Former CIA Agent Is Being Charged with Terrorism and Murder Over Drone Strike

Carey Wedler

Two former CIA employees will be charged with murder, terrorism, conspiracy, and waging war in Pakistan regarding the agency’s highly-criticized drone program in the Middle East. This week, Judge Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui of the Islamabad high court in Pakistan ordered former CIA station chief, Jonathan Banks, and former CIA general counsel, John Rizzo (who gave the legal approval for the strikes), to be charged.

Though the United States has performed over 400 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004, the charges stem specifically from a 2009 incident that killed the son and brother of Kareem Khan, a tribesman in North Waziristan. The United States and Pakistani governments claimed those killed were militants but offered no proof. Khan denies those allegations.

Pakistan’s New Orwellian Cell Phone Policy: Register Fingerprints or Lose Service

By Josh Paniagua

In November 2012, Pakistani officials announced their plans for mandatory biometric registration for all mobile devices. Now, after a lengthy delay, the policy is now being enforced on all 136 million mobile subscribers in Pakistan.

In what appears to be the hastiest gathering of biometric verification in history, millions of Pakistanis are forming massive lines outside of their mobile provider outlets waiting to register their fingerprints with their SIM card.

Drone reportedly kills top Pakistani Taliban figure as Pakistanis continue to decry drone program

image source: State Department

Madison Ruppert

According to Pakistani officials and militants, a leader of the Pakistani Taliban was killed by a drone strike on Wednesday while the people of Pakistan continue to decry the U.S. drone program.

Despite President Obama’s claims that there would be new restrictions on and transparency in the drone program, American officials refused to confirm the strike or any details about it, despite the news being reported in Pakistan, according to The New York Times.

If this drone strike is officially confirmed, it would be the first strike since Obama gave his speech last week promising changes to the drone program.

CODEPINK Repeatedly Disrupts Brennan Hearing Calling Out Names of Civilians Killed in Drone Strikes

Thursday’s confirmation hearing for CIA nominee John Brennan was briefly postponed to clear the room of activists from CODEPINK after they repeatedly disrupted Brennan’s testimony. One woman held a list of Pakistani children killed in U.S. drone strikes. Former U.S. diplomat Col. Ann Wright interrupted Brennan while wearing a sign around her neck with the name of Tariq Aziz, a 16-year-old Pakistani boy who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2011. Wright and seven others were arrested. We speak to CODEPINK founder Medea Benjamin, who also disrupted the meeting and recently visited Pakistan to speak with victims of drone strikes. "It’s not only the killing, it’s the terrorizing of entire populations, where they hear the drones buzzing overhead 24 hours a day, where they’re afraid to go to school, afraid to go to the markets, to funerals, to weddings, where it disrupts entire communities," Benjamin says. "And we are trying to get this information to our elected officials, to say, 'You are making us unsafe here at home,' to say nothing of how illegal, immoral and inhumane these policies are." 

GUEST:

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CODEPINK and author of Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.

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80% of Drone Strike Victims Innocent Civilians

Youtube - RT

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The Not-So-Secret War in Pakistan Exposed

We Are Change

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Western Media: Iran, China, and Pakistan! Oh My!

M. Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Ah, good ol’ Iran making ambiguous threats which are then used by the corporate media to hype up an irrational fear and support for a possible preemptive strike. The media’s Iran fearmongering was on a bit of a hiatus as they utilized their propaganda machine to focus on Libya, Syria, and Pakistan. However, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s Aerospace Force gave the Western media plenty of murky possible threats to run with.

Replace lions, tigers and bears with Iran, China and Pakistan, then imagine Dorothy, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow as the English, British and Israeli arms of the Western propaganda machine. I think they’d be better off just dubbing over that as their brand of fearmongering is even less effective. (The YouTube video cannot be embedded but can be seen here.)

The above linked Fox News piece is headlined, “Guard Chief: Iran Can Build Longer-Range Missiles,” while the article goes on to say they’re not doing it because they can already attack Israeli and American bases in the Persian Gulf. These remarks just happen to be delivered during massive Iranian war games stretching over 10 days, codenamed “Great Prophet 6.”

Iran has been flaunting their new underground missile silos which are designed to avoid satellite detection, among other intimidating weaponry during this extended exercise. This is very likely a reaction to the United States’ attempted missile defense shield program which would encircle the entire region. This plan was vocally opposed by Russia and the other nations that would have hundreds of ballistic missiles pointed directly at them.

India approves $4bn Boeing military deal

© AFP/File Pierre Verdy

AFP

NEW DELHI (AFP) - India on Monday cleared a more than $4.0-billion deal to buy military transport planes from Boeing in the biggest ever defence deal between New Delhi and an American firm, officials said.

The agreement for the C-17 Globemaster III planes, used for transporting heavy equipment, was cleared at a meeting of the government's cabinet committee on security affairs, a senior government official said.

The Indian defence ministry declined to comment but the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the cabinet gave its clearance to buy 10 C-17 aircraft.

How the empire will prevail: Will Washington Foment War Between China and India?

India-China Proxy War in the Works?
Wikimedia Image

Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars

What is Washington’s solution for the rising power of China?

The answer might be to involve China in a nuclear war with India.

The staging of the fake death of bin Laden in a commando raid that violated Pakistan’s sovereignty was sold to President Obama by the military/security complex as a way to boost Obama’s standing in the polls.

The raid succeeded in raising Obama’s approval ratings. But its real purpose was to target Pakistan and to show Pakistan that the US was contemplating invading Pakistan in order to make Pakistan pay for allegedly hiding bin Laden next door to Pakistan’s military academy. The neocon, and increasingly the US military position, is that the Taliban can’t be conquered unless NATO widens the war theater to Pakistan, where the Taliban allegedly has sanctuaries protected by the Pakistan government, which takes American money but doesn’t do Washington’s bidding.

78 percent of Pakistani children with polio were given polio vaccines

Dees Illustration

Daniel Erickson
Natural News

In the last year, as Pakistan has lost favor with the US and UNICEF, polio virus has paralyzed increasing numbers of Pakistani youth, casting doubt on the good intentions of those who fight polio. To make matters worse, most of the new cases have occurred in children already vaccinated. Is the US attempting to fight Pakistan by tainting inoculation doses?

The medical data suggests that the vaccine has changed in its efficacy against the disease. Last year, there were 136 cases of infected youth, and 107 of these had been administered multiple polio vaccinations. These figures are the largest the Polio Global Eradication Initiative has seen since 2006, despite heavy treatment in the most affected areas, South Punjab and the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA).

Even the more peaceful provinces have suffered. As reported by the Pakistan Daily times, there were 10 cases of polio in Sindh province in the first four months of the year. The article morbidly notes each of the cases, citing the children's names and the number of vaccinations they had received before the onset of polio virus: "Mohammad Asif, aged 40 months with all his limbs affected... was administered oral anti polio vaccine (OPV) four times... The three and a half years old Ameera... had one of her arms and legs paralyzed... Ameera was first of the confirmed cases of polio during the current year."

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Globalists' Pakistan War; Destabilization and Invasion Long Planned

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Bangkok, Thailand May 11, 2011 - In a 2007 article from the London Guardian titled, "Bush handed blueprint to seize Pakistan's nuclear arsenal," it is stated that fears of destabilization inside Pakistan might prompt the United States to occupy Islamabad and the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, and Baluchistan in an attempt to secure Pakistan's nuclear warheads. Behind this report is Fredrick Kagan, brother of the equally sloven Robert Kagan of the Foreign Policy Initiative, yet another contrived, corporate-fueled warmongering think-tank.

Fredrick Kagan sits within the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). AEI's board of trustees represents a wide variety of corporate-financier interests including those of the notorious Carlyle Group, State Farm, American Express, and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (also of the CFR). War criminal Dick Cheney also acts as a trustee. Joining Kagan as members of AEI's "research staff" are warmongers Newt Gingrich, John Bolton, Richard Perle, John Yoo, and Paul Wolfowitz.

While the sense of self-importance these degenerates shower upon themselves may seem comical, with titles like "senior fellow" and "resident scholar," the fact that their "policy research" usually becomes corporate subsidized "policy reality" and subsequently the American people's unending nightmare, is enough reason to keep tabs on them. For instance Fredrick Kagan was supposedly the architect behind the US troop surge in Iraq. And while we may kid ourselves that with Obama taking office the agenda of these supposed Neo-Conservatives is sidelined, Paul Wolfowitz's plan to overthrow the nations of the Middle East, now being fully executed with US-funded revolutions, probably couldn't have been done without the veil of "left-cover."

NATO helicopter attacks Pakistani army post

Wiki Commons

Ishtiaq Mahsud and Heidi Vogt
Associated Press/Yahoo! News

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Pakistani troops and a NATO helicopter that crossed into Pakistani territory exchanged fire on Tuesday, wounding two soldiers, local officials said, and Pakistan protested, further straining relations with the West following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Also Tuesday, the army said a "senior al-Qaida operative" had been arrested in the port city of Karachi. In a brief statement, it said Yemeni national Muhammad Ali Qasim Yaqub, alias Abu Sohaib Al Makki, had been working directly under al Qaida leaders along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. It did not say when he was arrested.

It was not immediately possible to locate any independent information about Al Makki.

Pakistan's army and intelligence agencies have faced intense international suspicions since bin Laden was killed on May 2 in an American raid on a large house in the army town of Abbottabad not far from the capital. Many American lawmakers have said bin Laden's location was a strong sign that Pakistan was playing a "double game" — that is accepting U.S. aid but also protecting terrorists. Pakistan denies that.

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Globalist Theater: Pakistan and the "Arab Spring"

CFR, Brookings, & New York Times join forces with ABC to deceive the nation. 

The utter farcical theater that is the West's mainstream "press."

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post 

Bangkok, Thailand May 16, 2011 - Richard Haass, the sloven Robert Kagan, and New York Times corespondent Anthony Shadid join Christiane Amanpour on ABC's "This Week" to give us a mind-numbing session of globalist propaganda.

Topics covered include Pakistan, the "Arab Spring," and in particular the unrest in Syria. To truly appreciate this intellectually, morally, and factually bankrupt spectacle, it would help to understand the documented truth regarding these three topics to see just how far from reality these dark forces have departed. It would also help to understand who Haass and Kagan work for and what they really have to gain from the unfolding global conflicts.

Kerry arrives in Pakistan after bin Laden warning

John Kerry gives a press conference at the US embassy in Kabul
© AFP Shah Marai

AFP

ISLAMABAD (AFP) - US Senator John Kerry arrived in Islamabad on Sunday for talks with Pakistani leaders at what he earlier warned was a "critical moment" for relations after the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

He landed two days after Pakistan's parliament insisted there must be no repeat of the secret commando operation that killed bin Laden and said US drone strikes targeting extremists on its territory must end.

The first senior US visitor since the Al-Qaeda kingpin's death, Kerry was to meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, foreign office spokeswoman Tehmina Janjua told AFP, to discuss "bilateral relations and regional issues".

US administration divided on ties with Pakistan: report

© AFP/File Jewel Samad

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The administration of US President Barack Obama is divided over the future of its relationship with Pakistan following the killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

US commandos killed bin Laden in an urban compound only 55 kilometers (35 miles) from the Pakistani capital Islamabad on May 2.

The newspaper said that some officials, particularly in the White House, have advocated a strong US response.

CIA has created own Taliban to wreak terror havoc on Pakistan, claims Pak paper

AFP File Image

ANI/Yahoo

Lahore, May 12(ANI): Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives have infiltrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda networks, and have created their own Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) force in order to destabilise Pakistan, a Pakistani newspaper has claimed.

Much of the information-gathering network of Pakistan's supreme security service was curtailed in the country's tribal areas during former military ruler Pervez Musharraf's era, consequently giving an edge to America's CIA, The Nation reported.

The CIA was given direct access to the entire territory of North and South Waziristan, which has since developed its stronghold in the belt, it added.

According to sources, the CIA's operations, which were suspended in Balochistan, Punjab, Islamabad and other areas of the country after the Raymond Allen Davis (RAD) incident, have also been restored.

Responding to a query, the sources said that the CIA operatives have infiltrated the Taliban and Al-Qaeda networks, and have created their own TTP force, the paper said.

This force has been recruited, trained and equipped by these CIA operatives to target the Pakistan Army personnel, armed forces' installations, markets, hospitals, schools and public places to destabilise Pakistan, the paper added.
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US charges six with aiding Pakistani Taliban

Pakistani soldiers patrol  in Islamabad
© AFP/File Farooq Naeem

AFP

MIAMI (AFP) - Members of a Pakistani American family were arrested Saturday on charges they created a fundraising network to buy guns for the Pakistani Taliban, US authorities said.

Hafiz Khan, a 76-year-old imam of a Miami mosque, two of his sons, his daughter, his grandson, and another man were indicted on charges including providing "material support" to a foreign terrorist organization.

"Members of the conspiracy created a network for the flow of money from inside the United States to Pakistan for the benefit of the Pakistani Taliban, and its supporters," the federal indictment said.
The network they established involved wire transfers and bank withdrawals of more than $46,000, according to the four-count indictment.

Khan and his son Izhar Khan, 24, were arrested in Florida, while a second son, 37-year-old Irfan Khan, was arrested in Los Angeles. Izhar Khan also is an imam at a separate Florida mosque. All three have court dates Monday.

Khan's daughter, Amina Khan, his grandson, Alam Zeb, and Ali Rehman all live in Pakistan and are at large.

Pakistan: US Has Overstayed Welcome

Amidst drone attacks & bombings, Pakistan threatens to strand US forces in Afghanistan

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Bangkok, Thailand May 14, 2011 - After a double bombing in Pakistan's north that resulted in over 80 deaths, the Western media was quick to report an unverified phone-call made from an "undisclosed location" to Reuters and AFP claiming the Taliban was responsible.

Reuters stated, "Now Pakistani rulers, President Zardari and the army will be our first targets. America will be our second target,” Ehsanullah Ehsan, a spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location." AFP reported similarly, "This was the first revenge for Osama’s martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location." Both Reuters and AFP never bother explaining who Ehsanullah Ehsan is or verifying their source. Far be it from the corporate-owned media to actually "inform" its audience.

The Mystery Bombing

Ehsanullah Ehsan, the man who supposedly claimed responsibility for the bombings, had been a former Taliban official and had long since left the organization to pursue more constructive efforts for his country's future. Wikipedia noted this, but was changed overnight, claiming Ehsanullah was now a Taliban spokesman and could potentially take a more "active leadership role." This all based entirely on a BBC article citing the Reuters "phone-call."

Wikipedia before May 13, 2011:

Obama speech on Arab world in coming days: report

© AFP/File Mandel Ngan

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama's long-expected speech on turmoil in the Arab world could take place as soon as next week, in the aftermath of the death of Osama bin Laden, a report said Wednesday.

Obama's address will focus on the popular uprisings, violence and political change sweeping the region, and also come at a time of deep uncertainty for his hopes of renewing talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the address, predicted back in April by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, could come as soon as next week, before Obama leaves on a Europe trip, which includes the G8 summit in France.

US terror trial to open amid tense Pakistan relations

The Taj Mahal Hotel 2008
© AFP/File Pedro Ugarte

AFP

CHICAGO (AFP) - The Chicago trial of a Pakistani man accused of helping to plot the deadly Mumbai attacks opens next week amid a diplomatic crisis which could worsen if evidence of Pakistan's involvement is revealed.

Pakistan is already trying to deflect mounting suspicion of official complicity with terrorism in the wake of the May 2 US raid which killed Osama bin Laden in an urban compound only 55 kilometers (35 miles) from Islamabad.

The world's most wanted terrorist had been living in the Abbottabad compound for five years, his wife told investigators.