The UN Security Council today agreed on a plan to "train and equip" an army loyal to the Libyan "Government of National Accord" after US Secretary of State John Kerry made a strong case for the remilitarization of the conflict. The UN-created "Government of National Accord" may be supported by western governments, but it has virtually no support in Libya. It's unelected "presidential council" will be the real power behind the "unity" government, but so unpopular is the group that it had to be delivered to Libya from Tunisia via warship. Ron Paul Institute Executive Director Daniel McAdams is interviewed on RT America with his take on today's dramatic move... read on...
The CIA was once so interested in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture that it secretly spied on the US Senate to see what they were coming up with. These days...well, not so much. They hardly seem interested in the report at all. In fact, the CIA Inspector General's office has acknowledged that it "mistakenly" destroyed its only copy of the Senate torture report.
As Yahoo News reports, it is particularly alarming that the CIA office charged with oversight on matters of illegal CIA activity has bungled its handling of the report. And what a coincidence the CIA loss of the report turns out to be! It seems that, "CIA inspector general officials deleted an uploaded computer file with the report and then accidentally destroyed a disk that also contained the document, filled with thousands of secret files about the CIA’s use of 'enhanced' interrogation methods." read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted today. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. read on...
With the ongoing larger US wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and elsewhere, it can easily become the "new normal" that US troops are also fighting in (relatively) small numbers in places we just do not hear about, in wars the media does not question, in bloody conflicts that Congress does not bother to debate much less authorize. Once it was news when US troops were fighting overseas. But now the total US militarization of the rest of the world is so non-controversial that the average American doesn't even seem fazed about it. read on...
We have previously discussed the meltdown at airports due to the latest failure of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Passengers are being asked to show up hours in advance and many are missing their flights due to endless lines. Now, thousands of bags have been lost due to a “technical problems” at TSA. The lack of any accountability for the ongoing failures at TSA is the latest evidence of the disconnect between citizens and their government.
At airports like Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina lines are now commonly three hours. It is a disgrace and, on one day, some 600 passengers missed their flights. In Chicago’s Midway airport, passengers faced a line that stretched beyond sight and beyond the time for their flights. The reaction was not pretty. read on...
The FBI and its director James Comey have been careful not to be swept into the political campaign in comments about the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s personal server. The Clinton campaign, and the candidate herself, have repeatedly scoffed at any danger of an indictment and insisted that this is merely a “security review” or “security inquiry.” Indeed, close Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal was on CNN this morning stressing that this was nothing more than a security review. Now Comey is being quoted by Fox News chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge as directly refuting this core claim by Clinton and saying that this is a criminal investigation. He would also likely disagree with Bill Clinton’s recent claim that the investigation was just a “game” and nothing more. read on...
If at where you work you spent $759 million on something, and then told your boss you have no idea if anything was accomplished, and that the little data you do have is probably fraudulent, how might that work out for you? read on...
A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues posted today. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud. read on...
National Bird, a new documentary by filmmaker Sonia Kennebeck, co-produced with Errol Morris and Wim Wenders, is a deep, multilayered, look into America’s drone wars, a tactic which became a strategy which became a post-9/11 policy. To many in Iraq, Afghanistan and throughout the world, America’s new national symbol is not the bald eagle, but a gray shadow overhead armed with Hellfire missiles. read on...
Citing the Arab language Al Masirah TV news site, 20th Century Wire is reporting that some 100 US Army Special Forces have landed recently at the Anad air base in Lahij, Yemen. This deployment is said to augment other Arab forces currently engaging with al-Qaeda in its strongholds in southern Yemen. It was only just over a year ago that the US was forced to evacuate its forces from Yemen as fighting increased between the deposed Saudi-backed government and a Houthi-led insurgency.
The Saudi war on Yemen which began just over a year ago has not only claimed the lives of thousands of civilians and destroyed what little infrastructure existed in the Arab world's poorest country, it also created perfect conditions for the expansion of al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula (AQAP). read on...
