War in Context

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• ‘The FBI is the enemy’
• Edward Snowden accuses U.S. of illegal, aggressive campaign
• The state of America’s national intelligence
• Solitary confinement: America’s institutionalized system of torture
• Stop Ray Kelly from leading Homeland Security Department
• Video: Malala Yousafzai’s address to the UN
• Why the press is failing in Syria
• A month after U.S. pledged more help, Syrian rebels in worse shape
• Music: Bossacucanova with Marcos Valle — ‘Queria’

‘The FBI is the enemy’ Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:15 AM PDT Salon reports: John Kiriakou, the former CIA officer who blew the whistle on Bush’s torture program and is now in prison, sent an open letter to Edward Snowden last week warning him not to trust the FBI. “DO NOT,” Kiriakou wrote, “under any circumstances, cooperate with the FBI. FBI agents will lie, trick, and deceive [...]

Edward Snowden accuses U.S. of illegal, aggressive campaign Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:12 AM PDT The Guardian reports: The American whistleblower Edward Snowden has accused the US of waging a campaign of “historically disproportionate aggression” against him during an extraordinary meeting with human rights activists and Russian officials at the Moscow airport where he has been trapped since 23 June. In his first appearance since disclosing his identity in the [...]

The state of America’s national intelligence Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:09 AM PDT The Associated Press reports: As the director of national intelligence, James Clapper has told Congress that the regime of Moammar Gadhafi would likely prevail in Libya, that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood party was “largely secular” and that the National Security Agency doesn’t collect data on millions of Americans. Not quite. Gadhafi ended up killed by Libyan [...]

Solitary confinement: America’s institutionalized system of torture Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:06 AM PDT Wired reports: In the largest prison protest in California’s history, nearly 30,000 inmates have gone on hunger strike. Their main grievance: the state’s use of solitary confinement, in which prisoners are held for years or decades with almost no social contact and the barest of sensory stimuli. The human brain is ill-adapted to such conditions, [...]

Stop Ray Kelly from leading Homeland Security Department Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:03 AM PDT David Sirota writes: If you thought Big Brother couldn’t possibly get bigger, and if you thought this Dr. Strangelove era couldn’t possibly get any Strangelovier, welcome to the debate over the next head of the Department of Homeland Security. In the midst of disclosures about the Obama administration’s sprawling — and likely illegal — national [...]

Video: Malala Yousafzai’s address to the UN Posted: 13 Jul 2013 11:00 AM PDT Al Jazeera reports: Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating education for girls, marked her 16th birthday with an impressive speech at the United Nations, where she said education could change the world. Wearing a pink head scarf, Malala told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and nearly 1,000 students from around the [...]

Why the press is failing in Syria Posted: 13 Jul 2013 10:53 AM PDT Francesca Borri writes: He finally wrote to me. After more than a year of freelancing for him, during which I contracted typhoid fever and was shot in the knee, my editor watched the news, thought I was among the Italian journalists who’d been kidnapped, and sent me an email that said: “Should you get a [...]

A month after U.S. pledged more help, Syrian rebels in worse shape Posted: 13 Jul 2013 10:51 AM PDT McClatchy reports: A month after the Obama administration pledged stepped-up support for Syria’s armed opposition, the government of President Bashar Assad’s position has improved, with U.S. assistance to the rebels apparently stalled and deadly rifts opening among the forces battling to topple the Assad regime. Government forces appear close to forcing rebels from the key [...]

Music: Bossacucanova with Marcos Valle — ‘Queria’ Posted: 13 Jul 2013 10:49 AM PDT