As if the Taliban wasn’t bad enough. KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — The US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan on Sunday confirmed a meeting with the Haqqani insurgent group, as signs of a dialogue between the United States and rebels continue to grow. ‘We had one meeting with Haqqani network,’ Marc Grossman told a news conference in
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Obama Official Confirms U.S. Meeting With Al-Qaeda Allied Haqqani Network…
You know what else is torture? Living through an Obama presidency. KAPOLEI, Hawaii (AP) — President Barack Obama says the interrogation technique known as waterboarding constitutes torturing, disputing Republican presidential candidates who say they would reinstate the practice. Obama called waterboarding “torture” and said it was “contrary to America’s traditions” during a news conference at
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Obama Rebuffs GOP Candidates, Calls Waterboarding “Torture”…
Sure. (TDC) — Chicago mayor and former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said he doesn’t recall anything about the Obama administration’s $535 million loan to the recently bankrupt solar company Solyndra. Speaking to Chicago radio station WLS 890AM at a news conference about a new wellness initiative, Emanuel said he didn’t remember anything about the failed investment loan by the Department of Energy, which critics say was fast-tracked to fit the White House’s political agenda. “Ya know, I’m focusing on a major announcement today for the City Of Chicago,” Emanuel said. “I don’t actually remember that or know about it. So, what I’m dealing is with what I’m dealing with here today.” Emanuel was Obama’s chief of staff during the administration’s green energy initiative in 2009, when the Solyndra loan was finalized. E-mail communications from the White House obtained by the House Energy and Commerce Committee point to more involvement in the deal than perhaps Emanuel would care to remember. The vice president was scheduled to announce the closure of the Solyndra deal on Sept. 4, and several e-mails show pressure from the White House to approve the loan. In one e-mail, an assistant to Emanuel wrote on Aug. 31, 2009 to the Office of Management and Budget about the administration’s upcoming announcement on Solyndra and asked whether “there is anything we can help speed along on OMB side.”
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Rahm on Solyndra: “I don’t actually remember”
More saber rattling from Erdogan . (Haaretz) — Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday Israel could not do whatever it wanted in the eastern Mediterranean and that Turkish warships could be there at any moment. Erdogan’s comments, made during a visit to Tunisia as part of a tour of Arab countries, were the latest in a war of words between the two regional powers, whose relations have deteriorated since Israel killed nine Turks aboard an aid ship headed for Gaza last year. “Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean. They will see what our decisions will be on this subject. Our navy attack ships can be there at any moment,” Erdogan told a news conference shortly after arriving in Tunis. Turkey downgraded diplomatic ties with Israel and halted defense-related trade after the Jewish state confirmed last week it would not apologise for the raid on the Mavi Marmara ship which had attempted to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza. Turkey and Israel had tried to mend fences before the publication two weeks ago of a UN report that deemed the blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip a legal means to stem the flow of arms to Palestinians but also said Israel had used unreasonable force.
Nah, we don’t need a secure border. (Houston Chronicle) — The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death. In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins. In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the United States. Law enforcement sources confirm he is a cartel operative but not a fugitive from pending charges. His words are not those of a federal agent or drawn from a news conference or court papers. Instead, he offers a voice from inside Mexico’s mayhem — a mafioso who mingles among crime bosses and foot soldiers in a protracted war between drug cartels as well as against the government. If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity. Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, “Who is going to be the next hit man?” “They cut guys to pieces,” he said. The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said. Keep reading…
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The War Next Door: Mexican Drug Cartels Kidnapping Bus Passengers For Gladiator-Like Fights To The Death…
