews.com/3da4fb3671004679a91a7d4ae9ab4e57]US angers Palestinians with reversal on Israeli settlements[/url][quote]WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Monday said it no longer considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be a violation of international law, reversing four decades of American policy and further undermining the Palestinians’ effort to gain statehood.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the U.S. is repudiating the 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements in the occupied territories are "inconsistent with international law."
<snip>
The 1978 legal opinion on settlements is known as the Hansell Memorandum. It had been the basis for more than 40 years of carefully worded U.S. opposition to settlement construction that had varied in its tone and strength, depending on the president’s position.

The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements illegal based in part on the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bars an occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population to occupied territory.[/quote]

Julian Assange is officially off the hook on the Swedish rape allegation. It can reasonably argued that this is a textbook example of the idea (as expressed by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his [i]Letter from Birmingham Jail[/i]), that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

The [url=https://www.aklagare.se/globalassets/dokument/ovriga-dokument/decision_19nov.pdf]translation of the prosecutor's decision[/url] says (my emphasis),[quote]The injured party has submitted a credible and reliable version of events. Her statements have been
coherent, extensive and detailed.

In some areas, the parties have provided consistent information while in others they have entirely
different perceptions of events.

It can be confirmed that support for the injured party’s assertion – and therefore of the alleged
criminal act – is now deemed to have weakened, [b]largely due to the long period of time that has
elapsed since the events in question.[/b]

In my overall assessment, the evidential situation has been weakened to such an extent that that
there is no longer any reason to continue the preliminary investigation. It cannot be assumed that
further inquiries will change the evidential situation in any significant manner. The preliminary
investigation is therefore discontinued.[/quote]

Re. Assange - indeed, now that the UK/US governments have him in their clutches in "he ain't never getting out" fashion, the pretxt provided by the trumped-up Swedish rape charges is dispensible. Thanks, Sweden, you've done your job in this multiyear extralegal farce. I mean, consider the wording in the "we are closing the case" ruling:

"The injured party has submitted a credible and reliable version of events."

How can such testimony be deemed "credible and reliable" in the utter absence of independently verifiable *evidence* supporting it? Similar with the tell-word "injured" - absent actual evidence, this is a mere *allegation* of injury in the legal sense. Promoting hearsay into evidence amounts throwing away pretty much the entire basis of post-medieval western jurisprudence.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;531274]"The injured party has submitted a credible and reliable version of events."

How can such testimony be deemed "credible and reliable" in the utter absence of independently verifiable *evidence* supporting it? Similar with the tell-word "injured" - absent actual evidence, this is a mere *allegation* of injury in the legal sense. Promoting hearsay into evidence amounts throwing away pretty much the entire basis of post-medieval western jurisprudence.[/QUOTE]
"Hearsay" generally means someone talking about what they [i]heard[/i] someone else [i]say[/i]. The term "hearsay evidence" means "an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted therein." Here in the good ol' USA, hearsay evidence is generally inadmissible, because the person actually making the statement isn't available for cross-examination. I confess I don't know Swedish rules of evidence, but I would be surprised if they didn't treat hearsay evidence similarly.

But in the case at hand, the claim of injury was firsthand, so is not "hearsay."

Law enforcement agencies and prosecutors deal with lying witnesses all the time, and get plenty of practice testing witnesses' credibility. I would assume that the assessment that the version of events was deemed "credible and reliable" because (1) every checkable fact asserted checked out, and (2) none of the ways they tried to shake the witness's cage made it rattle. Also, it isn't "testimony" because it wasn't given in court. I'm sure it was a sworn statement, though, subject to the penalties of perjury if found to be a deliberate falsification.

In the case at hand, if my understanding is correct, there was no dispute that Assange had sex with the complainants when they said he did. The only question at issue was whether one or more sexual encounters were consensual. Absent clear evidence of serious physical injury, or a weapon (knife, bludgeon etc) that's difficult to prove in court. The accused could say, for example, "She likes to play rough." It's "He said, she said." I'm not sure what the corroborating witnesses would be able to testify [i]to[/i] in this case. It's possible they might have been able to establish the fact that the complaining witness told them about it contemporaneously, if the person who told them had already testified to that fact. But apparently, after nine years and a lot of publicity, their testimony had become unreliable.

Chalk another one up for dilatory tactics. Assange had already succeeded in running out the clock on three of the allegations against him. He left Sweden one step ahead of the sheriff. He scuttled into the Ecuadorian Embassy when his final legal appeal against Sweden's extradition warrant to the UK was exhausted.

Assange was not subjected to anything "extralegal." He had many days in court, with the assistance of counsel, every step of the way. He chose not to appear in court when he had agreed to, because he didn't like the outcome.

If the extradition hearing goes against Assange, he will no doubt appeal, as he did with Sweden's extradition warrant. However, thanks to his blowing off a court appearance while making such a pest of himself with the Ecuadorians, this time around, he will not be afforded the opportunity to avoid his days in court. And if his final appeal is exhausted and the extradition is approved, he will become a guest of the US government, at least until he is tried.

I would also point out that, well into "post-medieval western jurisprudence," courts of law were known to take drastic measures against those refusing to accept the court's jurisdiction. As I may have mentioned before, under English common law, an accused person who refused to enter a plea ("stood mute") was subjected to the [i]peine forte et dure[/i], or slow pressing to death. Sounds about right for Assange in my book
:grin:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531286]...
was subjected to the [i]peine forte et dure[/i], or slow pressing to death. Sounds about right for Assange in my book[/QUOTE]One may or may not like Assange (he is no worse than a lot of public figures, IMHO opinion most of them have narcissistic traits, I don't need to give examples.) One difference is that Assange has no police, army of judicial system at his orders. Is that why he should be submitted to the [i]"peine forte et dure"[/i] ?

Or is it that in your opinion a publisher of material incriminating a country is to be put in prison when his personality doesn't suit you ? Or that the crimes denounced by whistle-blowers are insignificant compared to the crime of divulging that information ?

As for what happened in Sweden it has nothing to do with the current extradition request except that the judicial inquiry came at a good time to give the government of the USA time to construct their case.

Then the presence of Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy was no insurmountable problem until a new president was elected in that country.

Sites like WikiLeaks are necessary because governments don't respect their own laws and even less international law. The USA is the perfect example : it bullies all countries to submit to its local laws concerning international boycotts, it imposes extradition of people that have committed no crime under their country laws, and, at the same time, refuses to comply with international law, it refuses that its employees (military, secret services...) be tried when they are accused even of war crimes or crime against humanity.

Jacob

Right on. Thank you, Jacob.

[quote=S485122;531308]One difference is that Assange has no police, army of judicial system at his orders. Is that why he should be submitted to the "[i]peine forte et dure[/i]"?[/quote]
Correction: [i]Il Duce[/i] doesn't have the police or judicial system "at his orders." The president can't dictate how courts rule or which cases they hear, and can't simply order the DOJ to begin investigations or file charges. He has tried that, though. His attempt to coerce a foreign government into conducting a criminal investigation of a domestic political opponent has led to changes in TV programming schedules.

While Assange was skulking in the Ecuadorian Embassy, he was working with the Russians to help get [i]Il Duce[/i] elected president. For that alone he deserves [i]peine forte et dure[/i]. But if it were possible to arrange matters so that he and [i]Il Duce[/i] wound up as cellmates, that would do.

I note that, WRT the election in Ecuador, Assange was banking on VP Lenín Moreno getting elected as Correa's successor. The other guy, Guillermo Lasso, seemed intent on evicting him from the embassy. When Moreno won, news outlets all over the world proclaimed Assange's asylum status was secure.

I happen to think (laughably vague allegations that the rape charges in Sweden were "trumped up" notwithstanding) that Assange is as guilty as sin of those charges.

[quote]Sites like WikiLeaks are necessary because governments don't respect their own laws and even less international law.[/quote]
Russia is on line two and China is on line three, insisting that they don't take a back seat to anyone when it comes to bullying other countries.

They're also way ahead of the US in oppressing their own people. WikiLeaks recently got scooped by the New York Times with a bunch of leaked Chinese Communist Party documents about Gulag Xinjiang. Of course, China has a lot more control over the internet than the US, and Russia is rapidly catching up on that front...

We need the ability to learn what our governments are up to. I'm not sure "sites like WikiLeaks" are the right instrument or will be in five or ten years, but I'm pretty sure that, when it comes to who's [i]running[/i] the muckraker organization du jour, we can do better than Assange.

[quote]it imposes extradition of people that have committed no crime under their country laws[/quote]Whether Assange committed the crimes under US law he is charged with, is a question that falls under the jurisdiction of our courts. I don't recognize your authority to declare him innocent or grant him a pardon. If the UK rejects the extradition request (which it may), perhaps he would be tried [i]in absentia[/i]. Maybe a few Admin heads would explode. I don't know. But I'm pretty sure the original computer intrusion case was solid, and I'm a lot less sure about the slew of superseding espionage charges. I think the espionage charges are excessive, and legally on thin ice. The Admin way well come to rue the day they made the decision to go that route.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531317]If the UK rejects the extradition request (which it may), perhaps he would be tried [i]in absentia[/i].[/QUOTE]The US didn't make any UK friends in the extradition department with their recent decision concerning a woman who killed a motorcyclist by driving on the wrong side of the road.

[QUOTE=xilman;531321]The US didn't make any UK friends in the extradition department with their recent decision concerning a woman who killed a motorcyclist by driving on the wrong side of the road.[/QUOTE]Or with most other folks in the UK, from what I have read and heard. It seems a lot of people there are quite angry about it. And rightly so, IMO.

But do you really think that could influence the outcome of Assange's extradition hearing? If so, how?

@DrS: You are correct re. hearsay, I somehow conflated that with "he said, she said" in my post, i.e. with "allegation".

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531317]While Assange was skulking in the Ecuadorian Embassy, he was working with the Russians to help get Il Duce elected president.[/QUOTE]
And the evidence for this is? This is the hack-or-leak debate re. the DNC servers. Simply because a bunch of folks from US-spookdom "are of the opinion that" doesn't make it true, except in the minds of the Clintonite and #NeverTrump true believers desperate to blame HRH HRC's election loss on factors other than the obvious "she was the establishment's corrupt insider candidate selected in a rigged primary process, and assumed the presidency was hers, so blew off campaigning in many key battleground states, especially in the rust belt" ones. And furthermore, the whole "Assange colluded with EvilPutin!" red herring is in no small part designed to distract from the fact that the Wikileaks materials revealed [b]factual information about election rigging[/b], in this case about the aforementioned rigging of the party nomination process. AFAIK their veracity was never seriously disputed. So please tell us, why should factual evidence of such election rigging by corrupt insiders be kept from the American people? Simply because it might benefit a candidate you dislike?

[quote]I happen to think (laughably vague allegations that the rape charges in Sweden were "trumped up" notwithstanding) that Assange is as guilty as sin of those charges.[/QUOTE]
What you happen to think is utterly immaterial - it's what can be proven in a court of law. But your imperial-thug mindset comes through quite clearly in your posts - it seems you just don't like ugly and illegal U.S. government tactics w.r.to international law when Trump uses them.

Dr S:[QUOTE]Russia is on line two and China is on line three, insisting that they don't take a back seat to anyone when it comes to bullying other countries.[/QUOTE]That other nations do the same bestows no plenary indulgence on what our government does. There are sorces available which detail US actions regarding other nations. Note that these are Military Interventions. Diplomatic and Economic Interventions are different topics.
[URL]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States[/URL]

[quote=ewmayer;531346]What you happen to think is utterly immaterial - it's what can be proven in a court of law.[/quote]Just as [i]your[/i] unevidenced opinion that the Swedish charges against Assange were "trumped up" is utterly immaterial.

IMO you have to be hopelessly ideologically blinkered to claim there's no evidence that Assange received from Russian hackers large quantities of material stolen from DNC servers while he was [strike]running[/strike] staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Oh, wait, the Ecuadorians hired a bunch of spooks to monitor the place, so [i]all[/i] the evidence of what happened there during Assange's stay can simply be dismissed out of hand...

RT was even making programs from there. It also seems the Russians worked on a plan to extract him from the embassy and spirit him off to Russia. Of course, they would only consider such a thing for altruistic reasons. They eventually abandoned the idea as too risky, though.

The more I read about his stay there, the more I am amazed by the fact that they didn't chuck him out a lot sooner.

[quote]But your imperial-thug mindset comes through quite clearly in your posts[/quote]
Oooh! Better send the Thought Police to take me to the Ministry of Love!

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531366]
IMO you have to be hopelessly ideologically blinkered to claim there's no evidence that Assange received from Russian hackers large quantities of material stolen from DNC servers[/QUOTE]

So what if he did? Are you claiming the U.S. government has the right to press charges against foreign citizens for such behavior?

[QUOTE=Prime95;531392]So what if he did? Are you claiming the U.S. government has the right to press charges against foreign citizens for such behavior?[/QUOTE]Yes, in exactly the same way that the UK has the right to press charges against Americans suspected of causing death while driving.

That's what extradition treaties are for.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531341]Or with most other folks in the UK, from what I have read and heard. It seems a lot of people there are quite angry about it. And rightly so, IMO.

But do you really think that could influence the outcome of Assange's extradition hearing? If so, how?[/QUOTE]
Yes.

I'll leave the reasoning as an exercise for the reader for the time being.

Please try playing Devil's advocate and argue Old Nick's case here. It's good for your intellectual development. Know thine enemy and all that.

[QUOTE=xilman;531409][quote=Dr Sardonicus;531341]Or with most other folks in the UK, from what I have read and heard. It seems a lot of people there are quite angry about it. And rightly so, IMO.

But do you really think that could influence the outcome of Assange's extradition hearing? If so, how?[/quote]Yes.

I'll leave the reasoning as an exercise for the reader for the time being.

Please try playing Devil's advocate and argue Old Nick's case here. It's good for your intellectual development. Know thine enemy and all that.[/QUOTE]An extradition hearing is a legal proceeding. The death of Harry Dunn is unrelated to the merits of the US extradition request for Julian Assange. I doubt it would even be allowed to be raised in court during the extradition hearing. So if the extradition request for Julian Assange were to be denied because of it, I would say that the denial would quite literally be an extralegal farce.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531412]An extradition hearing is a legal proceeding. The death of Harry Dunn is unrelated to the merits of the US extradition request for Julian Assange. I doubt it would even be allowed to be raised in court during the extradition hearing. So if the extradition request for Julian Assange were to be denied because of it, I would say that the denial would quite literally be an extralegal farce.[/QUOTE]C, or C+ at the very best.

Remember that you are supposed to be arguing why it [b]is[/b] relevant.

[QUOTE=xilman;531415]C, or C+ at the very best.

Remember that you are supposed to be arguing why it [b]is[/b] relevant.[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. From a [i]legal[/i] standpoint, it simply [i]isn't[/i] relevant.

The only way to [i]make[/i] it relevant is by utterly politicizing the extradition proceeding, turning it into, as I said before, an extralegal farce.

[QUOTE=xilman;531408]Yes, in exactly the same way that the UK has the right to press charges against Americans suspected of causing death while driving.[/QUOTE]

Not related.

The auto accident occurred on UK soil, the UK government has every right to press charges.

Dr. S. seems to be arguing that the US government has the right to press charges against a Swedish citizen on Ecuadorian soil for the crime of receiving information from Russians.

[QUOTE=Prime95;531424]<snip>
The auto accident occurred on UK soil, the UK government has every right to press charges.[/quote]That's assuming the (alleged) perpetrator's diplomatic immunity is indeed no longer an issue.

[quote]Dr. S. seems to be arguing that the US government has the right to press charges against a Swedish citizen on Ecuadorian soil for the crime of receiving information from Russians.[/QUOTE]If you'd bothered to read the actual charges against Assange (I posted a link to the indictment [url=https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=530658&postcount=545]here[/url]) you would see that his citizenship (Australian, not Swedish BTW, and Ecuadorian while he was in their embassy) and location are irrelevant to the charges against him. The original computer intrusion charge is included as Count 18 of the superseding indictment. The other 17 charges are espionage charges.

Assange's political asylum was revoked and his Ecuadorian citizenship was suspended when the Ecuadorians chucked him out of their embassy in London. As far as I can tell, he never obtained the diplomatic immunity the Ecuadorians tried to grant him, because the UK wouldn't stand for it.

All the charges hinge on the allegation that Assange didn't merely [i]receive[/i] the information illegally obtained by Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning, but [i]solicited[/i] and [i]actively participated in[/i] illegally obtaining classified information.

IMO proving that he "directed" Manning's activities as alleged in the indictment will be a challenge. Manning has willingly gone to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury about Assange. Perhaps if the Feds can bring Manning into court (assuming they get the chance to try the case against Assange) and have him refuse to testify, that might convince a jury that he is indeed under Assange's control.

[QUOTE]Manning has willingly gone to jail for refusing to testify to a grand jury about Assange. Perhaps if the Feds can bring [U]Manning[/U] into court (assuming they get the chance to try the case against Assange) and have [U]him[/U] refuse to testify, that might convince a jury that [U]he[/U] is indeed under Assange's control. [/QUOTE]
You don't give credence to a person's gender identity. Presumptuous much?

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531366]Just as [i]your[/i] unevidenced opinion that the Swedish charges against Assange were "trumped up" is utterly immaterial.[/quote]
"Unevidenced" - except by, well, the reality of the case, you mean? I repeat this Craig Murray article that there [url=https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/04/so-where-is-the-swedish-warrant/]never was a Swedish arrest warrant[/url], even several years after Assange made himself available for questioning by the Swedish prosecution authorities - just not on Swedish soil:
[quote]If the Swedish allegations against Julian Assange were genuine and not simply a ruse to arrest him for extradition to the United States, where is the arrest warrant now from Sweden and what are the charges?

Only the more minor allegation has passed the statute of limitations deadline. The major allegation, equivalent to rape, is still well within limits. Sweden has had seven years to complete the investigation and prepare the case. It is over two years since they interviewed Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy. They have had years and years to collect all the evidence and prepare the charges.

So where, Swedish prosecutors, are your charges? Where is your arrest warrant?

Julian Assange has never been charged with anything in Sweden. He was merely “wanted for questioning”, a fact the MSM repeatedly failed to make clear. It is now undeniably plain that there was never the slightest intention of charging him with anything in Sweden. All those Blairite MPs who seek to dodge the glaring issue of freedom of the media to publish whistleblower material revealing government crimes, by hiding behind trumped-up sexual allegations, are left looking pretty stupid.[/quote]
...and Sweden has dropped the remaining charges since Murray's April piece appeared, though note they briefly "reopened the case" in May, conveniently around the same time the UK-arrest-and-extradition circus media PR campaign was ramping up. The whole thing is so bizarre that it *only* makes sense in a "legal pretext" way. Further, as Murray notes, "the person making the accusation had previously been expelled from Cuba as working for the CIA" ... you want ideologically blinkered, I suggest you look in the mirror.

[quote]IMO you have to be hopelessly ideologically blinkered to claim there's no evidence that Assange received from Russian hackers large quantities of material stolen from DNC servers while he was [strike]running[/strike] staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Oh, wait, the Ecuadorians hired a bunch of spooks to monitor the place, so [i]all[/i] the evidence of what happened there during Assange's stay can simply be dismissed out of hand...[/quote]
You keep referring to these alleged mountains of evidence - where are they? I've seen only allegations from US/UK spookdom, all of which have ignored the reality that cyberattribution is very hard, and from obviously bought-and-paid-for "analysts" like those at the Crowdstrike. So please present your evidence that:

1. The DNC materials were stolen by outside actors, not leaked by insiders;
2. Assange received said materials from Russian hackers;
3. The materials were false, or not of legitimate interest to the American electorate.

Note that merely repeating "he has been charged with" is not evidence ... it is the alleged evidence underpinning the US government charges that is of interest. Further note that even were items 1 and 2 proven beyond reasonable doubt, item 3 would need to be established to negate the 1st amendment & whistleblower aspects of the released materials. And item 3 is where all your arguments fall apart, which is why you have studiously avoided discussing this aspect of the case, despite the fact that it is the most crucial one. Please do address it.

[quote]RT was even making programs from there. It also seems the Russians worked on a plan to extract him from the embassy and spirit him off to Russia. Of course, they would only consider such a thing for altruistic reasons. They eventually abandoned the idea as too risky, though.[/QUOTE]
At the same time you demand stringent evidentiary standards from others, you certainly like to use phrases like "it seems" and avoid any supporting links yourself. Your evidence for Boris & Natasha's evil scheme to snatch arch-criminal Assange from the embassy consists of? And even had such a snatch-n-grab been in the works, it would've been construable as being in support of international law, as the UN has long ruled Assange's confinement in the embassy and lack of freedom to leave the UK as [url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/03/un-calls-for-julian-assanges-release-from-high-security-uk-jail]arbitrary detention[/url]:
[quote]The UN working group on arbitrary detention (WGAD) said it was deeply concerned by the “disproportionate sentence” imposed on Assange for violating the terms of his bail, which it described as a “minor violation”.

The group has twice previously called for Assange to be freed, after it judged his confinement to the Ecuadorian embassy by the threat of arrest should he leave amounted to arbitrary detention.

“The working group regrets that the government has not complied with its opinion and has now furthered the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Mr Assange,” it said in a statement on Friday.

“It is worth recalling that the detention and the subsequent bail of Mr Assange in the UK were connected to preliminary investigations initiated in 2010 by a prosecutor in Sweden. It is equally worth noting that that prosecutor did not press any charges against Mr Assange and that in 2017, after interviewing him in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, she discontinued investigations and brought an end to the case.[/quote]
It is quite clear from the above that the UK authorities had no right whatsoever to restrict JS'a freedom of movement after 2017. That fact makes his subsequent arrest and detention (in supermax, no less) illegal under both international and UK law.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531429]If you'd bothered to read the actual charges against Assange.[/QUOTE]

Upon re-reading your original post, I'll accept your correction. I see two intertwined arguments from you about Assange: 1) The U.S. has the right to charge Assange, and 2) Assange is a dirtbag (though I do not agree that accepting Russian info makes him a dirtbag).

Although not clear, your comments on the Russian DNC info could be from your dirtbag train of thought. Your references to "charges" and "evidence" led me to believe your argument was from your U.S. legal case train of thought:

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531429]Just as your unevidenced opinion that the Swedish charges against Assange were "trumped up" is utterly immaterial.

IMO you have to be hopelessly ideologically blinkered to claim there's no evidence that Assange received from Russian hackers large quantities of material stolen from DNC servers while he was running staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.[/quote]

What I do not understand is why your (or anyone else's) opinion on Assange as a person has any relevance in a discussion on the U.S. case against him. Perhaps, you were just countering an argument from someone that Assange is a hero and should not be charged. I do not have the inclination to go back and read it all again.

BTW, I agree that the first U.S. charge was a legitimate prosecutable offense, albeit quite thin. From what I know, If I were on the jury he would be exonerated. IMO, prosecutors were told to bring charges no matter what -- this was the best charge they could come up with.

[QUOTE=Prime95;531449]<snip>
What I do not understand is why your (or anyone else's) opinion on Assange as a person has any relevance in a discussion on the U.S. case against him. Perhaps, you were just countering an argument from someone that Assange is a hero and should not be charged.[/quote]

It's the latter. His personality might work against him if his case is brought to trial, though. If jurors think he's a dirtbag, it certainly won't help his case.

If being a 24-carat jerk was a crime, Assange would have been executed long ago. So would a lot of other people. But giving the State the authority to determine that someone's personality alone merits taking their life would IMO not be a good idea.

About the extradition hearing being influenced by the Harry Dunn case...

I heard a former federal prosecutor from the Watergate days (Richard Ben-Veniste if memory serves) interviewed many years later. He said that, for weeks after VP Spiro Agnew was forced out of office, he couldn't [i]buy[/i] a conviction. Juries were nullifying wholesale, even in rock-solid cases, and "some very bad people walked."

Why were jurors doing this? Because they were absolutely infuriated by the fact that Agnew had been able to cop a plea and walk when he was forced out of office.

You see, before Spiro Agnew was VP, he was Governor of Maryland. And he was corrupt. According the the "exposition of evidence" from the prosecutors, he took bribes and kickbacks from when he was Baltimore County Executive to when he was VP, sometimes in envelopes of cash handed to him in the Oval Office. Federal prosecutors investigated him for extortion and bribery. And, to cap it off, he didn't pay [i]income tax[/i] on his ill-gotten gains. They threatened him with indictments. He tried to claim a sitting VP couldn't be indicted. That didn't work. So, faced with the prospect of indictment, trial, and a long prison term, he and his lawyers worked out a [i]very[/i] lenient deal. He pleaded [i]nolo contendere[/i] to a single charge of tax evasion. The extortion and bribery charges were never prosecuted. He was only fined $10,000 and given 3 years of unsupervised probation. (He eventually paid $172,000.00 in taxes, penalties, and interest to the IRS and Maryland tax authorities, and was disbarred.)

So I can certainly understand the folks running the extradition hearing for Assange [i]feeling like[/i] sticking a thumb in Uncle Sam's eye by denying the extradition of Assange, because of the Harry Dunn case.

However, one of the reasons we [i]have[/i] legal systems is to avoid things like that actually happening. You can't do much about jurors being swayed by emotion (apart from trying not to impanel biased jurors), but if the folks running the courts decide it's all politics and to hell with the law, we're all in trouble.

I doubt the previous admin told the DOJ to bring charges "no matter what." The thinking was probably that, in soliciting and participating in the stealing of classified information, Assange had crossed the line. But they shied away from filing espionage charges. With the current Admin, the thinking might well have been along the lines of "making an example" of Assange. Piling on 17 additional espionage charges may lead to trouble at the extradition hearing. I don't know whether the [i]motives[/i] for bringing charges are a consideration, but if the espionage charges are seen as being essentially political in nature, the request could be in trouble. I don't think the solidity of the case against Assange is a consideration. That's a matter for a jury to decide.

[QUOTE=ewmayer;531447]"Unevidenced" - except by, well, the reality of the case, you mean? I repeat this Craig Murray article that there never was a Swedish arrest warrant
<snip>[/quote]Would this be the nonexistent warrant issued September 27, 2010; the nonexistent bench warrant issued November 18, 2010, and unsuccessfully appealed by Assange through the Swedish courts; or the nonexistent European arrest warrant that was the legal basis for Sweden's extradition request, which was unsuccessfully appealed through the British courts?

I would also point out that your claim there were [i]no[/i] charges is logically inconsistent with your claim of "trumped up" charges.

[QUOTE=kladner;531435]You don't give credence to a person's gender identity. Presumptuous much?[/QUOTE]I keep reverting to Manning's identity as Bradley Manning at the time of the alleged offenses. It was Bradley Manning who was tried, convicted, and sentenced at court martial for stealing the files.

I agree, though, I should have used feminine pronouns for references to Chelsea Manning after the legal name change in 2014.

I hope my thoughtcrime does not merit a lengthy prison sentence, or a long stay in a re-education facility.

I'm as mad as hell, and -- What? I'm a US soldier?
 

[url=https://apnews.com/a0b90a628dc24070a69f584900503c4f]Iran supreme leader claims protests a US-backed `conspiracy'[/url]

[quote]In his comments reported by state media, Khamenei said the Iranian people extinguished "a very dangerous deep conspiracy that cost so much money and effort." He praised the police, the Guard and the Basij for "entering the field and carrying out their task in a very difficult confrontation."

Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state, described the protests as being orchestrated by "global arrogance," which he uses to refer to the U.S. He described America as seeing the price hikes as an "opportunity" to bring their "troops" to the field but the "move was destroyed by people."[/quote]
If Khamenei were merely claiming that the US economic sanctions had necessitated the price hikes, I'd be OK with that. If he further claimed that the riots were a foreseeable consequence of the price hikes, I might wonder why security forces hadn't been deployed before the price hikes took effect, and the price hikes announced in advance.

But here, he's actually claiming that the rioters themselves were agents or "troops brought to the field" by the US. This is patently nonsensical. There were hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets. At least 7,000 have been arrested. Not a US-er among them, it seems.

Khamenei obviously is scapegoating the US for his government's inept handling of the price hikes. It bodes ill for the thousands of arrestees. Nothing like shooting a brigade or two of [strike]civilians[/strike] captured US troops to deter any further [strike]riots by mad-as-hell citizens[/strike] deployments of US troops.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531561]I keep reverting to Manning's identity as Bradley Manning at the time of the alleged offenses. It was Bradley Manning who was tried, convicted, and sentenced at court martial for stealing the files.

I agree, though, I should have used feminine pronouns for references to Chelsea Manning after the legal name change in 2014.

I hope my thoughtcrime does not merit a lengthy prison sentence, or a long stay in a re-education facility.[/QUOTE]
No. It merits no sentence. I function in a hotbed of political correctness at work, especially related to things like gender pronouns. Even with understanding and good intentions it is hard for me to deal with personal pronouns like 'xe,' 'ze,' "xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself and per/pers/perself." I have adapted to 'they, them, theirs' as non gender specific forms which can be singular or plural, though this was a struggle. I come from a family of grammar Nazis, in which such deviant usage would elicit a chorus of corrections. :sirrobin:

[QUOTE=kladner;531608]<snip>
I have adapted to 'they, them, theirs' as non gender specific forms which can be singular or plural, though this was a struggle. I come from a family of grammar Nazis, in which such deviant usage would elicit a chorus of corrections. :sirrobin:[/QUOTE]
The editorial in the June 1989 (I had to look up the date) [b]ANALOG[/b] by Stanley Schmidt was entitled [i]Tools of the Trade[/i], and addressed this issue. Dr. Schmidt pointed out that the male personal pronouns had been used as indefinite or "gender-neutral" pronouns for centuries. Your family's grammar nazis may have endorsed this position. I do. That probably makes me an uncivilized knuckle-dragger, huh?

I'm not sure what the PC crowd has to say about what personal pronoun to use as an indefinite or generic pronoun to describe, say, a future holder of a political office.

I note that "gender neutral" language has crept into legalese. Once upon a time, the person named to execute a deceased person's will was called executor (male) or executrix (female) of the estate. Now, it's "personal representative." What personal pronouns to use in referring to a "personal representative?" I don't know. With the old terms, you did know.

[QUOTE=kladner;531608]I have adapted to 'they, them, theirs' as non gender specific forms which can be singular or plural, though this was a struggle. I come from a family of grammar Nazis, in which such deviant usage would elicit a chorus of corrections. :sirrobin:[/QUOTE]They, etc. has been used for singular indeterminate for centuries. Have your family look into it. I have a family member who didn't like my use of it. I think they have come to understand that it is an appropriate use.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531611]Once upon a time, the [B]person[/B] named to execute a[/QUOTE]

"Perchild", surely.

[QUOTE=xilman;531631][QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531611]Once upon a time, the person named to execute a[/QUOTE]"Perchild", surely.[/QUOTE]
Newspeak certainly has progressed. Doubleplus good duckspeak!

This sort of thing is taking "gender neutrality" to the point of insanity -- to wit, hunting down and killing [i]syllables[/i] that happen to coincide with gender-specific words, regardless of the etymology and meaning of the word under attack. Reminds me of [url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-19-me-20119-story.html]this story[/url] from almost 23 years ago.

Oh, the humanity! Oh, wait. That word is also abolished in Newspeak.

Perhaps we need to get the PC language police and the purveyors of [url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservative_correctness]Conservative correctness[/url] together and let them all kill each other.

[QUOTE]This sort of thing is taking "gender neutrality" to the point of insanity -- to wit, hunting down and killing [I]syllables[/I] that happen to coincide with gender-specific words, regardless of the etymology and meaning of the word under attack. Reminds me of [URL="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-19-me-20119-story.html"]this story[/URL] from almost 23 years ago.[/QUOTE]
Jeez Loueez! My birthplace has some demented folks in it. My family was in Kingsville because my dad was doing oil exploration work on the Ranch for Humble Oil. By the time I was born he had been transferred to boats operating out of Galveston, and was commuting on a 14 day schedule.

In thinking about how to deal with an unsavory character accomplishing great things, prompted by some recent discussion on this Forum, I recalled a movie I had watched with my mom on TV while I was taking care of her. She had told me it was going to be on, and I would probably enjoy it. I did.

So, the other day, I went about looking it up on line. It proved difficult because, although I remembered the story line, I couldn't remember the movie's title or the names of any of the characters. But I finally succeeded. And learned it was an adaptation of a short story by James Thurber, who was one of my mom's favorite authors. I'm sure she recognized the movie title, which was of course the same as the story title. The story was [url=http://wamogoheromonster.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/57891113/GreatestManText.pdf]The Greatest Man in the World[/url], and was first published in the February 21, 1931 issue of [b][i]The New Yorker[/i][/b].

Enjoy!

As The OPCW Is Accused Of False Reporting U.S. Propaganda Jumps To Its Help
 

-by Moon of Alabama
[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52650.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE]An international organization published two false reports and got caught in the act. But as the false reports are in the U.S. interests a U.S. sponsored propaganda organization is send out to muddle the issue. As that effort comes under fire the New York Times jumps in to give the cover-up effort some extra help.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) manufactured a pretext for war by suppressing its own scientists' research:

OPCW emails and documents were leaked and whistleblowers came forward to speak with journalists and international lawyers. Veteran journalist Jonathan Steele, who has spoken with the whistleblowers, wrote an excellent piece on the issues. In the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens picked up the issue and moved it forward.

Under U.S. pressure the OPCW management modified or suppressed the findings of its own scientists to make it look as if the Syrian government had been responsible for the alleged chemical incident in April 2018 in Douma.

The public attention to the OPCW's fakery lead to the questioning of other assertions the OPCW had previously made. With the OPCW under fire someone had come to its help.

To save the propaganda value of the OPCW reports the U.S. financed Bellingcat propaganda organization jumped in to save the OPCW's bacon. Bellingcat founder "suck my balls" Elliot Higgins claimed that the OPCW reports satisfied the concerns the OPCW scientist had voiced.

That assertion is now further propagated by a New York Times piece which, under the pretense of reporting about open source analysis, boosts Bellingcat and its defense of the OPCW:[INDENT] The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games, which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
[/INDENT][/QUOTE]