What's The Strategy Here?

Remember when Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?

Ironic, that:

Resarch by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has reported just 4 percent of US drone strikes in Pakistan have killed people identified as members of al-Qaeda.

Research by the London-based bureau found that only 111 out of the total 2,379 drone victims killed in Pakistan since 2004 was "a senior commander of any armed group". Just 84 victims were identified as al-Qaeda militants.

Following the 400th drone strike on 11 October, the report provides a damning assessment of the CIA drone program in Pakistan.

"More than a third of them were not designated a rank, and almost 30 percent are not even linked to a specific group. Only 84 are identified as members of al-Qaeda – less than 4 percent of the total number of people killed," the report said.

The investigative bureau's Naming The Dead project has been monitoring and collating research on the identities and backgrounds of US drone victims in Pakistan since June 2004.

Indiscriminately dropping drone bombs, taking the fight to the "terrorists" - and creating many more terrorists in the bargain:

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama met in the Oval Office Friday with Malala Yousafzai, the Pakastani girl who was shot in the head on her school bus by Taliban gunmen for criticizing their rule, including banning education for girls.

The White House says the first couple invited Malala -- the youngest ever nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize -- to the White House "to thank her for her inspiring and passionate work on behalf of girls education in Pakistan."

In a statement, the White House says the United States "joins with the Pakistani people and so many around the world to celebrate Malala’s courage and her determination to promote the right of all girls to attend school and realize their dreams."

In a statement released after the meeting, Malala said she was honored to meet with Obama, but that she told him she's worried about the effect of U.S. drone strikes. (The White House statement didn't mention that part.)

"I thanked President Obama for the United States' work in supporting education in Pakistan and Afghanistan and for Syrian refugees," she said in the statement. "I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact."

In other circumstances, were Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan in the wrong place at the wrong time, Obama might have her killed in a drone strike.

Not purposely, of course, but intent is not the point here.

The point is what actually happens as a result of Obama's drone war.

The goal of the drone policy is ostensibly to stop terrorists from targeting the U.S. and it's allies.

The actual outcome of that policy is to fuel more terrorism against the U.S. and it's allies.

The cynic in me wonders if running an Endless War, with more "terrorists" being created every year as the U.S. indiscriminately drops drones on people, not particularly caring who they hit, isn't the actual goal.

Nothing keeps a government and the elite that supports it in power like Endless War.

And surely things are not getting better.

The more drones we drop, the more "terrorists" we seem to create.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/10/11/205176/obama-and-first-lady-meet-with.html#storylink=cpy

Bill Hammond Exposes Cuomo's New-Found Interest In Fighting Terrorism

Nice job by Bill Hammond in the Daily News calling "bullshit!" on Cuomo:

The words “terror,” “terrorism” and “security” do not appear in transcripts of any of Cuomo’s first three State of the State speeches. He used them this January to note that he was hiring former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to help him establish an emergency preparedness college, to address not just terror threats, but also natural disasters.

As recently as May, Cuomo created a commission to “reinvent” New York City’s mass transit system — which is on everybody’s short list of likely terror targets. Yet his mandate for the panel made no mention of preparing for bombs or poison gas — only weather-related threats such as hurricanes and flooding. Nor do any of the commission members seem to have especially notable expertise in security.

Four months later, roughly coinciding with both the 9/11 anniversary and the traditional start of campaign season, the trajectory changed. Cuomo organized a series of high-profile events that simultaneously reminded New Yorkers that terrorism remains a real threat while attempting to show that he was on the job.

He met with federal and local security officials. He announced joint exercises and beefed-up enforcement with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. In the wake of reports of a terror plot, he very publicly rode the E train to show he was not afraid, a level of courage demonstrated on a daily basis by millions of ordinary New Yorkers.

But his most attention-grabbing step of all was a Defense Department-sponsored flight to Afghanistan with a bipartisan group of four governors, three of whom are up for reelection. The schedule included briefings from military officials and chances to pose in armored vehicles and with wounded soldiers.

From no mention of the issue for the first three years of his governorship to an election-season focus on the issue, replete with photo ops with wounded vets in Afghanistan.

And yet Cuomo has the audacity to claim his opponent, Rob Astorino, is playing politics with security when Astorino criticized Cuomo's anti-terrorism gamesmanship.

Cuomo's full of shit on most issues, but this anti-terrorism issue is especially bullshit-laded.

Cuomo Rides E Train To Catch Terrorists

Go get 'em, Sheriff Andy:

New Yorkers had just better hope that the terrorists looking to blow up the E train that Cuomo rode today are not running against him in a Democratic Primary.

Because if they are, they could be right in front of his face and he wouldn't notice them:

Anybody Buying This Threat?

The Neo-Con News:

The Iraqi prime minister sent a scare through New York City by declaring Thursday that the Islamic State was plotting to launch attacks on subways in the U.S. and in Paris.

Haider al-Abadi dropped the bombshell during a brief meeting with reporters at the United Nations.

“Today, while I’m here, I’m receiving accurate reports from Baghdad, where there was an arrest of a few elements, and there are networks planning from inside Iraq” to attack “in the metros of Paris and the U.S.,” Abadi said.

The plotters are ISIS fighters from France and the U.S. who are currently in Iraq, he said.

“Yes,” Abadi answered when asked if the ISIS attacks were imminent.

“No,” he replied when asked if the plot had been thwarted.

The Iraqi prime minister divulged no other details about the alleged scheme to cause mayhem in the U.S. and France, two countries that have been leading the charge against murderous ISIS militants.

Al-Abadi has his own reasons why he wants Americans in fear over the so-called ISIS threat.

Same goes for Cuomo and Christie, both of whom have jumped on "security" in the past month as a campaign issue.

This has all the earmarks of the "threats" the city faced in the run-up to Bush's re-election in 2004, a "vague" threat warning that politicians running for elections jump on as an election issue even as another wing of the government - the feds - say they have heard of no specific threat to the subways.

Of course New York City is a terrorist target and the subway system one of the more vulnerable areas to attack, so any threat should be taken seriously.

But the rhetoric around this, from the Iraqi prime minister to the New York and New Jersey governors, smells of election year politics to me.

Andrew Cuomo Looks To Be The New George Bush

Ever since that trip to Israel over the summer, Cuomo's been burnishing his "national security" credentials.

Here's another example:

Although saying there is "no specific threat" of a terror attack, Gov. Cuomo announced on Friday that he is calling up hundreds of National Guard troops and other personnel to beef up security in New York.

Summoning reporters and legislative leaders to his midtown office, Cuomo said a comprehensive new security plan will be implemented to cover airports, transit hubs and large gathering points across the region.

He declined to give specifics of the plan until he formally unveils it with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie next week.

Cuomo, who is running for re-election, said "it is undeniable that New York is a possible target of terrorist activity," either "in retaliation... or as an offensive gesture."

However, he acknowledged that, "We have no specific threat" of terrorists plotting an attack.   

“This is just a general precaution given the obvious situation and obvious facts,” Cuomo told reporters, after discussing the situation with legislative leaders.

It was Cuomo's second media briefing on security issues in five days, activity that comes as he is ramping up his general election campaign against Republican Rob Astorino. The ability to command media attention through official duties is an advantage that incumbents almost always have over challengers. 

Cuomo, Christie and Mayor de Blasio met earlier this week with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. The group pledged to step up preparedness and security amid fears that ISIS and other extremist groups would launch terror attacks in the area in response to President Obama authorizing a military campaign against the group.

“There will be hundreds of people, additional people, deployed across the system,” Cuomo said Friday. “There will be National Guard who will be called up.”

Cuomo said the short-term costs of the plan will be in the “tens of millions of dollars” and will be paid for in next year’s budget.

“This state and this metropolitan area will never have been as well protected as it will be when this plan is in operation,” Cuomo said.

No specific threat, just "a general precaution given the obvious situation and obvious facts” says the governor running for re-election as he calls a special presser to announce his security plan that he's doing jointly with pal Christie, who's running for president and also looking to burnish his national security credentials.

I guess I'm just getting cynical in my old age, but I remember back in 2004 when the Bushies raised the terror alert every other month while Bush was running his re-election campaign based on national security and keeping the country safe from terrorism (never mind that Bush was president for 9/11 and completely ignored the warning signs beforehand about it.)

This Cuomo/Christie anti-terrorism campaign has the same political feel that the 2003-2004 terror alert manipulations had.

That doesn't mean the NYC area isn't a terrorism target and the politicians in charge aren't right to try and protect people and proparty as best they can.

Just that the rhetoric and press statements around this anti-terror campaign have the feel of a political campaign too.

As I noted when Cuomo admonished his Democratic opponent, Zephyr Teachout, over her staying out of the Mideast conflict, more and more it seems Andrew Cuomo has decided to wrap himself in the veneer of George W. Bush.

Cuomo Plays 9/11 Card In Primary Contest

Governor Cuomo must be more concerned about the Democratic Primary vote next Tuesday than his campaign's letting on if he felt the need to play the "Vote For Zephyr Teachout and terrorists will kill you!" card.

That's what he did yesterday, sounding very much like George W. Bush:

Gov. Cuomo stopped short of bashing his primary rival Zephyr Teachout for refusing to take a position on Israel, but said anyone who doesn't think the Middle Eastern conflict is a New York problem is "living in a state of denial."

Teachout, who is running against Cuomo in the Democratic primary, has declined to state her position on Israel's decision to launch attacks in the Gaza Strip.

Without mentioning Teachout by name, Cuomo said anyone who thinks the conflict is just an Israeli problem is engaging in the "ostrich strategy."

"We went through 9-11. We [as New Yorkers] have a special sensitivity to terrorism ... We have a special connection to Israel," Cuomo said after a closed door meeting with national Jewish leaders to discuss his 29-hour trip to Israel last month.

Asked specifically about Teachout's silence on the matter, Cuomo declined to comment directly but said, "Any New Yorker who doesn't understand that Israel's fight is our fight is living not in the state of New York but in the state of denial."

...

He said the violence is the Middle East is "not just Israel's problem."

"It's democracies versus extremism and terrorism. And Israel is a target because they're a democracy," said Cuomo, adding that the enemies of Israel are also anti-European and anti-American.

"What is over there is going to be over here. And it's going to be over here much sooner than we think," said Cuomo.

Reread Cuomo's statements, then close your eyes and think back to the time when George W. Bush told us the United States was attacked by terrorists on 9/11 because "They hate us for our freedoms!" and ran a re-election campaign that essentially argued everybody would die if John Kerry were elected president in 2004.

Doesn't it sound like Cuomo's framing this 2014 election the same way and arguing the same thing about a vote for Zephyr Teachout?

Clearly he's looking to shore up the pro-Israel vote here with his staunch support of the Israelis and that's fine - politicians play to constituencies and ethnic groups for support all of the time, nothing wrong with Cuomo doing it.

But I think it's a mark of his desperation that he uses the kind of language the Bush campaign used in 2004 to scare people away from John Kerry.

Does he really need to make it sound like a vote for Zephyr Teachout is a vote for terrorism?

Because that's what I hear when he says "What is over there is going to be over here. And it's going to be over here much sooner than we think."

Teachout did address the issue afterwards:

Zephry Teachout said if she's elected governor she will work to maintain New York's "special" relationship with Israel, but won't be wading into any foreign policy issues as leader of the state.

“New York has a very special relationship with Israel, and Israel was founded here [at the United Nations]," she said at a press event in Manhattan.

She added, "As governor it will be part of my job to be supporting that relationship, but I’m not running for president and I’m not going to second guess the president or the secretary of state on foreign policy issues.”

Seems like a reasonable position to me.

I think a New Yorker can vote for Zephyr Teachout and not worry they're voting for terrorism too.

No matter what George W., er, Andrew M. Cuomo says.

The Politics Of The Terrorism Alerts

Just two links I wish to post tonight.

The first is a New York Magazine article from Mark Green in August 2011 chronicling how he lost the 2001 election Mike Bloomberg.

The second is a link to the NY Daily News and a little bit of the story:

The terrorist threat that forced the closure of 22 embassies in the Middle East was “the most serious in the last several years” and eerily reminiscent of the leadup to 9/11, top U.S. lawmakers said Sunday.

 

Many questions remain about the nature of the threat, adding to the alarm that extends from Washington to embassies in the Middle East and Africa, 19 of which will be closed through Saturday.

 

...

Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.) said intelligence officials had heard possible dates of the attack.

“The threat was specific as to how enormous it was going to be and also that certain dates were given,” King said on ABC’s “This Week,” adding that the most serious threats came out of Yemen.

The assumption is that [the attack is] most likely to happen in the Middle East at one of the embassies but there’s no guarantee at all,” King said. “It could be Europe, the United States. It could be a series of combined attacks ... We have to ready for everything.”

Just something to keep an eye on as we get closer to Primary Day.

Had 9/11 not occurred, it is probable Bloomberg would have lost the election and we might never have heard from him again.

Of course the attacks did occur and one of the consequences was that Bloomberg won the election.

You can bet the Lhota campaign is looking very closely at these terror alerts.

It is a long shot for a Republican to win the mayor's race this, but one of the ways they could win is if they get to use the politics of terrorism once again to persuade citizens that only they can keep New Yorkers safe.

I would think with these alerts being issued - the most serious alerts since the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks two years ago - the politics of terrorism will be on the GOP campaign short list of topics to come up during the November campaign.

Lord knows, I've gotten very cynical around terror alerts, especially after Bush wrapped himelf in the whole thing in 2004, but I am also aware that the Boston bombings put a slightly different gloss on these alerts this weekend.

Boston is fresh in people's memories and terror alerts can still strike fear in people's hearts when something like Boston is so close in the past.

Just something to keep an eye on as the campaign goes on - how and when the GOP uses the terrorism issue.

They will use it, it's something they like to use, and you can be sure Giuliani, Lhota's old boss, will get trotted out for just that kind of messaging to the public.

Maybe it won't mean much this time around.

But it is something to keep in mind.

Bloomberg: We Have To Shred The Constitution In Order To Save Ourselves

Our inevitable post-9/11 slide into an authoritarian state run by plutocrats continues:

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.

“The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry,” Mr. Bloomberg said during a press conference in Midtown. “But we live in a complex world where you’re going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.”

Mr. Bloomberg, who has come under fire for the N.Y.P.D.’s monitoring of Muslim communities and other aggressive tactics, said the rest of the country needs to learn from the attacks.

“Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11,” he said.

“We have to understand that in the world going forward, we’re going to have more cameras and that kind of stuff. That’s good in some sense, but it’s different from what we are used to,” he said.

It never seems to occur to the plutocrats and other Surveillance State functionaries that part of the reason why "we live in a very dangerous world" is because U.S. foreign policy makes it so.

Think of the ways our laws and interpretation of the Constitution have changed since 9/11.

We now condone torture.

The president says he has the right to assassinate anyone at any time for any reason, so long as that person is a "terrorist."

We hold "terrorists" or those we suspect are terrorists but can prove are so without a reasonable doubt in perpetuity in Guantanamo.

We drop drone bombs every week onto suspected terrorists all over the world, often killing innocents in the fallout.

Are we safer because of these acts and policies?

Or do we end up radicalizing many people, some of whom end up trying to take American lives?

I am of the opinion that the U.S. government and the plutocrats who run it were very happy 9/11 occurred.

They needed another endless "war" after the Cold War to use to control the populace through FEAR.

The never-ending War on Terror fits that bill perfectly.

They don't care about keeping people safe.

They care about control and power.

And they love when some horrific event like the Boston bombing occurs, because it helps along their cause - to impose as much surveillance on and control over people as possible.

Why Do Liberals Let Obama Get Away With This Bush League Stuff?

We have a president who has institutionalized the slaughter of thousands of innocents in the name of national security and the War on Terror.

We have a president with a personal "kill list" who orders the murder of at least one person on that list every week - again, in the name of national security and the War on Terror.

This president has declared that he has the right to assassinate any American at any time in any place for any reason - so long as the president believes this person is guilty of acts of terrorism and cannot be taken alive into custody. This declaration of extraordinary and unconstitutional powers is also made in the name of national security and the War on Terror.

This president even ordered the assassination of a 16 year old boy, an American citizen - the son of an American man who was never indicted, let alone brought to trial or convicted on any crimes, but was nonetheless killed by the American government because he was believed to be a "terrorist".

This man's son, a 16 year old boy, was later targeted by this president and killed by a drone bomb strike in Yemen.  His 17 year old cousin was killed along with him.

This president's administration first lied about the ages of these boys to make the murders seem less horrific, but once caught in their lies by the Washington Post and the L.A. Times, they admitted they had killed two teenagers.

They nonetheless continue to defend these killings as justified, saying that's it too bad this kid had to die but he should've "had a more responsible father."  

This kind of thing makes this president's statements on the senseless killing of another American teenager, Trayvon Martin, seem as disingenuous as they no doubt were.

In case you haven't figured out the timeline by now, this president who has engaged in the systematic slaughter of innocents, who is busy institutionalizing that slaughter so that those who come after him can continue it with legal justification in place, who seems to relish his "tough guy" role as judge, jury and executioner in the so-called War on Terror, is Barack Obama.

You know, the guy who won a Nobel Peace Prize a few years ago.

Had George W. Bush engaged in this kind of murderous behavior, liberals would have been up in arms calling for his impeachment and imprisonment.

But because the president engaging in this murderous activity is a Democrat, they remain silent, making believe they do not know what is happening.

Or worse, they justify it as practical and necessary.

I keep seeing people I respect, thoughtful people with progressive values, endorsing this murderous president as the better alternative to his opponent, Mitt Romney.

Obama is, as the cliche goes, the lesser of two evils and many people are deciding to hold their noses and vote for him under that rationale.

I cannot do that.

Barack Obama is a murderer and a war criminal.

If there were justice in the world, he would be in a jail cell in Guantanamo Bay alongside Bush, Cheney, Rice, Hadley, Rumsfeld, Yoo, et al. having Rage Against The Machine albums blasted at him 24/7 for the rest of his life.

But there is no justice, and so, instead many Americans are faced with the choice of voting for him because he is the lesser of the two evils available to us on election day.

Well, I cannot choose the lesser evil.

It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again: The lesser of two evils is still evil.

And make no mistake, Barack Obama is evil.

Just ask the relatives of the dead drone bomb victims Obama had slaughtered in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the name of national security and the War on Terror.

Comparing Obama's Drone Bombing Campaign To Nixon's Bombing Of Cambodia And Laos

Barack Obama continuing an age-old American policy of bombing as many black and brown people as possible:

Last October I was at a jirga in Islamabad where 80 people from Waziristan had assembled to talk about the US Predator drones that buzz around overhead, periodically delivering death by Hellfire missile. A jirga is the traditional forum for discussing and resolving disputes, part parliament, part court of law. The turbaned tribal elders were joined by their young sons on a rare foray out of their region to meet outsiders and discuss the killing. The isolation of the Waziris is almost total – no western journalist has been to Miranshah for several years.

At our meeting I spoke as the representative westerner. I reported the CIA claim that not one single innocent civilian had been killed in over a year. I did not need to understand Pashtu to translate the snorts of derision when this claim was translated.

During the day I shook the hand of a 16-year-old kid from Waziristan named Tariq Aziz. One of his cousins had died in a missile strike, and he wanted to know what he could do to bring the truth to the west. At the Reprieve charity, we have a transparency project: importing cameras to the region to try to export the truth back out. Tariq wanted to take part, but I thought him too young.

Then, three days later, the CIA announced that it had eliminated "four militants". In truth there were only two victims: Tariq had been driving his 12-year-old cousin to their aunt's house when the Hellfire missile killed them both. This came just 24 hours after the CIA boasted of eliminating six other "militants" – actually, four chromite workers driving home from work. In both cases a local informant apparently tagged the car with a GPS monitor and lied to earn his fee.

Last week officials in the Obama administration talked to the New York Times about the "Secret Kill List" drawn up for drone assassinations. Democratic strategists in an election year calculate that the article will prove a vote-winner, dispelling any notion that Barack Obama is soft on terror. The administration voices wanted to leave the impression of an involved and committed president who reads Thomas Aquinas's theory of the "just war" in between personally vetting the kill list.

...

It is easy to understand how the CIA slaughtered Tariq and many other innocent victims. Those who press the Hellfire buttons are 8,000 miles away in Nevada and are dependent on local "intelligence". Just as with Guantánamo Bay, the CIA is paying bounties to those who will identify "terrorists". Five thousand dollars is an enormous sum for a Waziri informant, translating to perhaps £250,000 in London terms. The informant has a calculation to make: is it safer to place a GPS tag on the car of a truly dangerous terrorist, or to call down death on a Nobody (with the beginnings of a beard), reporting that he is a militant? Too many "militants" are just young men with stubble. At least 174 have been children.

The New York Times reports that Obama first embraced a policy of taking no prisoners in order to avoid the embarrassing sore of Guantánamo. Then he accepted a method for assessing casualties that "counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants" unless there is explicit posthumous proof of their innocence – because they are probably "up to no good".

While Obama's policies may go down a treat in the US, they are fomenting radicalism abroad, the very policy not only undermining our way of life but provoking an extremist hydra with many more heads.

Some sane voices penetrate the gloom. Starting last summer, Cameron Munter, Obama's ambassador to Islamabad, was required to give a thumbs up or down assessment of each drone attack on Pakistani turf, as if he were an emperor in the Colosseum. "He didn't realise his main job was to kill people," said a colleague. Munter is quitting his job early this month because his diplomatic mission has been rendered impossible.

The dearth of US domestic criticism is astounding. The last time a president indulged in an illegal bombing campaign in the sovereign territory of allies (Richard Nixon in 1969, in Cambodia and Laos), the policy nearly got included in the articles of impeachment. We should remember that history, as the Vietnamese capitalised on the backlash, helping to impose the genocidal Khmer Rouge on Cambodia, and a single-party regime that endures 40 years later in Laos.

Can you imagine if George W. Bush were engaging in this kind of slaughter?

How about if Nixon and Kissinger were engaging in it?

Or Reagan?

But this is the Nobel Peace Price Winning Barack Obama, so mostly what we get from the liberal left is silence on this, or worse, rationalization.

I'll say it again - Obama belongs in Gitmo with Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Yoo, et al.

These are evil people doing evil deeds for their own ends.

Obama hold a Terror Tuesday meeting each week and invites his political team to it.

Then they leak details of the meetings and how "cool and collected" Obama is while ordering these drone killings.

It's all a political calculation to sell Obama as a "strong leader".

So what if some 12 year olds are killed in the process.

They're just foreigners anyway.

Probably will grow up to be terrorists in any case.

Ah, the irony of Obama finally making a note how Trayvon Martin could have been his own son on the same weekend he orders U.S. drones to kill black and brown kids in Yemen and Pakistan.

These are truly, truly evil people, no better than the war criminals in the Nixon, Reagan or Bush administrations.

TSA Strip Searches, Bloodies 85 Year Old Gandmother At JFK

The message from this story is simple - submit to our control mechanisms or we will FUCK YOU UP:

An 85-year-old Long Island grandmother says she plans to sue the TSA after a humiliating strip search on Tuesday by agents at JFK Airport.

Lenore Zimmerman, who lives in Long Beach, says she was on her way to a 1 p.m. flight to Fort Lauderdale when security whisked her to a private room and took off her clothes.

“I walk with a walker — I really look like a terrorist,” she said sarcastically. “I’m tiny. I weigh 110 pounds, 107 without clothes, and I was strip-searched.”

TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said a review of closed circuit TV footage from the airport shows “proper procedures were followed.”

But Zimmerman, whose hunched back puts her at 4-foot-11, said her ordeal began after her son, Bruce, drove her to the JetBlue terminal for the Florida flight. She lives in warm Coconut Creek during the winter.

She checked her bags, waited for a wheelchair and parted ways with her doting son — her only immediate relative.

When Zimmerman reached a security checkpoint, she asked if she could forgo the advanced image technology screening equipment, fearing it might interfere with her defibrillator.

She said she normally gets patted down. But this time, she says that two female agents escorted her to a private room and began to remove her clothes.

“I was outraged,” said Zimmerman, a retired receptionist.

As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she says, the metal bars banged against her leg and blood trickled from a gash.

“My sock was soaked with blood,” she said. “I was bleeding like a pig.”

She says the TSA agents showed no sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her to raise her arms.

“Why are you doing this?” she said she asked the agents, who did not respond.

The TSA claims the footage does not show any sign of the injury.

Ms. Zimmerman is lucky the NYPD didn't get - she'd have gotten an orange net thrown around her and been pepper-sprayed too.

This is the new normal in America - more and more security and control by the establishment, and while they nominally say you don't have to submit to it, the people who ask out often pay a price.

Even 85 year old, 110 pound women who are 4 foot 11 and use a walker.

Until Americans finally wake up and say enough with this shit, things are going to get worse and worse.

The powers-that-be will continue to use this "We-Are-At-War" excuse to perpetrate more and more domestic control over us.

And of course this has never been about fighting terrorism.

That's just the convenient excuse they use.

Work, Shop, Obey

Just follow the rules and conventions of our shallow, empty, consumerist society and everything will be all right.

But if you step outside the lines, WE WILL PEPPER SPRAY YOUR ASS.

And that's the best you can hope for.

We might bring some freedom to you, just like we brought freedom to these Afghan children.

Or these Pakistani soldiers.

Or maybe we'll just stick you in a cell next to Bradley Manning where Obama the Nobel Peace Prize Winner will order you to be tortured.

The point is, you had better follow the fucking rules if you don't want trouble.

Have you got that now?

Especially you lousy dirty OWS hippies in LA and Philadelphia.

You got 'til Cyber Monday before we come for your hippie asses.

How Come?

How come when Osama bin Laden plans and carries out an attack that kills 3,000 Americans, he is branded a "terrorist," hunted down by the U.S. after billions of dollars and two wars are started to find him and eventually found and summarily executed mafia style in a compound in Pakistan, but when innocent Pakistanis are wounded or killed in drone attacks ordered by Nobel Peace Prize Winner Barack Obama, nobody calls the president a "terrorist"?

I'm glad Osama is not around to plan and carry out more terror attacks.

I bet many Pakistanis will feel the same way when Obama is gone from power.

From McClatchy in December, 2010:

There's been a massive ramp-up in drone strikes under the Obama administration, a weapon the U.S. considers highly effective, particularly against Taliban and al Qaida extremists based across the border from Afghanistan in Pakistan's remote tribal area.

There was no way of verifying the stories of the drone victims who've come forward. They all denied links to militants and claimed that the strikes were hitting mostly civilians. They described a terrifying existence under the drones in North Waziristan, the focus of the strikes.

A 13-year-old boy, Saddam Hussain, said that he lost his 10-month-old niece and sister-in-law in a strike on their house on the night of Oct. 9, in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. Hussain carried a large picture of the baby girl with him.

"The drones patrol day and night. The sound comes when they fly lower down. Sometimes we see six in the air all at once," Saddam said. "When they come down, people run out of their houses, even at night."

Saddullah, a 15-year-old who goes by one name, also had made the journey from North Waziristan. He lost an eye and both legs in a drone strike last year, near Mir Ali town, he said. Three family members died, including an uncle who used a wheelchair. He said that instead of his three relatives, it was reported at the time that the strike killed three Taliban commanders.

"I was drinking tea with my family ... when it struck," said the shy 15-year-old, who now walks on prosthetic legs.

There was another drone strike Friday, adding to the 107 already recorded this year, according to a tally by the New America Foundation, an independent research organization based in Washington. That compares with 53 hits in 2009 and 34 in 2008. Of the strikes this year, 97 percent have been in North Waziristan, where a witch's brew of jihadist groups are based, including the Haqqani network, possibly the most effective insurgent outfit in Afghanistan.

Since the strikes began in 2004, 1,286 to 1,981 people have died in the bombardment, according to the New America Foundation. At least 32 senior al Qaida, Afghan Taliban or Pakistani Taliban commanders were killed in those strikes. Many of the rest would be midlevel militants and foot soldiers. It's broadly thought that the strikes are often accurate, but the number of civilians who are dying, from faulty intelligence or collateral damage, is unknown.

Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, a U.S.-based human rights group, said in a report this week that unnamed U.S. officials had put civilian deaths from drone strikes at 20 to 30 since the beginning of last year. Yet CIVIC's own small sample of nine strikes uncovered 30 civilian deaths, including at least 14 women and children.

The U.S. estimates of civilian casualties are far too low, said Christopher Rogers, Pakistan field fellow at CIVIC. "There's no accountability, no one is keeping count of the civilian deaths and no compensation is paid."

I guess innocent Pakistani casualties from drone attacks is just the kind of "data" the "data-driven" president doesn't want tracked or released.

As Americans danced over the news of the death of Bin Laden a few weeks back, I couldn't help but think of the drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the innocent people killed in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the innocents killed in the undeclared actions in places like Pakistan and Yemen, and wonder if the people in those countries wouldn't dance in the street with joy if Bush or Obama were executed the way Osama was.

I bet they would.

UPDATE:

Glenn Greenwald writes how these actions against "terrorists" perpetuate themselves and the Forever War:

The New York Times reports today:

For the second time in three days, a night raid in eastern Afghanistan by NATO forces resulted in the death of a child, setting off protests on Saturday that turned violent and ended in the death of a second boy. . . .

"American forces did an operation and mistakenly killed a fourth-grade student; he had gone to sleep in his field and had a shotgun next to him," [the district's governor, Abdul Khalid]. said. "People keep shotguns with them for hunting, not for any other purposes," Mr. Khalid said.

The boy, [15], was the son of an Afghan National Army soldier . . . When morning came, an angry crowd gathered in Narra, the boy’s village, and more than 200 people marched with his body to the district center. Some of the men were armed and confronted the police, shouting anti-American slogans . . .

The police opened fire in an effort to push back the crowd to stop its advance to the district center. A 14-year-old boy was killed, and at least one other person was wounded, Mr. Khalid said. . . .

On Thursday, a night raid by international forces in Nangahar Province resulted in the death of a 12-year-old girl and her uncle, who was a member of the Afghan National Police.

There's nothing much new to say here, but every now and then, it's worth highlighting not only what we're doing, but what the results are. Just imagine the accumulated hatred from having things like this happen day after day, week after week, year after year, for a full decade now, with no end in sight -- broadcast all over the region. It's literally impossible to convey in words the level of bloodthirsty fury and demands for vengeance that would arise if a foreign army were inside the U.S. killing innocent American children even a handful of times, let alone continuously for a full decade.

It's the perfect self-perpetuating cycle: (1) They hate us and want to attack us because we're over there; therefore, (2) we have to stay and proliferate ourselves because they hate us and want to attack us; (3) our staying and proliferating ourselves makes them hate us and want to attack us more; therefore, (4) we can never leave, because of how much they hate us and want to attack us. The beauty of this War on Terror -- and, as the last two weeks have demonstrated, War is the bipartisan consensus for what we are and should be doing to address Terrorism -- is that it forever sustains its own ostensible cause.

War is Peace and Obama is a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Glenn Already Said It

I was going to write another Osama post, but Glenn Greenwald already said everything I wanted to say only better.

So please read Glenn.