Two Killed, 54 Wounded as Israel Cracks Down on Antiwar Protests

Israel Reacts Violently to West Bank Protests
 
AntiWar

Though most of the Israeli military’s killing these days is focused on the Gaza Strip, the military is also reacting more violently than usual toward West Bank protests, particularly antiwar rallies condemning the Gaza attacks.
Two protesters in the West Bank have been killed over the weekend, including 31-year-old Rushdi Tamimi, who was shot in the back with live ammunition and later died of his injuries. The other slain protester, 22-year-old Hamdi Mohammad Jawwad al-Falah from Hebron, was shot four times by Israeli troops, who claimed he attacked them, and that despite apparently being unarmed he put the troops in “immediate and present danger for their lives.”

54 other protesters were wounded in rallies, mostly shot by rubber bullets or suffering from tear gas inhalation. Though Israel is regularly quick to move against West Bank protests, the intensity of the attacks has surprised many.

Though Israeli forces have arrested many West Bank protest organizers, they will likely be detained without charges, and the bulk of the demonstrators don’t appear to have been accused of any crime, despite being attacked by troops to disperse them\

Petraeus' Resignation Will Stop Him From Testifying About Benghazi

Business Insider
Joshua Beringer

Getty

Former CIA Director David Petraeus' resignation today, following his confession of an extramarital affair, seemed to come out of nowhere, and has raised a plethora of questions that will need to be answered in the coming days.

It's worth asking: was this in any way connected to the September 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi?

Ben Shapiro at Breitbart seems to think so, calling the scandal the "latest in a string of groundshaking events demonstrating that the Obama administration hid information vital to the American people." And Rupert Murdoch seems to agree:

Rupert Murdoch

• ✔

@rupertmurdoch

Petraeus resignation. Timing, everything suspicious. There has to be more to this story.

9 Nov 12

• Reply
• Retweet
• Favorite

Petraeus was scheduled to testify before the House and Senate Intelligence committees on Thursday regarding the events surrounding September 11, as Congress gears up for a week of hearings related to the attack. Mark Knoller at CBS News tweets that he will no longer be testifying in light of his resignation, but acting CIA director Mike Morell will testify in his place, according to Politico. Morell was quickly named Petraeus' temporary replacement by the Obama administration.

However, many reject the theory that Petraeus' actions are connected to Benghazi. “This had nothing to do with Benghazi or relationship with the White House — which by the way was excellent — or anything else for that matter,” an anonymous aide told Wired magazine. “Just his flawed behavior." 

It's also important to note that an extramarital affair could very well have cost Petraeus his security clearance, as Business Insider reported earlier today.

CIA Allegedly Using Drug Money to Overthrow Ecuador President Rafael Correa

Blacklisted News
Matías Rojas

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is using drug money to fund Rafael Correa’s opposition in the coming 2013 Ecuadorian elections, intelligence sources have revealed to Chilean independent media. The accusations do not stand alone. In October, former UK diplomat Craig Murray said that the CIA had tripled its budget to destabilize the government of Ecuador.

The allegations were made public by President Rafael Correa on November 3rd on national television, just days after his official visit to Chile to meet with President Sebastian Piñera.



For translation, click on the CC (captions) widget, choose Spanish, then select Translate and English (or preferred language).

Correa reaffirmed information that appeared in an article written by Chilean independent media outlet Panoramas News, revealing that the CIA and DEA stations in Chile were running a narcotics trafficking network through that country with the full knowledge of Chilean authorities and police.

One of the sources quoted by Chilean media, a former police officer in the Policia de Investigaciones (PDI) by the name of Fernando Ulloa, said that 300 kilograms of cocaine were entering Chile monthly under the escort of members of his own institution, the Carabineros, and the Chilean Army. In May 2011, Fernando Ulloa met with then Chilean Minister of Interior Rodrigo Hinzpeter in La Moneda to inform him about the drug network. After more than one year, the Piñera’s government had done nothing to investigate the case.

The scandal resurfaced again after 10 Chilean cops were detained with links to a minor drug smuggling ring, not connected to the one Ulloa was exposing. Although Chilean television was more open to talk about police corruption, Ulloa was only interviewed by two TV networks, where he accused Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter of covering up the larger narcotics ring he was investigating before being kicked out of his job as PDI inspector.



The links to US intelligence emerged after an anonymous source from the Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia (ANI) told Panoramas News that the smuggling of 300 kilos of cocaine was in fact a highly sensitive CIA/DEA operation that would help to raise money to topple the government of Ecuador. The operation is similar to the one carried out by the Agency in Central America during the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980’s, the source said.

The director of Panoramas News, journalist Patricio Mery Bell, was planning to hand over the information to Rafael Correa while the Ecuadorian President was visiting Chile, but he was strangely accused of beating a woman after she stole his cell-phone. The cell-phone memory contained a video testimony of Mery’s intelligence source, destined to be passed to Correa, but it ended up in the hands of the police after the mysterious incident.

Once he was in Ecuador, President Rafael Correa connected the dots and decided to go public with the information. He quoted Murray’s early warnings about the CIA’s intent to “fund, bribe or blackmail media and officials”, originally written in the former diplomat’s own blog, adding that the Agency was dealing drugs just as Oliver North had done during the Contra support effort.

In an interview with NTN24, journalist Patricio Mery added more details to the case, relating the cover-up of the CIA drug dealing operation to the deaths of two different people in the last seven years: former soldier Fabian Vega, who was found hung in the northern city of Calama in 2005, and young citizen Nestor Madariaga Juantok, found death with two bullets in the port of Valparaiso in 2006. Both were ruled as suicides.



For translation, click on the CC (captions) widget, choose Spanish, then select Translate and English (or preferred language).

Mery also gave the name of the alleged CIA liaison with the Chilean Navy, former captain Jesus Saez Luna, who is now being held in a penitentiary after he mysteriously escaped from Navy custody. Saez Luna was described in his arrest as the biggest drug dealer of the coastal city of Viña del Mar, with networks in Santiago de Chile and the Bio-Bio southern region of the country. Known as “El Marino”, the former captain utilized “military intelligence” tactics to avoid detection by police, according to the Chilean newspaper La Segunda.

The case is being depicted as “Chile-Contras”, in reference to the history of CIA narcotics trafficking in Nicaragua. This is just another example of how drug money is used to fund covert operations, such as the ones we have seen in Syria, with whole guerrilla armies and opposition forces being financed to overthrow countries that aren’t part of the Anglo-American establishment and don’t bow to American corporate interests.

Assange: Reelected Obama a 'wolf in sheep's clothing'

Russia Today

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sees no reason to celebrate the reelection of US President Barack Obama. The US aggressively pursued and “persecuted” the whistleblower site under a Democratic administration, he explained.

“Obama seems to be a nice man, and that is precisely the problem,” the 41-year-old told AFP, speaking from his room in London’s Ecuadorian embassy. “It's better to have a sheep in wolf's clothing than a wolf in sheep's clothing,” he said. “All of the activities against WikiLeaks by the United States have occurred under an Obama administration.”

Assange was equally critical of the Republican, saying it “has not been an effective restraining force on government excesses over the last four years.” "There is no reason to believe that will change – in fact, the Republicans will push the administration into ever greater excesses," he added.

The WikiLeaks founder sounded hoarse, but refused to comment on his health. Last month, Ecuador said it had requested a meeting with British officials to discuss claims that Assange was losing weight and suffering vision problems.

Assange claimed asylum in the embassy in June to escape extradition to Sweden for questioning over sex crimes allegations. He denies the charges, and believes that if extradited he would then be sent to the US, which regards him as an enemy of the state, where he would face prosecution and possibly the death penalty.

WikiLeaks angered Washington in 2010 by publishing hundreds of thousands of classified US documents on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as diplomatic cables from US embassies around the world. Washington retaliated by forcing companies to cut off WikiLeaks’ sources of funding.