CIA Manchurian candidates

A group of military veterans in California are suing the CIA over allegedly implanting remote control devices in their brains. They allege the spy agency was on a quest to turn humans into robot-like assassins via electrodes planted in their brains.

Why The U.S. Wants Military Commission Show Trials For 9/11 Suspects

By Jeffrey Kaye, The Public Record

A number of commentators have replied to Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement today that five suspects in the 9/11 attacks, including alleged Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, will not be tried in civilian courts for the terrorist attacks almost ten years ago, but will be tried by President Obama’s revamped military commissions tribunals. What no commentator has stated thus far is the plain truth that the commissions’ main purpose is to produce government propaganda, not justice.

These are meant to be show trials, part of an overarching plan of “exploitation” of prisoners, which includes, besides a misguided attempt by some to gain intelligence data, the inducement of false confessions and the recruitment of informants via torture. The aim behind all this is political: to mobilize the U.S. population for imperialist war adventures abroad, and political repression and economic austerity at home.

Holder claims he wanted civilian trials that would “prove the defendants’ guilt while adhering to the bedrock traditions and values of our laws.” The Attorney General blamed Congress for passing restrictions on bringing Guantanamo prisoners to the United States for making civilian trials inside the United States impossible. Marcy Wheeler has noted that the Congressional restrictions related to the Department of Defense, not the Department of Justice, and there is plenty of reason to believe the Obama administration could have pressed politicians on this issue, but chose not to. (Others see it differently.)

Human rights organizations have responded with dismay, if not outrage. Center for Constitutional Rights, whose attorneys have been active in the legal defense of a number of Guantanamo prisoners, stated, “The announcement underscores the fact that decisions about whether to try detainees in federal court or by military commission are purely political. The decision is clearly driven not by the nature of the alleged offense, or where and when it was committed, but by the unpopularity of the detainee and the political culture in Washington.” CCR also compared the precedent-setting behavior to “Egypt’s apparent plans to use military trials for protesters at Tahir Square.”

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The Stalinist governments of the USSR and East Europe used to make a great practice of show trials, one of the most famous being the trial of Hungarian Cardinal Mindszenty. Arthur Koestler’s famous book Darkness at Noon is about the show trial and confession of an “old Bolshevik” under Stalin’s regime. Such show trials still occur in many parts of the world, from China and Vietnam, to Indonesia, Burma, Iran, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, and the list could go on and on.

That list now includes the United States, where most recently, former child prisoner Omar Khadr was tried in a military commission, pleading guilty with a coerced confession, after years of torture and imprisonment in solitary confinement, his penalty phase of the military tribunal amounting to a show trial, complete with psychiatric “expert” testimony about Khadr’s supposed propensity for “terrorism.” The result? A 40-year sentence for the young man who never spent a free day as an adult, part of a staged deal with the U.S. military prosecutors, who presumably will release Khadr to Canadian authorities in a year or so, where he will continue to be imprisoned, pending any appeals there. But the penalty “trial” got a lot of press, and the U.S. was able to garner a propaganda “victory.”

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Uruguay senate passes amnesty end for junta crimes

From Fox News

A closely divided senate has passed legislation to overturn an amnesty for human rights crimes by the military during Uruguay's 1973-85 dictatorship, moving to overrule voters who upheld the law twice.

The measure passed 16-15 late Tuesday after a 12-hour debate and now goes to the lower house for minor changes. It could become law by May 20 — the day Uruguay honors political prisoners who were kidnapped and killed during the junta's crackdown on leftists.

Once enacted, the legislation would allow prosecutions for crimes against humanity that were committed during Uruguay's "dirty war," fulfilling a key goal of President Jose Mujica and the leftist wing of the governing Broad Front coalition.

During the debate, Sen. Oscar Lopez Goldaracena of the Broad Front called an end to the amnesty necessary for "removing the rules of impunity and granting rights to the citizenry."

Opposition parties on the right and Uruguay's retired military angrily opposed the move, and the issue roiled the governing coalition as well, challenging a common political ground this small South American nation has built through nearly a quarter-century of democracy.

"It's clear now what kind of morality moves our enemies. It's profoundly immoral, antidemocratic," said retired Col. Jose Carlos Araujo, spokesman for the Liberty and Harmony forum of former military officials. "They don't even respect the decisions of the people."

Uruguay has largely avoided probing old wounds from the era in which numerous South American governments cracked down hard on leftists.

The military amnesty law — passed a year after a 1985 amnesty for crimes by leftists — has protected most uniformed officials. The measure adopted by the senate would undo only the military amnesty, leaving intact the amnesty for leftist guerrillas.

A peace commission found in 2003 that 175 political activists were killed during Uruguay's 12-year dictatorship, including 26 in clandestine torture centers. Previously, only rights crimes considered to be beyond the military amnesty's scope — such as murders outside Uruguay — have been prosecuted, leading to prison terms for about a dozen officials.

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Street protests banned in Baghdad

Sara Ghasemilee reports for Al Arabiya

Iraq has decided to officially ban street protests in the capital Baghdad and limited approved demonstrations sites to three soccer stadiums, a security official said on Wednesday, according to reports.

"We have specified Al-Shaab, Kashafa and Zawraa stadiums as permitted sites for demonstrations in Baghdad instead of Ferdus or Tahrir squares," the capital's security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta said at a news conference televised by state broadcaster Iraqiya TV.

The decision follows after regular demonstrations were held in Bagdad with thousands of people protesting against government corruption, poor basic services and unemployment.

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Hitachi, Toshiba Bid To Clean Up Fukushima Mess

From Companies Vie for Plant-Closing Job by Juro Osawa and Rebecca Smith, Wall Street Journal

Two Japanese corporate giants submitted preliminary plans to conduct the long-term shutdown of the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex, introducing a cast of players who stand to be active at the site for decades.

Toshiba Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. each confirmed that they have crafted separate plans—each supported by U.S. contractors—to shut down the complex once the plant operator has successfully cooled the reactors and brought them under control. Though the plans are preliminary and don't represent formal bids for work, they begin to suggest the long, expensive process that lies ahead for the Japanese government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. as they look to bring Japan's nuclear crisis to a close.

Hitachi said Wednesday that it submitted last week a long-term plan to decommission the damaged nuclear plant. Hitachi said it voluntarily submitted the proposal after compiling it with help from its nuclear business partner General Electric Co. and two other U.S. companies, Exelon Corp. and Bechtel Corp.

Hitachi didn't say how long it would take to implement all the measures, but "generally speaking, such a process could take about 30 years to complete," said spokesman Masanao Sato.

The submission came four days after Toshiba offered its own long-term plan for decommissioning the plant. Unlike Hitachi's voluntary submission, Toshiba's plan was a response to Tepco's earlier request for information on how to remove possibly damaged fuel from the plant and safely transport it to another location.

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