Free Leonard Peltier Stand-Out As Part Of First Night Against The Wars-December 31st -2-3PM-Boston Public Library Steps Across From Copley Square Plaza

Free Leonard Peltier Stand-Out As Part Of First Night Against The Wars-December 31^st -2-3PM-Boston Public Library Steps Across From Copley Square Plaza 

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We demand freedom for Leonard Peltier!

He must not die in prison!  Free all political prisoners!

Native American activist Leonard Peltier has spent over 40 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was one of the people convicted of killing 2 FBI agents in a shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975.  The others who were convicted with him have long since been released.  Prosecutors and federal agents manufactured evidence against him (including the so-called “murder weapon”); hid proof of his innocence; presented false testimony obtained through torturous interrogation techniques; ignored court orders; and lied to the jury.

                          

In spite of his unjust imprisonment and terrible personal situation, being old and sick and likely to die in jail, he writes every year to the participants at the National Day of Mourning, which is held by Natives in Plymouth, MA in place of Thanksgiving, offering wishes for the earth and all those present and gratitude for the support he receives.  To read some of his statements, go to UAINE.org (United American Indians of New England).  That is also a good site for info about the National Day of Mourning and the campaign against Columbus Day and in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.

Often people claim that the US does not have political prisoners, but Leonard Peltier has been in prison for a very long time and even the FBI admits that they do not know who killed those FBI agents.  If Leonard Peltier dies in prison, it will be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in this country’s long history of injustice.

For more info and to sign a petition demanding hearings on the Pine Ridge “Reign of Terror” and COINTELPRO, a counter-intelligence program conducted against activists including Native groups, go to WhoIsLeonardPeltier.info.

Write to Leonard Peltier at Leonard Peltier, #89637-132, USP Coleman 1, P O Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521.  Prisoners really appreciate mail, even from people they don’t know.  Cards and letters are always welcome.

This rally is organized by the Committee for International Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org. (labor donated)

Free Native American leader Leonard Peltier,
Free Russian interference whistle-blower Reality Leigh Winner,
Free “The Voice of the Voiceless” Mumia Abu Jamal,
Hands off whistle-blower Edward Snowden and
All our political prisoners from the anti-fascist struggles.   

Holidays are tough times for political prisoners.  Join us to show your support from outside the wall for those inside the walls, so that they know they do not stand alone.  

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Today the Committee for International Labor Defense (CILD) follows in the tradition of the International Labor Defense, established by the early Communist Party to mobilize labor and progressive-centered protest to free leftist political prisoners, an especially important tradition during the holiday season for those inside the prisons and their families.

Every political prisoner we honor today had the instinct and inner strength to rebel against the injustices which were there for all to see. They knew that, if they fought those injustices in the face of governmental repression, the prisons were part of the price they might have to pay for standing up for what they believed in.

The political prisoners of today, just as those in previous periods of history, are representatives of the most courageous and advanced section of the oppressed. They are individuals of particular audacity and ability who have stood out conspicuously as leaders and militants, and have thereby incurred the hatred of the oppressors.

As James Cannon, one of the founders of the ILD, said in The Cause That Passes Through a Prison “The class-war prisoners are stronger than all the jails and jailers and judges. They rise triumphant over all their enemies and oppressors. Confined in prison, covered with ignominy, branded as criminals, they are not defeated. They are destined to triumph...”

This stand-out is organized by the Committee for International Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org.

Free the Resistance - Support Whistleblower Reality Leigh Winner

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	FREE THE RESISTANCE
Free the Resistance Support Reality Winner! Thank you again for contributing to Chelsea Manning's freedom this year. Now let's get some justice for heroic whistleblower Reality Winner! Please donate to the Reality Winner Defense Fund today. Hi  Reality Winner, charged with one count of giving a classified document to a news outlet, will be spending Thanksgiving in jail as she awaits trial. Meanwhile, both of the former Trump campaign officials recently arrested in the investigation into collusion with Russia, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, will be spending Thanksgiving with their families. Both men are accused of secretly working for a foreign government to influence the United States, a charge usually referred to as “spying.” Despite having multiple passports, millions of dollars in hidden assets, and highly-placed connections all over the world, they’re considered safe enough to enjoy the holidays with their loved ones. Reality is accused of informing the American people of what their government was hiding -- widespread hacking of election systems by the Russian government in the months before last year’s elections. The only government she’s ever worked for is the government of the United States. And the court considers her so dangerous that she’s being held behind bars until her trial in March. Reality is also a vegan. Last year around this time, she was re-tweeting articles from PETA about the number of turkeys slaughtered for Thanksgiving every year, along with angry tweets about Trump, and news articles about the protesters at Standing Rock. Lots of us probably have an outspoken person like Reality at our Thanksgiving table, who only want to talk about politics and refuse to eat the turkey. Maybe you are that person. And the only thing worse than arguments around the dinner table is that person’s chair sitting empty. All of the resources Reality and her legal team have to work with come from her family, and the few thousand people reading this email. But they’re making the most of them --  laying out a defense that aims to make it better for all the whistleblowers who come after her. So in honor of the empty chair around Reality’s family’s table this Thanksgiving, please make a donation to her legal defense fund, and consider becoming a monthly sustainer through her trial in March. Donating just an hour of your labor a month makes a real difference. Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist, Project Director Stand with Reality Winner Support Group P.S. If you donate, please include a note with your Thanksgiving wishes. The jail holding Reality hasn’t been accommodating her diet, so it’s likely she’ll be eating peanut butter for Thanksgiving this year. We want to make sure her morale stays high, and that she knows we’re out here supporting her. P.S.S.For up-to-date information about Reality Winner, and to donate to her defense online, visit standwithreality.org. To donate by check to Reality Winner's defense fund, send to Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610, and note "Reality Winner" on the memo line.
COURAGE TO RESIST ~ SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO REFUSE TO FIGHT! 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland, California 94610 ~ 510-488-3559 www.couragetoresist.org ~ facebook.com/couragetoresist

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Free Russian Interference In 2016 Elections Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner Now!

Free Russian Interference In 2016 Elections Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner Now! 

Once Again-The Summer Of Love, 1967-Postcards From A Lost Planet

Once Again-The Summer Of Love, 1967-Postcards From A Lost Planet

By Jeffrey Thorne

The Scribe said it best one night, one Summer of Love, 1967 night, one cold San Francisco night, a summer night when the Japan currents went awry and reminded one of old Mark Twain’s witty sayings about the coldest winter he had ever spent-August in the city of sweet brethren Saint Francis, when he declared (so like that mad man to use the seventh person imperative, to declare in his world-historic way, for such small letter asterisk events), that the breeze coming through the land would shake society to its foundations. Would make nine to five work-a-day world a bore (and give his poor brethren a chance to partake of the golden age that he, his parents, his Acre neighborhood, and most of the known world had been short-changed of for millennia), make that long suburban tract complete with dishwasher and sanitary garbage disposal obsolete before the last mortgage payment hit the dirt (get people to think differently about space, about community, and give that same and give that poor brethren a chance to partake of the golden age of living space that he, his parents, his Acre neighborhood, and most of the known world had been short-changed of for millennia), would make those three point two kids and that one dog a victim of old-fashioned thinking (well, okay).

Said, get this for a guy who became a non-believer, a non-believer in risen Christ if you can believe that very early in his teens (and went to church, sliding side door church just to sit a few rows behind some lovely he was pining over just to watch her ass so yes a non-believer) that the new dispensation was at hand-if we could keep it, keep the bastards, and you know who the bastards were then-the night-takers and guys who conned you into nine to five dreams, suburban flats and, what was it three point two kids (we will pass on the not mandatory dog) from barking at the door.  

Sure the Scribe talked the talk and walked the walk, oh boy did he, spouting forth about one love, about the new garden of eden (small case is right remember he was a non-believer, maybe had always been something of an outlaw even when he cruised the books for a sign), about that turning the world upside down and making it stick (hell, he was always a closet Digger check that out sometime if you delve back into the 17^th century English revolution).   

That was the rub, that was the factor that got away from the Scribe as much as he knew that we were on tender mercies ground, knew that that little counter attack from out of the blue would come when we thought the world had stopped turning on itself and had gone upside down that eventually would do in even the Scribe. Would turn his mouth to ashes, would turn a sainted brethren (not many out in Frisco in those days knew his given name was Francis at a time when everybody was “reinventing” themselves including clustering up new monikers to get washed clean, also a Scribe expression and so only knew the moniker) down the gutter road, float him out to the Japan seas long before he ever heard the Duke blast that high white note. Yeah, blast the times, blast the whole fucking world for taking down a brethren as pure as snow.    

Reality Winner's 26th Birthday, Jailed without Bail-Free Reality Leigh Winner Now!

Reality Winner's 26th Birthday, Jailed without Bail

Courage to Resist

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Reality Winner's 26th Birthday, Jailed without Bail Send Reality a birthday card Reality L Winner, Lincoln County Jail, PO Box 970, Lincolnton GA 30817 Donate $26 today to her defense effortstandwithreality.org/donate Yesterday, December 4th, was Reality Winner’s 26th birthday. Against all evidence and common sense, Reality was denied bail a third time, declared “too dangerous” to be released, while literal traitors and murderers are allowed to walk free while they await trial. Friends of Reality Winner co-founder Trevor Timm explained today in the Intercept how "the Government is Trying to Make it Impossible for Reality Winner to Defend Herself in Court". Reality is the only one of the growing number of people arrested in connection with Russiagate to actually see the inside of a jail cell. And it’s no coincidence that her alleged “crime” is telling America the truth. The FBI alleges Reality leaked the document revealing Russian hacking of election infrastructure the day after Trump fired James Comey, before Robert Mueller took over the investigation, as Trump bragged to Russian visitors in the White House that the investigation was over. So it’s a small consolation that on the weekend before Reality’s birthday, yet another Russiagate actor was taken down when Michael Flynn announced his guilty plea, and his willingness to testify against his co-conspirators. The document Reality is charged with leaking made it undeniable that Trump and company were lying about Russian interference in the election, and that there was much more to the story than we knew. And it’s a vindication for Reality, after months of being ignored and forgotten by the media, for these arrests and guilty pleas to start rolling in. But Reality is still in jail, and she’s now been denied bail three times. Neither the prosecution or judges are showing any leniency. She remains a prized target of Trump and Session’s war on whistleblowers and the press. And she needs our help. For Reality’s 26th birthday, we’re asking supporters to make a one-time donation of $26 to her legal defense fund, along with a birthday note. We need to make sure Reality has the resources for the long fight ahead, and that her legal team can swing for the fences, aiming for no less than demolishing the government’s abuse of the Espionage Act. Send a one-time donation of $26 today. Help make sure Reality is found innocent, and that every whistleblower who comes after her knows that Americans will have their back. Top photo: Supporters leafleting at the Oakland Federal Building on Reality's birthday, 12/4/17. Bottom: Veterans for Peace activists standing with Reality in Cambridge.

FRIENDS OF REALITY WINNER ~ WHISTLEBLOWER, RESISTERc/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610 ~ 510-488-3559 standwithreality.org ~ facebook.com/standwithreality

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From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

From The Veterans For Peace- The Twelve Days, Maybe More, Of  ......The Struggle Against The Endless American Wars

From Veterans For Peace- sign the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea

[smedleyvfp] sign the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea

VFP Smedley

12/14/2017 9:22 AM

To  smedleyvfp@googlegroups.com,    smedleyvfpforum@googlegroups.com  

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Cole Harrison, Massachusetts Peace Action <info@masspeaceaction.org>

To:danluker@yahoo.com

Dec 13 at 5:57 PM

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Note: The links in the previous message were incorrect.  Please disregard and use this one instead!  Thanks!

The Korean war claimed millions of lives. Yet more than 60 years later, there’s a grave risk that history could repeat itself, only this time nuclear weapons are on the table.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Tillerson said that the U.S. would enter talks with North Korea without preconditions; yet, the White House responded that the U.S. is sticking to its old policy, of requiring North Korea to commit to dismantle all its nuclear weapons and missiles before talks could begin.  Which is it?

Since taking office, the Trump administration has repeatedly stated that North Korea becoming a fully fledged nuclear power would be “intolerable,” suggesting they would be willing to go to war to stop it.

Yet despite this rapidly approaching threshold, the administration continues squandering diplomatic openings, trying to have it both ways, and antagonizing North Korea with insults, threats and provocative war games. It’s time for the people to intervene.

Please sign the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea to send a message to the U.S. and North Korean governments that a resumption of the Korean War is unacceptable.

Inspired by the Vietnam-era People's Peace Treaty, we are joining with a coalition of organizations promoting a People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea, to raise awareness about the past U.S. policy toward North Korea, and to send a clear message that we, the people of the U.S., do not want another war with North Korea. This is not an actual treaty, but rather a declaration of peace from the people of the United States.

Among other provisions, the treaty calls on the U.S. and North Korea to immediately cease their reciprocal threats of nuclear war. It also calls on the U.S. to end its war games with South Korea and Japan that have elevated the risk of accidental war on the peninsula -- and to sign a real peace treaty ending the Korean war.

I need you to sign the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea today.

2018 could be the make or break year for diplomacy with North Korea. With the Winter Olympics hosted by South Korea coming up in February, and more U.S.-South Korean war games slated for March, there will likely be more openings for negotiations, and more opportunities for escalation.

A strong showing on the People’s Peace Treaty is an excellent way to put pressure on the administration to seize any diplomatic openings, and to avoid further escalation.

Concerned citizens getting involved in international affairs have the power to change the world. It helped bring an end to apartheid in South Africa, and more recently ensured the Iran nuclear agreement could take effect. We need to put that people power to work now to prevent another war on the Korean Peninsula.

Please add your voice for peace by signing the People’s Peace Treaty with North Korea.

Thank you for standing with us.  For peace, Cole Harrison Executive Director P.S. Help us collect as many signatures as possible by forwarding this petition to your family, friends and colleagues and by sharing on Facebook and Twitter!

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Visit our website to learn more about joining the organization or donating to Massachusetts Peace Action!

We are 60 years old in 2017!  Support our 60th anniversary fund drive.

We thank you for the financial support that makes this work possible. 

Massachusetts Peace Action, 11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-354-2169  • info@masspeaceaction.org

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A View From The Left-WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

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WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

Trump signs nearly $700B defense policy bill

President Trump signed a nearly $700 billion annual defense policy bill on Tuesday, touting it as a step toward delivering on his promise to build up the military.  “Today with the signing of this defense bill, we accelerate the process of fully restoring America’s military might,” Trump said at a signing ceremony in the White House's Roosevelt Room.  But though National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorizes the military to add troops, ships, planes and other equipment, Congress has yet to pass a spending bill to make the buildup a reality…  The bill authorizes $626.4 billion for the base defense budget and $65.7 billion for a war fund known as Overseas Contingency Operations.  The money would go toward adding 7,500 active-duty soldiers to the Army, 4,000 active-duty sailors to the Navy, 1,000 active-duty Marines and 4,100 active-duty airmen to the Air Force. The Army, Navy and Air Force would also see increases in the reserves and National Guard.    More

LAVISHING MONEY ON THE PENTAGON

Wise parents who celebrate Christmas advise theiryoung children not to make unreasonably grandiose requests of Santa. After all, he has to squeeze down a rather narrow chimney to deliver their presents.  But as Christmas approaches this year, leaders of Congress, the Pentagon, and the Trump White House seem to have forgotten that lesson. Their wish list for the U.S. military, if taken seriously, will bust the federal budget at the very time Republicans are ramming through tax legislation that will shrink Uncle Sam’s savings account by more than a trillion dollars over the next decade…  The bill also earmarks $350 million for military aid to Ukraine, including lethal weaponry — a highly provocative measure that Arizona Senator John McCain has long promoted. Independent analysts, including prominent conservative foreign policy experts, warn that such lethal aid would be destabilizing, provocative, and “extraordinarily foolish.”     More

The US Military Is the Biggest "Big Government" Entitlement Program on the Planet

The US economy is caught in a trap. That trap is the Department of Defense: an increasingly sticky wicket that relies on an annual, trillion-dollar redistribution of government-collected wealth. In fact, it's the biggest "big government" program on the planet, easily beating out China's People's Liberation Army in both size and cost. It is not only the "nation's largest employer," with 2.867 million people currently on the payroll, but it also provides government benefits to 2 million retirees and their family members. And it actively picks private sector winners by targeting billions of dollars to an elite group of profit-seeking contractors…  But this belligerent cash machine doesn't just produce haphazard interventions and shady partnerships with a motley assortment of strongmen, proxies and frenemies. It also has Uncle Sam caught in a strange cycle of taxpayer-funded dependence that may ultimately be the most expensive -- and least productive -- jobs program in human history.     More

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NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong

WHY IS AMERICA ADDICTED TO FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS?

If we look at the distribution of the 392 U.S. military interventions since 1800 reported by the Congressional Research Service in October 2017 by fifty-year increments, the data show a dramatic increase: from 1800–1849 there were thirty-nine interventions; forty-seven from 1850–1899; sixty-nine from 1900–1949; 111 from 1950–1999; and 126 from 2000–2017—a period of only seventeen years as compared to fifty years in the other periods.  As these data reveal, the rate of intervention across time is not monotonic, but jumps during the two world war periods (1917–18), as well as the Cold War (1948–91)…   If we further refine the data to compare Cold War and post–Cold War intervention rates, something truly striking emerges: while the United States engaged in forty-six military interventions from 1948–1991, from 1992–2017 that number increased fourfold to 188…   The U.S. military currently counts over 1.3 million personnel on active duty, with over 450,000 of these currently stationed overseas.   More

Critics Say Nikki Haley 'Laying Groundwork' for War With Iran

In a presentation critics characterized as remarkably similar to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's case for the Iraq War, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stood before a missile fragment that she claimed bears Iran's "fingerprints" and asserted that the Iranian regime poses "a threat to the peace and security of the entire world."  …Experts and some members of the international community also expressed doubts that Haley's "evidence" for Iran's connection to Houthi rebels in Yemen was as strong as she claimed. "Info I have is less clear," Olof Skoog, Sweden's ambassador to the U.N., saidwhen asked about Haley's assertions…  "Make no mistake: What Nikki Haley is doing right now is laying the groundwork for a U.S.-Iran war on behalf of Saudi Arabia," concluded Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council.    More

TRUMP WILLING TO STRIKE FIRST AGAINST N. KOREA

Senator Lindsey Graham said on Thursday that President Trump isn’t just lobbing empty threats against North Korea. The South Carolina hawk said that he had spoken with Trump about the possibility of a preemptive strike against the country, and described the president as “deadly serious. Very curious.”   “I think he’s made a decision long ago, quite frankly, to try to negotiate the threat with North Korea … But if negotiations fail, he is willing to abandon strategic patience and use preemption,” Graham said. “I think he’s there mentally. He has told me this.”  Graham also said that such a strike would not require congressional approval.    More

NORTH KOREA: THE COSTS OF WAR, CALCULATED

Even a limited war with North Korea would kill millions, devastate the environment, and bankrupt the U.S. Preventing it should be the peace movement's highest priority…  A warning about the costs of war may not convince people who want Kim Jong Un and his regime out regardless of consequences (and nearly half of Republicans already support a preemptive strike). But a preliminary estimate of the human, economic, and environmental costs of a war should make enough people think twice, lobby hard against military actions by all sides, and support legislative efforts to prevent Trump from launching a preemptive strike without congressional approval.  Such an estimate of the various impacts can also serve as a basis for three movements — anti-war, economic justice, and environmental — to come together in opposition to what would set back our causes, and the world at large, for generations to come.    More

Pundits were wrong about Assad and the Islamic State and they're not willing to admit it

Prominent Syria analysts also claimed that Assad supported, even sponsored Islamic State. CNN’s Michael Weiss pushed the line that Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not fight Islamic State and that Syria and Russia were the group’s“unacknowledged air force.” His co-author, Hassan Hassan, contended that the Syrian regime must go because “Assad has never fought [Islamic State] before.”  … But these popular arguments were, to put it mildly, empirically challenged…  The notion that Assad “won’t fight” Islamic State was always wrong. The notion that “defeating Islamic State also requires defeating Bashar Assad” was, likewise, always wrong. By now it should be obvious that the Syrian Arab Army has played a role in degrading Islamic State in Syria — not alone, of course, but with Russian and Iranian partners, not to mention the impressive U.S.-led coalition. In marked contrast to pundit expectations, the group’s demise was inversely related to Assad’s power. Islamic State’s fortunes decreased as his influence in the country increased.    More

WHEN WASHINGTON CHEERED THE JIHADISTS

When a Department of Defense intelligence report about the Syrian rebel movement became public in May 2015, lots of people didn’t know what to make of it. After all, what the report said was unthinkable – not only that Al Qaeda had dominated the so-called democratic revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for years, but that the West continued to support the jihadis regardless, even to the point of backing their goal of creating a Sunni Salafist principality in the eastern deserts.  The United States lining up behind Sunni terrorism – how could this be? How could a nice liberal like Barack Obama team up with the same people who had brought down the World Trade Center?  It was impossible, which perhaps explains why the report remained a non-story long after it was released courtesy of a Judicial Watch freedom-of-information lawsuit.    More

Tracing ISIS’ Weapons Supply Chain—Back to the US

In October 2014, Romania sold 9,252 rocket-propelled grenades, known as PG-9s, with lot number 12-14-451 to the US military. When it purchased the weapons, the US signed an end-use certificate, a document stating that the munitions would be used by US forces and not sold to anyone else. The Romanian government confirmed this sale by providing CAR with the end-user certificate and delivery verification document…  So how exactly did American weapons end up with ISIS? Spleeters can’t yet say for sure. According to a July 19, 2017, report in The Washington Post, the US government secretly trained and armed Syrian rebels from 2013 until mid-2017, at which point the Trump administration discontinued the program—in part over fears that US weapons were ending up in the wrong hands. The US government did not reply to multiple requests for comment on how these weapons wound up in the hands of Syrian rebels or in an ISIS munitions factory. The government also declined to comment on whether the US violated the terms of its end-user certificate and, by extension, failed to comply with the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty, of which it is one of 130 signatories.    More

ISIS Got A Powerful Missile The CIA Secretly Bought In Bulgaria

A guided anti-tank missile ended up in the hands of ISIS terrorists less than two months after the US government purchased it in late 2015 — highlighting weaknesses in the oversight and regulation of America’s covert arms programs, according to information published Thursday by an arms monitoring group called Conflict Armament Research (CAR)…  The missile is one piece of a critical puzzle that is being solved only now, with ISIS on the run: How did the vast terror group arm its war machine? CAR spent three years tracking ISIS weapons as they were recovered by Iraqi, Syrian, and Kurdish forces — and found that what happened to the missile was no aberration. Indeed, the terror group managed to divert “substantial quantities of anti-armour ammunition” from weapons provided to Syrian opposition forces by the US or Saudi Arabia…  The report lists 12 cases where Eastern European weapons originally sent to the US military or US contractors appear to have been diverted, somehow, to ISIS.    More

Donald Trump's First Year Sets Record for U.S. Special Ops

In 2017, U.S. Special Operations forces, including Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets, deployed to 149 countries around the world, according to figures provided to TomDispatch by U.S. Special Operations Command.  That’s about 75% of the nations on the planet and represents a jump from the 138 countries that saw such deployments in 2016 under the Obama administration.  It’s also a jump of nearly 150% from the last days of George W. Bush’s White House.  This record-setting number of deployments comes as American commandos are battling a plethora of terror groups in quasi-wars that stretch from Africa and the Middle East to Asia.  “Most Americans would be amazed to learn that U.S. Special Operations Forces have been deployed to three quarters of the nations on the planet,” observes William Hartung, the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.  “There is little or no transparency as to what they are doing in these countries and whether their efforts are promoting security or provoking further tension and conflict.”     More