In his inauguration address Monday, President Obama proclaimed that a “decade of war is now ending.” Mere hours earlier, a U.S. drone dropped missiles over Yemen, killing two al-Qaida militants as part of an intensified airstrike campaign which began last month.It has been well-established in reports (like those from the Washington Post’s Greg Miller) that the Obama administration has set up a national security apparatus ensuring, contra the president’s words Monday, a perpetual war. Obama’s speech may have been referring to the withdrawal of troops form Iraq or the winding down of U.S. military leadership in Afghanistan, but an increasingly militarized CIA and the perpetuation of shadow wars in Yemen and Somalia, to name just two, let alone the U.S. funds and arms sent around the world to bolster or undermine regimes as U.S. interests dictate, make talk of ending war a semantic gamble at best.Continue Reading… … Read More
Obama administration hiding info on targeted killings of Americans – senator
Department of Justice, US (Reuters)A US senator has accused the Obama administration and the Justice Department for not being “adequately forthcoming” with information on the targeting and potential killing of Americans suspected of terrorism.Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon and a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote an open letter to John Brennan, the frontrunner for the post of Director of the CIA, asking Brennan to provide Congress with the secret legal opinions defining the government’s capacity to pursue and kill US citizens suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by law have access to classified legal opinions – but, Wyden writes, the Obama administration has denied him access to the opinions governing targeted assassinations of American citizens.Wyden stressed that it is vital that the legal opinions guiding such conduct be distributed so that Congress and the public can “have full knowledge of how the executive branch understands the limits and boundaries of this authority,” the letter reads.Wyden has tried for more than two years to gain access to the information, but has received either unsatisfactory responses or no response at all. Now, he wants the
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information before Brennan’s confirmation hearing before the Senate. He has also asked for written assurance that future legal opinions related to the surveillance and assassination of American citizens be provided to the country’s lawmakers.“For the executive branch to claim that intelligence agencies have the authority to knowingly kill American citizens but refuse to provide Congress with any and all legal opinions that explain the executive branch’s understanding of this authority represents an alarming and indefensible assertion of executive prerogative,” Wyden’s letter reads.The senator has also requested a list of countries in which the intelligence community has used its “lethal counterterrorism authorities,” saying that the committee has the right to know “countries where United States intelligence agencies have killed or attempted to kill people. The fact that this request was denied reflects poorly on the Obama Administration’s commitment to cooperation with congressional oversight,” the letter continues.He also asks Brennan to prepare to discuss a massive recent Senate Intelligence Report on the CIA’s torture techniques and interrogation methods. Wyden seems to be particularly interested in hearing about why the CIA “repeatedly provided inaccurate information about its interrogation program to the White House, the Justice Department, and Congress.”Brennan is chief counterterrorism advisor to President Obama, who nominated Brennan as his next director of the Central Intelligence Agency on January 7, 2013. Brennan now faces a Senate confirmation. … Read More
The complicated relationship between “Zero Dark Thirty” and the CIA
Although the Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating the nature of the relationship between the CIA and the filmmakers of “Zero Dark Thirty,” the 2012 movie that depicts its ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden, Buzzfeed reporter Michael Hastings is sure they’ll find something– but claims it won’t matter.Since bin Laden was killed, many feared the Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow thriller would promote Obama as a hero, essentially becoming propaganda. This isn’t how it turned out, but Hastings argues that the film “picks up where the cheers from the Obama rallies died off,” saying, that it instead “lets the men and women of the Central Intelligence Agency play the protagonists with the true claim to Bin Laden’s scalp.” He explains:Continue Reading… … Read More
Senators want details on CIA help for Bin Laden film
Three powerful US senators are demanding that the CIA provide details on the spy agency’s cooperation with the director of “Zero Dark Thirty,” Hollywood’s take on the hunt for Osama bin Laden. In two letters sent to acting CIA director Michael Morell and released Thursday,…
Americans have a right to see CIA torture report
Americans have known for years both the broad outlines and some of the disgusting details of the George W. Bush … Read More
Report finds harsh CIA interrogations ineffective
After a contentious closed-door vote, the Senate intelligence committee approved a long-awaited report Thursday concluding that harsh interrogation measures used … Read More
Congress outraged by the secrecy behind Obama’s drone war
Combat drone, known as “Neuron” (AFP Photo)Members of the US Congress convened in Washington on Thursday to discuss the United States’ ongoing extrajudicial slayings of Americans and foreigners overseas using unmanned drones.On Capitol Hill, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) led a House Judiciary Committee discussion that demanded more transparency from President Barack Obama over how his administration carries out the targeted killing of suspected terrorists using drone aircraft, an increasingly likely tactic in America’s war on terror that has left a substantial death toll that includes perhaps hundreds of civilians, including women, children and US civilians. Despite the growing number of kills, the White House has remained mostly quiet on its drone program, with the lions’ share of information only surfacing through intelligence leaks made to the media. On the record, Pres. Obama and his administration has said little about the program, aside from defending it. In Washington this week, opponents of that policy asked for something more.”This is the first real discussion this committee has had on the topic of drone strikes,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York) said during the hearing, Huffington Post reports.According to HuffPo, members of Congress have been adamant about getting answers from the White House. Despite repeated demands, however, hardly any information has been sent to the Capitol Building from the oval office.”We’re just waiting for a response,” Nadler told HuffPo after the hearing. “They’ve showed us some things, but inadequately.”When debates wrapped up on Thursday, Rep. Kucinich issued a statement from his office announcing a proposed resolution that would require the Obama administration to provide the legal basis for the drone strikes.“Despite the committee’s decision to report the resolution unfavorably, the committee engaged in a timely and important debate on the use of drones abroad and the violation of the constitutional rights of US citizens that are targeted abroad,” said the congressman.“Our policies create a dangerous legal precedent that other nations will emulate. As the combat drone program continues to be expanded, it is critical that Congress weigh in,” said Kucinich. “Today, Congress demonstrated that our foreign policy will not be conducted absent congressional review.”In February, US Defense Department lawyer Jeh Johnson defended the drone strikes, saying, “Under well-settled legal principles, lethal force against a valid military objective, in an armed conflict, is consistent with the law of war and does not, by definition, constitute an ‘assassination.’”One month later, Attorney General Eric Holder also justified the extrajudicial killings, going on record to say, “the US government’s use of lethal force in self-defense against a leader of al-Qaeda or an associated force who presents an imminent threat of violent attack would not be unlawful — and therefore would not violate the Executive Order banning assassination or criminal statutes.”In Washington this week, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Virginia) condemned the lack of transparency within the program. “But there is no process to make sure you’ve got the facts right. There’s no way to cross-examine the evidence. And no way to file an appeal,” he said. “My concern is not why drones are used, or when drones a
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re used but the legal authority for the use of drones,” added Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas). “I hope the committee will use this opportunity to take the issue up.” … Read More
