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OMNI ASSASSINATIONS
NEWSLETTER #4, June 20, 2013. Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace By
Challenging Official Myths and Lies.
(#1 Oct. 8, 2011; #2 August 10, 2012; #3 May 3, 2013).
Here is the link
to all OMNI newsletters:
http://www.omnicenter.org/newsletter-archive/ For a knowledge-based peace, justice,
and ecology movement and an informed citizenry as the foundation for change. Here is the link to the Index: http://www.omnicenter.org/omni-newsletter-general-index/
See: Bush, CIA, drones,
imperialism, international law, militarism, Obama, power of
presidency, secrecy, special ops, war crimes, and more.
My blog: War
Department/Peace Department
“…Since the end of
World War II the
The multifarious methods of oppression employed by
an imperial state would fill an encyclopedia.
One general method is the control of language, and one sub-division is
rhetorical devices. A specific figure
is euphemism, a
powerful way of hiding folly and depravity.
For example, our government has rebranded
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Monbiot.com
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Posted: 03 Jun 2013 12:14 PM PDT
If assassinating suspects makes sense overseas, why not at home?
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th June 2013
Did the FBI execute Ibragim Todashev? He appears to have been shot
seven times while being interviewed at his home in
An irregular one. There was no lawyer present. It was not
recorded(2). By the time Todashev was shot, he had apparently been
interrogated by three agents for five hours(3). And then? Who knows? First,
we were told, he lunged at them with a knife(4). How he acquired it, five
hours into a police interview, was not explained. How he posed such a
threat while recovering from a knee operation also remains perplexing.
At first he drew the knife while being interviewed. Then he acquired
it during a break from the interview(5). Then it ceased to be a knife and
became a sword, then a pipe, then a metal pole, then a broomstick, then a
table, then a chair(6,7,8). In one account all the agents were in the room
at the time of the attack, in another, all but one had mysteriously
departed, leaving the remaining officer to face his assailant alone.
If – and it remains a big if – this was an extrajudicial execution,
it was one of hundreds commissioned by US agencies since Barack Obama first
took office. The difference in this case is that it took place on American
soil. Elsewhere, suspects are bumped off without even the right to the
lawyerless interview Ibragim Todashev was given.
In his speech two
days after Todashev was killed, President Obama maintained that “our
commitment to Constitutional principles has weathered every war”(9). But he
failed to explain which Constitutional principles permit him to authorise
the killing of people in nations with which the
Er, yes. In the same speech Obama admitted for the first time that
four
Given that they might not even have known that they were accused of
the alleged crimes for which they were executed, that they had no
opportunities to contest the charges, let alone be granted judge or jury,
this suggests that the former law professor’s interpretation of
constitutional rights is somewhat elastic. If Obama and his nameless
advisers say someone is a terrorist, he stands convicted and can be put to
death.
Left hanging in his speech is the implication that non-US citizens
may be executed without even the pretence of due process. The many hundreds
killed by drone strikes (who, civilian or combatant, retrospectively become
terrorists by virtue of having been killed in a
As the process of decision-making remains secret, as the US
government refuses even to acknowledge – let alone to document or
investigate – the killing by its drones of people who patently had nothing
to do with terrorism or any other known crime, miscarriages of justice are
not just a risk emerging from the deployment of the president’s kill-list.
They are an inevitable outcome. Under the Obama doctrine, innocent until
proved guilty has mutated to innocent until proved dead.
The president made his rejection of habeas corpus and his assumption
of a godlike capacity for judgement explicit later in the speech, while
discussing another matter. How, he wondered, should the
Global powers have an antisocial habit of bringing their work back
home. The British government, for example, imported some of the methods it
used against its colonial subjects to suppress domestic protests and
strikes. Once an administrative class becomes accustomed to treating
foreigners as if they have no rights, and once the domestic population
broadly accepts their justifications, it is almost inevitable that the
habit migrates from one arena into another. If hundreds of people living
abroad can be executed by US agents on no more than suspicion, should we be
surprised if residents of the
George Monbiot’s book Feral: searching for
enchantment on the frontiers of rewilding is published by
References:
1. A picture of the head wound has been reproduced here:http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/30/father-chechen-man-killed-fbi-inquiry
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/us/man-tied-to-boston-suspect-said-to-have-attacked-fbi-agent.html
7. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/us/man-tied-to-boston-suspect-said-to-have-attacked-fbi-agent.html
12. International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at
Stanford Law School and Global Justice Clinic at NYU School Of Law,
September 2012. Living Under Drones: Death, Injury and Trauma to Civilians
from US Drone Practices in
Filmmaker Jeremy Scahill focuses on ‘Dirty Wars’
An interview with filmmaker Jeremy
Scahill, whose documentary “Dirty Wars” opens in
COURTESY OF
"Dirty Wars:
The World is a Battlefield" is about
The first time Jeremy Scahill smelled tear gas, it was
during the Battle of Seattle in late 1999.
“That was also my first time in
“That was also the first time I started working with
the director of our film, Rick Rowley, and his wife, Jackie Soohen,” said
Scahill. Rowley and Soohen were part of a video collective that produced a
2000 documentary, “This Is What Democracy Looks Like,” about the World
Trade Organization protests.
Eventually all three worked in
“We ended up becoming friends and working together, on
and off, until the current moment,” Scahill said. He’s also hiked Mount
Rainier and appeared at Town Hall with “Dirty Wars” and his earlier book,
“Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.”
Now 38, the Brooklyn-based Scahill writes a column for
The Nation magazine that mostly deals with his investigative work.
“Dirty Wars” grew out
of the filmmakers’ interest in Yemen, Somalia and especially one Afghan
family that was devastated by night raids (including drones) and the Joint
Special Operations Command (JSOC) — whose goal was to “find, fix and
finish” their targets.
That’s JSOC jargon [euphemisms for murder—Dick],
reminiscent of
“I spend a lot of time raising funds to do this
reporting,” said Scahill. “Budgets have dried up for foreign reporting.
There are very few media outlets that will send people to do this kind of
work. It is very expensive. Just to get insurance for some of the shoots
... no insurance company in the
When they started shooting “Dirty Wars,” Scahill and
Rowley weren’t sure where the project was going. Rowley had spent a lot of
time embedded in
“Night raids were a kind of war within the war,” said
Scahill. “After they draw down the troops in
The film’s shoestring budget officially began with
Scahill buying plane tickets, using a small grant he had been given for
reporting. He and Rowley filmed several stories about night raids before
they realized they were working on a larger story about the killings of
pregnant Afghan women.
“Once we stumbled into that story, I sort of became
obsessed with JSOC and what they do,” he said. “ It was around that time,
early 2010 I think, when I started to figure things out.
“ In retrospect now, because of the Bin Laden raid and
everything, everyone knows JSOC. But it wasn’t that way at the time.”
John Hartl: johnhartl@yahoo.com
Jeremy Scahill's "Dirty Wars: The World is a
Battlefield"
Jeremy Scahill, National Security
Correspondent for The Nation,
is the author of the best-selling new book Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield and
the writer, producer and subject of an award-winning documentary of the same name,
which goes into wide theatrical
release this week.
Scahill sat with Reason's Matt
Welch for an extended conversation about the book and movie, which
thoroughly investigate the way America conducts its covert wars in the
post-9/11 world, and how Barack Obama's embrace of drone strikes,
rendition, and targeted assassination have cemented the policies of the
Bush Administration which declared the entire world "a
battlefield."
Other subjects discussed include
Scahill's skepticism of President Obama's recent foreign policy
"rethink" speech (14:00); how any adult male in a drone strike
area is posthumously labeled a "suspected militant," (16:15); the
Department of Justice's absurdly broad definition of an "imminent
threat," (20:15); the mysterious case of the American-born
terror-advocating imam Anwar al-Alwaki, who was assassinated by a U.S.
drone strike in Yemen (21:15); the "shameful" persecution of
Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider
Shaye, who was set to be pardoned and released by the government
of Yemen until President Obama intervened (32:31); his disappointment in
the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats for being
"nowhere" on civil liberties (38:41); and his surprising credit
to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) for his epic filibuster where he read into
the Congressional record "for the first time ever...the names of U.S.
citizens killed in operations authorized by President Obama." (40:22)
WILLIAM BLUM ON US = ASSASSINATION NATION
(AND MURDER AND TORTURE)
The CIA has attempted to assassinate
50 foreign leaders including Chavez – William Blum
Photo: EPA
The
late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was warned by Fidel Castro to be
careful of a very specific attack, namely a quick jab from an infected
needle. Such a warning coming from a leader who has reportedly been the
target of CIA assassination plots more than 600 times in over 50 years, was
sure to be heeded. Was the illness of Hugo Chavez a completely deniable
assassination by the CIA? William Blum spoke with the VOR’s John Robles and
discussed this issue and more.
Robles: I’ve read your Anti-Empire
report regarding Hugo Chavez. Can you give us your comments on speculation
that he was assassinated by the CIA?
Blum: I cannot prove it of course, but I
believe he was. It would be totally in keeping with the entire history of
the CIA and its attitude towards people like Hugo Chavez.
The CIA has attempted to
assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders and successfully at least half the
time. And very few of them were as despised by the US Government as Chavez
was, I would say. So, there would be no reason at all to expect that the
CIA would not at least plan on killing, and the nature of his ailment is
very odd.
He went from a cancer, which would
not go away despite several sessions of chemotherapy and what have you.
Then it went to serious lung infections, which would not go away no matter
what they did. And then it went to a massive heart attack. All in the same
man with no apparent cause, he was only 58 years old, and as far as we know
he was a very healthy until this happened, it is all very odd.
And given the great motivation that
the US Government and the persons in the CIA has put for killing a man like
Hugo Chavez, I’m pretty sure that the CIA played a role in this.
Robles: Do you know are have you
heard of any credible new technology or new programs that could deliver
such a cancer?
Blum: The means would be a needle with a
quick sharp jab and what you need is getting one person close enough to
Chavez to do that.
Chavez was always in the public
eye, he was always embracing people. There must have been countless
occasions in the past few years when he was vulnerable to a quick jab by a
needle that would be the method of transmitting the ailments.
Robles: Did he ever complain that
he had been poked by something in public? Were there any reports of
anything like that happening that you had heard about?
Blum: He did mention that Fidel Castro
warned him about just that. He said: “A quick jab with a needle, and
they’ll do… I don’t know what!” Actually he was told by Fidel.
Robles: A quick jab with a needle.
Do you think that happened with Fidel because he had become very ill?
Blum: Well, Fidel… According to Cuban
intelligence, there were more than 600 attempts on the life of Fidel Castro
by the CIA. There is an entire book on that subject by Cuban Intelligence.
And many of the methods were pretty
bizarre, including an exploding cigar, but over the course of 50 years the
Cubans claim there were more than 600 attempts on his life and it may have
taken just one with Chavez.
Robles: Have you heard anything
from your sources or from where you get some of your information? Have you
heard anything detailing any connection between these two
Blum: No. I would assume that there is a
connection but I don’t know if the Venezuelan Government has actually said
so.
Getting back to Chavez’s case,we
have to keep in mind that four other South American leaders, prominent
people on the left, all came down with cancer within the past year or two.
Robles: I think it was seven,
wasn’t it, altogether?
Blum: The four that I named in my report…
You can add the ones that you know just for my information… were Cristina
Fernandez…
Robles: … De Kirchner, right…
Blum: of
Robles: Well, and then of course
Hugo Chavez himself…
Blum: Castro is one of them…
Robles: I would add Castro to the
list and Kirchner’s husband who died of a mysterious heart attack as well.
Blum: Right!
Robles: We might add that as a
mysterious illness, not exactly a cancer but…
Blum: Right! If the CIA was involved it
doesn’t have to be cancer necessarily of course.
Robles: Oh, sure, it could be
anything! Have you heard anything about cancer strains or any kind of
killing weapons like this, any kind of biological weapons that would give
maybe cancer-like symptoms, not exactly a certain type of cancer?
Blum: I very well may have read of such
over the years, I have read so much about the CIA, but at the moment I
can’t think of anything to supply you with that information. Although we do
know, it is well known, that for decades the CIA was looking for a method
of killing somebody which would not leave a trace. The CIA itself has used
those words. For the entire period of the Cold War that was a major stated
project of the CIA. But where that stands today, I have no idea.
Robles: Yes, of course that is all
very secret and no one is going to talk about it, but perhaps there are
some echoes or some whispers? Maybe somebody has come out and said
something? What other reasons would you give to back up the argument that
he was assassinated?
Blum: I will mention there is no one in
the entire universe who was more hated, no leader, more hated than Chavez
was by the US Government. In the eyes of the
Robles: Why was he so hated?
Blum: Because he was the most outspoken
leader in the world when it came to criticizing the
Robles: Oh yes, I remember he said
that the Devil had been there the day before or something, and it still
smelled like sulfur.
Blum: Yes, Bush had spoken to the UN
before Chavez from the same platform. And Chavez said there was a smell of
sulfur in the air because of that.
Robles: That’s usually the domain
of the
Blum: Yeah, it is a shock for anyone
under any circumstances to be so outspoken in the criticism of the
Robles: So, you supported the way
he stood up?
Blum: Well, in general yes. I think there
certainly were times when he may have overdone it, even for me. I mean, he
felt obliged to comment on everything under the sun, and I thought several
times that he could have held off on saying certain things, they were not
serving any good purpose. But that’s a minor criticism of his overall
marvelous record.
Robles: You say he had a marvelous
record. What do you think were his major achievements in your opinion?
Blum: What he’s brought to the poor
people of
He and others formed a new… A
counter to the OAS, the Organization of American States, which for decades
has been dominated and corrupted by the
Robles: Do you think his achievements
will continue or do you think the
Blum: Yes, they would want to. But if
Maduro who was chosen and backed by Chavez, wins, and he is expected to win
in the election next month, then most of it will continue, I assume.
1.
WWILLIAM BLUM ON
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word-spacing:0px' alt="The Seattle Times" v:shapes="_x0000_i1027">
FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION - FCNL
Feb 1, 2012 – Yet this drone assassination campaign is in direct
violation of international law. The president has used these attacks to expand U.S.
1.
End the Militarization of US-Africa Policy - FCNL
fcnl.org/issues/kenya/Militarization_US_Africa_Policy/
Jun 27, 2012 – We write to urge you to
resist the growing militarization of U.S. aid and policy ... In anticipation of the
FY 2013 National Defense Authorization
Act ... In the House Armed
Services Committee's recent report on the ... covert intelligence and
targeted assassination operations in Africa, ... Friends of the Congo
2.
[PDF]
What are drones - FCNL
The use of drones by the United States COMMITTEE ON
3.
FCNL: Understanding Drones
fcnl.org/issues/foreign_policy/understanding_drones/
Drones are quickly becoming one of the U.S.
4.
Friends Committee on National Legislation - Washington ... -
Facebook
Friends Committee on National Legislation, Washington , DC
5.
Friends Committee on National Legislation - Washington ... -
Facebook
Friends Committee on National Legislation, Washington , DC U.S.
6.
Drones A Moral and Strategic Failure (FCNL - Friends Committee on ...
May 22, 2013 – noodls (Source: FCNL - Friends Committee on National Legislation)U.S.
Contents of #1 Oct.
8, 2011
Secret Panel
Legal?
Obama’s Drones
Obama’s Justifications
Obama and State Secrets
OMNI at Farmer’s Market 2010
Protests via Google
Ron Paul
Awlaki
Gerry Sloan
Remembering Fred Hampton
Contents of #2,
August 10, 2012
Greenwald, Presidential Power vs. Constitution
Petition: Drones Assassinating Innocents
Cockburn, Obama Above the Law?
Savage, Secret Memo Justifies Assassination
Ron Paul against Assassination
Media Benjamin’s New Book on Drones
Moyers on Unconstitutional Presidency: Reagan
END ASSASSINATION NEWSLETTER
#4
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