Your news & views …
Back to Main
October 18, 2011
Open Thread – Oct 18
Comments
A little levity to lighten the load.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-14/u-s-judge-recommends-9-4-billion-damages-against-al-qaeda-over-sept-11.html
A U.S. judge will decide whether to award Chubb Corp. (CB) and four other insurers $9.4 billion in damages in their suit against al-Qaeda over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas in Manhattan said yesterday that the insurers, which sued for money they paid to policyholders to cover business and property losses, should recover triple damages under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act.
The insurers won a default judgment in 2006 against al- Qaeda, the radical Muslim terrorist organization behind the attacks, after the group didn’t contest the suit.
Maas gave the parties 10 days to file any objections to his report and recommendations to U.S. District Judge George Daniels. Daniels, who is presiding over the case, will then decide whether to award the money.
Did Monty Python write that?
Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 18 2011 17:56 utc | 1
@ Morocco:
There’s got to be some angle here. I wonder if the insurance companies can book the award settlement as an asset on their balance sheet. What’s a little accounting fraud among friends ?
Posted by: mjocaj | Oct 18 2011 18:51 utc | 2
@2, I wouldn’t put it by them. This part tickles me pink, though….
Maas gave the parties 10 days to file any objections to his report and recommendations to U.S. District Judge George Daniels.
Maybe they will exhume bin Laden’s shark-ravaged body from the depths of the Indian Ocean and cart it into court. They can call it Weekend at bin Laden’s.
I have to admit, it’s pretty bold of the Chubb Group to sue the CIA.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 18 2011 19:05 utc | 3
I find this here extremely revealing
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-arrives-in-libya-bearing-aid-and-encouragement/2011/10/18/gIQAD5rmtL_story_1.html
the photograph is even better from the other angle
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Gadhafi+forces+counter+attack+Sirte+Clinton+Tripoli/5567132/story.html
Posted by: somebody | Oct 18 2011 19:08 utc | 4
this official angle is also quite good including the title calling it “Secretary Clinton is greeted by Libyans”
http://www.flickr.com/photos/statephotos/6257848491/
Posted by: somebody | Oct 18 2011 19:31 utc | 5
Given the notoriously close relations between Al Qaida and the US government, which still funds and assists its operations against Hezbollah, in Libya and in Yemen; and given the close clinks between both of the previously named parties and the family of ibn Saud, the insurers surely have a very reasonable case.
Of course proving it would require testimony in Civil Court proceedings from, amongst others, government employees.
Posted by: bevin | Oct 18 2011 21:33 utc | 6
So the MLK memorial was not only designed by a Chinese sculptor and made with Chinese granite, but it was also build with unpaid workers from China:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/26/305092/mlk-jr-memorial-statue-completed-using-unpaid-chinese-laborers/
I find this so utterly disgusting on so many levels that I don’t where to begin. First off, don’t you think that a labor activist such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who fought and died protecting the rights of workers, would be pretty disgusted to learn that his memorial was built with slave labor? And with unemployment in the US at a near all-time high, and given that the MLK memorial was subsidized with American tax dollars, don’t you think that those who are in charge of the MLK Memorial Foundation should’ve been required to hire American workers to design and build the MLK memorial?
I don’t think we’ll see an end to American jobs being outsourced to low-wage countries until we start seeing jobs that over-paid corporate executives and over-paid public servants do are also outsourced to low-wage countries. I suspect that they’ll soon be getting a taste of their own medicine. And when they do, hopefully I’ll be around to enjoy the bittersweet taste of schadenfreude — each and every bite of it.
Posted by: Cynthia | Oct 18 2011 21:55 utc | 7
re: MLK Memorial….what a striking resemblance to Mao-Tse-Tung statuary….
Posted by: georgeg | Oct 19 2011 1:33 utc | 8
Peter Van Buren, WikiLeaked at the State Department
State Dept Officer Peter Van Buren Punished Over WikiLeaks
by Kelley Vlahos, October 18, 2011
WASHINGTON – Foreign Service officer Peter Van Buren has been officially sanctioned today. Depending how one looks at it, he could be the first State Department WikiLeaks casualty, or the first who’s been punished for criticizing the agency’s performance in the war. Or both.
It doesn’t matter. Today, after 23 years as a foreign service officer, Buren was forced to turn over his Top Secret security credentials and diplomatic passport today at the Rossyln offices of the State Department right outside Washington.
According to the letter given to Van Buren this morning, he was being placed on suspension because his unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations regarding “articles and blog postings,” which “raises serious security concerns” making his access to classified material inconsistent “with the national security interests of the United States.” Basically, he did not get his published work and media appearances cleared with public affairs ahead of time. Also, the letter read, Van Buren’s “judgment in handling protected information is questionable.”
His clearance is now deemed “under suspension” until an investigation by the department is complete. Van Buren and an informal legal representative joining him Monday said this investigations could last months, even years before adjudication.
Although Van Buren’s transgressions were not spelled out in the formal letter of suspension but he is certain it was because of 1) in a personal blog posting dated August 25, Van Buren had linked to a classified cable that had already been leaked and widely circulated by WikiLeaks, 2) he refused to redact passages from his new book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and 3) he refused to answer specific questions when brought in twice for “interrogation” by Department officials in the last several weeks to answer questions. Those “questions,” he told Antiwar.com, included his associations. He also did not offer any of his articles on his blogs for vetting by public affairs before publishing.
All of this has convinced the department he is a threat.
Scott Horton will be interviewing him on Monday’s AntiWar-Radio show about this latest craziness.
Also see, Tomgram: Peter Van Buren, WikiLeaked at the State Department
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 19 2011 6:23 utc | 9
And now, for yet another addition of Useless Piece of Shit of The Day. Our winner is…..
http://dl.voanews.cn/standardenglish/February/images/AFP_US_Amb_Seoul_Donald_Gregg_210_1.jpg
Isn’t he a real charmer? Would you trust him top watch the children? Hold your money?
Mr. Gregg, please die…..like yesterday…for the good of all humanity. Oh, and ask your friends to die with you.
Posted by: Morocco Bama | Oct 19 2011 17:24 utc | 10
georgeg wrote:
MLK Memorial….what a striking resemblance to Mao-Tse-Tung statuary….
that struck me as well. Uncanny resemblance, and not just ‘from the times’ as in how trousers / ties were to be worn.
Posted by: Noirette | Oct 19 2011 17:44 utc | 11
Posted by: somebody | Oct 19 2011 19:13 utc | 12
Anyone notice Juan Cole’s turn around re: Iran…..He is very vocal about DOJ’s sting……
Posted by: georgeg | Oct 19 2011 19:20 utc | 13
Trying to puzzle out from a distance the Liam Fox uproar, UK’s Minister for Defence, who has now resigned. Coverage has seemed muffled, the cause of resignation somehow related to letting a personal friendship creep too close to Fox’s public duties.
At last, a post suggests significant political ties buried not so deep. These are not personal. These lines of power, funding, and influence link back to Israel and Brit-Israel ties, BICOM (Brit version of AIPAC?), US neocons, the corporate “tea party,” including Koch Bros, and an international group of military-industrialists.
Founded by Liam Fox in 1997 Atlantic Bridge was ostensibly a charity but failed to meet the basic guidelines for a charity and was booted off in September 2011 by the Charity commission.
On the face of it, Atl Brdg was one more Atlantacist organization, aimed at fostering the special relationship between US & UK. In this case, it seems to have been a relationship with very specific Americans.
Atlantic Bridge has received significant contributions from BICOM (Isreali lobby in UK) and maintained ties with powerful US neocons and neocon organizations. Many Tories have been associated with Atlantic Bridge, since its inception, though some have distanced themselves from it or stood down, as questions began to be raised in recent years concerning AtlBrdg’s charitable activities. A Guardian article explains some of this history and the US connections.
The travels of Fox’s friend Werritty have been financed by Pargav, an obscure company funded partly by the chairman of BICOM and partly by G3, a PI firm staffed by former MI6 agents and founded by a South African security expert.
The Guardian article, also, outlines the dimensions of ALEC, a growing, powerful US organization, with which Fox’s AtlBrdg signed a special partnership in 2007. Atlantic Bridge’s revenues doubled after this agreement.
These details make clear why some in Britain might fear the Fox-Werritty relationship as the spearpoint of a fifth column at the highest level. Even more, a fear, shared by many of us, that shadow power structures are making the decisions and manipulating the systems that largely rule our lives, under cover of democratic process. Is the Fox fifth column real and functional? Were laws broken? Need more information.
And since it appears that Fox never hid the relationship with Werritty, why did the press choose to question it just now?
Time to learn more about ALEC.
Unspoken in any news reports is the general attitude among corporations operating in the global markets, that political and national boundaries are just traffic bumps, useful only when they can be used to protect revenues.
Posted by: smoke | Oct 19 2011 21:36 utc | 14
smoke, that is simple, anybody who did not get a contract would offer a hand to dig the grave.
as long as there were contracts they would not risk them, however, Britain has to save now, so some people are bound to feel left out.
Posted by: somebody | Oct 20 2011 0:33 utc | 15
@ smoke
Time to learn more about ALEC.
The Center for Media and Democracy has a web site for just that purpose:
ALEC
Posted by: juannie | Oct 20 2011 12:21 utc | 16
FINALLY! It took Gaddafi’s death to disrupt the zionist festival on BBC.
Boy, what a drag that was. ‘Special, extended issue’ I was so tired of listening to them carry Netanyahu’s water hour after hour after hour. Disgusting spin, horrible misinformation allegations and even lots of outright lies! Hour after hour. I was so very disappointed by the BBC.
Posted by: Jake | Oct 20 2011 15:05 utc | 17
Having dipped into MoA’s archive here and there, I discovered that b is a fan of the Leverett’s Race for Iran.
Their October 20 offering is an incisive and insightful retort to a dubious honour bestowed upon them by The New Republic in a silly article called America’s Most Overrated Thinkers
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 22 2011 0:33 utc | 18
Interesting piece at Salon >>http://www.salon.com/2011/10/21/the_original_mad_men/singleton/#comments << (copy&paste) on how the situationalists/Guy Debord Society of Spectacle, were the original inspiration of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The author then proceeds to critique the movement from this perspective. Dismissing and blowing off major positions of the situationists in order to discredit it as it applies to OWS.
Posted by: anna missed | Oct 22 2011 23:51 utc | 19
Re OccupyWallStreet.
Reading the latest Tomgram
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175457/tomgram%3A_barbara_ehrenreich%2C_homeless_in_america/
reminded me that Oz has became a test-bed for tactics aimed at sweeping Occupy movements under the carpet. Last Friday (Oct 21), a few hundred Occupy Melbourne protesters were forcibly removed from Federation Square by about 400 police. The following day the same treatment was dished out to the Occupy Sydney protesters in Martin Place.
Nobody has claimed that either protest was in any way violent before the cops arrived and no-one is seriously disputing the protester’s claim that the only violence associated with the removals was perpetrated by the police.
Several potential points of interest arise from the above.
The Melbourne protesters were removed at the request of the Lord Mayor. Melbourne Lord Mayors are usually anti-Palestinian Jews. The current one could be described as a Christian Zionist. The State Premier is a Bailieu, a remnant of the once-prominent Myer retailing family, and a beneficiary of its accumulated fortune.
Both sides of politics in Oz place the desires of voters a poor third behind the desires of the CIA & M-I Complex, and the insanely irrational local and vocal “survivors” of the Holocaust.
The war on Occupy protesters is merely the most obvious sign that Oz political satraps (aka Bribees) for the US and Israel are working against the interests of Australia. Last Thursday, the leader of the Federal Opposition, Tony Abbot (Mr Rabbit in the popular vernacular) announced that, if he wins govt, he’ll put the long-running Free Trade negotiations with China on the back burner in favour of Japan because Japan is “more democratic” than China.
Given that Oz’s hugely profitable non-tech exports to China (of stuff you dig out of the ground and load on to a ship) are the main thing keeping the Oz economy afloat, Mr Rabbit’s idea is so foolishly myopic it could only have been Made in America.
Anyway, the purpose of this comment is to warn that an anti-Occupy tactic is being experimented with in Australia.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 24 2011 7:17 utc | 20
Transcript and video of a reasonably ‘balanced’ report on recent Occupy developments in Oz will be available here in 6 to 12 hours from now. It includes some rather unflattering remarks about Lord Mayor, Robt Doyle.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 24 2011 9:05 utc | 21
I got a bad feeling with this one… It’s telling me to get ready for some hijinks…
Feds to Temporarily Cut Off All TV and Radio Broadcasts on November 9?
October 23rd, 2011
9th day of the 11th month.
Via: The Blaze:
If you have ever wondered about the government’s ability to control the civilian airwaves, you will have your answer on November 9th.
On that day, federal authorities are going to shut off all television and radio communications simultaneously at 2:00PM EST to complete the first ever test of the national Emergency Alert System (EAS).
This isn’t a wild conspiracy theory. The upcoming test is posted on the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau website.
Only the President has the authority to activate EAS at the national level, and he has delegated that authority to the Director of FEMA. The test will be conducted jointly by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through FEMA, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS).
The day after The United States general elections of 2011…
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 26 2011 23:23 utc | 22
what constitutes a national emergency situation applicable uniformly across such a diverse expanse from coast to coast? only thing that comes to mind and makes sense would be a financial emergency – like announcing a bank holiday perhaps…
Posted by: b real | Oct 27 2011 1:41 utc | 23
@b real
what constitutes a national emergency situation applicable uniformly across such a diverse expanse from coast to coast?
Potential shit-storm?
Oakland: Former U.S. Marine and Protestor in Critical Condition After Being Shot in the Head by ‘Police Projectile’
Also, highly recommend this interview….
The Whitehouse Coup – 1933 right-wing American businessmen
The Whitehouse Coup Monday 23 July 2007
Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen
View a picture gallery of images related to this edition.
The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.
Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.
That right, another Bush.
Also, The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer is back in print as of this year.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 27 2011 15:20 utc | 24
Here’s China, putting a cash value on its confidence in Sarkozy & Co’s ability to come up with a workable scheme to save the EU from serfdom.
China signals possible $90B investment in EU
(The context here is that the $1.4T Bailout fund is still more than $2T short of realistic)
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3351128.htm
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 28 2011 14:37 utc | 26