Yemen

Jack Searle writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism One strike in Pakistan ends 34-day stretch without an attack. Yemen sees more strikes in a month than any time since March 2012. Yemen A terror alert centred on Yemen gripped the US in August leading to six confirmed drone strikes. The US closed 21 diplomatic […]

Drones

How Much Blood Money does the US Pay to Families of Innocent Drone Victims? It’s Classified (Currier)

Juan Cole

Cora Currier writes at Propublica: There have been nine drone strikes reported in Yemen in the past two weeks – an uptick apparently connected to the Al Qaeda threat that shut down U.S. embassies across the Middle East and Africa. As many as six civilian deaths have also been reported. President Obama has promised increased […]

Domestic Surveillance

Top Ten Things that don’t Make Sense about NSA Surveillance, Drones and al-Qaeda

Juan Cole

In a Reuters Exclusive, John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke reveal that the National Security Agency shares information it gleans from warrantless surveillance of Americans with the Special Operation Division of the Drug Enforcement Agency, which then uses the metadata to develop cases against US citizens. The DEA then routinely lies to the judge and defense […]

Afghanistan

Top Ten Ways Bradley Manning Changed the World

Juan Cole

Bradley Manning will be sentenced today, having been found guilty of 20 counts on Tuesday, including espionage (despite the lack of evidence for intent to spy and the lack of evidence that his leaking ever did any real harm). Whatever one thinks of Manning’s actions, that we deserved to know some of what he revealed […]

Afghanistan

Obama: US will Continue its Targeted Killing with Drones (Woods)

Juan Cole

Chris Woods writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism Barack Obama has made it clear that the US will continue with its controversial targeted killing programme. In a major speech the US president also announced that he has signed into force a new – and secret – rule book for lethal action that provides ‘clear […]

Egypt

Austerity and the threat to Democracy, in the US, Europe and the Middle East

Juan Cole

The “sequester” is actually, of course, the American form of austerity, or cut-backs in government spending during a recession. Austerity, or stingy government in Europe has kept employment extremely depressed compared to what it would have been with government stimulus, as Paul Krugman argues. Saturday, there were massive protests throughout Portugal against Scrooge policies by […]

Afghanistan

Naming the Dead Killed by US Drones: (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)

Juan Cole

The Drones Team at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism writes: The Bureau is launching an ambitious new investigation, which will seek to identify as many as possible of those killed in US covert drone strikes in Pakistan, whether civilian or militant. The Bureau is raising some of the money for this project through a crowd-funding […]

Drones

Everything You Always Wanted to Know about US Drone Strikes *but Were Afraid to Ask (Currier)

Juan Cole

Cora Currier writes at ProPublica: You might have heard about the “kill list.” You’ve certainly heard about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — a centerpiece of the Obama administration’s national security approach – remain shrouded in secrecy. Here’s our guide to what we know— and […]

Yemen

Graphs of Death: US Drone Strikes Visualized (Pegg)

Juan Cole

David Pegg writes at the Bureau of Investigative Journalism These graphs accurately reflect the Bureau’s data on CIA drone strikes in Pakistan to the most recent strike. They are designed to illustrate in the simplest possible way key statistical data from our investigation. Click on a graph to enlarge. You are free to download and […]