US Commando War in 120 Countries: Uncovering the Military's Secret Operations In the Obama Era

The Joint Special Operations Command, or JSOC, a clandestine sub-command whose primary mission is tracking and killing suspected terrorists.  Reporting to the president and acting under his authority, JSOC maintains a global hit list that includes American citizens.  It has been operating an extra-legal “kill/capture” campaign that John Nagl, a past counterinsurgency adviser to four-star general and soon-to-be CIA Director David Petraeus, calls "an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine."

This assassination program has been carried out by commando units like the Navy SEALs and the Army’s Delta Force as well as via drone strikes as part of covert wars in which the CIA is also involved in countries like Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen.  In addition, the command operates a network of secret prisons, perhaps as many as 20 black sites in Afghanistan alone, used for interrogating high-value targets.

Much more on AlterNet

‪Private corporations acting like out-of-control Police?

Filmed at Secret Garden Party 2011, at the main gate.

Charlie Veitch‬‏ on YouTube – Love Police Website

‪Israel's biggest anti-government protests ignored by media

In Israel, mainstream media are being accused of burying their heads in the sand over coverage of the biggest anti-government protests the country has seen in decades. Tens of thousands of people, fed up with deteriorating living standards, are staging demonstrations calling for Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand down. But as Paula Slier reports from Tel Aviv, protesters' voices are simply going unheard by the rest of the world.

WalMart Photos

Remember to drink all your milk kids so you grow up big and strong like this….whatever this is.

Note: The PoWM are not responsible for any kids who see this and refuse to ever drink milk again.

Lots more on The People of Walmart

‪Eisenhower's Farewell Address 1961

Eisenhower's farewell address where he warns of a "hostile ideology", "the military industrial complex" and "the consequences of too much government funded research".

Biggest-ever series of cyber attacks uncovered

Security experts have discovered the biggest series of cyber attacks to date, involving the infiltration of the networks of 72 organizations including the United Nations, governments and companies around the world.

Security company McAfee, which uncovered the intrusions, said it believed there was one "state actor" behind the attacks but declined to name it, though one security expert who has been briefed on the hacking said the evidence points to China.

The long list of victims in the five-year campaign include the governments of the United States, Taiwan, India, South Korea, Vietnam and Canada; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN); the International Olympic Committee (IOC); the World Anti-Doping Agency; and an array of companies, from defense contractors to high-tech enterprises.

More on Reuters

‪911 health fund won't cover cancer

There has been growing concern over the health effects arising from the September 11 attacks in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, USA. Within seconds of the collapse of the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the World Trade Center, pulverized building material, electronic equipment, and furniture was spread throughout the area. Additionally, in the five months following the attacks, dust from the pulverized buildings continued to fill the air of the World Trade Center site. Increasing numbers of New York residents are reporting symptoms of Ground Zero respiratory illnesses.

From CNN

‪Don't Gotta Work It Out

Fitz and The Tantrums

US Government Has Now Given Up The Concept Of Right And Wrong

Keith Olbermann excoriated Washington for the debt ceiling deal it struck over the weekend--and called for a protest movement to rise up against it. (See video above)

In a Special Comment on his Monday show, Olbermann did not mince words about the deal, which passed the House on Monday and is headed for a vote in the Senate.

"Our government has now given up the concept of right and wrong," he said. "...Those who defend [the deal] have called it a credit to a pragmatic president who wins some sort of political 'points' because, having stood for almost nothing here, he gave away almost nothing for which he stood."

Huffington Post

Fukushima radiation reaches lethal levels

Pockets of lethal levels of radiation have been detected at Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in a fresh reminder of the risks faced by workers battling to contain the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) reported on Monday that radiation exceeding 10 sieverts (10,000 millisieverts) per hour was found at the bottom of a ventilation stack standing between two reactors.

On Tuesday Tepco said it found another spot on the ventilation stack itself where radiation exceeded 10 sieverts per hour, a level that could lead to incapacitation or death after just several seconds of exposure.

The company used equipment to measure radiation from a distance and was unable to ascertain the exact level because the device's maximum reading is 10 sieverts.

While Tepco said the readings would not hinder its goal of stabilising the Fukushima reactors by January, experts warned that worker safety could be at risk if the operator prioritised hitting the deadline over radiation risks

See The Guardian for more

Love Like Blood‬‏

‪Killing Joke

Deadly Syrian crackdown continues

Syrian forces have killed nearly 142 people, including at least 100 when the army stormed the flashpoint protest city of Hama to crush dissent on the eve of Ramadan, political activists say.

A witness in Deir ez-Zor told Al Jazeera that government forces launched fresh attacks on the town early on Monday morning. "Military forces stormed the city from the west side and 25 people are killed and more than 65 injured," the witness said. "Artillery and anti-aircraft weapons are being used. The situation in the city is very bad, and medical and food supplies are low."

Deir ez-Zor, Syria's main gas and oil-production hub in the east, has become a rallying point for protests along with Hama. Sunday's attack on Hama was one of the "deadliest days" since the protests erupted, Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said

More on Al Jazeera

Anarchists should be reported, advises UK anti-terror police

What should you do if you discover an anarchist living next door? Dust off your old Sex Pistols albums and hang out a black and red flag to make them feel at home? Invite them round to debate the merits of Peter Kropotkin's anarchist communism versus the individualist anarchism of Emile Armand? No – the answer, according to an official counter-terrorism notice circulated in London last week, is that you must report them to police immediately.

This was the surprising injunction from the Metropolitan Police issued to businesses and members of the public in Westminster last week. There was no warning about other political groups, but next to an image of the anarchist emblem, the City of Westminster police's "counter terrorist focus desk" called for anti-anarchist whistleblowers stating: "Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, and instead promotes a stateless society, or anarchy. Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local police."

From The Guardian

‪TV Glotzer

‪Nina Hagen Band - live 1978

Spliff (Band) – Nina Hagen

Obama's war on truth tellers

National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake faces 35 years in prison on espionage charges for allegedly leaking information to the press about the NSA's overspending and failure to properly maintain its large trove of domestic spy data.
"Espionage is the last thing my whistleblowing and first amendment activities and actions were all about," Drake said recently in a public speech. "This has become the specter of a truly Orwellian world where whistleblowing has become espionage."

DemocracyNow.org - Brasscheck TV

‪Rockin' In The Free World

‪Neil Young‬‏ on YouTube - Neil Young Website

Rebel General Shot By Islamist Militia

An Islamist militia allied to Libya's rebel opposition is behind the death of their military commander Abdel Fattah Younes, a National Transitional Council minister has said.

Ali Tarhouni, who is the finance and oil minister for the NTC, recently recognised by several countries including Britain as the legitimate Libyan authority, said Younes was killed by a group known as the Obaida Ibn Jarrah Brigade. General Younes defected to the rebels in February after the beginning of the Libyan uprising. He had served under Gaddfi since the revolution of 1969. Younes body was found shot and burned with those of two of his aides on Friday.

"His lieutenants did it," said Tarhouni, according to the Reuters news agency. If true, the revelation will cast fresh doubt on the rebels' ability to fight as a group and form a stable government. It will also be troubling for British Foreign Secretary William Hague and others who have publicly put their faith in the rebels. Hague announced on Wednesday that Britain would recognise the NTC as the representative government of Libya after similar announcements by the US and French governments.

The decision was mocked by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim, who said that the slaying of Younes was "a slap in the face" to the British government. "By this act, al-Qaeda wanted to mark out its presence and its influence in this region."

From huffingtonpost.co.uk

Europe's leaders are 'playing with fire'

Europe's leaders have been warned to adopt a more "cautious" approach when discussing multiculturalism. The Norwegian chairman of the Nobel peace prize committee has told them they risk inflaming far-right and anti-Muslim sentiment.

Thorbjørn Jagland, a former prime minister of his country, said leaders such as the British premier would be "playing with fire" if they continued to use rhetoric that could be exploited by extremists.

Four months ago in Munich, Cameron declared that state multiculturalism had failed in Britain, a view immediately praised by Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP, as "a further huge leap for our ideas into the political mainstream". Marine Le Pen, vice-president of the far-right National Front party in France, also endorsed Cameron's view of multiculturalism, claiming that it corroborated her own party's line.

Jagland's comments come in the wake of the Oslo bomb and the massacre on Utøya Island that left 77 people dead. The killer, Anders Behring Breivik, said he was inspired by the right-wing English Defence League. Breivik sent his manifesto, published online hours before the attacks, to about 250 British members of the BNP, the EDL and the Stop Islamisation of Europe group.

Jagland, who is also secretary general of the Council of Europe, told the Observer: "We have to be very careful how we are discussing these issues, what words are used.

More on The Observer

‪The End

The Doors

Kill The Messenger

Sibel Edmonds, a 32-year-old Turkish-American, was hired as a translator by the FBI shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 because of her knowledge of Middle Eastern languages. She was fired less than a year later in March 2002 for reporting shoddy work and security breaches to her supervisors that could have prevented those attacks.

Kill the Messenger: Sibel Edmonds

‪US Police Attacks

‪To Serve and Protect…

Facebook and Twitter are creating a vain generation of self-obsessed people with child like need for feedback

Facebook and Twitter have created a generation obsessed with themselves, who have short attention spans and a childlike desire for constant feedback on their lives, a top scientist believes. Repeated exposure to social networking sites leaves users with an 'identity crisis', wanting attention in the manner of a toddler saying: 'Look at me, Mummy, I've done this.'

Baroness Greenfield, professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, believes the growth of internet 'friendships' – as well as greater use of computer games – could effectively 'rewire' the brain. This can result in reduced concentration, a need for instant gratification and poor non-verbal skills, such as the ability to make eye contact during conversations.

Full story on Mail Online

Facebook director calls for an end to internet anonymity

Facebook's marketing director has called for an end to on-line anonymity, saying internet users would 'behave a lot better' if everyone had to use real names when surfing or posting on the internet.

Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook’s marketing director and sister of multi-millionaire founder Mark, made the comments during a round table discussion on cyber bullying.

Mrs Zuckerberg argued the end of on-line anonymity could help curb the trend of trolling and harassment on the web. Speaking at a Marie Claire panel discussion on social media, she said: ' I think anonymity on the Internet has to go away.

Full article on Mail Online

Turkey's military chiefs 'quit'

General Ski Kushner, the head of the Turkish armed forces, has quit along with the heads of the ground, naval and air forces. The country's state-run Anatolia news agency said on Friday that the military chiefs wanted to retire because of tensions with Recap Typo Endogen, the recently re-elected prime minister. Anatolia reported Kushner as resigning "as he saw it as necessary".

In a written statement released after the news of the generals' retirement, Recap Typo Endogen, the Turkish prime minister, said that the armed forces will continue to do their duty in a spirit of unity.

Hurried, a Turkish daily newspaper, said on its website that Kushner was quitting his post as an act of protest against the court cases jailing military officers which mean he could no longer defend the rights of his staff. "It has become impossible for me to continue in this high office because I am unable to fulfil my responsibility to protect the rights of my personnel as the chief of general staff," the report quoted Kushner as saying.

More on Al Jazeera

Mystery over Libyan rebel commander's death

The head of the Libyan rebels' armed forces and two of his aides were killed by gunmen on Thursday, creating a power vacuum at the top of the opposition military hierarchy and raising questions about who was responsible.

Abdel Fattah Younes was killed after being summoned to the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi to appear before a judicial inquiry, opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil announced at a press conference late on Thursday night.

Rebel security reportedly arrived at Younes's operations room near the rebels' eastern front and arrested him and his aides early on Thursday.

Security officials said at the time that Younes was to be questioned about possible ties to Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Younes was Gaddafi's interior minister before defecting to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February. Jalil said that Younes had been summoned for questioning regarding "a military matter". He said Younes and his two aides, a colonel and a major, were shot before they arrived for questioning.

More on Al Jazeera and BBC