** ***"EVERYBODYS A TARGET"* * *
*"If you're not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to hide. Every time I hear people utter this colossally stupid statement, I want to send them back to 5th grade Civics. Does the concept of principle mean nothing? I despise the National Security State and t**he War on Terror more than I can say, so I take my pleasures where I can find them. One of those is knowing that our overlords, in **their zeal to spy on Everyone And Everything*<http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1> *, have to plow through an awful lot of nonsense. Conversations about pizza deliveries, kids birthdays, soccer schedules, shoe sizes, hairdos, water bills, cat food, car payments, Paris Hilton, Derek Jeter, the Kardashians, and the Real Housewives of wherever.* * * *Though I'm not glad to know that our civil liberties are being trampled left and right, our money is being squandered by the billions, our quality of life is eroding, and millions of sheeple have their snouts stuck in the grass, I am glad to think of all those nerdy spies in their little cubicles, having to wade through trillions of terabytes of data that don't add up to a hill of beams. I hope I'm helping, in my own small way, to make their lives miserable.* * * * * ** ------------------------------ *LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL?* *Rebecca Johnson Stone*<http://protectourdefenders.com/survivor-stories-rebecca/> * was born into a military family. After 9/11, she interrupted a promising academic career to enlist in the Army and was sent to Iraq. Almost immediately, she faced sexual harassment. It escalated. She was attacked and sexually assaulted by a fellow soldier. He then tossed her into a dumpster. She suffered Traumatic Brain Injury and was told she had to take personal leave to get it treated. It wasnt the first time Stones assailant had attacked a woman. But he went unpunished.* *Rebecca Stone is just one of thousands of American women attacked by their own supposed comrades. Officials claim they dont tolerate this criminal behavior, but the facts speak otherwise. The U.S. military is flat-out unsafe for women.* * * ------------------------------ *WHAT YOU DONT KNOW* * * *Since human beings are capable of great violence and cruelty against each other, it should come as no surprise that they are just as vicious in doling it out to other creatures as well. Creatures who are weaker, who are powerless. I know that many people have problems with PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but the organization has done heroic work in exposing the brutality of factory farming. I believe that most Americans, if they knew what actually goes on to produce their food, wouldnt support it and would demand that it be changed. But most Americans dont know. And others would rather not know. Denial is a powerful force. We cannot coo and cuddle over our dogs, cats, and other pets, and claim we love animals, if we support **this kind of treatment*<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/15/undercover-peta-investigation_n_1349366.html?ref=topbar> *. Buying products that are the result of this treatment is supporting it.* * * * * ------------------------------ * * *The propaganda machine of the U.S. government churns daily. But it wouldnt be successful without the complicity of the media. The MSM (mainstream media) rarely challenge the official line, often choosing simply to re-package statements that come out of the White House, Congress, or the Department of Defense War and present them as facts. Speaking truth to power? Dont look for it in the corporate media. When it does happen, its rare. Thats why investigative reporters are a vanishing breed. Andy Worthington is one of them. Lisa Simeone* ** ** ** ** ** *** * *Guantanamo And Recidivism:<http://pubrecord.org/politics/10213/guantanamo-recidivism-medias/> * *The Medias Ongoing Failure To Question Official Statistics<http://pubrecord.org/politics/10213/guantanamo-recidivism-medias/> *** *By Andy Worthington***** ** ** Last week, the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the Director of the CIA and the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, issued a two-page unclassified summary, entitled, Summary of the Reengagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (PDF<http://www.dni.gov/reports/March%202012%20Summary%20of%20Reengagement.pdf>), which provided information about the purported recidivism of former prisoners. **** According to the summary, of the 599 prisoners released from Guantánamo, 95 (15.9%) are described as Confirmed of Reengaging, and 72 others (12%) are described as Suspected of Reengaging. However, in the mainstream media, little distinction was made between the confirmed and suspected figures. Reuters headline<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/06/us-usa-guantanamo-recidivism-idUSTRE82501120120306>, for example, was Recidivism rises among released Guantánamo detainees, which was typical. In seeking to justify it, Reuters reporter stated, The figures represent a 2.9 percent rise over a 25 percent aggregate recidivism rate reported by the intelligence czars office in December 2010. **** In terms of statistics, this was accurate, as the DNI report in December 2010 (PDF<http://www.dni.gov/electronic_reading_room/120710_Summary_of_the_Reengagement_of_Detainees_Formerly_Held_at_Guantanamo_Bay_Cuba.pdf>) contained an assessment that 81 former prisoners (13.5 percent) were confirmed and 69 (11.5 percent) suspected of reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities after transfer. However, as has been the case since reports like these first began to be published, under the Bush administration (see this 2009 Seton Hall Law School report PDF<http://law.shu.edu/ProgramsCenters/PublicIntGovServ/CSJ/upload/GTMO_Final_Final_Recidivist_6-5-09-3.pdf>), the mainstream media has persistently refused to demand that the statistics be backed up with evidence. **** The last time that anything resembling evidence was provided in a short Pentagon report in May 2009 (PDF<http://www.defense.gov/news/returntothefightfactsheet2.pdf>) the *New York Times* shamefully published a front-page story<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/06/06/new-york-times-finally-apologizes-for-false-guantanamo-recidivism-story/>entitled, 1 In 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds, stating that 74 prisoners released from Guantánamo have returned to terrorism, making for a recidivism rate of nearly 14 percent. **** It took a week for the *Times* to allow other commentators Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation to write an op-ed discrediting Bumillers article<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/opinion/29bergen.html>, in which they concluded, from an examination of the report, that a more probable figure for recidivism based on the fact that there were only 12 former detainees who can be independently confirmed to have taken part in terrorist acts directed at American targets, and eight others suspected of such acts was about 4 percent of the 534 men who have been released. **** Following this latest report, the mainstream medias response was more balanced than it was in the wake of the last DNI report, when Fox News<http://nation.foxnews.com/guantanamo-bay/2010/12/07/25-percent-recidivism-gitmo>, for example, ran with 25 Percent Recidivism at Gitmo. Of particular significance was the Associated Press<http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/05/2676873/us-officials-not-quite-so-many.html>article, US officials: Not quite so many Gitmo re-offenders. This article made a specific point of criticizing a Republican Congressional report issued in February, by the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee (PDF<http://armedservices.house.gov/index.cfm/files/serve?File_id=ac70dd44-b5d9-4161-adce-bbcae91e6d47>), which, in dealing with the confirmed and suspected cases, added those two figures together, coming up with a much more dramatic rate of 27 percent of the roughly 600 detainees released returning to the battlefield, and was so one-sided that the Democrats on the Congressional committee refused to sign it, issuing instead a damning minority report (PDF<http://cooper.house.gov/images/stories/minority_report.pdf> ). **** Speaking to CNN<http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/06/report-more-former-gitmo-detainees-back-on-the-battlefield/>, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale took exception to media reports characterizing the current recidivism rate at 28%. He said that the intelligence bar for someone confirmed of returning to terrorism is much higher, as CNN described it, and, in his own words, explained, Someone on the suspected list could very possibly not be engaged in activities that are counter to our national security interests. **** This was significant, although there are still problems with the 95 former prisoners who are supposedly confirmed as recidivists. A year ago, when the New America Foundation issued its own report challenging the 2010 DNI claims (PDF<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/files/fp_uploaded_documents/110112_RecidivismAppendix2.pdf>), accompanied by an article in *Foreign Policy*<http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/11/how_many_gitmo_alumni_take_up_arms>, the authors concluded, based on an assessment of available public documentation, that the true rate for those who have taken up arms or are suspected of doing so is more like 6 percent, or one in 17, with another 2.2 percent engaged or suspected to have engaged with insurgent groups that attack or attempt to attack non-US targets; in other words, 49 men in total, with just 36 engaged or suspected to have engaged with insurgent groups that attack or attempt to attack the United States, US citizens, or US bases abroad. **** There is a huge gulf between this analysis (of 36 men confirmed or suspected of hostile engagement with US interests) and the current claims by the DNI, in which 167 men are described as confirmed or suspected of planning terrorist operations, conducting a terrorist or insurgent attack against Coalition or host-nation forces or civilians, conducting a suicide bombing, financing terrorist operations, recruiting others for terrorist operations, and arranging for movement of individuals involved in terrorist operations. **** In addition, my own research over the last few years has provided no reason for believing the figures produced by the Director of National Intelligence. All available reports, for example, indicate that there are only a small number of problematical ex-prisoners from any countries except Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and, according to Afghan and Saudi officials, the number of recidivists from these two countries is no more than 45 in total. **** In June 2010, Abdulrahman al-Hadlaq, the director of ideological security at the Saudi interior ministry, told reporters, Twenty-five of the 120 former detainees at the US war-on-terror prison returned to radical Islamist activities after graduation from Riyadhs lauded rehab centre, as AFP described it<http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jrWC-N58lRD7TS1MhDsbNSHsJvuQ>, and in September 2011, in the *Washington Post*<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/for-some-former-guantanamo-detainees-present-bleaker-than-past/2011/09/09/gIQAJusDIK_story.html>, Siyamak Herawi, a spokesman for the Afghan government, said that most former prisoners led normal lives after being released, although he added that the government estimated that between eight and 10 percent rejoined armed groups fighting the NATO-backed government; in other words, somewhere between 16 and 20 of the 198 Afghan prisoners released. **** With figures like these, it is, I believe, entirely appropriate not to trust the claims made by the Director of National Intelligence, without some actual evidence provided to accompany the headline-grabbing statistics, which, frankly, continue to function not as meaningful analysis of a genuine threat, but as nothing more than propaganda.**** ** ** http://pubrecord.org/politics/10213/guantanamo-recidivism-medias/**** ** ** *Originally published on the website of the **Future of Freedom Foundation*<http://www.fff.org/comment/com1203k.asp> *.***** * * *Freelance investigative journalist Andy Worthington continues his 70-part, million-word series telling, for the first time, the stories of 776 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002. Adding information released by WikiLeaks <http://wikileaks.org/gitmo/> in April 2011 to the existing documentation about the prisoners, much of which was already covered in Andys book The Guantánamo Files<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/the-guantanamo-files/> and in the archive of articles on his website<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/>, the project will hopefully be completed later this year, although that is contingent on finding new funding. **411 stories have now been told. See the entire archive here<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/category/2002-2011-the-complete-guantanamo-files-new/> .* ------------------------------ * * *If you wish to be removed from this list, please let us know* ** *To join the Liberty Underground news service email libertyuv@hotmail.comwith "join" for a subject* ** *You may also join our talk group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/ if you would like to participate* ** *email: libert...@hotmail.com* ** *Tell your friends about LUV News because some people just don't get it* -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lisa Simeone In tempestate floresco [image: Red rose] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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