Supporter,

Two recent stories powerfully capture the illegitimacy of the US "global war on terror."

1. The former Obama press secretary says he was told to deny US drone program existed.

For four years, the President has been expanding U.S. use of drones, while developing the execution and legal justification for the targeted killing policy. A military drone program has finally been admitted, and there is fierce struggle over the CIA drone program, delaying the confirmation of John Brennan as CIA Secretary.

Dennis Loo takes this apart in See the Drones? Forget the Drones:

Former Obama White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who now works as an MSNBC reporter, revealed yesterday (Sunday, February 24, 2013) on MSNBC that while being prepared in 2008 to assume the Press Secretary job for the incoming Obama Administration, he was specifically told to deny the drone program’s existence: 

“When I went through the process of becoming press secretary, one of the first things they told me was you’re not even to acknowledge the drone program,” he explained on MSNBC. “You’re not even to discuss that it exists.”
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2. The Afghan government bars US special forces from key province.

When its multi-billion-dollar puppet governments won't stand even one more month of US special ops because they harm too many civilians, a rotten enterprise is exposed. The New York Times reported:

"The Afghan government barred elite American forces from operating in a strategic province adjoining Kabul on Sunday, citing complaints that Afghans working for American Special Operations forces had tortured and killed villagers in the area...

Afghan officials said the measure was taken as a last resort. They said they had tried for weeks to get the coalition to cooperate with an investigation into claims that civilians had been killed, abducted or tortured by Afghans working for American Special Operations forces in Maidan Wardak. But the coalition was not responsive, they said."

This is unjust, immoral, illegitimate, and we're going to keep saying so, and acting on that understanding.

I mentioned this report a few weeks ago, but not in the depth that Andy Worthington gives it in America's Injustices: The Tortured, The Rendered, The Disappeared:

“Two weeks ago, the latest update in this sordid and neglected story arrived via the Open Society Justice Initiative, which issued a new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition.” As the press release explained, the report 'identifies for the first time a total of 136 named victims and describes the complicity of 54 foreign governments in these operations.' The governments, 'ranging from Iceland and Australia to Morocco and Thailand,' are revealed to have 'enabled secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations in various ways, including by hosting CIA prisons, by assisting in the capture and transport of detainees, and by permitting the use of domestic airspace for secret flights.'”

10 Years Since Shock and Awe... What are You Planning to Mark It?

World Can't Wait will be webcasting a program on or about March 20, the 10th anniversary of "shock and awe" titled, "The U.S. War is Not Over for the Iraqi People." Stay tuned. Email me with your plans.

Wear Your Hoodie Today:

February 26, 2013 – Take to the Streets, Wear Hoodies and Show Your Outrage!

Zero Dark Thirty Wins Award from the Committee for Sanitizing Crimes Against Humanity in Film

The Academy Awards: The CIA and the National Security State in Fact and Film

Dennis Loo writes:

I was very pleased to see that Zero Dark Thirty, despite being touted heavily by major movie critics upon its release a few months ago as the best film of the year which they said would sweep multiple awards at the Oscars, including Best Picture, was shunned by Hollywood, garnering only one Oscar, a tie for sound editing with the James Bond flick Skyfall.

A funny thing happened on the way to the podium for the makers of ZDT: people smelled a rat and wrote about it. This was something that took some time to build because as late as the Golden Globes, the biggest pre-Academy Awards show whose winners frequently predict the Oscar winners, Jessica Chastain (who played Maya the CIA torturer/killer in ZDT) won the Golden Globes' Best Actress.

The shunning of this film that revels in torture came about clearly because of the stinging criticism and protests against it by a number of writers and activists, including notably actors such as David Clennon and Ed Asner, columnist Glenn Greenwald, director Alex Gibney, Jane Mayer, and others including myself, and World Can’t Wait which, among other things, staged a sarcastic first annual Leni Riefenstahl Award by the Committee for Sanitizing Crimes Against Humanity in Film outside of the Oscars yesterday, which I was pleased to join as, playing against type, John Yoo, to give out the First Annual Leni. Actor David Clennon, whose work in breaking ranks in Hollywood publicly condemning the film for its immoral endorsement of torture, played a signal role, joined and helped to make this counter-awards’ event.
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Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait