Tag: dictatorship

CIA trains Palestinian torturers

Posted on By 3arabawy

From the Guardian:

Palestinian security agents who have been detaining and allegedly torturing supporters of the Islamist organization Hamas in the West Bank have been working closely with the CIA, the Guardian has learned.
Less than a year after Barack Obama signed an executive order that prohibited torture and provided for the lawful interrogation of detainees in US custody, evidence is emerging the CIA is co-operating with security agents whose continuing use of torture has been widely documented by human rights groups.
The relationship between the CIA and the two Palestinian agencies involved – Preventive Security Organization (PSO) and General Intelligence Service (GI) – is said by some western diplomats and other officials in the region to be so close that the American agency appears to be supervising the Palestinians’ work.
One senior western official said: “The [Central Intelligence] Agency consider them as their property, those two Palestinian services.” A diplomatic source added that US influence over the agencies was so great they could be considered “an advanced arm of the war on terror”.

‘The mother was very ugly, and was therefore destined to be killed along with her fetus, since everyone thought it would look ugly’

Posted on By 3arabawy

You can understand why the US will never ditch Mubarak, if it has such a long, rich, fantastic history of stretching the hands of friendship to staunch democrats like him in every corner of the world–democrats who would not hesitate to kidnap women, rape them in custody and put together

lists of military men who wished to adopt babies born in captivity. “The pregnant detainees received special treatment up until the delivery. After giving birth, the mothers were killed and the babies were given away”.
Caraballo said that he wanted to take one baby whose mother “was very ugly, and was therefore destined to be killed along with her fetus, since everyone thought it would look ugly”. The woman, about 36 years old, “was held in El Campito for a long period of time and suffered a great deal. Her friends made her do exercises meant to alleviate labor pains during childbirth. It really shocked me that she did all these exercises and was then thrown out of a plane with her unborn baby”.
“One day, when I was not on guard duty in El Campito, this pregnant woman was taken on a ‘flight’ together with other prisoners. I asked for her baby even though I had children of my own, because I felt it would be a pity to kill it”.

US leads world in foreign weapons sales

Posted on By 3arabawy

From Reuters:

The United States accounted for more than two-thirds of foreign weapons sales in 2008, a year in which global sales were at a three-year low, The New York Times reported on Sunday.
Citing a congressional study released on Friday, the Times said the United States was involved in 68.4 percent of the global sales of arms.
U.S. weapons sales jumped nearly 50 percent in 2008 despite the global economic recession to $37.8 billion from $25.4 billion the year before.
The jump defied worldwide trends as global arms sales fell 7.6 percent to $55.2 billion in 2008, the report said. Global weapons agreements were at their lowest level since 2005.
Italy, the second ranked country, amassed only $3.7 billion in arms sales, while Russia ranked third with sales falling to $3.5 billion in 2008, down from $10.8 billion in 2007.
The report attributed the increase in U.S. sales to “major new orders from clients in the Near East and in Asia” as well as to continued contracts for equipment and support services with globally based U.S. clients, the Times said.
The United States also led in arms sales to the developing world, signing 70.1 percent of these weapons agreements at a value of $29.6 billion in 2008, the report said.
Such deals with the developing world included a $6.5 billion air defense system for the United Arab Emirates, a $2.1 billion jet fighter for Morocco and a $2 billion attack helicopter for Taiwan.
India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, South Korea and Brazil also reached weapons deals with the United States, the Times said.

US Imperialism