Bush-Obama Powers Will Pass to Next President by David Swanson

Image by AK Rockefeller via Flickr

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Let’s Try Democracy, May 11, 2016
May 13, 2016

Remember when coups and assassinations were secretive, when presidents were obliged to go to Congress and tell lies and ask permission for wars, when torture, spying, and lawless imprisonment were illicit, when re-writing laws with signing statements and shutting down legal cases by yelling “state secrets!” was abusive, and when the idea of a president going through a list of men, women, and children on Tuesdays to pick whom to have murdered would have been deemed an outrage?

Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald: The Assassination Complex: Inside the Government’s Secret Drone Warfare Program

Image by AK Rockefeller via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Jeremy Scahill Remembers His Longtime Friend, Father Daniel Berrigan: “The Man was a Moral Giant”

Democracy Now! on May 3, 2016

http://democracynow.org – “I may not be here if it wasn’t for Dan Berrigan,” says journalist Jeremy Scahill as we remember the legendary antiwar priest, Father Daniel Berrigan, who spent his lifetime nonviolently protesting militarism, nuclear proliferation, racism and poverty. Berrigan died Saturday in the Bronx, just short of his 95th birthday. Scahill was a college student when he first met Berrigan, and went on to become close friends with him and his brother, Philip. The conversations they had inspired him to pursue fiercely independent journalism. “This man was just a moral giant,” Scahill says, “the closest thing we have in our society to a prophet.”

Bernie Sanders Supports Obama’s Kill List, “ISIS Has Got To Be Destroyed”

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

HIT Breaking News on Apr 25, 2016

FULL : Bernie Sanders at MSNBC, Democratic Presidential Townhall, Apr 25, 2016

Counter-Intelligence

Image by Ashleigh Nushawg via Flickr

Warning

These videos may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

Dandelion Salad

with Ray McGovern, Nafeez Ahmed, Russ Baker, John Stockwell, Glenn Greenwald, Michael Ratner, Bill Christison, Daniel Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, Abby Martin, Peter Dale Scott, Michael Parenti, John Perkins, James Bamford, John Pilger, William Blum and Peter Phillips

Part 1: The Company

Kill Them All – US Strike on Afghan Hospital by Finian Cunningham

Image by AK Rockefeller via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from Strategic Culture Foundation
October 24, 2015

The deadly US airstrike on an Afghan hospital has been downplayed by Washington as a “tragic mistake” committed in the “fog of war”. But recently disclosed documents on the secret policy of drone assassinations by the Pentagon reveals a cold-blooded calculus to “kill all” within a designated strike zone, even resulting in 90 per cent “collateral damage” of “unintended targets”.

Jeremy Scahill: Drone War Exposed + Secret “Kill Chain” + Afghanistan: The Longest U.S. War

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Drone War Exposed: Jeremy Scahill on U.S. Kill Program’s Secrets & the Whistleblower Who Leaked Them

Democracy Now! on Oct 16, 2015

Democracynow.org – One of the most secretive military campaigns in U.S. history is under the microscope like never before. In a major exposé based on leaked government documents, The Intercept has published the most in-depth look at the U.S. drone assassination program to date. “The Drone Papers” exposes the inner workings of the U.S. military’s assassination program in Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia, revealing a number of flaws and far more casualties than the intended targets. The documents were leaked to The Intercept by an unnamed U.S. intelligence source who says he wanted to alert Americans to wrongdoing. We are joined by The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill, lead author of “The Drone Papers” exposé.

Gradual Injustice by David Swanson

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
warisacrime.org
April 23, 2015

Chris Woods’ excellent new book is called Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars. The title comes from a claim that then-President George W. Bush made for drone wars. The book actually tells a story of gradual injustice. The path from a U.S. government that condemned as criminal the type of murder that drones are used for to one that treats such killings as perfectly legal and routine has been a very gradual and completely extra-legal process.

Noam Chomsky: Rethinking US Foreign Policy

Dandelion Salad

with Noam Chomsky

ChathamHouse10 on May 20, 2014

Noam Chomsky, in conversation with Conor Gearty, shares his views on the Edward Snowden revelations, recent debates on intervention and broader themes in US foreign policy.

Ralph Nader: The U.S. is Teetering on the Verge of Being a Police State

Dandelion Salad

with Ralph Nader

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

strugglevideomedia on Apr 18, 2014

Ralph Nader speaks at a meeting about whistleblowers in Yale Law School, April 1, 2014.

As Jim Shelton reported in the New Haven Register, “Political firebrand Ralph Nader tore into the Obama administration’s claims of transparency Tuesday at Yale University, saying government spying and unchecked executive authority leaves the U.S. teetering on the verge of being a police state.”

Obama Administration Considers Assassinating Another American Overseas + Death By Metadata + Is a Policy a Law? Is Murder Murder? by David Swanson

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

democracynow on Feb 10, 2014

democracynow – The Associated Press is reporting the White House is considering using a drone to kill an American citizen who is a allegedly a member of al-Qaida. The AP did not name the man or the country where he is residing.

Drone Island in the East River by David Swanson + UNMANNED: Americas Drone Wars (clip)

by David Swanson
Writer, Dandelion Salad
warisacrime.org
October 24, 2013

Image by Abode of Chaos via Flickr

Remarks at New York University forum with http://NYACT.net.

The primary problem with weaponized drones is that the weapons murder people. And they murder people in a way that looks more like murder to a lot of observers than other forms of military murder do — such as murder by indiscriminate bombing or artillery or infantry or dropping white phosphorous on people.

Empire Under Obama, Part 2: Barack Obama’s Global Terror Campaign by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Writer, Dandelion Salad
andrewgavinmarshall.com
Originally published on The Hampton Institute
October 14, 2013

Image by SS&SS via Flickr

Under the administration of Barack Obama, America is waging a global terror campaign through the use of drones, killing thousands of people, committing endless war crimes, creating fear and terror in a program expected to last several more decades. Welcome to Obama’s War OF Terror.

When Obama became President in 2009, he faced a monumental challenge for the extension of American and Western imperial interests. The effects of eight years under the overt ruthless and reckless behaviour of the Bush administration had taken a toll on the world.

US: Assassination of Citizens, Uncounted “Collateral Damage” and a Law Suit by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
July 22, 2013

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

“One man’s collateral damage is another man’s son.” (Political cartoonist, Jeff Danziger, August 2nd 2006)

The words of Nasser al-Aulaqi, have a measured, dignified determination, shadowed by bewilderment and the betrayal by a country for which he had had respect, happy memories and which had provided aspects of the basis for his considerable achievements.

Nasser al-Aulaqi is the father of Anwar al-Aulaqi and the grandfather of sixteen year old Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi, both killed in American drone strikes in the Yemen, within two weeks of each other, in September and October 2011, respectively. Both were American citizens.

Fred Branfman: Excesses of Executive Branch Eroding Democratic Institutions

Image by Stephen D. Melkisethian via Flickr

with Fred Branfman
Writer, Dandelion Salad
July 20, 2013

TheRealNews on Jun 22, 2013

Fred Branfman: Excesses of Executive Branch Eroding Democratic Institutions. 

America’s Most Anti-Democratic Institution: How the Imperial Presidency Threatens U.S. National Security by Fred Branfman

by Fred Branfman
Writer, Dandelion Salad
originally published on Alternet, June 9, 2013
July 19, 2013

It’s evil, lawless and authoritarian. And as NSA leaker Snowden has shown us, its aims are to be all-powerful.

Many have expressed surprise that under President Obama – a former Constitutional Law Senior Lecturer who promised transparency, protection for whisteblowers and respect for international law when running for office – U.S. Executive Branch agencies have: