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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/23/2016 2:05:17 PM
	Extrajudicially Held Guantanamo Detainee To Be Released MAY 21, 2016 By Stephen Lendman Guantanamo remains a black hole of US extrajudicial viciousness, hundreds of innocent men and boys (all Muslims, most sold for bounty) held lawlessly since January 2002 – denied due process and judicial fairness. Obama’s pledge to close the prison camp before end of 2009 was willful deception. An executive order alone is needed, not congressional authorization as he maintains. Today, 80 men remain indefinitely detained, most uncharged and untried – perhaps all innocent victims. Nine perished in captivity, murdered in cold blood. Over two dozen recommended for release remain imprisoned. US forces kidnapped Afghan national known as Obaidullah from his family home on July 20, 2002. Charges against him were entirely fabricated, later dropped. He was never arraigned in a war court. In a later statement, he said: The Americans came while my family and I were all sleeping in our home in the village of Milani, close to Khost City. At that time I was approximately 19 years old. On that night, I heard noises and the soldiers woke me up. I was very confused about what was going on, and why they were in my home, but I and my family cooperated with them. Even though I was not resisting, they tied my feet together and my hands together with plastic cuffs. Then they put a hood over my head and forced me to sit for hours against a wall. The plastic cut into my hands and it was painful to sit that way for so long. I was terrified about what would happen to me. He was forcibly taken to America’s Chapman airfield forward operating base, then Bagram prison, brutally interrogated, tortured, beaten, threatened with death, isolated, his hands at times painfully chained to the ceiling. In October 2002, he was transferred to Guantanamo. Brutal treatment amounting to torture continued. “I was very sick for many days,” he said, denied medical treatment. In 2013, he said he was losing all hope for release. At the time, Amnesty International said his “experience exemplifies the multiple violations of human rights perpetrated by a country that claims to be committed to the respect and promotion of international human rights principles.” On May 19, the Guantanamo periodic review board approved Obaidullah’s release, a statement saying he “has not espoused any anti-US sentiment that would indicate he views the US as his enemy.” He poses no “threat to the security of the United States…Neither the detainee nor his family have any ties to extremists outside of Guantanamo.” The board recommended he be transferred “with appropriate security assurances” to a country with a “strong monitoring program.” Whether he’ll go home to Afghanistan is unclear. Marine Major Derek Poteet represented him since 2010. “This young man should have been released years ago,” he said. He was innocent of initial charges against him, fabricated to frame him unjustly. During his 2013 hunger strike for justice, Poteet said he withered to a “bag of bones.” Once released, he faces a long, hard readjustment struggle. The injustice of what he endured won’t ever be erased. The ordeal continues for dozens of other wrongfully held Guantanamo detainees – victims of US imperial viciousness. Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.” http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/23/2016 2:24:13 PM
	War On Whistleblowers: Manning Appeals Unprecedented 35-Year Prison Sentence MAY 21, 2016 By Michaela Whitton One of the world’s most well-known whistleblowers, Chelsea Manning, has launched a formal appeal against her 35-year sentence. Arguing her punishment is “grossly unfair and unprecedented,” the appeal on behalf of Manning suggests her sentence should be reduced to 10 years and claims no whistleblower in American history has been treated as harshly as Manning. Manning’s decision to initiate one of the largest leaks of U.S. government state secrets ultimately sacrificed decades of her future. In 2009, the 22-year-old army private, then known as Bradley, was serving as a military analyst during the U.S.-led coalition war in Iraq. When transcripts and images included in the top-secret information she was handling uncovered disturbing human rights abuses committed by U.S. forces and their allies, she believed the public had the right to know. Hoping to spark public debate on the war, she transferred around 750,000 files to WikiLeaks. Among the trove was evidence of a dramatically higher civilian death toll in Iraq than was publicly reported. The leak also included the once classified, now infamous Collateral Murder video, which showed the deadly moment a U.S. Apache helicopter gunned down two Reuters journalists in Baghdad. After the initial shooting, a group of children and adults arriving on the scene to help the wounded were fired upon by the U.S. military, as well. The official statement on the incident labelled all the adults as insurgents and claimed the U.S. military did not know how the deaths occurred. A war against whistleblowers As a hero to many and a villain to others, Manning is unquestionably a traitor in the eyes of the U.S government, which insisted she endangered public security by blowing the whistle. She was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013. The whistleblower’s 35-year sentence is one of the harshest in recent U.S. history and prompted lawyers and human rights advocates to take up the case, claiming she was harshly punished as a warning to others. According to The Intercept,Edward Snowden has cited Manning’s treatment and trial as a key reason for not returning to the United States. Attorneys for Manning filed the appeal documents on Wednesday to the U.S Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Virginia. Her appeal claims her sentence did not take into account the time she served in “deplorable and inhumane conditions” of confinement before her trial, which it describes as unconstitutional and sufficient grounds for dismissing the charges altogether. One of Manning’s attorneys, Nancy Hollander, said a war against whistleblowers is being waged in the U.S. — and that Manning’s case represents how the country treats anyone who reveals even a single page of classified information. She added: We need brave individuals to hold the government accountable for its actions at home and abroad and we call upon this court to overturn the dangerous precedent of Chelsea Manning’s excessive sentencing. Image Credit: Anthony Freda Art (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/23/2016 2:38:26 PM
	Iraq forces begin assault on IS bastion Fallujah Ahmad al-Rubaye May 22, 2016 Tens of thousands of pro-regime forces have been massed near the Iraqi city of Fallujah ahead of the offensive to retake the city which was seized by Islamic State fighters in 2014 (AFP Photo/Ahmad Al-Rubaye) Near Fallujah (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces battled the Islamic State group Monday in the opening stages of an operation to retake Fallujah, one of the toughest targets yet in Baghdad's war against the jihadists. As Iraqi forces struck targets in and around the jihadist bastion, which saw deadly battles in 2004 between insurgents and American forces, IS claimed bombings in neighbouring Syria that killed more than 120 people. The jihadist group has increasingly turned to its traditional tactic of killing civilians in bombings as it faces battlefield losses, and spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani appeared to acknowledge in a recent statement that IS would probably lose more ground. "In the early hours of the morning today, the heroic fighters advanced from different sides" to retake "all the areas occupied by (IS) around Fallujah", Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Monday in televised remarks. Abadi said the operation was supposed to start earlier, but "political problems and also the events... threatening security inside Baghdad delayed some of the preparations". Iraq has been hit by a months-long political crisis that has paralysed the legislature, and demonstrators have twice broken into the fortified Green Zone area, storming parliament and Abadi's office. IS has also carried out a series of deadly attacks in and around Baghdad this month. Iraqi forces had not yet entered the Anbar province city just 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Baghdad, but an AFP photographer near Fallujah said they were advancing as aircraft hit targets inside it. IS, meanwhile, issued a statement claiming it had repelled "a wide attack" by Iraqi forces and destroyed multiple tanks and bulldozers. - Civilians barred from leaving - Abadi's announcement settled the issue of which IS-held city Iraq should seek to retake next -- a subject of debate among Iraqi officials and international forces helping Baghdad battle the jihadists. Iraq's second city Mosul was the US military's recommended target, but powerful militias may have helped force the issue by deploying reinforcements to the Fallujah area in preparation for an assault. On Sunday, Iraq's Joint Operations Command warned civilians still in Fallujah -- estimated to number in the tens of thousands -- to leave. It warned families that could not depart to raise a white flag over their location and stay away from IS headquarters and gatherings. Officials said several dozen families had fled the city, but IS has sought to prevent civilians from leaving, as have forces on the government side, according to the UN Refugee Agency. "Aid has not reached Fallujah since the government recaptured the nearby city of Ramadi... with the supply routes cut off by the Iraqi forces and armed groups, preventing civilians from leaving," UNHCR said. Anti-government fighters seized Fallujah in January 2014 after security forces withdrew during unrest sparked by the government's destruction of a protest camp, and the city later became one of IS's main strongholds. Fallujah and Mosul, the capital of the northern province of Nineveh, are the last two major cities IS holds in Iraq. Iraqi forces have regained significant ground in Anbar province in recent months, but as the jihadists are pushed back they are stepping up their deadly bombings. - Bombings kill over 120 - On Monday, seven bombings, most of them suicide attacks, hit the Syrian cities of Jableh and Tartus, killing at least 120 people, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. The jihadists have also struck Baghdad, and attacks in and around the Iraqi capital have killed more than 160 people this month. Fallujah has a long history as an insurgent bastion, and American forces launched two major assaults on the city in 2004, in which they saw some of their heaviest fighting since the Vietnam War. Iraqi forces have the advantage of greater knowledge of the area, especially if they employ pro-government Anbar tribal fighters in the battle, but they lack the training and enormous firepower that American forces could bring to bear. IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in June 2014, and Iraqi forces performed dismally during the initial offensive despite significantly outnumbering the jihadists. But the "caliphate" the jihadist group subsequently proclaimed has been shrinking as anti-IS forces score major victories in both Iraq and Syria, where the group had also seized significant territory. Several key IS leaders, including its number two, have been killed in air strikes by the US-led coalition. In an audio message released on Saturday, IS spokesman Adnani appeared to anticipate more losses, saying the group would not be defeated even it loses all the cities it holds. But the battle for Fallujah -- a city that IS has had some two years to reinforce -- will be one of the toughest challenges Iraqi forces have yet faced. (Yahoo News)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/23/2016 2:47:32 PM
	Leaked Memos Suggest U.S. Would Torpedo Peace Plan If Colombia Challenges Big Pharma Monopoly MAY 21, 2016 By Justin Gardner In a display of just how far the U.S. government is willing to go in protecting Big Pharma, it was revealed that a Senate staffer hinted that peace deals in Colombia could be threatened if the country challenges a patent on an expensive cancer drug. The controversy centers around a leukemia drug called Gleevec, made by Swiss-based Novartis.Prices have increased 10 percent or more every year, causing heavy strain on health care systems in middle-income countries such as Colombia. Novartis, which made $4.7 billion from Gleevec last year, has enjoyed a patent monopoly on the drug for ten years. The patent ended on February 1 in the U.S., but will remain in Colombia until 2018. While a generic version of the life-saving drug already promises to bring prices down in the U.S., Colombia is held hostage by the continuing foreign-based monopoly. The Colombian government announced that it will give Novartis a few weeks to lower the price on Gleevec before it uses “compulsory licenses” to let companies make generic versions. It proposed a price reduction of less than half the current regulated price, which is still much higher than what generic versions cost. Novartis refused, instead turning to its friends in the U.S. government. Leaked diplomatic letters sent from Colombia’s Embassy in Washington describe how a staffer with the Senate Finance Committee, which is led by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned of repercussions if Colombia moves forward on approving the cheaper, generic form of a cancer drug… In the second letter, after a meeting with Senate Finance Committee International Trade Counsel Everett Eissenstat, [Andres] Flórez wrote that Eissenstat said that authorizing the generic version would “violate the intellectual property rights” of Novartis. Eissenstat also said that if “the Ministry of Health did not correct this situation, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States and related interest groups could become very vocal and interfere with other interests that Colombia could have in the United States,” according to the letter. In particular, Flórez expressed a worry that “this case could jeopardize the approval of the financing of the new initiative ‘Peace Colombia.’ The initiative could end decades of bloody fighting and aid in efforts to remove land mines in Colombia, which is second only to Afghanistan in land mine fatalities. U.S. lawmakers have no problem breaking patents when it serves their interest, such as the compulsory licensing granted for night vision goggles, most likely to benefit the surveillance state. But when it’s a matter of life and death in other countries struggling with health care costs, these politicians will show their allegiance to the corporatocracy. As the leaked memos show, American politicians would even abandon the cause of making peace. Naturally, a spokesperson for Sen. Orrin Hatch feigned ignorance, pretending that they can’t possibly have any influence over the Peace Colombia initiative. According to Julia Lawless, the Senate Finance Committee “has no jurisdiction over the Paz Colombia initiative and it was not discussed.” The suggestion that Hatch and his cohorts would not do the bidding of Novartis is absurd, considering the ties to Big Pharma as reported by the Intercept. Hatch has close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical and health product manufacturers form the second-largest pool of donors to his campaigns. The industry’s main trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, spent $750,000 funding an outside nonprofit that backed Hatch’s re-election in 2012. The lobbying group also employed Scott Hatch, one of the senator’s sons, as a lobbyist, while donating to his family charity, the Utah Families Foundation. According to Public Citizen, about a dozen countries have used compulsory licenses, mostly for HIV and cancer treatments. Novartis and its allies in Congress are worried that Colombia might set a precedent for others to challenge patent monopolies. “The pressure against Colombia is bogus but it’s real,” said Andrew Goldman, a counsel for Knowledge Ecology International, the Washington-based group that first obtained the embassy memos. “We always assume that this kind of intervention is happening behind the scenes but rarely do you get the chance to see it up close.” While everyone has a right to profit from their original product, using the power of the State to preserve a monopoly allows corporations to act outside of market forces and charge extraordinary prices, with poorer regions suffering the most. This collusion also lends to the broken system of politics that characterizes Washington, where the thirst for money and power has rendered voting meaningless. Justin Gardner writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 5/23/2016 2:59:55 PM
	The US War Machine’s Annual Budget Could Buy Every Homeless American A $1 Million Home MAY 22, 2016 By Jay Syrmopoulos In 2015, the United States spent more on its war machine than the next six countries combined, with a total of $596 billion spent on military expenditures. This week the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with roughly $602 billion slated to be spent on military programs and armaments in the 2017 budget. To put this amount in perspective, the U.S. spent more on its military than the next six nations combined, with China coming in second at $215 billion, followed by Saudi Arabia at $87 billion, Russia at $66 billion, with the United Kingdom, India and France spending roughly $50 billion each on defense expenses. When looking at this spending in context, the U.S. not only spends more than the next six countries combined, but spends almost triple the amount on military expenses than the second biggest defense spender in the world, China, according to data from the Stockholm International Peach Research Institute. These figures come on top of the recently announced $1 trillion dollar nuclear missile modernization program that has been curiously absent from public discourse, having not even been mentioned in the televised presidential debates. All of this comes as the U.S. pivots from the “Global War on Terror,“ to a more traditional defense posture. The reasoning behind this is simple; who needs new tanks, bombers, fighters and missiles to fight ISIS or al-Qaeda? There simply wasn’t enough money to be made in bombing jihadists in tents in the desert, thus the drums of war in the media, regarding an “aggressive Russia,” began to be played as to allow for the return of traditional military-industrial complex/Cold War posturing. The sheer enormity of the sums being given to the military-industrial complex is enough to boggle the mind. Think for a moment how else that $600 billion could be spent to actually assist in creating growth rather than death. Consider that in January 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found there were 564,708 homeless people on a given night in the United States – the government could actually purchase a $1 million dollar home for each individual homeless person in the U.S. and still have money left over. Or perhaps the money could be spent on the rapidly eroding domestic U.S. nuclear infrastructure. Although the media spotlight is rarely shined upon America’s aging nuclear infrastructure, U.S. nuclear power plants are decaying rapidly, precipitating numerous nuclear environmental disasters across the country. The Free Thought Project recently reported on four nuclear disasters playing out across the country, with massive amounts of radioactive material having been leaked. Rather than investing in these terminal goods, such as bombs and bullets, which are meant for destruction, we should be investing in capital goods that are able to provide growth. The U.S. war machine spends hundreds of billions of dollars per year waging war against humanity, while Americans at home are dying from a crumbling nuclear infrastructure and crippling poverty. Jay Syrmopoulos writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com, where this article first appeared. (activistpost.com)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+2

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