And here we are: 2010. Hope you had a pleasant and peaceful holiday season, and Happy New Year to all of you.

I had a fairly quiet and peaceful few days: fireplace, music, and trying to catch up with my reading – which means juggling 3 or 4 books simultaneously. Of course everything, almost every minute, was centered around my now 17-month old daughter (thus, the picture . I also was able to read one fiction book; from beginning to end, and that was so very refreshing. I know some of you are frowning and thinking: why in the world would she consider reading fiction refreshing?! Fair enough. I say refreshing because for the last…many years I’ve been busy reading, and reading, only nonfiction, and mainly political and legal books. Although needed, enlightening, and highly informative, they are mostly…how should I put it…GRIM; high dosages of realism, but nonetheless grim. So in a way it felt liberating to grab a fiction work guiltlessly and immerse myself in a so-not-real world of fiction. What did I read? Well, I won’t tell you, because the label of ‘shallow-book-reader’ may be used against me one day!!

Our production team will start their work on our video project on January 11.  I think we should have our first experimental piece up by early February, if not sooner. I also know they’ll be reading this last sentence and jump to e-mail me with ‘How is that for a little pressure?!!!’ Truly exciting.

Next Friday I’ll post our interview with Dan Ellsberg; a great interview (due to Dan, not me!).I am really looking forward to your reaction. We covered several interesting issues, and you’ll find out if Dan Ellsberg believes he was conned into voting for President Obama, and whether that makes Obama a con man. You see, very interesting, indeed!

As usual there have been so many disasters, scandals, and hot developments, and only one of me to go over as many as possible, leave out those overly-covered, dispose of the ones not worthy of getting side-tracked on, ignore the few put out there as partisan baits, and save many for another day(s). Here are a few to ponder and hopefully exchange views on:

CIA Black Sites: As if there’s ever been any other color associated with the CIA!

Towards late December the Lithuanian Parliament finally released its findings into a probe of CIA dark activities in Lithuania, and confirmed that the agency operated two ‘Black Sites’ inside the Lithuanian Capital City Vilnius.

The probe also confirmed that at least five CIA planes landed in the city and that Lithuania’s spy agencies didn’t let their border guards inspect those planes. Lithuania’s government is still denying that they were informed of these activities in advance, and Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius called it a “matter of great concern.” Of course, so far the US government has declined to provide any confirmation or comments.

Last August a little bit of description of these sites and the treatment given to these detainees were published in an article:

Their transformations took place in a sensory cocoon: aboard a CIA aircraft, shackled in place, deprived of sight and sound by blindfolds, headsets and hoods.

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The prisoners’ arrival — almost always in diapers — was engineered to achieve that end

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They were stripped, shaved and shoved against walls the moment they arrived. What came next was an escalating menu of interrogation options, culminating in a method used in the Inquisition — waterboarding — to make them think they would drown.

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Follow-up sessions would start with the prisoner standing with his back against a wall and a towel or collar to prevent whiplash wrapped around his neck. He could be thrown against the wall just once “to make a point, or 20 to 30 times consecutively.”

Prisoners so abhorred the repeated slamming that they would remain in so-called stress positions, such as painful kneeling postures, for hours to avoid a return to the wall, according to one Dec. 30, 2004, memo that amounts to a CIA blueprint for breaking a detainee’s will.

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The purpose, of course, was to make them talk. The Bush administration said the United States was in danger of additional assaults after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. CIA interrogators were under orders to get a lot of information, fast. Whether the harsh interrogation methods were necessary to gather the intelligence is still a matter of dispute.

The only glimpse?

The secret overseas “black sites” where the CIA conducted the interrogations are empty now, if not already dismantled. They were never examined by a congressional committee, nor inspected by the international Red Cross.

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The black sites not only imprisoned men but reduced them to a near helpless state. The aim, as outlined in one document, was to teach every detainee “to perceive and value his personal welfare, comfort and immediate needs more than the information he is protecting.”

I don’t have to go any further on the human rights abuses and shameful conduct in not only the ‘black’ facilities in Lithuania, but many others we’ve known about, such as those in Thailand, Poland, and Romania, and others that haven’t been publicized – yet.

Based on Wikipedia, Black Sites are defined as: In military terminology, a black site is a location at which a black project is conducted. Recently, the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the CIA, generally outside of U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction. It can refer to the facilities that are controlled by the CIA used by the US government in its war on terror to detain alleged unlawful enemy combatants.

In August 2007, the New Yorker reported that the CIA has operated black site secret prisons by the direct Presidential order of Bush right after 9/11, and that extreme psychological interrogation measures based at least partially on the Vietnam-Era Phoenix Program were used on detainees. These included sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, keeping prisoners naked indefinitely and photographing them naked to degrade and humiliate them, and forcibly administering drugs by suppositories to further break down their dignity. According to Mayer’s report, CIA officers have taken out professional liability insurance, fearing that they could be criminally prosecuted if what they have already done became public knowledge.

Okay, there you have the CIA and its Black Projects, Black Operations, Black Sites, Black Budget…Has there ever been any shade other than dark, any color other than black associated with this filthy hornets’ nest thriving in the swamps of our foreign policies? Really, has there ever?

Speaking of these black measures of black operations in black sites brings to mind our conduct in Vietnam, and with that, the following:

CIA & the Vicious Cycle of Offenses-Defenses-Offenses-Defenses-Offenses…

The number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan continues to rise. The latest attack in Helmand province this week killed at least 8 civilians, and at least three of those victims were children.

Here are a few excerpts and links of the disturbing facts, based on statements given by NATO which keep changing:

Initially NATO officials insisted there were no operations going on in Kunar at all, though later they privately admitted US special forces were in the area. This story morphed into claims that it was a US military operation that killed an “IED cell” and that they had no proof of any civilian deaths.

Now, NATO says the operation was not military in nature, but rather was a “sanctioned” operation conducted by “non-military Americans” and that the children were all killed in self defense.

Whether “non-military Americans” entails contractors, like Blackwater, or CIA agents as were attacked yesterday in Khost remains to be seen. It is clear however that there is more than meets the eye to these killings, which locals insist involved the killers dragging the children out of bed and even handcuffing some of them before shooting them.

Maybe when one engages in these kinds of ‘offenses’ one ends up getting these types of ‘defenses’ in return:

The CIA base attacked by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan this week was at the heart of a covert program overseeing strikes by the agency’s remote-controlled aircraft along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials familiar with the installation said Thursday.

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What do you think? Maybe? Then, how about this: When one engages in these kinds of ‘offenses’ one ends up getting these types of ‘defenses’, which then makes one engage in even ‘more offenses.’ Here is what I mean:
 

Even as the C.I.A. expands its role in Afghanistan, it is also playing a greater role in quasi-military operations elsewhere, using drone aircraft to launch a steady barrage of missile strikes in Pakistan and sending more operatives to Yemen to assist local officials in their attempts to roll back Al Qaeda’s momentum in that country.

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When he took office in January, President Obama scaled back the C.I.A.’s counterterrorism mission, but only to a point. He ordered that C.I.A. prisons be shut and that C.I.A officers no longer play a role in interrogating suspects accused of terrorist acts.At the same time, the administration has accelerated the C.I.A.’s drone campaign, using Predator and Reaper aircraft to launch missiles and rockets against militants in Pakistan.

In early 2009, the White House approved a C.I.A. plan to expand the drone operations in Pakistan into Baluchistan, where top leaders of Afghanistan’s Taliban militia are thought to be hiding. The agency has also recently begun sending more operatives into Pakistan to, among other things, gather target intelligence for the drone program.

So where and when will this offenses-defenses-offenses-defenses…cycle stop?

The Case of the Mysterious Foreign Helicopters

The following interesting story was brought to my attention by our regular commenter Metem, whom I’ve grown to depend upon when it comes to getting a heads up on interesting but usually buried stories:

For several weeks now, Afghanistan has been consumed by stories of mysterious “foreign helicopters” ferrying Taliban fighters to a new front in northern Afghanistan. These helicopters are alleged by no less than President Karzai to belong to “foreign powers” such as the United States and its allies. The helicopters are said to land in remote regions, but their activity has supposedly been noted by nomads who travel through the deserts of Baghlan and Kunduz province (Hasht-e Sobh, October 13).

Without mentioning guilty parties or offering evidence, President Karzai suggested the reports of helicopters delivering terrorists to north Afghanistan were true, saying, “We have received reliable reports from our intelligence service. We have received reliable reports from our people, and today I received a report that these efforts [to transfer Taliban fighters] are also being made mysteriously in the northwest. The issue of helicopters has also been proved. We do not make any more comments now and investigations are under way to see to whom and to which foreign country these helicopters belong” (Tolo TV, October 11). According to Karzai, the “unknown” helicopters had been taking Taliban fighters to Baghlan, Kunduz and Samangan provinces in northern Afghanistan. The president’s remarks were quickly followed by a call from the Lower House speaker, Muhammad Yunis Qanuni, for a government debate on the issue. “When the president of Afghanistan, as the first man of the country, is raising a fact and a problem, then it shows that the problem is important and serious.”

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Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Karzai’s former rival for the presidency, accuses the Afghan government of being behind the transfer of Taliban fighters to the northern provinces. “They have sent to the north of the country the most evil people, the most notorious and criminal people who are involved in killing the people of Afghanistan and crime against the people of Afghanistan… I have the names of these people; they sent them to the north by helicopters so that they carry out their mission. Is this a government?” (Tolo TV, October 11).

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It’s a very interesting article. I suggest you visit the site and read the entire piece, and let us know what you make of it. And, as always, many thanks to Metem!

Video: Congressman Ron Paul

Here is Ron Paul on the latest assaults on our civil liberties using the latest incident as an excuse, our offenses in Yemen, our hypocrisy-ridden foreign policy, and more:

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