stockholmer

stockholmer's Journal

August 15, 2012

Normalizing Torture: Impunity at Home, Rendition Abroad

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/14/normalizing-torture-2/

After a decade of fiery public debate and bare-knuckle partisan brawling, the United States has stumbled toward an ad hoc bipartisan compromise over the issue of torture that rests on two unsustainable policies: impunity at home and rendition abroad. President Obama has closed the CIA’s “black sites,” its secret prisons where American agents once dirtied their hands with waterboarding and wall slamming.

But via rendition — the sending of terrorist suspects to the prisons of countries that torture — and related policies, his administration has outsourced human rights abuse to Afghanistan, Somalia, and elsewhere. In this way, he has avoided the political stigma of torture, while tacitly tolerating such abuses and harvesting whatever intelligence can be gained from them. This “resolution” of the torture issue may meet the needs of this country’s deeply divided politics. It cannot, however, long satisfy an international community determined to prosecute human rights abuses through universal jurisdiction. It also runs the long-term risk of another sordid torture scandal that will further damage U.S. standing with allies worldwide.

Perfecting a New Form of Torture

The modern American urge to use torture did not, of course, begin on September 12, 2001. It has roots that reach back to the beginning of the Cold War and a human rights policy riven with contradictions. Publicly, Washington opposed torture and led the world in drafting the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the Geneva Conventions in 1949. Simultaneously and secretly, however, the Central Intelligence Agency began developing ingenious new torture techniques in contravention of these same international conventions.

From 1950 to 1962, the CIA led a secret research effort to crack the code of human consciousness, a veritable Manhattan project of the mind with two findings foundational to a new form of psychological torture. In the early 1950s, while collaborating with the CIA, famed Canadian psychologist Dr. Donald Hebb discovered that, using goggles, gloves, and earmuffs, he could induce a state akin to psychosis among student volunteers by depriving them of sensory stimulation. Simultaneously, two eminent physicians at Cornell University Medical Center, also working with the Agency, found that the most devastating torture technique used by the KGB, the Soviet secret police, involved simply forcing victims to stand for days at a time, while legs swelled painfully and hallucinations began.

snip

August 15, 2012

Is Motorola Finally Dying?

http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=223901

Motorola Mobility Inc. (NYSE: MMI) appears to be teetering on the verge of extinction once again. Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s announcement this week that it will cut 4,000 jobs at the company it bought a year ago is just the latest signal of the end. (See Google to Cut 4,000 Motorola Jobs.)

Ever since Google struck the $12.5 billion deal to buy Motorola Mobility on August 15, 2011, questions have been raised about what it was getting. Google was very clear that it was buying patents, but it also said it would continue to run Motorola as a separate business to help it "supercharge the Android ecosystem."

So far, however, this just doesn't seem to be happening. Samsung Corp. is getting lauded for its Android smartphones while Google went off and worked with AsusTek Computer Inc. to develop its own-brand Nexus 7 tablet. Hardly a ringing endorsement of Motorola there, Google. In truth, though, the end of Motorola has been in sight for a long time now. The company simply hasn't managed to have a big hit in the marketplace since the RAZR. Remember that?

Here, let me refresh your memory: The Motorola RAZR came out in the fall of 2004. Motorola sold more than 100 million of these clam-shell phones, but it was basically all over by the beginning of 2007. That's more than five years ago now, a lifetime in cellphone terms. The problem for Motorola is that it hasn't come out with a device with anything like the success of the RAZR, and it was blind-sided by the advent of the iPhone and tablet computers. Even a reboot of the RAZR brand in 2011 didn't help. (See Photos: Moto Gets Skinny With 4G RAZR and Moto Needs the RAZR to Burn.) In fact, here at LR Mobile we've been trying to figure out what Moto could do next -- since 2007.

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August 14, 2012

The West is caught again in another Syria lie (Saudi, etc papers said Assad was stepping down)

Moscow denies Russian diplomat said Assad ready to step down

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Aug-14/184669-moscow-denies-russian-diplomat-said-assad-ready-to-step-down.ashx#axzz23YgTpZDe

MOSCOW: The Russian Foreign Ministry denied a Saudi Arabian newspaper report on Tuesday that cited Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ready to step down. Saudi daily al-Watan reported that Bogdanov, who is also President Vladimir Putin's special envoy for Middle East affairs, said in a telephone interview that Assad had agreed to step down, but gave no details.

"We would like to point out that this report does not correspond with reality, and the Russian special envoy gave no such interview," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

Watan also reported that Bogdanov had said Assad's brother Maher al-Assad lost his legs during a bombing in Damascus that killed senior security officials and he was "struggling for survival".

The newspaper did not say when the interview took place and the only direct quotes it attributed to Bogdanov were on the subject of Russia's position on the crisis. Zakharova said that Syria "is becoming the subject of a propaganda war" and that some media had disseminated "blatant disinformation".

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some of the perps of disinfo:

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/373364/20120814/bashar-al-assad-syria-step-down-russia.htm

http://www.timesofisrael.com/russias-deputy-fm-assad-willing-to-step-down/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/russian-envoy-to-france-assad-ready-to-step-down/article4429520/?cmpid=rss1

August 14, 2012

Breaking: Appeals Court OKs Warrantless, Real-Time Mobile Phone Tracking

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/08/warrantless-gps-phone-tracking/

A federal appeals court on Wednesday said the authorities do not need a probable-cause warrant to track a suspect’s every move via the GPS signals emitted from a suspect’s mobile phone. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling 2-1, upheld a 20-year term for a drug courier nabbed with 1,100 pounds of marijuana in a motorhome camper the authorities trackied via his mobile phone pinging cell towers from Arizona to a Texas truck stop.

The decision, a big boost for the government’s surveillance powers, comes as prosecutors are shifting their focus to warrantless cell-tower location tracking of suspects in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling in January sharply limiting the use of GPS vehicle trackers. The Supreme Court found law enforcement should acquire probable-cause warrants from judges to affix GPS devices to vehicles and monitor their every move.

The court of appeals ruling comes a month after a congressional inquiry found that law enforcement made 1.3 million requests for cell phone data last year alone while seeking out subscriber information like text messages, location data and calling records.

Judge John M. Rogers wrote for the majority: http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/12a0262p-06.pdf

If a tool used to transport contraband gives off a signal that can be tracked for location, certainly the police can track the signal. The law cannot be that a criminal is entitled to rely on the expected untrackability of his tools. Otherwise, dogs could not be used to track a fugitive if the fugitive did not know that the dog hounds had his scent. A getaway car could not be identified and followed based on the license plate number if the driver reasonably thought he had gotten away unseen. The recent nature of cell phone location technology does not change this. If it did, then technology would help criminals but not the police.

August 13, 2012

The U.S. and Its Comrade in Arms, Al Qaeda, and other tales of an empire gone mad

http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/?p=15710

Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s … Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s … Libya 2011 … Syria 2012 … In military conflicts in each of these countries the United States and al Qaeda (or one of its associates) have been on the same side. What does this tell us about the United States’ “War On Terrorism”? Regime change has been the American goal on each occasion: overthrowing communists (or “communists”), Serbians, Slobodan Milosevic, Moammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad … all heretics or infidels, all non-believers in the empire, all inconvenient to the empire.

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, has the United States invested so much blood and treasure against the PLO, Iraq, and Libya, and now Syria, all mideast secular governments? Why are Washington’s closest Arab allies in the Middle East the Islamic governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain? Bahrain being the home of an American naval base; Saudi Arabia and Qatar being conduits to transfer arms to the Syrian rebels.

Why, if democracy means anything to the United States are these same close allies in the Middle East all monarchies? Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States shepherd Kosovo — 90% Islamist and perhaps the most gangsterish government in the world — to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia in 2008, an independence so illegitimate and artificial that the majority of the world’s nations still have not recognized it?

Why — since Kosovo’s ruling Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been known for their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts (sic) — has the United States been pushing for Kosovo’s membership in NATO and the European Union? (Just what the EU needs: another economic basket case.) Between 1998 and 2002, the KLA appeared on the State Department terrorist list, remaining there until the United States decided to make them an ally, due in no small part to the existence of a major American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, well situated in relation to planned international oil and gas pipelines coming from the vast landlocked Caspian Sea area to Europe. In November 2005, following a visit to Bondsteel, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described the camp as a “smaller version of Guantánamo”.

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UN Designated "Free Syrian Army" Affiliates as Al Qaeda :

http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/NSQE01101E.shtml

From UN.org - LIFG, who is now leading, arming, and funding (via Qatari, Saudi, Turkish, US, and British cash) entire brigades of the so-called "Free Syrian Army," is clearly listed as an integral part of Al Qaeda, with the UN noting several prominent LIFG terrorists occupying the highest echelons of Al Qaeda's command structure. These resolutions reflects other reports previously covered, including the US Army West Point Combating Terrorism Center report: Al-Qa'ida's Foreign Fighters in Iraq

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Bosnia, Kosovo, and Now Libya: The Human Costs of Washington’s On-Going Collusion with Terrorists

http://www.japanfocus.org/-Peter_Dale-Scott/3578

Twice in the last two decades, significant cuts in U.S. and western military spending were foreseen: first after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. But both times military spending soon increased, and among the factors contributing to the increase were America’s interventions in new areas: the Balkans in the 1990s, and Libya today.1 Hidden from public view in both cases was the extent to which al-Qaeda was a covert U.S. ally in both interventions, rather than its foe.

U.S. interventions in the Balkans and then Libya were presented by the compliant U.S. and allied mainstream media as humanitarian. Indeed, some Washington interventionists may have sincerely believed this. But deeper motivations – from oil to geo-strategic priorities – were also at work in both instances. In virtually all the wars since 1989, America and Islamist factions have been battling to determine who will control the heartlands of Eurasia in the post-Soviet era. In some countries – Somalia in 1993, Afghanistan in 2001 – the conflict has been straightforward, with each side using the other’s excesses as an excuse for intervention.

But there have been other interventions in which Americans have used al-Qaeda as a resource to increase their influence, for example Azerbaijan in 1993. There a pro-Moscow president was ousted after large numbers of Arab and other foreign mujahedin veterans were secretly imported from Afghanistan, on an airline hastily organized by three former veterans of the CIA’s airline Air America. (The three, all once detailed from the Pentagon to the CIA, were Richard Secord, Harry Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn.)2 This was an ad hoc marriage of convenience: the mujahedin got to defend Muslims against Russian influence in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Americans got a new president who opened up the oilfields of Baku to western oil companies.

The pattern of U.S. collaboration with Muslim fundamentalists against more secular enemies is not new. It dates back to at least 1953, when the CIA recruited right-wing mullahs to overthrow Prime Minister Mossadeq in Iran, and also began to cooperate with the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood.3 But in Libya in 2011 we see a more complex marriage of convenience between US and al-Qaeda elements: one which repeats a pattern seen in Bosnia in 1992-95, and Kosovo in 1997-98. In those countries America responded to a local conflict in the name of a humanitarian intervention to restrain the side committing atrocities. But in all three cases both sides committed atrocities, and American intervention in fact favored the side allied with al-Qaeda.

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A Council On Foreign Relations Love Letter To Al-Qaeda

http://www.activistpost.com/2012/08/a-council-on-foreign-relations-love.html

After Americans have had their Constitution all but eradicated following the damage supposedly done by al-Qaeda on 9/11, a new narrative is being bolstered by globalists and imperialists everywhere that al-Qaeda is our new best friend in Syria. Ed Husain, Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, drips with admiration for the once-labeled extremist killers of all things democratic, holy and good. Husain writes for CFR.org: http://www.cfr.org/syria/al-qaedas-specter-syria/p28782

The Syrian rebels would be immeasurably weaker today without al-Qaeda in their ranks. By and large, Free Syrian Army (FSA) battalions are tired, divided, chaotic, and ineffective. Feeling abandoned by the West, rebel forces are increasingly demoralized as they square off with the Assad regime's superior weaponry and professional army. Al-Qaeda fighters, however, may help improve morale. The influx of jihadis brings discipline, religious fervor, battle experience from Iraq, funding from Sunni sympathizers in the Gulf, and most importantly, deadly results. In short, the FSA needs al-Qaeda now.

This morally bankrupt statement, where the enemy of my enemy is my friend even while butchering innocent people, is appalling in the face of documented atrocities and terrorism being committed on the ground by rebel forces. Worse yet, this love letter of support is backed up by the unwitting (but largely unwilling) U.S. taxpayer.

snip

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The US, the UK, NATO, and the despotic absolute monarchies of Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, etc., are knowingly and willfully funding, arming, and politically backing designated affiliates of Al Qaeda contrary not only to US and UK anti-terror legislation, but contrary to numerous UN resolutions as well. http://www.un.org/sc/committees/1267/resolutions.shtml

This constitutes state sponsorship of terrorism by the West and their brutal, oil-soaked allies from the House of Saud, et al. The US is quick to throw anyone (or kill, including its own citizens) into the black-hole of indefinite detention and psy-op torture for providing material support to terrorists. I suggest that many in the US/UK governments, as well as NATO and the other above-listed countries deserve the same. Anything less is pure and rank hypocrisy.

August 11, 2012

Miami Herald: How Paul Ryan could be a drag on Mitt Romney in Florida

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/08/11/v-fullstory/2946098/how-paul-ryan-could-be-a-drag.html

Paul Ryan was announced Saturday as Republican Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, and conservatives are rejoicing. But so are Democrats. Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, is the architect of the Ryan budget plan that makes big changes to Medicare and Medicaid and could allow for some privatization of Social Security. And that’s widely seen by Democrats and most analysts as a politically risky stance in Florida, a must-win state for Republicans, where retirees cast a suspicious eye on changes to the three major government-entitlement programs that pump about $96 billion yearly into the hands of the elderly, the infirm and the hospitals, doctors and other providers who give them direct care.

By picking Ryan, Romney shows he’s ready to fight for conservative changes to the liberal-legacy programs. “We won’t duck the tough issues...we will lead!” Ryan plans to say in his official acceptance speech in Norfolk, Virg., according to a copy of hir prepared remarks. “We won’t blame others...we will take responsibility! We won’t replace our founding principles...we will reapply them!” Democrats are ready, too, for a battle of ideas. “Paul Ryan wants to privatize Social Security. Looking forward to welcoming Mitt and his pick to Florida,” U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, a Boca Raton Democrat, tweeted. “There’s nothing brave about cutting the programs that America’s seniors rely on for their health and financial security.”

In addition to talking more about Medicare and Republican plans to scale it back, Democrats won’t have to face their nemesis, Sen. Marco Rubio, on a statewide ticket for the second election in a row in Florida, a state that Rubio as a running-mate would have put more in play for Romney, polls showed. At the heart of the controversy is Ryan’s proposal to turn Medicare in the future into a “premium support” system that would help seniors pay for private health insurance. It would essentially put more caps on future Medicare expenditures. Democrats prefer to use the “V” word to describe it: Voucher. And they point to independent studies showing that the voucher, a predetermined amount of money that escalates at a predetermined rate over time, won’t keep pace with the inflation of medical costs. Bottom line: Seniors would have to pay more out of pocket in the future than they’re paying now. Services could be cut. Right now, about 3.4 million are on Medicare in Florida, which receives about $25.2 billion from the program.

Ryan and the plan’s defenders point out that nothing’s free. Someone’s always paying something out of pocket for Medicare or any other government program. On its current path, Medicare isn’t sustainable. And more and more seniors are buying supplemental insurance to cover Medicare expenses now, making the system appear more voucher-like over time. Ryan said he’s trying to save, not end, Medicare. Also, Ryan softened his plan, giving some future beneficiaries the choice of using the voucher or keeping a more traditional Medicare program. Ryan’s plan would restructure Medicare for those younger than 55. His Social Security plan would allow those younger than 55 to invest a part of their Social Security taxes in “personal retirement accounts” managed by the government, not private firms.

snip

August 9, 2012

Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz

http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/1209/Are-you-scientifically-literate-Take-our-quiz/Composing-about-78-percent-of-the-air-at-sea-level-what-is-the-most-common-gas-in-the-Earth-s-atmosphere

I missed questions 14, 18, 22, and 35

Quiz results

46
Correct

4
Wrong

You answered 46 of 50 questions correctly for a total score of 92%

August 9, 2012

Police State Update: The NYPD’s Domain Awareness System Is Watching You

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/nypd-domain-awareness-system-microsoft-is-watching-you.html

The New York City Police Department and Microsoft have partnered up to bring the world a surveillance system straight out of a sci-fi novel. With a name both mundane and a little bit menacing, the Domain Awareness System allows the department to access around 3,000 CCTV cameras around the city and link the feeds with software to cross-check criminal and terrorist databases, take radiation levels, scan license plates, and more — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, from a lower Manhattan headquarters. And when Microsoft turns around and sells the technology to other cities, New York gets a cut.

"We're not your mom-and-pop's Police Department anymore," said Mayor Bloomberg yesterday at the system's unveiling. "We are in the next century. We are leading the pack." Ray Kelly added, "We can track where a car associated with a murder suspect is currently located and where it’s been over the past several days, weeks or months." Months! The archival period for video is actually 30 days, but can be extended if the Deputy Commissioner of Counterterrorism feels like it.

The official documents ensure, "As with all NYPD operations, no person will be targeted or monitored by the Domain Awareness System solely because of actual or perceived race, color, religion or creed, age, national origin, alienage, citizenship status, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, disability, marital status, partnership status, military status, or political affiliation or beliefs." But we've heard that one before.

Beyond the surveillance integration, the Domain Awareness System is an investment. "I hope Microsoft sells a lot of copies of this system," the mayor said, "because 30 percent of the profits will go to us." High-tech crime fighting and a business opportunity? It's a Bloomberg-ian dream.

snip

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Public Security Privacy Guidelines

http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/crime_prevention/public_security_privacy_guidelines.pdf

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related:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/nypd_all_in_one_crime_bust_gizmo_fiBZx2e1E64bIka70oYX4K

DU 5-year flashback

http://election.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=297146&mesg_id=297146

August 9, 2012

Inside Chernobyl (Arkitekture Films 2012)

A short film based on current conditions in Chernobyl & Pripyat. Please note, I am an amateur documentary filmaker and this documentary was made on no budget. The only cost involved were just the travel expenses to the Ukraine.

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I'm simply the poster, the above comments are from the Youtube video link.

August 7, 2012

before it goes down the memory hole: 2 MSM reports of multiple shooters at Sikh Temple + more

CNN:

"Very well coordinated, Wasn't haphazard, Releasing of Gas" - Sikh Temple Shooting witness (Multiple shooters)

"It was a very coordinated thing. It wasn't haphazard," temple member Amardeep Kaleka told CNN. He said his father was wounded in the attack at the temple in a suburb south of Milwaukee: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/05/us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-idUSBRE87...

Wisconsin Sikh Temple Shooting witness reports multiple shooters oak creek

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AP Shooters- 4 White Males, all dressed in Black

August 5th 2012- Conflicting reports coming from Wisconsin, An eyewitness says there were 4 shooters dressed in all black.

"The first official word from police was that they didn't know how many victims or suspects were involved. But a short time later, after an extensive search of the temple, authorities said they did not believe there was more than one shooter."
source: http://www.globaltoronto.com/7+dead+in+wisconsin+sikh+temple+shooting/6442692...

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Multiple reports of multiple shooters, oftentimes in detail, then poooof, all seem to disappear, just Like the OKC bombing (John Doe number 2, who I fully believe was Andreas Strassmeir, a German national working as an FBI sheep-dipper for neo-nazis in Operation Pat-Con), Columbine (dozens upon dozens reports of multiple teams of shooters), the Oslo killings (multiple real times reports of multiple shooters), the Aurora Co. massacre( multiple reports of witnesses in theatre reporting gunfire and gas bombs from both sides, also 2 gas masks found, plus unexplained blood trail leading back to theatre from where Holmes was captured), etc.

Also, the fact that drills simulating the damn near same thing almost always 'just happen' to occur at the same time (same type of drills also happened on 9-11 (46 of them, and counting http://tinyurl.com/d4bh4gg PDF ), Madrid train bombings, 7-7 London attacks, etc) in the same area as these real life tragedies. Will there be now be announcements that drills were going on in Milwaukee too?

Andreas-Strassmeir - a.k.a. John Doe 2 in OKC

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Gender: Male
Hometown: Lidingö
Home country: Sweden
Member since: Mon Dec 27, 2010, 07:09 PM
Number of posts: 3,751

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