Who May Nominate Candidates for the Peace Prize?posted by slkinsey at 12:40 PM on March 12 [1 favorite]
According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation, a nomination is considered valid if it is submitted by a person who falls within one of the following categories:
• Members of national assemblies and governments of states
• Members of international courts
• University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes
• Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• Board members of organizations that have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
• Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1)
• Former advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Committee
Forbes: Inline audio(BTW, it's Sunshine Week at the White House)
Huffington Post: Inline audio
Wired: Inline audio
Politico: Linked to website
Guardian: Inline audio
VICE: Inline audio
Salon: Linked to MP3
PRI's The World: Inline audio
Washington Post: AP article (no link, URL not mentioned)
Fox News: AP article (no link, URL not mentioned)
ABC News: AP article (no link, URL not mentioned)
NPR: AP article (Twitter says they played it on the radio this morning?)
CNN: No article
The Nation: Blog post removed
NY Times: No article
Using the pretenses of the Israeli victory over Arab forces in 1948 and popular dissatisfaction, Quwatli was overthrown in a CIA backed military coup in March 1949. The CIA's purpose was to install someone who would allow the construction of the Quwatli opposed Saudi Arabian oil pipeline to be built, open a dialogue with Israel and rid the country of the Communist Party which Quawtli had tolerated. The CIA's candidate, Husni al-Za'im, who had been released from prison eight years earlier, having served time for corruption, rapidly implemented his US controller's program. Quwatli, after a short imprisonment, went into exile in Egypt, waiting for an opportunity to regain his position, while a series of coups paralyzed Syrian political life. Free elections under the auspices of the venerable Hashim al-Atassi finally took place in 1955, and Quwatli, at the head of the National Party (the successor to the National Bloc), was elected president.And that's the way American political operations go. The intelligence assessments that always point back to blowback and underline the stupidity of interfering with national sovereignty are constantly ignored. Powerful American interests do not care if Americans will die during their attempt to steal national resources, or if it's harmful to national security in the long run. What is important is to follow paranoid fantasies about left-wing invasions from Grenada, or to impose markets or outright rob other nations of non-labor resources.
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Deane Hinton, who was working in the US legation at the time of Quwatli's overthrow, insisted his dissenting view be put on record and presciently remarked that the coup was "the stupidest, most irresponsible action a diplomatic mission like ours could get itself involved in, and that we've started a series of these things that will never end." As a result Hinton was ejected from the plotter's group and ostracised.
Mr. Fadl’s cooperation began in 1996, after he walked into a United States embassy in Africa and offered his help, only later revealing that he had embezzled money from Mr. bin Laden. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy for activities in Al Qaeda, and is not expected to go to prisonSo, he walked in the front door, told them he would defect, and they said, "Okay." And then they failed to use the information he gave about al Qaeda's military plans to prevent the attacks, and then failed to do anything meaningful with the documentation he gave them about al Qaeda's financial structure. Are you sure you want to submit that charade as good intelligence work?
An eight-month McClatchy investigation in 11 countries on three continents has found that Akhtiar was one of dozens of men — and, according to several officials, perhaps hundreds — whom the U.S. has wrongfully imprisoned in Afghanistan, Cuba and elsewhere on the basis of flimsy or fabricated evidence, old personal scores or bounty payments.and deportations
McClatchy interviewed 66 released detainees, more than a dozen local officials — primarily in Afghanistan — and U.S. officials with intimate knowledge of the detention program. The investigation also reviewed thousands of pages of U.S. military tribunal documents and other records.
This unprecedented compilation shows that most of the 66 were low-level Taliban grunts, innocent Afghan villagers or ordinary criminals. At least seven had been working for the U.S.-backed Afghan government and had no ties to militants, according to Afghan local officials. In effect, many of the detainees posed no danger to the United States or its allies.
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How did the United States come to hold so many farmers and goat herders among the real terrorists at Guantanamo? Among the reasons:
After conceding control of the country to U.S.-backed Afghan forces in late 2001, top Taliban and al Qaida leaders escaped to Pakistan, leaving the battlefield filled with ragtag groups of volunteers and conscripts who knew nothing about global terrorism.
The majority of the detainees taken to Guantanamo came into U.S. custody indirectly, from Afghan troops, warlords, mercenaries and Pakistani police who often were paid cash by the number and alleged importance of the men they handed over. Foot soldiers brought in hundreds of dollars, but commanders were worth thousands. Because of the bounties — advertised in fliers that U.S. planes dropped all over Afghanistan in late 2001 — there was financial incentive for locals to lie about the detainees' backgrounds. Only 33 percent of the former detainees — 22 out of 66 — whom McClatchy interviewed were detained initially by U.S. forces. Of those 22, 17 were Afghans who'd been captured around mid-2002 or later as part of the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, a fight that had more to do with counter-insurgency than terrorism.
The full extent of the CIA's extraordinary rendition programme has been laid bare with the publication of a report showing there is evidence that more than a quarter of the world's governments covertly offered support.and wholesale slaughter
A 213-page report compiled by the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI), a New York-based human rights organisation, says that at least 54 countries co-operated with the global kidnap, detention and torture operation that was mounted after 9/11, many of them in Europe.
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The states identified by the OSJI include those such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt and Jordan where the existence of secret prisons and the use of torture has been well documented for many years. But the OSJI's rendition list also includes states such as Ireland, Iceland and Cyprus, which are accused of granting covert support for the programme by permitting the use of airspace and airports by aircraft involved in rendition flights.
Canada not only permitted the use of its airspace but provided information that led to one of its own nationals being taken to Syria where he was held for a year and tortured, the report says.
Iran and Syria are identified by the OSJI as having participated in the rendition programme. Syria is said to have been one of the "most common destinations for rendered suspects", while Iran is said to have participated in the CIA's programme by handing over 15 individuals to Kabul shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan, in the full knowledge that they would fall under US control
In contrast to more conservative U.S. statements, the Stanford/NYU report -- titled "Living Under Drones" -- offers starker figures published by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, an independent organization based at City University in London.If you like, we could also review larger conflicts like the coups and proxy wars that the CIA has arranged throughout the world that have destabilized dozens of countries and led to the deaths of millions of people. And as for the integrity and quality of work at the CIA:
"TBIJ reports that from June 2004 through mid-September 2012, available data indicate that drone strikes killed 2,562 - 3,325 people in Pakistan, of whom 474 - 881 were civilians, including 176 children. TBIJ reports that these strikes also injured an additional 1,228 - 1,362 individuals," according to the Stanford/NYU study.
Based on interviews with witnesses, victims and experts, the report accuses the CIA of "double-striking" a target, moments after the initial hit, thereby killing first responders.
It also highlights harm "beyond death and physical injury," publishing accounts of psychological trauma experienced by people living in Pakistan's tribal northwest region, who it says hear drones hover 24 hours a day.
An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry into the case.To clarify, I'm not implying that the CIA sets out to be evil. I'm illustrating that evil is what happens when you have a government agency with unlimited power and zero accountability. An intelligence agency informs the government, and then the government decides how to best protect their citizens. The CIA lies to the government for purposes of plausible deniability, and then is given carte blanche to torture and murder whomever they care to in exchange for also carrying out Washington's political will using plainly illegal methods. That's the functional role of any political police force, just like the KGB. The main difference is that the CIA typically doesn't disappear or murder Americans, but now that's not even a guarantee.
The agency's inspector general said CIA officers repeatedly ignored rules of engagement in a joint U.S.-Peruvian campaign to halt airborne drug smugglers, resulting in the downing of at least 10 other aircraft without proper warnings. Afterward, CIA managers concealed the problems from lawmakers and the Justice Department, the agency watchdog said.
Even the White House was kept in the dark, as agency officials and lawyers withheld key details while cautioning their staff to avoid putting anything in writing that might be used later in a criminal or civil case, the inspector general said in a report.
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The program had succeeded in bringing down numerous suspect planes when, on April 20, 2001, a Peruvian pilot mistakenly shot into a small aircraft carrying a family of Baptist missionaries from Michigan. A bullet struck and killed one of the missionaries, Veronica "Roni" Bowers, and her infant daughter, Charity. The pilot was wounded but managed to land the plane. Bowers's husband and their 6-year-old son were not injured.
Multiple investigations at the time found that the CIA had been lax in its oversight of the program and had failed to ensure that strict rules were followed in identifying the plane before calling in the Peruvian fighter. Yet, according to the inspector general's report, agency officials sought from the outset to conceal the program's serious problems, while portraying the 2001 shooting as an aberration.
"Within hours, CIA officers began to characterize the shoot-down as a one-time mistake in an otherwise well-run program," the report stated. "In fact, this was not the case."
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posted by jeffburdges at 12:25 PM on March 12 [9 favorites]