“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
“If we except the light and the air of heaven, no good thing has been or can be enjoyed by us without having first cost labor. And inasmuch as most good things are produced by labor, it follows that all such things of right belong to those whose labor has produced them. But it has so happened, in all the ages of the world, that some have labored, and others have without labor enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits. This is wrong, and should not continue. To secure to each laborer the whole product of his labor, or as nearly as possible, is a worthy object of any good government.”
Washington, D.C. – The Fiscal Cliff looms, something everyone in Washington and around the country are all too keenly aware of. Should the two sides trying to work out some kind of agreement not be able to do so before the end of the month, a week away, the country could be headed towards real financial trouble.
That, likely, will not be the only consequence of the failure to strike a deal, however. Already in turmoil after their miserable showing in the last election, the Republican Party is in further disarray over the Cliff and most believe, both inside and outside the Party, that if a deal is not worked out they will shoulder the bulk of the blame.
That could have long term consequences for the future of a Party that already has a murky future ahead of it. That could well be time for a change and after his failure to even muster support from within his own Party for his tax plan, John Boehner’s head could well be on the chopping block. Boehner, though, doesn’t think so and plans to stick around for a long time to come no matter what anyone inside or outside the House thinks.
“While we may have not been able to get the votes last night to avert 99.81 percent of the tax increases, I don’t think — they weren’t taking that out on me,” said Boehner.
Others, though, have been whispering about staging a coup against the House Speaker that could well result in him losing that position come the start of the New Year.
Boehner has of course blamed the President for the impasse, but his inability to pass a deal with members of his own Party could signify that a rebellion is already in action.
“The Republicans are in a tough spot right now and it isn’t something that is going to be solved easily. Even if they do work a deal over taxes most people will just look at that as doing what they were supposed to be doing and not something to be congratulated for, though it’s possible they won’t realize that,” said Scrape TV Political analyst Gabriel Kinsey. “The election was a massive rebuke of the Party and there were very ominous signs that unless they change, they will lose for a long, long time to come. The Party has started to realize that but acceptance of the changing electorate is causing quite a bit of trouble for everyone.”
Eric Cantor would likely take over as Speaker should Boehner be tossed out.
“Boehner is in tough even if they work a deal. He’s a part of the old guard and that old guard has to go, frankly. Even if they only want to get rid of him as a symbolic change they will do that. Things do need to change in the Party and Boehner will eventually have to be part of that, even if he doesn’t like that which of course he will not,” continued Kinsey. “Unfortunately for Boehner he only gets one vote as to who will be House Speaker and considering how little support he was able to muster for this bill, well, I doubt many other votes will follow him and that means he will be out. Obviously he doesn’t feel that is the case and certainly doesn’t want it, especially not with the country going over the Fiscal Cliff. It would be rough being kind of out of work in that case.”
Boehner apparently has no plans on trying again to work a deal and is leaving that with the Democrats.
A recently discovered initiative by the National Counterterrorism Center will search millions of America's government files for criminal wrongdoing--even if they aren't under investigation.
The U.S. government has quietly launched a massive master database on American citizens, most of whom have no criminal records. According to the Wall Street Journal's Julia Angwin, a little-known government organization called the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) has begun to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible wrongdoing. Angwin claims the NCTC is searching disparate government databases for proof of possible criminal behavior by ordinary citizens, even if they are not suspected in any crimes. Despite the NCTC's name, the organization is searching for proof of ordinary crimes, as well as terrorism.
Lists being parsed by the NCTC include flight records, casino employee lists, and the names of Americans hosting foreign exchange students. All-seeing government databases are becoming an increasingly common part of everyday life; in recent months, New York's police department created a massive citywide surveillance system and the FBI announced a billion-dollar biometric database.
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Ernest Hemingway 'driven to suicide over FBI surveillance'
Ernest Hemingway may have been driven to kill himself because of his surveillance by the FBI, his close friend and collaborator has said.
AE Hotchner said he believed the FBI's monitoring of the Nobel Prize-winning author, over suspicions of his links to Cuba, "substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide" 50 years ago.
Hotchner wrote in The New York Times that he had "regretfully misjudged" his friend's fears of federal investigators, which were dismissed as paranoid delusions for years after his death.
In 1983 the FBI released a 127-page file it had kept on Hemingway since the 1940s, confirming he was watched by agents working for J. Edgar Hoover, who took a personal interest in his case.
Hotchner described being met off a train by Hemingway in Ketchum, Idaho, in November 1960, for a pheasant shoot with their friend Duke MacMullen.
Hemingway, struggling to complete his last work, complained "the feds" had "tailed us all the way" and that agents were poring over his accounts in a local bank that they passed on their journey.
"It's the worst hell," Hemingway said. "The goddamnedest hell. They've bugged everything. That's why we're using Duke's car. Mine's bugged. Everything's bugged. Can't use the phone. Mail intercepted."
Later that month he was committed for psychiatric care at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he received electric shock treatment. He attempted suicide several times before being released.
A few days after returning home to Ketchum, he shot himself in the head with his favourite shotgun aged 61.
"In the years since, I have tried to reconcile Ernest's fear of the FBI, which I regretfully misjudged, with the reality of the FBI file," wrote Hotchner, the author of 'Papa Hemingway'.
"I now believe he truly sensed the surveillance, and that it substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide," he said.
It’s being called one of the rarest meteorites in history.
Just eight months after a fireball was spotted lighting up California and Nevada skies, a team of researchers say the cause was one of the rarest bits of cosmic material ever discovered on Earth.
Researchers responsible for recovering the small pieces of the meteor that hit northern California say it is was largely a carbonaceous chondrite — one of the rarest types to strike Earth. It is composed of cosmic dust and presolar materials that helped form the planets of the solar system, possibly presenting scientists with an extremely valubale resource for studying the early solar system.
Lead author and meteor astronomer Peter Jenniskens of the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California, noted that the age of the meteor made the specimen extremely rare, saying its age could yield some surprising data.
“[O]nly between 50,000 and 90,000 years ago, while most meteorites originate millions and millions of years ago,” he said.
Astronomers say the meteorite likely formed about 4.5 billion years ago. It was knocked off its parent body, which may have been an asteroid or a Jupiter-family comet, roughly 50,000 years ago. The meteorite’s journey came to a halt in late April, when scientists descended on Sutter’s Mill, California — the gold discovery site that sparked the California Gold Rush — in an effort to recover fragments of the meteorite.
Jenniskens, who led the scientific search, described the search for the few fragments, explaining that they instigated a search of weather radar data to pinpoint the exact landing site. He also worked to collect photographs and video from a few bystanders in the High Sierra, some of whom captured stills of the fireball. The team of scientists also employed the use of seismic equipment at international nuclear weapons detection sites in an effort to better pinpoint the size of the meteorite when it struck Earth.
Thursday’s study represents the conclusion of the eight-month ordeal. According to the published report, Jenniskens and his team estimate that the energy of the exploding fireball was equal to a 4-kiloton blast of an atom bomb. Jenniskens and his colleagues report that the asteroid that hit the atmosphere probably had a mass of some 40,000 kilograms, corresponding to a diameter of 2.5 to four meters. It streaked in from the east before detonating at an altitude of about 48 kilometers, the team of researchers said.
Most notably, Jenniskens says the meteorite hit the Earth’s atmosphere at a blistering speed of nearly 18 miles per second, making it one of the fastest recorded object to strike Earth. Jenniskens noted that the object’s speed likely created enough pressure to break it apart, leaving researchers with just small chunks of rock scattered across a wide area.
“The small three meter-sized asteroid that impacted over California’s Sierra Nevada came in at twice the speed of typical meteorite falls,” said Jenniskens. ”Clocked at 64,000 miles per hour, it hit with the energy of a quarter of a Hiroshima bomb. It was the biggest impact over land since the impact of the four meter-sized asteroid 2008 TC3, four years ago over Sudan.”
Of the estimated 100,000 pound asteroid, less than two pounds was recovered on the ground in the form of 77 meteorites. The biggest was 205 grams, according to NASA.
According to Jenniskens’ team, their focus will now shift to further examining the meteorite pieces. The team says the first step will revolve around studying the chemistry and mineralogy of the collected samples, possibly in an attempt to better understand the early solar system and universe.
“It exhibits considerable diversity of mineralogy, petrography, and isotope and organic chemistry, resulting from a complex formation history of the parent body surface. That diversity is quickly masked by alteration once in the terrestrial environment but will need to be considered when samples returned by missions to C-class asteroids are interpreted,” researchers wrote.
Meanwhile, astronomers around the world are using the event as a cautionary tale. The combined speed and size of the meteorite could have been disastrous, according to researchers involved in the study.
A former U.S. drone operator has opened up about the toll of killing scores of innocent people by pressing a button from a control room in New Mexico.
Brandon Bryant, 27, from Missoula, Montana, spent six years in the Air Force operating Predator drones from inside a dark container.
But, after following orders to shoot and kill a child in Afghanistan, he knew he couldn’t keep doing what he was doing and quit the military.
The first time he fired a missile, he killed two men instantly and cried on his way home.
'I felt disconnected from humanity for almost a week,' he said.
But it was an incident when a Predator drone was circling above a flat-roofed house made of mud in Afghanistan, more than 6,250 miles away, that really sticks in his mind.
Horrific: 'I saw men, women and children die,' said Brandon Bryant, pictured
The hut had a shed used to hold goats and when he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser.
The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.
'These moments are like in slow motion,' he told the website.
As the countdown reached seven seconds, there was no sign of anyone on the ground.
Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point.
But when it was down to three seconds, a child suddenly walked around the corner.
The next thing he saw was a flash on the screen - the explosion. The building collapsed, and the child disappeared.
Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach, he told the website.
'Did we just kill a kid?' he asked the pilot next to him.
A US drone strike in Shin Warsak, South Waziristan on December 1 2012 marked the 300th drone strike in Pakistan of Barack Obama’s presidency, according to Bureau research.
The attack was the second since President Obama’s re-election on November 6. It reportedly killed Abdul Rehman al-Zaman Yemeni, described as an al Qaeda commander, along with up to three others.
Although the pace of strikes has slowed considerably this year, CIA attacks have struck Pakistan’s tribal areas on average once every five days during Obama’s first term – six times more than under George W Bush. Here, we look at the key moments of Obama’s drone campaign.
2009
When Barack Obama entered the White House on January 20 2009, his national security team was already planning a massive increase in drone strikes. On the campaign trail Obama mentioned taking the war to Pakistan in over 30 speeches.
Obama’s drone campaign started three days into his presidency. But of the 12 – 23 reportedly killed in the pair of strikes, at least 12 were reportedly civilians, including four children. When the president was told of the civilian deaths he was ‘not a happy man’, Newsweek later reported. But this didn’t prevent the CIA from launching more covert strikes in the first year of Obama’s presidency than in all of Bush’s eight-year tenure.
Throughout the spring and summer, drones hunted the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) and its leader Baitullah Mehsud, as the TTP carried out terrorist attacks on Pakistani targets and briefly formed an alliance with the Afghan Taliban at the request of al Qaeda. The CIA eventually killed Baitullah Mehsud – and his wife – on August 5.
Some strikes appeared to adopt shocking tactics, including two incidents where missiles hit funerals
As Pakistan’s government prepared to send troops into South Waziristan to flush out the TTP in October, drones focused on the Haqqani Network, which was attacking US and Nato troops over the border in Afghanistan.
Strikes killed al Qaeda commanders including planners Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi and Said al-Somali, explosives expert Abu Musa al-Masri, and commanders Abdullah Said al Libi and Zuhaib al-Zahibi.
But these scalps came at a cost: at least 119 civilians were reportedly killed between Obama’s inauguration and the year’s end. And some strikes appeared to adopt shocking tactics, including two incidents where missiles hit funerals. The second such strike, reportedly killing at least five, occurred eight days after Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
On December 30, a Jordanian triple agent Humam Khalil al-Balawi blew himself up in a CIA drone base at Khost, Afghanistan, killing seven CIA agents in the worst attack on the agency in almost 30 years. In a video released shortly afterwards, the bomber appeared with Hakimullah Mehsud, claiming the attack was in revenge for Baitullah Mehsud’s death.
2010
The CIA responded to the Khost bombing with a furious spate of drone attacks, launching 13 reported strikes in the following month and maintaining a similar pace through February and March. Although the 31 strikes launched between January and March killed a number of named militants, one in three reportedly killed civilians.
On May 1 2010, Pakistani-US citizen Faisal Shahzad attempted to blow up a car in Times Square, New York. Intelligence sources quickly linked Shahzad to North Waziristan, making this the first terrorism attempt on US soil of Pakistan’s homegrown Taliban.
The sheer frequency of the bombings brought growing attention to the CIA’s campaign, and in June the UN’s expert on extrajudicial killings, Phillip Alston, called on the CIA to halt the strikes. The drone programme was a ‘strongly asserted but ill-defined licence to kill without accountability’, he said.
Bismullah’s three surviving children. (Photo: Noor Behram/Reprieve)
On August 23, missiles destroyed the Danda Darpakhel home of Bismullah, reportedly killing 20, of whom 10 were said to be civilians and three were children.
Officials anonymously claimed this strike led to a policy turnaround dictating civilians must not be harmed. Yet the Bureau has identified 25 strikes before the end of the year where the reporting suggests civilians died.
The autumn saw a furious acceleration of strikes in North Waziristan, as drones reportedly hunted militants allegedly plotting Mumbai-style attacks in Europe.
The increasing use of drones led to mounting resentment among civilians in the tribal regions – and tensions increased further in December, when the Islamabad CIA station chief, Jonathan Banks, was forced to leave the country after his cover was blown in a civil law suit brought by drone victim Karim Khan.
But strikes hammered down on Waziristan unabated: in total, 2010 saw an average of one strike every three days, making this by far the most intense year of strikes.
2011
Initially it appeared strikes would continue at 2010′s furious pace – but broader events soon had a pronounced effect on the drone campaign.
In late January, US citizen Raymond Davis was arrested for shooting two men dead in Lahore. Davis was quickly revealed to be a CIA agent, adding a new dimension to the delicate US-Pakistan relationship. Drone strikes abruptly slowed – although they gradually picked up again as the US edged towards persuading Pakistan to release Davis in exchange for payments of $2m to the families of the dead.
Yet the relationship immediately plunged into a fresh crisis: the day after Davis’ release in March, a catastrophic strike hit a gathering of locals who had met to resolve a chromite mining dispute. Over 30 civilians were reportedly killed, including many tribal elders, and more were injured. The strike provoked instant outrage in Pakistan, with the Pakistan army’s chief of staff calling it a ‘senseless attack‘.
The drone strikes stopped for almost a month, and April saw just two strikes – the lowest number since the earliest days of Obama’s presidency.
And the relationship would plunge still lower: on the near-moonless night of May 1, three US helicopters crossed from Afghanistan, pressing far beyond the tribal regions into the Pakistani heartland. The US had tracked its public enemy number 1 to a compound in Abbottabad, 30-odd miles from the capital. Within hours, Osama bin Laden was dead.
Pakistan’s government was furious the US had not alerted it to the raid – while in the US many were outraged that the world’s most-wanted terrorist was sheltering in Pakistan’s suburbia.
But the CIA stepped up bombing, and in June Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, underlined the importance of ‘surgical’ targeted killings such as drone strikes in the US’s strategy for asymmetric wars. Not a single civilian had been killed in a drone strike since August the previous year, he claimed.
Drones were an increasingly contentious issue in a relationship that was stretched to breaking point
The following month the Bureau released data identifying 10 strikes that appeared to show civilians had been killed. The same month, legal charity Reprieve published a series of photos of drone strike victims taken by Noor Behram, a local photographer. The Bureau then released its full dataset, showing that the drone campaign had reportedly killed at least 385 civilians including 168 children.
That autumn, presidential hopeful Imran Khan made opposing drones central to his campaign. In late October, a Khan rally drew a crowd estimated at 100,000, underlining the growing anger at the strikes.
Drones were an increasingly contentious issue in a relationship that was stretched to breaking point. In November, a Nato airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers at a border checkpoint. In retaliation, Pakistan closed the border crossing, cutting a crucial supply route into Afghanistan, and ordered the CIA’s drones out of the Shamsi air base.
Although the CIA could reportedly fly from bases other than Shamsi, amid a fraught atmosphere the strikes stopped: December was the first month of Obama’s presidency to see not a single reported strike on Pakistan’s tribal regions.
2012
The pause endured well into January, amid reports that Pakistan’s government was cold-shouldering US diplomats and refusing to countenance drone strikes. Before the CIA’s first strike of the year, on January 10, vice-president Joe Biden and secretary of state Hillary Clinton reportedly led diplomatic efforts at the very highest levels of government, warning high-ranking Pakistan officials of the plans to strike.
Exactly three weeks later, Obama officially acknowledged the CIA’s drone campaign for the first time, devoting four minutes of a public web chat to the issue.
The strikes are not carried out ’willy-nilly’, he said: ‘I want to make sure that people understand actually drones have not caused a huge number of civilian casualties, for the most part they have been very precise precision strikes against al Qaeda and their affiliates.’ Later in the year, he used a TV interview to lay out ‘five rules’ used to target strikes.
Continuing tension with the Pakistan government caused strikes to pause for much of April – and the month’s only strike was immediately denounced by Pakistan as being ‘in total contravention of international law and established norms of interstate relations’.
‘I support [drones] entirely and feel the president was right to up the usage of that policy’
- Mitt Romney
Anonymous insiders revealed Obama personally approves the ‘kill list’ of named militant targets in a New York Times investigation into drone targeting policies. The article also claimed the definition of combatant had been dramatically expanded to include all fighting-aged men in the target zone.
Scrutiny of the drones was rising elsewhere, too. In June, Russia and China issued a joint statement to the UN Human Rights Council condemning drone attacks.
Three academic studies examined the casualty-counting work of organisations including the Bureau, and the impact of drones on the civilian population. The constant presence of drones caused suffering and distress, and was hardening anti-American sentiment among those who lived under them, academics found.
Imran Khan provided a rallying point for anti-drone campaigning in Pakistan in October, when he led a high-profile march aiming to reach South Waziristan. Although he was blocked from entering Waziristan, he was accompanied by the world’s media.
Weeks later, the UN announced a special unit to investigate reported civilian casualties. Its two leaders, special rapporteurs Ben Emmerson and Christof Heyns, have each referred to the reported tactic of targeting funerals and rescuers as potentially ‘war crimes’.
Yet the US presidential election came and went with no real debate about the Pakistan drone campaign. Asked about Obama’s use of drones in the foreign policy debate, Mitt Romney said ‘I support that entirely and feel the president was right to up the usage of that policy.’
As Obama prepares to start his second term, the CIA is reportedly engaged in covert drone strikes in Yemen and Somalia, while a PR battle to prepare the public for a similar campaign in Mali has met little scrutiny or resistance. Pakistan has set the template for a form of warfare that’s here to stay.
Benghazi attack inquiry harshly criticizes US State Dept.
ARSHAD MOHAMMED, ANNA YUKHANANOV AND TABASSUM ZAKARIA, REUTERS
FIRST POSTED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2012 02:04 AM EST | UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2012 02:12 AM EST
TORONTO SUN
WASHINGTON - Security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya was grossly inadequate to deal with a Sept. 11 attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others because of failures within the State Department, an official inquiry found on Tuesday.
In a scathing assessment, the review cited “leadership and management” deficiencies at two department offices, poor coordination among officials and “real confusion” in Washington and in the field over who had the responsibility, and the power, to make decisions that involved policy and security concerns.
The attack killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans and set off a political furor as Republicans used the issue to attack President Barack Obama before the Nov. 6 election in which he won a second term in office.
The report’s harsh assessment seemed likely to tarnish the four-year tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations.
“Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department ... resulted in a special mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place,” said the unclassified version of the report by the official “Accountability Review Board.”
The board specifically faulted the department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, the regional office which is responsible for the Middle East and North Africa, and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, its law enforcement and security arm.
The five-member board said U.S. intelligence provided no “specific tactical warning” of the attack and that there was “little understanding of militias in Benghazi and the threat they posed to U.S. interests” in the eastern Libyan city, where the central government has little influence.
The incident has raised questions about the adequacy of security at U.S. embassies around the globe and where to draw the line between protecting American diplomats in dangerous places while giving them enough freedom to do their jobs.
Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the assessment reflected poorly on Clinton and its recommendations would probably make life harder for diplomats in the field
“This is a mark against Secretary Clinton. While she was not singled out, the report highlighted the lack of leadership and organization on security issues, and those fall into her bailiwick,” Alterman said.
“The report, however, relies a little too much on bureaucratic fixes,” he added. “Sprinkling people throughout the system who are not only empowered to say ‘no,’ but have an institutional interest in doing so, will make it harder for diplomats to get out of tightly guarded facilities.” How are things going in Libya since the glorious intervention of the US military and Nato? How has US security been improved?
DID LOCAL GUARDS LEAVE GATE OPEN?
The report faulted as “misplaced” the mission’s dependence for security support on the “armed but poorly skilled” Libyan February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade militia members and unarmed guards hired by State Department contractor Blue Mountain Libya.
No Blue Mountain guards were outside the compound immediately before the attack to provide early warning, which was their responsibility. The report raised the possibility that Blue Mountain guards left the “pedestrian gate open after initially seeing the attackers and fleeing the vicinity. They had left the gate unlatched before.”
The board found little evidence that the February 17 guards alerted Americans to the attack or swiftly summoned more militia members to help once it was under way. There had been questions of reliability in the weeks preceding the attack.
“At the time of Ambassador Stevens’ visit, February 17 militia members had stopped accompanying special mission vehicle movements in protest over salary and working hours,” the report said.
The board recommended that the State Department create a new, senior position to oversee security at “high threat” posts, to strengthen security at such posts beyond what is usually provided by host governments, and to consult outside experts on “best practices” for operating in dangerous environments.
The department should also hire more security personnel at dangerous posts, ensure key policy and security staff serve there for at least a year and consider making it easier to punish those who perform poorly in future security incidents.
The political uproar in the United States over the Benghazi attack has already claimed one victim.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, widely tipped as a front-runner to replace Clinton when she steps down as secretary of state early next year, last week withdrew her name from consideration, saying she wished to avoid a potentially disruptive Senate confirmation process.
Republican lawmakers had blasted Rice for comments she made on several television talk shows in the aftermath of the attack in which she said preliminary information suggested the assault was the result of protests against an anti-Muslim video made in California rather than a premeditated strike.
The review, however, concluded that no protest took place before the attack. Rice has said she was relying on talking points drawn up by U.S. intelligence officials. Watch this one more time!
