CIA Assisted Saddam As He Used WMD Against Iran

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Muller

It is still not clear who actually used chemical weapons near Damascus last week which killed hundreds of civilians, but a new alliance of the willing under commander-in-chief Barack Obama seems to seriously prepare for the next adventure in the Middle East. The shocking news today were reported by Foreign Policy magazine which has it that the CIA willfully helped Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he used mustard gas and the nerve gas sarin against Iranians in 1988. As Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid write,

“In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.” (Emphasis added.)

The material has only recently been declassified. U.S. officials had so far denied having tolerated Saddam’s use of chemical weapons since 1983. However, the firm handshake of then Special Envoy to the Middle East Donald Rumsfeld with the dictator Saddam Hussein in December 1983 indicated almost cordial friendship.

That the U.S. is not prissy in the Middle East is long known. In 1998, a diplomatic report by then Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, was declassified who, on 25  July 1990 had more or less given a “green light” to Saddam to invade Kuwait one week later. The report was later republished by WikiLeaks. Last week, documents were finally declassified proving CIA’s involvement in the 1953 coup in Tehran which toppled the only democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq.

26 August 2013 @ 6:38 pm.

Last modified August 26, 2013.

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Moving On

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Muller

I have read in 2010 with interest the email chat between WikiLeaks whistle-blower Manning and Adrian Lamo, the former hacker who betrayed him to the FBI, and have reported on it. I have listened attentively to Manning’s voice, which has been recorded in his court martial in a statement made in February 2013, and wrote about my impression. I have read the transcripts of Manning’s trial at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Manning has endured already more than most of us would in their entire life. He has done what he had to do. He might have broken the law but in that case is was a duty. The sentence he received the other day is outrageous. In most civilized countries a respective sentence would not even be reserved for murderers.

Manning’s announcement that he is female and seeks some corrective treatment commands further respect. Chelsea Manning has not been broken yet. She will just move on.

You may sign the petition on We the People, Restore the United States’ human rights record and grant clemency to Pvt. Bradley Manning.

23 August 2013 @ 6:00 pm.

Last modified August 23, 2013.

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Official Leaks to Discredit Greenwald?

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Muller

British newspaper The Independent has an exclusive story today on new documents, leaked by Edward Snowden, that Britain runs a Middle East internet surveillance base. “The station is able to tap into and extract data from the underwater fibre-optic cables passing through the region.” The Independent did not want to reveal the precise location of the station “but information on its activities was contained in the leaked documents obtained from the NSA by Edward Snowden.”

As far as we have been informed by Snowden, he has been working exclusively only with The Guardian and the Washington Post. So, how did The Independent get Snowden’s material? The Independent, which does not identify its source, writes, “The disclosure comes as the Metropolitan Police announced it was launching a terrorism investigation into material found on the computer of David Miranda, the Brazilian partner of The Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald – who is at the centre of the Snowden controversy.

Scotland Yard said material examined so far from the computer of Mr Miranda was ‘highly sensitive’, the disclosure of which ‘could put lives at risk’.”

This might be a hint that Scotland Yard itself had provided some of Miranda’s material, which has so far not been published by The Guardian, to The Independent. As Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who wrote  most of the stories about Edward Snowden’s leaks for The Guardian, writes, Snowden has denied meanwhile having provided any material to The Independent. Greenwald argues that “right as the UK government is trying to tell a court that there are serious dangers to the public safety from these documents, there suddenly appears exactly the type of disclosure the UK government wants but that has never happened before.”

The story is becoming more bizarre by the day. The British media have so far more or less kept silent about the NSA-GCHQ surveillance scandal revealed by Snowden and Greenwald. According to The Independent, the British government fears that Greenwald could attempt to release damaging information. In that context, Grennwald’s threat after his partner’s detention at Heathrow airport,  “I will be far more aggressive in my reporting from now. I am going to publish many more documents. I have many more documents on England’s spy system. I think  they will be sorry for what they did,” wasn’t helpful. We want to be informed, not retaliate.

23 August 2013 @ 5:25 pm.

Last modified August 23, 2013.

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Show of Force – Symbolic

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Muller

The physical pulverization of several hard discs in the basement of The Guardian’s King’s Cross offices by a senior editor and a computer specialist last month, closely supervised and monitored by agents of the Government Communication (sic) Headquarters (GCHQ), the British equivalent of NSA, was a bizarre show of force by government authorities David Cameron who wanted to send a strong message: there is no freedom of press anymore. The symbolic and irrelevant destruction of things signals: we can do this differently. The unlawful detention of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald’s partner in the transit area of Heathrow airport last week was just consequent. But what next?

President Obama tries hard to lull the American people claiming that “there is no spying on you.” Recently, probably on personal order by the President, the NSA had published a rather strange “white paper” with the pacifying message that only 1.6% of the data circulating on the internet  are “touched” by NSA and only 0.025% of these data are selected for review. “[T]hat’s less than one part in a million. Put another way, if a standard basketball court represented by an area smaller than a dime on that basketball court.” The calculation contains an error. If one believes the numbers, it would be six or seven coins.

And facts tell a different story. According to the Wall Street Journal, the NSA surveillance network has a capacity to reach about 75% of all U.S. internet traffic “in the hunt for foreign intelligence.” This doesn’t go away. Intimidation may be a means of dictatorships but is ignoble for leading democracies such as the United States and the UK. What will sooner or later vanish is Obama and Cameron. The sooner the better.

22 August 2013 @ 11:32 am.

Last modified August 22, 2013.

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Bradley Manning Sentenced

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Muller

The sentence of thirty-five years in prison for Whistle-blower Bradley Manning was expected. The military judge, Colonel Denise Lind, had no choice than deter future whistle-blowers. The Commander-in-Chief, President Obama himself, had decided long time ago, in public, before the court martial had even commenced that Bradley Manning “broke the law”.

Military prosecuters had demanded no less than 60 years, so Lind seems to have considered mitigating circumstances. Manning will be 60 when released, long after all documents he had leaked to WikiLeaks would have been declassified. Many of these about 700,000 documents indicate war crimes, U.S. government wrongdoings and embarrassing decade-long diplomatic support for brutal dictators in the Middle East and elsewhere. The documents about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will keep historians busy for decades.

The role the Obama administration possibly played in last month’s military coup in Egypt, it’s hard to tell without whistle-blowers. On the other hand, his eiertanz about not calling a coup a coup and paying or not paying military aid to the Egyptian junta, after all tax payers’ money, tells volumes. Obama the loser. Manning will keep his chin up.

Sign the petition on We the People, Restore the United States’ human rights record and grant clemency to Pvt. Bradley Manning!

21 August 2013 @ 5:50 pm.

Last modified August 21, 2013.

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