Saudi-US Row: Prince Bandar bin ‘Sulking’ Tries Old Bribe and Threat Trick Again by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
October 24, 2013

Historic allies, the United States and Saudi Arabia, are in the midst of a full-blown row, after the kingdom’s spy chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan threatened that their strategic liaison was on the rocks.

The sulking sultan is no stranger to maverick mood swings. But there is good reason to believe that the senior Saudi is not merely acting alone, and that this is the obscurantist kingdom’s way of expressing strategic frustrations.

Empire Under Obama, Part 3: America’s “Secret Wars” in Over 100 Countries Around the World by Andrew Gavin Marshall

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Writer, Dandelion Salad
andrewgavinmarshall.com
Originally published on The Hampton Institute
October 23, 2013

Obama’s global terror campaign is not only dependent upon his drone assassination program, but increasingly it has come to rely upon the deployment of Special Operations forces in countries all over the world, reportedly between 70 and 120 countries at any one time. As Obama has sought to draw down the large-scale ground invasions of countries (as Bush pursued in Afghanistan and Iraq), he has escalated the world of ‘covert warfare,’ largely outside the oversight of Congress and the public.

Stop Watching Us: The Video

Image by Robotclaw666 via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

EFForg on Oct 23, 2013

StopWatching.us is a coalition of more than 100 public advocacy organizations and companies from across the political spectrum. This video harnesses the voices of celebrities, activists, legal experts, and other prominent figures in speaking out against mass surveillance by the NSA.

Please share widely to help us get the message out that we will not stand for the dragnet surveillance of our communications. Join the movement at http://rally.stopwatching.us.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a nonprofit civil liberties law and advocacy center that has been fighting the NSA’s unconstitutional spying for years. Learn more at http://eff.org.