Pentagon Plan: Cybercommand Will Be Run by Four-Star General –DoD views cyberspace as its domain as well, a new battleground after land, sea, air and space. 13 Jun 2009 A plan to create a new Pentagon cybercommand is raising significant privacy and diplomatic concerns, as the Obama administration moves ahead on efforts to ‘protect the nation’ from cyberattack and to prepare for possible offensive operations against adversaries’ computer networks. Some administration officials have begun to discuss whether laws or regulations must be changed to allow law enforcement, the military or intelligence agencies greater access to networks or Internet providers when significant evidence of a ‘national security threat’ was found. Under plans being completed at the Pentagon, the new cybercommand will be run by a four-star general, much the way Gen. David H. Petraeus runs the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq from Central Command in Tampa, Fla.
New York drill for possible nuclear war –US security authorities have conducted a semi-clandestine nuclear fallout drill in the City of New York in order to be prepared “for the worst.” 13 Jun 2009 The NYC Police Department (NYPD) in unison with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) carried out a massive almost-covert anti-nuclear exercise codenamed ‘New York, you have a problem’ in order to gauge the metropolitan promptness in responding to such attacks. According to an AP report on Friday, hundreds of NYPD officers and FBI agents participated in the drill that involved the detection of a gamma-ray emitting device concealed in the heart of the urban area. The group was also accompanied by an elite corps of federal weapons specialists who, under a US attorney general mandate, found a simulated “nuclear device” and diffused it.
‘Terrorists’ can sue Bush legal abusers 14 Jun 2009 A US judge legalizes court actions by alleged ‘terror convicts’ against the legal advisors from the former administration who authorized their detention and torture. In an unprecedented move, San Francisco District Judge Jeffrey White ruled in favor of the legitimacy of such lawsuits in an attempt to discontinue, what he called, ‘using tactics of terror’ to fight ‘a war against terror’, the Associated Press reported on Saturday.
Judge: Ex-Bush lawyer can be sued over torture 13 Jun 2009 A prisoner who says he was tortured while being held for nearly four years as a suspected terrorist can sue former Bush regime lawyer John Yoo for coming up with the legal theories that justified his alleged treatment, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White’s decision marks the first time a government lawyer has been held potentially responsible for the abuse of detainees. “Like any other government official, government lawyers are responsible for the foreseeable consequences of their conduct,” White said in refusing to dismiss Jose Padilla’s lawsuit against Yoo. White said. White, an appointee of former President [sic] George W. Bush, noted that Padilla’s lawsuit accuses Yoo of helping to design administration policy on detention and torture, and then crafting legal opinions to justify it – stepping outside the usual role of a lawyer.
US rejects Iran’s election results 13 Jun 2009 The U.S. on Saturday refused to accept President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim of a landslide re-election victory in Iran and said it was looking into allegations of election fraud. Any hopes by the Obama administration of gaining a result similar to Lebanon’s recent election, won by a Western-backed moderate coalition sycophant, appeared to be in jeopardy. [What a shame!] “We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran, but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and watching to see what the Iranian people decide,” U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said at a news conference with Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon. [OMG! The Iranian people *have* decided -- in an *actual* election that uses *paper ballots* -- not Diebold! WHY didn't Hillary and Barack whine about 'election fraud' back in 2000 and 2004, when an unelected dictator and torturer seized and remained in power? --LRP]
U.S. monitors Iran election fallout 13 Jun 2009 The White House said Saturday it was monitoring the aftermath of presidential election in Iran, including allegations of irregularities in the voting. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a written statement: “Like the rest of the world, we were impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians. We continue to monitor the entire situation closely, including reports of irregularities.” [WHY no monitoring of GOP owned and operated electronic 'voting' software companies, responsible for two US coup d'etats? Hello, Pot? This is Kettle...]
In landslide victory, Ahmadinejad re-elected 13 Jun 2009 The final results of Iran’s closely-contested 10th presidential election indicate that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won a landslide victory. “Of 39,165,191 votes counted (85 percent), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election with 24,527,516 (62.63 percent),” Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli told reporters on Saturday. Mir-Hossein Mousavi came in second with 13,216,411 votes (33.75 percent), he added. [The New York Times is calling the Iranian election outcome a 'tie' and they are showing a photo of the troll that lost. LOL. I love it when the US media spins other countries' elections and calls their processes/results 'corrupt' or 'specious.' These are the same cogs in the machinery that permitted -- nay, facilitated - two US GOP coup d'etats in 2000 and 2004. --LRP]
Iran rejects claims of voter fraud 13 Jun 2009 Iranian Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli says there has been no ‘written complaint’ about voter fraud. Iranian Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli has declared that the 10th presidential elections were conducted in a manner that ruled out the possibility of voter fraud. In a press conference at the Interior Ministry on Saturday, Mahsouli put the number of the total votes cast in the elections at 39,165,191, suggesting the heavy turnout to be a victory for the nation and not for a specific candidate.
Lawyers: Israel Used Uranium in Gaza genocide 11 Jun 2009 Lawyers investigating possible war crimes by Israel in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip Thursday said the Jewish state used uranium in recent offensive on the blockaded territory. Findings indicated that Israel heavily used uranium materials in its war in Gaza, Haitham Manna of the International Coalition for Trying Israeli War Criminals told a news conference in Gaza city. At first, a French lab “asked us to obtain license from Ukraine because they believed the samples were obtained from a place hit by Chernobyl accident due to the high amount of Uranium that were found,” Manna told Xinhua.
US Embassy: 2 more US mercenaries released in Iraq 13 Jun 2009 Two more U.S. mercenaries have been released on bond but face an ongoing investigation, the embassy said Saturday. Two other Americans remained in custody while a fifth was freed on bond Thursday. U.S.-backed Iraqi forces detained the five Americans on June 3 in connection with an investigation into the stabbing death of a fellow contractor.
Mercenaries Set Off for Afghanistan 13 Jun 2009 …Since Barack Obama announced that Afghanistan and Pakistan were the “central front” of the war against al-Qaeda, foreign mercenaries have been arriving… Returning from dinner on May 5, after an automobile accident, four paramilitaries working for an American company unheard of up until then, Paravant, machine-gunned an Afghan car, leaving one person dead and two wounded. The lawyer for the paramilitaries asserts that they were confronted with an insurgent attack, although the police investigation proved that the passengers in the vehicle were unarmed merchants. As in Iraq, as in other incidents in Afghanistan, justice will not be done: the men fled to the United States. However, the episode did reveal that Paravant, which has a contract to train the Afghan police, is a discreet subsidiary of Blackwater, the biggest mercenary company in the world and symbol of the privatization of war during the Bush years, involved in multiple killings and assassinations in Iraq and renamed Xe. It also revealed that these men respected neither the law nor their contract, bearing arms outside of their service, AK-47s that can be purchased in the black market for a few dollars.
‘It’s baffling to us why this would suddenly change.’ Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified 10 Jun 2009 For 15 years, scientists have benefited from data gleaned by U.S. classified satellites of natural fireball events in Earth’s atmosphere – but no longer. A recent U.S. military policy decision now explicitly states that observations by hush-hush government spacecraft of incoming bolides and fireballs are classified secret and are not to be released, SPACE.com has learned. The satellites’ main objectives include detecting nuclear bomb tests, and their characterizations of asteroids and lesser meteoroids as they crash through the atmosphere has been a byproduct data bonanza for scientists. The upshot: Space rocks that explode in the atmosphere are now classified.
