The American Bear

Sunshine/Lollipops

› Western leaders study 'gamechanging' report on global drugs trade | The Observer

European governments and the Obama administration are this weekend studying a “gamechanging” report on global drugs policy that is being seen in some quarters as the beginning of the end for blanket prohibition.

Publication of the Organisation of American States (OAS) review, commissioned at last year’s Cartagena Summit of the Americas attended by Barack Obama, reflects growing dissatisfaction among Latin American countries with the current global policy on illicit drugs. It spells out the effects of the policy on many countries and examines what the global drugs trade will look like if the status quo continues. It notes how rapidly countries’ unilateral drugs policies are evolving, while at the same time there is a growing consensus over the human costs of the trade. “Growing media attention regarding this phenomenon in many countries, including on social media, reflects a world in which there is far greater awareness of the violence and suffering associated with the drug problem,” José Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the OAS, says in a foreword to the review. “We also enjoy a much better grasp of the human and social costs not only of drug use but also of the production and transit of controlled substances.”

Insulza describes the report, which examines a number of ways to reform the current pro-prohibition position, as the start of “a long-awaited discussion”, one that experts say puts Europe and North America on notice that the current situation will change, with or without them. Latin American leaders have complained bitterly that western countries, whose citizens consume the drugs, fail to appreciate the damage of the trade. In one scenario envisaged in the report, a number of South American countries would break with the prohibition line and decide that they will no longer deploy law enforcement and the army against drug cartels, having concluded that the human costs of the “war on drugs” is too high. [++]

› Benghazi, Petraeus, and the CIA | Horace Campbell

What Greg Hicks and Representative Darrell Issa did not probe was the role of the CIA and Petraeus in the use of Benghazi as the largest CIA station in North Africa, where they ran militias into Syria. When the information about the attack on the US ‘facility’ in Benghazi was first brought to light, there was confusion because this information had the potential of putting the vaunted military in its proper perspective. Was the space that was attacked a consulate, a State Department facility, a CIA safe house, or indeed a prison for captured militias? This confusion took attention away from the reality that elements in the military/intelligence hierarchy had formulated a policy to align with certain militia groups in Eastern Libya and that these militias (sometimes called jihadists) had in the past been linked to groups that the U.S. called ‘terrorist organizations.’ France, the CIA, and the U.S. Africa Command had aligned with these jihadists to destabilize Libya, freeze billions of dollars of assets, execute Gaddafi, and use Libya as a rear base in the drive for regime change in Syria.

… [T]his review and these hearings are obfuscating … the real issues that emanate from the role of the CIA in recruiting Jihadists in Benghazi. On Monday at a press conference, Obama called the continued discussions on Benghazi a “side show.” However, for the millions of persons in North Africa that have been negatively affected by the NATO intervention and the role of the CIA, private militias and private military contractors, the debates in the USA can be viewed as another diversion to cover up the CIA operations in North Africa. Ethan Chorin, one of the operators in Libya and close ally of Ambassador Stevens, has weighed in with an op-ed piece in the New York Times that stated,

“The biggest American failure wasn’t in the tactical mistakes about security at the diplomatic mission where Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died. It lay in thinking that an intervention in Libya would be easier or less costly than it has proved to be — a judgment that led the United States to think it could go in light, get out fast and focus on the capital, Tripoli, without paying enough attention to Libya’s eastern provinces, where the rebellion began as a call for a constitution and increased civil liberties.”

Chorin, who was an insider in Benghazi, continues to insist that the NATO intervention was “inspired and skillfully executed, and had the potential to do more good than harm.”

› The other IRS scandal | David Cay Johnston

The burgeoning “scandal” over how the IRS chose for review 75 applicants for tax-exempt status puts on full display an unfortunate tendency in journalism—to quote people accurately without explaining the underlying context. Yes, it is as wrong for IRS employees to select groups to scrutinize based on their names as it is for police to stop and frisk young people based on the color of their skin. Still, the facts here are not so black-and-white as with racial profiling.

There is a scandal in all of this—several, actually, and some are more significant than the one that is getting all the attention. As the story unfolds, here are some important points to keep in mind:

• Missing from much coverage is the relevant recent history—the role of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and how it prompted a deluge of requests from new organizations seeking tax-exempt status under tax code Section 501(c)(4) as “social welfare” organizations—despite the fact that many of these are blatantly political operations.

• Congress requires the IRS to review every application for tax-exempt status to weed out organizations that are partisan, political, or that generate private gain. Congress has imposed this requirement on the IRS, and its predecessor agencies, since 1913.

• When it comes to 501(c)(4) organizations, what the IRS is supposed to do is draw a distinction between groups that are “primarily engaged” in politics and groups that really are primarily engaged in “social welfare”—somehow “promoting the common good and social welfare of the community.” It’s kind of mushy. Brad Plumer has a good explainer about this on The Washington Post’s Wonkblog.

• The first scandal here, meanwhile, is that the social welfare tax exemption is being used by existing 501(c)(4) organizations, including some very large ones, to promote partisan political interests—the very activity Congress has explicitly prohibited for a century. The New York Times, after a weak political piece on Saturday, had a clear and useful explainer about this on Tuesday.

• Also worth pointing out: None of the organizations that the IRS scrutinized as a result of the ill-considered screening-by-name regime was denied tax exempt status.

[READ]

› Mosque attack kills 38 in Iraq | Al Akhbar

Two bombs near a mosque north of Baghdad killed 38 people and wounded 55 on Friday, police and a doctor said.

One bomb exploded as worshippers were departing the Saria mosque in the city of Baquba while a second detonated after people gathered at the scene of the first blast, the sources said.

The bombings are the latest in a series of attacks that have targeted both Sunni and Shia places of worship in past weeks.

On Thursday, a suicide bomber killed 12 people at the entrance of al-Zahraa Husseiniyah in the city of Kirkuk, where relatives of victims from violence the day before were receiving condolences.

Car bombs also hit three areas of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 people, while 21 people died in a series of bombings in the capital the day before.

Gunmen also shot dead the brother of an MP in Baghdad on Thursday.

thepeoplesrecord:

Hundreds of complaints reporting rigging and irregularities in the May 11 Pakistan parliamentary elections confirmed by EU election monitors have Pakistan youth outraged
May 17, 2013

Pakistan’s May 11 parliamentary elections have been hailed by the national and international observers as landmark and historic, but there have also been complaints of rigging and irregularities in the polls. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party defeated both the former ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and cricket star turned politician Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the polls, and Sharif looks poised to form the new government in Islamabad.

Though the PPP has conceded defeat without any major complaints, Khan’s PTI has accused Sharif and some other parties of rigging the elections. Earlier this week, Michael Gahler, the chief observer of the European Union’s elections observation mission (EOM), confirmed “serious problems in polling.”

On Thursday, May 16, the Pakistani election commission said in a statement that it received 110 complaints about voting irregularities. The commission ordered recounting of votes in nine constituencies in various parts of the country. It also set up 14 election tribunals which will look into the complaints. The tribunals are headed by retired judges and will have the authority to declare the results null and void if rigging complaints are proven to be correct. “The tribunals will be able to address the complaints to an extent only. There will always be people who won’t accept their decisions,” Amir Zia of the daily The News in Karachi told DW. Zia said that there were certain irregularities in the polls but the elections were generally quite free and fair.

Khan’s supporters do not agree. They have launched a campaign against “rigging” on the social media and have also taken to the streets in big cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. The PTI supporters are posting evidence in the form of videos and photographs on Facebook and Twitter to highlight what they call massive rigging.

The PTI has particularly criticized the Karachi-based liberal Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) for allegedly rigging the elections in several areas of Karachi. The PTI has held several protest rallies against the MQM in Karachi, which has been the MQM stronghold for more than two decades.

Analysts say that the use of social media to report irregularities and express anger against alleged rigging should be seen as a sign of civil society, but it will also be misleading to think that the evolving social media in Pakistan is a mirror to the whole country. “It is a positive sign that in the cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, rigging and mismanagement are reported and highlighted on the social media. But we must keep in mind that the social media in Pakistan is not used by most Pakistanis and is limited to the rich and the urban middle-class youth,” Jahanzaib Haque of the Express Tribune newspaper’s online edition told DW.

Many analysts in Pakistan believe that the perseverance of the Pakistani youth to make their politicians more accountable to the people is commendable and is a proof that democracy in Pakistan is evolving.

Source

› Pentagon Spec Ops Chief Sees '10 to 20' More Years of War Against al-Qaida | Spencer Ackerman

The war in Afghanistan may be winding down. But the Pentagon’s chief of irregular warfare still sees a war against al-Qaida that will last decades, all over the world — a prospect that prompted astonishment and constitutional debate in the Senate.

Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, “At least 10 to 20 years.”

It was just two months ago that the top U.S. intelligence official testified that al-Qaida had been battered by the U.S. into a state of disarray. A year ago, the current CIA director, John Brennan, said that “For the first time since this fight began, we can look ahead and envision a world in which the al Qaeda core is simply no longer relevant.” Just this week, the commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, Army Lt. Gen. Joseph Votel, told a Florida conference that he was looking at missions beyond the counterterrorism manhunt.

Yet a spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today — atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America’s Thirty Years War. [++]

A top Pentagon official said Thursday that the evolving war against ‘Al Qaeda’ was likely to continue ‘at least 10 to 20 years’ and urged Congress not to modify the statute that provides its legal basis. ‘As of right now, it suits us very well,’ Michael A. Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said, referring to the ‘authorization to use military force,’ often referred to as the A.U.M.F., enacted by Congress in 2001.

Pentagon Official Urges Congress to Keep Statute Allowing War on Terror Intact

Shorter: “We’ve already perverted the original intent of the AUMF to allow us to kill anyone we want wherever we want for whatever reason we want, so why rock the boat?”

› Guantánamo hunger strike tally hits 102 - 05/16/2013 | MiamiHerald.com

U.S. military medical providers counted 102 Guantánamo prisoners as hunger strikers on Thursday, the first increase after three weeks when the number seemed to plateau at 100.

Navy medical workers were tube feeding 30 of the hunger strikers, said Army Lt. Col. Samuel House. Three were hospitalized but none had “any life-threatening conditions,” House said.

Military officials refused to say whether the protest had spread to Camp 7, the secret prison building where the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and 14 other so-called high-value detainees who were once held in secret CIA facilities have been locked up since 2006. On May 8, defense lawyers for some of the accused 9/11 conspirators filed a motion asking the war court judge to forbid the prison staff from force-feeding their clients.

The motion was under seal Thursday, but Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz said by telephone from Dubai that he had invoked the American Medical Association opposition to force-feeding in the motion he filed on behalf of his client, Saudi Mustafa al Hawsawi, one of the five detainees charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks. The AMA and the International Red Cross oppose force-feeding prisoners who are mentally competent to decide their fate.

Far from condemning the AP or other outlets reporting on the story, the White House sent then-adviser John Brennan onto ‘Good Morning America’ to talk about the operation. Even so, the AP was targeted by the Justice Department in an unprecedented fashion. On Tuesday, former intelligence official and current CBS reporter John Miller said the leak had likely been ‘embarrassing’ for the CIA and had gotten it into trouble with its international partners (the Saudis). AP Scoop That Prompted DOJ Probe Only Ran After CIA Signed Off

› Home Secretary strips two more people of British citizenship | The Bureau of Investigative Journalism

The Home Secretary has stripped at least two additional individuals of their British citizenship in recent months, the Bureau has learned.

In February, an investigation by the Bureau and published with the Independent revealed that Theresa May had signed deprivation of citizenship orders for 16 people between the 2010 election and November 2012, including five British-born individuals. That total has now risen to 18 cases. Under the Labour government, five people lost their UK nationality.

The two new cases were revealed by a recent Freedom of Information request made by the Bureau. One deprivation notice was issued late last year, taking the total number who lost their UK nationality in 2012 to six. A further case took place between January 1 and mid-March, when the Freedom of Information request was submitted.

The Home Secretary cannot remove citizenship if it will make an individual stateless, so the orders can only be made against dual-nationality individuals.

The Freedom of Information release listed the other nationality of the individuals who have had their UK passports revoked. This revealed that two new nations, Iran and Yemen, joined the list of alternate nationalities; the Bureau has established that Yemeni and Iranian dual-nationals lost their UK citizenship between June 2012 and March 2013.

However almost nothing else is known about the most recent deprivation cases. Of the six that took place in 2012, nothing at all is known about three; a further individual is known only as F2. The sole case in 2013 is similarly a mystery.

[…] Chris Woods, leader of the Bureau’s drone project, gave a presentation yesterday on the Bureau’s recent investigation into stripped citizenship at the all-party parliamentary group on drones, to an audience of MPs, peers and parliamentary staff.

He outlined the cases of Bilal al-Berjawi and Mohamed Sakr, childhood friends from London who were stripped of their UK citizenship and went on to die in two US drone strikes a month apart in Somalia.

It is unclear yet whether there is a direct connection between between their loss of citizenship and subsequent deaths, Woods pointed out. He also explored the official opaqueness that surrounds the removal of UK citizenship, and the difficulties many of those who lose their citizenship face in appealing the orders from abroad within the tight time limits.

› BP and Shell raided in European commission price-rigging inquiry | The Guardian

The London offices of BP and Shell have been raided by European regulators investigating allegations they have “colluded” to rig oil prices for more than a decade.

The European commission said its officers carried out “unannounced inspections” at several oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway to investigate claims they may have “colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency [PRA] to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products”.

The commission said the alleged price collusion, which may have been going on since 2002, could have had a “huge impact” on the price of petrol at the pumps “potentially harming final consumers”.

Lord Oakeshott, former Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said the alleged rigging of oil prices was “as serious as rigging Libor” – which led to banks being fined hundreds of millions of pounds. [++]