Snowden Has A Simple Solution To Get To The Bottom Of The US Afghan Bombing ''War Crime''

[Octafish]

SOURCE: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-07/snowden-has-simple-solution-get-bottom-us-afghan-bombing-war-crime

[jeff47]

1. Uh....what?

The US has already said they dropped the bombs. Those tapes would prove that the US dropped the bombs.

What is to be determined is who in the chain of command authorized the strike, and why they didn't know/notice/care that they were firing on an MSF facility. That isn't on that recording.

[Octafish]

2. Uh...the plane circled overhead for an hour.

In addition to whatever bombs got dropped, there's video of who and for how long laid fire into the hospital itself. Surrounding buildings on the campus were largely untouched. While the C-130 gunship circled overhead for an hour, the Doctors Without Borders people were phoning everyone in authority in the US-Afghan chain of command, including the people who they had send the hospital's co-ordinates a week earlier.

The Pentagon probably has radio transcripts, as the NSA. They should be made public, too.

[jeff47]

3. And the US admitted to doing that. So what use is the video?

US Government: "We did that"
Snowden: "RELEASE THE TAPES!!!!!"
Tapes get released
Snowden: "SEE! THE US DID THAT"
US Government: "Yeah, we already said we did it."

What needs to be determined is who ordered it, and why they ordered it. The tape won't show that.

[Octafish]

4. It's the difference between hearing you tell me about it and seeing it with my own eyes.

For instance what PFC Manning found made it on WikiLeaks and changed millions of people's perceptions about how the USA was conducting its illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous war on Iraq.

This is still a democracy, apart from all the war and domestic spying and election stealing. I mean, this is still supposed to be a democracy...

[jeff47]

5. So, it's needed as a PR stunt. (nt)

[Octafish]

7. That's one way of looking at it. I'd say it would prove or disprove a war crime.

Which is what attacking a hospital is, even when it's a war on terror.

[Dont call me Shirley]

62. It's called transparency.

[jeff47]

63. No, it's the illusion of transparency. Because while you're gawking at the footage

you aren't gawking at the guy who ordered the attack.

We know what's on the tape. A radio operator will pass along the order to fire. Then the gunner fires.

Makes for lovely TV. Doesn't actually find the person responsible, nor shed any light on who that is.

But hey, such things totally caught who was really behind Abu Ghraib!!

[Dont call me Shirley]

64. In the military orders come from the top down.

[7wo7rees]

6. Right.we keep repeating the mantra to ourselves.

So nice to see you, Octafish. Wish you could have been in Dallas the last week. Tons of fun in Dealey Plaza.

Can't wait to see what the NetFlix team comes up with .
Time traveling person lands in Dallas, 11/22/63. Thank you Mr King. Oh and Mr. Franco.

[Octafish]

8. That movie sounds like an interesting project.

If it keeps the story alive in the hearts and minds of people, I'm for it.

PS: Thank you for the kind words, 7wo7rees! Always great to read ya!

[cantbeserious]

26. And That Makes The US A Terrorist State For Committing A War Crime

eom

[Blue_Tires]

9. You mean a stupidly obvious and simplistic solution? Sure...

1. Who is the independent organization that plans to investigate this, with the approval of both U.S. and Afghanistan?

2. Audio recordings would be heavily redacted, since they could reveal classified info about our procedures, operations, and SOF folks on the ground

3. Audio recordings of these kinds of incidents aren't released to the public anyway

4. Audio recordings wouldn't provide a guaranteed smoking gun, since the 'blame' could lie with someone much higher in the chain of command...


Since the MH17 report is coming out tomorrow, I look forward to Snowden's "expert" solution for that, too...

[Octafish]

10. That makes sense, in a way. But I prefer to see for myself.

1. Who is the independent organization that plans to investigate this, with the approval of both U.S. and Afghanistan?

2. Audio recordings would be heavily redacted, since they could reveal classified info about our procedures, operations, and SOF folks on the ground

3. Audio recordings of these kinds of incidents aren't released to the public anyway

4. Audio recordings wouldn't provide a guaranteed smoking gun, since the 'blame' could lie with someone much higher in the chain of command...

1. Don't know.
2. They are, aren't they? That doesn't make it right.
3. They aren't. That's why we need WikiLeaks, especially when the government doesn't respond to the governed. I seem to remember voting for peace a ways back.
4. So what? Expose criminality and reveal who gave criminal orders. Letting warmongers walk free, like the banksters, is a travesty of justice.

If you think that's obvious and simplistic, great. To me it's how things are supposed to be in my country.

[Blue_Tires]

11. Wikileaks is too biased against the U.S., so it's not like they would be an impartial party

Funny that they've never offered any cash rewards for information/documents in the MH17 shootdown, among other things...

We both know damn well if the U.S. was suspected of shooting it down and then obstructing the investigation, Assange/Greenwald would still be screaming about it...

[Octafish]

14. WikiLeaks has nothing to do with bias as it published official US documents.

The documents also show the corrupt nature of US foreign policy, in addition to all the war crimes.

War is big business. It's an insider's game. It's why we have so much secret government.

The last remaining enormous wads of cash in the Treasury are to be had for purchasing today's modern military industrial intel complex.



There's more than a trillion to be grabbed -- just for the Lockheed-Martin F-35.

Now keeping tabs on us -- people interested in using some of the nation's treasure for more peaceful purposes -- are for-hire spies. How do I know this? Julian Assange and Anonymous:

WikiLeaks' Stratfor Dump Lifts Lid on Intelligence-Industrial Complex

WikiLeaks' latest release, of hacked emails from Stratfor, shines light on the murky world of private intelligence-gathering

by Pratap Chatterjee
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2012 by The Guardian/UK

What price bad intelligence? Some 5m internal emails from Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based company that brands itself as a "global intelligence" provider, were recently obtained by Anonymous, the hacker collective, and are being released in batches by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowing website, starting Monday.

The most striking revelation from the latest disclosure is not simply the military-industrial complex that conspires to spy on citizens, activists and trouble-causers, but the extremely low quality of the information available to the highest bidder. Clients of the company include Dow Chemical, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon, as well as US government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Marines.

SNIP...

Assange notes that Stratfor is also seeking to profit directly from this information by partnering in an apparent hedge-fund venture with Shea Morenz, a former Goldman Sachs managing director. He points to an August 2011 document, marked "DO NOT SHARE OR DISCUSS", from Stratfor CEO George Friedman, which says:

"What StratCap will do is use our Stratfor's intelligence and analysis to trade in a range of geopolitical instruments, particularly government bonds, currencies and the like."

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/28-10?print

If it weren't for Anonymous and WikiLeaks, we probably wouldn't know about any of that.

It's no joke. It's no unimportant story. It's no boring history. Run by insiders, the secret government is key to making the system run on behalf of the few -- the 1-percent of 1-percent. Central to that is intelligence -- economically, politically and military useful information.

Which brings up the nation's purported free press, the only business mentioned by name in the entire United States Constitution, and how the organizations therein have miserably failed to feature prominently the sundry and myriad ways the insiders on Wall Street and their toadies in Washington do the work for Them.

The problem is systemic. The corruption is systemic.

Because it involves oversight of secret organizations -- the Pentagon, Homeland Security, CIA, etc -- Congress and the Administration often have no clue, let alone oversight, to what is happening because the corruption is marked "Top Secret."

Secret government also means We the People can't do our job as citizens, which is to hold them accountable and find the ones responsible in order to vote the crooks out and, it is hoped, the honest ones in.

With no citizen oversight, anything goes. And it doesn't stop.

Remember this fine fellow, US Navy fighter ace Randy "Duke" Cunningham?

Later a member of the United States Congress, he used his position to feather his nest, Big Time.



In his political career, Cunningham was a member of the Appropriations and Intelligence committees, and chaired the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Human Intelligence Analysis and Counterintelligence during the 109th Congress. He was considered a leading Republican expert on national security issues.

Currently, he's in USP Tuscon or another fine facility where he gets three squares, medical and dental.
He's due for release in a year or so. He'll be able to pick up his pension.

"The Duke Cunningham Act, also known as the Federal Pension Forfeiture Act, was introduced by U.S. Senator John F. Kerry in 2006. The bill would have denied pension benefits to any members of Congress convicted of bribery, conspiracy or perjury. The bill died in committee. (Source: The Press Enterprise)

Duke wasn't alone. He really was just one snake in a long line of snakes. Remember Dusty Foggo, Number 3 at CIA and close associate of CIA Director and former Congressman Porter Goss? Swells sitting atop the peak of political and military secrecy and power.

Unfortunately, when it comes to modern governance, no oversight means means the insiders are getting away with murder, and warmongering and treason and all the power that they bring. Appointed pretzeldent George W Bush on Valentine's Day 2007 put it in words: "Money trumps peace."

Secret government warmongering and war profiteering are systemic. Secret government is rotten to the core. What's more, in a democracy that once really was land of the free and home of the brave, secret government poses the greatest threat to true national security.

[Blue_Tires]

15. The Sony e-mails were "official" US documents?

But until they start airing some of Russia's dirty laundry (and don't tell me they couldn't get their hands on it if they really wanted to) my point still stands...

Russia has repeatedly blocked any attempt to create an international criminal tribunal... Remember that

[Octafish]

16. Obviously, right? Russia has zero to do with USA strafing the MSF hospital in Kunduz.

It is a sign of a corrupt war that we have to get information that is rightly the People's from whistleblowers and leakers. In the present case: War Crimes that would be clear to see with C130 gun camera tape.

[Blue_Tires]

60. And the U.S. has jack shit to do with MH17

Yet only one incident seems to bring out the ire of St. Julian

[malaise]

38. +1,000

You defend democracy over and over

[riderinthestorm]

12. The U.S. has changed its story four times @ the MSF hospital bombing

I for one would like to see some video and radio logs since I don't trust that this was "an accident".

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/06/doctors-without-borders-airstrike-afghanistan-us-account-changes-again

[Octafish]

13. Someone wanted to send a message.

"Your help is not welcome in our war."

Doctors make great expert witnesses, unless they're dead.

One doesn't hear much about the lucrative Afghan heroin trade for the same reason.

From 2007: Reports Link Karzai’s Brother to Afghanistan Heroin Trade

[riderinthestorm]

23. This was a war crime. There needs to be justice

those folks upthread insisting we just move on, "we admitted it!" and that's all that needs doing are spewing the same bullshit and are the same ones who hate seeing US malfeasance exposed.

Of course they don't see why it's necessary to release the tapes.

[CanSocDem]

17. kicked and recommended!

The Snowden Solution involves truth and honesty. So un-American.....



.

[Octafish]

18. Not even Congress can see the tapes -- it's like the cops and an 'ongoing investigation'

Investigators Scour Secret Tapes of the Afghan Hospital Attack

While U.S. pilots carried out airstrikes that killed 22, video and audio recorders were capturing the tragedy from inside the cockpit.

by Nancy A. Youssef
The Daily Beast, Oct. 10, 2015

U.S. military investigators are focusing on classified video and audio recordings taken from the gunship that carried out a lethal attack on a hospital in Afghanistan, The Daily Beast has learned.

A U.S. defense official told The Daily Beast the recordings were key to the Pentagon’s emerging understanding of the assault in Kunduz that killed 22 people, including patients and medical personnel from Doctors Without Borders.

Among the recordings available from the AC-130 gunship involved in the attack are conversations among the gunship crew as they fired on the facility, and as they communicated with U.S. soldiers on the ground.

Earlier this week, Pentagon officials saw and heard the recordings, the official told The Daily Beast; the audio recordings were particularly illuminating. The recordings helped lead the U.S. military to conclude that the so-called rules of engagement—the guidelines for the use of force—were misapplied. Because of the ongoing investigation, the defense official—and the Pentagon’s spokespeople—refused to comment on the details of what the recordings captured.

Questions about the recordings of the attack came up this week in classified briefings on Capitol Hill, but the military did not make either the audio or video available to congressmen and senators who oversee the Pentagon. And even when a lawmaker directly requested to listen to the audio, a senior congressional aide told The Daily Beast, they were rebuffed by the Department of Defense, which cited its continuing investigation as a reason not to share it.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/10/afghan-hospital-attack-s-secret-tapes.html

PS: I feel so much safer knowing the Military Industrial Intelligence Complex is keeping us safe mostly. Too bad about democracy. Oh, well. Just another victim of war.

[Ichingcarpenter]

19. My Lai would have been hidden forever if not for military whistle blower

But war crimes were committed by the US military on a far bigger scale.

Researching post-traumatic stress disorder among Vietnam veterans, in 2001 I stumbled across a collection of war crimes investigations carried out by the military at the US National Archives.

Box after box of criminal investigation reports and day-to-day paperwork had been long buried away and almost totally forgotten. Some detailed the most nightmarish descriptions. Others hinted at terrible events that had not been followed up.

At that time the US military had at its disposal more killing power, destructive force, and advanced technology than any military in the history of the world.

The amount of ammunition fired per soldier was 26 times greater in Vietnam than during World War II. By the end of the conflict, America had unleashed the equivalent of 640 Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs on Vietnam.
Vast areas dotted with villages were blasted with artillery, bombed from the air and strafed by helicopter gunships before ground troops went in on search-and-destroy missions.
The phrase "kill anything that moves" became an order on the lips of some American commanders whose troops carried out massacres across their area of operations.

While the US suffered more than 58,000 dead in the war, an estimated two million Vietnamese civilians were killed, another 5.3 million injured and about 11 million, by US government figures, became refugees in their own country.
Today, if people remember anything about American atrocities in Vietnam, they recall the March 1968 My Lai massacre in which more than 500 civilians were killed over the course of four hours, during which US troops even took time out to eat lunch.

Far bloodier operations, like one codenamed Speedy Express, should be remembered as well, but thanks to cover-ups at the highest levels of the US military, few are.

Gen Julian Ewell earned the nickname Butcher of the Delta during his time in Vietnam

Industrial-scale slaughter

In late 1968, the 9th Infantry Division, under the command of Gen Julian Ewell, kicked off a large-scale operation in the Mekong Delta, the densely populated deep south of Vietnam.

In an already body count-obsessed environment, Ewell, who became known as the Butcher of the Delta, was especially notorious. He sacked subordinates who killed insufficient numbers and unleashed heavy firepower on a countryside packed with civilians

A whistle-blower in the division wrote to the US Army Chief of Staff William Westmoreland, pleading for an investigation. Artillery called in on villages, he reported, had killed women and children. Helicopter gunships had frightened farmers into running and then cut them down. Troops on the ground had done the same thing.

The result was industrial-scale slaughter, the equivalent, he said, to a "My Lai each month".Just look at the ratio of Viet Cong reportedly killed to weapons captured, he told Westmoreland.Indeed, by the end of the operation Ewell's division claimed an enemy body count of close to 11,000, but turned in fewer than 750 captured weapons.

Westmoreland ignored the whistle-blower, scuttled a nascent inquiry, and buried the files, but not before an internal Pentagon report endorsed some of the whistle-blower's most damning allegations.

The secret investigation into Speedy Express remained classified for decades before I found it in buried in the National Archives.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-23427726

The military is not to be trusted with investigating their
own crimes, as this has been shown time and time again.

[Octafish]

20. Someone isn't being held to account.

America is lied into illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous wars. No problem.

War on a country that had NOTHING to do with 9-11. No problem.

Torture, murder and rape of imprisoned people, including children . No problem.

War crimes on a massive scale, such as Fallujah. No problem.

Captive press which ignores all the above. No problem.

For pointing out something's really wrong, we're the ones with the problem.

[wildbilln864]

21. yep! nailed it again Octafish....

Exposing the corruption and who the criminals are is the way to a better America. IMHOOC. :HI:

[Octafish]

39. My Lai probably would never happen had JFK lived.

President Kennedy ordered US withdrawal from South Vietnam. The Nation magazine wanted to know "Why don't Americans know what really happened in Vietnam?" Interesting read, it brings up how much USA uses the volunteer military and observes the corporate owned news media don't want to bring that up so that people continue to thank the troops for their service without wondering why they're tasked with missions in 133 countries around the world. What the article missed and people need to know:

JFK ordered withdrawal from Vietnam. LBJ reversed it four days after Dallas.

In National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) 263 JFK orders everybody out...

The 1,000 advisors were the beginning. All US military personnel were to be out of the country by the end of 1965, reported James K. Galbraith.

Then in NSAM 273, four days after the assassination in Dallas, LBJ changes the policy to stay and support South Vietnam in its "contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy."

That important part of the Vietnam story doesn't get repeated anywhere near enough, even on DU.

[msanthrope]

22. So now you don't believe in 5th amendment? nt

[Octafish]

24. Must we protect the national security state, no matter the cost?

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

I support all that. Please help me understand how Congress seeing a tape would jeopardize a fair trial.

BTW: There's not enough money in the world to get me to rationalize, let alone support, war crimes.

[msanthrope]

32. It's called due process.... evidence isn't general released into the public domain

While an investigation is pending. what possible reason would a congressman need to see this evidence now before any investigation has even started or concluded?

[riderinthestorm]

33. Congress is often involved, especially when investigations are ongoing

Secret sessions are common. There's no reason to abdicate Congressional oversight now...


... Unless there's something to hide or evidence to subvert.

[msanthrope]

34. Fabulous....can you name me an Oversight Committee you think should

Be involved at this point?

[riderinthestorm]

37. A special investigatory sub committee of the Armed Services Committee nt

[msanthrope]

40. Headed by a Republican. nt

[riderinthestorm]

43. So you'd prefer this war crime isn't investigated?

Why am I not surprised...

I certainly don't trust the military to investigate this. As a student of history, I remember My Lai...

While this doesn't have the body count, bombing a MSF hospital needs investigating by others outside the military.

[msanthrope]

46. You have no idea if this is a war crime. And, as a criminal

defense attorney, I would advocate that the putative defendants deserve what they signed on for......the UMCJ, and the due process afforded under that.

Do you really think a Republican-led committee will provide justice?

[Octafish]

49. That's what the tapes would show.

As for the Republicans leading a committee being unable to provide justice: Where is the Attorney General? Is she going to follow in the footsteps of her Democratic predecessor who let the CIA torturers walk, along with those who lied America into war and those who looted the banks? Where's the justice there?

[Octafish]

35. Q: Since when is Congress considered secondary to the military?

A: Nov. 22, 1963.

[msanthrope]

41. Since when is the 5th amendment secondary to Snowden's

demands.

[Octafish]

42. That doesn't matter, though. Were this a democracy, Congress would demand accountability.

Last edited Sun Jun 12, 2016, 08:05 PM - Edit history (1)

That hasn't happened since the Church Committee.

Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) was a patriot, a hero and a statesman, truly a great American.

The guy also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he definitely knew what he was talking about:

[font color="green"]“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”[/font color]

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, he narrowly lost re-election the next cycle.

And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1

From GWU's National Security Archives:

"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/

I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-PA), a liberal Republican, also got the treatment from NSA?

“I think that the report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the [investigation of the] John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT, thanks to people who care about democracy.

Regarding your observation, Snowden didn't demand anything.

[still_one]

27. How about the Russian bombing of Syria Edward, tell us how you feel about that while you are at it

[Octafish]

28. Good question. I think Snowden is against terrorism.

That's why he went to work for NSA and/or Booz Allen Hamilton.

Behind the Curtain: Booz Allen Hamilton and its Owner, The Carlyle Group

Written by Bob Adelmann
The New American; June 13, 2013

According to writers Thomas Heath and Marjorie Censer at the Washington Post, The Carlyle Group and its errant child, Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH), have a public relations problem, thanks to NSA leaker and former BAH employee Edward Snowden. By the time top management at BAH learned that one of their top level agents had gone rogue, and terminated his employment, it was too late.

For years Carlyle had, according to the Post, “nurtured a reputation as a financially sophisticated asset manager that buys and sells everything from railroads to oil refineries”; but now the light from the Snowden revelations has revealed nothing more than two companies, parent and child, “bound by the thread of turning government secrets into profits.”

And have they ever. When The Carlyle Group bought BAH back in 2008, it was totally dependent upon government contracts in the fields of information technology (IT) and systems engineering for its bread and butter. But there wasn't much butter: After two years the company’s gross revenues were $5.1 billion but net profits were a minuscule $25 million, close to a rounding error on the company’s financial statement. In 2012, however, BAH grossed $5.8 billion and showed earnings of $219 million, nearly a nine-fold increase in net revenues and a nice gain in value for Carlyle.

Unwittingly, the Post authors exposed the real reason for the jump in profitability: close ties and interconnected relationships between top people at Carlyle and BAH, and the agencies with which they are working. The authors quoted George Price, an equity analyst at BB&T Capital: "[Booz Allen has] got a great brand, they've focused over time on hiring top people, including bringing on people who have a lot of senior government experience." (Emphasis added.)

For instance, James Clapper had a stint at BAH before becoming the current Director of National Intelligence; George Little consulted with BAH before taking a position at the Central Intelligence Agency; John McConnell, now vice chairman at BAH, was director of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the ‘90s before moving up to director of national intelligence in 2007; Todd Park began his career with BAH and now serves as the country's chief technology officer; James Woolsey, currently a senior vice president at BAH, served in the past as director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and so on.

BAH has had more than a little problem with self-dealing and conflicts of interest over the years. For instance in 2006 the European Commission asked the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Privacy International (PI) to investigate BAH’s involvement with President George Bush’s SWIFT surveillance program, which was viewed by that administration as “just another tool” in its so-called “War on Terror.” The only problem is that it was illegal, as it violated U.S., Belgian, and European privacy laws. BAH was right in the middle of it. According to the ACLU/PI report,

Though Booz Allen’s role is to verify that the access to the SWIFT data is not abused, its relationship with the U.S. Government calls its objectivity significantly into question. (Emphasis added.)

Among Booz Allen’s senior consulting staff are several former members of the intelligence community, including a former Director of the CIA and a former director of the NSA.

As noted by Barry Steinhardt, an ACLU director, “It’s bad enough that the [Bush] administration is trying to hold out a private company as a substitute for genuine checks and balances on its surveillance activities. But of all companies to perform audits on a secret surveillance program, it would be difficult to find one less objective and more intertwined with the U.S. government security establishment.” (Emphasis added.)

CONTINUED w Links n Privatized INTEL...

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15696-behind-the-curtain-booz-allen-hamilton-and-its-owner-the-carlyle-group

While I don't think they share it with Russia in their fight against terrorism, I do wonder who Carlyle Group shares all that inside information they gather for the NSA?.

[still_one]

29. No question about it, the Carlyle Group has and has had some questionable dealings.

My only point was that criticism should be applied equally when wrong doings occur.

As for the bombing of the Doctor without Borders hospital, I do not see any evidence up to now that it was intentional. However, if it turns out to be so, then it could be considered as such, since that would be a planned attack on a civilian population.

[Octafish]

30. The attack(s) lasted an hour.

MSF was on the phone, reminding the US and Afghan military of what they were attacking.

The week before they had actually given their co-ordinates to the US and Afghan military to prevent confusion.

http://m.heraldscotland.com/news/13802186.Nato_and_US_knew_precise_location_of_hospital_one_before_bombing_raid_killed_19_doctors_and_patients/

[cheapdate]

31. Kunduz was (and is) a war zone

where Afghan soldiers were fighting Taliban guerrillas for control.

The conventions of war protect non-combatants and require armies to respect non-combatant immunity. It also recognizes that armies have a duty to engage, kill, and destroy their enemies (such is the awful logic and morality of war.) Armies in a war zone are not obligated to keep non-combatant deaths at zero. It is not considered a crime when non-combatants killed in cross-fire or in the collateral effects of combat. Soldiers also have immunity.

I don't know what happened in Kunduz. A hospital is not a legitimate military target, but becomes one if it's occupied by fighting soldiers.

[Octafish]

36. MSF phoned US and Afghan authorities, attack continued 30 minutes...

Hospital repeatedly gave coordinates to US and Afghan authorities.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/10/03/airstrike-kills-at-least-nine-doctors-without-borders/

The facts seem to show it was an intentional attack. The radio and video evidence will go a long way in determining guilt.

You know, after CIA torturers got off scot-free, they really don't have much to worry about. Who will hold them to account? The law? The press? MOCKINGBIRD? Congress? Don't make me laugh.

[cheapdate]

44. I don't doubt that they meant to hit the building.

I'm sure they did. But I would have to presume they belived they were striking a legitimate military target. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

[riderinthestorm]

45. This was a MSF hospital! Their coordinates were known!

WTF? !

They "believed " they were striking a military target?!

What evidence "to the contrary " do you need?

MSF has many decades of neutral war zone medical assistance.

I double dog dare you to find any incidence of MSF political alliance.

[cheapdate]

47. So, what's your theory?

Some mission planner at Centcom just decided, Hey? Lets blow up a MSF hospital, because, fuck 'em, that's why!

Is that how you think it went down?

My theory is that Afghan soldiers requested an air strike against a hostile position -- as they had been doing for days in the battle to retake Kunduz from the Taliban. Mission planners quickly OK'd the request and the circling gunship opened fire.

Was there really hostile fire coming from the hospital? I don't know. Or we're the strike coordinates messed up somehow? I don't know.

But I do know that I reject the "hospitals...fuck 'em" theory.

[Octafish]

48. That's what the tapes would show.

BTW: What is the "hospitals...fuck 'em" theory?

[cheapdate]

51. It was the alternative, speculative theory

that I proposed (purely for the sake of argument) in the first half of my last post.

The theory explains the MSF attack thusly - "Some mission planner at Centcom just decided, Hey? Lets blow up a MSF hospital, because, fuck 'em, that's why!"

That's the "Hospitals...fuck 'em" theory.

[Octafish]

53. Thanks. I didn't think you were blaming the victim.

Seeing how Doctors Without Borders has been working in Afghanistan since 1980, which is as long as the United States has been making war in Afghanistan fighting commies and what-not for who-knows-what for.

Officially, of course, the USA has been at war in Afghanistan for only 14 years.

[marmar]

50. K/R

Some of the responses to this OP were tragically predictable.

[Octafish]

54. Orwellian in the worst of ways.

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

[kelliekat44]

52. When Mr. Snowden turns over the tapes of what he said and is saying to the Russians and Chinese he

can speak. Otherwise he needs to keep quiet.

[Octafish]

55. Anything to add about attacking the MSF hospital?

[B Calm]

56. It's war, shit happens. How many hospitals did we blow up in WW2?

[Octafish]

57. Like Jebthro said, 14 years of war and ''shit happens.''

I hope you don't believe the idea that war is necessary for our, or actually the 1-percent of 1-percent's, way of life. I know that in flackademia it has gained increasing acceptance:

The Pitfalls of Peace

The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth

Tyler Cowen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014

The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.

An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.

The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.

Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.

It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.

War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.

SNIP...

Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you don’t get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but it’s something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0

Do you know anyone who's died or been wounded in all of these wars for profit, B Calm? I do.

[B Calm]

58. Listen, there isn't anyone here more against this god damn war than I. We need to bring our troops

home now., but even you have to admit that shitty things do happen in war.

[bobthedrummer]

61. Re: the last sentence of post 57-so do I, and many of US respect Ed Snowden for what he did. K&R n/t

[JEB]

59. K&R&bookmark