Lawyer For Soldier Accused Of Afghan Slaughter: ‘Almost Complete Information Blackout’

April 2, 2012

Activist Post

By Madison Ruppert

“Should anyone be surprised by this?  What are they trying to hide?” –KTRN

John Henry Browne, the attorney for Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, the man accused of single-handedly massacring 17 Afghan villagers, is now accusing the United States government of “an almost complete information blackout” which is blocking him from preparing a proper defense for Bales.

Browne alleges that he and his legal team has been prevented from being able to interview the witnesses to the tragic incident as well as the injured civilians in southern Afghanistan.

“We were expecting a lot more cooperation. The prosecutors in this case promised us a lot of cooperation which we’re just not getting,” Browne said to reporters in Seattle, Washington.

“We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client,” he added.

38-year-old Bales allegedly strolled out of his base in Kandahar, a southern Afghan province, without being stopped or questioned, early on March 11, after which he conducted a merciless, calculated assault on two villages killing 17 civilians, including women and children.

However, this case has been rife with inconsistencies and unanswered questions, especially surrounding the possibility of multiple soldiers being involved in the tragic killings.

Click here for the full report.

U.S. Military Will Not Charge Anyone For Killing Of 24 Pakistani Soldiers

March 26, 2012

Activist Post

By Madison Ruppert

The United States military has now decided that they will not charge a single soldier with any crime for their role in the airstrike carried out by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces last year which resulted in the murder of 24 Pakistani soldiers.

This incident significantly hurt U.S.-Pakistani relations and has had a major impact on operations in Afghanistan, not the least of which is the increase of effective gasoline costs up to around $400 per gallon for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

The American investigation – the objectivity of which is highly questionable – determined that both American and Pakistani troops were at fault.

However, said investigation in December of last year claimed that the Pakistani soldiers fired first. They further claimed that the soldiers fired from two border posts which were not on the coalition maps.

Furthermore, they allege that the Pakistani soldiers did not stop firing when the Americans attempted to tell them that they were attacking allied troops.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Pakistan rejected all of these conclusions and put the blame squarely on American forces.

The investigation carried out by the United States set up a second inquiry which looked into whether American military personnel should be held responsible for the killings.

This review, which was just recently completed, came to the conclusion that not a single soldier should be punished for any crime whatsoever.

According to three senior military officials cited by The New York Times, the Americans fired in self-defense, thus clearing them of any and all wrongdoing.

They are now claiming that the mistakes which contributed to the tragic and deadly attack were nothing more than the result of battlefield confusion.

“We found nothing criminally negligent on the part of any individual in our investigations of the incident,” one anonymous senior U.S. military official, who has been involved with the inquiry, said.

The American officials spoke only on condition of anonymity due to the fact that the results of the review have yet to be made publicly available.

Click here for the full report.

Search And Destroy: Military Tries To Delete Staff Sgt. Bales From Web

March 23, 2012

RT

By RT

“One has to wonder what really caused this man to commit this massacre.  Brainwashing?  Mind control?  The stress of war?  We can only speculate at this point since the US military isn’t telling us anything.”  –KTRN

The notorious Afghan massacre suspect has disappeared without a trace from army websites. All photos and combat service details have been removed – but even the military can’t clear the world’s caches.

­Immediately after the Pentagon released his name to the press, thousands of copies of Staff Sgt. Bales’ photo were published, and details of his four tours of combat shared. There were even excerpts from his wife’s blog. So why bother trying to delete the un-deletable?

According to McClatchy DC, the military said its intention in removing the material wasn’t to lessen the army’s embarrassment over the horrific attack, but to protect the privacy of Bales’ family. Quoting an unnamed Pentagon official, the paper said that “protecting a military family has to be a priority” and that they “owe it to the wife and kids to do what we can.”

The wife and kids, who have been moved to a military base in Washington State for “security reasons”, have refrained from speculative comments, but Karylin Bales has issued a statement saying both her and her husband’s extended families are “profoundly sad” and offering condolences to the people of the Panjawai District in Afghanistan, where the massacre occurred.

Staff Sgt Bales’ wife went on to add: “Our family has little information beyond what we read and see in the media. What has been reported is completely out of character of the man I know and admire.” As his wife of some years and mother to his two kids, her statement of knowing this man certainly appears to carry some weight – at least, at first glance. But constantly emerging details of the man, his past, his combat tours create such a conflicting profile that it becomes almost impossible to say who knew him, or how well.

Robert Bales enlisted in the army two months after the tragedy of 9/11. He is still referred to as “our Bobby” in his hometown of Norwood, Ohio, where neighbors say his family’s motto was “God, country, family” and Robert, the youngest of five brothers, was a respectful and well-liked boy. “That’s not Bobby” was the sentiment of his mother, one which was echoed by the community.

Click here for the full report.

US Torture Camps ‘Still Operative’

March 20, 2012

RT

By RT

“Let’s just hope this isn’t true …” –KTRN

A new report reveals that US forces continue to send detainees to prisons where torture is practiced, despite NATO’s promise to suspend prison transfers last September.

­The report carried out by the Afghan Independent Rights Commission and the Open Society Foundation documents numerous cases of torture in Afghan detention facilities between February 2011 and January 2012.

The document has credible evidence in 11 recent cases where practices such as “beatings, suspension from the ceiling, electric shocks, threatened or actual sexual abuse, and other forms of mental and physical abuse” were commonplace. Researchers also discovered widespread violations of prisoners’ rights were in evidence, “including the right to counsel and family notification.”

According to the study, these techniques are “routinely used to obtain confessions or other information.”

Abuses were found to be committed both in Afghan National Police facilities (ANP) and the National Directorate of Security facilities (NDS).

Moreover, the document presents evidence that even after NATO announced it would suspend prison transfers in September, “some US forces or personnel continue to transfer individuals to NDS Kandahar.” The risk of torture for the detainees upon arrival was “widely acknowledged.” In spite of this fact, “CIA or other US intelligence officials” may be sending prisoners to banned facilities.

Click here for the full report.

Lawmakers Push For US Invasion Of Africa Following Kony 2012 Fraud

March 14, 2012

Info Wars

By Paul Joseph Watson

“It looks like the US is going to invade yet another country over a thirty minute propaganda film.” –KTRN

Two House lawmakers have introduced a resolution that seeks to deepen US Military involvement in Africa on the back of the Kony 2012 hoax, despite the fact that Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army have been virtually inactive for six years.

“The resolution, introduced by Reps. Jim McGovern, D-Mass. and Ed Royce, R-Calif., calls for, among other things, expanding the number of regional forces in Africa to protect civilians and placing restrictions on individuals or governments found to be supporting Kony,” reports CBS News.

As we have seen from US involvement in Libya and its attempts to destabilize Syria, the “humanitarian” justification is merely an excuse for expanding US hegemony into Africa where China has aggressively staked its claim.

As we highlighted on Monday, the establishment-manufactured hype surrounding Kony 2012 is nothing more than a cynical ruse designed to manipulate naive do-gooders into legitimizing another US-backed “humanitarian” assault aimed at swallowing up Africa’s resources and land under Africom.

While Joseph Kony and his army disappeared six years ago, Ugandans are being killed and evicted in their thousands by western entities right now – but nobody is making ‘viral’ films about the crisis and no celebrities are tweeting their displeasure.

Invisible Children, the group behind Kony 2012 has created a groundswell of support for Uganda’s dictator Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, a man who has been in control of the country for 30 years and was returned to power in an election last year that was rife with fraud according to European Union observers.

Museveni has been implicated in genocide after ordering his guards to shoot and kill civilians. He is also notorious for bumping off his political enemies.

Click here for the full report.

The Myth of the Fair and Benevolent State: Policing the World

March 14, 2012

Activist Post

By Eric Blair

“Perhaps it’s time the US stop policing the world.  In case they haven’t noticed, things are pretty messed up at home.”  –KTRN

In the string of military conflicts that the United States and NATO have been involved in since the second world war they have always attempted to maintain the high road by claiming that they were responding to some kind of threat, and apparently helping the people that they were bombing.

This approach is largely accepted by the general public who is either too afraid or unable to suspect malicious intentions on the part of their masters. In helping themselves to rationalize the nonsensical things that are happening in their name many people are firm believers in the idea that their government is doing good “policing the world”.

We hear this phrase all of the time, even among people who generally disagree with wars and government policy. People say that “NATO has no right to police the world as they do!”, and those people would be right. However, that statement is overlooking one fundamental premise, that being the fact that NATO’s goals and ambitions have nothing to do with “policing the world”. Just as ancient Rome’s government could care less about “bringing civilization to the savages”, today’s Western governments are not interested in “spreading democracy” or “policing the world”.

This is an extremely important point to make because this idea that they are trying to police the world perpetuates the myth of the fair and benevolent state, and downplays the significant damage that they are doing to people’s lives around the world. If we were being honest with ourselves, we would say that they are trying to take over the world’s governments and plunder their natural resources, because that’s what we can see happening around us. War is, and always has been, about conquest for plunder and power. And the many wars that we see taking place around the world today are no different.

Sure, nowadays, the cover story may be that they are “policing the world”, but there is now a mountain of evidence showing that the primary goal of these military actions are to secure natural resources, hijack the local political and financial systems, and establish more military bases to assist in future conquests.

Time after time Western imperial powers vilify foreign dictators who, in many cases, have been directly funded and supported by those same imperial powers in the past. For at least the past century the UK, US and their allies have been shipping billions of dollars worth of weapons to foreign dictators under the guise of “foreign aid”. As a side note, “foreign aid” is another one of those terms that imply a fair and benevolent state, when the reality is far more destructive than the choice of words would lead one to believe.

Click here for the full report.

Taliban Promise Revenge for Civilian Murders in Afghanistan

March 13, 2012

Info Wars

By Kurt Nimmo

“Doesn’t anyone think the US deserves some kind of punishment for the brutality that this soldier committed? Wasn’t he supposed to be trained by the very best? If the US military were not in Afghanistan to begin with, none of this would have happened. It is time to bring the brave men and women who are there home. They do NOT want to be there.” –KTRN

The Taliban has called for revenge following the massacre of 16 civilians in the Panjwai district of Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan, allegedly by a U.S. soldier on a rampage. The Taliban posted a message on their website denouncing the “barbaric actions” of “sick-minded American savages” and said they would seek revenge.

“Is there any military … in the entire world which gives legality for unstable persons to be armed and drafted into the military and then be given the duty of so-called peacekeeping?” the group asked.

The Afghan Parliament has also called for immediate action. “We urge the United States government to punish the culprits and put them on trial in an open court so that the rest of those who want to shed our innocent people’s blood take a lesson from it,” a statement read.

The latest incident follows the burning of the Koran at Bagram airfield by U.S. soldiers. The desecration of the Islamic holy book led to violent protests and resulted in the removal of hundreds of foreign advisers from Afghan ministries following the fatal reprisal shooting of two American officers.

Click here for the full report.

Forget Kony, Ugandans Are Being Slaughtered By Their Own Western-Backed Government

March 13, 2012

Prison Planet

By Paul Joseph Watson

“Don’t by into the Kony 2012 hype. It’s propaganda at its very best.” –KTRN

While the political left and an army of Hollywood trendies are clamoring for a U.S. Military invasion of Uganda to capture Joseph Kony, a man who has not even been in the country for six years, Ugandan authorities, backed by the World Bank and British carbon trading companies, are slaughtering Ugandan villagers and stealing their land in a brutal new form of neo-colonialism that has gone largely unnoticed.

Forget Kony, Ugandans Are Being Slaughtered By Their Own Western Backed Government Bildschirmfoto 2012 03 07 um 12.13

Following the release of Kony 2012, a film made by a shadowy charity with links to USAID, the Tweetosphere exploded with a deluge of leftist politicos and clueless celebrities jumping on the bandwagon to call for Barack Obama to launch yet another act of “humanitarian” bloodletting to go after Kony, leader the of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRC).

In their haste to appear trendy and in vogue with a viral trend that was all over the social networks like a bad rash within the space of 24 hours, those advocating an increased military intervention on top of the 100 US troops already sent into Uganda last year, most notably habitual “humanitarian” warmonger Angelina Jolie, didn’t concern themselves with the facts.

The propaganda campaign that has put Joseph Kony on a par with Osama Bin Laden and Hitler is a crude hoax to legitimize the US military-industrial complex’s agenda to re-colonize Africa under Africom.

“Not surprisingly, the [film] is seriously misleading, falsely implying there’s war raging in Northern Uganda when there’s not. In fact, Kony has not been in the country for six years; his group is a much-depleted rump, numbering a few hundred people at most,” writes ABC Australia’s Jeff Sparrow.

Ugandan journalist Angelo Izama calls Kony 2012 a “misrepresentation,” noting that the film’s “portrayal of [Kony's] alleged crimes in Northern Uganda are from a bygone era,” and that the problems facing the country in 2012 are AIDS, Hepatitis, prostitution and unemployment, none of which would be alleviated by a U.S. military invasion on the pretext of hunting a man who is not even in the country.

Click here for the full report.

American Soldier Has A ‘Breakdown’ And Shoots Nine Children Dead In Their Sleep

March 12, 2012

Daily Mail

By Beth Stebner

“The US military once again shows it’s true colors.  This would never have even happened if they weren’t there to begin with.  It’s time to bring these men and women home.”  –KTRN

Nine children and three women were among 16 innocent Afghan civilians shot and killed by a U.S. soldier who opened fire after suffering a ‘mental breakdown’ early this morning.

The soldier reportedly entered the Afghan family’s homes in the middle of the night and opened fire on his victims in a killing spree. A relative of the deceased added that he then ‘poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them.’

The U.S service member is said to have surrendered to U.S. military authorities after entering the three homes, and is currently in their custody. Afghan president Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks as ‘an assassination’ and demanded an explanation from the U.S.

The attack could deepen strife between the two countries, as it comes weeks after NATO soldiers burned copies of the Koran – the Muslim holy book – sparking a violent protest that left some 30 people dead.

Click here for the full report.

Youth Movement Promotes US Military Presence in Central Africa

March 9, 2012

Activist Post

By Nile Bowie

“No one is saying Joseph Kony is a good man. But shroud the US be playing world police in Africa? The whole situation is very sad.” –KTRN

Edward Bernays believed that society could not be trusted to make rational and informed decisions on their own, and that guiding public opinion was essential within a democratic society. Bernays founded the Council on Public Relations and his 1928 book, Propaganda cites the methodology used in the application of effective emotional communication. He discovered that such communication is capable of manipulating the unconscious in an effort to produce a desired effect – namely, a capacity to manufacture mass social adherence in support of products, political candidates and social movements.

Nearly a century after his heyday, Bernays’ methodology is apparent in almost every form of civic and consumer persuasion. The platform of social media is being used in unprecedented new ways; one such example is a new online documentary about the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an extremist rebel group operating in Central Africa.

The documentary is unprecedented, not for its educational attributes but for its capacity to use visual branding, merchandising and highly potent emotional communication to influence the viewer to support US military operations in resource rich Central Africa under the pretext of capturing the LRA’s commander, Joseph Kony. The Lord’s Resistance Army was originally formed in 1987 in northwestern Uganda by members of the Acholi ethnic group, who were historically exploited as forced laborers by the British colonialists and later relegated by the nation’s dominant ethic groups following independence. Together with the Holy Spirit Movement, the LRA represented the armed wing of a resistance faction aiming to overthrow the government of current Ugandan President and staunch US military ally, Yoweri Museveni.

Click here for the full report.

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