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JSOC: The Black Ops Force That Took Down Bin Laden

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Jeremy Scahill writes:

Both President Bush and President Obama have reserved the right for US forces to operate lethally and unilaterally in any country across the globe in pursuit of alleged high value terrorists. The Obama administration’s expansion of US Special Operations activities globally has been authorized under a classified order dating back to the Bush administration. Originally signed in early 2004 by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, it is known as the “AQN ExOrd,“ or Al Qaeda Network Execute Order. The AQN ExOrd was intended to cut through bureaucratic and legal processes, allowing US special forces to move into denied areas or countries beyond the official battle zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. David Petraeus, who is poised to become director of the CIA, expanded and updated that order in late 2009. "JSOC has been more empowered more under this administration than any other in recent history,” a Special Ops source told The Nation. “No question.”

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Several Special Ops sources say that President Obama has taken concrete steps to once again integrate JSOC more fully into the broader US military strategy globally. The bin Laden operation, which was done in concert with the CIA, seems to be evidence of that. The primacy of JSOC within the Obama administration’s foreign policy–from Yemen and Somalia to Afghanistan and Pakistan–indicates that he has doubled down on the Bush-era policy of targeted assassination as a staple of US foreign policy.

JSOC: The Black Ops Force That Took Down Bin Laden

The ugly side of progress

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The “bizarre boom of plastic surgery in small-town India.”

A girl (woman?) brought in for plastic surgery by her mother-in-law:

Comments Dr Kalda (plastic surgeon), “The saas (mother-in-law) examined the girl’s naked body before marriage and brought her to me so she could be perfect for her son.”

A father makes his daughter have plastic surgery to remove a birthmark on her cheek because a prospective groom’s mother found it objectionable:

As she’s wheeled into the operation theatre she winks at her sister and says “Oh didi, dulhe ko bhi check kar lo jaa ke, us ke upar bhi daag hai toh saath surgery karwa le! (Go get the groom checked too, if he has a scar as well we can get surgery together!)” An unamused Roopam explains, “She is young. She doesn’t understand — it doesn’t matter if a man is scarred or ugly, he will still get a wife. But a woman must do all she can to make herself the ideal wife.

The ugly side of progress

Bangladeshi Rape Victim Flogged To Death

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rightsandhumanity:

Hena Begum, a 14-year-old old Bangladeshi girl, was publicly flogged recently in Shariatpur, 35 miles outside of the capital, Dhaka after being accused of having an affair with her 40-year-old old married cousin. According to the BBC, a village court made up of Islamic clerics and elders sentenced Begum to 100 lashes under Islamic Sharia law. The girl lost consciousness after 80 lashes and her family, who were also ordered to pay 50,000 taka (approximately $700), took her to the hospital where she died six days later.

“What sort of justice is this?” Begums father told the BBC.  “My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice. If it had been a proper court then my daughter would not have died.”

As for the “affair” accusation, Bangladesh’s Daily Star suggests that Begum was actually raped by the cousin.

Four people, including a Muslim cleric, have also been arrested in connection with Begum’s death and the police are looking for an additional 14 people who were involved. The country’s High Court has ordered officials in Shariatpur to explain why Begum was sentenced under Sharia law, since Sharia punishment was made illegal in October 2010. That’s when the High Court declared Bangladesh a secular state, making the issuing of fatwas illegal and a punishable offense.

Begum’s death is a testament to how, despite efforts by Bangladeshi women’s rights groups and civil society, the legal system in the country remains inaccessible for the majority of the population. It often fails to protect those who need it the most: women and children. Longtime Bangladeshi women’s rights activist and former Member of Parliament, Tasmima Hossain, explained the situation to me:

The legal system in our country has failed to reach the ordinary masses. Neither the Government nor the NGOs or any legal system is physically or financially accessible to 90 percent of the people. They cannot afford it. So the primitive Sharia law takes advantage of that in the name of salish, or arbitrary rulings like we have seen in the case of Hena Begum. The so-called mullahs and local village leaders take advantage of the situation in the name of religion.

The BBC reports that dozens of fatwas are issued under Sharia law each year by village clergy in Bangladesh, and this is the second death linked to Sharia punishment despite the practice being outlawed: In December, a 40-year-old woman died in the Rajshahi district after she was caned publicly for having an affair with her stepson.

Bangladeshi Rape Victim Flogged To Death

India: Lesbian Teen Couple Commit Suicide

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lgbtqblogs-deactivated20141230:

Melanie Nathan – Jan 24, 2011- Two teenage girls in SONARPUR a village in South Parganas, India, committed suicide – because they were apparently in despair,  unable to share their lives as a lesbian couple.   Police found the bodies of 19-year-old Bobby Saha and 17-year-old Puja Mondal.  The post-mortem report says they took poison together and lay down to die, clutching each other’s arms.

“It appears that the two girls were in a relationship but they were depressed about the uncertainty of their future, which is why they committed suicide,” said police superintendent L N Meena, according to the India Times.

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India: Lesbian Teen Couple Commit Suicide