Foreign Policy News

Today in super cheerful news from the "Golly gosh we have awesome allies" news desk is this from Harper's Weekly:

A 15-year-old schoolgirl named Malala Yousafzai was flown from Pakistan to the United Kingdom for medical care after being shot in the head by masked Taliban militants in the Swat Valley. Yousafzai, who at the age of 11 began blogging for the BBC’s Urdu service under the pseudonym Gul Makai (“cornflower”), was targeted for championing girls’ education rights. “She has become a symbol of Western culture in the area,” said a Taliban spokesman. “She symbolizes the brave girls of Swat,” said a local filmmaker. Members of the Pakistani Taliban said they would target journalists for giving the attempted assassination “undue” coverage and for unfairly portraying the Taliban as the “worst people on earth.”

You stay classy Pakistan! Good thing you're not one of our enemies or we'd be bombing the shit out of you right now with drones or something.

Ah, freedom

From Harper's Weekly:

As Libyan forces converged on Muammar Qaddafi's last redoubts countrywide, documents recovered in Tripoli showed that the CIA and MI6 had helped Qaddafi persecute dissidents, including Abdul Hakim Belhaj, military commander of Libya's national transitional government, whom the CIA rendered back to the country from Asia in 2004. "I wasn't allowed a bath for three years and I didn't see the sun for one year," said Belhaj. "They hung me from the wall and kept me in an isolation
cell. I was regularly tortured."

"It can't come as a surprise," said CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, "that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats."

...

WikiLeaks released a diplomatic cable backing claims that U.S. troops shot at least ten handcuffed Iraqi civilians, including five children, in the town of Ishaqi in 2006, then called in an airstrike to cover up the act.

Brought to you by good ol' U S of A brand Freedom Torture™, Freedom Murder™ and Freedom Bombs™. Be sure to stock up next time you stop at Walmart!