We have a few updates on Boiling Frogs Post and our soon to be launched subscription program.

I am excited to announce our upcoming Boiling Frogs Video series to be produced by our new partner James Corbett, an independent journalist who has been living and working in Japan since 2004. He has been writing and producing The Corbett Report, an online multi-media news and information source, since 2007. His forthcoming book, Reportage: Essays on the New World Order, will be available for purchase later this year. You can check out his website here. James is working on our first episode which will be coming up next week.

Meanwhile, here is one of my favorite episodes from Corbett Report:

As some of you may recall, immediately at the end of our March 2011 fundraising campaign I asked for your input on keeping this site alive and expanding it further. I do want to continue and expand, and for that I need to be able to afford spending the needed time. I certainly want to bring to you weekly podcast interviews on crucial topics; without advertisements or manipulating foundation sponsors. I also want to incorporate professional and truly independent video presentations on our topics and issues of interest and related developments. How do I go about doing all this yet completely stay away from corporate advertisements and agenda-driven foundation grants?

The answer is simple: only through our readers and listeners’ direct support. We can’t go on complaining about the corporate media and agenda and partisanship driven quasi-alternatives when we refuse to support the ones like this site and others that try to be what we want: independent, nonpartisan, uncompromising, bold and factual. Isn’t it true?

In the next few weeks we’ll transition to a new paid subscription model for our exclusive and independent weekly podcast and video broadcast. We are also planning to add an exclusive forum for our subscribers, and publish topics of interest for discussion. I like to think of our supporters as our irate minority club members rather than subscribers. Our regular site will continue with our usual articles, commentaries, editorial cartoons and regular updates, while our podcast, video, and forum will be open to those who are willing to support this site and the work it takes to sustain it. Those of you who have donated $50 or more, and those who have signed up with recurring monthly donations to our site since January 2011, will be given an automatic subscription for one year.

And finally, some of you may have noticed the recent disruption to our site registration for comments. Our site has been under continuous vicious attacks for almost two weeks. We have addressed the problem and are in the process of adding additional preventive measures. Thank you for your patience.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Please welcome our new addition, Dr. Julien Mercille, to the Boiling Frogs analyst team. You can read his recent articles here, and here. Peter and I interviewed him last week, and will have that available to you in about 2 weeks. Here is Dr. Mercille’s bio:

Dr. Julien Mercille is a lecturer in US foreign policy at University College Dublin, where he moved after obtaining his PhD from UCLA. He teaches on US history and foreign policy and has published academic articles on Iran, Iraq and the Cold War and is now researching the “War on Drugs” and Afghanistan. He has also written for various websites and magazines on those topics and others.

I only had time to gather a few noteworthy articles and headlines for this weekend’s round up (a hectic week). Let’s start with this brief video (even though it predates the recent disastrous SC decision!):
 

Why Use A National Security Letter When You Have Post-It Notes
Jacob Sullum, Reason

CCTV in the sky: police plan to use military-style spy drones
Paul Lewis, Guardian

Shadowy Arms Deal Traced to Kazakhstan
Simon Shuster, AP
 
Afghans protest deaths of 4 in NATO-government raid
Sayed Salahuddin, Reuters

More secrecy: Obama hides objections to laws
Watertown Daily Times

US continues to look the other way on ‘war on terror’ abuses
Amnesty International

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

We are delighted to announce a great addition to our team. Dr. Bill Weaver, who specializes in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy, has joined Boiling Frogs Post. Bill has been my mentor, a good friend, and a senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC). I consider him one of the top nonpartisan experts when it comes to government secrecy and excessive classification, states secrets privilege, and intelligence and law enforcement agencies related whistleblowers. On Monday, January 11, I’ll post a great piece by Bill on ‘the Glomar Response.’ Here is a bit more on Bill Weaver:

Bill Weaver served in U.S. Army signals intelligence for eight years in Berlin and Augsburg, Germany in the late 1970s and 1980s. He subsequently received his law degree and Ph.D. in politics from the University of Virginia, where he was on the editorial board of the Virginia Law Review. He is presently Professor and Director of the Center for Law and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso. He specializes in executive branch secrecy policy, governmental abuse, and law and bureaucracy. His articles have appeared in American Political Science Review, Political Science Quarterly, Virginia Law Review, Journal of Business Ethics, Organization and other journals. He has co-authored several books on law and political theory.  His most recent book, co-authored with Robert Pallitto, is Presidential Secrecy and the Law (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).

Boiling Frogs Show

As expected, our latest Podcast interview featuring Dan Ellsberg was a great hit. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to it here is the link: Podcast #18. Coming up next week – our interview with Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, and the following week we’ll have Andy Worthington. This Thursday, Peter and I are scheduled to interview author and journalist Chris Hedges. Let me know if you have any questions you want me to ask Chris.

Also, on Monday, one of our video project team members, Katrina Rill, will be flying from California to New Jersey where she’ll be working on our project with Kristina Borjesson for two weeks. Please wish her a smooth flight and eventless TSA process. As are many prospective fliers she is dreading the process, and who could blame her?!

This week, due to my daughter’s nasty cold, I didn’t have a chance to add my own brief analysis and comments on our select weekly news and links of interest. Instead I’ll leave you with a few links and excerpts, and await your comments and responses. Is that a deal? Good. Here they are:

Obama’s Yemeni odyssey targets China

A year ago, Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Saleh made the startling revelation that his country’s security forces apprehended a group of Islamists linked to the Israeli intelligence forces. “A terrorist cell was apprehended and will be referred to the courts for its links with the Israeli intelligence services,” he promised.

Saleh added, “You will hear about the trial proceedings.” Nothing was ever heard and the trail went cold. Welcome to the magical land of Yemen, where in the womb of time the Arabian Nights were played out.

…

Is Obama so incredibly forgetful of his own December 1 speech outlining his Afghan strategy that he violated his own canons? Certainly not. Obama is a smart man. The intervention in Yemen will go down as one of the smartest moves that he ever made for perpetuating the US’s global hegemony. It is America’s answer to China’s surge.

A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is “marking territory” – like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.

…

This is a fairly well written piece and provides a bit more context than our usual media blurbs over here. You can read the entire article by M K Bhadrakumar at Asia Times here.

Another related article:

Russia, China keep toehold in Yemen

Russia has stolen a march over the United States in the multimillion-dollar arms market in cash-strapped Yemen, whose weapons purchases are being funded mostly by neighboring Saudi Arabia. The Yemeni armed forces, currently undergoing an ambitious modernization program worth an estimated $4 billion US, are equipped with weapons largely from Russia, China, Ukraine, eastern Europe and the former Soviet republics.

…

Yemen receives assistance under several US-funded programs, including Foreign Military Financing, International Military Education and Training, Non-Proliferation, Anti-terrorism and De-mining, and Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But the proposed military aid to Yemen – all of it gratis – along with US arms supplies, is negligible compared with weapons, military training and technical expertise from non-US sources.

…

I think you know why I find it interesting. It’s never really about terrorism or human rights…basically it always boils down to: chase the money angle, strategic location for that money angle, and the resources bringing about that money. So who is next? My bet would be: CENTRAL ASIA. How about Iran? I’m sure we can arrange for some Al-Qaeda presence rumor over there, add some ‘concerns’ over human rights abuses, and maybe a little bit of war on drugs or something like that, and voila! You can read the piece here, and let me know what you think.

Speaking of Iran, this must be raising many flags within establishment quarters, and causing worryies over ‘what could be ours that seems to be becoming theirs’:

Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map

The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline on Wednesday connecting Iran’s northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan’s vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is “apocalypse now” for the Islamic regime in Tehran.

The event sends strong messages for regional security. Within the space of three weeks, Turkmenistan has committed its entire gas exports to China, Russia and Iran. It has no urgent need of the pipelines that the United States and the European Union have been advancing. Are we hearing the faint notes of a Russia-China-Iran symphony?

…

The Turkmen-Iranian pipeline mocks the US’s Iran policy. The US is threatening Iran with new sanctions and claims Tehran is “increasingly isolated”. But Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s presidential jet winds its way through a Central Asian tour and lands in Ashgabat for a red-carpet welcome by his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, and a new economic axis emerges. Washington’s coercive diplomacy hasn’t worked. Turkmenistan, with a gross domestic product of US$18.3 billion, defied the sole superpower (GDP of $14.2 trillion) – and, worse still, made it look routine.

There are subplots, too. Tehran claims to have a deal with Ankara to transport Turkmen gas to Turkey via the existing 2,577km pipeline connecting Tabriz in northwestern Iran with Ankara. Indeed, Turkish diplomacy has an independent foreign-policy orientation. Turkey also aspires to be a hub for Europe’s energy supplies. Europe may be losing the battle for establishing direct access to the Caspian.

…

Read the article here.

Here is another one; this one on our consistent Modus Operandi:
US forges alliance with Saddam Hussein officers to fight al-Qaeda

American counter-terrorism specialists and Saddam Hussein’s former intelligence officers have forged an unlikely alliance in Yemen to tackle al-Qaeda.

The two sides were enemies on the battlefield just seven years ago but have been brought together by the failings of Yemen‘s security and intelligence apparatus, according to diplomatic and military sources in the country.

Although mutual suspicions linger, the collaboration is said to have achieved some intelligence breakthroughs and helped instil greater efficiency and professionalism within the most elite Yemeni counterterrorism outfit.

Co-operation with the former Baathist officers, who fled Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasion and the fall of Saddam, is expected to grow further in the wake of the failed terror attack in the skies above Detroit. …

I wonder how many express a ‘huh?!’ reaction…

Okay, here is something different, and if viewed from the appropriate angle it is sadly-comical:

EU nations divided on use of airport body scanners

Fearing a rift with the United States, the European Union said Thursday it may force resistant member states to use the full-body scanners being pushed by the Obama administration in the wake of the failed Christmas Day bombing.

Britain, the Netherlands and Italy already have joined Washington in announcing plans to install more of the devices — which can “see” through clothing — in the aftermath of the attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

But there are deep divisions among European nations, with countries such as Spain and Germany calling the scanners intrusive and a potential health risk.

…

And finally here is a well-written story about how our law enforcement agencies go about recruiting Muslim informants, and how they retaliate against those who refuse to be recruited:

Spy or Say Goodbye

After Imam Foad Farahi refused to become a federal informant, the government tried to destroy him.

For Farahi, an Iranian citizen who had lived in the United States for more than a decade, it was simply another month of Ramadan in Florida. Then, around 5 p.m., as he neared his apartment, he saw two men standing outside. They were waiting for him.

“We’re from the FBI,” one of the men said.

“OK,” he responded.

They wanted to know about José Padilla and Adnan El Shukrijumah, two South Florida men linked to the al Qaeda terrorist network. Padilla, the so-called “Dirty Bomber,” was arrested in May 2002 and initially given enemy combatant status. He eventually stood trial in Miami and was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 17 years in prison. Shukrijumah is a Saudi Arabian and an alleged al Qaeda member whose last known address was in Miramar. The FBI is offering up to $5 million for information leading directly to his capture.

…

“We want you to work with us,” Farahi remembers an agent telling him.

And this is when the imam’s five-year battle with the federal government began.

“I have no problem working with you guys or helping you out,” Farahi recalls telling them. He could keep them informed about the local Muslim community or translate Arabic. But the relationship, he insisted, would need to be public; others would have to know he was helping the government.

But that wasn’t what the FBI had in mind, Farahi says. The agents wanted him to become a secret informant who would investigate specific people. And they knew Farahi was in a vulnerable position. His student visa had expired, and he had asked the government for a renewal. He had also applied for political asylum, hoping one of those legal tracks would offer a way for him to stay in the United States indefinitely.

“We’ll give you residency,” the agents promised. “We’ll give you money to go to school.”

Farahi considered the offer for a moment and then shook his head.

“I can’t,” he told them.

…

Farahi soon discovered that the FBI’s offer wasn’t optional. The federal government used strong-arm tactics — including trying to have him deported and falsely claiming it had information linking him to terrorism — in an effort to force him to become an informant, he says.

The imam has resisted the government and took his political asylum case to the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

“As long as you’re not a citizen, there are lots of things [the government] can do,” says Ira Kurzban, Farahi’s attorney. “They can allege you’re a terrorist and try to bring terrorist charges against you, or they can get you deported.”

…

This is an interesting story with many ramifications. I suggest you check it out here.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.