And Here It Is...

[AG Eric Holder] outlined a three-part test for determining when a targeted killing against a US citizen is legal. He said the government must determine after careful review that the citizen poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the US, capture is not feasible and the killing would be consistent with laws of war.

The Obama administration has refused to release the justice department legal opinion on al-Awlaki's killing under the Freedom of Information Act and is in court opposing efforts to have it made public.

Responding to criticism from civil libertarians, Holder flatly rejected the suggestion that the constitution's due process protections require the president to get permission from a federal court before taking lethal action.

[...]

"When such individuals take up arms against this country and join al-Qaida in plotting attacks designed to kill their fellow Americans there may be only one realistic and appropriate response," the attorney general continued. "We must take steps to stop them in full accordance with the constitution. In this hour of danger, we simply cannot afford to wait until deadly plans are carried out – and we will not."

  UK Guardian

Had Anwar al Awlaki taken up arms against the US? I mus have missed that.

Al-Awlaki's killing in a joint CIA-US military drone strike on a convoy in Yemen sparked a public debate over whether the president should have the authority to kill an American citizen without a conviction and despite an executive order banning assassinations – which Holder called a "loaded term" that doesn't apply in this case.

Assassination – a loaded term. Perhaps he would prefer the other appropriate term: murder.

"The American people can be – and deserve to be – assured that actions taken in their defense are consistent with their values and their laws."

Happy now? I suppose you want to see the actual laws we have authorizing assassinations - er, murders, huh? You are so particular.

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill Wants Your Opinion

Have at it, people.

..but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It Must Be Campaign Season

The Obama administration on Monday plans to outline how U.S. laws empower the government to kill Americans overseas who engage in terrorism against their home country, a source familiar with the matter said, months after a drone strike killed a U.S.-born cleric who plotted attacks from Yemen.

  Raw Story

Well, well. Apparently their “legal justification” is no longer a bulwark against the onslaught of terrorists, and we can now know the secret.

(Still) Killing the Gulf

Fishermen and residents of the four states most heavily affected by BP's [spring of 2010 Gulf of Mexico Macondo oil well] disaster continue to struggle to regain a sense of normalcy in their lives. Many still experience health problems they attribute to chemicals in BP's oil and the toxic dispersants used to sink it.

Shrimpers and oyster fishermen have seen their catches drop dramatically, and in some areas entire oyster populations have been annihilated.

[...]

[On] February 29, Al Jazeera conducted another over-flight of the area and found a larger area of sea covered in oil sheen [than had been previously noted in September 2011] in the same location.

Oil trackers with the organisation On Wings of Care, who have been monitoring the new oil since mid-August 2011, have for months found rainbow-tinted slicks and thick silvery globs of oil consistently visible in the area.

"This is the same crescent shaped area of oil and sheen I've been seeing here since the middle of last August," Bonny Schumaker, president and pilot of On Wings of Care, told Al Jazeera while flying over the oil.

Schumaker has logged approximately 500 hours of flight time monitoring the area around the Macondo well, and has flown scientists from NASA, the US Geological Survey (USGS), and oil chemistry scientists to observe conditions resulting from BP's oil disaster that began in April 2010.

When Al Jazeera flew to the area on September 11, 2011, the oil sheen was approximately 25km long and 10 to 50 metres wide, at a location roughly 19km northeast of the Macondo 252 well.

On the recent over flight, the area covered in oil sheen was approximately 35km long, and ranged from 20 to 100 metres wide in approximately the same location. At times, fumes from the oil filled the aircraft, even at an altitude of 350 metres.

[...]

Natural oil seepage in the Gulf of Mexico is a common phenomenon and can cause sheens, but the current oil and sheen is suspect due to its size and location near the Macondo well.

[...]

 Edward Overton, professor emeritus at Louisiana State University's environmental sciences department, examined data from oil samples taken from this area last September and confirmed that the oil is from the Macondo reservoir.

[...]

BP has denied that the oil is coming from their well.

[...]

[Coast Guard] Captain [Jonathan] Burton said after seeing footage from [a] submersible of BP's cap, he does not believe the Macondo well, or the relief wells BP drilled to stop it, are leaking, and he feels the oil is from natural seepage.

The footage was taken and provided by BP itself.  Apparently the Coast Guard has the same philosophy as the EPA - let the fox guard the henhouse, as long as he provides reports.

Dr Ian MacDonald, a professor of biological oceanography at Florida State University who uses satellite remote sensing to locate natural oil releases on the ocean surface, confirmed that there are natural seeps in this region of the Gulf of Mexico, but believes more investigation is necessary in order to determine the cause and source of this particular site.

"The question for science is: Are the rates of seepage consistent with what they were prior to the blowout?" MacDonald told Al Jazeera. "Is the amount of oil we're seeing now unusual with respect to historic levels? Can this oil be traced back to these formations?"

[...]

"What is significant in my mind, as an attorney, is that a US government official admitted this is Macondo oil, and to me, absent BP producing evidence this seep existed prior to their drilling, they therefore must have caused it." [New Orleans attorney Stuart Smith]

[...]

"We should be having sonar works done of that area, and the public needs to be informed of the findings," Leifer said.

Yeah, that'll happen.

A Useful New Invention

Japanese researchers have created a “gun” that enables its user to silence the speech of other people. The device uses a unidirectional microphone to record the speaker’s voice, then play it back to them at a delay of hundredths of a millisecond. The wash of verbiage disrupts the concentration of the speaker and renders them incapable of speech.

The sampled-and-returned speech is audible only to the targeted individual and the resulting effect is said to be like “hearing a recording of one’s own voice echoing inside one’s skull,” which creates a kind of induced stutter.

  Raw Story

And the whole world could benefit immensely therefrom.

Awaking from the Big Money Hangover

This is becoming something of a theme today. Republicans who were prospering when the party was riding high, and who stood by when all the forces that have produced an incredible week of inhuman cruelty and ignorance from Wingnuttia were gathering, and who were not shy about using those forces to their political advantage, now would like the world to know how really badly they feel about the whole thing, and how much they'd like to be allowed back into respectable company. If it's not David Frum, ex-warmonger, it's Steve Schmidt, former Sarah Palin enabler soon to be immortalized on film as The One Honest Man in the McCain campaign. Or, now, it's Ken Mehlman, who came out of the closet, and now feels really, really bad about all the gay-bashing that helped his old boss win re-election in 2004.

  Charles Pierce

Yes, he's not the first. It seems money is in inverse relation to conscience.

In other words, I'm an opportunistic 'ho who would have done anything, including flog myself atop Karl Rove's desk, to win an election, but, now that the winds seem to have changed, and I have to make a living, I would like to be forgiven for having been a self-loathing 'ho for a party that I helped gain for political advantage the hatred of people who would have broken my head with a brick if they'd known the truth of who I am.

Tell your story walking, pal.

(I think most people knew.)

Or as Water Tiger puts it, the apology is good:

Unless, of course, some other powerful, monied, hypocritical jackwagon offers you a seven-figure salary. Then all bets are off.

  Dependable Renegade

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Ladies and Gentlemen...The President of Ireland

Meanwhile in Afghanistan

A series of avoidable mistakes led to the burning of Quran copies at a US base in Afghanistan, and at least five US military personnel involved may face a disciplinary hearing over the issue, a leaked report on the incident shows.

One Western official, speaking to the Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity, said that the joint investigation by senior Afghan and US military officials has determined that there was no intent to desecrate the Muslim holy book.

  alJazeera

No? Then why the possibility of disciplinary action?

[An] Afghan committee investigating the incident has rejected apologies from the US, saying that those responsible must be tried publically in Afghanistan.

[...]

A more formal US military investigation is still weeks away from completion.

[...]

"Some of those people are of fairly high military rank, and they're going to end up being discplined, or the recommendations would be that they would be discplined for failing to follow procedure. Investigators will also end up punishing people if they feel that they haven't entirely honest with them during the initial investigation," Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith reported from Kabul.

So...the investigation has determined no intent but there is still an investigation that could possibly determine there was some dishonesty.

The claim is that officials decided books were being used to pass messages, and so they collected and boxed the items for disposal. Some lowly soldiers who didn't know what was actually in the boxes tossed them on the fire.

I can believe that. Sounds like typical Army to me. On the other hand, the people doing the collecting and boxing certainly knew what they were putting in the boxes, and they could have clearly separated the Korans.

Whether we think it's rational to be upset about the burning of a book is unimportant. What is important is that we are cavalier about the impact our actions have and don't take care to avoid doing things that we know will have a negative impact.

Afghanistan's senior religious leaders demanded on Friday that those involved in the incident be put on public trial and punished.

[...]

They also called on the US to end night searches and to hand over prisons to Afghan control. The religious leaders said the books would never have been burned if Afghan officials had been in charge of the facility.

Control over detainees and night raids are the two most contentious issues in a strategic partnership document that the US and Afghanistan are currently negotiating.

[The] US has committed a series of serious missteps which has undermined their efforts to win over the Afghan people.

Last year, the leader of a 12 soldier "kill team" was given a life sentence by a US military court.

Prosecutors said Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs hunted innocent Afghans “for sport”, and cut off body parts for trophies. He then posed for pictures with the corpses.

Then there was the four Marines who videotaped themselves urinating on the bodies of the dead Afghans and the US sniper unit which happily posed in front of a Nazi SS banner.

  There was the US combat outpost nicknamed Aryan.

  And earlier this year, the British Ministry of Defence confirmed it was investigating reports that two ten year old children, a boy and a girl, were abused by UK troops.

Military night raids that appall the cultural sensitivities of most Afghans, continue despite the appeals from President Hamid Karzai to stop as it undermines the redevelopment efforts of NATO soldiers.

But even these incidents have not provoked the widespread and deep anger of the discovery of the burning of Quran copies at the US-dominated Bagram airbase.

[...]

The US state department insists the protests have been hijacked by extremists who see this as a convenient issue to rally support.

[...]

The Americans seemed overwhelmed by the reaction, unable to get on top of events, or put together a response which would quell the violence.

Walking around the shopping malls and the international restaurants in Kabul, it is perhaps easy to forget that this is, outside the capital, a deeply conservative country.

And for many, the burning of the holy book stands out as a moment, which eleven years after the invasion, demonstrates America still doesn’t understand the deeply held beliefs and traditions in Afghanistan.

It doesn’t matter, say my Muslim friends in the country, that the proper way to dispose of a damaged Quran is to burn it.

This was disrespectful.

  alJazeera

Well, there you go. I did not know that the proper way to dispose of the book is to burn it. Apparently there is a respectful way and a disrespectful way to burn it, and we managed the disrespectful way. But, what do Americans know about respect? Cut us some slack.

America has apologised for the incident and the US commander, General John Allen, has ordered all military personnel in the country undergo 10 days of sensitivity training on the handling of religious materials.

I'm sure that will take care of the matter.

Every day 400 Afghans become internally displaced, according to Amnesty International. At that rate, more than 2,500 Afghans were left homeless in the week of violent protests that swept the country recently over the burning of copies of the Quran at the US-led Bagram airbase.

They joined the ranks of internally displaced people (IDPs), already crowding makeshift camps that dot Afghanistan’s urban centres.

"It was incredible to see how people young and old could survive such poverty, destruction and filth" said Fatima Popal, an aid worker with the Kabul-based Aschiana Foundation, after visiting some of the camps during Afghanistan's harsh winter that has already claimed 40 lives this year.

Among the hapless crowds, Popal saw children without shoes, socks or jackets walking to tattered and worn tents that provided little or no protection against the biting cold.

But yet, the squalid camps are seen as the last refuge by Afghans fleeing violence back home, amid an unremitting conflict in which the principal actors are the Taliban and NATO-led troops.

[...]

Many - locals and war lords - have their eyes set on grabbing lands the IDPs occupy and those who had fled homes to seek refuge in urban centres find themselves engulfed in fresh hostility.

[...]

By Amnesty's estimates, the number of IDPs touched 500,000 last month - a figure that is certain to swell further.

Once in the camps, aid agencies say the inhabitants are made to fend for themselves, with the government virtually forsaking those who were forced to flee their homes.

  alJazeera

We don't need to worry about these people. They don't have guns.

Protecting Your Environment

The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists.

The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that mainly is used to pre-treat corn seeds. The pesticide scooped up $262 million in sales in 2009 by farmers, who also use the substance on canola, soy, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat, according to Grist.

The leaked document (PDF) was put out in response to Bayer's request to approve use of the pesticide on cotton and mustard. The document invalidates a prior Bayer study that justified the registration of clothianidin on the basis of its safety to honeybees.

  FastCompany

Oh, gee. Bayer said its product was safe. Imagine that. The EPA has been a sham for decades.

But the opinion of EPA scientists apparently isn't enough for the agency, which is allowing clothianidin to keep its registration.

Suspicions about clothianidin aren't new.

[...]

Clothianidin has already been banned by Germany, France, Italy, and Slovenia for its toxic effects.

It Boggles

When Washington brings “democracy” to a country, it means the country’s destruction, as in Libya and Iraq. It doesn’t mean democracy. Libya is in chaos, a human rights nightmare without an effective government.

Washington installed Nouri al-Maliki as president of Iraq. He lost an election, but remained in power. He has declared his vice president to be a terrorist and ordered his arrest and is using the state police to arrest Sunni politicians.

[...]

The consequence of the US invasion was not democracy and women’s rights in Iraq, much less the destruction of weapons of mass destruction which did not exist as the weapons inspectors had made perfectly clear beforehand. The consequence was to transfer political power from Sunnis to Shi’ites. The Shi’ite version of Islam is the Iranian version. Thus, Washington’s invasion transferred power in Iraq from a secular government to Shi’ites allied with Iran.

Now Washington intends to repeat its folly in Syria. According to the american secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, Washington is even prepared to ally with al-Qaeda in order to overthrow Assad’s government.

[...]

On February 26, the Syrian government held a referendum on a new constitution for Syria that set term limits on future presidents and removed the political monopoly that the Ba’ath Party has enjoyed.

[...]

The new Syrian constitution was approved by a vote of 89.4%.

But Washington denounced the democratic referendum and claims that the Syrian government must be overthrown in order to bring democracy to Syria.

Washington’s allies in the region, unelected oil monarchies such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have issued statements that they are willing to supply weapons to the Islamist rebels in order to bring democracy--something they do not tolerate at home--to Syria.

  Paul Craig Roberts

Yeah, we don't tolerate too much democracy here, either.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.