Author Archives: News Sources

Sky scheduled to fall in seven days

Michael Cohen writes: On 1 March, the most dreaded word in Washington will become a fiscal reality – sequestration. Just those four syllables are enough to send chills up the spine. The across-the-board spending cuts will impact a host of federal agencies, but especially the Defense Department. It will become the law of the land, plunging the nation into a bleak, dystopian future in which (possibly) the rivers will boil over, locusts will consume the nation’s agricultural bounty, and cats will sleep with dogs. America will almost overnight be reduced to a second-rate power, quickly to be overrun by hordes of foreign insurgents empowered by America’s retreat from the global stage.

Obviously, I am exaggerating. But only sort of. If you listen to American’s military leaders talk about the impact of sequestration, you might be convinced that, in fact, the sky is falling.

According to the nation’s highest-ranking soldier, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey (pdf), sequestration will “put the nation at greater risk of coercion”. This is actually tame when compared to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s prediction that sequestration would “invite aggression”. His deputy, Ashton Carter calls sequestration and the possibility of a year-long continuing resolution to fund military operation as “twin evils” (pdf). In the words of Chuck Hagel, the man likely to replace Panetta, the spending reductions would “devastate” the military.

The uniformed military is no less ominous in its warnings. Admiral Jonathan Greenert, head of US Naval Operations, says the cuts will “dramatically reduce: (pdf) our overseas presence; our ability to respond to crises; our efforts to counter terrorism and illicit trafficking” and “may irreversibly damage the military industrial base”. General James Amos, Commandant of the Marin Corps goes even further (pdf), in warning that a failure to properly resource the military will put the “continued prosperity and security interests” of the United States at risk.

This is threat-mongering that gives threat-mongering a bad name. While one can reasonably argue that sequestration is a brain-dead method of cutting Pentagon spending (it is) the rhetoric of the Joint Chiefs is so over the top it should give every American pause – not only in its confidence about the supposed adaptability of our armed forces, but also in the unseemly public relations game being played here. [Continue reading…]

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The Washington Post’s dubious story on Iran ‘centrifuge’ magnets

Yousaf Butt at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists writes: Last week, the Washington Post reported that “purchase orders obtained by nuclear researchers show an attempt by Iranian agents to buy 100,000 … ring-shaped magnets” and that such “highly specialized magnets used in centrifuge machines … [are] a sign that the country may be planning a major expansion of its nuclear program.” As evidence, the Post’s Joby Warrick cited a report authored by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS); dated Feb. 13, the report says that an Iranian firm, Jahan Tech Rooyan Pars Co., made an inquiry “posted on a Chinese commercial website … to buy 100,000 ring magnets.” As Warrick goes on to explain: “it is unclear whether the attempt succeeded.”

There are serious deficiencies in both the Washington Post story and the assertions in the ISIS report. Given that issues of war and peace may hang on the veracity of such claims, the assertions warrant careful scrutiny.

The magnets in question have many uses besides centrifuges and are not only, as Warrick describes them, “highly specialized magnets used in centrifuge machines.” Such ceramic ring magnets are everyday items and have been used in loudspeakers, for example, for more than half a century. The ISIS report neglects to explain the many other applications for such ceramic ring magnets and jumps to the conclusion that the inquiry is surely related to Iran’s nuclear program. Why ISIS does not offer alternate and more plausible applications of these unspecialized magnets is a puzzle. Such magnets are used in a variety of electronic equipment. For instance, one vendor outlines some of the various possible uses in speakers, direct current brushless motors, and magnetic resonance imaging equipment.

This is not the first time ring magnets have surfaced in allegations related to centrifuge applications. Almost exactly a decade ago, as the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, then-director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei said that reports regarding similar ring magnets in Iraq were unrelated to centrifuges: [Continue reading…]

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The battle for Damascus grinds on

Goran Tomasevic reports: Rebel fighters in Damascus are disciplined, skilled and brave.

In a month on the frontline, I saw them defend a swathe of suburbs in the Syrian capital, mount complex mass attacks, manage logistics, treat their wounded – and die before my eyes.

But as constant, punishingly accurate, mortar, tank and sniper fire attested, President Bashar al-Assad’s soldiers on the other side, often just a room or a grenade toss away, are also well drilled, courageous – and much better armed.

So while the troops were unable to dislodge brigades of the Free Syrian Army from devastated and depopulated neighborhoods just east of the city centre – and indeed made little effort to do so – there seems little immediate prospect of the rebels overrunning Assad’s stronghold. The result is bloody stalemate.

I watched both sides mount assaults, some trying to gain just a house or two, others for bigger prizes, only to be forced back by sharpshooters, mortars or sprays of machinegun fire.

As in the ruins of Beirut, Sarajevo or Stalingrad, it is a sniper’s war; men stalk their fellow man down telescopic sights, hunting a glimpse of flesh, an eyeball peering from a crack, use lures and decoys to draw their prey into giving themselves away. [Continue reading…]

David Rohde writes: The Obama administration’s policy toward Syria is a failure. Iran, Hezbollah and Russia are funneling more aid, armaments and diplomatic cover to Bashar al-Assad. And Syrian rebels who once hailed the United States now loathe it.

Across the country, pro-Assad forces use airplanes, Scud ballistic missiles and artillery to level rebel controlled neighborhoods. While Syrian insurgents fight with the tragi-comic “D.I.Y. weapons” displayed in this Atlantic slide show.

In an incisive essay published this week in the London Review of Books, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, a journalist with the Guardian, described the continued atomization of the Syrian opposition. Abdul-Ahad, an Iraqi who covered the dissolution of his own nation, freely admits that “we in the Middle East have always had a strong appetite for factionalism.” But then he delivers a damning description of how prevarication in Washington creates deepening anti-Americanism among the rebels.

“Why are the Americans doing this to us?” one rebel commander demands. “They told us they wouldn’t send us weapons until we united. So we united in Doha. Now what’s their excuse?”

In the meantime, hard-line jihadists and their funders in the Persian Gulf are filling the void.

“Maybe we should all become jihadis,” the exasperated commander declares. “Maybe then we’ll get money and support.”

The time has come for the Obama administration to mount a new policy in Syria. But don’t expect one anytime soon.

In an interview on Thursday, a senior administration official played down a report in the The New York Times Monday that President Barack Obama might reconsider arming Syria’s opposition. The official confirmed that Obama rejected a proposal last year from four of his top national security advisers that the U.S. arm the rebels.

But he said a subsequent review by American intelligence officials had concluded that only a large infusion of sophisticated weaponry would tip the military balance against the Assad regime.

“We have to assess what it would take to change the calculus,” the official said, “and hasten the transition.”

Repeating prior arguments, the official said the administration opposed supplying the rebels with anti-aircraft missiles out of concern that the weapons could fall into the hands of jihadists.

“God forbid a U.S. weapon be used to strike an Israeli passenger plane or land in Israel,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

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Young children detained and tortured after protests in Egypt

The Independent reports: Hundreds of children – some as young as nine – have been illegally detained and in many cases tortured by the Egyptian police following the protests which erupted after the second anniversary of the 2011 uprising.

In what lawyers and activists say is a retrenchment of state brutality akin to the worst abuses of power during Hosni Mubarak’s regime, large numbers of children have been unlawfully imprisoned in camps used by Egypt’s central security forces.

Rights groups say that many of those detained have been subjected to cruel mistreatment, including beatings, electrocution and “hanging” torture. Others were forced by their tormentors to strip naked before being drenched with cold water.

One lawyer said he believed that up to 400 children, many of them barely teenagers, may have been rounded up during police operations following the outbreak of street clashes on 25 January, the anniversary of Egypt’s rebellion two years ago. [Continue reading…]

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Dubai torture allegations: Britain puts economic interest before citizens

Nesrine Malik writes: On a Cambridge University panel on the future of the Arab spring late last year, I nodded and agreed wholeheartedly as a fellow panellist criticised the west’s complicity with fallen Arab dictators, citing the sale of arms to Middle Eastern despots as an indicator of the west’s apathy towards poor human rights records in the region. After rapturous applause, a retired British diplomat in the audience raised his hand, and politely proceeded to dampen the speaker’s moral indignation by stating that the UK was in a difficult situation. Diplomacy, he said, was a far less black and white affair. He pointed out that lucrative military and oil contracts sold to the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Gulf provided, especially in a time of recession, both much-needed revenue for the state and employment opportunities in the UK.

He acknowledged that human rights abuses in an ideal world should be a primary concern for the west, but said that there were more immediate needs that subordinate such crimes. He even went on to suggest that selling arms, and generally putting trade first in this context, was patriotic – fulfilling a country’s duty to look out for the interest of its citizens. Put starkly, would you take food off British tables to uphold a moral cause abroad?

The extremes of this diplomatic tension occurred in stark uncomfortable proximity this week. The human rights charity Reprieve yesterday claimed that three British tourists arrested for the possession of a synthetic form of cannabis, who have been in custody in the UAE for seven months, had been tortured. Speaking on BBC Radio 4 this morning, the father of one of the three detainees detailed the extent of the mistreatment they endured. A spokesperson for the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed it had been providing “consular assistance” and added the usual “The FCO takes all allegations of mistreatment and torture extremely seriously”. If this is how seriously the British foreign office takes the alleged torture of its own citizens, spare a thought for those non-western prisoners and expats without such representation.

Meanwhile, it was announced two days ago that the UAE had purchased $1.4bn worth of military defence contracts, including drones, from the US. Last year, David Cameron visited the country peddling Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jets in a deal apparently worth over £3bn. [Continue reading…]

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If Beijing was going to threaten the United States with a cyberattack, how would it do it?

Fred Kaplan writes: The New York Times’ front-page report this week that the Chinese army is hacking into America’s most sensitive computer networks from a 12-story building outside Shanghai might finally persuade skeptics that the threat of “cyber warfare” isn’t the fevered fantasy of Richard Clarke, the producers of Die Hard 4, or the generals at the ever-growing U.S. Cyber Command. Alas, it’s real.

But what is the threat? Few of those in the know believe that some fine day, out of the blue, China will zap the programs that run our power grids, gas lines, waterworks, or banking systems, sending our economy — and much else — into a tailspin. Even if the Chinese could pull off such a feat with one keystroke, it’s hard to imagine what they’d accomplish, especially since their fortunes are wrapped up with our own.

The more worrisome threat is subtler: that the Chinese (or some other powers) will use their ability to wreak cyberhavoc as leverage to strengthen their position, and weaken ours, in a diplomatic crisis or a conventional war.

For instance, in a brewing conflict over Taiwan or the South China Sea (areas where China has asserted claims aggressively in recent years), would an American president respond with full military force if he knew that the Chinese would retaliate by turning out all the lights on the Eastern Seaboard?

A familiar concept in strategic war games is “escalation-dominance.” The idea is that victory goes to the player who can take a conflict to the next level of violence in a way that inflicts enormous damage on his opponent but very little on himself. The expected outcome of the next round is so obvious that the opponent decides not to escalate; the dominant player thus controls the subsequent course of the battle and possibly wins the war.

Real war is messier than war games. Escalation holds risks all round. The two sides might have different perceptions of which one is dominant. Or the dominant side might miscalculate the opponent’s strategic priorities. For instance, China might think the American president values uninterrupted electricity on the East Coast more than a free, independent Taiwan — but that thought might be mistaken.

Still, leaders in war and crisis do take these kinds of factors into account. Many surrenders in history have been prompted less by the damage already absorbed than by fears of the damage to come.

And China is not the only foe or rival whose calculations are complicating this new cyber world. Iran is another. Last summer, all of a sudden, a computer virus nicknamed Shamoon erased three-quarters of the Aramco oil company’s corporate files, replacing much of it with images of a burning American flag. It is widely believed that the Iranians planted the “kill switch” in retaliation for the U.S.-Israeli Stuxnet virus that disabled the centrifuges in their nuclear program.

The implicit message sent not only to the United States but also, and perhaps more importantly, to its Arab commercial partners: Don’t mess with us, or we will mess with you. The Shamoon virus is now regarded as the hint of another consequence that we’d likely face in the aftermath of a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Will it deter such a strike or serve as the final straw in a pile of risks that deters us from striking (or deters the West’s Arab allies from playing whatever part they might play in an attack)? Hard to say, but the Iranians probably intended the virus to have that effect. [Continue reading…]

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Mali: Why the hardest part is yet to come

Imad Mesdoua writes: Retaking the north was the easy part. Now Mali faces guerrilla attacks, reportedly increasing cooperation between rebel groups, ‘the Tuareg problem’, and a divided government.

Early on during the French intervention which began in January 2013, many journalists in the international press were quick to note that Islamist militants had just “melted away” into the vast desert regions of northern Mali. As French jets attacked key strongholds, hundreds of Islamist fighters prepared convoys, which would escort leaders, weapons and fighters away from major towns.

Eye witness accounts confirmed suspicions that the militants’ departure was “orderly” and well-prepared. Their planned withdrawal may indicate their clear intention to redefine the nature of the conflict in Mali on their terms. Indeed, in a document allegedly left behind by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Timbuktu, a senior commander admits that an international intervention would exceed the group’s capability and that they ought therefore to retreat to their “rear bases” for the time being.

Recent events have also shown that local and international troops should prepare for increased resistance and a protracted campaign. Malian soldiers faced the first wave of attacks when various suicide bombers targeted Malian army bases and checkpoints in the city of Gao. A day later, two militants (one Arab and one Tuareg) were intercepted with explosive belts strapped to their bodies. Malian troops were also tested by a significant counter offensive led by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) in the same city on 10 February.

As Mali’s northern provinces become more secure, Islamist militants will increasingly engage in targeted attacks, using asymmetric warfare to test international troops and regain the upper hand. The caves and mountains of the Adrar des Ifoghas region, for example, are ideal locations for militant groups to hide and prepare hit and run operations. [Continue reading…]

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Bob Dole urges Hagel confirmation as defense secretary

Yahoo News: Add Bob Dole—former senator, former presidential candidate, grievously wounded in World War II—to the list of Republican heavy-hitters urging the Senate to confirm the embattled Chuck Hagel as defense secretary.

“Hagel’s wisdom and courage make him uniquely qualified to be Secretary of Defense and lead the men and women of our armed forces,” Dole said in a statement released by the White House. “Chuck Hagel will be an exceptional leader at an important time.”

Hagel, a decorated Vietnam War veteran and Republican former senator from Nebraska, already had the support of five former secretaries of defense from Republican and Democratic administrations—Bob Gates, Bill Cohen, William Perry, Harold Brown and Melvin Laird. He also enjoyed the support of former Senate Armed Services Committee chairmen Sam Nunn (D-Georgia) and John Warner (R- Virginia).

While it’s not clear what pull Dole retains with his former colleagues, Democrats already appear to have lined up the 60 votes needed to break through another Republican filibuster and definitely have the 51 needed to confirm Hagel as Leon Panetta’s successor. Republican Sen. Richard Shelby announced earlier Thursday that he would support Hagel.

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Gaza’s only music school at risk of closure

Al Monitor reports: During rehearsals in a music school in Gaza, Firas al-Sharafi, age 10, and his friend Abdel Aziz Abu Sharkh, age 11, were playing a song by Lebanese singer Fairuz. The two boys were playing the dulcimer, reading musical notes and occasionally glancing at each other with a smile on their faces.

They dream of joining a big musical group that plays both Eastern and Western musical instruments. Their dream moved closer to reality when they enrolled in the only music school in Gaza five years ago. They go to the school three times a week, and they have mastered the art of reading music and playing both the dulcimer and percussion instruments.

Firas and Abdel Aziz know that their school faces a major challenge this year: financial problems have left the school on the brink of closure. The school had been free to attend, but students now have to pay roughly $600 a year.

“Closing the school would truly sadden us,” Abdel Aziz told Al-Monitor. “What will we do if it closes? Where will we go to learn music? We will continue to send endless emails to people to help our school. I will also make a film about the school to give people an incentive to donate.”

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‘Israeli contempt for the feeble Jews of the Diaspora’ knows no boundaries

Sefi Rachlevsky writes: Ben Zygier didn’t betray his country. Ben Zygier was betrayed. Between his two home countries, he was placed in a situation he couldn’t deal with. Those who know the facts can attest to this. From the outset of this affair, Israeli contempt for the feeble Jews of the Diaspora knew no boundaries. According to foreign sources, the desire to make use of Ben Zygier’s identity and passport overrode the fact that he was screamingly incompatible for the mission.

The story is a simple one, really. According to foreign sources, Israel allowed itself to cross three boundaries: a Mossad man was asked to retain Australian citizenship – leading to a dual-loyalty dilemma; the identity that he was instructed to use as a cover was his real Australian identity; and, worst of all, he was sent to operate in his homeland.

According to foreign sources, after he was told to change his name in his home country multiple times, an entirely foreseeable problem arose. Zygier’s activities raised suspicions in Australia and its security services called him in for interrogation. He didn’t cooperate with the enemy. Not on his own initiative, nor voluntarily. He was forced to talk to his country’s security services, who threatened to harm his father’s honor, and who sent journalists to speak to him.

Israel is the one that placed him in an impossible dilemma. And then, despite the furor over passports, according to foreign sources, Israel used dozens of them not against the main enemy, Iran – but against Hamas targets, which was probably not a worthy reason to risk these passports’ use. Only then did Australia retaliate by exposing its citizen.

The crass Israeli habit of concealing its misdeeds lost all proportion. Instead of achieving, after a brief inquiry, silence and good will  (silence from a man who broke after being left to deal with his identity issues alone, silence obtained for instance even by bringing his father and whole family to Israel to care for them here) – Israel abandoned an Israel-Australian patriot to a fate worse than death.

Those who were raised in Kfar Yehoshua as I did were exposed to a practice whereby chickens that were suspected of carrying diseases were killed before they could infect the others. At the age of eight, I couldn’t bring myself to kill them with my bare hands like my father did.  So I found a "humane" solution. Next to the coops were pits full of the rotting corpses of dead birds. I threw the birds that were suspected of being ill into these pits. And Ben Zygier was thrown into such a pit.

The cell in which Ben Zygier died had been built for a prime minister’s murderer. Ben Zygier is that man’s polar opposite. The prime minister’s murderer is the worst traitor in Israel. He was not caught between the dilemmas of dual nationalities. For the murderer, the messianic-religious dilemma superseded his Israeli identity. He was not placed under brutal pressure in his cell to reveal the identities of rabbis who influenced him. He remained smiling and victorious. He was not subjected to suffocating pressure.

During the existential days of the War of Independence, one Meir Tobianski was shot. He was suspected of treason, sentenced in a lightning-quick trial, and was eliminated. His widow, who was not sentenced to silence, fought to restore his honor. A year later, Ben Gurion exonerated him and wrote to her: "Your husband was innocent."

Two things must come out of the Zygier affair. One is clear: the establishment of a quasi-secret state commission of inquiry. The commission must examine the links between Zygier’s death and his identity. But it must also do more than that. There must be genuine examination of how Israel exploits the goodwill of  its Jewish supporters, and a clear demarcation of its boundaries.

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The Zygier Affair: the cover-up

AFP reports: Israeli guards supposedly keeping a round-the-clock watch on a mystery dual nationality prisoner held in isolation failed to notice his suicide for a full hour, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

Although his cell was fitted with four CCTV cameras, the guards did not see Ben Zygier, identified by media as an Australian-Israeli Mossad agent, remove a sheet from his bed and take it with him into the shower cubicle.

“For an unknown reason, none of the guards discerned him doing that,” the Yediot Aharonot newspaper reported.

It said that one camera covered the shower “in a way that allowed for the prisoner’s head to be visible without invading his more intimate privacy.”

“It was only after an entire hour had passed that (the guards) realised that the prisoner was nowhere to be seen in any of the areas picked up by the four cameras, at which point they rushed to his cell, where they discovered his body dangling in the shower stall,” it said.

“They were busy with something else,” an prisons service official told the paper.

“The bottom line is that the prisoner died, and we failed in our job of keeping him alive.”

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Oscars-bound Palestinian film-maker describes ‘unpleasant’ LAX detention

The Guardian reports: An Academy-nominated Palestinian film-maker has spoken of the “unpleasant experience” of being detained by US immigration officials when he arrived for this weekend’s Oscars ceremony.

Emad Burnat said that he was held for about an hour at Los Angeles airport on Tuesday, along with his wife and youngest son Gibreel, who plays a central role in Oscar-nominated documentary 5 Broken Cameras.

Burnat said that he thought that US immigration officials – who apparently doubted his credentials – would send him back to Palestine. He compared the incident to daily life for Palestinians under the Israeli occupation.

“Immigration officials asked for proof that I was nominated for an Academy Award for 5 Broken Cameras, and they told me that if I couldn’t prove the reason for my visit, my wife Soraya, my son Gibreel and I would be sent back to Turkey on the same day,” Burnat said in a statement.

“After 40 minutes of questions and answers, Gibreel asked me why we were still waiting in that small room. I simply told him the truth: ‘Maybe we’ll have to go back.’ I could see his heart sink.”

Five Broken Cameras chronicles the events surrounding Israel’s creation of a separation wall in Burnat’s West Bank village of Bil’in. Burnat, a farmer, initially bought the camera to capture Gibreel’s development before using footage for the documentary.

Burnat said his experience was “a very minor example of what my people face every day.”

Although it’s ironic that a possible recipient of America’s most celebrated cultural honor would get this kind of reception, what most Americans do not understand is that every foreigner entering this country is treated as a criminal suspect. Every noncitizen visitor is fingerprinted and this along with other biometric data is kept by the Department of Homeland Security for 75 years. Welcome to America.

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Al Qaeda’s top recruiting tool: The CIA

Jamie Dettmer reports: What makes someone join Al Qaeda? In the case of Abu Yahya al-Libi, the Al Qaeda luminary killed in an American drone strike in Pakistan last June, his older brother has no doubt. Americans are culpable for his sibling’s embrace of terrorism. He draws a direct line between al-Libi’s recruitment by al Qaeda and the suffering he endured at the hands of American interrogators using techniques similar to those portrayed in the movie Zero Dark Thirty.

Al-Libi’s slaying may have been one of the reasons Libyan jihadists attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi last September, an assault that led to the death of ambassador Christopher Stevens. In the days leading up to the attack, Al Qaeda’s amir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, focused his annual 9/11 message on the drone war, eulogized al-Libi and called on “Libyan brothers” to avenge the loss.

Lamenting American missteps in the war on terror, Abd Al-Wahhab Muhammad Qaid says his brother had been in Afghanistan for 15 years, as a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, but that he, “like all of us shunned Al Qaeda.” That is, until his mistreatment at Bagram Air Base. “He was tortured very aggressively and humiliated. Naturally, for each action there’s a reaction,” he sighs.

Now the chairman of the national security committee in the General National Congress, Libya’s parliament, Qaid hopes America will rethink how it combats Muslim extremists and base its actions on reason not emotions; on investigation and not supposition.

Sitting in the grand lobby of Tripoli’s Rixos hotel for a rare interview with an American journalist, Qaid disclosed for the first time that, when he was jailed by the then-dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Americans seeking to understand his brother’s psychology visited him in prison to explore whether his brother could be coaxed to break with Al Qaeda.

The American visits were made before his brother became second in command of Al Qaeda, suggesting the CIA had spotted quickly that he was a rising terrorist star. He told them that it might be possible to persuade his brother to leave Al Qaeda and return to Libya, if Gaddafi would guarantee no torture and no jail time.

The 45-year-old Qaid is an imposing man and favors traditional Libyan dress. When I met him he was wearing a black galabeya and white prayer cap. He is the third senior member of the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group I have interviewed in recent months. There are similarities between him and his former comrades-in-arms Abdelhakim Belhadj and Sami Mostefa al-Saadi. All three are highly thoughtful and they all exhibit a calm dignity I’ve seen in other long-serving political prisoners.

And surprisingly none of them appear to bear any ill will to the West or Americans. All of them have tempered their beliefs and describe themselves as Islamist modernizers.

Belhadj and Saadi were among the 15 Libyan Islamists opposed to Gaddafi that the Americans and British delivered to Libya’s spy chief, Musa Kusa. The Americans tortured several of them before rendering them illegally to Libya, where they were tortured again. When Gaddafi’s intelligence boss interrogated al-Saadi he bragged: “Before 9/11, you went to countries where we couldn’t reach you. But now, after 9/11, I can just pick up the phone and call MI6 or the CIA.”

The renditions constitute one of the darkest chapters in the war on terror and they highlight a point Qaid is eager to convey: the failure of the West to distinguish between different Islamists and to view them all as being Al Qaeda. [Continue reading…]

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In the U.S. most terrorist plots aren’t led by Al Qaeda — they’re fabricated by the FBI

In The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism, Trevor Aaronson writes: Antonio Martinez was a punk. The twenty-two-year-old from Baltimore was chunky, with a wide nose and jet-black hair pulled back close to his scalp and tied into long braids that hung past his shoulders. He preferred to be called Muhammad Hussain, the name he gave himself following his conversion to Islam. But his mother still called him Tony, and she couldn’t understand her son’s burning desire to be the Maryland Mujahideen.

As a young man, Martinez had been angry and lost. He’d dropped out of Laurel High School, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and spent his teens as a small-time thief in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. By the age of sixteen, he’d been charged with armed robbery. In February 2008, at the age of eighteen, he tried to steal a car. Catholic University doctoral student Daniel Tobin was looking out of the window of his apartment one day when he saw a man driving off in his car. Tobin gave chase, running between apartment buildings and finally catching up to the stolen vehicle. He opened the passenger-side door and got in. Martinez, in the driver’s seat, dashed out and ran away on foot. Jumping behind the wheel, Tobin followed the would-be car thief. “You may as well give up running,” he yelled at Martinez. Martinez was apprehended and charged with grand theft of a motor vehicle—he had stolen the vehicle using an extra set of car keys which had gone missing when someone had broken into Tobin’s apartment earlier. However, prosecutors dropped the charges against Martinez after Tobin failed to appear in court.

Despite the close call, Martinez’s petty crimes continued. One month after the car theft, he and a friend approached a cashier at a Safeway grocery store, acting as if they wanted to buy potato chips. When the cashier opened the register, Martinez and his friend grabbed as much money as they could and ran out of the store. The cashier and store manager chased after them, and later identified the pair to police. Martinez pleaded guilty to theft of one hundred dollars and received a ninety-day suspended sentence, plus six months of probation.

Searching for greater meaning in his life, Martinez was baptized and became a Christian when he was twenty-one years old, but he didn’t stick with the religion. “He said he tried the Christian thing. He just really didn’t understand it,” said Alisha Legrand, a former girlfriend. Martinez chose Islam instead. On his Facebook page, Martinez wrote that he was “just a yung brotha from the wrong side of the tracks who embraced Islam.” But for reasons that have never been clear to his family and friends, Martinez drifted toward a violent, extremist brand of Islam. When the FBI discovered him, Martinez was an angry extremist mouthing off on Facebook about violence, with misspelled posts such as, “The sword is cummin the reign of oppression is about 2 cease inshallah.” Based on the Facebook postings alone, an FBI agent gave an informant the “green light” to get to know Martinez and determine if he had a propensity for violence. In other words, to see if he was dangerous.

The government was setting the trap. [Continue reading…]

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The Pentagon’s billion-dollar pill problem

Men’s Journal reports: Before his military doctors were through with him, Spc. Andrew Trotto, a 24-year-old Army gunner, would be on as many as 20 psychiatric medications. It started in 2008 while he was in Iraq, fighting in Sadr City, at first with difficulty falling asleep, a common problem among soldiers in a combat zone, particularly those, like Trotto, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. “For sleep, the first drug they like to go to in Iraq is Seroquel,” says Trotto, of the atypical antipsychotic originally developed to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. “They hand that shit out like Skittles. You get a bottle for 10 days, and if you run out, they give you more.” His body adapted to the pill over time, and he was soon taking a dose meant for actual psychotics. “They had no clue what the hell they were doing,” Trotto says of the doctors at the battalion aid station who prescribed the pills. “They just throw you on a drug, and if it doesn’t work, they throw you on something else. ‘Try this. Try this. Try this.'”

Though he continued to function in day-to-day combat – nighttime missions clearing houses – his brain was polluted with pharmaceuticals. In addition to Seroquel, he was taking Zoloft for anxiety and Vicodin to relieve pain from ruptured disks he sustained falling nine feet off a tank – and he was still being thrown into combat. “Let me remind you,” he says, “I was a gunner, completely whacked out of my mind.There were quite a few of us on Seroquel and antidepressants.”

Eventually, he says, he began losing it. Looking back, he’s certain it was the drugs that pushed him over the edge. He started seeing things and hearing voices. While in a warrior-recovery unit in Kuwait, he tried to overdose on the Seroquel but only lay in a stupor for two days undisturbed. One day he locked himself in a Porta-Potty with a loaded M16 in his mouth, but he managed to hold out long enough to seek help. “I told them, ‘You need to do something, or I am going to take other people out with me.'”

He was sent home to a warrior-transition unit in Colorado, but a year later, he tried to OD in his bathtub. Trotto’s father says the sergeant who escorted his son back to Colorado had told him “that he watched Andrew go downhill the minute they put him on Seroquel.” [Continue reading…]

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The multi-billion dollar drone market

National Geographic: The U.S. has deployed more than 11,000 military drones, up from fewer than 200 in 2002. They carry out a wide variety of missions while saving money and American lives. Within a generation they could replace most manned military aircraft, says John Pike, a defense expert at the think tank GlobalSecurity.org. Pike suspects that the F-35 Lightning II, now under development by Lockheed Martin, might be “the last fighter with an ejector seat, and might get converted into a drone itself.”

At least 50 other countries have drones, and some, notably China, Israel, and Iran, have their own manufacturers. Aviation firms — as well as university and government researchers — are designing a flock of next-generation aircraft, ranging in size from robotic moths and hummingbirds to Boeing’s Phantom Eye, a hydrogen-fueled behemoth with a 150-foot wingspan that can cruise at 65,000 feet for up to four days.

More than a thousand companies, from tiny start-ups like Miser’s [described at the beginning of this article] to major defense contractors, are now in the drone business—and some are trying to steer drones into the civilian world. Predators already help Customs and Border Protection agents spot smugglers and illegal immigrants sneaking into the U.S. NASA-operated Global Hawks record atmospheric data and peer into hurricanes. Drones have helped scientists gather data on volcanoes in Costa Rica, archaeological sites in Russia and Peru, and flooding in North Dakota.

So far only a dozen police departments, including ones in Miami and Seattle, have applied to the FAA for permits to fly drones. But drone advocates — who generally prefer the term UAV, for unmanned aerial vehicle — say all 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the U.S. are potential customers. They hope UAVs will soon become essential too for agriculture (checking and spraying crops, finding lost cattle), journalism (scoping out public events or celebrity backyards), weather forecasting, traffic control. “The sky’s the limit, pun intended,” says Bill Borgia, an engineer at Lockheed Martin. “Once we get UAVs in the hands of potential users, they’ll think of lots of cool applications.”

The biggest obstacle, advocates say, is current FAA rules, which tightly restrict drone flights by private companies and government agencies (though not by individual hobbyists). Even with an FAA permit, operators can’t fly UAVs above 400 feet or near airports or other zones with heavy air traffic, and they must maintain visual contact with the drones. All that may change, though, under the new law, which requires the FAA to allow the “safe integration” of UAVs into U.S. airspace.

If the FAA relaxes its rules, says Mark Brown, the civilian market for drones — and especially small, low-cost, tactical drones — could soon dwarf military sales, which in 2011 totaled more than three billion dollars. [Continue reading…]

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One cannot faithfully be both Australian and Israeli

Ben Saul, professor of international law at the University of Sydney, writes: Israel and Australia are indeed good friends, but they are not always on the same page. For a start, there is a gulf in values. Australian security services do not assassinate people, including civilian scientists driving to work in nearby countries. Australia does not torture prisoners. Australia has not militarily occupied a foreign people’s land for more than 40 years, or built illegal colonies on their lands. Australia does not believe in nuclear weapons or hide their existence.

When it comes to the crunch, most Australians would expect Australian Jews to choose loyalty to Australia over Israel, or even hope that the Australians in Mossad are our double agents. Undoubtedly Israelis would wish them to side with Israel. Spying will continue because every country has an interest in it. The trick is to be better at it than others, and better at catching others’ spies than they are at catching yours.

But the case of Ben Zygier shows that it is not easy to have it both ways. Conscience can get in the way. There comes a point where a Jewish person cannot faithfully be both Australian and Israeli. One has to choose. The same goes for Australians who are also Americans or Chinese.

Israel’s apparent willingness to abuse the trust and confidence of Australia also suggests that no country can take its friends for granted. All countries understandably put themselves first. But Israel might question whether its long-term security interests are best served by alienating its closest friends.

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