Snowdon is a dummy

I have always thought the term 'war on terror,' is a mistake. It gives criminals the legitimacy of enemy combatants. We stopped using it a long time ago.

Nothing wrong with the military apparatus if used properly;

How do you declare an end to a war on a feeling or emotion? There's no end to this.

JANUARY 24, 2012

The ’65 Massacres: Complicity and Cover-Up
The U.S., Indonesia & the New York Times

by CONN HALLINAN


...

In the polarized world of the Cold War, non-alignment was not acceptable to Washington, and the U.S. began using a combination of diplomacy, military force and outright subversion to undermine countries like Indonesia and to bring them into alliances with the U.S. and its allies. The CIA encouraged separatist movements in the oil-rich provinces of Sumatra and Sulawesi. The British and the Australians were also up to their elbows in the 1965 coup, and France increased its trade with Indonesia following the massacre.

The relations between Jakarta and Washington are long and sordid. The U.S. gave Indonesia the green light to invade and occupy East Timor, an act that resulted in the death of over 200,000 people, or one-third of the Timorese population, a kill ratio greater than Pol Pot’s genocidal mania in Cambodia. Washington is also supportive of Indonesia’s seizure of Irian Jaya (West Papua) and, rather than condemning the brutality of the occupation, has blamed much of the violence on the local natives.

The Cold War is over, but not U.S. interests in Asia. The Obama administration is pouring military forces into the region and has made it clear that it intends to contest China’s growing influence in Asia and Southeast Asia. Here Indonesia is key. Some 80 percent of China’s energy supplies pass through Indonesian-controlled waters, and Indonesia is still a gold mine—literally in the case of Freeport McMoRan on Irian Jaya—of valuable resources.

So once again, the U.S. is turning a blind eye to the brutal and repressive Indonesian military that doesn’t fight wars but is devilishly good at suppressing its own people and cornering many of those resources for itself. The recent decision by the White House to begin working with Kopassus—Indonesia’s equivalent of the Nazi SS—is a case in point. Kopassus has been implicated in torture and murder in Irian Jaya and played a key role in the 1999 sacking of East Timor that destroyed 70 percent of that country’s infrastructure following Timor’s independence vote. Over 1500 Timorese were killed and 250,000 kidnapped to Indonesian West Timor.

[read the whole article at,]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/24/the-u-s-indonesia-the-new-york-times/

New Zealand's prime minister says his country doesn't spy on journalists, but it's theoretically possible reporters could get caught in surveillance nets when the U.S. spies on enemy combatants.

Prime Minister John Key was responding Monday to a newspaper report that said the New Zealand military, assisted by U.S. spy agencies, collected phone metadata to monitor journalist Jon Stephenson. Stephenson is a New Zealand freelance journalist who last year was reporting in Afghanistan for American news organization McClatchy.

Key, who is traveling in Seoul, told reporters Monday that in a hypothetical example, a journalist who called a member of the Taliban who was being monitored by the Americans could show up in records.

The Obama administration has declassified a secret order directing Verizon Communications to turn over a vast number of Americans’ phone records, and it plans to disclose the document Wednesday morning in time for a Senate hearing, according to senior U.S. officials.
[...]
The order from April covers the same length of time as the order previously disclosed by Snowden. Officials have said the Justice Department seeks renewal for the bulk-collection orders every 90 days.

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's father open to FBI's idea of Moscow visit

Lonnie Snowden has told Russian TV that he needs to know what the FBI want him to do before flying out to see his son
[...]
Mr Snowden has now applied for temporary asylum in Russia and could be granted permission to stay in the country within days, according to his lawyer Anatoly Kucherena. Speaking on the programme, Mr Kucherena said that the US had not sent an official extradition request, arguing that "saying 'hand him over' is absolutely dishonourable and incorrect”.

“If you want (to have Snowden handed over), you should adhere to the law, so send, according to existing rules of cooperation between states, a corresponding legal document, correctly filled out. But there is no such thing,” he said.

During the interview Lonnie Snowden said he did not believe his son would get a fair trial following the events within the previous six weeks.

“I hope that he will return home and appear in court ... But I don't expect that ... a court would be fair. We cannot guarantee a fair court.”

He added that he hoped Russia would accept his son's request for asylum. “If he wants to spend the rest of his life in Russia, I would agree. I am not against it,” he said. “If I were in his place, I would stay in Russia."

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'
• XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data
• NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
• Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
• NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations


A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Quote:

XKeyscore: NSA tool collects 'nearly everything a user does on the internet'
• XKeyscore gives 'widest-reaching' collection of online data
• NSA analysts require no prior authorization for searches
• Sweeps up emails, social media activity and browsing history
• NSA's XKeyscore program – read one of the presentations


A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Source and full report

This Snowden freak is starting to become a problem. Get him in the open and DroneStrike him ASAP.

The US Attorney General, Eric Holder, has given Moscow an assurance that he will not face the death penalty if extradited to America, but the Russians say they do not intend to hand him over.