Archive - Jan 1, 2010

Source: Reuters Jan 2 (Reuters) - Following are security developments in Iraq at 0600 GMT on Saturday.

FALLUJA - A bomb attached to a car killed an off-duty policeman and wounded two others in southern Falluja, ...

Casualties Of War: Yemeni Detainees At Guantanamo Probably Staying Put For Now
By David Dayen | FireDogLake

I think McClatchy gets this right – if there’s going to be an immediate consequence of the underpants bomber, it will be to effectively shut down the emptying of Guantanamo, particularly of the 80 or so remaining prisoners who are Yemeni nationals. They haven’t done anything newly wrong or been convicted – or even charged – with any crime, but they are now caught up in the politics of the moment, making their release seemingly impossible.

Nearly half of the 198 captives at Guantánamo are citizens of Yemen — also the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden — just south of Saudi Arabia.

“This is just disastrous for the Yemenis at Guantánamo,” said Washington, D.C. attorney David Remes, who over the years has defended 17 Yemeni detainees , some now slated for release.

Remes said an Obama administration task force has cleared for release “as many as 40 Yemenis” declared unfairly held or no longer threats, but that “the politics of the situation may make it impossible for the administration to send any Yemenis back to Yemen in the foreseeable future.”

You can already see the political implications of this in the fact that John McCain and his Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, asked the President to stop the transfer of six Yemeni detainees who were already sent home a week ago. The McCain press aide’s response to her boss’ lack of knowledge is priceless: Read more.

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UN says Afghans slain in troop raid were students
Associated Press | Yahoo News!

The United Nations said Thursday that a weekend raid by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students and warned against nighttime actions by coalition forces because they often cause civilian deaths.

The Afghan government said its investigation has established that all 10 people killed Sunday in a remote village in Kunar province were civilians. Its officials said that eight of those killed were schoolchildren aged 12-14.

NATO officials initially said all the dead were insurgents, but later backed off by saying there was no evidence to substantiate the claims that they were civilians. They requested a joint Afghan-NATO investigation to reach an "impartial and accurate determination" of what happened.

UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement that the preliminary UN investigation showed "strong indication" that there were insurgents in the area at the time of the attack.

But, he added, "based on our initial investigation, eight of those killed were students enrolled in local schools."

Civilian deaths are one of the most sensitive issues for international troops fighting the more than eight-year-old war. Although insurgents are responsible for the deaths of far more civilians, those blamed on coalition forces spark the most resentment and undermine the fight against the militants. Read more.

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Out of the muck of the Year-End News Dump: Gummint can't touch Blackwater's (Xe's?) Baghdad shooting brigade
By Ken | Down With Tyranny

AP video from Dec. 6, 2008, when the identities of the five Blackwater guards indicted for the Baghdad shootings were made public

One of the features I loved in Rachel Maddow's old Air America Radio morning show was the regular Monday-morning Friday News Dump report. It's one of those things that everybody, or at any rate lots of folks, know about, but hardly anyone does anything about.

Anytime anyone in government has news that has to be made public, but that they would like to draw the minimum of attention, they dump it in with their Friday news dump, secure in the knowledge that all the media and an awful lot of media consumers tune out on Saturday. Anything that happens to get into the Saturday papers and newscasts gets hardly any attention, and by Sunday they're all off on the Sunday Round of Grand Pontificating -- you couldn't wedge any real news in there with a hatchet.

I'm sure there are any number of blogs doing what Rachel did: combing through those leavings to see what embarrassments, not to mention revelations, were concealed there. But you see, that's the thing: It's just some lonely, no-account-paid bloggers, and the bureaucratic blunder bundlers can easily live with that -- that's almost better than silence, in that they can always say, if they're challenged about a particular news dump, that they put it out there and heck, somebody picked it up -- are they supposed to be doing the journalists' job for them too? Read more.

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Early Show: Mountain Sprout “Screw the Government”
Late Show: Junior Wells “Hoodoman Blues”

What’s on your mind tonight?

Fmr. U.S. Senator George Mitchell (D-ME) participated in an oral history project in 2007 directed by the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. In this never before aired interview he discusses his political and personal relationship with his Republican colleague, Bob Dole.
Length:

Published: Today at 12am (ET)

Abraham Lincoln’s opposition to the expansion of slavery in the West was a key factor on his decision to enter national politics. Pulitzer-prize winning historian James McPherson spoke about Lincoln’s connection to the West at the Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg.
Length:

Published: Today at 12am (ET)

7:30am – Christopher Boucek, Carnegie Endowment for Int'l Peace, Middle East Program Associate

8:15am – Dr. David Shern, Mental Health America, President & CEO

9am – Kevin Chavous, Center for Education Reform, Fellow

Length: 3 hr.

Published: Today at 7am (ET)

President Johnson and his advisers talk about Vietnam and the Paris Peace talks. With the election just a few weeks away, he discusses the presidential campaign. Also hear calls about the sale of phantom jets to Israel and the U.S. Ambassador to France’s negative comments about Secretary of State Rusk. And throughout the program, historian David Shreve provides context and background for these conversations.
Length:

Published: Today at 3:45pm (ET)

This evening's Rescue Rangers are YatPundit, vcmvo2, jlms qkw, mem from somerville, Louisiana 1976, and dadanation, with watercarrier4diogenes at the wheel of the Editmobile, frantically chasing a vintage Perley A. Thomas streetcar, hoping to get its operator, YatPundit, back aboard before any of the passengers get wise.

The rescued diaries tonight are truly the gems for which we search every night. The Rangers are secondary to what they present to you, some of the best writing available on Teh Great Orange Satan, if some of the less noticed initially. Read these, rec and comment in them, let the diarists know that you appreciate their efforts and their viewpoints (even if you don't happen to completely agree with them).

• If you're owned by a pet, ChristieKeith has some important news for you in Massive veterinary drug recall getting bigger. (Louisiana 1976)
• NBBooks takes the HCR situation and examines historical parallels with other unsettling compromises in The Leadership of Necessity. (mem from somerville)
• Has the 21st Century really begun? TarheelDem answers this question in Where is my New Millennium? (Louisiana 1976)
• shpilk offers a New Year's reflection in Parting thoughts to a decade that could have been. (YatPundit)
• ommzms suggests the effect of memory in our lives in Blue Moon Blogging. (vcmvo2)
• At this time of year when many plan positive changes in their lives, cazimi is Talkin' about a Re-s-olution. (Louisiana 1976)
• fake consultant offers a thorough consult for broadcasters on their past and future options with On Making It Work, Or, An Open Letter To Network TV. (mem from somerville)
• ninkasi23 marks a very personal milestone with prose and poetry in 10 Years Gone; Reflecting on my mother's death. (YatPundit)
• KibbutzAmiad eloquently shares the difficult yet hopeful story of his friend Will in "Something fierce and imperishable...." (jlms qkw)
• Is free trade a good deal for Americans? twocanpete argues that Free Trade is a Rigged Game. (Louisiana 1976)
• A polar bear capably documents serious threats to circumpolar beings of light. (mem from somerville)
• cabaretic suggests A New Year's Resolution for Activists: to learn the balance between that which one can positively effect and that which one cannot. (Louisiana 1976)
• Karen Hedwig Backman writes the liturgy for a much-needed ceremony in Exorcism, 2010. (jlms qkw)
• With this poem, Turing asks us to Remember Katrina. (vcmvo2)

jotter has the decade's ultimate activity summary in High Impact Diaries: December 31, 2009.

asimbagirl has Top Comments - New Year's Resolution Edition.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread (even if you're the author! Here's where that's actually appreciated). And, of course, since it's an open thread, PLAY NICE, OK? 8^)

Source: Reuters By Rosemarie Francisco

MANILA, Jan 2 (Reuters) - The Philippines lowered the alert at its restive Mayon volcano by one notch on Saturday after noticing signs of decreased activity, and cut to 6 ...

CIA caught in dirty and secretive war against al-Qaeda on Afghan border
By Tom Coghlan | Times Online | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com

CIA-led night raids such as this have proved controversial before. A UN-commissioned report last year from Philip Alston, director of the New York Centre for Human Rights, claimed that such raids raised issues under humanitarian and international law....Professor Alston complained that many raids were “composed of Afghans but with a handful, at most, of international people directing it” and were “not accountable to any international military authority”.

The deaths of seven CIA agents in Khost province have brought into the limelight the secretive and dirty war being fought by America’s intelligence agencies — and the Taleban and al-Qaeda — in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Forward Operating Base Chapman, and others like it along the border, are the forward edge of American military and intelligence counter-terrorism operations, aimed principally at hunting down senior figures in al-Qaeda and their allies in the Taleban hiding in the lawless tribal belt.

The CIA’s main strike weapons are the drones that loiter over the border areas 24 hours a day, watching and listening to telephone networks. While the drones provide surveillance and electronic intelligence and carry out strikes, human intelligence is far harder to acquire among remote communities suspicious of any outsider. Read more.

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CIA Resolved to Avenge Agents' Deaths
Retired CIA Officers Take Swing at Obama Over CIA Torture Prosecutions
By Mark Mooney, Nick Schifrin and Matthew Cole | ABC News

Organization president Gene Poteat said he appreciated President Obama's letter of condolences to agency staffers, but criticized Obama for "his silence" on the Department of Justice's effort to prosecute CIA personnel over allegations of torture during the Bush administration. "Yet we expect these patriots to continue despite such personal and professional risks abroad -- and at home," Poteat said.

The CIA, reeling from the assassination of seven of its operatives in Afghanistan earlier this week, said today that its resolve to find and attack Taliban and al Qaeda leaders is "greater than ever."

CIA spokesman George Little would not discuss specifics of the Wednesday attack, the deadliest assault on the CIA since the 1983 bombing of the Beirut embassy. Little did suggest, however, that the loss would be avenged.

"There is much about the attack that isn't yet known, but this much is clear: The CIA's resolve to pursue aggressive counterterrorism operations is greater than ever," Little told The Associated Press.

The Association of Former Intelligence Officers said the deaths of the agents "should remind the public that the CIA is truly on the front lines in this war; one that remains officially unrecognized." Read more.

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Dear Friends,

I am hugely excited for 2010! Last week we launched our Coal Free Zone delivering 500 stockings with candy coal and an informative flier about how folks in my Northwest community of Vashon Island are - despite our best intentions and misconceptions - "Coal Consumers." (36% of Puget Sound Energy's power portfolio is coal-fired.) People were surprised, but received our "Naughty or Nice?" message with good humor.

I'm ecstatic that local conversations about energy and stewardship have served as a catalyst for another transformative project - a Vashon Community Credit Union, currently being spearheaded by the un-stoppable Rex Stratton. And there's a growing buzz about alternative currency, community solar, electric car manufacturing and more. It's a thrilling time to take ownership of change we want rather than waiting for it from Washington, Copenhagen or anywhere else.

As I saw dozens of requests for funding come through over the last few days, I didn't want to add to the onslaught. The generosity of Backbone's network of friends has kept us afloat through hard times, and now we are seeing a bright light at the end of the tunnel of scarcity. A recent anonymous grant is going to allow us to rebuild our part-time office staff. The Nathan Cummings grant is a mandate for an amazing project opportunities for skill sharing, image creation and trainings across the country.

I'm honored that our first event of 2010 is to welcome the Seattle area to hear the progressive populist, indefatigable, prolific genius activist and Backbone Campaign advisory board member David Swanson, Tuesday, January 5, 7:30 - 9pm downstairs at Town Hall in Seattle. (Enter on Seneca Street.) See below or online here.

So - whether you want to make that last minute end of year contribution HERE, or just want to look forward to collaboration and sharing inspiration in the new year - here's my end of year email and sincere wishes of gratitude for my great Board, collaborators, volunteers, and supportive family. And deepest wishes for a joyful and transformative New Decade! I'm honored and grateful to be facing it with all of you.

Bill Moyer
Backbone Campaign
206-408-8058

Start off your New Year with a celebration of Democracy and your role in it. Hear author, activist, and Backbone Campaign advisor David Swanson speak about how We the People can take the reigns of our democracy and transform this country.

"Daybreak offers a powerful and compelling picture of what real change in America could look like. The world needs more true advocates of democracy like David Swanson!" -- Thom Hartmann

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From a gorgeous gallery of snowflake photos from SnowCrystals.com. Open Thread below...