photo: neutralSurface via Flickr

Just as our chronically constipated Senate bore down and pushed out the second bolus of the Food Safety Bill upon the megacorps that have been impatiently swimming about for it, the ever so apolitical impresarios at Homeland Security fed CBS a steaming heap of fresh scoop.

NEW YORK, Dec. 20, 2010
Latest Terror Threat in US Aimed to Poison Food
Exclusive: The Dept. of Homeland Security Uncovered a Plot to Attack Hotels and Restaurants Over a Single Weekend

(CBS)  In this exclusive story, CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports the latest terror attack to America involves the possible use of poisons – simultaneous attacks targeting hotels and restaurants at many locations over a single weekend.

A key Intelligence source has confirmed the threat as “credible.”

Mind you, this is in the same week when NORAD will issue credible reports of Santa’s flight path from the North Pole.

Speaking of credulity credibility -  don’t you just love the way the professional jouranimalists at CBS capitalized “Intelligence”?  What a great way to emphasize that this week’s terrah alert comes from Authority.  And isn’t anonymous authority just the most convincing source of fear?  After all, what could be scarier than a voice without a body!  . . . Read the rest of this entry →

Watching Obama and Pelosi sacrifice reproductive freedom as they push America to corporatism, cynics assert the Dem leaders have forgotten where they came from, and that our government only gives to the rich.

Look on the bright side: we’re really good at funding death squads! And Barry Obama’s happy to return the hospitality he enjoyed as a kid in Indonesia by paying to arm his former hosts’ mass murderers.

After Obama chose – of all the lawyers in America – Eric Holder, the man who got Chiquita’s chief execs out from under hiring and arming death squads with a slap on the well-dressed corporate wrist, who did he choose for Director of National Intelligence? Obama chose – of all the generals and admirals in America – Dennis Blair, who defied civilian authority to keep money and arms flowing to the Indonesian army. Who used the arms and money Admiral Blair kept running so their death squads in Timor could keep the blood flowing.

"Why do they hate us?" Beats me.

This morning Allan Nairn and Amy Goodman were – as usual – incisive and compelling. Though she doesn’t set her discussions to music, a slight modification of a Python tune would be spot on.

"Admiral Blair, Admiral Blair, riding though the gore."

In the spirit of changiness, I’ve moved Amy’s addendum to the front.

AMY GOODMAN: After I taped this interview with investigative journalist Allan Nairn, he called and said he’d spoken to the Kopassus general who’s coordinated the recent assassinations. Allan said the general acknowledged an Indonesian army role in the killings. And the general also told him he himself was US-trained and was enthusiastic about Obama’s plans to make the US relationship with Kopassus and Indonesia’s army, quote, “still more intimate.”

Obama does crave approval. Maybe he can have Kopassus over for a cuddle session in the Oval Office – provided they check their machetes at the White House gate.

More from DN:

JUAN GONZALEZ: We end today’s show looking at US-Indonesian relations.
The White House is moving towards increasing aid to the Indonesian
armed forces and lifting a twelve-year ban on the training of the
notorious Indonesian military unit known as Kopassus. The special
forces unit has been linked to scores of human rights abuses in East
Timor, Aceh, Papua and Java since its formation in the 1950s.

On Monday, Jeffrey Bader of the National Security Council acknowledged
Kopassus had committed human rights violations in the past, but he
said the Obama administration, quote, “hopes to be able, at some
point, to move past and resolve those concerns.”

AMY GOODMAN:

…Well, yesterday I reached investigative journalist and activist Allan
Nairn about his new investigation into assassinations by US-trained
Indonesian army and Kopassus officers. I reached him in Southeast
Asia.

ALLAN NAIRN: President Obama wants to restore military aid to
the Indonesian armed forces, including Kopassus, the Red Berets. I’ve
just come out with a piece that shows that the Indonesian army and
Kopassus have been involved in a series of recent assassinations of
civilian political activists. The piece names the names of the
officers involved, including a Kopassus general named Sunarko. These
assassinations were carried out in the region of Aceh in late 2009.

They targeted activists for the Aceh—the Partai Aceh, which is
pro-independence. In one case, the case of a man named Tumijan, he was
abducted, tortured to death. His body was dumped in a sewage ditch
near an army post. In another, a man was sitting in his car outside
his house. An assassin walked up, put two bullets in his head through
the window.

According to a senior Indonesian official with detailed
information on these murders, they’re part of a program of political
murder being carried out by TNI, the Indonesian armed forces, and
Kopassus and by military intelligence. And so, these killings are
still going on today. And Obama is about to give them new aid on the
pretense that the Indonesian army has reformed and has stopped killing
civilians, which is false.

AMY GOODMAN: How do you know this, Allan?

ALLAN NAIRN: From people inside the Indonesian government, who
gave the names of some of the killers and the officers they work for.
And just a few hours ago, I spoke on the phone with General Aditya,
who is the head of the police in Aceh, and he confirmed that his
forces had in fact detained some of the assassins who were working for
the army. They’d been holding them for months, but they never
announced this, because they were afraid to do it. The police are
afraid of the army. But when I asked him about it directly, he
admitted it publicly for the first time. The Indonesian police have confirmed this. They know about it, but they’re afraid to act. The Indonesian army and Kopassus are running a program of killing
civilians, and it’s active right now. And Obama wants to give them new US weapons, training and money.

AMY GOODMAN: Why does President Obama want to give them this
money? I think we’re hearing a lot about the war on terror.

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, first the White House makes the argument that
the atrocities are a thing of the past. The Indonesian military has
killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps close to a million, civilians.
But the White House argues, well, that’s in the past. But as I’ve just
described, that’s a lie, that’s not true. Secondly, the White House
claims that they want to use the Indonesian army to fight Islamist
terror groups in Indonesia. They want to use them and a special
anti-terrorist unit called Densus 88.

Densus 88 is a police SWAT-style task force that was originally
created by US intelligence under the initiative of Cofer Black,
formerly of the CIA, now with Blackwater. Two nights ago, I met with
the Densus people, who described how were they—were trained in Jakarta
and elsewhere by a CIA personnel in tactics including surveillance,
how to pursue and snatch people, and interrogation.

AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, talk about the significance of
President Obama postponing his trip to Indonesia until June.

ALLAN NAIRN: I think it is still possible that the deal they
were making with the Indonesian army may still go forward, because for
the past few days, other top US officials, including Kurt Campbell,
the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, have been in
Indonesia. US generals have been in Indonesia. In fact, Kopassus general—Kopassus generals even went to Washington and were welcomed by the Obama people with open arms. They were working out the details of this new pact. And it is possible that even though Obama himself won’t visit, they will still try to push this deal through. So that means specifically that they may go ahead with their already announced plans to circumvent the US congressional Leahy amendment, which bans training for units involved in atrocities, and boost their training for Kopassus.

…..So I think that deal perhaps could be stopped, and people
should contact Congress and the White House, demand that the US cut
off all military aid to Indonesia. And they can to go to the East Timor Action website and get details about the Kopassus aspect of the
problem…..

Sounds like a good start to ending some of Obama’s bad business.

Now I understand why fine legal servants like Eric Holder risk moral opprobrium for moving out of the DOJ (after he pushed Marc Rich’s pardon) to white shoe law firms where they can….push the DOJ to give sweetheart deals to death squads’ paymasters.

It’s all so they can pay off their burdensome loans and enter public service where they can…be in the Cabinet of an Administration that funds death squads.

Hey – San Quentin’s right up the road. Maybe I can pay off some bills by providing professional services at the death chamber. Oh, wait: debased and depraved as much of official American medicine has become, even my profession’s fallen ethics preclude taking money to abet institutionalized killing. (Unless, of course, you’ve joined the lucrative subspecialty bordello practice of forensic psychiatry – but that’s an atrocity for another day).

Would that other learned professions – like, say, the law – shunned those who choose to profit from institutionalized murder, State or corporatist (to the extent there’s a difference any more).

"A republic, if you can keep it." Sorry, Ben: we failed. Now we fund terrorists, and call them allies (or freedom fighters).

Forward changiness!