Spanish Inquiry of Alleged Bush-Era War Crimes

On Monday February 15 in Madrid, Judge Baltasar Garzon will convene an investigation of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity allegedly committed by U.S. government officials and others during the Bush administration.

The first witness called to testify will reportedly be American international human rights lawyer Dr. William F. Pepper.  Dr. Pepper, who convened the International Human Rights Seminar at Oxford University, stated that he was, “asked by the Court to file an Opinion and testify as an expert on the issue of jurisdiction of the Spanish Court with respect to the various crimes being alleged.”  He may also testify as to his opinion on the validity, or invalidity, of the most likely defenses to be offered by defendants should criminal charges result, namely ‘Sovereign Immunity’ and ‘Superior Orders’ (more commonly known as ‘The Nuremberg Defense’).

In his Opinion submitted to the Court last spring, Pepper concluded:

“… from the U.S. government’s own documents and the public statements of its leaders, that there is prima facie evidence of the following crimes:

• Torture and the Conspiracy to Commit Torture
• War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
• Waging Aggressive War
• Illegal (Arbitrary) Detention

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Series of missteps by climate scientists threatens climate-change agenda

By Juliet Eilperin and David A. Fahrenthold
Washington Post
February 15, 2010

With its 2007 report declaring that the "warming of the climate system is unequivocal," the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won a Nobel Prize -- and a new degree of public trust in the controversial science of global warming.

But recent revelations about flaws in that seminal report, ranging from typos in key dates to sloppy sourcing, are undermining confidence not only in the panel's work but also in projections about climate change. Scientists who have pointed out problems in the report say the panel's methods and mistakes -- including admitting Saturday that it had overstated how much of the Netherlands was below sea level -- give doubters an opening.

It wasn't the first one. There is still a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change. But in the past year, a cache of stolen e-mails, revealing that prominent climate scientists sought to prevent the publication of works by their detractors, has sullied their image as impartial academics. The errors in the U.N. report -- a document intended to be the last nail in the coffin of climate doubt -- are a serious problem that could end up forcing environmentalists to focus more on the old question of proving that climate change is a threat, instead of the new question of how to stop it.

Two Republican senators who have long opposed a cap on carbon emissions, James M. Inhofe (Okla.) and John Barrasso (Wyo.), are citing the errors as further reasons to block mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

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The Economic Elite Have Engineered an Extraordinary Coup, Threatening the Very Existence of the Middle Class

We all have very strong differences of opinion on many issues. However, like our founding fathers before us, we must put aside our differences and unite to fight a common enemy.

It has now become evident to a critical mass that the Republican and Democratic parties, along with all three branches of our government, have been bought off by a well-organized Economic Elite who are tactically destroying our way of life. The harsh truth is that 99 percent of the U.S. population no longer has political representation. The U.S. economy, government and tax system is now blatantly rigged against us.

Current statistical societal indicators clearly demonstrate that a strategic attack has been launched and an analysis of current governmental policies prove that conditions for 99 percent of Americans will continue to deteriorate. The Economic Elite have engineered a financial coup and have brought war to our doorstep...and make no mistake, they have launched a war to eliminate the U.S. middle class.

To those who feel I am using extreme rhetoric, I ask you to please take a few minutes of your time to hear me out and research the evidence put forth. The facts are there for the unprejudiced, rational and reasoned mind to absorb. It is the unfortunate reality of our current crisis.

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Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

NY TIMES

Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hide their mounting debts.

As worries over Greece rattle world markets, records and interviews show that with Wall Street’s help, the nation engaged in a decade-long effort to skirt European debt limits. One deal created by Goldman Sachs helped obscure billions in debt from the budget overseers in Brussels.

Even as the crisis was nearing the flashpoint, banks were searching for ways to help Greece forestall the day of reckoning. In early November — three months before Athens became the epicenter of global financial anxiety — a team from Goldman Sachs arrived in the ancient city with a very modern proposition for a government struggling to pay its bills, according to two people who were briefed on the meeting.

The bankers, led by Goldman’s president, Gary D. Cohn, held out a financing instrument that would have pushed debt from Greece’s health care system far into the future, much as when strapped homeowners take out second mortgages to pay off their credit cards.

It had worked before. In 2001, just after Greece was admitted to Europe’s monetary union, Goldman helped the government quietly borrow billions, people familiar with the transaction said.

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Will Obama's Record War Budget Lead to a US Victory in Afghanistan? Don't Bet On it!

President Barack Obama has increased the Pentagon's perennially-bloated annual spending spree to its greatest magnitude since World War II $708 billion. Congress eventually will overwhelmingly approve Obama's war budget request for fiscal year 2011, which takes effect in October. 

The Obama administration's funding recommendation was announced Feb. 1. The next day Reuters reported that "Shares of major U.S. defense contractors rose on Monday after the Obama administration unveiled a defense budget... that seeks a 3.4 percent increase in the Pentagon's base budget and $159 billion to fund missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan." 

Also released Feb. 1 was the Pentagon's Congressionally-mandated Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which calls for a considerable expansion of U.S. military power, especially in bolstering counterinsurgency and counterterrorism campaigns. 

The QDR is a strategic guide for America's present and future wars, updated every four years. The new version remains based on an interventionist foreign/military policy that has not changed in essence since the early Cold War years. 

As described by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the 2011 war budget reflects the QDR's call for "rebalancing America's defense posture by emphasizing capabilities needed to prevail in current conflicts, while enhancing capabilities that may be needed in the future." 

In addition to the Pentagon request, President Obama also seeks a supplementary $33 billion this year for "Overseas Contingency Operations," the bureaucratically bland title chosen to replace the Bush Administration's "War on Terrorism."

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The Media Response to the Growing Influence of the 9/11 Truth Movement

In the past year, in response to emerging independent science on the 9/11 attacks, nine corporate, seven public, and two independent media outlets aired analytic programs investigating the official account.

Increasingly, the issue is treated as a scientific controversy worthy of debate, rather than as a "conspiracy theory" ignoring science and common sense.

This essay presents these media analyses in the form of 18 case studies.

Eight countries – Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Russia – have allowed their publicly-owned broadcasting stations to air the full spectrum of evidence challenging the truth of the official account of 9/11.

This more open approach taken in the international media – I could also have included the Japanese media – might be a sign that worldwide public and corporate media organizations are positioning themselves, and preparing their audiences, for a possible revelation of the truth of the claim that forces within the US government were complicit in the attacks – a revelation that would call into question the publicly given rationale for the military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The evidence now being explored in the international media may pave the way for the US media to take an in-depth look at the implications of what is now known about 9/11, and to re-examine the country's foreign and domestic policies in the light of this knowledge.

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World may not be warming, say scientists

The United Nations climate panel faces a new challenge with scientists casting doubt on its claim that global temperatures are rising inexorably because of human pollution.

In its last assessment the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said the evidence that the world was warming was “unequivocal”.

It warned that greenhouse gases had already heated the world by 0.7C and that there could be 5C-6C more warming by 2100, with devastating impacts on humanity and wildlife. However, new research, including work by British scientists, is casting doubt on such claims. Some even suggest the world may not be warming much at all.

“The temperature records cannot be relied on as indicators of global change,” said John Christy, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a former lead author on the IPCC.

The doubts of Christy and a number of other researchers focus on the thousands of weather stations around the world, which have been used to collect temperature data over the past 150 years.

These stations, they believe, have been seriously compromised by factors such as urbanisation, changes in land use and, in many cases, being moved from site to site.

Christy has published research papers looking at these effects in three different regions: east Africa, and the American states of California and Alabama.

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Did American set up Poona attack?

London Times

The attack on Poona will again raise questions over the role of David Coleman Headley, an American who went from being a American government informer to an alleged reconnaissance agent for the group that carried out the Mumbai attacks in 2008.

Mr Headley, 49, had visited the area of Poona devastated by Saturday’s blast at least twice while checking out potential terrorist targets – most recently in March 2009 – Indian officials allege.

He was born in Washington to a Pakistan diplomat father and an American mother. He was arrested in Chicago in October last year, accused of reconnoitring targets in India and Europe for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terrorist group behind the Mumbai attacks and of having links to al-Qaeda. He has denied the charges.

Mr Headey came to the attention of the US security services in 1997 when he was arrested for heroin smuggling in New York. He earned a reduced sentence by working for the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) by infiltrating Pakistan-linked narcotics gangs.

Indian investigators, who have been denied access to Mr Headley, suspect he remained on the payroll of the US security services, but switched his allegiance to LeT. "India is looking into whether Headley worked as a double agent," an Indian home ministry official said in December.

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AE911Truth is holding a major press conference on Feb 19th

As of January 2010, over 1,000 architects and engineers have signed our petition demanding a truly independent investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11. This petition, along with AE911Truth literature and DVDs, will be presented to every Member of Congress on the same day by the 14,000 active supporters of AE911Truth. 

To underscore the importance of this milestone achievement, AE911Truth is launching a massive publicity campaign world-wide and holding a major Press Conference in San Francisco, California on February 19, 2010 followed by an informative Keynote Luncheon to include David Ray Griffin and Steven Jones. We will also host a strategy and team development conference featuring our Architect and Engineer petition signers - many of whom will be flying in to San Francisco to join us. All petition signers are now welcome and encouraged to attend this very important mini-conference. 

This will be a day of events that you won't want to miss!

• DATE:    February 19, 2010

• TIME:    11am – 6pm

• PLACE:  Marines' Memorial Club & Hotel,
               609 Sutter St.
               San Francisco, CA 

PROGRAM:

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9/11: voteforanswersnh.com

Voters in Hanover and Stoddard, which have later deadlines, will file their petitions in the next few weeks to bring the total to 12 towns. Most towns will have their town meetings on March 9, while Hanover, Stoddard and Peterborough will have them on May 11.

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A second Texas Governor candidate also ‘not sure’ on 9/11

Infowars

There is now a second candidate for Governor in Texas who was “caught” in not immediately dismissing 9/11 truth when asked about the subject. Should Democratic candidate for Texas Governor Farouk Shami also be handed over to a sort of Inquisition for those who don’t accept 9/11 orthodoxy?

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NATO rockets miss target, kill 12 Afghan civilians

MARJAH, Afghanistan – Twelve Afghans died Sunday when two rockets fired at insurgents missed their target and struck a house during the second day of NATO's most ambitious effort yet to break the militants' grip on the country's dangerous south.

In the town of Marjah, the focal point of the operation, Marines and Afghan troops battled through sniper fire and an afternoon sandstorm Sunday that cut down their visibility to a few feet.

They tried to advance through the town, clearing houses one-by-one of explosives. But gunfire forced them numerous times to take cover in drab mudbrick compounds that they hadn't yet cleared of booby-traps. To the north, U.S. Army troops fought skirmishes with Taliban fighters, calling in a Cobra attack helicopter against the insurgents.

NATO said two rockets from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System were aimed at insurgents firing on Afghan and NATO forces, but struck 1,000 feet (300 meters) off their intended target. The rockets struck a house, killing 12 civilians, NATO said.

The civilian deaths were a blow to NATO and the Afghan government's attempts to win the allegiance of Afghans and get them to turn away from the insurgents.

"We deeply regret this tragic loss of life," said Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan. "The current operation in central Helmand is aimed at restoring security and stability to this vital area of Afghanistan. It's regrettable that in the course of our joint efforts, innocent lives were lost."

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Paul Craig Roberts: The U.S. is a Police State

Russia Today

The US now has a list of Americans that the country can now murder abroad if they are fraternizing with terror groups. Paul Craig Roberts says that all of this points to a sign that the United States has become a police state.

US banks facing $1.4tn crisis over commercial property loans

America's fragile high street banks are bracing themselves for a fresh financial crunch as a wave of commercial property mortgages go sour on offices, shops and factories, causing losses of up to $300bn (£192bn) hitting nearly 3,000 small- and medium-sized financial institutions.

A congressional oversight panel charged with scrutinising the Obama administration's bailout efforts has warned that $1.4tn of loans covering commercial premises will reach maturity between 2011 and 2014. After a plunge in property prices, nearly half of these loans are underwater, with borrowers owing more than their underlying property is worth.

An analysis by the panel found that 2,988 of America's 8,100 banks have potentially dangerous exposure to commercial property loans. The impact could damage hopes of a US economic recovery and could cause a further squeeze in the availability of credit to consumers and businesses.

"Are we arguing that this is a serious problem that we need to get in front of? The answer is yes," said Elizabeth Warren, chairman of the oversight panel. "It's like throwing a handful of sand into the economic recovery."

She said that if banks see that their commercial property liabilities are mounting, they will hold back on lending elsewhere: "They'll tend to husband their money so that it's not available for small business loans."

Although Wall Street banks have made a swift recovery as shares and bond markets look ahead to a long-term economic recovery, prospects remain cloudy for small-town institutions in the US heartland, hit by ongoing credit card defaults and unemployment among customers. Last year, 140 US banks failed and had to be rescued by federal regulators. Already this year, 16 have been seized by the authorities, a rate that points to a similarly high total in 2010.

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Israel is accused of waging covert war across the Middle East

LONDON TIMES

Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.

Israeli agents have been targeting meetings between members of Hamas and the leadership of the militant Hezbollah group, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging assassinations across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

The current spate of killings began in December when a “tourist bus” carrying Iranian officials and Hamas members exploded outside Damascus. The official report by Syria claimed that a tyre had exploded but photographs surfaced showing the charred remains of the vehicle — prompting speculation that a much larger explosion had taken place.

Several weeks later a meeting between members of Hamas, which controls Gaza, and their counterparts from Hezbollah in its southern Beirut stronghold in Lebanon was also attacked, resulting in several deaths.

Hamas had sought to cover up the incidents because it was embarrassed, a senior Palestinian official in Ramallah told The Times.

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Storm grows over MI5 allegations

The political storm over allegations of MI5 complicity in torture escalated tonight after Alan Johnson, the home secretary, accused the media of publishing "groundless accusations" and commentators of spreading "ludicrous lies" about the Security Service.

As defence lawyers prepared to challenge the government's success in suppressing severe criticism of MI5 officers made by one of Britain's most senior judges, the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, pointed the finger at the "very top of government" saying senior ministers had probably known about claims of Britain's involvement in torture but failed to take action to stop it.

The home secretary's intervention came as Kim Howells, the chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), came out in support of Jonathan Evans, the director general of MI5, dismissing any suggestion that he had been misled by the Security Service. He said he had seen no evidence that MI5 had colluded in torture.

That is at the centre of this week's appeal court ruling, which disclosed CIA-based intelligence showing that MI5 knew that British resident Binyam Mohamed had been subjected to treatment "at the very least cruel, inhuman, and degrading".

The appeal court, presided over by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, also referred to a recent US court case where the judge vindicated Mohamed's claims that "UK authorities" had been "involved in and facilitated the ill-treatment and torture" to which he was subjected while under the control of the US.

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Top UK judges find US and Britain guilty of torture

The Appeal Court in Britain this week rejected efforts by the Foreign Office to suppress seven paragraphs of a report drawn up by British judges in August 2008, based on their access to more than 40 US intelligence documents. The paragraphs, now published in redacted form on the Foreign Office web site, find that Binyam Mohamed, a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner, was subjected to treatment that “could readily be contended to be at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the United States authorities.” 

The posted document also states: “The treatment reported, if had been administered on behalf of the United Kingdom, would clearly have been in breach of the undertakings given by the United Kingdom in 1972.”

Ethiopian-born Mohamed, a British resident, was arrested in Pakistan on April 10, 2002 as he was about to board a flight to Britain. After being imprisoned and tortured in Pakistan, he was turned over to the FBI.

A victim of extraordinary rendition at the hands of the CIA, he was flown to Morocco, where he was again tortured, including being slashed with scalpels or razor blades on his chest and penis. He was then moved to Afghanistan, where he was frequently tortured in the infamous “Dark Prison” before being finally detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

There he was held for four years, again suffering torture and abuse. He was released in February 2009 without charge, after nearly seven years in prison.

Mohamed is suing the British government on the grounds that the M15 intelligence agency was complicit in his torture and provided questions and information to his interrogators.

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White House projects long-term mass unemployment

The White House Council of Economic Advisers released its Economic Report to the President on Thursday, outlining the administration’s economic projections and policies. The report shows that the White House is expecting mass unemployment to continue for years, with only minor decreases from the current rate of nearly 10 percent through 2012. 

According to the report, the official unemployment rate—which does not include those who have given up looking for work—will remain at 10 percent this year, slightly higher than its current 9.7 percent. In 2011, it is expected to fall to 9.2 percent, and in 2012 to 8.2 percent. Official unemployment is not expected to fall below 6 percent until 2015, and will remain above 5 percent through 2020.

The projections are in fact optimistic. They are based on the assumption that real GDP will grow by 3.0 percent this year (4^th quarter to 4^th quarter), and 4.3 percent in 2011. This compares to real GDP growth of -1.9 percent in 2008 and -0.5 percent in 2009.

The administration notes in a side comment that the high unemployment will keep wages low, stating, “Traditionally, the large amount of slack would be expected to put substantial downward pressure on wage and price inflation.”

The proposals that the report outlines to address the crisis are derisory, focusing largely on tax breaks, continuing the administration’s policy of rejecting any direct government hiring. High unemployment makes “a compelling case for additional measures to spur private sector job creation,” the report states.

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Blackwater Accused of Cheating Government

Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security contractor of defrauding the government for years through phony billing, including charging taxpayers for alcohol-filled parties, spa trips and a prostitute.

In court records unsealed this week, a husband and wife who worked for Blackwater said they have firsthand knowledge of the company falsifying invoices, double-billing federal agencies and improperly charging the government for personal expenses. They said they witnessed "systematic" fraud in the company's security contracts with the State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan, and with the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina.

Blackwater is the State Department's largest security contractor, and a State Department spokesman said Thursday that his agency and the Justice Department reviewed the allegations in 2008, when the lawsuit was filed under seal in federal court in Virginia. The spokesman, P.J. Crowley, could not determine what came of the review.

Brad Davis, a former Marine, served as a Blackwater team leader and security guard, including in Iraq. His wife, Melan Davis, worked as a finance and payroll employee, starting in Louisiana. Their lawsuit was filed under the False Claims Act, which allows whistle-blowers to win a portion of any money the government recovers as a result of the information. However, the Justice Department has chosen not to join them in pursuing their lawsuit, a decision that led to the suit being unsealed this week.

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Guantanamo Detainee Deaths: Responding To The DOD Whitewash

On December 7, 2009, under the direction of Professor Mark Denbeaux, Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy & Research (CP&R) published its 15th GITMO report titled, "Death in Camp Delta," covering three simultaneous deaths on June 9, 2006 in the maximum security Alpha Block. The detainees were found hanged in separate cells shortly after midnight on June 10, unobserved for at least two hours, rags stuffed down their throats, despite constant surveillance by five guards responsible for 28 inmates in a lit cell block monitored by video cameras. One of them was scheduled for release in 19 days, so why would he commit suicide?

The report found "dramatic flaws in the government's investigation (and) raise(s) serious questions about the security of the Camp (and) derelictions of duty by officials of multiple defense and intelligence agencies," who either let them die or killed them, then whitewashed the investigation to suppress it.

DOD responded, adding to the coverup, CP&R saying:

"The Center has found DOD's defense contradictory to, and inconsistent with, DOD's prior statement in its Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) report."

According to Professor Mark Denbeaux:

"Amazingly, some of DOD's statements purporting to defend the NCIS investigation actually impeach it; others are irrelevant or misdirected.

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