Based on info from the leaked Afghanistan war logs:
I think the end tag – “Stop all illegal wars” – is a bit fuzzy, conceptually speaking, but the animation is good, and is a great example of the kind of things that can be done with the massive amount of leaked info.
Also, it is interesting to compare the trajectory explicit in the video with what the BBC published today:
Julian Assange is a superhero genius who looks like a Batman villain, and this press conference is world historical:
Wikileaks released “The Afghan War Diaries” Today:
The Afghan War Diaries an extraordinary secret compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010. The reports describe the majority of lethal military actions involving the United States military. They include the number of persons internally stated to be killed, wounded, or detained during each action, together with the precise geographical location of each event, and the military units involved and major weapon systems used.
The Afghan War Diaries is the most significant archive about the reality of war to have ever been released during the course of a war. The deaths of tens of thousands is normally only a statistic but this archive reveals locations and key events behind each of these individual deaths. We hope the impact will lead to a comprehensive understanding of the war in Afghanistan and modern warfare in general.
Three newspapers were given early access on the condition the they would not publish about them until today. Lots to read:
Even though “alternative media” has been covering the story for years, the increasingly vast, inefficient and unaccountable post 9-11 national security and surveillance apparatus is so out of control that now even war-enabling, torture denying, neocon propaganda rags are sounding alarms about it…
The Washington Post published a three part series entitled “Top Secret America”. Part 1, focuses on the explosion of government funding on surveillance and security, Part 2 focuses on the government’s dependence on profit-driven private enterprise, and Part 3 describes one particular office park filled with (privileged and out-of-touch) spys.
Here are some of the highlights of the report:
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.
* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.
* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings – about 17 million square feet of space.
* Many security and intelligence agencies do the same work, creating redundancy and waste. For example, 51 federal organizations and military commands, operating in 15 U.S. cities, track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.
* Analysts who make sense of documents and conversations obtained by foreign and domestic spying share their judgment by publishing 50,000 intelligence reports each year – a volume so large that many are routinely ignored.
Here is a map illustrating the proliferation of public and private work locations in “Top Secret America”:
The report reveals that the situation is so out of control that even Defense Secretary Gates and CIA Director Panetta worry about it in front of reporters – they admit it is out of control. But of course their interests are not the same as the rest of the country.
One of the worst things about the situation is that this secret, inefficient bureaucracy is that it is payed for by taxpayers – in a time of starving schools and home foreclosures, it is basically a jobs program designed to help out people who specialize in surveillance, killing and propaganda services to the government.
I say “one of the worst” because the worst thing is clearly this:
Relying upon profit-driven industry for the defense and intelligence community’s “core mission” is to ensure that we have Endless War and an always-expanding Surveillance State. After all, the very people providing us with the “intelligence” that we use to make decisions are the ones who are duty-bound to keep this War Machine alive and expanding because, as the Post put it, they are “obligated to shareholders rather than the public interest.”
Above are images from some of the “anti-deception” toys developed by private “defense” contractors.
On the left, “a thermal-imaging camera to measure changes in facial temperature, which can help determine whether a person is lying. Some data suggests that a person who is lying may register a temperature increase near the inside corner of the eye. The scientists hope to use such cameras for security screenings at airports, train stations, border crossings, stadiums or large events.”
On the right, “A computer-generated avatar is being developed to test how interviewees respond to different interviewers. Scientists at the Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment (DACA) can manipulate the avatar’s physical attributes, including hair and eye color, complexion, skull and forehead shape, and even the sound of the avatar’s voice to create an interviewer of any age, race and gender.”
This is a fruitful line of research because, they claim, “young Hispanic males have a very difficult time lying to older Hispanic females.” So, you know, if you want to do “credibility assessment” on a young Mexican man, you should make the Avatar be a older Mexican woman.
PS: Here are some follow-ups to this story:
the lack of impact this story has had, on
Inside a security perimeter that cost Canadian taxpayers over a billion dollars, G20 world leaders met to screw over their own most vulnerable populations.
While most of the corporate media focused on burning cop cars and protester “violence” (property damage), others suspected the real crime was what was taking place inside the meeting.
More disturbing than the “smashed windows and burned cop cars,” writes Naomi Klein, are the “smashed social safety nets and burned good jobs in the middle of a recession”:
How else can we interpret the G20’s final communiqué, which includes not even a measly tax on banks or financial transactions, yet instructs governments to slash their deficits in half by 2013. This is a huge and shocking cut, and we should be very clear who will pay the price: students who will see their public educations further deteriorate as their fees go up; pensioners who will lose hard-earned benefits; public-sector workers whose jobs will be eliminated. And the list goes on. These types of cuts have already begun in many G20 countries including Canada, and they are about to get a lot worse.
Meanwhile, outside the perimeter, people who gathered to object were subjected to the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.
The fact that the large majority of these protesters were non-violent and within their rights is obscured by the sensational property destruction by black bloc (so called) anarchists.
The actions of the black bloc are then used to justify the broad crackdown on legal dissent, and it is important to note that manifestations of the group have in the past been infiltrated by police agent provocateurs. This is not conspiracy: Canadian police have admitted to posing as black bloc protesters in 2007, after they were outed by a union leader on video shot at a protests in Quebec.
This tradition seems to have continued outside the G20 in Toronto, whence video has emerged suggesting black bloc agent provocateurs being protected by the police. See, as further illustration, also this level-headed photojournalist make the case that the property destroying “anarchists” got a green light from the police:
Setting aside the issue of police agent provocateurs, the experience of some other participants is worth noting.
David Ker Thomson describes his experience and suggests that “Toronto is the World“:
We have seen the future. This is it. More troops, more brutality, more police pretending to be protestors and smashing whatever they want at $80/hour, more acceptance from a population that will submit to any limitation on its freedom as long as it can pay someone to make them feel temporarily safe.
And despite the presence of agent provocateurs, he goes on to challenge the bourgeois left for being scandalized by mere broken glass:
Is there anything more smug than bourgeois people offering to be scandalized by broken glass? The slightest disintegration of their spectacle unnerves them. “Violence!” they cry.
…
We’re not fighting a few irritable fat cops with nightsticks anymore. The wall is impenetrable. We are losing. The leaders have floated to the top as scum always does, and we are drowning.
Another participant, Matt Shultz, who was arrested for possession of paint balloons, describes in detail his experience “Inside Torontanamo” and warns of the detention center’s intended effect:
Let me be very clear on this: the point of this exercise was two-fold, first, to traumatize the activists (check), second, to normalize this kind of thing with the cops. And let me also be clear: check. Many, even most of the cops seemed totally fine with it. The casual, collaborative, efficient and impersonal sadism of it was really appealing to some of them and everyone in this country wants to ask themselves if Torontanamo is something they’d like to see more of in Canada because make no mistake, it’s in the planning stages.
And for those who are persuaded by corporate shills that the G20 protesters have no coherent target, try listening to Maude Barlow speak on the issue. And here is some more good coverage.
…and the kissing couple come from this collection of images.
Don’t know how I missed this one…
This video was filmed at a dairy “farm” in Ohio. Here is another video from a dairy farm in New York, which goes into more detail.
Tuesday night’s blathering address from the Oval Office about the disaster in the Gulf has been widely panned for its timidity in the face of what could be the world’s worst ecological disaster - a disaster for which the President clearly bears some responsibility. And meanwhile Obama has just approved 400 new leases for oil companies to operate in the gulf.
Since it seems like people are starting to realize, finally and begrudgingly, that their boy is a pro-war, anti-civil libertarian, corporatist spokesliar, I’m starting to feel like there is less of an urgent need to propagate that particular piece of increasingly obvious information.
So I thought I’d turn attention to some locals who are doing it for themselves – and, unlike the federal government, successfully fighting to address our culture’s addiction to the vile substance at the heart of many of the world’s problems.
Several months ago, these “Caution: Please Pass With Care” signs started popping up all over L.A. They are the work of a group of guerrilla citizen-artists who call themselves the Department of D.Y.I. Here is a video of them walking the walk:
L.A. Streets Blog covered an earlier guerrilla campain by D.I.Y. here, andThe LA.ist published the group’s manifesto here. Their work can be seen all around the city:
Now it turns out that these guerrilla art campaigns – in conjunction with a sustained lobbying effort by the biking community — prepped the way for actual, official civic change: The LADOT has finally started to install “Sharrows,” which are an essential, although imperfect, piece of biking infrastructure.
Other things are afoot, as well: Only a few weeks after police harassment of a BP protest ride in Hollywood organized by Critical Mass, the L.A.P.D. is going to join Critical Mass as participants of a ride scheduled for June 25.
The la.ist hopes it is a game changer of cyclist/police relations in Los Angeles.
(BTW: If you are interested in following bike news, I recommend these feeds: Bike Commute News, L.A. Bike Coalition, L.A. Critical Mass, L.A. Streets Blog.)
Early Monday morning Israeli pirates stormed an international aid convoy in international waters, stormed the lead Turkish vessel and then killed at least 9 of the passengers – including a U.S/Turkish teenager who was shot in the head 4 times.
Last time there was an act of piracy that attracted this much international attention, Obama sent snipers to blow their heads off. But this time the pirates come from Israel, whose “security is sacrosanct“, so they get to hijack a relief boat in international waters, slaughter people and then call it “self defense”.
Passengers fought back, according to IDF video, but their resistance to the attack is understood by Zionists and their apologists as provocation and therefore a justification for murder. Survivors of the massacre have been taken hostage by the pirates, so it has been hard to get their side of the story:
Reporters Without Borders notes that, as of yesterday, Israel continued to detain most journalists on the ships, including their film and cameras, thus preventing any of them from disputing Israeli propaganda; as the NYT reported, Israel was also “refusing to permit journalists access to witnesses who might contradict Israel’s version of events.” Manifestly, all that was done to ensure that the highly selective and edited video released by the IDF would shape the narrative of what happened and could not be challenged in the first few days of reporting.
Update: Some hostages are now being released, and Amy Goodman interviews two of them here.
Here, Ray McGovern reviews Obama’s subservience to the Likud lobby, and enumerates other instances of Israeli aggression. But Glenn Greenwald points to the hypocrisy that would result from a U.S. condemnation of the raid:
One can express all sorts of outrage over the Obama administration’s depressingly predictable defense of the Israelis, even at the cost of isolating ourselves from the rest of the world, but ultimately, on some level, wouldn’t it have been even more indefensible — or at least oozingly hypocritical — if the U.S. had condemned Israel? After all, what did Israel do in this case that the U.S. hasn’t routinely done and continues to do? As even our own military officials acknowledge, we’re slaughtering an “amazing number” of innocent people at checkpoints in Afghanistan. We’re routinely killing civilians in all sorts of imaginative ways in countless countries, including with drone strikes which a U.N. official just concluded are illegal. We’re even targeting our own citizens for due-process-free assassination. We’ve been arming Israel and feeding them billions of dollars in aid and protecting them diplomatically as they (and we) have been doing things like this for decades. What’s the Obama administration supposed to say about what Israel did: we condemn the killing of unarmed civilians? We decry these violations of international law? Even by typical standards of government hypocrisy, who in the U.S. Government could possibly say any of that with a straight face?
See also: You Say Tomato, Part I
Over the weekend the BP’s “Green Curve” gas station at Olympic and Robertson was once again the target of a collective protest, this time by a Critical Mass of Los Angeles bike riders.
After the demonstration, certain dickless piglets harassed the bike riders as they passed through Hollywood, and then tackled a videographer who caught an incident on tape:
WeHo Daily first covered the story here, the laist picked it up here, KPCC here. The LAPD met with an LA bicycle advisory committee yesterday to discuss the incident, which the LA.streets blog covers here.
Los Angeles Critical Mass has a twitter feed here, where you can get updates on the story and info about future rides, etc.
Meanwhile the ecocide in the gulf will continue to unfold over the next decades. Google has tool that can be used to compare the current size of the oil spill to the size of your own city. Here is ours:
