Editors’ Picks for Dec 7
How the CIA is Assisting the Next ISIS, Media Blackout After Death of US Journalist, Kochs Stomp Out Criminal Justice Reform, And More Picks
PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
CIA runs shadow war with Afghan militia implicated in civilian killings (Pat)
The CIA has been assisting the Afghan proxy army Khost Protection Force in the fight against al-Qaeda. Just like the US-funded Mujahideen fighters, the Khost Protection Force has questionable ethics. The group has been “implicated in civilian killings, torture, questionable detentions, arbitrary arrests and use of excessive force in controversial night raids, abuses that have mostly not been previously disclosed.”
Blowback, anyone?
Germany rejects own spy agency’s criticism of Saudi Arabia (Pat)
German intelligence agency BND has criticized the Saudi Kingdom’s destabilizing shift toward “impulsive intervention”. Yet it seems Merkel remains committed to kissing the ring in Riyadh.
Almost total US media blackout of death of American journalist in Turkey (Russ)
Serena Shim, an American journalist of Lebanese descent, died in a car accident soon after reporting “Islamic State militants had crossed from Turkey into Syria on trucks bearing the symbols of the World Food Organisation and other NGOs.” PressTV believes this looks like less of an accident, and more like an assassination by the Turkish government.
Kochs: Not So Liberal After All (Trevin)
Turns out the criminal justice reform package the Koch brothers are backing is a Trojan horse, containing a “get out of jail free card for corporate criminals.” The effort purports to reform draconian drug sentences, but also makes it “harder to prosecute corporate polluters, producers of tainted food and other white-collar criminals.”
A Small Victory for 9/11 Truth (Trevin)
To its credit, the Boston Globe published a letter to the editor from Richard Gage, founder and CEO of the nonprofit organization Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The letter was in response to a Globe hit piece on the group called “The ‘Truthers’ and 9/11.”
First Times Front Page Editorial in 95 Years Calls for Gun Control After San Bernardino Massacre (Trevin)
The last front page editorial in the New York Times appeared in 1920, “to express dismay at the nomination of Warren G Harding as the Republican presidential candidate.”
