Jacob G. Hornberger

Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar,
was kidnapped in 2003 by the CIA from the streets Milan
and sent to Egypt. (Photograph: EPA / The Guardian)

An appeals court in Italy has just sentenced two former Italian officials, Nicolo Pollari and Marco Mancini, to 10 years and 9 years in jail. Pollari served as head of Italian military intelligence and Mancini was head of counterintelligence.

Their crime? They conspired with the CIA to kidnap a man named Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr off the streets of Milan and rendition him to Egypt to be tortured.

What’s wrong with that? you ask. Well, nothing in the minds of U.S. officials. As everyone knows, ever since 9/11 the U.S. military and the CIA have claimed the authority to kidnap, rendition, torture, kill, and assassinate anyone they want, so long as it’s done as part of the “war on terrorism” and in the name of “national security.”

What about the laws of other nations — laws that make it a criminal offense for people to kidnap people, torture them, murder them, or assassinate them? Oh, they still count for everyone except U.S. military officials and CIA agents. After 9/11, U.S. officials made it clear to the world that the criminal laws of every country on earth would now be subordinate to the actions of the U.S. military and the CIA. The “war on terrorism” now trumped the laws of foreign jurisdictions. Don’t forget, after all, that in the “war on terrorism” the entire world is the battlefield, or so U.S. officials tell us.

That’s why the CIA felt that it could go into Italy, kidnap a man it suspected of being a terrorist, and forcibly transport him against his will to Egypt to be tortured. In the minds of U.S. national-security state officials, their war on terrorism trumped Italian laws that made kidnapping and torture criminal offenses.

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Stephen Lendman

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan (left) and the New
Republic Literary Editor Leon Wieseltier (Photo by Reuters)

Israeli racism is longstanding. It's institutionalized. Imagine honoring it. Israel did so. It finds new ways of reaching new lows. It disgraces itself in the process.

It shouldn't surprise. It's common practice. Jews alone matter. Arabs are considered subhuman.

Mondoweiss co-editor Philip Weiss headlined "Defense of separation wall = Prize for service to humanity."

"Israel honors New Republic literary editor Leon Wieseltier." [He's] "in the money."

He got the million dollar Dan David prize. It's from a Tel Aviv University foundation. It's awarded for innovative and interdisciplinary research. It's been done since 2002. Israeli critics are excluded. Past honorees include Tony Blair and Al Gore. They're war criminals. They deserve prison time, not awards.

Wieseltier's a notorious racist. He supports occupation harshness. He opposes Palestinian liberation. He's against their right to resist. He shames himself for doing so.

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Stephen Lendman

■ Multiple previous P5+1 talks were held. America manipulated them to fail. So did Israel covertly. Western nations were pressured to go along.

■ On February 26, new talks will be held in Almaty, Kazahhstan. Expect no more this time than earlier. It bears repeating. Tehran's nuclear program isn't at issue. It's red herring cover for imperial aims. It's the oil, stupid, and regional dominance. Iran's sovereignty stands in the way. Its program is peaceful. It complies with NPT provisions. World leaders know it. So do IAEA inspectors.

■ Washington targets all independent governments. It wants pro-Western puppet ones replacing them. It invents reasons to do so. It operates extrajudicially in defiance of rule of law principles. It gets UN Secretary-Generals to go along. Ban Ki-moon is one of the worst. He shames the office he holds. He spurns UN Charter principles. He's complicit in war crimes. He's well rewarded for doing so. He lies for Washington. He's a longstanding imperial tool.

On February 14, the Washington Post headlined "Iran could use UN talks as cover to build bomb, Ban K-moon says." He knows Iran has no such intention. He lies and claims otherwise. Decisive swift action should prevent what doesn't exist, he urges. Accelerated action should be prioritized.

"We should not give much more time to the Iranians, and we should not waste time," he says. "We have seen what happened with the DPRK." "It ended up that they (were) secretly, quietly, without any obligations, without any pressure, making progress." The Security Council must "show a firm, decisive and effective, quick response."

Like America and Israel, he wants Iran to prove a negative. He told Imam Khamenei he's not satisfied with peaceful reassurances. He did so on orders from Washington. He's "frustrated" about failed international talks. He points fingers the wrong way. He blames Iran for Western intransigency. He speaks with forked tongue.

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Occupied Palestine | فلسطين

Message from Samer el Issawi, day 209 hunger strike

Via Rona Merrill, Neta Golan. Message from Samer Al Issawi, below, also his brother just got arrested at their home (and here’s hoping it’s not because of worse news):

MESSAGE FROM SAMER AL-ISSAWI – 16.02.13 – ‘I turn with admiration to the masses of our heroic Palestinian people, to our Palestinian leadership, to all forces, parties and national institutions. I salute them for standing by our fight to defend our right to freedom and dignity.

I draw my strength from my people, from all the free people in the world, from friends and the families of the prisoners who continue day and night chanting for freedom and an end to the occupation.

My health has deteriorated dramatically and I’m hung between life and death. My weak body is collapsing but still able to be patient and continue the confrontation. My message is that I will continue until the end, until the last drop of water in my body, until martyrdom. Martyrdom is an honor for me in this battle. My martyrdom is my remaining bomb in the confrontation with the tyrants and the jailers, in the face of the racist policy of the occupation that humiliates our people and exercises against us all means of oppression and repression.

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Harvey Thompson

The growing rivalry between Washington and Beijing is emerging as the major fault line in regional politics.

The first month of 2013 revealed not only the precarious state of the US-led occupation of Afghanistan, but also its potentially catastrophic regional consequences.

In a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times by Michael Keating and Matt Waldman, which argues for a deal between the US government and the Taliban, the authors paint a stark picture.

Pointing out that “even in the winter fighting ‘lull’ there are an average of 50 insurgent attacks a day across the country,” the authors write: “Disillusionment about Afghanistan in Washington and other capitals is growing… Meanwhile, the Taliban remain strong; warlords are reported to be rearming; and many Afghans that can are leaving or getting their money out. More than 32,000 Afghans made asylum applications in 2012—more than any other nationality worldwide.”

The authors warn of a “relapse into civil war” that would be disastrous “for the wider region.”

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Stephen Lendman

Extrajudicial killing is official US policy. Drone wars normalize it. Obama decides who lives or dies. He appointed himself judge, jury and executioner. He's got final kill list "authority". His secret memo authorized Anwar al-Awlaki's assassination. Anyone anywhere in the world can be murdered on his say.

His "white paper" inverted inviolable legal principles. It's titled "Lawfulness of a Lethal Operation Directed Against a US Citizen who is a Senior Operational Leader of Al Qa'ida or An Associated Force." It calls lawless killing without trial or evidence legal. Vague language substitutes for clear evidence and just cause. Rule of law principles don't apply.

Habeas rights and due process are spurned. The 1215 Magna Carta states:

"No free man shall be seized, or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed, or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgment of his equals, or by the law of the land."

It means due process is inviolable. It's constitutionally guaranteed. Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments affirm it. Doing so prohibits government from "depriv(ing anyone) of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." Extrajudicial executive "authority" usurped fundamental freedoms. Courts have no say. Nor does Congress. Murder by diktat is policy.

Police states operate that way. America is by far the worst. It menaces humanity. It may not survive Obama's second term. He represents rogue leadership. He governs irresponsibly, lawlessly and recklessly.

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Stephen Lendman

Michael Ruppert is a former LAPD cop. He knows its dark side well. He witnessed it firsthand. Its rap sheet includes corruption, abuse of power, complicity with CIA drugs trafficking, unjustified arrests, beatings, murder, perjury, witness tampering, evidence planting, frame-ups, coverups, racism, sadism, and other crimes. It wants its dirty secrets kept hidden. They're ugly and longstanding.

Many examples bear witness. In March 2000, news reports revealed LAPD Rampart Division Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums (CRASH) unit criminality. It included unjustified arrests, beatings, drug dealing, witness intimidation, murder, evidence planting, frame-ups and perjury. An organized criminal subculture exists. Anti-gang officers and supervisors run it. They "celebrate" shootings. They get away with murder. Earlier LAPD criminality surfaced. Officers shot unarmed gang members, committed perjury, filed false reports, stole drugs from dealers, obstructed justice, beat, framed and robbed people, and were involved in other misconduct. Two decades ago, Rodney King's beating made headlines. Similar ones go unnoticed. They happen ad nauseam. People of color are most vulnerable. Victims are called perpetrators. LA cops beat, kill and abuse with impunity. It's standard practice.

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John Pilger

WikiLeaks is a rare example of a newsgathering organisation that exposes the truth. Julian Assange is by no means alone.

Last December, I stood with supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange in the bitter cold outside the Ecuadorean embassy in London. Candles were lit; the faces were young and old and from all over the world. They were there to demonstrate their human solidarity with someone whose guts they admired. They were in no doubt about the importance of what Assange had revealed and achieved, and the grave dangers he now faced. Absent entirely were the lies, spite, jealousy, opportunism and pathetic animus of a few who claim the right to guard the limits of informed public debate.

These public displays of warmth for Assange are common and seldom reported. Several thousand people packed Sydney Town Hall, with hundreds spilling into the street. In New York recently, Assange was given the Yoko Ono Lennon Courage Award. In the audience was Daniel Ellsberg, who risked all to leak the truth about the barbarism of the Vietnam war.

Like Jemima Khan, the investigative journalist Phillip Knightley, the acclaimed film director Ken Loach and others lost bail money in standing up for Assange. “The US is out to crush someone who has revealed its dirty secrets,” Loach wrote to me. “Extradition via Sweden is more than likely...is it difficult to choose whom to support?”

No, it is not difficult.

In the New Statesman last week, Jemima Khan ended her support for an epic struggle for justice, truth and freedom with an article on Wiki­Leaks’s founder. To Khan, the Ellsbergs and Yoko Onos, the Loaches and Knightleys, and the countless people they represent, have all been duped. We are all “blinkered”. We are all mindlessly “devoted”. We are all “cultists”. In the final words of her j’accuse, she describes Assange as “an Australian L Ron Hubbard”. She must have known this would make a gratuitous headline, as indeed it did across the press in Australia.

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John V. Walsh

Just as Washington has involved NATO in its Afghanistan, Middle East and African wars, John V. Walsh explains Washington’s attempt to rope Japan into its military encirclement of China. Perhaps the Japanese will see in Washington’s effort to contain the rise of China the same policy that Washington used against Japan in the 1930s. Will Japan align with the rising power, the declining power, or stay neutral? — Paul Craig Roberts

At the height of the 2012 election campaign in late October, a U.S. delegation tiptoed into Japan and then China with scant media coverage. It was “unofficial,” but Hillary Clinton gave it her blessing. And it was headed by two figures high in the imperial firmament, Richard L. Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State for George W. Bush; and Joseph S. Nye Jr., a former Pentagon and intelligence official in the Clinton administration and Dean Emeritus of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The delegation also included James B. Steinberg, who served as the Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama administration and Stephen J. Hadley, Bush Two’s national security adviser.

The delegation was billed as an attempt by the U.S. to defuse tensions between Japan and China over a number of small islands both claim. But was it? What is the outlook of these influential figures? Interestingly, Armitage and Nye provide us with a partial answer in a brief paper published the preceding August by the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS), entitled “The Japan-U.S. Alliance. Anchoring Stability in Asia,” the carefully crafted fruit of a CSIS Study Group they chaired. The strategy proposed therein, as outlined below, should be very distressing to the Chinese – as well as to the Japanese and Americans.

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William T. Hathaway

From the book
RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War
by William T. Hathaway

I received this letter from an ex-soldier.

Hi Mr. Hathaway,

I got your letter (forwarded) asking for information for your book. To answer your first question, Yes, I'm enjoying living in Holland. I'm becoming the little Dutch girl — the little Black Dutch girl, but that doesn't bother people here. They're very tolerant and internationally minded.

As for the rest of your questions, at first I didn't think I could answer them. They reminded me too much of an essay test in school. Plus it's not exactly pleasant to remember back on all this stuff, you know. I'm trying to leave it behind and start a new life.

But I kept thinking about it and finally decided I would forget the questions and just write about what happened. Like you said, people should know about this. Don't give anybody my address, though. The army still wants to put me in prison.

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IRDIPLOMACY.com

An interview with Hossein Sheikholeslam, a former Deputy Foreign Minister and an expert on Middle East affairs

Mr. Muaz al-Khatib, the head of the Syrian National Opposition Coalition, has declared his readiness to negotiate with the Syrian government. What is your analysis of this position?

We must understand on whose behalf Mr. Muaz al-Khatib is proposing this idea. Is this his personal opinion or the opinion of the general coalition which the Americans and the Qataris and the Turks have established? Therefore, it must be clarified which part of the coalition he is representing .The value of this position is determined when Mr. Muaz al-Khatib is able to stop the violence. If hundreds of such positions are taken but the violence still continues, this would show that he has no power and those who are present in the scene and fight and take terrorist measures do not pay attention to his ideas. Thus, it must be considered that this position is valuable to the extent of its impacts on the scene.

Now let's assume that this was the position of the whole coalition. We must note that Mr. Muaz al-Khatib represents a part of the outside opposition. The coalition is part of the outside opposition which has no authenticity. These are the people who take orders from the West and gain their financial resources from other parties. Therefore, the opinion of the coalition is the opinion of their western and Arab supporters. These have no value. It must be seen whether their masters have the same positions.

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John W. Whitehead

“Much of our foreign policy now depends on the hope of benevolent dictators and philosopher kings. The law can’t help. The law is what the kings say it is.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing for The Atlantic

“If George Bush had done this, it would have been stopped.” — Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman and current MSNBC pundit

When Barack Obama ascended to the presidency in 2008, there was a sense, at least among those who voted for him, that the country might change for the better. Those who watched in awe as President Bush chipped away at our civil liberties over the course of his two terms as president thought that maybe this young, charismatic Senator from Illinois would reverse course and put an end to some of the Bush administration’s worst transgressions—the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists, the torture, the black site prisons, and the never-ending wars that have drained our resources, to name just a few.

A few short years later, that fantasy has proven to be just that: a fantasy. Indeed, Barack Obama has not only carried on the Bush legacy, but has taken it to its logical conclusion. As president, Obama has gone beyond Guantánamo Bay, gone beyond spying on Americans’ emails and phone calls, and gone beyond bombing countries without Congressional authorization. He now claims, as revealed in a leaked Department of Justice memo, the right to murder any American citizen the world over, so long as he has a feeling that they might, at some point in the future, pose a threat to the United States.

Let that sink in. The President of the United States of America believes he has the absolute right to kill you based upon secret “evidence” that you might be a terrorist. Not only does he think he can kill you, but he believes he has the right to do so in secret, without formally charging you of any crime and providing you with an opportunity to defend yourself in a court of law. To top it all off, the memo asserts that these decisions about whom to kill are not subject to any judicial review whatsoever.

This is what one would call Mafia-style justice, when one powerful overlord—in this case, the president—gets to decide whether you live or die based solely on his own peculiar understanding of right and wrong. This is how far we have fallen in the twelve years since 9/11, through our negligence and our failure to hold our leaders in both political parties accountable to the principles enshrined in the Constitution.

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Hervé Bar

Bitter Abu Mahmoud, respected rebel leader, accuses fellow commanders of marring revolt through corruption.

"The real revolution in Syria is over, we have been betrayed," laments a bitter Abu Mahmoud, a respected rebel leader, accusing fellow commanders of marring a "beautiful" revolt through corruption. "Our beautiful revolution has been confiscated by thieves and corruptors," Abu Mahmoud says as he struggles to hide his bitterness at the way the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad's regime is being fought these days. Some rebel leaders have "enriched (themselves) shamefully at the cost of true revolutionaries who die on the front line," he says.

Abu Mahmoud's remarks confirm growing reports of looting and corruption by leading insurgents in rebel-controlled areas of strife-torn Syria. Speaking from his home in the town of Atme — a key rebel rear base on the border with Turkey — Abu Mahmoud says he now watches his back, taking his Kalashnikov with him when he heads out "chopping wood or grazing goats in the mountains".

Rebel fighters who took up arms against Assad's forces in the initial days of the rebellion are increasingly abandoning their fight, frustrated at the level of corruption in their leadership, he says. "These so-called commanders send us to die and they themselves stay behind to make money. They don't come to the front line to fight and yet they are the ones who are heading the rebellion," complains Abu Mahmoud. "Wherever they go, they rob, they steal whatever they can carry and sell it illegally in Turkey — be it cars, electronic goods, machines, fuel, antiques, anything you can imagine!"

Abu Mahmoud cites the names of a dozen commanders from the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) — the main group fighting Assad's forces — who he says are engaging in such practices in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo. One officer, whose unit of around 100 fighters is reputed for "raids" on abandoned apartments in Aleppo, has sold "arms, cars and even his office in the border town of Bab al-Hawa" to build two beautiful homes and marry a third wife.

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Stephen Lendman

Expect nothing positive ahead on his watch. The worst is yet to come.

Obama's annual State of the Union addresses reflect beginning-to-end doublespeak duplicity. Empty rhetoric signals business as usual. Policy prioritizes corporate empowerment, rewarding rich elites, letting popular needs go begging, funding America's war machine, and cracking down hard on non-believers. Obama does what his supporters thought impossible. He governs to the right of George Bush.

He's beholden to powerful monied interests. They own him. He's their man in Washington. Whatever they want they get. He mocks rule of law principles. He deplores democratic values. He prioritizes wrong over right. He's waging multiple direct and proxy wars on humanity. He's waging social and economic ones domestically. He's creating unprecedented levels of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger and deprivation.

Ahead of his address, White House blog contributor Macon Phillips called it "just the beginning." Citizen Response will be introduced. It lets listeners and viewers explain how they're "connected to (issues) and then share (what's on their mind) with friends."

Question & Answer will follow. Theater will substitute for substance. Handpicked hundreds will "join a special #WHSocial in person, and 100 White House followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ representing more than 20 states" nationwide. They were "invited to watch the speech live from the White House and participate in a panel discussion."

On February 14, Obama will initiate "Fireside Hangouts." They'll imitate Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats. He delivered dozens on radio from 1933 - 1944. Obama's no FDR. Obamanomics substitutes for New Deal fairness. What Roosevelt created, Obama helps put asunder. The difference between them is stark.

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Patrick Martin

President Obama devoted his Saturday radio and Internet address to the sequester, warning of thousands of federal layoffs or furloughs and a “huge blow to middle class families and our economy as a whole” if the cuts took effect.

In the days leading up to Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, the Obama administration has combined calls for austerity measures to slash social spending with demagogic attacks on congressional Republicans for advocating even larger cuts in domestic social programs.

Obama’s speech comes as back-room discussions continue between the White House and congressional leaders of both parties, driven by two imminent deadlines: the March 1 “sequester,” when $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts take effect, and the March 27 expiration of authorization for spending by all federal government departments.

The sequester is a consequence of the 2011 Budget Control Act, a bipartisan deal between Obama and congressional Republicans, while the March 27 cutoff comes as a result of the expiration of another bipartisan agreement, the six-month “continuing resolution” passed last October to avoid a shutdown of the federal government during the 2012 election campaign.

If the sequester takes effect, budget cuts will hit both defense spending and a wide range of domestic social programs. The military cuts would have only a marginal effect in the vast Pentagon budget, which dwarfs the combined military spending of the next 15 countries in the world. The domestic cuts largely spare the major entitlement programs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but will devastate smaller programs like Head Start education for pre-kindergarten children.

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Stephen Lendman

Do it now before it's too late! We the People must act. Institutionalized tyranny approaches. It's a hair's breath away. Freedom's on the chopping block for elimination. Humanity may not survive Obama's second term.

America's Declaration of Independence states:

"(W)hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, (it's the right of the people, it's) their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

■ Straightaway as president, Obama violated his sacred trust. He betrayed his constituents. He's a serial liar. He broke every major promise made. He serves illegitimately.

■ He institutionalized tyranny. He's a war criminal multiple times over. He's guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors.

■ He menaces humanity. He's heading America for WW III. He wants America's social contract destroyed. He wants millions impoverished, unemployed, left hungry and homeless. He's beholden to powerful monied interests that own him.

■ He spurns fundamental civil and human rights. He mocks democratic values. He's contemptuous of essential needs.

Law Professor Francis Boyle is unequivocal. He told Progressive Radio News Hour listeners he should be impeached. He urged House Republicans to so. He's offering his services pro bono.

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Chris Hedges

I lived under several military dictatorships during the two decades I was a foreign correspondent. I know the beast.

On Wednesday a few hundred activists crowded into the courtroom of the Second Circuit, the spillover room with its faulty audio feed and dearth of chairs, and Foley Square outside the Thurgood Marshall U.S. Courthouse in Manhattan where many huddled in the cold. The fate of the nation, we understood, could be decided by the three judges who will rule on our lawsuit against President Barack Obama for signing into law Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The section permits the military to detain anyone, including U.S. citizens, who “substantially support”—an undefined legal term—al-Qaida, the Taliban or “associated forces,” again a term that is legally undefined. Those detained can be imprisoned indefinitely by the military and denied due process until “the end of hostilities.” In an age of permanent war this is probably a lifetime. Anyone detained under the NDAA can be sent, according to Section (c)(4), to any “foreign country or entity.” This is, in essence, extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens. It empowers the government to ship detainees to the jails of some of the most repressive regimes on earth.

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Stephen Lendman

Anonymous/Paul Craig Roberts: Obamacare: A Deception

Make no mistake. March 23, 2010 will live in infamy. With strokes from 22 pens, Obama enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). It's a ripoff. It's a healthcare rationing scheme. It's a boon to predatory providers. It's a plan to enrich insurers, drug companies, and large hospital chains.

WellPoint, Inc. is America's largest managed healthcare company. It wrote the plan. It got what it wanted. It benefitted at the expense of people needing care. So did other healthcare giants. They scammed ordinary people for profit.

Ralph Nader calls Obamacare "a pay-or-die system." It's "the disgrace of the Western world." It's a monstrosity. It mocks a fundamental human right.

It violates the Constitution's "general welfare" clause. Article I, Section 8 states: "The Congress shall have power to….provide for (the) general welfare of the United States." It means "We the People." It includes everyone equitably. It means what never was, isn't now, or won't ever be under a system favoring privilege, not fairness.

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Eric Peters

How long will it be before they actually start shooting us from helicopter gunships à la The Running Man? In that movie, Arnold Schwarzennegger plays Ben Richards – pilot of a gunship who actually refuses to spray a crowd of helpless people with his mini-gun. For his refusal to be brutal, he is turned into a contestant on The Running Man, where he must fight for his life against a series of gladiators for the amusement of the crowd.

Is it not amazing how predictive so many mass-market films have proved to be? Only in this case, the real-life ‘copter pilots are itching to mow us down. See, for instance, the recent “drills” in Florida and Texas – video seen below, for instance- where civilian areas were overflown by military choppers firing blanks. To train them. More precisely, to acclimate them to the idea of raining death down on Americans.

And here’s the latest: In this video, a woman is seen committing the highly suspect and probably terroristic act of taking a walk in the San Bernardino, CA desert, just off a major highway….from the vantage point of Officer Unfriendly in his taxpayer-funded whirlybird. The airborne enforcer menaces the woman from above, repeatedly buzzing her at treetop (if there were any trees) altitude before setting his ‘bird down like it’s Vietnam all over and the only thing missing is speakers blaring Ride of the Valkyries. He struts forward authoritatively – suited up just like Lt. Col. Kilgore in his special costume. You know, the one that gives him sanction to brutalize people.

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Joseph Kishore

The Obama administration is discussing the expansion of its drone program into Algeria and other countries in northwest Africa, according to media reports. The preparations to extend the military and CIA “kill lists” takes place amidst proposals to more securely institutionalize the global program of assassination.

According to a front-page report in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal headlined “Push to Expand US ‘Kill List,’” the immediate target of the extension of the drone program is Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian who has claimed responsibility for the operation to seize control of a natural gas facility in Amenas, Algeria in January. An Algerian military raid on the compound—a critical energy facility operated in collaboration with multinational companies—led to the death of 69 people.

According to the Journal, “Some US officials are pressing for a more direct involvement in the hunt for Mr. Belmokhtar, whether with drones, other aircraft or American forces. Such an effort could rely on the military’s special-operations units, with help from the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said.”

Assassinations have thus far focused on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and the northeast African nation of Somalia. The expansion of drone killing to northwest Africa is part of an intensified focus of all the major imperialist powers on northern Africa—including the US-led war in Libya in 2011 and the French-led operation currently underway in Mali. The US government has already secured a status of forces agreement to establish a drone base in Niger, which is bordered by Algeria on the North and Mali on the West.

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