CIA spies consider Mossad ‘most unfriendly’ agency
[09/07/10]
"This blog frequently considers the issue of US-Israeli intelligence relations, said to be undergoing a turbulent period in recent times. Indeed, the change of guard at the White House, the rearrangement of Washington’s policy priorities following the economic crash, as well as the dramatic rightwing shift in Israeli politics have rapidly altered the political playing field between the two nations. To this extent, it is worth noting that Meir
Dagan, director of Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, told a Knesset committee last July that “Israel is gradually turning from an asset to the United States to a burden”. How is this evident in intelligence relations between Washington and Tel Aviv? The Washington Post’s security correspondent Jeff Stein may be able to help fill in the picture. He wrote a few days ago that an internal poll, which was recently administered to CIA operatives, found that Israeli intelligence agencies are considered the world’s least friendly and most uncooperative with their US counterparts. The survey, which was administered primarily to personnel within the Agency’s National Clandestine Service (which handles actual spies on the ground), also revealed that Israeli spy services are the world’s third most aggressive in their operations on American soil. In fact, the only intelligence agencies considered more aggressive than Israel’s in the survey were those of China and Russia. Stein spoke with retired CIA and FBI officials, who told him that Israeli agencies are indeed “all over the place” in the US, and that they have been “called on the carpet [by FBI counterintelligence] more than any other country by probably a factor of three times as often”. The Washington Post correspondent attempted to contact a spokesperson at Israel’s embassy in Washington DC, but it appears that nobody could be “immediately reached for comment”. [...]"
Commentary: Is Israel Running The Pakistani Taliban?
[09/07/10]
"Four dead Israelis in Hebron was a clue. The 43 dead in Quetta is another. The imaginary Amsterdam hijackers were meant to be one also. More will come with each day, more clues, more planted news stories, more staging, more preparing the minds to expect what so many of us know is coming. [...]" 
Related: Pakistan Taliban threaten attacks on US and Europe
"A senior commander in the Pakistan Taliban last night announced it was planning terror strikes against targets in the US and Europe similar to the Times Square bomb plot. [...]"
Recent Suicide Bombing in Pakistan leaves a trail to Tel Aviv?
"This story was supposed to be about the recent suicide bombings in Pakistan and the Pakistani Taliban announcement that it is planning terror strikes against targets in the US and Europe similar to the Times Square bomb plot. But I found this story from a Left Wing blogger to be a much bigger threat to America. [...]" "Israel To Use Iranian And Pakistani Dupes In Dirty Nuke Ploy"
[08/03/10]
"This week, the last piece fell into place. The National Research Council, part of the National Academy of Science, heavy on politics and light on science, announced that America was no longer able to track nukes threatening our shores. Their report titled Nuclear Forensics: A Capability at Risk, released last week, outlines the details of a secret study requested by the Departments of Homeland Security, Defense and Energy, specifically the National Nuclear Security Administration. The gist of the story is easy, if a nuke goes off in America, dirty nuke in Times Square, one in a container at a port, anywhere, America won’t be able to tell who made it. Not a word of the report is true. It is wild speculation and disinformation written in broad language with no hard science, written for a reason. [...]"
Note: Who knows.
"Secret Service tossed non-essentials from White House bunker on 9/11"
[09/07/10]
"... In a heated exchange, Dr Rice had to argue with the US president, who was in Florida, telling him not to return to the White House because it was a potential terrorist target.
She told the British Channel 4 documentary: ''The president got on the phone and he said: 'I'm coming back.'
''I said: 'You cannot come back here. The United States of America is under attack, you have to go to safety. We don't know what is going on here.'
''He said: 'I'm coming back.' I said: 'You can't.' ''I said to him in a raised voice, and I had never raised my voice to the president before, I said: 'You cannot come back here.' I hung up. [...]"
Note: Bush wanted to come back because he KNEW there was no
attack on the US ... that it was an attack on US buildings by the Mossad ...
Rice was not brought into the loop.
Commentary: "The Imperial Anatomy of
Al-Qaeda: The CIA’s Drug-Running Terrorists and the “Arc of Crisis” By Andrew Marshall
[09/07/10]
Part I
"As the 9th anniversary of 9/11 nears, and the war on terror continues to be waged and grows in ferocity and geography, it seems all the more imperative to return to the events of that fateful September morning and re-examine the reasons for war and the nature of the stated culprit, Al-Qaeda.
The events of 9/11 pervade the American and indeed the world imagination as an historical myth. [...]
911 In Wonderland
[09/07/10]
"There is no doubt that in many movies and TV shows that the number 911 seemed to show up on many various clocks, digital screens, and other symbols. It also seemed to have abruptly stopped right after September 11th, 2001.
Was this the subconscious of various directors pulling those numbers from areas of the brain that we don't understand yet, or, is it some form of "Hidden in plain sight" communication between those "In-The-Know".
There are also many other instances I have noticed that are not in this video series although the video itself is pretty extensive. I actually just noticed an instance in Predator 2 about an hour ago that is not in this series.
Some of the instances seem to be defying extraordinary odds. In the Movie "Hackers" in a scene they look at a computer monitor and on the screen it has the number 911 and 3 of the 911 flight numbers and even the fourth flight 175 which is backwards as 571. What are the odds of a movie showing 2 towers with the words "Crash and Burn" on them and also showing a 911 and all 4 flight numbers on the same screen?
How about the fact that Neo's passport in "The Matrix" expires on September 11th, 2001. What are the odds of that? When Neo walks in to meet the Oracle notice the fridge magnets say 911. When Neo dies and Trinity brings him back to life she looks at the computer screen and it says "Probe 911" and it has 93, 11, and 571 again which is flight 175 backwards.
When Goldblum opens his laptop in "Independence Day" the time left until the aliens attack is 09:11:01. What are the astronomical odds of that?
In the movie "Godzilla" the computer screen shows 911, 11, 175, 93, the word "Target" and 2 towers all at the same time on the same screen. Also in the movie a guy looks at his watch and the hands are on the 9 and 11. Furthermore, right at the same exact moment the reporter says the words "What some city officials are calling the worst act of destruction since the World Trade Center bombing" the time clock on the screen reads 17:39:11 How about those odds?
Maybe some of these directors and producers need to start playing the lottery.
The creator of The X-Files even admits in this series that they hide and implant secret information into video and a big-wig at Fox admits the whole system is "Set up to screw with you". [...]"
Note: 911 In Movies and Media Before September 11th-
Part 1
[10:29] | 911 In Movies and Media Before September 11th-
Part 2
[10:55] | More Subliminal Messages Exposed
[09/07/10]
[15:00]
China, US meet amid tension over trade, military
[09/06/10]
"Senior U.S. and Chinese officials met Monday to steady relations upset by disputes over currency, trade and military affairs despite calls for a tougher line on Chinese economic policies that some say are contributing to American unemployment.
With congressional elections in two months, President Barack Obama is under pressure to kick-start the economy and many lawmakers say he should start by addressing China's lopsided trade surplus and currency policies.
Meanwhile, China's nationalistic state media have criticized U.S.-South Korea military exercises in the Yellow Sea and U.S. government statements on South China Sea territorial disputes, saying they represent threats to China's security.
Chinese officials tried to set a positive tone, emphasizing the need for cooperative relations, at the start of their meetings with National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers and Deputy National Security Adviser Thomas
Donilon. [...]"
9/11:
Fresh Kills - The Dust of the Dead
[09/06/10]
"The operation at Fresh Kills had three objectives: to find human remains, personal effects, and any evidence of the terrorist attack such as a highjacker’s box cutter, cell phones from the planes, and the black boxes.
For almost a year, the recovery team at the Fresh Kills facility sifted, sorted, and searched through
1.8 million tons of World Trade Center material. The staff never recovered a black box from the jets, a box cutter, or
anything relating to the "hijackers." [...]"
Note: Because the aircraft that hit the twin towers were remote
controlled by Israeli technology under a CIA/ Mossad operation ... the 'muslim'
aspect was not actually involved in anything in New York or Washington.
Related: Shaped Charges and the World Trade Center Collapses
Guantanamo Guards Tortured 90-Year-Old Blind Man, Book Alleges
[09/06/10]
"Although U.S. officials have attributed the torture of Muslim prisoners in American custody to a handful of maverick guards or limited to a few "high-value detainees," such criminal acts were widely perpetrated, likely involving large numbers of military personnel, a book by a survivor suggests.
According to Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen raised in Germany and defamed as "the German Taliban," torture at the several prisons in which he was held was frequent, commonplace, and committed by many guards.
In his book, Five Years of My Life: An Innocent Man in Guantanamo, he writes that his beatings began in 2001 on the flight from Pakistan (where he was pulled off a public bus and sold by Pakistani police for $3,000) to his first imprisonment in Afghanistan. Kurnaz wrote: [...]"
Related: Murders at
Guantanamo: The Cover-Up Continues [06/13/10]
"Sometimes the truth is so sickening that no one in a position of authority — senior government officials, lawmakers, the mainstream media — wants to go anywhere near it.
This appears to be the case with the deaths of three men at Guantánamo on June 9, 2006. According to the official version of events, Salah Ahmed al-Salami (also identified as Ali Abdullah Ahmed), a 37-year old Yemeni, Mani Shaman
al-Utaybi, a 30-year old Saudi, and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, a Saudi who was just 17 when he was seized in Afghanistan, died by hanging themselves, in what Guantánamo’s then-Commander, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, described as an act of “asymmetric warfare.” [...]" Paper trail points to Blair: Former PM 'sanctioned the abuse of UK citizens'
"Tony Blair was accused of ordering Jack Straw to 'violate the law' as the row over Britain colluding in torture took a new twist.
Previously secret documents exposed their alleged roles in sanctioning British citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay, where they were abused.
For the first time, the former Prime Minister's office is implicated in a series of explosive classified files which Labour ministers battled to suppress but which have been released on the orders of the High Court.
They cast a new light on Britain's dirty secret and lay bare the extent to which the Labour government allegedly turned a blind eye to the abduction and torturing of its own citizens. [...]"
Commentary: Assange/CIA: "A Gift of Coincidence"
[09/06/10]
"Put on your tinfoil hat for a moment and try out this scenario... [...]"
Note: This blog has an interesting hypothesis about the recent scandal.
U.S. and Israel spying behind BlackBerry woe: Dubai police
[09/06/10]
"The Unites States is the primary beneficiary of having no controls over the BlackBerry, as it has an interest to spy on the UAE," Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said in remarks carried by the website of the daily al-Khaleej on Friday.
"The West has accused us of curbing the liberties of BlackBerry users, while America, Israel, Britain and other countries are allowed access to all transferred data," Tamim added. [...]"
Note: See 'Israel" link at the top of this panel for
related news.
Pentagon Bulks Up Yemen’s Arsenal as Shadow War Grows
[09/05/10]
"Yemen is the new Pakistan — well, at least it is to many in the Pentagon, the White House, and the intelligence community. U.S. spies think
al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate is the most likely terrorist network to attack us, And just like last year’s $400 million U.S. “counterinsurgency fund” for Pakistan tried to get the Pakistani military
al-Qaeda-specific weapons, the Pentagon’s already given Yemen $155 million dollars’ worth of copters,
Humvees, radios and transport planes to contain the evolving terrorist threat. Look for all that to expand.
Note: See 'Yemen" link at the top of this panel for
related news.
Documentary: "Dead In The Water - The Sinking of the USS Liberty"
[09/05/10]
" Video [60:00] "During the Six-Day War, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. Thirty-four American servicemen were killed in the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats. Israel claimed that the whole affair had been a tragic accident based on mistaken identification of the ship. The American government accepted the explanation. For more than 30 years many people have disbelieved the official explanation but have been unable to rebut it convincingly. Now, Dead in the Water uses startling new evidence to reveal the truth behind the seemingly inexplicable attack. The film combines dramatic reconstruction of the events, with new access to former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services who have decided to give their own version of events. Interviews include President Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy Admiral Shlomo Errell and members of the USS Liberty crew. [...]"
Related: Flashback (May
2010): BBC Correspondent:
"Mossad did 9/11 and Iran doesn't want Nukes" [10:27]
"Former Senior BBC Mideast Correspondent Alan Hart said on air that Israeli Mossad did 9/11 and much more in his revealing interview with Kevin Barrett. Alan explains the take over of America by zionists and exposes the failed false flag attack of the USS Liberty by Israel using Napalm. [...]"
CIA money behind Wi-Fi Positioning System
(WPS) [09/04/10]
"How amazing would it be if you could walk into McDonalds or Taco Bell and order that mid-morning double cheeseburger and 32 oz Mountain Dew from your mobile device? Just imagine… as you approach the restaurant, a menu pops up on your screen, the phone makes suggestions and helps you super-size your order, before you even set foot in the restaurant!
This advertiser’s wet dream is about to become reality, thanks to WPS (Wi-Fi Positioning System) infrastructure pioneered by CIA front company
Skyhook (formerly Quarterscope) and currently being implemented by several other intelligence-connected companies, including Google, Apple, and Navizon (which is supplying data to Microsoft).
WPS geolocates wireless network devices using a database of known wireless access points, such as in coffee shops. Since at least 2004, WPS companies like Skyhook and Google have been war-driving for access point data. [...]"
Note: Unfortunately for them .... no one would be able to
afford to buy much, by the time this would become ubiquitous.
Corbett Report:
9/11 Truth is Still the Issue
[09/04/10]
6 Video clips "On this 144th episode of The Corbett Report podcast we take a moment on the brink of the 9th anniversary of 9/11 to ponder the state of 9/11 Truth. What have we learned, what have we gained, and what have we left to achieve? Join us for this special edition of the podcast where we talk to Richard Gage, Kevin Ryan, Bob Bowman, Luke
Rudkowski, Anthony Flammia and others about one of the key issues of our time. [...]"
9/11 Research: A Look Into
Stratesec [09/04/10]
"World Trade Center (WTC) security company Stratesec has been a topic of considerable discussion among independent 9/11 investigators. One point of discussion has been the possible familial relationship between Stratesec’s CEO, Wirt Dexter Walker III, and its director Marvin Bush, whose brother was President of the United States on 9/11. Although Wirt and Marvin are distant relatives, these ties are inconsequential relative to each man’s family connections to old drug money, deep state operatives, and the wealthy, powerful people who have controlled such money and operatives
over the last two centuries. [...]"
U.S. Gets Cold Feet in Arctic Drilling
[09/04/10]
"Following all the hullabaloo of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the government’s lackluster performance in responding to that crisis, U.S. regulatory agencies have gotten some proverbial cold feet in allowing offshore drilling in the Arctic.
While not an outright ban or a principled stand against dangerous drilling practices, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar did say that new exploratory offshore oil and gas drilling could continue after reports around the Deepwater Horizon oil spill have concluded. [...]"
Blackwater Won Contracts Via Dozens Of Dummy Corporations
[09/04/10]
"Blackwater Worldwide created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, according to Congressional investigators and former Blackwater officials.
While it is not clear how many of those businesses won contracts, at least three had deals with the United States military or the Central Intelligence Agency, according to former government and company officials. Since 2001, the intelligence agency has awarded up to $600 million in classified contracts to Blackwater and its affiliates, according to a United States government official.
The Senate Armed Services Committee this week released a chart that identified 31 affiliates of Blackwater, now known as Xe Services. The network was disclosed as part of a committee’s investigation into government contracting. The investigation revealed the lengths to which Blackwater went to continue winning contracts after Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007. That episode and other reports of abuses led to criminal and Congressional investigations, and cost the company its lucrative security contract with the State Department in Iraq.
The network of companies — which includes several businesses located in offshore tax havens — allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials or the public, and to assure a low profile for any of its classified activities, said former Blackwater officials, who, like the government officials, spoke only on condition of anonymity.
[...]"
33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True, What Every Person Should Know...
[09/04/10]
" Conspiracy theory is a term that originally was a neutral descriptor for any claim of civil, criminal or political conspiracy. However, it has come almost exclusively to refer to any fringe theory which explains a historical or current event as the result of a secret plot by conspirators of almost superhuman power and cunning. To conspire means "to join in a secret agreement to do an unlawful or wrongful act or to use such means to accomplish a lawful end. "The term "conspiracy theory" is frequently used by scholars and in popular culture to identify secret military, banking, or political actions aimed at stealing power, money, or freedom, from "the people".
To many, conspiracy theories are just human nature. Not all people in this world are honest, hard working and forthcoming about their
intentions. Certainly we can all agree on this. So how did the term “conspiracy theory” get grouped in with fiction, fantasy and folklore? Maybe that’s a conspiracy, just kidding. Or am I? [...]"
Turkey's Silent Crisis
[09/04/10]
"Turkey is in the grip of a summer of senseless violence. A little over a week before the attacks in Batman, on July 25, a clash erupted in the western town of Inegol when an ordinary quarrel between a Turk and a Kurd quickly spread after assuming a racial undertone. Just a few days later, four police officers were murdered in the southern province of
Hatay. This was a mirror image of the Batman event; it appears as if rogue elements in the security forces had set up an ambush to blame the other side. This killing, however, was followed by intense interethnic clashes as local Turks took to the streets to exact revenge on their Kurdish neighbors. [...]"
"Schwarzenegger's California: Into the Abyss"
[09/03/10]
"While the Summer Shields' Congressional campaign in San Francisco is spearheading the building of a juggernaut behind Lyndon LaRouche's revolutionary conception of NAWAPA as the TVA of the 21st Century, the state of California is plunging into the abyss. The regular legislative session ended Tuesday with no budget, two months after one was due, and there is little prospect for agreement. [...]"
Book Review: "The Politics of Genocide"
[09/03/10]
"In 1895 novelist Anatole France – who in the same decade took up cudgels in defense of persecuted Armenians in the Ottoman Empire while also entering the lists on behalf of Alfred Dreyfus – wrote an essay in which he maintained that words are like coins. When freshly minted the images and inscriptions on them are clear. But by dint of constant circulation they become effaced until the outlines are blurred and the words unintelligible.
As Edward S. Herman and David Peterson write in The Politics of Genocide, “During the past several decades, the word ‘genocide’ has increased in frequency of use and recklessness of application, so much so that the crime of the twentieth century for which the word was originally coined often appears debased. Unchanged, however, is the huge political bias in its usage….” With their painstaking efforts to compile information and analyze the self-serving misuse of this term by the government, media and establishment academic figures of the United States and its allies, the authors have performed a valuable service to the cause of truth and of peace.
The fact that combating “genocide” has replaced confronting communism in some notably left and liberal circles as a major intellectual and moral legitimation for an enduringly aggressive and interventionist U.S. foreign policy is not fortuitous. It has been adopted to further American and allied interests in Europe and Africa in particular but with international application.
Nowhere is this more explicit than in the U.S.-based Genocide Prevention Task Force’s 2008 report Preventing Genocide, where the “Save
Darfur” activism of the last decade is singled out as a model for how to “build a permanent constituency for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities.” [...]"
Commentary: The American Nightmare
Pravda [09/03/10]
"There once was the “American Dream.” To be sure, first this dream was American in the true sense of the word, pertaining to the entire continent from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Before long, however, the adjective “American” was hijacked and applied with appalling single-mindedness to the US exclusively. This operation has been so successful that today to most people in the world, “American” is synonymous with “US”.
Yet one ought to remember that once the American Dream could be chased not only in the US, but in Canada, Brazil, Cuba, Venezuela Argentina and Uruguay as well. Since the mid-1800s the latter, like the US, have also attracted millions upon millions of Europeans in search of a better, freer and more comfortable life. Until quite recently, many of them were indeed rewarded for their efforts. Their labor has forever transformed the face of the New World.
The golden years for the “American Dream” (referring to the US exclusively) began after the end of World War II and lasted for about a half century. Its definitive end came when the New York Twin Towers collapsed. In hindsight, the signs of decay in the US were visible before 9/11, but since then the American Dream is being shattered in ever smaller pieces, with ever diminishing chances of being put together again.
True to the cherished European myths about the New World, everything in the Americas seems beyond the scale of what Europeans are accustomed to: [...]"
KBR Only Contractor Granted Legal Immunity From Harming Soldiers And Civilians
[09/03/10]
"A Pentagon deal to grant one of America's largest military contractors immunity from harming soldiers and civilians in Iraq was a unique arrangement, according to Army Secretary John McHugh. As previously reported in Huffington Post and the Oregonian, taxpayers may be on the hook to compensate more than 150 military veterans who claim that a Halliburton subsidiary knowingly exposed them to cancer-causing chemicals in Iraq. [...]"
WikiLeaks CIA Red Cell Memo: Orwellian Mindset exposed
[09/03/10]
"The CIA Red Cell memorandum released by WikiLeaks speaks volumes about the doublethink, paranoia, deception, and delusion of the CIA itself. [...]"
Flashback: World Bank
Threatened “Drastic Steps Necessary” if Nations Refuse Population Reduction Implementation
[09/03/10]
"It’s the eugenicist in the Discover Channel building multiplied by a million. Not simply a lone eco-terrorist saying “parasitic human infants” must die, but one of the largest international financial institutions demanding it. To make the contrast even more remarkable, James J. Lee scared the living daylights out of some Discovery Channel employees, the IMF & World Bank take hostage entire nations.
In its 1984 World Development Report, the World Bank threatens nations who are slow in implementing the Bank’s “population policies” with “drastic steps, less compatible with individual choice and freedom.”
The report, literally saturated with dehumanizing proposals, is devoted entirely to the World Bank’s long-term strategies in regards to population control:
“(…) economic policy and performance in the next decade will matter for population growth in the developing countries for several decades beyond; population policy and change in the rest of this century will set the terms for the whole of development strategy in the next.”
To illustrate how serious the World Bank is in achieving the overall strategy objectives on population control, the report does not shy away from outright threats:
“Population policy has a long lead time; other development policies must adapt in the meantime. Inaction today forecloses options tomorrow, in overall development strategy and in future population policy. Worst of all, inaction today could mean that more drastic steps, less compatible with individual choice and freedom, will seem necessary tomorrow to slow population growth.”
[...]"
Related: World Bank Population-Reduction Lending Schemes Already Underway
Oil sheen spreading from
NEW Gulf platform explosion [09/02/10]
"A mile-long oil sheen spread Thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico off
Louisiana, west of the site of BP's massive spill. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy Inc.
He said Mariner had deployed three firefighting vessels to the site and one already was in place fighting the blaze.
The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the explosion and fire, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the site around 9 a.m. CDT. All 13 people aboard the rig were rescued as they floated in the nearby water in survival outfits called
Gumby suits. The platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Vermilion Bay on the central Louisiana coast. [...]"
Taliban operate ‘very extensive’ spy network in British Afghan bases
[09/01/10]
"The former head of British troops in Afghanistan has warned that the Taliban are gathering intelligence from a “very, very extensive network of intelligence” operating inside British military bases in the Central Asian country. Colonel Richard J. Kemp, who was Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said the spy network includes “sources in many places” throughout the country, such as NATO military bases and Afghan security forces outposts. He also told Britain’s Daily Telegraph that the network is so effective that it tends to possess more information about the itineraries of foreign officials visiting Afghanistan than Western diplomats, NATO or Afghan military commanders realize. Colonel Kemp was speaking in light of an extensive review of security protocols, ordered by the British government, after it became known that the Taliban were planning to kill British Prime Minister David Cameron during his ‘surprise visit’ to Afghanistan last June. Specifically, on June 10, the British leader’s party was being transported through Afghanistan’s Helmand province, in two Chinook helicopters, on their way to British-operated Patrol Base
Shahzad, in Lashkar Gar. But in late afternoon, British intelligence officials aborted the trip, on fears that the Taliban were aware of Mr. Cameron’s precise itinerary. According to intelligence reports, Taliban operatives even knew which of the two Chinooks carried the British Prime Minister. No attack took place, and Mr. Cameron was only told that the mission was aborted once the two helicopters reached their alternative destination. [...]"
Commentary:
"Death By Globalism: Economists Haven't a Clue"
Paul Craig Roberts
[09/01/10]
" [...]"
Note: Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.
Analysis:
The State and Local Bases of Zionist Power in America
James Petras
[09/01/10]
"Any serious effort to understand the extraordinary influence of the Zionist power configuration over US foreign policy must examine the presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government andlocal Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders.
There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix).
The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America
(JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute
(Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others. Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes.
[...]"
Related: Israel and the Rise of 'Ultra-Semitism'
"Something resembling genocide is gaining currency among elements of the Israeli government and public.
[...]"
Commentary: Excuse to Expand the War?: US adds Pakistani Taliban to
' terrorism blacklist' [09/01/10]
"The Obama administration on Wednesday added the Pakistani Taliban to its international terrorism blacklist, targeting the group blamed for the failed car bombing in New York's Times Square and its leaders with financial and travel sanctions. [...]"
Predator drones to patrol entire US-Mexico
border from Sept 1 [08/31/10]
"A US Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile is seen on the tarmac. The United States beginning Wednesday will add a third Predator drone to patrol its border with Mexico, allowing authorities for the first time to monitor the entire stretch of land separating the two neighbors using the unmanned aircraft.
The latest drone joins two others in covering the 2,000-mile (3,200 kilometer) frontier which runs across the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, the US Department of Homeland Security said. [...]"
Commentary: Mossad pretends to be U.S. Intelligence
[08/31/10]
"Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.
As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation. [...]"
See "Israel" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary:
The All-Seeing Eye of the State: Scanners Leave No Place to Hide
[08/31/10]
""The only person who is still a private individual in Germany is somebody who is asleep." ~ Robert
Ley, a member of the Nazi hierarchy. As the surveillance state expands around us, entangling us in a web from which there is no escape, what we used to call "privacy" is fast becoming a thing of the past. In fact, the very latest governmental assaults on our privacy rights take the form of two portable high-tech scanners that are little more than thinly disguised data collection systems aimed at turning unsuspecting Americans into permanent suspects.
The first device, a license-plate recognition scanner that can sweep a parking lot full of cars in under a minute, uses infrared cameras mounted on police cars to constantly scan nearby license plates and check them against police databases. "Police like the devices for their speed and efficiency but mostly for their ability to record thousands of plates and their locations each day," writes journalist Christine
Vendel. "The information is loaded wirelessly into a police database and archived for possible searches later." With such a tool at its disposal, the government can retroactively pinpoint exactly where you were on any given day. And if you had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the burden of proving your innocence will rest with you. [...]"
German oil deal may lead to arctic
[08/31/10]
"Russian oil company Rosneft is in talks to acquire a stake in a BP joint venture that could result in deals to drill for oil in the arctic, sources said.
[...]"
Israelis
Carelessly Bombed Own Country With Radioactive Uranium Aerosols with 100 GBU-28's in 2006
[08/31/10]
"The US Military long ago figured out the optimum explosive package to guarantee creation of highly effective radioactive, poisonous uranium aerosols from the GBU-28’s uranium ballast.
Sub-nanometer length ceramicized particles go right through clothing and skin, even a full MOPP suit offers no protection to the wearer. This puts all soldiers and civilians in the area in the “Throw Away” column. Anyone in the Target Area will get Zapped, it is just a matter of time.
The combination of small size, electrical charge, radioactive emissions and Brownian Motion conspire to keep the invisible, odorless, tasteless metal particles mobilized in the lower atmosphere for a long time [...]
The short, intense bombing event occurred in the last days of the Lebanon Israeli War. The bombing was concentrated just north of the shared Israeli Lebanese border. Both sides of the border are rural farming areas, both sides were subject to poison gas in the form of about 400,000 lbs, or 184,818 kg, of radioactive aerosols in two days.
The contaminated fruits and vegetables were ultimately sold and presumably consumed in the European Union, Israel and Lebanon, as well as other participating trading partner countries.
Shortly before the bombing, Israeli Jews were removed from the area. After the bombing anti-Zionist Jews were moved in to work the radiologically contaminated Israeli farms by the Israeli Defense Forces. As one person commented, “Y’know, the Orthodox guys with long sideburns that nobody likes.”
Weaponized uranium ions attack a Human population’s reproductive capacity at the
cellular level, their brains and bones. The IDF bombed Southern Lebanon at the Israel/Lebanon border. Then they moved in famously anti-Zionist Jews to the newly radioactive and invisibly contaminated part of Northern Israel. [...]
"
Commentary: DNA & Mitochondrial Time Bombs
Uranium, Mercury, Cancer & Diabetes [08/31/10]
"Diabetes and cancer, which are both are expanding dramatically in the world today, can in great part be traced to the increasing radiation, heavy metals and chemicals to which we are all being exposed. Every physician knows that radiation can lead to cancer but few are aware of the connection between heavy metals, general chemical exposures, and cancer. Fewer still understand the connection between toxic exposure and diabetes. See my book New Paradigms in Diabetic Care for a look at how toxicities run head-on into nutritional deficiencies to create diabetic conditions.
Making a connection between radiation and diabetes may seem ludicrous to physicians who recommend and administer dangerous radioactive CAT and PET scans because they are in full denial that they are using tests that cause cancer to diagnose and treat it. Modern medicine is at the head of the line in terms of actively downplaying the rising dangers of both radioactivity and mercury because it’s an industry whose paradigm includes exposing patients directly to these dangerous substances.
One in ten Chinese adults already has the disease and another 16 percent are on the verge of developing it, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The rate of increase is much faster than we’ve seen in Europe and in the U.S. and tracks the most rapid increase in air and water pollution ever seen on earth. China is home to the most diabetics in the world as it is home to the worst pollution.
“Depleted (DU) uranium is highly toxic to humans, both chemically as a heavy metal and radiological as an alpha particle emitter,” writes Dr. Rosalie Bertell, Canadian Epidemiologist.[2] A new study, conducted by biochemist Dr. Diane Stearns at Northern Arizona University confirms that, separate from any radiation risks, cells exposed to uranium will bond with the metal chemically.[3]
Uranium and phosphate have a strong chemical affinity for each other and the DNA and mitochondria are loaded with phosphate so uranium is a DNA and mitochondria deep-penetration bomb. The uranium is attacking on fundamental cellular levels while mercury offers a knockout punch by attacking the sulfur bonds so essential for insulin’s proper function. [...]"
Deepwater Horizon fears resurface as rigs probe for oil under Arctic ice
[08/30/10]
"In a few days' time, officials at the Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum in Greenland will reveal the winners of a new round of licences to drill for oil and gas in its waters. The announcement promises to be explosive.
Among those waiting are most of the world's leading oil companies, including
ExxonMobil, Shell and Norway's StatOil. Watching with equal attention will be the planet's leading green groups, who they have pledged to block every effort to drill in the Arctic.
"The Arctic is the last pristine refuge in the northern hemisphere and it is simply not acceptable for oil companies to come here to drill and risk triggering a disaster that would dwarf the Deepwater Horizon spill," said Ben
Ayliffe, senior energy campaigner at Greenpeace. Its ship, the Esperanza, is currently trying to disrupt drilling in the Davis Strait off the Greenland mainland. "We are going to make a real fight of this,"he said.
Last week the future of drilling in the Arctic hit the headlines when it emerged that BP, in the wake of the disastrous oil spill off America's Gulf Coast, would not be bidding for contracts in the region. But the other oil giants will. And it is not hard to understand why.
Last year, the US Geological Survey estimated that there were more than 90bn barrels of oil beneath the Arctic seabed – an estimated 13% of the world's undiscovered reserves – with the waters around Greenland, as well as the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, pinpointed as the most promising zones.
Only a handful of test wells have been sunk so far, and no oil has yet been discovered. Oil companies are confident of success, however, while environmentalists are grimly resigned to the idea of wells being sunk. Greenland, Beaufort and Chukchi are all likely to become sites of future drilling – and of major battles with ecologists. [...]"
See "Oil & Gas" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Pakistan flood: US rains down death as villagers starve
[08/30/10]
"The flooding crisis in Pakistan continues to grow as thousands flee the historic city of Thatta in Sind after the Indus River broke a levee and flooded new areas.
Around 175,000 people, almost three quarters of the city’s population, are thought to have fled their homes overnight, said government official, Manzoor Sheikh.
A US drone fired four missiles on two vehicles in the Shaidano Dand area of Kurram on Friday night.
At least six people are reported dead, but the toll is expected to rise as more villagers trapped under the rubble of a building are discovered.
According to local residents, the drones were still carrying out aerial flights over the area after the initial attack, creating panic among people.
Since August 2008, over 1,000 have died in raids by US drones which have frequently targeted South and North Waziristan—areas which have been heavily affected by the recent floods.
If the Nato forces in neighbouring Afghanistan were to divert even a fraction of their efforts towards humanitarian relief many thousands of lives could be saved. But it seems that the ‘war on terror’ is far too important for that. [...]
Karzai fires top graft-fighting prosecutor
[08/29/10]
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai has fired a top prosecutor who was determined to root out corruption, the ousted official said. [...]"
Note: Karzai has become expendable. Mark my words .. he
will be killed.
"Endless War, Humanitarian Crisis, and Perpetual Resistance: U.S. Foreign Policy in the 21st Century"
[08/29/10]
Note: There's no more time left for such stupidity.
Colonel Kicked Out of Afghanistan for Anti-PowerPoint Rant
[08/29/10]
".. The colonel’s rant called into question whether ISAF’s revamped command structure, charged with coordinating the day-by-day war effort, was much more than a briefing factory. Or, as Sellin put it, “endless tinkering with PowerPoint slides to conform with the idiosyncrasies of cognitively challenged generals in order to spoon-feed them information.” [...]
Note: It's anti-stupid, not anti-PowerPoint.
Commentary: Corporate Meteors Strike US Gulf (They Got the Whole World In Their Hands)
[08/29/10]
"Perhaps the British Petroleum/Nalco event was the wakeup call we needed in order to look more closely at untouchable corporations that began running the whole world 100 years ago. This is a paper about corporate communism, which is otherwise known as “monopolies” that are now rampant in the US. Monopolies always engage in conspiracy, and their first goal is to conspire to eliminate their competition and choices, establish control over prices and the masses by an elite few. The April 20, 2010, BP oil catastrophe in America’s Gulf can be described as a monumental corporate conspiracy. BP was permitted by cronies to dig a hole to China off Louisiana’s shores without safety measures or concern for the Gulf’s marine ecosystem. Rather than immediately corking its gusher, BP quickly tapped a relatively unheard of company named Nalco on the shoulder for millions of gallons of its toxic Corexit dispersant. BP began adding Corexit to the oil-ravaged Gulf on April 23, and thumbed its nose at the US government when it suggested that something less toxic and more effective than Corexit be used. [...]"
9/11/01: Controlled Demolition
[08/28/10]
[14:58] "This video is conclusive proof that WTC Towers 1,2 & Building 7 were brought down with explosives. Besides the numerous eyewitness accounts you can actually hear the explosions in some of the clips. Show it to everyone you know. I purposely put in clips of other known and accepted controlled demolitions so people who have never seen one or who may not fully understand how one works could see for themselves. I then play real, unaltered clips recorded on 9/11 itself along with the eyewitness accounts from the day itself. The 9/11 commission report can’t stand up to this evidence at all, and neither can any so called 9/11 debunker. [...]"
See "9/11" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Alabama Charges BP, Transocean For BP Gulf Oil Spill
Cover-up and Using Dangerous Toxic Dispersants [08/28/10]
" Alabama’s attorney general is suing BP and others over the Gulf oil spill saying the oil giant has broken too many promises.
Attorney General Troy King filed two lawsuits in federal court in Montgomery late Thursday afternoon. One suit is against BP, the other against Transocean. In a statement released Friday, King said “their history of saying one thing and doing another, and now, new information that they have been secretly working to gain a legal advantage, can only further damage our people.” The lawsuit claims “defendants were slow and incompetent, if not dishonest, in their announcements and warnings to the state of Alabama and its citizens and businesses,” referring to the drastic difference in the initial oil flow estimate of 1,000 barrels per day and the latest estimate of as much as 60,000 barrels per day. The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified money damages plus punitive damages, also references BP’s choice of a “highly toxic chemical used to disperse oil in the ocean.” The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, causing nearly 200 million gallons of oil to gush into the Gulf of Mexico over 87 days before the well was capped last month. A spokesman for BP declined to comment to the Associated Press. King filed the lawsuit against the wishes of Gov. Bob Riley, who says the state should pursue an out-of-court settlement first.
Here are some highlights of the charges filed against BP and Transocean by the State of Alabama [...]"
See "Oil & Gas" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary: Obama to escalate slaughter in Yemen
[08/28/10]
"Yemen, like Afghanistan and Iraq before it, is being targeted not to eradicate terrorism—the killing of civilians with cruise missiles and drone attacks will only produce more recruits for terrorist attacks—but because of its strategic location, bordering Saudi Arabia, the number-one oil exporter, and the vital Bab
al-Mandab strait, through which three million barrels of oil pass daily. [...]"
See "Yemen" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Sotomayor Says Court May Rule to Limit First Amendment in Response to Wikileaks
[08/28/10]
"On Thursday, talking to students at the University of Denver, Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor said the Wikileaks case will result in the Court likely weighing the First Amendment against national security. She made the comment in response to a question posed by a student.
“That was not the beginning of that question, but an issue that keeps arising from generation to generation, of how far we will permit government restriction on freedom of speech in favor of protection of the country,” Sotomayor said. “There’s no black-and-white line.” According to Sotomayor, the balance between national security and free speech is “a constant struggle in this society, between our security needs and our first amendment rights, and one that has existed throughout our history.”
Following the release of over 90,000 documents by Wikileaks in July, the Pentagon found no evidence that the disclosure harmed U.S. national security or endangered American troops in the field. The Pentagon review team consists of military intelligence analysts, lawyers and others working for the Joint Chiefs of Staffs and other elements of the Defense Department.
[...
See "Wikileaks" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Trends: Floods, Drought Will Prevent Gains in China's Grain Production This Year
[08/28/10]
"Natural disasters may block any increase in China’s grain production this year as the worst floods in a decade ruin crops.
Flooding cut harvests of early rice in the major growing areas of southern China, Xinhua News Agency cited Vice Agriculture Minister Chen Xiaohua as saying yesterday during a government inquiry on grain safety. Crops in low-lying areas of the country’s fertile northeast were also damaged, he said.
China’s corn imports in July surged after traders bought the most overseas grain in more than 10 years to replenish shrinking domestic supplies. Early rice production this year fell 6.1 percent to 31.3 million tons, the National Bureau of Statistics said on its website yesterday. The world’s most- populous country grows almost a third of the globe’s rice and cotton, and produces about half its pork.
“This year’s weather will not reduce the output,” Chen Shuwei, a manager at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultant Co. said in a telephone interview. “China will not have a shortage in the next one or two years.”
Low temperatures due to floods delayed the ripening of winter wheat by five to seven days, and spring sowing in the northeast by seven to 10 days, the minister said. Lower rice output won’t stop overall summer grain production from equaling the levels of previous years, making it China’s seventh year of bumper harvests, Xinhua quoted the government’s Chen as saying. [...]"
See "China" link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary: Privatizing the Occupation: The Mercenaries and the NGOs
[08/27/10]
"Market extremists argue that the private sector can do almost everything better than governments. The most extreme do not concede the qualifier “almost” and argue that even the police and army should be privatized.
The growth of private security companies (PSC) is generally seen as a result of the success of extreme market arguments.
Less commented upon is a parallel growth of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in healthcare, education and social services development, especially in the Third World, that was once provided by public institutions.
Interestingly, at least one insider has linked the two. An advisor to ArmorGroup and former NGO employee, James Fennell, explains these organizations similar historical trajectory: “The increasing role of commercial security companies may be viewed in a similar vein to the increased policy and technical input of NGOs over the past two decades to the provision of official relief and development assistance to Southern nations.” [...]"
World Politics: Speech by Nicolas Sarkozy at the annual Ambassadors of France' Conference
[08/27/10]
"Mr. Prime Minister, Mr. President of the Senate, Mr. President of the National Assembly, Mr. Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Ministers, Parliamentarians, Ambassadors, There are moments in history when fate wavers between the best and the worst possible outcome. Moments when all that has been achieved could be lost or, conversely, lead to lasting progress. We are at one of these moments now. This is the case for the international community's actions in the crescent of crisis that stretches from the borders of Pakistan to the far reaches of the
Sahel, encompassing Iran and the Middle East. It is the case in Europe, where the Treaty of Lisbon and the decisions taken to deal with the financial crisis are opening up prospects still to be developed if we are to make the European Union a global player. It is also the case for the global economy, which has not yet resumed the path of solid and sustainable growth, while the G20 must prove that it has the determination to [...]"
Related: France to push ahead with expulsion of Gypsies, dismantling camps, despite criticism - Race and Ethnicity
[08/27/10]
"President Nicolas Sarkozy's expulsion of the Roma (Gypsies) from France is a flashback to 1940 when the Nazis did the same thing. Sarkozy's just doing it in planes instead of cattle cars. How can this be when there is free movement across borders in Europe? His move to... [...]"
Trends:
Gates
Foundation Invests in Monsanto [08/27/10]
"...
When the economic power of Gates is coupled with the irresponsibility of
Monsanto, the outlook for African smallholders is not very promising,” said
Mayet. Monsanto’s aggressive patenting practices have also monopolized
control over seed in ways that deny farmers control over their own harvest,
going so far as to sue—and bankrupt—farmers for “patent infringement.”
[...]"
Scores of Karzai administration officials on CIA’s pay roll: US official
[08/27/10]
"A day after it was revealed that a close aide of Afghanistan President Hamid
Karzazi, Mohammed Zia Salehi, is on the pay roll of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a US official has claimed that several members of the Karzai administration are actually being paid by the intelligence agency to maintain a source of information.
A day after it was revealed that a close aide of Afghanistan President Hamid
Karzazi, Mohammed Zia Salehi, is on the pay roll of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), a US official has claimed that several members of the Karzai administration are actually being paid by the intelligence agency to maintain a source of information.
The U.S. official, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, said a significant number of officials in the Karzai administration are on the payroll of the CIA.
“They’ll pay whoever they think can help them. That has been the CIA attitude since 2001,” The Washington Post quoted the American official, as saying.
A former CIA official, while supporting the agency’s move of bribing Afghan officials, said it was necessary because “the head of state is not going to tell you everything”.
He also underlined the fact that Karzai often seems unaware of moves that members of his own government make.
However, the CIA has strongly rebutted the claims of offering money to Afghan officials describing such remarks as an attempt to malign its image.
“This anonymous source appears driven by ignorance, malice or both,” Paul
Gimigliano, the CIA spokesman said. “This agency plays an essential role in promoting American goals in Afghanistan, including security and stability. Speculation about who may help us achieve that is both dangerous and counterproductive,” Gimigliano added.
According to reports, prominent Afghans who American officials disclosed are on the CIA’s payroll include Karzai’s half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, suspected by investigators of playing a role in the country’s booming opium trade.
The revelation has raised new questions about how the US can root out corruption in the Afghan government when US operations in the country require support from some of the same politicians and leaders accused of graft.
(ANI) [...]"
Related: Key Karzai Aide in Corruption Inquiry Is Linked to
C.I.A. [08/26/10]
"The aide to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials... [...]" MSM: Karzai: Private contractors ‘looting and stealing,’ working with terrorists
[08/23/10]
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Sunday defended his decision to ban private security contractors from operating in public in Afghanistan, saying many of the organizations tasked with providing security are engaging in terrorist activities, working with "Mafia-like" organizations and "looting and stealing from the Afghan people." [...]"
Blackwater
Founder Moves to Abu Dhabi
Cultural Studies:
Textbook Doublethink:
SPLC’s Latest Effort Attacks Constitutionalists [08/27/10]
"The Southern Poverty Law Center’s latest Associated Press release entitled, Baffling beliefs mark Sovereign Citizen theories, is the organization’s most recent effort to marginalize large blocks of the population it deems to be a domestic threat. Closer examination of this, as well as other documents, reveals a systematic pattern of media manipulation and disinformation aimed squarely at the American people.
In the latest release the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identifies, “the number of people who now consider themselves sovereign citizens, Americans above the law who adhere only to the Constitution and follow a revised history of the United States”.
For any students of critical thinking, the SPLC is employing a 20th century propaganda technique know as doublespeak. Here the SPLC attempts to construct the doublethink idea that such Americans who adhere only to the Constitution are “above the law”.
Next it offers out proponents of sound money by railing against them, “The gold standard and bankruptcy: Belief that the country went bankrupt in 1933 when it suspended the gold standard and no longer had collateral to back its loans.” By spinning the conversation in one direction, the SPLC uses what is actual fact in the US and what few economists and historians will argue- that the country is bankrupt and has no real collateral for its loans, but then proceeds to paint this real-and-present economic reality as a ‘conspiracy theory’ propagated by so-called extremists.
[...]"
Related: How the Commerce Clause Made Congress All-Powerful
[08/27/10] Video clip
[10:06]
"The Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to "regulate commerce . . . among the several States," and for more than 100 years federal lawmakers invoked it for a very narrow purpose—to prevent states from imposing trade barriers on each other. But today members of Congress act as if it gives them the authority to do just about anything—including forcing you to eat your vegetables.
During her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Elena Kagan seemed to accept that the Commerce Clause could, in theory, give Congress the power to dictate what Americans eat. And what about ObamaCare's "individual mandate," which forces Americans to purchase health insurance? ObamaCare opponents are lining up to challenge its constitutionality, but supporters say it's justified—you guessed it—under the Commerce Clause.
How did a clause intended as a restriction on states wind up giving Congress a green light to regulate noncommercial, local, and purely private behavior? How will ObamaCare stand up against the legal challenges brought by the states? Legal titans John Eastman (Chapman University Law Professor) and Erwin Chemerinsky (Founding Dean, University of California, Irvine School of Law) slug it out to to determine whether or not Congress has been abusing the commerce clause.
[...]"
Senate To Sneak Through Internet Kill Switch Bill
[08/27/10]
"The Senate is attempting to sneak through the infamous Internet kill switch cybersecurity bill by attaching it to another piece of legislation that is almost guaranteed to pass – the defense authorization bill – in an underhanded ploy to avoid the difficult task of passing cybersecurity on its own.
“It’s hard to get a measure like cybersecurity legislation passed on its
own,” Democratic Senator Thomas Carper, who is co-chair of a Senate subcommittee with cybersecurity oversight, told Government Information Security.
Senators argue that they will be able to attach the Internet kill switch bill to the Defense Authorization Act because cybersecurity is a component of national security. However, the primary justifications behind treating “cybersecurity” as a national security matter are completely overblown and erroneous.
Proponents of cybersecurity have constantly argued that government needs to have more power over the Internet because cyber-terrorists could hack in and dismantle the entire U.S. power grid, large industrial plants, and the national water supply. This is a complete misnomer because, as a recent Wired News article highlighted, power grid and drinking water systems, “Are rarely connected directly to the public internet. And that makes gaining access to grid-controlling networks a challenge for all but the most dedicated, motivated and skilled — nation-states, in other words.”
As we documented in our piece on the issue, the threat from cyber-terrorists to the U.S. power grid or water supply is minimal. The perpetrators of an attack on such infrastructure would have to have direct physical access to the systems that operate these plants to cause any damage. Any perceived threat from the public Internet to these systems is therefore completely contrived and strips bare the real agenda behind cybersecurity – to enable the government to regulate free speech on the Internet.
This was revealed when Senator Lieberman told CNN’s Candy Crowley that the real motivation behind cybersecurity was to mimic the Communist Chinese system of Internet policing.
“Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” said Lieberman.
As we have documented, the Communist Chinese government does not disconnect parts of the Internet because of genuine security concerns, it habitually does so only to oppress and silence victims of government abuse and atrocities, and to strangle dissent against the state.
The decision to try and sneak through the Internet kill switch bill as part of another package of legislation is undoubtedly a reaction to increasing awareness about how the terms of the bill would completely undermine the foundations of the Internet as an outlet of truly unregulated free speech. [...]"
Joint Special Operations Command Hiring Interrogators and Covert Operatives for ‘Special Access Programs’
[08/26/10]
"The US military's most elite counter-terrorism force, the Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC), prides itself on the secrecy of its operations. JSOC runs classified, compartmentalized task forces in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and elsewhere around the world. It has operated secret prisons and detention sites globally and is the premiere organization tasked with killing or capturing individuals deemed by the president to be threats to the national security of the United States. It maintains a "hit list" of people targeted for kill or capture, including Anwar
al-Awlaki, a US citizen living in Yemen. While there has been an up-tick in media focus on the possibility of a widening CIA role in Yemen, JSOC has been operating in Yemen for years, where its operatives have carried out a variety of operations, including unilateral direct actions—in other words, they have bumped people off.
That has become abundantly clear is that the Obama administration has taken the Bush-era doctrine of the world as a battlefield and run with it. US special forces are now operating in seventy-five countries across the globe—up from sixty under Bush—and special operations sources say Obama is a major fan of the work of JSOC and other special operations forces. [...]"
Note: See the link at the top of this panel marked
"Yemen" for related news. Yemen isn't going away as a focal point.
Commentary:
Dog Days: The War Party Never Takes Summer Vacation
[08/26/10]
"In these, the dog days of summer, normal people everywhere are on vacation. They go to a resort: swimming, boating, family photos on the beach – these are the woof and warp of American life. Standing outside – and, in their estimation, above – that life, with its prosaic concerns, the War Party never takes a vacation. They’re always plotting and planning their next move.
Undeterred by the complete failure of the Iraq invasion – described by the late Gen. William E. Odom as the biggest military disaster in the annals of America’s wars – the cultists of the war god are bound and determined to continue their bloody wilding of the Middle East.
The shrill insistence of the campaign to drag us into war with Iran on Israel’s behalf has gone up a few notches, with a Democratic-controlled sanctions-happy Congress joining the chorus, which includes the Republican party (minus Ron Paul).
The US military is staunchly opposed, but President Obama – and/or his more cynical advisers – may welcome the opportunity to change the subject, from unemployment numbers to casualty counts. Remember what Rahm Emanuel said about how every crisis is an opportunity: in the event of war, the oil shock that will pummel the US economy could give him the excuse he needs to not only ram through his energy policy, but also increase government intervention in every sector of the economy. [...]"
US Drone Strike Destroys House Full of Children in Pakistan
[08/25/10]
"The Obama Administration’s policy of escalating drone strikes took another hit today, after the explosion from a drone attack against the house of “suspected militants” in North Waziristan also destroyed a neighboring house full of women and children.
The combined toll from the blast was 20 people killed, with at least four women and three children among the slain. At least 13 other civilians were also reported wounded, including a number of other children... [...]"
Note: Notice that the CIA is still adamantly pursuing
this drone war, despite the fact that 20 million have been displaced by
floods, etc. Really sadistic people.
MSM: "Petraeus: Iran assisting Taliban"
[08/25/10]
"Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said Wednesday Iran is providing a "modicum" of assistance to the Taliban. [...]"
Note: He's such a scumbag piece of work, a liar and a
scoundrel, Petraeus. Nothing he says can be considered credible at all ...
ever.
Trends:
US fires on civilian Bagram protest
[08/25/10]
"US troops fired on thousands of Afghan civilians as they protested outside the massive US military base at Bagram on Monday. A provincial police official said that at least one civilian was killed in the incident, but Nato asserted that no civilians had been killed or injured. The Western military alliance claimed that soldiers had only fired "warning shots" to disperse residents after they surrounded a military patrol and attacked vehicles outside the sprawling facility with rocks and iron bars. But Parwan province deputy police chief General Faqir Ahmad was adamant that one civilian had been killed - although he said he could not be sure who fired the fatal bullet. Gen Ahmad said that the Nato shooting had served to enrage the crowd, which he put at about 2,000 people. [...]"
Cultural Studies:
"When They Were Out to Get Us"
[08/25/10]
"The 1970s—with its flared jeans and dodgy haircuts, pallid disco music, absurdist trends (pet rocks!), and Khomeinist revolution—what a miserable, squalid decade it was. The idealism and irrational optimism of the 1960s, when throngs of teenagers declared the end of bourgeois society, gave way to Cambodia, Watergate, Jonestown, and the Symbionese Liberation Army. Civil rights marchers and peaceniks made way for black power and Black September.
In Strange Days Indeed, British journalist Francis Wheen stylishly chronicles what he calls the "Them decade," when the grand conspiracy theory was ascendant in the West, having infected the thinking of an astonishing number of clever people—prime ministers, presidents, journalists, and movie directors—as well as the hoi polloi. When something went wrong—a leader deposed, a president shot—it was invariably blamed on the machinations of government, business, and intelligence community conspirators. It was Them. Ordinary people saw a government agent behind every rock. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson was convinced that his intelligence service was fomenting a coup. Richard Nixon distrusted all but his closest aides.
There was something of a hangover in all of this, a predictable backlash from the mainstreaming of political radicalism of the late 1960s. Looking back on 1973, Wheen observes that in Britain "it seems incredible that the National Theater should stage an earnest three-hour Trotskyist seminar, led by no less a figure than Laurence Olivier," that supposedly portended a working-class revolution.
In the United States, most every conspiracy theory that involved the White House, Langley, the entire rotten government, was given a hearing (and sometimes confirmed as fact) in Congress. Public revelation of the CIA's involvement in assassination plots in the Third World, its role in fomenting coups across the globe, and its production of exploding cigars meant for Fidel Castro were treasonous, said singer Bing Crosby. To others, the exposes merely confirmed what they had long suspected: Their government could never be trusted. [...]"
Commentary: Mossad in America
Philip Giraldi
[08/25/10]
"Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology...Israeli government claims that it does not spy on the United States are intended for the media and popular consumption. The reality is that Israel’s intelligence agencies target the United States intensively, particularly in pursuit of military and dual-use civilian technology. Among nations considered to be friendly to Washington, Israel leads all others in its active espionage directed against American companies and the Defense Department. It also dominates two commercial sectors that enable it to extend its reach inside America’s domestic infrastructure: airline and telecommunications security. Israel is believed to have the ability to monitor nearly all phone records originating in the United States, while numerous Israeli air-travel security companies are known to act as the local Mossad stations.
As tensions with Iran increase, sources in the counterintelligence community report that Israeli agents have become more aggressive in targeting Muslims living in the United States as well as in operating against critics. There have been a number of cases reported to the FBI about Mossad officers who have approached leaders in Arab-American communities and have falsely represented themselves as “U.S. intelligence.” Because few Muslims would assist an Israeli, this is done to increase the likelihood that the target will cooperate. It’s referred to as a “false flag” operation.
Mossad officers sought to recruit Arab-Americans as sources willing to inform on their associates and neighbors. The approaches, which took place in New York and New Jersey, were reportedly handled clumsily, making the targets of the operation suspicious. These Arab-Americans turned down the requests for cooperation, and some of the contacts were eventually reported to the FBI, which has determined that at least two of the Mossad officers are, ironically, Israeli Arabs operating out of Israel’s mission to the United Nations in New York under cover as consular assistants.
In another bizarre case, [...]"
Note: Philip Giraldi, a former CIA Officer, is the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest. His “Deep Background” column appears every month exclusively in The American Conservative.
Investigations:
Guilt by Complication
[08/25/10]
"In a November 2008 telephone conversation that was recorded by the FBI, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich daydreamed about what he could get for appointing Barack Obama's preferred choice to fill the president-elect's Senate seat. "Cabinet's out of the question," he said, "but Health and Human Services…I'd take that in a second. That'll never happen." On another occasion, Blagojevich wondered about a position with the Red Cross, only to have his chief of staff throw cold water on the idea by noting that Obama had no authority over the organization.
Given details like these, it's not surprising that U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald failed to convict Blagojevich of illegally plotting to sell Obama's Senate seat—the most sensational accusation against him and, aside from a tangential charge of lying to the FBI, the one on which the jurors came closest to agreement. With a case based on ambiguous conversations and testimony from former cronies looking for lenience, Fitzgerald did what federal prosecutors often do: He piled on the charges, accusing Blagojevich of 24 separate but largely redundant counts in the hope that some of them would stick. In a salutary rebuke to overzealous prosecutors, the case collapsed under the weight of its confounding complexity.
The essence of Blagojevich's alleged crimes is straightforward: He was accused of using his position for personal advantage by trading official actions for campaign contributions and other things of value. Given these allegations, the bribery charges (two of the 24) make sense.
But because the feds swooped in to abort what Fitzgerald described as "a political corruption crime spree" that "would make Lincoln roll over in his grave," most of Blagojevich's talk never turned into action. His revenge fantasy of pressuring the Chicago Tribune into firing an editor who had said mean things about him, for example, did not go anywhere. Such fizzled schemes became "attempted extortion" (four counts), "conspiracy to commit extortion" (two counts), and "conspiracy to commit bribery" (two counts).
In case jurors saw bluster (or "political horse trading,"as Blagojevich claims) where prosecutors saw conspiracy, Fitzgerald also charged the former governor with depriving his constituents of their "intangible right of honest services." When Blagojevich was arrested and indicted, the definition of this crime was so fuzzy that no one really knew what it meant. [...]"
Commentary:
None Dare Call it Tyranny
[08/24/10]
"If you want to know what tyranny is like, look around. The national government — specifically the executive branch — can do pretty much what it wants. It could bomb Iran tomorrow without a declaration of war from Congress. It can — and does — conduct secret wars and covert operations against countries
that have done nothing to us. Of course, they are secret only to the ignorant taxpayers who must finance them and perhaps suffer when the provoked retaliation occurs. It can have men behind PlayStation consoles in Nevada fire Hellfire missiles from aerial drones on people in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
This tyrannical government can send any foreigner picked up anywhere in the world to third countries known for torturing prisoners. It can hold people accused of nothing indefinitely in prisons in Cuba and Afghanistan and torture them into making false confessions. It can conduct a war crimes trial in a military kangaroo court for a man, Omar
Khadr, held captive for eight years after he was picked up at the age of 15 during a U.S. assault on villagers near Kabul. His torture-induced “confessions” will be admissible. All this is in violation of commitments under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict not to treat children in war as though they were adults.
It can assassinate even American citizens abroad without a scent of due process.
It is a government that can write its own warrants without judicial review — and call them national security letters — in order to conduct fishing expeditions in anyone’s electronic records. But that isn’t enough power for the present Progressive administration, which wants the freedom to examine our browser histories and email correspondents’ names. The Bill of Rights, like the Geneva Convention, has become “quaint” and obsolete.
Like any self-respecting tyranny, it tries to keep the truth from its subjects. Comforting words camouflage the 50,000 armed and combat-ready troops that will remain in Iraq after “withdrawal.” Their “primary” mission is to train an army whose own general says won’t be ready for years. This gross deception follows on the heralded “surge,” which supposedly turned things around in Iraq. What “worked,” however, was not U.S. military prowess or Gen. David Petraeus’s brilliance, but the spreading of American taxpayers’ cash to buy off Sunni insurgents and the denouement of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. [...]"
Note: Good piece, and worth reading.
Four Day 9/11 Truth Conference and Charity Event in New York City
[08/24/10] 9/9/2010
- 9/12/2010
"This year in NYC, whistle blowers from all levels of government agencies, politicians, filmmakers, activists & journalists will unite with hundreds of others to raise awareness to the plight of the 9/11 First Responders by holding a Charity conference over the course of 4 day.
The events of 9/11 changed all of our lives. From foreign and domestic policy to new security measures, America has not been the same since that fateful day. “Our Lives Post 9/11” is a four day conference where people will come together to share ideas, raise money and awareness and work toward a better future.
“Our Lives Post 9/11” will feature a lineup of speakers spanning from government officials, whistle blowers, political scholars, 9/11 family members, and more to discuss the criminal negligence of the American Government leading up to and following 9/11.
Speakers include Ray McGovern -former CIA analyst, George Galloway – British politician, Richard Gage – AE 9/11 Truth, Cindy Sheehan – Peace Activist, Cynthia McKinney – former U.S. Congresswoman, Annie Machon – former MI5 agent, Mike Gravel – former U.S Senator, and so many more!
Events start at 4pm on Thursday 9/9/2010 and continue through Sunday 9/12/2010. [...]"
Book: Hitler's Jewish Soldiers
[08/24/10]
"On the murderous road to "racial purity" Hitler encountered unexpected detours, largely due to his own crazed views and inconsistent policies regarding Jewish identity. After centuries of Jewish assimilation and intermarriage in German society, he discovered that eliminating Jews from the rest of the population was more difficult than he'd anticipated. As Bryan Mark Rigg shows in this provocative new study, nowhere was that heinous process more fraught with contradiction and confusion than in the German military.
Contrary to conventional views, Rigg reveals that a startlingly large number of German military men were classified by the Nazis as Jews or "partial-Jews" (Mischlinge), in the wake of racial laws first enacted in the mid-1930s. Rigg demonstrates that the actual number was much higher than previously thought--perhaps as many as 150,000 men, including decorated veterans and high-ranking officers, even generals and admirals.
As Rigg fully documents for the first time, a great many of these men did not even consider themselves Jewish and had embraced the military as a way of life and as devoted patriots eager to serve a revived German nation. In turn, they had been embraced by the Wehrmacht, which prior to Hitler had given little thought to the "race" of these men but which was now forced to look deeply into the ancestry of its soldiers.
The process of investigation and removal, however, was marred by a highly inconsistent application of Nazi law. Numerous "exemptions" were made in order to allow a soldier to stay within the ranks or to spare a soldier's parent, spouse, or other relative from incarceration or far worse. (Hitler's own signature can be found on many of these "exemption" orders.) But as the war dragged on, Nazi politics came to trump military logic, even in the face of the Wehrmacht's growing manpower needs, closing legal loopholes and making it virtually impossible for these soldiers to escape the fate of millions of other victims of the Third Reich.
Based on a deep and wide-ranging research in archival and secondary sources, as well as extensive interviews with more than four hundred Mischlinge and their relatives, Rigg's study breaks truly new ground in a crowded field and shows from yet another angle the extremely flawed, dishonest, demeaning, and tragic essence of Hitler's rule. [...]"
Related: Hitler Was
Genetically Jewish, DNA Test Reveals
"Adolf Hitler probably never had a bar mitzvah or anything, but a series of new DNA tests indicate that he had Jewish and even African ancestors. A journalist and a historian tracked down 39 relatives of the Fuhrer and performed DNA tests on them. They found a common chromosome among them, E1b1b1, that is rare in Western Europe, but common in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, and among Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, the Daily Telegraph reports.
“One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised,” the journalist, Belgian Jean-Paul Mulders, wrote in a Belgian magazine. “This is a surprising result,” agreed a genetic specialist. “Hitler’s concern over his descent was not unjustified. He was apparently not ‘pure’ or ‘Aryan.” Historians have suggested that Hitler might have Jewish roots in the past; his father is thought to have been the illegitimate son of a maid and a young Jewish man. [...]"
U.S.
"Marshals Military Might" To " Challenge Asian Century"
[08/23/10]
"The first decade of what more than a generation ago was predicted to be the Asian Century is drawing to a close, marking ten years since the end of the American Century.
... The Asia-Europe-Africa grouping contains the overwhelming majority of the human race, perhaps as many as 5.6 billion of the world’s 6.8 billion inhabitants. The entire Western Hemisphere, by contrast, has a population under one billion and Oceania’s numbers are negligible.
But for 500 years a small number of nations in the global West and North, a limited contingent of countries that collectively calls itself the North Atlantic community, has dominated most of the world. [...]"
Ponerology: Why the Corrupt Few Wreak So Much Death, Destruction, and Suffering on the Rest of Us
[08/23/10]
"Perhaps the most important question of our time why, throughout human history, have despicable characters repeatedly risen to the pinnacles of power. The 20th Century alone witnessed an estimated 140 million war deaths and another 16 million from genocide. Mass starvation kills millions in an era when there is plenty enough food to feed the world. And not coincidentally, in the world today 40% of the world's wealth is held in the hands of 1% of its inhabitants, while the bottom 50% owns only 1% of the world's wealth. That means that the top 1% owns 40 times more than half the world's population. There are of course numerous reasons for this sorry state of affairs. But certainly the tremendous wealth and power disparity in the world, along with the abuse of that power by so many who have the most of it explains a great deal. Why have so many despicable characters throughout history acquired the ability to inflict so much suffering on the rest of humanity?
I have read two books in particular that provide much insight into this issue: The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer (This link is to a free electronic version of Altemeyer's whole book); and, Political Ponerology - A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes by Andrew M. Lobaczewski. Both books talk about much the same process, but Altemeyer approaches it from the individual psychological perspective, whereas Lobaczewski approaches it more from the societal level. [...]"
Greg Palast Confronts The Generalissimo of Globalization
[08/23/10]
[9:08]
"Investigative journalist Greg Palast travels to Geneva to ask some hard questions about the WTO's latest attempts to win a losing game [...]"
Related: Globalized Business Cares Little About Left or Right
Commentary: The State's 'Inception' Fails
Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.[08/23/10]
"Two years ago, the economy was seriously dragged down amidst an amazing banking crisis that spread throughout the world. The illusion created by loose credit – that housing could go up in price forever and we could enjoy permanent prosperity due to monetary expansion – was shattered by events. Reality had dawned. We found ourselves in the midst of an economic depression.
At that point in policy, we were at a fork in the road. The wise direction was to let the depression happen. Let the bad investments wash out of the system. Let housing prices fall. Let banks go broke. Let wages fall and permit the market to reallocate all resources from bubble projects to projects that make economic sense.
That was the direction chosen by the Reagan administration in 1981, and by the Harding administration in 1921. The result in both cases was a short downturn followed by recovery.
The Bush administration, in a policy later followed by the Obama administration, instead attempted a tactic of dream incubation as portrayed in the recent film Inception. The idea was to inject artificial stimulus into the macroeconomic environment. There were random spending programs, massive buyouts of bad debt using phony money, gargantuan tax tricks, incentive programs for throwing good money after bad, and hiring strategies to weave illusions about how all is well. [...]"
America’s
"DNA Profile" Has Been All Over Afghanistan Since 1973 [08/22/10]
"In the two years since the publication of our book Invisible History: Afghanistan’s Untold Story we have had the chance to address dozens of forums and radio audiences around the United States about Afghanistan. It has been an illuminating exercise, not so much in terms of what Americans understand about the Afghanistan/Pakistan region (which unfortunately isn’t very much) but by the way it reveals how Americans are struggling to catch up with a world that seems to have left them behind. A morning-drive-time radio talk show host in Chicago wanted to know whether a nuclear bomb dropped on the Hindu Kush wouldn’t solve the problem. When we replied that using a nuclear weapon to kill a few thousand suspected terrorists would kill millions of innocent people, he responded abruptly before cutting us off: The Japanese got the message when we dropped it on them.
Most people are confused about the America they find themselves in, in the 21st century. They wonder where “their” America went. According to the popular mythology, the U.S. started the decade as the world’s lone hyper-power, beholden to none. It ends the first decade of the new millennium as a debt-hobbled-capitalist shell, beholden to a rising communist China and a host of oil-rich medieval Middle-East Sheikdoms. Americans are frustrated and resentful, denying any responsibility for the ongoing Afghan fiasco while expressing anger and often disbelief that our leadership has refused to learn the lessons of Vietnam and taken us on yet another mindless ride into a hopeless quagmire. [...]"
Investigations: "Obama Appoints a Not-Too-Long-Ago-Hatched Neocon Larva"
[08/22/10]
"Matthew Bryza: Azerbaijan Ambassadorship & a Tangled Web of Conflicts
" During his four-year stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs he has focused on the South Caucasus, and during that period Georgia’s war budget has ballooned from $30 million a year when U.S.-educated Mikheil Saakashvili took power after the nation’s “Rose Revolution” in 2004 to $1 billion last year, a more than thirty fold increase. In the same year, 2008, Azerbaijan’s military spending had grown from $163 million the preceding year to $1,850,000,000, more than a 1000% increase. Much of the money expended for both unprecedented build-ups came from revenues derived from oil sales and transit fees connected with the BTC pipeline Bryza was instrumental in setting up. [...]"
Investigations: Another ‘Viable’ Candidate Bites the Dust …
[08/22/10]
"Maksim Bakiyev: A Groomed Puppet Who Never Came to Be King. "Kyrgyzstan’s Wanted Fugitive: Maksim
Bakiyev. The story is more or less the same – the one that has been repeating itself for many decades. The one based on a script written by the very same conductors who wrote the ones before, and who will probably be writing the ones to come (yes, they’re blessed with longevity; a curse for the rest of us). The location – always a resource rich country or one strategically crucial to resource rich countries. A viable candidate (sometimes candidates) chosen based on the exact same set of criteria – such as degree of corruptibility, and degree of atrocity or criminal tendencies. The grooming and training locations also are the same: the United States of America or the proxy brother, The United Kingdom. The supporting actors are a combination of old timers, think World Bank or
IMF, and newer ones with even fancier names, such as XYZ Democratization and Development Fund, posing as well-intentioned NGOs. Okay, enough with the details, since we are very familiar with this repeating script and its consistent execution – collectively known and referred to as United States Foreign Policy.
The Bakiyev ‘Groom & Plant’ script, like almost all its predecessors, contains the same good ole classical elements: strategically important Central Asian nation, vital US fuel supply artery to keep the war machines humming and destroying in Afghanistan, major artery for transportation of heroin, puppet NATO partnership & the same-o-same-o big bad Russians to compete with, dozens of US NGO’s planted to serve
you-know -who’s interests (here is a hint: not the people of Kyrgyzstan nor the American people), a staged and orchestrated revolution by our State Department – named after a innocently beautiful flower – to overthrow the guy who was closer to China & Russia, planting a new corrupt despot clan all carrying the same last
name-Bakiyev. [...]"
Blackwater Settles for $42 Million
[08/21/10]
"That’s the amount that the company formerly known as Blackwater (now renamed Xe Services) has agreed to pay to avoid criminal charges for the hundreds of export violations it incurred as a leading private contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But it’s not the end of Blackwater’s legal troubles. Five former executives have been indicted on weapons and obstruction charges, and there’s a probe into allegations that Blackwater tried to bribe Iraqi government officials.
The violations included illegal weapons exports to Afghanistan, making unauthorized proposals to train troops in south Sudan and providing sniper training for Taiwanese police officers, according to company and government officials familiar with the deal.
The settlement, which has not yet been publicly announced, follows lengthy talks between Blackwater, now called Xe Services, and the State Department that dealt with the violations as an administrative matter, allowing the firm to avoid criminal charges. A company spokeswoman confirmed Friday that a settlement had been reached. The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said he could not immediately comment.
... By paying fines rather than facing criminal charges on the export violations, Blackwater will be able to continue to obtain government contracts. While the company lost its largest federal contract last year to provide diplomatic security for United States Embassy personnel in Baghdad, where the Iraqi government was incensed by killings of Iraqis in one highly publicized case, it still has contracts to provide security for the State Department and the
C.I.A. in Afghanistan. [...]"
Pakistan: Minister tasked with saving US airbase at the cost of the displacement of thousands
[08/21/10]
"It has been reported earlier that the US Air Force has denied the relief agencies use of the Shahbaz airbase for the distribution of aid and assistance. Soldiers of the Pakistan army, a federal minister and the administration of Sindh province are blamed for the incident involving Shahbaz Airbase at Jacobabad district in Sindh province in which it has been reported that flood waters were diverted in order to save the airbase. The diversion of the floodwaters is blamed for inundating hundreds of houses and the displacement of 800,000 people. [...]"
The Phases of an Empire
[08/20/10]
"The analysis below explains why all empires and "Imperial Style" governments have failed throughout history, and why our
Empire-USA faces the same fate. The only question is whether the people and government of the USA have the wisdom and will to engage in a "Managed Decline" by terminating the empire and imperial conduct on their own schedule, rather than by chaotic crash of the US Dollar, economy, and lifestyle. * An Empire is a nation that: 1) Owns colonies, and/or 2) Controls, or has great influence over, other nations. Empires require economic and military strength to start and maintain, and this is expensive.
* All Empires fail, and for the same reasons: 1) Expense of military abroad, and subsidies at home. 2) Decline in domestic productivity (spoiled, parasitic citizens). 3) Corruption (illegal conduct) and decadence (unethical and immoral conduct) by leaders and citizens. * Empire-USA: Our deal to other nations is: we will be the world’s policeman and protect you, but you must accept our fake money and "influence." The USA is far into Phase 3-Failure. Look around you for the symptoms shown in Part B-3 and Part C below.
Phase 1 -- Growth * Land: Gain territory by "discovery" (too bad for the natives), or conquest. * Strength: Start growth of economic and military strength. Sound currency (precious metal, or convertible paper and convertible base-metal coins). * Government: Local and central government acts as a servant to protect the rights of citizens. No entangling alliances with other nations. New land is governed as a colony or part of homeland nation (becoming a sovereign republic may require a revolution). The army consists of volunteers protecting their homes and families, with no professional or standing army. * Ethics: Most government people and citizens are hard working and honest. Government is a servant.[...]"
CIA forms new center to combat nukes, WMDs
(But Not Itself) [08/19/10]
"The CIA is opening a counterproliferation center to combat the spread of dangerous weapons and technology, a move that comes as Iran is on the verge of fueling up a new nuclear power plant.
CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday that the new unit would place CIA operators side by side with the agency’s analysts to brainstorm plans to “confront the threat of weapons of mass destruction – nuclear, chemical and biological.”
The center would formalize the collaboration between the agency’s analysts and operators, a close working relationship that CIA spokesman George Little said already has yielded intelligence successes. [...]"
Note: It's amazing how these people can turn the word
'intelligence' into an oxymoron, and a national policy into a double entendre,
since the US has done so much to have weapons proliferate in the first place.
Seafloor covered in oil 40 miles south of Panama City, Florida - Heading East
[08/19/10]
[5:34]
"CNN, August 17, 2010 at 6:05 a.m. EDT"
Note: See "Oil and Gas" link above for related
stories.
Shots fired in Pakistan road protest
[08/19/10]
"One of the main roads linking the north-west of Pakistan to the rest of the country has been reopened after it was blocked for hours by protesters. [...]"
(Predictably) Iran Sanctions Leave China, Russia as Winners in Trade
[08/19/10]
"Sanctions punishing Iran for its nuclear program are deepening the country’s ties with China and handing Russia opportunities to sell more gasoline while hurting suppliers in Europe and India. [...]"
Note: It's a 'duh' thing, evidently beyond the capability
of the US to understand.
U.S., S. Korea war games set in Yellow Sea
[08/19/10]
"The US and South Korea said they will hold more naval exercises in the Yellow Sea in early September. [...]"
Colombia Court Halts US Military Base Deal
[08/18/10]
"Colombia’s Constitutional Court has announced that it is suspending a deal to provide US troops with increased access to the nation’s military bases as part of “anti-drug” operations, insisting that such a deal could not be done unilaterally by the president.
Instead, President Juan Manuel Santos must seek congressional approval for the deal, and even then the court will almost certainly be challenged on the constitutionality of the deal. The court declined to even consider that aspect yet, insisting that it couldn’t do so until the deal was legally made in the first place. [...]"
Soldiers Expose Deployment of Unprepared Troops
[08/17/10]
"Army Reserve members facing imminent deployment to Afghanistan are publicly charging that their company is not properly trained or mentally fit for battle. Several members of the Indiana-based 656th Transportation Company, which is due to activate August 22nd, are requesting a Congressional inquiry into the unit’s lack of readiness. Alejandro
Villatoro, a sergeant in the company, is amongst those coming forward. Sergeant Villatoro says, “The main reason I am doing this is that I want people to know the lack of training and education our soldiers been receiving, and the focus on the mission is just not adequate to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. All I am asking is more time to reevaluate the training and mental health of these soldiers before sending them into war.”
At risk to themselves, these soldiers are going public with firsthand experiences of failures in military training, mental healthcare, and leadership, which many veterans charge are problems endemic to the military. This comes as the Afghanistan War falls under increased scrutiny in the wake of the Wikileaked “War Logs” information. [...]"
Note: The article does a good job describing how the people in charge of the military operate like a bunch of grade
school kids who only understand and spout vacuous rhetoric and have NO adult thought processes going on in their empty heads. They now hold the reins of something they have NO ability to understand, let alone run right. The article states that at this point, soldiers are either going over to the middle east
just for the "experience" and/or they just need a paying job.
Those who run the military now have NO idea what they're doing; they have NO concept that they, themselves, are nothing more than useful idiots to further the war for profit (basically they're
buffoons); and they have turned the war theater into a VERY twisted, macabre comedy of errors.
Related: "None Dare Call It
Tyranny"
" ... Like any self-respecting tyranny, it tries to keep the truth from its subjects. Comforting words camouflage the 50,000 armed and combat-ready troops that will remain in Iraq after “withdrawal.” Their “primary” mission is to train an army whose own general says won’t be ready for years.
.... Now we are being softened up for the next war, against Iran. [...]"
Petraeus beats the drums for endless war in Afghanistan
"In a series of media interviews this weekend, the new US commander in Afghanistan indicated that he is not compelled to withdraw any US troops in July 2011, the deadline set by Obama last December. [...]" |
Karzai issues security ultimatum
"Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai gives private security companies four months to end their operations in the country. [...]"
MSM: Scientists say up to 79% of oil remains in Gulf
[08/17/10]
"Permanent seal of well delayed amid new reports that 79% of the oil remains the Gulf A group of scientists have found that up to 79% of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico may still remain, contradicting earlier findings by a U.S. government study that found nearly 75% of the oil had dissipated. [...]"
Related: Much Oil Remains in Gulf, Researchers Estimate
Note: See "Oil and Gas" link at the top of this
panel for related
stories.
Ban
Ki-moon’s Top Advisor: " Scientific Elite Should Spearhead Global Population
Control" [08/17/10]
"Randomly pick a globalist scholar, one that is celebrated by academia and government alike, and you’ll find a can of worms under the crust, to be sure.
... professor of health policy and management and director of the Columbia University based Earth Institute, Mr. Jeffrey
Sachs, stressed urgent need for population reduction. The person in charge of transcribing the discussion, made the following note:
“(…) the fertility reduction and stabilization of population is crucial. He (Sachs) concluded by urging for the adoption of a globally agreed action plan at next year’s Summit to achieve the MDGs by 2015,
... In a September 2009 UN press release, Sachs not only lamented human activity on the planet, but argued for scientists and engineers to take the steering-wheel in this process: [...]"
Commentary: Pentagon Holding U.S. Hostage to Endless Wars
[08/16/10]
"Besides holding Afghanistan and Iraq hostage, the Pentagon today is holding American civilization itself hostage to its imperial designs. That's because war beggars civilized life and ceaseless war beggars civilization unceasingly.
As the great political commentator Walter Lippman put it during the Viet Nam War, "All the plans of the Great Society here at home, all the plans for the rebuilding of backward countries in other continents will all be put on the shelf, because war interrupts everything." In the American Warfare State that prevails today most of every tax dollar collected goes to wage war and the Pentagon spends more for war than all 50 states combined spend for peace. No better example exists than the protest of 750 scientists at the National Institutes of Health who said their basic infectious disease research had been subverted by spending on bioterror research. War interrupts everything: rebuilding our cities, public schools and community colleges, water-works and sewerage systems, housing, mass transit, hospitals, new business start-ups, parks and playgrounds,and the funding of the fine arts.
Lippman went on to give advice that nearly every occupant of the White House has since disregarded: "We are not the policeman of mankind. We are not able to run the world, and we shouldn't pretend that we can. Let us tend to our own business, which is great enough as it is. It is very great. We have neglected our own affairs. Our education is inadequate, our cities are badly built, our social arrangements are unsatisfactory. We can't wait another generation." [...]"
Related: Pentagon: "China Targets U.S. Troops with Arms Buildup"
"China is aggressively building up military forces capable of striking U.S. forces in the western Pacific and elsewhere as part of what the Pentagon calls an array of high-tech "anti-access" missiles, submarines and warplanes in its latest annual report. [...]"
Note: The Pentagon will no longer exist in just a little while
from now ... stupid, immature buffoons.
Israel’s Pre-Election Attempt To Deflect A New 9/11 Investigation
By Gordon Duff [08/15/10]
"This whole 'Ground Zero Mosque controversy' is a massive CointelPro operation. Muslims did not carry out or plan the 9/11 attacks. From all indications, rogue elements of the CIA and Mossad, possibly with the help of the Vatican, used Muslims as the scapegoat in one of the largest terror attacks in American history.
.... The idea that Israel is financing the “Ground Zero Mosque” controversy when Mossad agents were arrested, dancing in the streets on 9/11, is an obscenity.
Let’s get some facts straight. Since 2001 a lot has happened, none of it reported widely in the press. It has been categorically proven that the supposed hijackers could never have flown any of the planes on 9/11. Start with a reality check. This is why “9/11″, as people are still being misinformed, simply never happened: [...]"
Related: "Ground Zero Mosque Has Become An Israeli Psychotic Issue"
| U.S. media
blames the Muslims for 9/11 [08/14/10]
[6:23] MSM:
'Cornyn: ' NYC mosque will be an election issue'
Note: Layer upon layer of bullshit, promoted as 'news' by
"Raw Story". "Huffington Post" and other MSM propaganda
outlets are peddling the same contrived story.
World Politics: A campaign for war with Iran begins
[08/14/10]
"Obama administration officials, as well as U.S. lawmakers and European diplomats, passionately made the argument this spring that tough sanctions on Iran were necessary to avoid war. But contrary to their predictions, the drumbeat for war -- particularly from Israel – has only increased since the
U.N. Security Council adopted a new resolution against Tehran in June.
The latest in this crescendo of voices is Jeffrey Goldberg’s article in the
Atlantic, "Point of No Return." As the title suggests, it essentially makes the case (though in an uncharacteristically subtle manner by neoconservative standards) that there are no choices left -- war is a fait accompli, and the only question is whether it will be initiated by Israel or by the United States.
"If the Israelis reach the firm conclusion that Obama will not, under any circumstances, launch a strike on Iran, then the countdown will begin for a unilateral Israeli attack," Goldberg writes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Goldberg’s description, is a man whose back is against the wall. He cannot accommodate the Obama administration on the Palestinian issue because that would upset his 100-year-old father, and he cannot afford to have faith in Obama’s strategy to prevent a nuclear Iran through peaceful means because the threat from Iran is "existential."
Goldberg interviewed roughly 40 former and current Israeli officials for his piece. Although his access to Israeli officials certainly doesn't seem to be lacking, the same cannot be said about his treatment of the assumptions behind the Israeli talking points.
The most critical assumption that Israeli officials have presented publicly for the past 18 years -- long before the firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stepped on the scene -- is that the Iranian government is irrational and that Iran constitutes an existential threat to Israel. [...]
These departing points in the Israeli analysis eliminate all options on Iran with the exception of preventive military action. An adversary who isn’t rational cannot be deterred or contained, because such an actor -- by definition -- does not make decisions based on a cost-benefit analysis. In addition, if the foe is presented as an existential threat, then preventive action is the sole rational response. These Israeli assumptions short-cut the entire policy process and skip all the steps that normally are taken before a state determines that force is necessary. But if judged by its actions rather than its rhetoric, a very different image emerges -- one that shows an astute Israeli appreciation for the complexity of Iran's security calculations and decision-making processes, and a recognition that conventional arguments are insufficient to convince Washington to view Iran from an Israeli lens. Goldberg mentions in his article that the Jewish people and the Iranians have a long and common history. It is a history that has been overwhelmingly positive until recently. Iran is still home to the largest population of Jews in the Middle East outside of Israel itself, and the Jewish community’s impact on Iranian culture, politics and society runs deep. [...]
"
Commentary: "Israel ’s War with Iran and The Zionist Power Configuration in America"
by Prof. James Petras [08/14/10]
"..Zionists and their allies in Congress authored, implemented and enforced sanctions against Iran , which hinder the ambitions of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. Israeli war exercises and public declarations threatening a massive air assault on Iran has pushed petroleum prices to world records. This spring 2008, the most powerful pro-Israel Jewish Lobby in the US , AIPAC held their annual conference and secured the support and commitment of both major US Presidential candidates and the majority of US members of Congress for an Israeli initiative to impose extreme economic sanctions on Iran with threats of a US/Israeli military attack. In early summer 2008, the AIPAC operatives, who wrote this US Congressional resolution, successfully rounded up Congressional leaders’ support of an air and naval blockade of all critical imports into Iran – a blatant act of war. [...]"
Canada: Court ruling finds that Taser stun guns can kill
[08/14/10]
"The British Columbia Supreme Court handed down a ruling Tuesday vindicating the findings of a provincial public inquiry that tasers can cause serious injury or death.
Last year, retired justice Thomas Braidwood issued the first part of a report on the police killing of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski that set out 19 recommendations for the use of stun guns by police. Dziekanski died shortly after four Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) officers fired five Taser shots into the hapless immigrant who had become lost and disoriented after arriving at the Vancouver International Airport in October 2007.
Braidwood’s findings had been challenged by Taser International. The company is the leading manufacturer of “electrical control devices” (stun guns) in the world. Its weapons are used by most of the police forces in Canada and the United States. Over the course of the Braidwood Inquiry, Taser submitted 174 documents and sent to the stand numerous company-supplied “expert” witnesses, including its cofounder, to argue that its product does not pose a serious health risk when deployed against the human body.
But when Braidwood ruled that Taser’s studies and statistics did not support its claim that its stun gun does not affect the heart and ruled, instead, that a shock from a Taser weapon has the capacity to kill its victim by causing heart arrhythmia—especially if it is fired multiple times—company lawyers went into overdrive in an attempt to quash the findings.
Appealing to the British Columbia Supreme Court, company attorneys brashly argued that Braidwood, by failing to directly refer in his report to all 174 documents filed by Taser, had failed to properly weigh all the evidence. They further argued that Braidwood had ridden roughshod over the company when he did not release his findings directly to Taser International prior to making his report public. Company lawyers also insisted that the judge erred by not granting Taser official standing at the inquiry into the Dziekanski killing. Finally, they complained that due to the Inquiry’s findings the company has suffered an “economic backlash” that has led to the loss of important contract opportunities in the international marketplace, including a multimillion-dollar deal in South Africa.
This was not the first time that Taser has deployed considerable legal resources in order to overturn or prevent findings against its lethal product. Since 2002 when Taser launched its more powerful 26-watt model, there have been at least 400 deaths worldwide attributed to the deployment of the stun gun. [...]
The proliferation of stun gun use throughout the United States and Canada, without due regard for the safety of the devices, represents an attack on the democratic rights of the population. Amnesty International has called for a moratorium on taser usage until more is learned about its lethality, and the United Nations has condemned the devices as “a form of torture that can kill.”
Contrary to police claims, the weapon is generally not used in lieu of deadly force. Instead, it is used to inflict pain and undeserved punishment, as in the case of Robert Dziekanski and hundreds of others who have met their death at the hands of the police."
Commentary: "The Corpo-Obama-Geithner-Petraeus State"
[08/14/10]
"... The government, as Alterman convincingly describes it, is not only expensive, "bloated" and all the rest. It has become a handmaid to corporate power—a hiring hall from which compliant officials are selected for vastly more lucrative private-sector jobs, as well as an emergency cash reserve for companies that fall on hard times. No wonder so many Americans unthinkingly conflate "big government" and "big corporations." This is not the kind of government that hires unemployed people to paint murals on post office walls. And, as everyone knows, when the bank decides to repossess your home, it's a public employee who will kick in the door. All that should be enough to sour liberals' trust in government as a tool for progressive social change. But the situation is much worse than Alterman
acknowledges..." [...]"
Commentary:
The Unstoppable Force of Irresistible
Change [08/12/10]
" .... You can see the reality of what Lao Tzu had to say about the latter days of any culture or system of government where evil and venal men and women mine the wreckage for personal profit. It’s the accepted thing to lie and conspire while presented oneself as a patriot and defender of the land and the people they are looting. Speeches are filled with flowery words that mean nothing. Honor is an empty suit that parades around as a mockery of itself while ignorant people applaud and wonder at the mysterious presence and power of those who give the appearance of possessing virtues, which would instantly compromise all of their selfish actions. It doesn’t matter anymore what you are, it only matters how you make yourself appear to be. All of these seemingly, intelligent people dance around each other like courtiers at the palace of a corrupt monarch. The trivia of important lives has replaced the substance of what everyone once expected. [...]
Systems without a basic integrity cannot hold themselves together, whether they are political, religious or commercial enterprises. It’s all falling apart and can only be held together by force and false information.
....This world is not what it appears to be and it is just what it appears to be but only within the context of the illusion that pervades the minds of the sleepwalking dead. [...]
"
Note: Not a great writer, but some good points here and there.
Commentary: Another Nuremberg in the Making: Intelligence Agencies Employ Physicians to Torture Detainees
[08/12/10]
"A series of recent revelations have scratched the surface of just how deranged the actions of America's intelligence agencies have become. Using legalese and secret directives, U.S. intelligence agencies have attempted to argue that certain human beings are . . . not human.
Americans seem largely unaware that their country, founded upon principles of due process and individual rights, now appears to have been overthrown by this Gestapo-like faction of government that uses trained physicians to carry out torture in the supposed defense of its nation. Although what has been uncovered does not yet approach the scale of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Gulags, the methods are similar. State-sanctioned torture is a hallmark of tyranny, and inevitably leads to the collapse of the country that legitimizes it. [...]"
Related: CIA hid terrorism prisoners from US Supreme Court
"The Central Intelligence Agency purposefully concealed at least four terrorism detainees from the US legal system, including the Supreme Court, according to an exclusive report by the Associated Press. The news agency has revealed that the CIA secretly transported the four to Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp on Cuba in 2003, two years before it publicly admitted their capture. It then secretly transferred them again to other sites in its black site prison network in various countries around the world, just three months before their prolonged stay at Guantánamo would entitle them to legal representation. [...]"
The Hidden Tragedy of the CIA’s Experiments on Children
[08/12/10]
"Bobby is seven years old, but this is not the first time he has been subjected to electroshock. It’s his third time. In all, over the next year, Bobby will experience eight electroshock sessions. Placed on the examining table, he is held down by two male attendants while the physician places a solution on his temples. Bobby struggles with the two men holding him down, but his efforts are useless. He cries out and tries to pull away. One of the attendants tries to force a thick wedge of rubber into his mouth. He turns his head sharply away and cries out, “Let me go, please. I don’t want to be here. Please, let me go.” Bobby’s physician looks irritated and she tells him, “Come on now, Bobby, try to act like a big boy and be still and relax.” Bobby turns his head away from the woman and opens his mouth for the wedge that will prevent him from biting through his tongue. He begins to cry silently, his small shoulders shaking and he stiffens his body against what he knows is coming. [...]"
Update:
BP, CIA conspiracy theory suggested behind
Simmons unexpected death
[08/12/10]
"Oil industry icon Matt Simmons became a household name during the BP oil spill crisis, partly because of his criticism of BP and their handling the worst oil spill in US history.
Simmons, 67, was found dead in his home in Maine on August 8, 2010. The medical examiner’s office is unclear about whether he had drowned in his tub after suffering a heart attack, or died from a heart attack while drowning.
Before his unexpected death, Simmons had become a whistle blower against BP and the US government. He used his oil industry and government connections to reveal information about the BP oil spill disaster that he claimed were deliberately hidden from the public.
The confusion surrounding the exact cause of his recent death has sparked reports that he was assassinated by either the CIA or BP...]"
Note: See "Oil and Gas" link above for background
on Simmons death and related
stories.
US military judge: Confessions obtained by threatening the subject with rape are admissible in court
[08/12/10]
"In one of the first military commissions held under the Obama administration, a US military judge has ruled that confessions obtained by threatening the subject with rape are admissible in court. The case involves Omar Ahmed Khadr, a citizen of Canada who was apprehended in Afghanistan when he was 15 years old and has remained [ [...]"
Commentary: Cybersecurity Lie Exposed: Power Plants Are Not Connected To The Internet
[08/11/10]
"Senator Joe Lieberman’s draconian Internet takeover legislation, the 197-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, is being promoted as a vital tool to protect vulnerable infrastructure hubs from terrorist attacks, but as a recent Wall Street Journal report makes clear, large industrial power and water plants are not even connected to the public Internet.
Lieberman has been busy over the last several months pushing the cybersecurity agenda, with a bill that would hand President Obama the power to shut down parts of the world wide web for at least four months with no congressional oversight in the event of a cyber attack on critical infrastructure systems in the U.S.
However, the primary purpose of cybersecurity and Lieberman’s legislation is to combat a problem that doesn’t exist.
As a recent Wired News article highlighted, power grid and drinking water systems, “Are rarely connected directly to the public internet. And that makes gaining access to grid-controlling networks a challenge for all but the most dedicated, motivated and skilled — nation-states, in other words.”
The article explains that it would take a gargantuan national effort on behalf of a nation state, utilizing a plethora of national resources, to even begin to attempt taking down complex power and water systems. This isn’t merely a case of a rag-tag terrorist group hacking into a website via their laptop [...]"
Iran steps in as U.S. steps out of Lebanon
[08/11/10]
"Iran is ready to provide military assistance to Lebanon, an Iranian commander said Tuesday as a U.S. lawmaker revokes military aid to Beirut. [...]"
Calls to End the False Security of Nuclear Weapons
[08/11/10]
"Norman Solomon, author, and founder of the Institute for Public Accuracy, takes the stage. "The nuclear age was born in deception of the facts, of the human realities of these weapons... and in silence, avoidance, and through psychic numbing. These weapons are lied about constantly, by our leaders, by our news media, and by ourselves." Indeed, in 1979 Solomon researched the first official United States document that listed atomic targets. Titled "Announced United States Nuclear Tests," at the top of that list is Trinity at New Mexico's Alamogordo Test Range; second is Hiroshima; third is Nagasaki. [...]"
German ex-spies to be fined for advertising skills online
[08/11/10]
"At least a dozen German former intelligence officers are to face disciplinary action after they were found advertising their past spy careers on a job-seekers’ professional networking Web site. The German government authorized the country’s leading external intelligence agency, the Federal Intelligence Service
(BND), to initiate an internal investigation, after German tabloid newspaper Bild drew attention to the online revelations in a leading article. The newspaper listed 12 former BND officers who advertised their past intelligence careers on their publicly listed résumés on
Xing.com, a German-language website that serves as Germany’s version of
LinkedIn.com. German federal legislation expressly forbids BND personnel from ever publicly revealing their professional ties with the spy agency, even after dismissal, resignation or retirement. A German government representative, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said the office of Germany’s Chancellor has requested that the BND imposes disciplinary action, including lawsuits, against the twelve former spies named by
Bild, as well against any others who may have disclosed their BND ties. A detailed report on the Deutsche Welle last January said the BND continues to struggle immensely with bureaucratic inefficiency and substandard human and financial resources, and has yet to hammer out its new mission in the post-Cold-War environment. [...]"
Afghanistan to Expel U.S. Security Firms
[08/11/10]
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai is set to call on Washington and its allies to shut down their private security companies in the violence-stricken country.
President Karzai will announce the details of his demand late Saturday during a press conference in Kabul, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Informed sources in the presidential office said the Afghan leader was set to impose a ban on Western-backed security firms and announce his new policy on the fight against corruption.
President Karzai had earlier accused foreign security contractors in the country of operating as militias, saying that these firms are only worsening the security situation in Afghanistan.
The demand would be made as Kabul has confirmed the presence of 52 foreign private security companies, including notorious American security firm Xe Services LLC -- formerly known as Blackwater -- in Afghanistan.
[...]"
Commentary: Death by Government: The Missing Chapter
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
[08/09/10]
"Over the past decade a number of researchers have attempted to document the extent to which various governments during the twentieth century committed acts of mass murder against their own citizens. The millions of deaths catalogued by such researchers as R.J.
Rummel, author of Power Kills and Death by Government, and by the authors of The Black Book of Communism, are not deaths caused by foreign armies, but by all those unfortunate souls’ own governments.
The reason for all the killing, whether it is called genocide or "democide," to use Rummel’s term, was to eliminate all opposition to the ruling regime and its ideology. In Russia, the kulaks "who resisted collectivization [of land] were shot, and the others deported," according to The Black Book of Communism (p. 9). When the rural population of the Ukraine resisted, Stalin created a famine that killed 6 million in a few months. "Virtually identical crimes" were committed "by the regimes of Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, and Pol Pot," according to The Black Book (p. 10).
In Power Kills, R. J. Rummel writes that "democidal" regimes tend to become even more vicious toward their own people when their political power "is conjoined with an absolutist ideology" (p. 93). And, "when the rulers of such regimes find for whatever reason that the continued existence of a social group is incompatible with their beliefs or goals, totalitarian power enables them to destroy that group" (p. 93). "War or rebellion" have often provided "an excuse and cover for a regime to eliminate those social groups it finds objectionable."
Armed with this understanding, the authors of The Black Book present the following statistics regarding how various communist governments killed their own citizens by the millions (p. 4): [...]"
Related: Deaths by Government: Another Missing Chapter
by Walter Block
Murder of Aid Workers in Afghanistan A Convenient War
Psyops? [08/09/10]
"The tragic murder of 10 medical workers in northern Afghanistan could very well have been done by thugs and thieves or is there a military/CIA/Mossad psyops at work?
But on the other hand, when this incident is looked at through the concept of 'war by deception,' it's not too far-fetched to speculate that the intelligence agencies and their paid proxies working in the area may have actually committed the war crime. Killing western civilians doing humanitarian work is a deceitful way to stir public opinion for a war going downhill fast in the minds of many Americans. [...]"
The Pentagon's Hypocrisy On Iraqi Civilian Deaths
[08/09/10]
"Eager to declare the war in Iraq a "success," the Pentagon has been inconvenienced by Iraqi government figures that show violent deaths in Iraq are up sharply. In response, the Pentagon has bizarrely begun disputing the Iraqi government figures as unreliable. The whole thing stinks of hypocrisy. After all, throughout this whole 7-year fiasco of a war, the Pentagon's stock, glib answer to the whole question of Iraqi civilian deaths has always been the same: "We don't do body counts."
(since they made that mistake in Vietnam and got caught lying about it) [...]"
Commentary:
FDA: “Dispersants do NOT cause public health concerns”
[08/09/10]
"The Food and Drug Administrations claim that dispersants do not pose a public health concern is absolutely criminal! The Use of Corexit9500 has already sickened thousands of people and has possibly caused some sort of acid rain. Dead plants have been filmed throughout the region.
Keath Ladner, the owner of Gulf Shores Sea Products in Bay St. Louis, Miss went on record with some startling information. Apparently, Keath found a 2 mile wide patch of DEAD fish! How can anyone possibly believe that this is over? [...]"
Note: See "Oil and Gas" link above for related
stories.
Exposé: 'Death Gyre' in the Gulf
[08/08/10]
"Firsthand accounts and leaked photos of a secret BP processing facility -- possibly for dead animals -- point to a massive cover-up in the Gulf. An exclusive report.
June 10th was a strange day. In a surprising move, the Coast Guard instituted a dramatic expansion of the "no-fly" zone over the Gulf, preventing major media outlets like the New York Times and even scientists with top government clearance from accessing the area. This caused a wave of journalistic uproar and bewilderment on the part of researchers like Edward E. Clark of the Wildlife Center (above) who had been invited to study the impacts just prior to the media blackout.
More distressing than the media blackout itself was a lingering question in my mind ... what on earth could be so BAD that the U.S. government would risk losing credibility in the minds of journalists, the scientific community and the general public to ensure concealment? Was the sea floor cracking? Was a giant cloud of benzene going to wipe out the Eastern Seaboard? Had Godzilla emerged from the sea to wreak havoc upon us all? One thing was clear ... we weren't getting the story.
All manner of apocalyptic scenarios were running through my head that morning when by chance I received a very strange message that pointed to a less fantastic but equally horrific explanation. It was a text message that had been sent on a borrowed phone to a man's wife (according to the person who forwarded it to me) a man who had just returned from what many are now calling the "Death Gyre." The message was e-mailed to a family friend who posted it on Facebook and it has since been
recirculated. Here's the text (you will notice a few colloquialisms that are specific to Bayou talk) so read through the lines, and forgive the misspellings:
[...]"
Note: See "Oil and Gas" link at the top of this
panel for related stories.
The British Ministry of Defense unable to account for more than £6 billion of
equipment [08/08/10]
"The British Ministry of Defense (MoD) has been unable to account for more than £6 billion of equipment, the government's spending watchdog says.
The National Audit Office (NAO), the Whitehall's spending watchdog, refused on Monday to sign off the MoD's accounts for the fourth consecutive year in a row.
The head of the NAO, Amyas Morse, said that the MoD is grappling with "systematic and deep-rooted" problems within its asset management system.
He said that efforts to track down the lost equipment shed light on more difficulties; hence the problems have turned out to be more extensive than what was previously thought.
The NAO found that the MoD was unable to account for the whereabouts of £5.5 billion of spares and other stocks, £752 million in military equipment including firearms and 5,961 Bowman radios worth £184 million. [...]"
10 Medical Aid Workers Slain in Afghanistan
[08/07/10]
"Their aid group, the International Assistance Mission, said they were eye doctors, nurses and technicians, hiking into one of the toughest areas of the country to provide services. But the Taliban, who claimed responsibility, accused them of being spies and
christian missionaries. “All indications are this is probably our team,” Dirk
Frans, I.A.M.’s executive director, said from Kabul on Saturday. “They were on an optometric expedition, running an eye camp.” Both Mr. Frans and the police stressed, however, that no positive identification of the victims had yet been made. Their bodies were being brought out by road, a day’s journey to the district seat.
The 12-member medical team included six Americans, a Briton and a German, along with four Afghans, Mr. Frans said. [...]"
Former Interpol Chief convicted for corruption
[08/07/10]
"On 3 August 2010, Jackie Selebi was handed down a 15-year sentence by a Johannesburg Court on charges of corruption. Evidence was provided that the defendant had received huge bribes from a mafia chief and had fabricated false evidence. His lawyer immediately lodged an appeal hoping for a suspended sentence. The defendant was released on bail and walked out laughing. Meanwhile, the police unit involved in the investigation was dissolved. Mr. Selebi was a top member of the ANC leadership, the Ambassador of South Africa to the United Nations (2000-09), Interpol President (2004-08), Chair of the Anti-Landmine Conference and Chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Jackie Selebi inflates the list of bandits who served as Interpol presidents. The names include Austrian SS Otto Steinhäusl (1938-40), and perpetrators of crimes against humanity Reinhard Heydrich (1940-42) and Ernst Kaltenbrunner [...]"
Another Nuremberg in the Making: Intelligence Agencies Employ Physicians to Torture Detainees
[08/07/10]
"A series of recent revelations have scratched the surface of just how deranged the actions of America's intelligence agencies have become. Using legalese and secret directives, U.S. intelligence agencies have attempted to argue that certain human beings are . . . not human.
Americans seem largely unaware that their country, founded upon principles of due process and individual rights, which now appears to have been overthrown by this Gestapo-like faction of government that uses trained physicians to carry out torture in the supposed defense of its nation. Although what has been uncovered does not yet approach the scale of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Gulags, the methods are similar. State-sanctioned torture is a hallmark of tyranny, and inevitably leads to the collapse of the country that legitimizes it.
An AP exclusive report released today revealed that detainees in the War on Terror were whisked away from Gitmo before the American judicial system could account for them. The AP article states: [...]"
Exposé:
Maxine Waters Fought To Investigate Crack Cocaine, Money Laundering; Porter Goss Covered It Up
[08/07/10]
"Well-placed intelligence sources in Washington have pointed to a bitter conflict between Porter Goss, head of the unconstitutional Office of Congressional Ethics, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, that goes back to 1997-1999, when Goss blocked the efforts of Waters and others to expose the Bush family/Iran Contra cocaine trafficking which had created a hellish epidemic in South Central Los Angeles—Waters' district—as well as in other parts of the country.
As head of the House Intelligence Committee, Goss covered up the substantial evidence of the Bush/Ollie North/Iran Contra cocaine running operations. Who is Goss to sit in judgment against members of Congress for the racist Barack Obama?
In the aftermath of the 1998 release of the CIA Inspector General's reports following the 1996 expose of the crack cocaine stories by now-deceased journalist Gary Webb, Waters demanded a full, open investigation by the House Select Committee on Intelligence, which Goss chaired—courtesy of Newt Gingrich.
Since 1996, Waters had vigorously pursued the investigation of the Gary Webb revelations which appeared in the San Jose Mercury News. Waters held a "hearing"/town meeting about the charges at the September 1996 annual conference of the Congressional Black Caucus; she conducted an in-depth investigation of the charges, including using her "own money" for a trip that took her down to Nicaragua to interview CIA assets and cocaine traffickers who were named in both the Webb series, and/or official reports.
On March 16, 1998, Waters, along with her Congressional colleague, Rep. Juanita M. McDonald, testified at a hastily-called hearing before the House Intelligence Committee, [...]"
Concepts
and Practices: "The
Jeffersonian Position" Lew
Rockwell [08/07/10]
"From Thomas Jefferson: Writings (Library of America, 1984), pp.
1056-1057 is a January 26, 1799 letter from Jefferson to Edbridge Gerry
(inventor of “gerrymandering”) explaining his political philosophy:
[...]"
'Unprecedented Carrier-Killing' Chinese Missile Could Shift Pacific Power Balance
[08/06/10]
"U.S. naval planners are scrambling to deal with what analysts say is a game-changing weapon being developed by China – an unprecedented carrier-killing missile called the Dong Feng 21D that could be launched from land with enough accuracy to penetrate the defenses of even the most advanced moving aircraft carrier at a distance of more than 1,500 kilometers (900 miles). [...]"
New York Senate Passes Temporary Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing
[08/06/10]
"In a predawn vote Wednesday, New York State's senate passed a bill that reaches beyond the debate over the environmental safety of drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale and would effectively ban almost all gas and oil drilling in the state until next spring. The bill circumvents an environmental review by the state's regulatory agency that could be finished this year.
The bill prohibits the underground process of hydraulic fracturing, which breaks up buried rock and releases gas trapped inside.
Its author, State Senator Antoine Thompson, told ProPublica the moratorium is aimed at pausing the kind of high-volume hydraulic fracturing used in horizontally-drilled wells in the Marcellus Shale until legislators can reach an informed decision about its risks. But the language in the final bill as it is posted on the state's website does not differentiate between the different ways hydraulic fracturing can be used. It appears to be a blanket prohibition that would also stop hydraulic fracturing in New York's many vertical oil and gas wells and would apply to drilling in geologic formations outside the Marcellus.
The Independent Oil and Gas Association of New York, an industry trade group, has pushed hard against the measure, describing it as "unnecessary" and driven by "a calculated campaign of misinformation and ignorance."
An IOGA spokesman told ProPublica the bill was technically flawed and would affect hydraulically fractured wells beyond the intent of the law. It would have the unintended consequence of preventing drilling that is currently allowed, he said. [...]"
The U.S. Government Is “The Largest Criminal Organization In The World”
[08/06/10]
[5:30]
" [...]"
Note: Mike Gogulski’s site
Study: CIA doctors ‘gave green light to torture’
[08/05/10]
"A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals that physicians with the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS) played an even greater role in facilitating the torture of detainees than was previously recognized.
"The duplicity in this affair is amazingly circular.," Horton writes. "The Justice Department’s torture lawyers relied on the CIA’s torture doctors for the conclusion that specific techniques did not produce 'severe pain' that ran afoul of the criminal law prohibition on torture; the CIA doctors relied on the Justice Department lawyers for the same conclusion. It looks like a compact, and an alert prosecutor would no doubt call it a joint criminal enterprise. ... It’s hard to see at this point whose behavior was the more ethically odious, though evidence suggests that both engaged in professional misconduct so egregious as to warrant formal disciplinary proceedings."
"The torture doctors expect to have their identities protected, and thus to escape the natural consequences of their gross professional misconduct," Horton concludes. "This helps us understand why senior figures in the intelligence community are today ferociously pressuring the Justice Department to criminalize anyone who attempts to discover the identities of those involved. They assert that those identified would be terrorist targets. In fact, those who are unmasked face likely professional ethics proceedings, as well as the long-term risk of criminal prosecution, particularly if they ever venture beyond the borders of the United States." [...]"
German high court rules: Parliament cannot challenge domestic use of the military
[08/05/10]
"A recent decision by Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court strengthens the powers of the government over parliament and undermines the limitations preventing the deployment of troops against the German population. [...]"
Ecuador pledges no oil drilling in Amazon
reserve, for a while
[08/05/10]
"Ecuador has agreed to refrain from drilling for oil in a pristine Amazon rainforest reserve in return for up to $3.6bn (£2.26bn) in payments from rich countries. Under a pioneering agreement signed with the United Nations, the oilfields under the Yasuni reserve will remain untapped for at least a decade....
The Ecuadorean government says keeping the oil in the ground will prevent more than 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from going into the atmosphere.
"This is Ecuador's contribution towards combating climate change," Ecuador's Heritage Minister, Maria Espinoza, said.
Under a pioneering agreement signed with the United Nations, the oilfields under the Yasuni reserve will remain untapped for at least a decade.
The money is about half of what Ecuador would make by selling the oil. [...]"
See 'Oil & Gas' link at the top of this panel
for related stories.
Karzai butts into corruption probe
[08/05/10]
"A decision by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to review a U.S.-backed anti-corruption probe is a blow to the reconstruction effort, U.S. officials said. [...]"
Trends:
Bulgaria to cut military procurement
[08/05/10]
"Bulgaria has become the latest in a series of European countries that plans to cancel the delivery of already ordered military equipment. [...]"
Note: Yes, war is getting old, for some. Priorities can change.
UK: The
US isn't leaving Iraq, it's just re-branding the occupation [08/05/10]
"For most people in Britain and the US, Iraq is already history.
Afghanistan has long since taken the lion's share of media attention, as the
death toll of Nato troops rises inexorably. Controversy about Iraq is now
almost entirely focused on the original decision to invade: what's happening
there in 2010 barely registers. That will have been reinforced by Barack
Obama's declaration this week that US combat troops are to be withdrawn from
Iraq at the end of the month "as promised and on schedule". For much
of the British and American press, this was the real thing: headlines hailed
the "end" of the war and reported "US troops to leave
Iraq". Nothing could be further from the truth. The US isn't withdrawing
from Iraq at all – it's rebranding the occupation. Just as George Bush's war
on terror was retitled "overseas contingency operations" when Obama
became president, US "combat operations" will be rebadged from next
month as "stability operations". But as Major General Stephen Lanza,
the US military spokesman in Iraq, told the New York Times: "In practical
terms, nothing will change". After this month's withdrawal, there will
still be 50,000 US troops in 94 military bases, "advising" and
training the Iraqi army, "providing security" and carrying out
"counter-terrorism" missions. In US military speak, that covers
pretty well everything they might want to do. [...]"
Note: Of course. They weren't going to build the whole
Green Zone compound and massive US Embassy and walk away.
Suspicion Growing About Possible Link between outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
(PKK) and Israel [08/05/10]
"Amid the growing outrage over an Israeli attack on civilian ships in international waters that killed nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists and wounded dozens last week, there is deepening suspicion about the possible Israeli involvement in the killing of seven soldiers in a terrorist rocket attack on a naval base in
Iskenderun, in the southern province of Hatay. [...]"
“Iran has obtained S-300 air defense systems”
[08/04/10]
"Tehran has obtained four S-300 surface-to-air missiles, the Iranian news agency Fars has said. Two missiles were purchased from Belarus and two others from another unspecified source, it added.
According to Fars, the semiofficial news agency, Tehran’s possession of the missiles was revealed last year by
Al-Menar TV. Iranian government officials never denied the report. S-300s can track targets and fire at aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads 120 kilometers away, and are able to simultaneously engage up to 100 targets. Israel fears the possible delivery of the systems to Iran would change “the balance of forces” in the region. Analysts say Tehran may use the S-300 in case of a military strike against the country.
Russia has been delaying the delivery of the S-300 surface-to-air missile to Iran since 2007, when the two countries concluded a contract. In June this year, Moscow said the new UN Security sanctions against Iran would block the delivery. [...]"
Note: If this is true, it changes things for Iran ... and
anyone who attacks it.
Israeli provocation on Lebanese border could trigger new war
[08/04/10]
"Border clashes between Israeli and Lebanese troops have left three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist dead. Lebanon’s Hezbollah TV, Al
Manar, reports one high-ranking Israeli officer has been killed but this has not been confirmed by the Lebanese army or UN troops stationed in southern Lebanon.
As the photo above makes clear, this was a blatant act of provocation by Israeli forces — no one accidentally strayed over the border. This is more like kids tossing matches to find out whether a brush fire will start. [...]"
New Evidence About Prisoners Held in Secret CIA Prisons in Poland and Romania
[08/04/10]
"On Friday, the Polish Border Guard Office released a number of documents to the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, which, for the first time, provide details of the number of prisoners transferred by the CIA to a secret prison in Poland between December 5, 2002, and September 22, 2003, and, in one case, the number of prisoners who were subsequently transferred to a secret CIA prison in Romania. The documents (available here and here) provide important information about the secret prison at Szymany, in northeastern Poland, and also add to what is known about the program in Romania, which has received far less scrutiny.
The existence of the prisons was first revealed in The Washington Post on November 2, 2005, although the Post refrained from “publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials.” However, on November 6, 2005, Human Rights Watch identified the countries as Poland and Romania, and stated that it had seen “flight records showing that a Boeing 737, registration number N313P – a plane that the CIA used to move several prisoners to and from Europe, Afghanistan, and the Middle East in 2003 and 2004 – landed in Poland and Romania on direct flights from Afghanistan on two occasions in 2003 and 2004.”
Although the Polish and Romanian governments denied the claims, Swiss Sen. Dick Marty, a rapporteur for the Council of Europe, concluded in a report in June 2007, based on two years’ research and interviews with over 30 current and former members of the intelligence services in the United States and Europe, that he had enough “evidence to state that secret detention facilities run by the CIA did exist in Europe from 2003 to 2005, in particular in Poland and Romania.” Marty also identified both sites, noting that the flights to Romania flew into the Mihail Kogalniceanu military airfield, and also explained how the flights were disguised using fake flight
plans ... [...]"
Commentary: Shifting US War Strategy Smacks of Desperation
[08/04/10]
"The first decision made by Gen. David Petraeus as commandant of international forces in Afghanistan has been to abandon the policy he himself drafted in order to
"win the war" and " rebuild Afghan stability and government." [...]"
Note: They really should leave, soon.
India opens innovative water plant
[08/03/10]
"An Indian company says it has begun operating an advanced desalination plant to provide some of the cheapest drinking water in the country.
The Chennai Water Desalination Co. said its plant in Madras that began operating this weekend will supply around 260 gallons of water for just a little more than $1 and could be a "template" for other coastal Indian cities, the BBC reported.
By filtering seawater under high pressure, a company spokesman said, the plant will provide 26 million gallons of water to the city a day.
By comparison, the government-run water board supplies about 170 million gallons of water to the city's seven million residents.
The $140 million plant is a joint venture between companies from India and Spain, the BBC said.
The government-run Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board says it will buy the purified water for the next 25 years.
"The water is purified and demineralized. This takes away salt, lime and other particles. The purified water meets the government standards. It tastes just like ordinary water and above all it is cheap," water board Managing Director Shiv Das Meena said. [...]"
Note: Apparently, Pakistan is TOO STUPID to do this
... awash with US billions for the 'war on terror', they'd rather let their
people die from drought ...
As casualties in Afghanistan rise, Army suicides, drug use set new records
[08/02/10]
"As US military fatalities in Afghanistan hit a new high in July, the US Army issued a report exposing record suicides, drug use and other signs of deep demoralization among its ranks after a decade of colonial-style wars. [...]"
Greek truck drivers defy government
[08/02/10]
"Greek truck drivers decided on Friday to continue their five-day national strike, despite a series of punitive measures by the social democratic government of Prime Minister George Papandreou aiming to break their action. [...]"
Commentary: Assembling Evidence Of Likely 3rd World War
[08/01/10]
"In no particular order, these are the salient points that are converging, rapidly, screaming out our inexorable collision with National disaster:
A likely scenario, considering the above evidence, is that the US will have one or more cities attacked–probably with nukes or some other
WMD. Massive retaliation by US/Israeli forces…The next, most opportune time for any air assault is 10 August-a new
moon. It should be considered, also, that the US/Israel may simply strike Iran around that date, whether we have been attacked yet or not-but, the System is, definitely, preparing for mass-casualty events and radiological casualties, [...]"
Formation
Of Al Qaida: US-Israel Collaboration [08/01/10]
"Press clips gathered by the CIA and discovered in the National
Archives’ stored CIA files point to an agency keenly interested in any leaks
about the highly-classified CIA-Mossad program to establish Osama Bin Laden
and the most radical elements of the Afghan Mujahidin as the primary leaders
of the anti-Soviet rebels in the 1980s. WMR has pored through the CIA files
and a complicated picture emerges of America’s and Israel’s top
intelligence agencies, in cahoots with Saudi Arabia, establishing financial
links and carve out intelligence programs to provide manpower and financial
support to Bin Laden and his allies in Afghanistan. It was these very elements
that later created the so-called “Al Qaeda,” which the late British
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook described as nothing more than a “database”
of CIA front organizations, financial supporters, and field operatives.
However, one component omitted by Cook in the Al Qaeda construct is the
Israeli participation. Thanks largely to the CIA station chief in Riyadh in
1986-87, millions of dollars from the Saudi government, particularly
then-deputy Prime Minister Prince Abdullah, now King Abdullah, and wealthy
Saudi businessmen were funneled to the most radical leader of the Afghan
rebels, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, for whom militant southern Philippines Muslim
rebels named their organization, the Abu Sayyaf group. [...]"
Afghan War
Diary, 2004-2010 [08/01/10]
"WikiLeaks
has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary
compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to
2010. The reports, while written by soldiers and intelligence officers, and
mainly describing lethal military actions involving the United States
military, also include intelligence information, reports of meetings with
political figures, and related details. [...]"
Nuclear Forensics Skill
Is Declining Allowed to Decline in United States [07/30/10]
"The nation’s ability to identify the source of a nuclear weapon used in a terrorist attack is fragile and eroding, according to a report released Thursday by the National Research Council.
Such highly specialized detective work, known as nuclear attribution, seeks to study clues from fallout and radioactive debris as a way to throw light on the identity of the attacker and the maker of the weapon. In recent years, federal officials have sought to improve such analytic skills, arguing that nuclear terrorism is a grave, long-term threat to the nation.
The major goals of the federal efforts are to clarify options for retaliation and to deter terrorists by letting them know that nuclear devices have fingerprints that atomic specialists can find and trace. [...]"
Note: They want nothing in the future traceable to the
UK, US, Australia, Israel, Russia or France, who initiate and perpetuate world
strife and state terrorism, often on their own populations (see 9/11,7/7,
etc.)
Russia: Medvedev widens powers of KGB successor agency
[07/30/10]
"Russia has broadened the authority of the Federal Security Service, the KGB's main successor agency, giving it Soviet-style repressive powers in a move critics say could be used to stifle protests and intimidate government opponents.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a law Thursday allowing the agency, known by its initials
FSB, to issue warnings or detain people suspected of preparing to commit crimes against Russia's security - which could include participating in anti-government rallies. Perpetrators face fines or up to 15 days detention.
Like many past restrictions, the law was described as part of an effort to combat extremism. The bill, submitted to Russian lawmakers in April, followed twin subway bombings in Moscow that killed 40 people and reflected the Kremlin's dissatisfaction with critical media coverage of its anti-terrorism efforts.
A senior lawmaker said the law protects people from abuse by law enforcement officers. [...]"
Document Reveals Military Was Concerned About Gulf War Vets' Exposure to Depleted Uranium
[07/30/10]
"For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive toxic waste left over from nuclear fission and added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans.
But a little-known 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.
The VA, however, never conducted the medical tests, which may have deprived hundreds of thousands of veterans from receiving medical care to treat cancer and other diseases that result from exposure to
DU. The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center recently reported that ten years of data confirm that service members tend to have higher rates of certain cancers compared to civilians, according to the Army Times. While researchers suspected that service members are diagnosed with cancer more often and at a younger age because they have guaranteed access to health care and mandatory exams, the data does not explain the disparities in diagnosis among branches of the military. For example, the rate of lung cancer among sailors is twice that of other branches, while Marines have much lower cancer rates across the board. [...]"
Pelosi
Blocks Authorization for Independent Oil Spill Investigation [07/30/10]
"The latest version of the CLEAR Act is slated for a floor vote in the
House this week as Democrats look for ways to use the Gulf oil spill as a
means to pass elements of their unpopular energy agenda. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi (D-Calif.) stripped out authorization for an independent investigation
into the Gulf disaster. The Natural Resources Committee unanimously passed the
amendment in committee markup July 14 offered by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.)
that would establish a bipartisan, independent, National Commission on Outer
Continental Shelf Oil Spill Prevention. Unlike the commission set up by
President Obama -- packed only with environmental activists and no petroleum
engineers -- the commission unanimously approved by the Natural Resources
committee would be comprised of technical experts to study the actual events
leading up to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Not a single member of the
committee voiced opposition at the bill’s markup. The Senate has also
approved an independent commission. [...]"
Note: May she drop dead.
Document leak part of U.S. plot, says Pakistani ex-General
[07/29/10]
"From the deluge of leaked military documents published Sunday, a former Pakistani spy chief emerged as a chilling personification of his nation’s alleged duplicity in the Afghan war — an erstwhile U.S. ally turned Taliban tutor.
Now planted squarely in the cross hairs, retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul seems little short of delighted.
In an interview Tuesday, Gul dismissed the accusations against him as “fiction” and described the documents’ release as the start of a White House plot. It will end, he posited, with an early U.S. pullout from Afghanistan — thus proving
Gul, an unabashed advocate of the Afghan insurgency, right. President Obama “is a very good chess player. . . . He says, ‘I don’t want to carry the historic blame of having orchestrated the defeat of America, their humiliation in Afghanistan,’ ” said
Gul, 74, adding that the plot incorporates a troop surge that Obama knows will fail. “It doesn’t sell to a professional man like me.” [...]"
See 'Wikileaks' link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Afghanistan questions U.S. silence over
'Pakistan's role' [07/29/10]
".At a news conference later on Tuesday, council head Rangeen Dadfar Spanta was more specific, questioning the billions of dollars in cash aid and military assistance Washington has given to Pakistan over the years.
"It is really not justifiable for the Afghan people that how come you give to one country $11 billion or more as help for reconstruction or strengthen its security or defensive forces, but from other side the very forces train terrorism," he said... [...]"
Fallen Soldiers' Families Denied Cash as Insurers Profit
[07/29/10]
U.S. Big Business Makes Profit On Dead Soldiers. "The package arrived at Cindy Lohman’s home in Great Mills, Maryland, just two weeks after she learned that her son, Ryan, a 24-year-old Army sergeant, had been killed by a bomb in Afghanistan. It was a thick, 9-inch-by- 12-inch envelope from Prudential Financial Inc., which handles life insurance for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Inside was a letter from Prudential about Ryan’s $400,000 policy. And there was something else, which looked like a checkbook. The letter told Lohman that the full amount of her payout would be placed in a convenient interest-bearing account, allowing her time to decide how to use the benefit.
“You can hold the money in the account for safekeeping for as long as you like,” the letter said. In tiny print, in a disclaimer that Lohman says she didn’t notice, Prudential disclosed that what it called its Alliance Account was not guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its September issue.
Lohman, 52, left the money untouched for six months after her son’s August 2008 death.
“It’s like you’re paying me off because my child was killed,” she says. “It was a consolation prize that I didn’t want.”
As time went on, she says, she tried to use one of the “checks” to buy a bed, and the salesman rejected it. That happened again this year, she says, when she went to a Target store to purchase a camera on Armed Forces Day, May 15. [...]
I’m shocked,” says Lohman, breaking into tears as she learns how the Alliance Account works. “It’s a betrayal. It saddens me as an American that a
company would stoop so low as to make a profit on the death of a soldier.
Is there anything lower than that?” Millions of bereaved Americans have unwittingly been placed in the same position by their insurance companies. The practice of issuing what they call “checkbooks” to survivors, instead of paying them lump sums, extends well beyond the military.
Touching Americans In the past decade, these so-called retained-asset accounts have become standard operating procedure in an industry that touches virtually every American: There are more than 300 million active life insurance policies in the U.S., and the industry holds $4.6 trillion in assets, according to the American Council of Life Insurers.
Insurance companies tell survivors that their money is put in a secure account. Neither Prudential nor MetLife Inc., the largest life insurer in the U.S., segregates death benefits into a separate fund.
Newark, New Jersey-based Prudential, the second-largest life insurer, holds payouts in its own general account, according to regulatory filings.
[...]"
Audit: US cannot account for $8.7B in Iraqi funds
[07/29/10]
"A U.S. audit has found that the Pentagon cannot account for over 95 percent of $9.1 billion in Iraq reconstruction money, spotlighting Iraqi complaints that there is little to show for the massive funds pumped into their cash-strapped, war-ravaged nation.
The $8.7 billion in question was Iraqi money managed by the Pentagon, not part of the $53 billion that Congress has allocated for rebuilding. It's cash that Iraq, which relies on volatile oil revenues to fuel its spending, can ill afford to lose [...]"
Commentary: Queen Elizabeth Fronts for Rothschilds ("Crown")
[07/29/10]
"It is accurate to posit that Australia, New Zealand and Canada are not independent, sovereign countries. However, these nations are not owned and run by the UK; they are owned and run by the House of Windsor Crown Temple syndicate within the City of London Corporation. The head signatory of the Crown Temple syndicate is Elizabeth Windsor (Queen Elizabeth II of England).
It should not be forgotten that the most powerful financial syndicate in the Western World is that of the European
Rothschilds. The Rothschilds, because of their power base inside the City of London Corporation, have a controlling membership of the London Crown Temple syndicate, and they also have executive control of the Vatican and the Mafia though the P2 Masonic Lodge in Italy. [...]"
United States Industry Sinking Fast
[07/28/10]
"But while most economists expected this morning’s report on durable goods orders to show a healthy increase, they posted their largest decline since August of
2009. [...]"
Note: How they could they have possibly expected to see a
'healthy increase' with the whole manufacturing infrastructure of the county
largely shut down and absent? They have to be delusional. Production and
"creation" has been routed overseas for the sake of cheap labor ...
Again, time after time, things don't 'go' as they 'expect' ... one would think
that they'd realize at some point, after years go by, that they really have
no basis to expect anything other than the unexpected, which is what they
get, but they pretend that they have things 'under control' and
'understand' how things work, and state that they are 'surprised' at this or
that .... which of course means they are NOT 'experts' in anything except
bullshitting people ... they have no credibility. The country was like this 20
years ago ... they didn't do anything about it. Talk about new heights for
criminal negligence and dereliction of duty and constitutional responsibility.
Ahmadinejad: US, ‘Zionists’ to start new Mideast wars
[07/28/10]
"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the United States is planning to launch two wars in the Middle East in order to pressure Tehran, English-language Press TV reported on Tuesday.
“We have precise information that the Americans have devised a plot … they plan to attack at least two countries in the region within the next three months,” he said in remarks Press TV posted on its website from an interview with him late Monday.
Ahmadinejad said the United States was seeking to achieve two main objectives from these wars. [...]"
U.S. withdraws ‘pain ray’ from Afghan war zone
[07/26/10]
"A ‘pain ray’ that blasts the enemy with unbearable heat waves has been pulled out of Afghanistan by the US military.
The Active Denial System (ADS), which cost about £42million to develop, was on the brink of being deployed to disperse members of the Taliban as they attacked US forces.
The weapon, which causes immense pain to subjects but no lasting physical damage, was pulled from the war zone last week but US army chiefs in Afghanistan have stayed silent about the reason for the U-turn. [...]"
Bush-era CIA director: Attack on Iran ‘seems inexorable’
[07/26/10]
"According to Michael Hayden, a CIA boss under George W. Bush, Iran’s not having a nuke is just as dangerous as it having one.
Hayden predicted Iran plans to “get itself to that step right below a nuclear weapon, that permanent breakout stage, so the needle isn’t quite in the red for the international community.” Hayden said that reaching even that level would be “as destabilizing to the region as actually having a weapon” and it will result in an attack by the U.S., Israel, or both.
Killing Iranians now “seems inexorable” and may not be the worst of all possible outcomes,” according to Hayden.
Meanwhile, Iran’s leadership remains steeped in denial. Iran’s ISNA news agency quoted an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday saying that Israel and the United States would never strike Iran, saying that “both the U.S. and Zionist regime face internal problems and they know that we make many troubles for them if they attack Iranian territory.”[...]
But how do you build a security structure that guards you against American citizens
who are beginning to change in their thinking up to a point where they become a threat to the security of other
Americans? That’s a devil of a problem.""
Note: Hayden is a twisted, psychopathic, power and control
freak ... a sequentially reincarnating asshole, here wreaking havoc on this
world.
Video clip included. [1:18] The video is from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast July 25, 2010.
UK: KGB Man: MI5 Told Me David Kelly Had Been "Exterminated"
[07/26/10]
"The mystery over the death of David Kelly took a further twist last night after a former KGB officer said he had evidence that the scientist did not commit suicide.
Boris Karpichkov, who worked as a Russian spy for 15 years before fleeing to Britain, has sent a dossier to Attorney General Dominic Grieve in which he claims to relay information from an ‘MI5 agent’ that Dr Kelly had been ‘exterminated’.
His move comes amid increasing calls from within the Coalition Government for a full, independent investigation into Dr Kelly’s death.
Mr Grieve has indicated that he is ‘concerned’ by the growing scepticism among experts about the official version of events.
Dr Kelly was found dead in woods near his Oxfordshire home in July 2003, after the Government exposed him as the source of a BBC report questioning Tony Blair’s case for war in Iraq.
There was no full coroner’s inquest – instead, Lord Hutton chaired a public inquiry which concluded Dr Kelly died from loss of blood after slashing his left wrist with a blunt garden pruning knife. [...]"
Related: UK diplomat: ‘Deep state’ bureaucracy blocking Iraq inquiry
"Former KGB spy claims evidence that whistleblower David Kelly didn't commit suicide.
Britain's public inquiry into the country's instrumental role in the Iraq invasion is being thwarted by "deep state" bureaucrats who are intimidating witnesses and withholding documents, says a former Iraq expert for the UK government.
In a column in the Sunday Observer, Carne Ross asserted that he was cajoled by government operatives to not mention certain documents that suggest the British government lied to lawmakers about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. He also said he had heard "from secondary sources" that other witnesses were similarly intimidated.
Ross, who served as the UK's expert on Iraq at the UN from 1997 to 2002, said he had planned to testify in front of the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war that the British government hadn't looked for alternatives to military action in the run-up to the war. But government administrators told him the documents he wanted to back this up "could not be found."
"This is simply not plausible," Ross wrote. [...]"
UK Confirms Use of Depleted Uranium in Iraq
[07/26/10]
[1:01]
" My grandfather, U.S. Army Col. Edwin Joseph McAllister, was born in Battle Creek in 1895. He does not know that his first grandchild is an international expert on depleted uranium. I have worked in two U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories, and in 1991 I became a whistleblower at the Livermore lab. Depleted uranium is very, very, very nasty stuff:
Depleted uranium (DU) weaponry meets the definition of weapon of mass destruction in two out of three categories under U.S. Federal Code Title 50 Chapter 40 Section 2302.
DU weaponry violates all international treaties and agreements, Hague and Geneva war conventions, the 1925 Geneva gas protocol, U.S. laws and U.S. military law.
Since 1991, the U.S. has released the radioactive atomicity equivalent of at least 400,000 Nagasaki bombs into the global atmosphere. That is 10 times the amount released during atmospheric testing which was the equivalent of 40,000 Hiroshima bombs. The U.S. has permanently contaminated the global atmosphere with radioactive pollution having a half-life of 2.5 billion years.
The U.S. has illegally conducted four nuclear wars in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq since 1991, calling DU "conventional" weapons when in fact they are nuclear weapons.
DU on the battlefield has three effects on living systems: it is a heavy metal "chemical" poison, a "radioactive" poison and has a "particulate" effect due to the very tiny size of the particles that are 0.1 microns and smaller.
Cancer starts with one alpha particle under the right conditions. One gram of DU is the size of a period in this sentence and releases 12,000 alpha particles per second.
[...]"
Related: U.S. War Crimes: Cancer Rate in Fallujah Worse than Hiroshima
[07/24/10]
"According to the authors of a new study, “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,” the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by US atomic bomb strikes in 1945... [...]"
Latest documents advocating the ban of depleted uranium
"According to the UK Uranium Weapons Network, now submitting its evidence to the Iraq War Inquiry, “The
UK Uranium Weapons Network, (UWN) announced today that it has submitted its report on British military use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition in the 2003 Iraq War to the Chilcot Inquiry.
At least two Iraqi cities are known to be suffering from public health crises. Fallujah has seen a 15 fold increase in serious birth defects, whilst Basra has experienced a rise in cancers since DU was used in urban combat. The World Health Organisation is currently investigating the causes of the Fallujah birth defects and ICBUW is still waiting for confirmation from the US that depleted uranium was used there.
UWN is campaigning for the UK government to adopt a precautionary approach to the use of DU in conventional weaponry and for greater transparency over where DU has been used to allow decontamination, monitoring and risk awareness programs to be put in place. [...]"
Governments have often initially denied using DU because of public health concerns. It is now clear that DU was used on a large scale by the US and the UK in the Gulf War in 1991, then in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, and again in the war in Iraq by the US and the UK in 2003. It is suspected that the US also used DU in Afghanistan in 2001, although both the US and UK governments have denied using it there. However, leaked transport documents suggest that
US forces in Afghanistan have DU
weapons. The continued use of A10 ‘Warthog’ aircraft in support of NATO ground troops indicates that DU may be being used there.
Flashback
- "Poison Dust" Depleted Uranium Story Video clip [30:48]
Depleted Uranium is a Weapon of Mass Destruction
| UK: Gordon Brown paid for Depleted Uranium Weapons
[4:07]
Top U.K. Spy Agency Aids in Controversial U.S. ‘Targeted Killings’
[07/25/10]
"A top British spy agency uses its technology to pinpoint the hiding places of al Qaeda and Taliban chiefs for controversial “targeted killings” by U.S. drones, it was revealed Sunday.
GCHQ, the top secret U.K. communications agency, has used telephone intercepts to provide the Americans with “locational intelligence” on leading militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an official briefed on its operations said.
Insiders say GCHQ can provide more extensive and precise technical coverage in the region than its American sister organization, the National Security Agency, because Britain has a better network of intercept stations in Asia.
Drone attacks have succeeded in disrupting al Qaeda activities. However, hundreds of civilians have been killed, and a prominent human rights lawyer investigating the attacks for the United Nations has challenged their legality. [...]"
11 steps necessary to create a “terrorist
state” using Yemen as a case study [07/25/10]
"Tim Coles takes us through 11 steps necessary to create a “terrorist state”. Using Yemen as a case study, he argues that these steps precisely match US and British policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran as well as Yemen to grow “very poisonous seeds”, some which have ripened while others are ripening. [...]"
Gov Jindal declares State of Emergency: Oil could “enter coastal homes”, evacuation orders expected today
[07/24/10]
" There's a potential for winds and waves to drive oil inland," Jindal said. With 427 miles of coast already affected, "we don't need additional oil in our marshes." [...]"
LaRouchePAC
Friday Morning Report [07/23/10] Video clip [6:31]
"Though the British oligarchy and their puppet Obama are insane, that doesn't mean the rest of the world is. [...]"
Note: Always interesting commentary.
Documentary: Gasland
[07/23/10]
Autoplay 11 Video clips
"The largest domestic natural gas drilling boom in history has swept across the United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of
"fracking" or hydraulic fracturing has unlocked a "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" just beneath us. But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown." [...]"
Note: Thanks to Dick Cheney, oil and gas companies are
EXEMPT from environmental pollution. This documentary is interesting in
light of what's happening in the Gulf.
"Obama Is Preparing to Bomb Iran"
Webster G. Tarpley
[07/23/10]
" ... It is genuinely appalling to realize that we are now back to something resembling the desperate situation of 2002, with Iran as the target this time around. One rule of thumb which many learned during the Bush-Cheney years is that
the attack is likely to start during the dark of the moon. This suggests a
possible timetable built around August 10, September 8, or October 7 of this year, or perhaps some time
later. It may come as an October surprise, as de Borchgrave seems to suggest. We are back once again to the classic predicament of persons of good will in recent decades: get active or get radioactive. So it’s time to get active. [...]"
Note: Very comprehensive article.
NSA Has Gotten So Big, Area Around It Has 112 Acres Of Parking Spaces
[07/23/10]
"From the road, it's impossible to tell how large the NSA has become, even though its buildings occupy 6.3 million square feet - about the size of the Pentagon - and are surrounded by 112 acres of parking spaces. As massive as that might seem, documents indicate that the NSA is only going to get bigger: 10,000 more workers over the next 15 years; $2 billion to pay for just the first phase of expansion; an overall increase in size that will bring its building space throughout the Fort Meade cluster to nearly 14 million square feet. [...]"
Ocean Energy Institute Founder Says New Hurricane Will Require Gulf Evacuation
"The U.S. National Hurricane Center has warned that a weather system near Cuba, centered between islands of Acklins and Great
Inagua, may move into the Gulf of Mexico this weekend, reports Bloomberg this morning. “I am still worried about how it will move the oil slick into the coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi,” meteorologist Jim Rouiller said.
In response to the approach of the tropical cyclone, BP workers in the Gulf of Mexico have stopped drilling a relief well and are preparing to evacuate, reports the BBC. On Wednesday, National Incident Commander Thad Allen said a tropical storm in the area could push back the timetable 10 to 14 days.
Matthew Simmons, founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, told Bloomberg on Wednesday that a leak near the Deepwater Horizon site may require an evacuation of the Gulf coast if a hurricane strikes the area. “Some five to ten miles away is what the NOAA research vessels have proved is a deep oil leak that is growing by the day and it is very toxic oil and its gases are very lethal and basically if we have a hurricane now we need to evacuate the Gulf coast,” Simmons said.
Simmons also said BP has covered up the severity of the oil gusher and if they had told the truth “they would all go to jail.” [...]"
Spill
site tropical storm warning
"BP workers prepare to evacuate the oil spill site
[...]"
See Oil & Gas link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary: Matt Simmons: "Unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico"
[07/22/10]
[7:02]
"Matthew Simmons, founder of the Ocean Energy Institute, talks with Bloomberg's Mark Crumpton, Lizzie O'Leary and Julie Hyman about BP Plc's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. [...]"
Commentary: Homeland Security for Whom?
[07/22/10]
"The Washington Post has published a splashy exposé about the mammoth "homeland security" intelligence empire that now burdens the United States, financially and ideologically.
As usual, however, there is no real historical context. And that lack of context is part of the story – not just the current dimensions of the empire.
I wrote the following article for Penthouse in the summer of 2003. It was reprinted by CounterPunch later that summer.
At the time I said: "This homeland security boondoggle is the biggest reorganization of the U.S. government in 50 years. It might even bankrupt the country and, perhaps intentionally, throw it into a Depression. That remains to be seen. What is certain is that at a cost of $50 billion in taxpayer's money, the homeland security infrastructure will provide Bush with 170,000 political cadres, and the internal security he needs to assure the continuity of his political power indefinitely. Except for providing Bush with political internal security, there is no need for the Department of Homeland Security; it is a Trojan Horse through which Bush will unleash his ideological storm troopers and exploit his ill-gotten power to achieve permanent political dominance."
I put the blame on "Bush" at the time (and the numbers have varied) but it's really the national security state that's to blame for the near Depression the homeland security state (financially and ideologically) has caused. And of course the Washington Post is part of the national security state – that secret group of people who control America through secret deals – the type of secret deals that enable Washington Post reporters' access to anonymous CIA officers.
Don't forget – there is always a quid pro quo for that type of access, even in today's exposé.
And it is that national security state in its entirety that provides "their" empire with built-in security. Political Internal Security.
As pundits rush to comment on this "revelation," don't forget that it was utterly predictable.
And you know what that means.... [...]"
Report: Tab for 'War on terrorism' tops $1 trillion
[07/21/10]
"The United States has spent more than $1 trillion on wars since the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, a recently released Congressional report says.
Adjusting for inflation, the outlays for conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere around the world make the "war on terrorism" second only to World War II.
The report "Cost of Major U.S. Wars" by the Congressional Research Service attempts to compare war costs over a more than 230-year period -- from the American Revolution to the current day -- noting the difficulties associated with such a task.
Since the the 9/11 terror attacks, the United States has spent an estimated $1.15 trillion. World War II cost $4.1 trillion when converted to current dollars, although the tab in the 1940s was $296 billion.
Comparisons of costs of wars over a 230-year period, however, are inherently problematic, the report says.
"One problem is how to separate costs of military operations from costs of forces in peacetime. In recent years, the DOD (Department of Defense) has tried to identify the additional 'incremental' expenses of engaging in military operations, over and above the costs of maintaining standing military forces."
"Figures are problematic, as well, because of difficulties in comparing prices from one vastly different era to another," according to the report. "Perhaps a more significant problem is that wars appear more expensive over time as the sophistication and cost of technology advances, both for military and for civilian activities."
The costs associated with the "war on terrorism" could still go much higher. A Congressional Budget Office estimate from 2007 said the cost of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq could total $2.4 trillion by 2017, more than double the current amount.
[...]"
US officials push back at ‘troubling’ spy agency report
[07/21/10]
"US officials pushed back Monday at a lengthy Washington Post report critical of the bloated and sometimes inefficient US intelligence network, which one called a "roadmap" for US foes.
The second segment of the three-part Post series on the intelligence bureaucracy comes out Tuesday, the same day that President Barack Obama's nominee to head US intelligence efforts, retired air force general James Clapper, heads to Capitol Hill for a confirmation hearing.
The US intelligence network is so unwieldy and secretive that even principal actors within it are unable to grasp its size or scope, according to the newspaper's two-year probe.
"There has been so much growth since 9/11 that getting your arms around that -- not just for the DNI [director of national intelligence], but for any individual, for the director of the CIA, for the secretary of defense -- is a challenge," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Post.
Homeland security and intelligence programs take place in some 10,000 locations across the country, while the various agencies produce 50,000 intelligence reports each year, a volume so large "many are routinely ignored," according to the Post. [...]"
America’s Defense Associations: Key Elements in US Security & War Machinery
[07/21/10]
"With the Washington Post’s series on Top Secret America (a Pulitzer Prize for summarizing what everyone already knew) hitting the streets, it’s appropriate to take a quick look at a few of the national security non-profits that operate betwixt and between the public and private sectors, many holding their own classified briefings and conferences. These Washington, DC defense associations operate in similar fashion to the many Think Tanks in the area who are also non-profits. Unlike the Think Tanks though, they have local chapters nationwide housed near many military and defense contracting facilities, as well as major research universities. This potentially provides the defense association’s membership with influence right down to the state and local levels. Through feast and famine their rallying cry never changes: there’s never enough money to meet strategic, operational and tactical objectives or the strategic, operational and tactical requirements are wrong. It’s always about avoiding the next “train wreck.”
Defense non-profits like the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) also represent the non-military interests of members such as Boeing—at once a defense contractor and commercial airline manufacturer. In fact, James
Albaugh, dual hat XVP of Boeing and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, sits on the Aerospace Industries Association’s Board of Governors and the Executive Committee. The defense associations, like the heavyweight corporations they speak for, maintain Boards of Directors/Trustees who are nearly always only six degrees of separation apart. For example, you’ll just as easily find a member of Northrop Grumman Corporation on the AIA roster as you will on that of the National Defense Industrial Association
(NDIA). Defense association presidents and officers are generally paid very well for networking, sitting on this and that board of directors or trustees, and representing their member’s interests. The individuals that run these associations are nearly all spun out of the revolving door of the federal government whether they were employed in a civilian, military or paramilitary capacity. In addition to compensation packages they receive from their own associations (they all “serve at the discretion of the Board of Directors/Trustees” and have their salaries approved by them), they receive retirement packages for their years employed by the federal government and rank/grade achieved. That includes health care, social security and other perks (commissary shopping, for example) that fall mostly to former employees of one of the military branches. [...]"
Democracy Now:
Washington Post Investigation Reveals Massive, Unmanageable, Outsourced US Intelligence System
[07/21/10]
" Video clip [9:36] "Tim Shorrock Asks Why It Took the Washington Post So Long to Investigate the US Intelligence System"With all due respect to the Washington Post—and Dana Priest and Bill Arkin are very good reporters—we have to ask, why did it take them seven years to do this story?" says Tim Shorrock, an investigative journalist and author of Spies for Hire: The Secret World of Intelligence Outsourcing. "Anyone who’s been covering intelligence or national security in Washington knows that intelligence has been privatized to an incredible extent."
Article includes 'rush transcript'.
"Top
Secret America: A Washington Post Investigation" [07/20/10]
Top Secret
America is a project nearly two years in the making that describes the huge national security buildup in the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The articles in this series and an online database depict the scope and complexity of the government's national security program through interactive maps and other graphics. Every data point on the Web site is substantiated by at least two public records.
Because of the nature of this project, we allowed government officials to see the Web site several months ago and asked them to tell us of any specific concerns. They offered none at that time. As the project evolved, we shared the Web site's revised capabilities. Again, we asked for specific concerns. One government body objected to certain data points on the site and explained why; we removed those items. Another agency objected that the entire Web site could pose a national security risk but declined to offer specific comments.
Our maps
(at Washington Post) show the headquarters buildings of the largest government agencies involved in top-secret work. A user can also see the cities and towns where the government conducts top-secret work in the United States, but not the specific locations, companies or agencies involved. [...]"
Related: Washington reacts to 'Top Secret America' revelations
"Acting Director of National Intelligence, David C. Gompert, issued a statement Monday morning reacting to The Washington Post series "Top Secret America," by Dana Priest and William
Arkin. [...]" DC’s spy establishment in panic mode over Washington Post
exposé
"Washington's "intelligence" establishment appears to be in panic mode over an upcoming Washington Post series about runaway growth in defense and intelligence spending.
A State Department email has accused the Post of planning to make public "top secret" information about defense and intelligence contractors working for the US, despite an admission in the same email that the Post's information came from "open sources."
The series, by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Dana Priest, will include a TV partnership with PBS's Frontline and is expected to consist of three articles and an online database of military and intelligence contractors and their projects.
[...]" US intelligence spending completely out of control, Washington Post reveals
| A Hidden World, Growing Beyond Control: The Paranoid US Government
"The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy
and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how
many agencies do the same work. These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The
Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from
public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put
in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
Report finds DHS contracts over budget, behind schedule
"The Homeland Security Department's key acquisition programs are experiencing major cost growth and unexpected scheduling delays, according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office.
The report, which House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., released on Wednesday, provides a snapshot of DHS' most complex acquisitions. The findings were not encouraging.
GAO examined 15 of the department's largest and most critical acquisition programs. The contracts were split across six DHS components and had a combined $100 billion in total life-cycle costs and roughly $38 billion in direct procurement costs. Investigators found 12 of the programs reported cost overruns and almost all experienced schedule delays from the initial contractor estimates. Eight of the programs reported delays of one year or more. [...]"
President of the Council on Foreign Relations on Afghanistan: ‘It’s not worth it’
[07/19/10]
"The president of the Council of Foreign Relations is telling President Barack Obama that he needs to drastically scale down his ambitions in Afghanistan.
In an article published in the most recent edition of Newsweek, Richard Haass called Afghanistan "very much Barack Obama's war of choice." Haass seemed to be echoing the words of RNC Chairman Michael Steele when he said Afghanistan was a "war of Obama's choosing." GOP chairman Michael Steele was blasted by fellow Republicans recently for describing Afghanistan as “a war of Obama’s choosing,” and suggesting that the United States would fail there as had many other outside powers. Some critics berated Steele for his pessimism, others for getting his facts wrong, given that President George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan soon after 9/11. But Steele’s critics are the ones who are wrong: the RNC chair was more correct than not on the substance of his statement, if not the politics.
"The war in Afghanistan that the Bush administration fought was quite narrow and quite modest," Haass told CNN's Kiran Chetry Monday.
"The Obama administration came in, tripled U.S. force levels and they are doing something very ambitious. They want to build a strong Afghanistan state, a large police, a large national military, and not only are they targeting terrorists, of which Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, said there is only between 50 and 100, but they are going after the Taliban," said
Haass. [...]"
China on track to aim 2,000 missiles at Taiwan — report
[07/19/10]
"China will have 2,000 missiles aimed at its rival Taiwan by the end of the year, several hundred more than the current number, despite fast-warming trade ties between the two sides, an island defense study said.
Beijing's preparations setting Taiwan further back in the military power balance against its political adversary could destroy 90 percent of the island's infrastructure, the report published in the defense ministry's naval studies periodical said.
The increase from today's estimate of 1,000 to 1,400 missiles could raise tensions after two years of upbeat dialogue between the rivals that has cleared the way for direct civilian flights and a free trade-style deal in June.
"Even though we've signed the trade deal, there won't be any progress on military issues," Hsu
Yung-ming, political science professor at Soochow University. China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and has not renounced the use of force to bring the island into its fold. [...]"
See "China" stories link at the top of this panel for
related stories.
How the allure and trappings of consumption led the middle class into a modern form of debt
servitude [07/19/10]
"Ludwig the II of Bavaria is rarely discussed in history class but most would recognize many of his castles especially the one that is replicated in Disneyland
(Neuschwanstein Castle). Ludwig spent money he didn’t have to indulge in his eccentric desire to build opulent castles. Even wealthy royalty can put their balance sheet into jeopardy if they indulge every whim and wish. The banking sector for the last decade has allowed many Americans to satisfy nearly every consumer desire they had. Boats, cars, vacations, clothing, recliners, Jacuzzis, or anything else you can imagine. Some took this to the extreme and created a massive market that demanded bigger and more extravagant homes even though average Americans were not getting wealthier or earning more money. How this was accomplished was by allowing massive amounts of debt to accumulate until a crisis imploded the economy. The credit bubble bursting has forced many into a new life of austerity. No more Sleeping Beauty castles. [...]"
Commentary: The Rot from Within: Character Disorders of the Republic
Robert Logan[07/18/10]
"In reading a number of books on the destructive manipulative behavior of people with personality disorders I became increasingly struck by how the behavior of our politicians and our nation, especially with respect to foreign policy, was so precisely described.
The lesson from this study is not just sobering, but taken alongside the invincible tide of history – the collapse of every empire – the prognosis for our nation is bleak.
The most important book for me was titled In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People by Dr. George Simon. The title and tactics identified within it accurately describes not only our national leaders, but our national character. Our nation has not just one, but multiple destructive personality disorders.
I do not mean this in the metaphorical sense, but in the direct clinical sense. Dr. Simon indicates that in a repressive Victorian society individual citizens suffer more neurotic kinds of disorders because they have natural human sexual desires that are relentlessly suppressed and vilified, resulting in anguish over reconciling natural human urges with extreme social sanctions against them. [...]"
The “Berlin Club”: Germany plans to put Europe on rations
[07/18/10]
"A plan currently being drawn up in Berlin will treat bankrupt nation states in the same way as defunct companies—restructured, stripped down and forced to hand over effective control of their budget... [...]"
Commentary:
BP, Obama and the Economics of Disaster
[07/18/10]
"The unceasing dribble of bad news from the Gulf of Mexico has been running before our eyes for weeks now: dead plankton; hypoxic zones looming and worsening, the product of massive methane releases into the Gulf waters; withered marsh grass; dolphin carcasses. This ruin is plenty bad on its own terms. No one wants to live in a filthy post-industrial wasteland. You don't need to read metaphysical or transcendentalist philosophy to understand that clean, sparkling, azure seas rife with life are preferable to seawater lacquered with oil and peppered with Styrofoam and the rotting corpses of sea mammals. Everyone - almost everyone - knows this instinctively.
But a healthy ecology does a lot more than make the world aesthetically enchanting. When marsh grasses absorb the tidal swell from hurricanes, they prevent coastal communities from being destroyed. Marsh plants also absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, as does plankton. When those marsh grasses and plankton are damaged or destroyed, there will be more atmospheric CO2, and human beings will feel the effects of that CO2. Hurricane storm surges will hammer coastal cities previously protected by vegetative buffers much harder, and in a warming world, the largest storms will come far more frequently. This destruction will cost money to fix - money that would not have been spent if the oil had never been spilled in the first place.
The Mississippi Delta provides climate stability, food, furs, habitat, natural waste treatment and hurricane protection for its inhabitants. More than 90 percent of these benefits come from coastal wetlands, which can include both freshwater and saltwater marshes, tidal bays, estuaries and cypress swamps, and their value adds up to a ridiculously large sum. [...]"
Dov Zakheim retires from Booz Allen Hamilton
[07/18/10]
"For those of you who don't know who Dov Zakheim is, let me refresh your memory. The ordained rabbi served as comptroller of the Pentagon from May 4, 2001, to March 10, 2004, when he resigned to go to Booz Allen Hamilton, a leading consulting firm.
I documented his days before, during and after his Pentagon stint, during which a total of $3.2 trillion went missing from Pentagon coffers, in an article for Online Journal, Following Dov Zakheim and Pentagon trillions to 9-11 and Israel, which you should all read in full.
In fact, the second loss of $2.3 trillion was announced on September 10, 2001, by Donald Rumsfeld and the story was buried the next day under the rubble of 9/11.
News of the dual Israel-US citizen/rabbi's retirement came to me from a reader in an email that contained Mr. Zakheim's retirement announcement above the original invitation from his sec EA (Executive Assistant). [...]"
US & British Intel Agencies
Working On Fake Video To Prompt War With Iran [07/18/10]
[0:45]
Planned Economy or Planned Destruction
Note: A cartoon from 1934 which curiously depicts what's happening
in the US today, again, to a great extent.
U.S. agency investigating alleged Israeli attempt to buy goods illicitly
[07/17/10]
"An U.S. watchdog agency, the Bureau of Industry and Security, is investigating a firm there and its Belgian affiliate for attempting to purchase products requiring special export licenses for Israel and other countries. The firm,
Teleogy, has admitted to being involved in such activities, but official Israeli sources refused to comment on the matter.
The probe, which began this spring, was reported Wednesday by the non-governmental Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, headed by David Albright, one of the world's leading experts on nuclear arms and inspection regimes. [...]"
Commentary: America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution
[07/17/10]
"Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.
Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy
Geithner, never held a non- government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.... [...]"
G20 Aftermath: Countering conspiracy theories on police response to Black Bloc
[07/17/10]
"Despite a $1 billion security budget and some 19,000 security personnel during the Toronto G20 Summit, police appeared incompetent and confused as militants inflicted extensive property damage and torched 4 police cars. While the protests failed to breach the 6km security fencing, the attacks were a significant victory for the resistance, which had vowed to 'humiliate' the security apparatus in the weeks prior to the
summit. [...]"
Related: G20 policing in Toronto: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue...
"During last week’s G20 summit, police arrested or detained over a thousand people. With guns drawn, they kicked people awake, they threatened, pepper sprayed, TASERed, tear gassed and beat those in the streets. Although the politicians declared the policing at the summit a success, popular anger at the police is at an all time high. At such moments, it is important to look closely at the tactics and strategy that were used to police dissent, not least because the models that are considered successful, tend to spread... [...]" Solidarity with the defendants now: G20 struggle must continue and grow
"Statement from the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) - On June 26 and 27, the political representatives of the world’s greatest thieves and murderers gathered in Toronto. They held their
‘G20 Summit’ in a billion dollar armed camp financed with public money stolen from vital social
programs. They threw out some meaningless platitudes and drew up a plan around their real agenda –
solving the crisis of their bankrupt system by imposing austerity and poverty on people throughout the
world. [...]" G20 Toronto Riots perpetrated by Agents Provocateurs of the Police
"Two weeks after the G20 protests in Toronto it is becoming more and more apparent that what many of us suspected is indeed true: the June 26 ‘violence’ (i.e. property damage and police-car fires) was most likely perpetrated by agents provocateurs of the police. [...]"
G-20 Arrests a "Dry Run" -- Sinn Fein Veteran
"This whole scenario [was] a large-scale exercise ... to assess the psychological reaction of confined masses to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and denial of basic Civil Rights."
Resistance must continue to the form of a class-action suit. [...]"
'Ten big media lies' about Israel
[07/17/10]
"Michel Collon, a Belgian journalist and author, in his book "Israel, let's talk about it," has slammed European media over decades of "lying" to people in order to support Israel.
Collon, in his book, has recounted "10 big lies" spread by Western media in order to "justify the existence and actions of Israel", which are concisely presented below: [...]"
China Buys Unprecedented Amounts of Uranium for Nuclear Power
[07/16/10]
"China is currently buying "unprecedented" amounts of uranium to ensure supplies for its fast-expanding nuclear power sector, the China Daily reported from Beijing. China now has 13 nuclear plants under construction and, as Xu
Yuming, executive director of the China Nuclear Energy Association, announced in Beijing July 6, is planning to build at least 60 new reactors by 2020. [...]"
See China link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Related: Uranium is Heating Up
"Uranium prices appear to be bottoming, as China buys major supplies from Cameco
(NYSE:CCJ). On June 24, China agreed to buy more than 10,000 tons of uranium oxide - yellowcake - over 10 years from
Cameco. According to Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, China is buying unprecedented amounts of uranium. Based on public information, China may purchase about 5,000 metric tonnes of yellowcake this year. That's more than twice as much as China consumes.
Clearly, China is building up stockpiles for its long list of new reactors. According to the China Nuclear Energy Association, China plans to build at least 60 new reactors by 2020. The average 1,000- megawatt reactor costs about $3 billion. Loading a new reactor requires about 400 tonnes of uranium to start. Take 60 reactors, times 400 tonnes each. That's 24,000 tonnes of uranium (over 52 million pounds) - about all of the world's current output for one year. [...]"
Note: Interesting, just after the mining companies tossed
out the last major government official in the Australia government, replacing
Rudd with a red-haired female sequential ...
Commentary: Unusual Number of Put Options For Energy Companies
[07/16/10]
"Unusual volume of put contracts was traded today. There were 713 puts contracts versus the ten day average volume of 55. On the calls side, 27 calls contracts were traded. Today's traded Put/Call ratio is 26.41. There were 26.41 puts traded for each call contract.
Put/Call ratio is often used to measure investment sentiment, the ratio serves as a predictor of investor behavior. Unusual options volume provides reliable clues that the stock is expected to make a move. [...]"
Note: "The massive volume of put options placed on Airline stocks shortly before 9/11 is one of the smoking guns for prior knowledge of the attacks. In fact, any investigator into the biggest crime in modern history would use that evidence as Exhibit A to prosecute the perpetrators. Interestingly, our government thought the evidence is better served as destroyed to cover the attacker's tracks. Similar numbers of put options are now being placed against energy companies. Can we expect a major energy catastrophe in the near future that someone has prior knowledge of?"
Press TV- The Autograph-Thomas Woods- 07 -14- 2010(Part1)
[07/16/10]
[9:56]
"An exclusive interview with Thomas Woods, Historian and Author. [...]"
Note: Part
2 [9:06] |
Part3 [7:19]
Thousands of Laptops Stolen During Nine-Hour Heist from Government Contractor
[07/14/10]
"Thousands of laptops have been stolen from the Florida office of a private contractor for the U.S. military’s Special Operations
Command. Surveillance cameras caught up to seven people loading the computers into two trucks for nine hours.
U.S. Special Operations Command coordinates the activities of elite units from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. A spokeswoman said Tuesday that none of the stolen laptops contained military information or software.
The Virginia-based company iGov was awarded a $450 million contract earlier this year to supply mobile technology services linking special operations troops worldwide. A company executive says iGov is cooperating with authorities and the March 6 break-in at its Tampa facility remains under investigation. [...]"
National interest has gone missing in USA and Israel
[07/14/10]
"Lawrence Davidson argues that the power of Zionist lobbies in the United States and real-estate ideologues in Israel mean that
war and expansionism will always take precedence over the national interest in both countries.
"The explanation given here helps us to understand why [Syrian President] Bashar Asad can knock at Israel’s locked door and no one in that country will bother to open it. It also helps us understand why Obama and Clinton turned their backs on the Turkish and Brazilian efforts to negotiate a deal with Iran. Both are reacting to the power and influence of domestic special interests. Compared to these interests, the "national interest" does not stand a chance." [...]"
Related: UK:
Robert Peston on bank taxes [07/14/10]
"A warning came from a Treasury minister who said Britain's banks needed to show that they were
working in the interests of the whole economy and not just for themselves. [...]"
Historian warns of sudden collapse of American ‘empire’
[07/13/10]
"Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level.
“I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,” Ferguson said. “In that sense, I mean
within the next two years. Because the whole thing, fiscally and other ways, is very near the edge of chaos. And we’ve seen already in Greece what happens when the bond market loses faith in your fiscal policy.” [...]"
Note: Notice how it seems like there still is some
viability left in the system, perhaps enough where it will still be tolerable
until the endgame is over ... the planetary entity can leave any time, and
when it does, everyone on the planet just drops dead, because the hearts stop
beating ... plants whither ... some of the atmosphere, which has biologically
energetic aspects to it, will leak off into space ...
Trends: End Of The Cheap 'Made-In-China' Era Sends Companies Scrambling For Options
[07/13/10]
"Many companies are striving to stay profitable by shifting factories to cheaper areas farther inland or to other developing countries, and a few are even resuming production in the West.
"China is going to go through a very dramatic period. The big companies are starting to exit. We all see the writing on the wall," said Rick Goodwin, a China trade veteran of 22 years, whose company links foreign buyers with Chinese suppliers. [...]"
Analysis:
The Two Sides of the Same Coin: Global Capitalism and U.S. Militarism
by Benjamin Woods [07/12/10]
"The Washington Post published a provocative article on June 4th 2010 entitled “U.S. ‘secret war’ expands globally as Special Operations forces take larger role.” The article shows that the Obama administration has continued the militaristic policies of the Bush administration by swelling the number of special operations troops in 75 countries compared to 60 at the beginning of last year. This illustrates that Black faces in high places (neocolonialism) doesn’t necessarily mean a change in policy. Therefore, its important to remember that the primary problem is not US militarism but imperialism and capitalism.
As the global economic situation worsens and the US is bogged down in wars, breaks in the system will occur which allow social movements to arise. To counter this trend, the United States, the military arm of transnational capital, will display more military aggression. Of course, the president is simply continuing the expansionary and imperialistic policies of the white settler regime in North America that started with the theft of First Nation (Native American) lands and enslavement of African people.
In 2008, the US navy reactivated the Fourth fleet. The Fourth fleet was established during World War II to combat the German Navy in Latin American waters. Following the end of the war, the fleet was deactivated. Although the US military contends the Fourth fleet’s reactivation is not a fundamental change in policy, governments in the region assert its purpose is to stop the rise of social movements in Latin America.
These fears are a product of the US Monroe doctrine beginning in the 1820s that stated the entire Western Hemisphere is the United States ‘sphere of influence.’ In keeping with the Monroe Doctrine, the US has overthrown virtually every government in Latin America
[...]"
Note: Interesting article. Just some thoughts: Once
certain factors in a society become 'institutionalized' it becomes a
self-destructive path for that society. The type of world that this process
yields is NO LONGER a world which has enough viable experiences for
individuals with higher selves in simultaneous mode. To come into a society
like this immediately induces a desire to leave ... it's like stepping on a
hot rock. Astrological and other factors from 2012 on would make this
civilization no longer a practical source for experiences for individuals. I
don't see things continuing very much longer ... it is inconceivable to me
that it will even reach much into 2012 .... if even that far. Actually, the
'end' for the civilization can come at any time, now. Because the current
dynamic is one where the Planetary Entity also leaves, it's departure will
mean every living thing instantly dies, no matter where you are. So much for
all those underground cities, shelters and 'seed banks'. Ha! They have no idea
what's coming. The 'sequentials' have to be literally 'thrust away' from this
planet, because they're so entrenched. In the end, ALL individuals move
on to discuss experiences and have new ones, with no experiences lost, so it
doesn't matter about now, really. Trust yourself. That's all anyone can do.
You may be surprised on how well you've done, in terms of 'handling' things as
they unfold. There is no reason to assume otherwise. Everything is going to
work out very well, in the end. For many, this is the second 'simultaneous'
planet, so it's not like this is a new experiential framework. So, try to
remain in observational mode and let's see how this unfolds,
here.
Exposé:
Organ-Harvesting in Chinese Concentration Camps [07/12/10]
See "China" stories link above for this and
related stories.
"The Anatomy of the State"
by Murray N. Rothbard [07/12/10]
"The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service. Some theorists venerate the State as the apotheosis of society; others regard it as an amiable, though often inefficient, organization for achieving social ends; but almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged against the "private sector" and often winning in this competition of resources. With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, "we are the government." The useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that "we owe it to ourselves"; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is "doing it to himself" and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have "committed suicide," since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. One would not think it necessary to belabor this point, and yet the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or lesser degree.
We must, therefore, emphasize that "we" are not the government; the government is not "us." The government does not in any accurate sense "represent" the majority of the
people. But, even if it did, even if 70 percent of the people decided to murder the remaining 30 percent, this would still be murder and would not be voluntary suicide on the part of the slaughtered
minority. ] No organicist metaphor, no irrelevant bromide that "we are all part of one another," must be permitted to obscure this basic fact.
If, then, the State is not "us," if it is not "the human family" getting together to decide mutual problems, if it is not a lodge meeting or country club, what is it?
[...]"
Related: Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays
US banks' role in Mexican drug trade
[07/12/10]
"Just before sunset on April 10, 2006, a DC-9 jet landed at the international airport in the port city of Ciudad del Carmen, 500 miles east of Mexico City. As soldiers on the ground approached the plane, the crew tried to shoo them away, saying there was a dangerous oil leak. So the troops grew suspicious and searched the jet.
They found 128 black suitcases, packed with 5.7 tons of cocaine, valued at $100 million. The stash was supposed to have been delivered from Caracas to drug traffickers in
Toluca, near Mexico City, prosecutors later found. Law enforcement officials also discovered something else.
The smugglers had bought the DC-9 with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the United States: Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America Corp.
This was no isolated incident. [...]"
Related: Mexican Cartels Dig In in Atlanta
[07/12/10]
[2:59] "
CBS video report from October of 2009.
Was the Social Security Money “Borrowed” or “Stolen”?
[07/12/10]
"In December, the Obama deficit-reduction commission will make recommendations for budget cuts that will then be voted on, with an up or down vote, by the lame-duck Congress. Already, there is much speculation that Social Security will be one of the big targets. The rationale for cutting Social Security seems to be that, during such difficult economic times, everything should be a candidate for the chopping block, and that the public should support such cuts out of a sense of patriotism.
The flaw in this argument is that Social Security has not contributed a dime to the budget deficits or the soaring national debt. Social Security is funded exclusively by payroll taxes (also known as FICA taxes), paid into the fund by working Americans. In 1983, the payroll tax was increased substantially in response to the recommendations, the previous year, of the Greenspan Commission on Social Security Reform.
The 1983 payroll tax hike has generated more than $2.5 trillion that is supposed to be in the trust fund. If the trust fund actually held this amount in real assets, full Social Security benefits could be paid until at least 2037 without any changes. Unfortunately, none of the surplus revenue was saved or invested in anything. It was all spent by the government on wars and other government programs without making any provisions for repaying the money. [...]"
An Historic Failure of Government And Industry, A Tragic Violation Of The Public Trust And Social Contract
[07/12/10]
"For all of us who live on and near the Gulf Coast of Mexico, we exist in a state that alternates between exasperation and incredulity, between anger and grief, between shock and awe at what this oil spill has come to represent. Where do we start? How do we begin to express our collective disillusionment with so many instances of betrayal and letdown? As well as the relentless falling short of what used to be considered reasonable expectations of government and corporate social responsibility. [...]"
John Mearsheimer on Israel’s Nukes, Espionage and its Impact on the U.S.
[07/11/10]
"On July 7, 2010, at “The Spy Museum,” in Washington, D.C., the IRmep sponsored a panel discussion. It was titled: “Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal: Espionage, Opacity and Future.” One of the panelists was Professor John J. Mearsheimer, the co-author of “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy. He is also a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Professor Mearsheimer said: “There is no accountability for Israel on any issue!” He referenced Israel’s attack on the USS Liberty, the killing of peace and justice activist Rachel Corrie, the Goldstone report and Israel’s recent assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. He sees the internet as a game-changer in Middle East politics; He also mentions the historical opposition within the US national security establishment to Israel acquiring nuclear weapons which is not deemed in the US national interest. “Things are really bad now”, he concludes, “but I’m sad to say they’re only going to get worse” [...]"
Corbett Report:
Sunday Update
[07/11/10]
[7:28]
" Internet Strikes Back, LeBron Who?, Israeli Nukes [...]"
Related: See below.
International Experts Find that Pending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Threatens Public Interests
"This statement reflects the conclusions reached at a meeting of over 90 academics, practitioners and public interest organizations from six continents gathered at American University Washington College of Law, June 16-18, 2010. The meeting, convened by American University's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, was called to analyze the official text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
(ACTA), released for the first time in April, 2010. Negotiating parties released the text only after public criticism of the unusually closed process and widespread disquiet over the negotiations' presumed substance. (See Wellington Declaration, EU Resolution on Transparency and State of Play of the ACTA Negotiations).
[...]"
Threatening World Order: US and Israel Quietly Announce Plans to Reconstitute Their Nuclear Stockpiles
[07/11/10]
"The Obama and Netanyahu governments are seeking to obscure their contempt for nuclear abolition by calling for "nonproliferation" in the Middle East, while Israel simultaneously boycotts New-York-based discussions (at the 2010 NPT conference) of the need for a "nuclear free" Middle East.(2) "Nonproliferation," within this context, can be understood to apply only to other countries such as Iran, which has long been a target for US and Israeli military planners.
The Obama and Netanyahu governments recently announced that they will oppose efforts at singling Israel out in any "nuclear weapons free" Middle East discussion. The problem with this announcement is that Israel is the only country in the Middle East to currently have nuclear weapons. In light of this fact, any attempts to shield Israel from being "singled out" will inevitably prevent progress in moving toward nuclear disarmament in the region. [...]"
Netanyahu: "Only US military threats can stop Iran from making nukes"
[07/11/10]
Note: What can stop Israel from blackmailing the whole
planet with their nuclear arsenal? An asteroid on Tel Aviv?
Classified CIA Transcript Counters Bin Laden Terror Role
[07/11/10]
"Doubt Thrown on Proof Bin Laden a Terrorist Leader at all. Two weeks ago, CIA Director Leon Panetta told the press the CIA had not been able to positively confirm any specific information on Osama bin Laden since "late 2000." Interviews with high ranking military and intelligence officials, some at the highest levels, have confirmed that all evidence lends toward Osama bin Laden's death in December 2001. Yet transcripts of translated audio and video tapes, albeit widely disputed, are continually released by a news agency tied to Israeli intelligence services. [...]"
"Iran: Fuel rods ready in August 2010"
[07/11/10]
"Iran will complete the production of fuel rods for the Tehran Research Reactor by August next year, says the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran
(AEOI). [...]"
Note: Getting targets ready in time and space ...
remember they're conflicting/cooperating members of the same 'club' ... it's
all a dog and pony show, from beginning to end.
Commentary: "Far from uniform"
[07/11/10]
"In both the US and UK, civilian leaders have the upper hand over the military - but the two countries have very different attitudes to veterans reaching the top, says David Cannadine in his Point of View column. [...]"
Analysis:
Do the States Have the Power of Nullification?
[07/11/10]
"In a recently published book, Nullification, author Tom Woods maintains that states have a power to nullify laws that exceed the powers of Congress to enact. This claim has a long history, some of it distinguished–as in the case of Wisconsin’s resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850–some of it not. But is the claim warranted? Last week, I was on Freedom Watch, Judge Andrew Napolitano’s new show on Fox Business Channel to discuss the matter. Judge Napolitano blurbed Woods’s book and the segment was devoted largely to him making his case. I got to make 2 statements to the contrary. (Interestingly, Monica Crowley, a conservative commentator billed by the intro as a nullification supporter, only maintained that states absolutely could challenge some unconstitutional laws in court–something no one denies. She either did not understand the nullification position or was diplomatically ducking the question.)
While there are some interesting structural arguments to be made on behalf of a power of nullification, of course it is not recognized by the text. And my doubts that it was thought by the founders to be a power reserved to the states is fueled by James Madison’s famed Report of 1800 in which he defended the Virginia Resolution objecting to the constitutionality of the Aliens and Sedition Act. I include a lengthy excerpt from Madison’s report in my casebook, including this telling passage near the end. (So readers have the full context, I include the paragraphs in full while putting in bold the more crucial language): [...]"
Thousands protest G20 summit arrests
[07/11/10]
"Thousands of people took to the streets in Toronto and other Canadian cities Saturday to protest the Group of 20 summit arrests last month. [...]"
Look Out Below: The Baltic Dry Index Is in Freefall
[07/10/10]
"The short term prediction appears to be PAIN, as shipping rates plummet. Apparently
not as much to ship as the global economy heads for a wicked "double
dip"... [...]"
Note: Where is the BDI now? Go to this
link. Where it says "Symbol" enter $BDI and click on
"Update".
Torture Complicity Under the Spotlight in Europe (Part One): The UK
[07/10/10]
"Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, when the United States — the post-World War II driver of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions, prohibiting torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment — went off the rails and introduced a horrendous global program of rendition, torture, arbitrary detention and prisons beyond the law, other countries who were drawn into the “War on Terror” have striven to keep their own involvement quiet, and for good reason. Although the Bush administration was drunk on unfettered executive power, and was largely encouraged and supported by members of Congress, elsewhere these supposedly “robust” responses to terrorism were conducted with far more subterfuge, as the governments in question recognized that they were crimes, and, at worst, crimes against humanity. [...]"
Note: (Part Two): Germany and France
" ... German complicity in the dubious practices of the “War on Terror” has long been apparent, primarily through the involvement of the intelligence services, the security services and/or law enforcement personnel in the detention in Afghanistan and Guantánamo of the Bremen-born German resident Murat
Kurnaz, the kidnap in Macedonia and imprisonment in CIA “black sites” in Afghanistan of German citizen Khaled
El-Masri, and the detention and torture of German citizen Muhammad Haydar
Zammar, seized in Morocco in October 2001 and then transferred to Syria, where he was reportedly “interrogated by a group of German intelligence and law enforcement personnel while he was detained in the notorious Palestine Branch
(Far’Falestin prison) in Damascus.” These cases have received widespread coverage over the last few years, and one notable organization that has maintained a focus on the Germen government’s activities is the United Nations, which, in a major report on secret detention, published in February this year, included Germany as one of at least 40 countries who were “complicit in the secret detention” of prisoners seized in the “War on
Terror. [...]”
The Vanishing American Consumer and the Coming Trade War
Robert Reich, Former Secretary of
Labor [07/10/10]
"Obama has vowed to double U.S. exports within the next five years. That's because exports are critical for rebooting the American economy. It's clear American consumers can't get the economy going on their own. They can't restart the jobs machine. They've run out of money and credit.
It's not just that one out of four Americans is unemployed or underemployed (working part-time, overqualified, or at a lower wage than before). More significantly, the Great Recession burst the housing bubble that had let American consumers turn their homes into ATMs. Now the cash machines are closed.
So the administration figures foreign consumers will have to fill the gap. [...]"
World military spending exceeds $1.5 trillion, continuing upward trend despite economic conditions
[07/10/10]
"The highest military spender is the US accounting for just under half of the world’s spending, more than the rest of the G7 (most economically advanced countries) combined, and more than all its potential enemies, combined. [...]"
Related:
Defense Spending up 70% in Real Inflated Adjusted Terms Since 2001
[07/09/10]
"In February the Pentagon requested $708.2 billion for fiscal year 2011 -- which would make the coming year's defense budget, adjusted for inflation, the biggest since World War II. As one analysis of the budget points out, that would mean that total defense spending -- including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- has grown 70 percent in real terms since 2001. Defense spending now accounts for some 20 percent of federal discretionary spending. That's even more than Social Security. [...]"
Note: Social priorities ... the heart of any civilization, are
being run over by the psychopathic sequentials running the military/
industrial/ intelligence/ congressional complex. These people are completely
INSANE, on an infinite war, death and profit binge ... reincarnated
sequentials doing their thing ... destroying another world. Obama's warfare-welfare
state, and so much more than that would come, given the time.
Global Governance and World Order Studies
Lew Rockwell [07/09/10]
"I want to call to the special attention of LRC readers three exceptional articles by Andrew Gavin Marshall on “The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom,”
here,
here, and
here. This series of excellent essays combine a remarkable synthesis of background historical research with original insights and dire warnings of future consequences if past and present trends continue unabated. [...]"
Is Yemen the Next Afghanistan?
[07/09/10]
"Yemen's once-obscure vital statistics were flashing across TV screens everywhere: it is the Arab world's poorest country, with a fast-growing and deeply conservative Muslim population of 23 million. It is running out of oil and may soon be the first country in the world to run out of water. The central government is weak and corrupt, hemmed in by rebellions and powerful tribes. Many fear that Al Qaeda is gaining a sanctuary in the remote provinces east of
Sana, similar to the one it already has in Afghanistan and Pakistan. [...]"
See Yemen link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Israeli Psychotherapist: 'They made us do it...' - The Disordered Psychology of Israel
[07/09/10]
"... Israel certainly behaves like a person with a personality disorder. It's emotionally unstable, it's harmful to others, it's leaving scorched earth all around it and it has a deep-seated victim complex. It is pathologically
self-centered and utterly incapable of taking responsibility or feeling empathy or sympathy towards anyone other than itself. When confronted with its deeds and asked to take responsibility Israel responds defensively and usually blames the victim. It presents the occupied Palestinians as perpetrators and itself as the real victim, behaving as if everyone is being unfair to it. This is the basis for Israel's ludicrous claim that its elite commando unit was acting in
self-defence against the civilians on the flotilla. It is common for people with a personality disorder to isolate their victims and actively block any attempt by the victim to seek outside help. They are often vicious towards anyone who tries to help. They often twist the story and accuse the helper of having a hidden, sick or twisted 'agenda'. [...]
In fact, applying individual psychological dynamics to countries is a valid and important practice, as Dr. Lobaczewski shows in Political
Ponerology. If psychopaths are the ones making policy, and influencing a country's opinions and way of thinking, an entire culture can internalize pathological thinking and behaviors."
See Israel link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Aussie Internet Filter Delayed, Mate
[07/09/10]
"The implementation of a national Internet filter in Australia, hilariously dubbed the “Clean Feed,” has been postponed as “sections of the community” continue to criticize the extent to which the filter would block content. [...]"
Related: Australia:
ISP filtering legislation on the way
[07/08/10]
"The federal government hopes to introduce legislation to enable its controversial internet filter by the end of the year.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the legislation would be this year "sooner rather than later''.
Timing for the web filter legislation, which has earned the ire of ISPs and internet freedom advocates, depends on the date for the looming federal election and whether Labor wins office.
Political commentators have earmarked August to October as possible election dates. The polls are likely to occur before the Victorian election in late November.
Since the plan was mooted in 2007, Senator Conroy has changed his mind several times on how the filtering
scheme would eventually work. The latest measure is to create a list of web pages comprising refused classification-rated content and force internet service providers to automatically block them.
Legislation will be introduced to require all ISPs to filter the RC content list. [...]
"If you're thinking 'does that mean December?' - no, I wouldn't think it would be December, but
there could be intervening events that I am not in control of,'' Senator Conroy told reporters in Sydney today.
The policy would be implemented 12 months from the passage of legislation. RC broadly consists of illegal content but Google and various internet experts believe the list could potentially contain legitimate material.
Labor Senator Kate Lundy's suggestion for an opt-in approach has been rejected.
US Ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich has urged the government to ditch the plan, saying child pornographers can be captured and prosecuted without using mandatory internet filters."
Exposé:
BP
Dumping Oil Waste in Mississippi Landfills, Over County Objections [07/08/10]
[2:13]
"Pecan Grove, Harrison County, Mississippi: Harrison County Supervisor Connie
Rocko: Despite literally MILLIONS of ideas being floated by private citizens, non-profit groups, and foreign countries on how to clean up and contain the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster, BP decided they would rather fill American landfills with their mess. BP refuses to even consider ideas on how to handle the situation, many of which have been proven to be effective and successful. Harrison County leaders do not approve but BP is still dumping in local landfills and local residents and officials are preparing subpoenas... demanding BP appear before their Harrison County Board of Supervisors. [...]"
See Oil/Gas/Coal link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Global military expenditure stands at over $1.5 trillion, and has been rising in recent years.
[07/08/10]
"The USA with its massive spending budget, is the principal determinant of the current world trend, and its military expenditure now accounts for just under half of the world total, at 46.5% of the world total; [...]"
Note: All these resources spent on death, making some
people very wealthy. Even in the largely sequential galaxy, no world
like this one ever remained stable long enough to move into space, so
civilizations like this one (only partially sequentialized and lacking
homogenous cooperation) die off ...
Related: Weapons Budget Grows Amid Obama Cuts
"The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) is likely to increase spending on weapon systems through 2016, and the Pentagon’s rate of weapons spending should be larger than the overall DOD budget, Pentagon Comptroller Rober Hale said in a story by Tony Capaccio published in today’s editions of Business Week. [...]"
Note: The actual state of the people in the country is not
relevant. This Jingoistic fiasco will soon be brought to a halt forcibly by
other events. The Pentagon and DOD are doing what not even a dog will do -
shitting in it's own bed, metaphorically. Insane and out of control
psychopaths.
Analysis:
"Why the Taliban is winning in
Afghanistan" [07/07/10]
"As Washington and London struggle to prop up a puppet government over which Hamid Karzai has no control, they risk repeating the blood-soaked 19th-century history of Britain’s imperial defeat.
[...]"
Note: "William Dalrymple is one of the knowledgeable and experienced observers of Central Asia and India in the West. His insights are always valuable, and usually prescient, especially on the greatly variegated complexities -- social, economic, cultural, political, historical -- of the volatile region, where the American imperial impulse is now coming to grief in arrogance and ignorance ... as so many others have done before it.
In a New Statesman article rich with historical detail and direct reportage from the frontlines of
"Af-Pak" front of the bipartisan Terror War, Dalrymple brings fresh confirmation of what everyone but the moronic masters of war along the Potomac knows: the war in Afghanistan is lost, and all the vaunted "surges" of the drone-firing Peace Laureate and his various COIN-operated commanders are only prolonging the pointless agony -- and building up a tsunami of horrific blowback.
Here are some extensive excerpts -- but they are only a few highlights. The whole piece well repays a full reading."
Related: Newsweek editor asks: ‘Why are we fighting a major war in Afghanistan?’
"Since the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal as the commander of US forces in Afghanistan and CIA Director Leon Panetta's admission a week ago that there may be no more than fifty to a hundred
al-Qaeda members in that nation, there have been increasing signs of a loss of support for the Afghan War.
Fareed Zararia, the editor of Newsweek's international editions and CNN host, criticized the war in his strongest terms yet on his CNN program Sunday. "If Al Qaeda is down to a hundred men there at the most," Zakaria asked, "why are we fighting a major war?"
Noting that there were more than a hundred deaths among NATO soldiers last month and that the war is estimated to cost the US more than $100 billion this year alone, Zararia wondered again,"Why are we fighting this major war against the Taliban? ... If
al-Qaeda itself is so weak, why are we fighting against its allies so ferociously?"
"The whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate," Zakaria remarked, "a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem. " [...]" US-led forces kill 6 Afghan soldiers as Afghan soldiers were launching an ambush against
'militants'
"Six Afghan soldiers have been killed when their post was "mistakenly" attacked by a US-led aircraft in central Afghanistan, police sources say.
[...]"
Note: Should read US Troops kill Afghans to protect Taliban.
Related: Afghan War: Petraeus Expands U.S. Military Presence Throughout Eurasia
Commentary: Duel of the Machiavellians: Obama vs. Petraeus
[07/07/10]
"While Obama is often portrayed as a political neophyte finding himself confronting situations that are way over his head, his choice of General David H. Petraeus to replace General Stanley A. McChrystal was in some ways a masterful political stroke, though it does not seem to have achieved all that might have been intended.
Obama’s move has nothing to do with any effort to maintain a “winning” strategy in Afghanistan. No realistic person could even conceive of how the US could “win” in Afghanistan. In fact, it would not seem that the central purpose of Obama’s escalation of the US war in Afghanistan in 2009 had to do with “winning,” either, since unlike his political predecessor, Obama actually gives the appearance of knowing what is going on. Rather, Obama’s purpose is fundamentally a political one: preventing, or at least limiting, political damage from the war in Afghanistan. [...]"
Commentary: The
Crash of the U.S. Economy [07/06/10]
"It’s official. Mark your calendars. The crash of the U.S. economy has
begun. It was announced the morning of Wednesday, June 13, 2007, by economic
writers Steven Pearlstein and Robert Samuelson in the pages of the Washington
Post, one of the foremost house organs of the U.S. monetary elite.
Pearlstein’s column was titled, “The Takeover Boom, About to Go Bust”
and concerned the extraordinary amount of debt vs. operating profits of
companies currently subject to leveraged buyouts. In language remarkably
alarmist for the usually ultra-bland pages of the Post, Pearlstein wrote,
“It is impossible to predict when the magic moment will be reached and
everyone finally realizes that the prices being paid for these companies, and
the debt taken on to support the acquisitions, are unsustainable. When that
happens, it won't be pretty. Across the board, stock prices and company
valuations will fall. Banks will announce painful write-offs, some hedge funds
will close their doors, and private-equity funds will report disappointing
returns. Some companies will be forced into bankruptcy or restructuring.”
[...] What is likely to happen? I’d suggest four possible scenarios: [...] "
Analysis:
Mexico’s July 4 Election – Has the Narco State Arrived?
[07/06/10]
"Nearly 50 candidates and public figures have been assassinated in the run up to Mexico’s 2010 state elections. Former presidential candidate Diego Fernández de
Cevallos, major leader of the ruling PAN party, was kidnapped on May 16 and has not been heard from since. Three days ago, Rodolfo
Torre, the odds on winner for governor in the state of Tamaulipas, was murdered in a highway ambush. Torre’s murder represents the highest ranking politician of the 50 assassinations this election cycle.
The political murders by the drug cartels are not focused on one party. The Los Angeles Times suggested that the goal may be to create chaos and elevate the drug cartel control over the entire Mexican political system.
The Mexican drug cartels also sent a message to the United States in March when a U.S. Consulate worker in Ciudad Jaurez (across from El Paso, Texas) was gunned down. The leader of a cross border gang was just arrested. Authorities suspect the hit was motivated by unequal distribution of U.S. visas to a rival gang.
The bottom line nature of the assault by drug lords may quickly create an environment where investment in Mexico drops quickly and
significantly. [...]"
US to blame Iran for Afghanistan failure
[07/06/10]
"US and British intelligence services are working on a fake video clip aimed at diverting blame for failures in Afghanistan to Iran, an informed US military source says. [...]"
Commentary: The Tragedy of Empire: BP Can Bring Obama and London Down
[07/05/10]
"A senior U.S. intelligence source confirmed today that the miserable failure of President Obama, in dealing with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, has crystalized the view, among a vast majority of Americans, and among many leading Democratic Party officials as well, that Obama is a loser, incapable of managing this crisis, or any other crisis of similar magnitude. A poll conducted several days ago revealed that 60 percent of Americans believe that Obama has totally failed to manage the Gulf spill. [...]"
Commentary:
Did the US drop tactical nuclear weapons on Iraq/Afghanistan? – You
bet [07/05/10]
"You may find this story hard to believe and at the same time challenge as to why anyone would use such weapons having no regard for other humans that live on this planet. We hear almost weekly about the push by President Obama to fulfill the Non Proliferation Treaty
(NPT) by reducing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but is there any truth behind this PR exercise or is it a case of business as usual?
I am sure you all believe that the last use of nuclear weapons was in Japan during WW2 but I have to tell you that this is far from the truth. In actual fact the US, UK, NATO and Israel have been using WMD’s on an almost daily basis since the conflict in the Balkans in the 1990’s. In actual fact it started well before this when the Israelis went to war with Egypt……this was the first time WMD’s had been used on mass with weapons purchased from the US and with US technicians acting in an advisory role.
We have discussed the use of depleted uranium weapons many times before but maybe no one has truly grasped how serious these actions have been and the greater implications on the rest of the world and our environment. [...]
Security for the nuclear weapons is provided by a Marine Corps security detachment assigned to
each aircraft carrier. Aircraft carriers are thought routinely to carry about 100 nuclear weapons
when forward deployed. As of mid-1990, seven aircraft carriers are located in the Atlantic and
five are in the Pacific. Pacific based aircraft carriers are home ported in
Yokosuka, Japan."
U.S. govt. poisoned its own citizens during Prohibition
[07/05/10]
"In a dark but little-known chapter of U.S. history, the federal government ordered the poisoning of alcohol supplies to deter and punish those who sought to flout Prohibition-era bans. [...]"
Corbett Report: G20 Wrap-up, Iran War Build-up - Sunday
July 4, 2010 Update
[9:14] [07/04/10]
Related: Youtube video captures undercover 'agent provocateurs' assaulting man at Montreal protest
"A man arrested at Thursday's march against police repression around the G20 Summit has come forward to reveal that he was assaulted by undercover "agents provocateurs" when he attempted to film them. [...]"
Related: See Exposé: Cops Told - Hands Off G-20 Provocateurs [07/02/10]
and Toronto G20 Riot Fraud: Undercover Police engaged in Purposeful Provocation At Tax Payers’ Expense [06/28/10]
below.
Exposé:
Israel’s attack on Egypt in June ’67 was not ‘preemptive’
[07/04/10]
"It is often claimed that Israel’s attack on Egypt that began the June 1967 “Six Day War” was a “preemptive” one. Implicit in that description is the notion that Israel was under imminent threat of an attack from Egypt. Yet this historical interpretation of the war is not sustained by the documentary record.
The President of Egypt, then known as the United Arab Republic (UAR), Gamal Abdel Nasser, later conveyed to U.S. President Lyndon Johnson that his troop buildup in the Sinai Peninsula prior to the war had been to defend against a feared Israeli attack. [...]"
'300 Russian spies operating in UK'
[07/04/10]
"Amid the ongoing investigations regarding an alleged Russian spy ring operation in the United States, sources says as many as 300 Russian spies may be operating in the United Kingdom. [...]"
Commentary: The Torturers and Their Victims: Cowardice, American-Style
[07/04/10]
"Too little has been written about the cowardice of CIA and Pentagon torturers and even less about the stoic courage of their victims. Irrespective of what they might have done, there can be no question that those suffering illegal and criminal tortures are, in fact, more courageous than their tormentors. After all, how much courage does it take to pummel a man tied to a chair or chained to a wall? CIA interrogators don’t have even the "sporting" attitude of the schoolyard bully who attacks a weaker child. That might be called a "fair fight" as the weaker could put up a defense. But those five-man teams that torture the defenseless, by definition, have got to be the most cowardly thugs on the planet. Somehow, this perspective has eluded the "24" fiction writers at Fox television network who extol U.S. torturer Jack Bauer the way Goebbels once extolled the SS. It has also eluded President Barack Obama, a former employee of a CIA-front organization, who lavishly praised the CIA in a speech at its Langley, Va., headquarters last year. [...]"
China: Strike erupts in Japanese-owned electronics plant
[07/04/10]
"China’s strike wave has extended to the Mitsumi Electric plant in northern Tianjin city, adding to
nervousness in international financial circles. [...]"
See China link above for related stories.
The
Truth About 'Democracy' 
[07/04/10]
"President Roosevelt sought to have the U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932), confiscated and destroyed. His reasoning for this was the "New Deal" which allowed for the Bank Holiday in March 1933. It also was an attempt to remove the truth about our type or form of government from future generations. He was a SOCIALIST. His agenda was SOCIALISM backed by 300 families of the Federal Reserve Bank and the World Bank.
He did not count on some of these manuals surviving. One such manual was found in the attic of a house in Phoenix, AZ in
1990. [...] The United States Army training manual number 2000-25, dated November 20, 1928 states in defining a
Democracy: 'A government of the masses. Authority derived through mass meetings or any other form of direct expression. Results in
mobocracy. Attitude towards property is communistic; negative property rights. Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation of the governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse without restraint; or regard to consequences. It results in
demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.' [...] This same 1928 Army training manual had the following to say about a
Republic: 'Authority is derived through the election by the people of public officials best fitted to represent them. Attitude toward property is respect for laws and individual rights and economic procedure. Attitude toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences. Avoids the dangerous extreme of tyranny or
mobocracy. Results in statesmanship, liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress. It is the 'standard form' of government.' [...]"
Related: Republic
vs. Democracy | Democracy: Never Mentioned in America's Founding Documents
| The
Hypocrisy of Democracy | Democracy, the Worst Form of Government Ever Tried
| More on the Republic vs. Democracy Debate
Note: The problem is that the 'safeguards' that retard a slide
into tyranny, such as checks and balances, ethical behavior, etc., fade away
once corruption and deceit set things awry -- and it ALWAYS happens, over
time.
Quotes From Lincoln That We Never Hear
[07/04/10]
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
[...] "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most sacred right—a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit.
"
Exposé:
Connecting the Dots: Israel's Vengeance, Loose Nukes, Gulf Ecocide
[07/03/10]
"Israel's self-fulfilling prophecy moved one step closer to its tragic conclusion last month as its façade of normalcy slipped and the world glimpsed the true nature of the Zionist project in the Middle East. The massacre of innocents aboard the Mavi Marmara has galvanised global citizens to end the Siege of Gaza once and for all. But Israel's lunacy is altogether more dangerous following the UN's official acknowledgment that Israel is armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. Its willingness to use them "by way of deception" strengthens the likelihood of a false-flag nuclear attack being carried out to avenge humanity's non-existent
"victimisation" of the "Light unto the Nations." We will examine the latest ridiculous case of "homegrown terrorism" in the US which took place on the eve of momentous discussions on nuclear disarmament in New York City, as well as the framing of North Korea for the sinking of the South Korean warship
Cheonan. Was Israel involved in both events? The hysteria these two attacks generated as well as their timing certainly indicates that somebody is blowing smoke to distract people from moves on the grand chessboard. The clownish Times Square car bomb was not the real terrorist act in New York last month. Financial terrorists held the US government hostage until it reversed its decision to break up organised crime on Wall Street. Is the eurozone debt crisis similarly contrived? [...]"
Note: Well written article. Includes comprehensive details
about the Gaza Flotilla event. See Gaza link above for related stories.
Commentary: The Heart of the Declaration of Independence
[07/03/10]
"Though you never hear it quoted: " But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Does this mean that we should use violent means? Of course not. Indeed, the new government established in war soon became its own tyranny. For moral and practical reasons, we must adhere to peaceful means only. We can bring down even absolute despotism by withholding our consent. [...]"
Related: Ending Tyranny Without Violence
by Murray N. Rothbard
"Étienne de La Boétie has been best remembered as the great and close friend of the eminent essayist Michel de Montaigne, in one of history's most notable friendships. But he would be better remembered, as some historians have come to recognize, as one of the seminal political philosophers, not only as a founder of modern political philosophy in France but also for the timeless relevance of many of his theoretical insights. [...]
The first striking thing about the Discourse is the form: La Boétie's method was speculative, abstract, deductive. This contrasts with the rather narrowly legal and historical argument of the Huguenot monarchomach writers (those sectarian writers who argued for the right of subjects to resist unjust rulers) of the 1570's and 1580's, whom La Boétie resembled in his opposition to tyranny. While the Huguenot monarchomachs, best exemplified by François Hotman's Franco-Gallia (1573), concentrated on grounding their arguments on real or presumed historical precedents in French laws and institutions, La Boétie's only historical examples were numerous illustrations of his general principles from classical antiquity, the very remoteness of which added to the timeless quality of his discourse. The later Huguenot arguments against tyranny tended to be specific and concrete, rooted in actual French institutions, and therefore their conclusions and implications were limited to promoting the specific liberties against the State of various privileged orders in French society. In contrast, the very abstraction and universality of La Boétie's thought led inexorably to radical and sweeping conclusions on the nature of tyranny, the liberty of the people, and what needed to be done to overthrow the former and secure the latter. [...]
"
Note: Good essay.
Investigations: Unions – The Demise Of America
[07/03/10]
"The truth about unions has been hidden from the general public and union workers alike. The real truth on how unions work and operate is stunning to say the least. Electrical unions such as the
I.B.E.W. or “International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers” are sinister to their roots, with most having mafia or organized crime ties.
During the early 1900′s crime syndicates or mobsters would control local shop owners, usually through threats of physical violence. They would tell such business owners that they would offer them protection for a percentage of their revenue that would be due daily, weekly or monthly. If the shop owner or businessman did not pay there would be dire consequences.
As times progressed, the organized crime syndicates got even more powerful, thus enabling them to pay off law enforcement and judges throughout their respective communities. Laws were enacted that would grant so called unions the right to assemble in the work place. They used the excuse that the unions would bring fairness and better wages.
Unfortunately, this was nothing more than a gateway that legally allowed the organized crime syndicates (unions) to infiltrate and control corporations and business owners. Essentially it is a form of corporate espionage that was admitted into law by paid off judges and officials.
Let’s take a look at the Local I.B.E.W. 640 in Phoenix Arizona. Keep in mind Arizona is a right to work state where unions are not publicly prevalent yet they are engaged in a criminal act that runs hand and hand with the U.S. Dept. of Labor. This criminal operation is know by the union higher ups as “Project
C.O.M.E.T.” [...]"
American Psychosis
[07/03/10]
"What happens to a society that cannot distinguish between reality and illusion?
The United States, locked in the kind of twilight disconnect that grips dying empires, is a country entranced by illusions. It spends its emotional and intellectual energy on the trivial and the absurd. It is captivated by the hollow stagecraft of celebrity culture as the walls crumble. This celebrity culture giddily licenses a dark voyeurism into other people's humiliation, pain, weakness and betrayal. Day after day, one lurid saga after another, whether it is Michael Jackson, Britney Spears or John Edwards, enthralls the country ... despite bank collapses, wars, mounting poverty or the criminality of its financial class.
The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television as rubes stupid enough to cling to this antiquated behavior are voted off reality shows. Fellow competitors for prize money and a chance for fleeting fame, cheered on by millions of viewers, elect to "disappear" the unwanted. In the final credits of the reality show America's Next Top Model, a picture of the woman expelled during the episode vanishes from the group portrait on the screen. Those cast aside become, at least to the television audience,
nonpersons. Celebrities that can no longer generate publicity, good or bad, vanish. Life, these shows persistently teach, is a brutal world of unadulterated competition and a constant quest for notoriety and attention.
Our culture of flagrant self-exaltation, hardwired in the American character, permits the humiliation of all those who oppose us. We believe, after all, that because we have the capacity to wage war we have a right to wage war. Those who lose deserve to be erased. Those who fail, those who are deemed ugly, ignorant or poor, should be belittled and mocked. Human beings are used and discarded like Styrofoam boxes that held junk food. And the numbers of superfluous human beings are swelling the unemployment offices, the prisons and the soup kitchens. [...]"
Commentary: The Spy Scare
[07/02/10]
"We’re in the midst of a spy scare, one of those periodic bouts of paranoia that spreads, like a virus, from Washington on outward. This time, it’s alleged Russian spies, but the scare is already becoming a generalized fear, permeating official Washington and the "mainstream" media like a poisonous fog. Check out Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Michigan), a member of the House intelligence committee, Fran Townsend, CNN’s "national security correspondent," and CNN anchor Suzanne Malveaux in the "Situation Room," bloviating oh-so-knowledgably about this latest "threat": [...]
If Hoekstra and Townsend are so worried about the alleged danger posed by Russian and Chinese espionage, then surely the considerable Mossad presence ought to concern them as well: after all, when Jonathan Pollard stole priceless secrets from the US on behalf of Tel Aviv, the Israelis traded the information to the Soviets in exchange for the release of tens of thousands of Russian Jews to be sent directly to Israel. According to a 1996 report by the Office of Naval Investigations, the Israelis sold stolen US military technology to the Chinese, and this came out in 2000, again, when Tel Aviv tried to sell China the ultra-secret Phalcon early warning detection system, created in the US. [...]
"
11,000 NATO containers go missing
[07/02/10]
"Reports say more than 11,000 containers bound for the US-led forces in Afghanistan have mysteriously gone missing over the past two years in Pakistan. [...]"
Note: That it had happened for one year, and nothing was done,
and it went on to a second year, would seem to indicate that these were
intentional shipments to arm dissident factions.
Commentary:
Goldman Sachs: The Pirates of Poison in the Gulf
[07/02/10]
"The Hydra-like creature, Goldman Sachs, has surfaced from the Gulf oil volcano.
Illinois-based Nalco Corporation is responsible for the Corexit 9500 chemical dispersant highlighted by experts as being 4 times more toxic than the oil that is flowing into the Gulf. Scientists in congressional hearings added that the dispersant is more toxic than other similar dispersant on the market. Naturally, whenever a major disaster takes place — especially when major, society-altering solutions are being offered — one needs to follow the trail of money and power to see who benefits. Sure enough, a casual search of Nalco’s Web site reveals their company history; it leads right to the doorstep of Goldman Sachs.
Nalco seems to have started in 1928 Chicago and became immediately involved in both the oil industry and water treatment facilities. 1982 seems to have been a massive turning point for the company as their Web site states, “ORS-419 is used in the tires of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Nalco product is the only non-silicone product of its type on the market approved by the space shuttle tire’s manufacturer.” Thereafter, things really seem to have taken off as shown here: [...]"
Note: Excellent resource with respect to Corexit and
the company that makes it. "
See Oil/Gas/Coal link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Exposé: Cops Told - Hands Off G-20 Provocateurs
[07/02/10]
"... As downtown Toronto witnessed burning police cars and a small group of thugs on a rampage, a police source tells me the only thing that stopped the officers from doing that was an order telling them not to. They tell me they could have rounded up all, or most of them, in no time.
I have had several frontline police officers tell me they were told not to get involved. But even before that decision was made, says one insider, there was mass confusion and indecision.
"The orders went from engage to, no, don't engage to engage to, no, don't engage,' " said an officer. "It was an absolute shambles. Everyone was talking over each other on the radio. Nobody seemed to know what to do. It was just a mess."
The officer said that eventually there was "a clear order from the command centre saying 'Do not engage' " and, at that point, smelling weakness and no repercussions, the downtown was effectively turned over to the vandals while police, up to 19,000 strong, were ordered to stay out of it.
Four police cars were destroyed and dozens of other properties were damaged.
"It was awful," said an officer. "There were guys with equipment to do the job, all standing around looking at each other in disbelief ... The Montreal riot guys were livid ... They just wanted to get in there and do the job but were told they are too intimidating."
So who made that order? [...] The inevitable inquiry, separate from the announced internal police review, will have to address this and a whole lot of other things. For example, why were a record 1,000 arrests made a day after the actual incident where very few arrests were made during it?
" One thing that did appear real was a police video surveillance image of the actual bad guys all huddled together in black clothing prior to the destruction.
Why didn't police brass act right then and there? After all there were only a few dozen of them against 19,000 strong.
This picture shows the police brass knew the location of the real culprits and were tracking their movements. Why didn't they let their people just nab them right there with the same zero tolerance Toronto has for parking violations?
Perhaps there are enough people out there who'd also like to know? [...]
Agent provocateur tactics at the G20 Protests?
"After the incidents at Montebello and Pittsburg, Sid Ryan claimed it was not beyond the police to use agent provocateur tactics to try to provoke violence at the G20 riots in
Toronto. [...]" G20 Police in Black Bloc Anarchist Gear @ 0:45 - Toronto
[1:21]
"...all the plainclothes people running in that pack, and being let behind the line, are cops--including the black-clad 'anarchist'.
BTW, watch out for the old white-bearded flannel shirt cop and the famous 'scary lady' cop [...]
Video: G20 Toronto Black Block get green light to rampage?
[4:17]
"A photo Journalist describes his experience following the black block as they rampage through the streets of Toronto during the G20 Summit. [...]"
G20 Summit Legacy:
Toronto Police Chief Lies Again To Frame Protesters
[07/01/10]
"Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has been caught lying again in an effort to justify the brutal police response metered out against G20 protesters and journalists this past weekend, after it emerged that weapons he presented to the media as evidence of criminals planning to wreak havoc on the city were in fact toys seized from a man who was on his way to a fantasy role-playing game and had nothing to do with the G20 summit. [...]"
G20 cops ‘threatened women with rape’
"Journalists covering the G20 summit in Toronto, Canada, last weekend have accused the local police of threatening them with rape, using male officers to strip-search young women, and even inappropriately touching an underage girl.
Four reporters have filed complaints with the province of Ontario's police oversight agency.
Video clip
[2:24] Activist Arrested On Bogus Charge To Cover For Illegal Conduct Of Toronto Police – law didn’t exist
"Activist Charlie Veitch has been arrested for the second time by Canadian authorities for “impersonating a police officer” on a bogus charge designed purely to cover for the fact that Veitch’s original arrest on June 24 for refusing to show ID was based on a law that didn’t exist and one that Toronto’s Chief of Police lied about to media outlets before the G20 summit.
Dan Dicks of Press for Truth in Canada told Infowars.com yesterday that Veitch was detained at Toronto International Airport. Veitch was scheduled to return to England after attending demonstrations against the G20 globalist confab held over the weekend. [...]" Personal Story: How I Ended Up In A G20 Jail
"I've been working for CityNews for the past 9 years. I have no criminal record, have never been charged with a crime and have no affiliations to any group of protesters, or activists.
I spent a considerable amount of time on Saturday breathlessly running alongside black bloc anarchists, documenting an unprecedented reign of destruction on the streets of Toronto. I saw them congregate and collaborate in the early afternoon hours, hatching a heinous plan that would leave indelible scars on our city, both financial and psychological. I saw them lob rocks at retreating police, smash and burn cruisers, spray-paint numerous structures with revolutionary slogans, and shatter windows with a seemingly insatiable appetite. I saw them target members of the media, myself included, with taunts, sticks and rocks.
What I didn’t see Saturday were any arrests taking place while this violence was occurring. If the security agenda on Saturday was to prevent the black bloc from reaching the G20 security fence, it was a success. But throughout a large portion of the downtown core a frightening ‘anything goes’ aura had spread. [...]" " Naomi Klein to police: "Don't play public relations, do your goddamned job!"
"After the widely condemned police brutality during the G20 Summit in Toronto, crowds gathered for a protest in front of Police Headquarters in Toronto on Monday, June 28, 2010. There, Naomi Klein tore into the Toronto Police for choosing to "play public relations" instead of doing their job. Nine hundred "peaceful" protesters were arrested but as far as I know
no Black Bloc provocateurs have been arrested even though they were masked and covered up and quite obvious to
everyone. Why no tasers bro? Harper doesn't like Toronto so maybe it was revenge. The positive out of all this; most mayors are now saying no more summits in their cities. I say let them have it in Singapore. [...]"
Australia mining tax consensus likely
[07/02/10]
"The Australian government is close to reaching a compromise on the controversial resources super-profits mining tax.Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, when sworn in last Thursday, said she aimed to reach a consensus on the bill, which would tax mining profits at 40 percent after reaching a certain level, beginning in 2012.
Introduced by Gillard's ousted predecessor Kevin Rudd in May, the bill has been fiercely opposed by the resources industry. [...]"
US to cut Afghanistan aid
[07/01/10]
"US lawmakers have voted to cut almost four billion dollars in aid to the Afghan government, after allegations of corruption. [...]
New Study Documents Media's Servitude To Government
[07/01/10]
"A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" -- until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way: [...]"
Commentary: The Chinese Aren’t Coming
[07/01/10]
"On Tuesday, the Cold War finally ended with a historic trade agreement between China and Taiwan that will dramatically integrate the mainland’s economy with that of its claimed breakaway province. Peace has descended on the most contentious point of conflict between East and West for the past six decades—but don’t expect the folks at the Pentagon or their military contractors to celebrate. The remaining raison d’être for much of their $700 billion budget has suddenly collapsed, and with it the claim on huge profits and high-flying careers. [...]
When Sen. Joe Lieberman makes his annual case for those $2.5 billion submarines produced in his home state of Connecticut, his central argument has been that the Chinese are building equally sophisticated weapons that threaten us. “If we do not move to produce two submarines a year as soon as possible, we are in serious danger of falling behind China,” he thundered during one Senate debate. Obviously, it’s harder to make the case that submarines are needed to capture
al-Qaida terrorists holed up in some landlocked nation’s mountain caves. So too with the ever more advanced arsenal designed to penetrate enemy defenses not even built when those Cold War adversaries still operated.
“The Chinese are coming” became the last refuge of war-profiteering scoundrels once the Russians started cutting back dramatically, but this alarm was never plausible. The authoritative quadrennial Defense Department reports have always made clear that China has at most threatened to become a regional power with Taiwan as its focus. Yet that pathetic excuse for the U.S. spending as much on its military as do the rest of the world nations combined seemed plausible to most in Congress who voted for massive military appropriations even as our government had to borrow money from the Chinese to cover our deficits. [...]"
Summit exposes deep trans-Atlantic differences
"While international leaders sought to put the best face on the G20 summit held in Toronto at the end of last week, there was no disguising the extent of divisions between major global players, particularly the United States and Germany.
The European press was generally dismissive of the summit, which failed to reach any concrete binding decisions.
[...]"
Afghan attorney general says US envoy ‘threatened’ him
[06/30/10]
"Afghanistan's top prosecutor Tuesday accused US ambassador Karl Eikenberry of threatening to have him removed from his job if he did not take action against an Afghan banker allegedly involved in fraud.
Attorney general Mohammad Is'haq Alko told reporters that Eikenberry had violated "diplomatic ethics" by ordering him to have the banker arrested.
"Against all diplomatic ethics, the US ambassador tells me: 'If you don't jail him, you must resign'," Alko told reporters, citing a recent conversation with
Eikenberry. "Do diplomatic ethics allow the attorney general of a country to be threatened in such a manner?" Alko said.
He said his office did not have enough evidence against the banker, Rafiullah
Azimi, who was allegedly involved in a corruption case linked to a former minister now living in Britain after eluding an arrest warrant in March. [...]"
War With Iran? - Paul Craig Roberts on The Corbett Report
[06/30/10]
[10:42] "Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Treasury Secretary and Wall Street Journal joins us to break down the recent US sanctions on Iran and the likelihood of a strike on Iran by the US and/or Israel. [...]"
Commentary:
"The Pentagon's Threat to the Republic"
by Melvin A. Goodman [06/30/10]
"The reappointment of General David Patraeus as commander of forces in Afghanistan places the general on an extremely high political plateau that makes it more difficult to discuss alternatives to the failed counter-insurgency strategy, and places too much influence in the hands of the Pentagon on decisions involving war and peace. President Obama recognized the McChrystal affair as a challenge to civilian control and leadership, but the appointment of Petraeus enhances the political power of the military and could become an obstacle to the president's exercise of civilian control in the near term. Too many influence people view Petraeus as the answer to our Afghan problems; he isn't. The imbalance in civilian-military influence is far more threatening to the interests of the United States than any developments in Afghanistan. President Nixon's ending of the draft has created a professional military, which has fostered the very cultural behavior that General McChrystal demonstrated in his contempt for civilian leadership. The Goldwater-Nichols Act in 1986 created regional commanders-in-chief (CINCs) who expanded the martial reach of the United States in the post-Cold War world; these CINCs have become more influential than U.S. ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state in sensitive Third World areas. The Act created a powerful chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, during Desert Storm in 1991, the chairman often ignored the secretary of defense and personally briefed war plans to the president. It is noteworthy that the Act passed the Senate without one vote of opposition. [...]"
California Notified Of Gulf Evacuation Plans
[06/29/10]
See Oil/Gas/Coal link at the top of this panel for related stories. . California would be expected to absorb a large number of evacuees from the Gulf states. CEMA officials did not say how the state of California, which is virtually bankrupt, would pay for the influx of hundreds of thousands and perhaps greater numbers of evacuees from the Gulf coastal region.
Obama, Abdullah extend G20 talks
[06/29/10]
"U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah Tuesday discussed a wide variety of issues in the Oval Office, including Iran's nuclear program and Israel. [...]"
Iran is Surrounded by US Troops in 10 Countries
[06/29/10]
"Iran literally is surrounded by American troops, notes an oil market analyst, Energy and Capital editor Christian A.
DeHaemer. There is no evidence of an imminent attack, but he connects a number of recent events and the presence of American soldiers to warn that oil prices might soar -- with or without a pre-emptive strike aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear power ambitions. [...]" American
Forces Massing Around Iran
[3:12] "Reports are circulating that the U.S is amassing a greater
military presence in the Middle East. The alleged build up is also rumoured to
involve the Israeli use of Saudi Arabian air space. It's thought by some to be
in preparation for an attack on Iran. [...]"
Related:
'Strike on Iran would be destabilizing'
"A military strike against Iran would be "incredibly destabilizing" to the region said the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. He believes Iran will continue to pursue nuclear weapons, even if sanctions against the country are increased. [...]"
US lawmaker blocks Afghan aid, vows not ‘one more dime’ until corruption cleaned up
[06/29/10]
"A senior US lawmaker on Monday angrily blocked billions of dollars in aid to Afghanistan, vowing not to give "one more dime" until Afghan President Hamid Karzai acts against corruption.
Representative Nita Lowey, who sits on the powerful committee in charge of the budget, said she would hold hearings into allegations that top Afghan officials flew suitcases full of cash from US aid to foreign safe havens.
"I do not intend to appropriate one more dime for assistance to Afghanistan until I have confidence that US taxpayer money is not being abused to line the pockets of corrupt Afghan
government officials, drug lords and terrorists," she said.
An aide to Lowey said that President Barack Obama's administration requested 3.9 billion dollars in aid for Afghanistan in the 2011 fiscal year.
Lowey, a member of Obama's Democratic Party from New York, said she would refuse to consider any assistance for Afghanistan other than "life-saving humanitarian aid" when her subcommittee meets on the budget on Wednesday. [...]"
Related: Furious US lawmaker blocks Afghan aid
"... Too many Americans are suffering in this economy for us to put their hard-earned tax dollars into the hands of criminals overseas," Lowey said in a statement.
"We will not commit billions more in taxpayer money for Afghanistan until there are assurances that such funds will be used for their intended purposes and that the government of Afghanistan is willing and able to root out corruption within its ranks," she said.
Lowey heads the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. Her decision would not affect military appropriations, which are handled by a separate subcommittee.
Lowey was responding to a report in The Wall Street Journal that US investigators suspect that Afghan officials stuffed suitcases full of cash siphoned from Western aid projects and flew them out of Kabul airport.
The report said more than three billion dollars has been legally declared to leave Kabul International Airport over the past three years, a figure so large for such a poor country that it triggered concerns.
Separately, The Washington Post ran a front-page story Monday saying that top officials in Karzai's government have often blocked corruption investigations.
Transparency International, a watchdog, has ranked Afghanistan as the world's most corrupt nation -- worse even than Somalia which has no effective government.
After taking office last year, the Obama administration pressed Karzai on allegations of corruption and vote-rigging. But it has become more discreet with its concerns after the Afghan leader lashed out at the United States.
Karzai in May visited Washington and told concerned lawmakers that Afghanistan was fighting against corruption but that "you don't see the results here in America" as the effort would take years. [...]"
Kissinger
"calls into question" the " Afghanistan pullout" [06/29/10]
"Kissinger suggested that the calender should be reviewed in accordance with the reality on the ground and that public opinion should be prepared to face a much longer war. This statement is in keeping with a campaign to support the Afghanistan war, kicked off by declarations made by President Karzai during his visit to Washington and by an article in the New York Times underscoring the benefits that the United States could reap from a prolonged occupation in Afghanistan and the exploitation of its mineral wealth [...]"
Note: So, when does this man die? We've been
waiting 40 years ... So intractably stupid, short-sighted, ignorant and
arrogant ... another sequential with a wind-up key in his back, perceptually
confined to a mid-level perspective and his sequential predispositions.
Related: Damning report on Afghan forces
"The US and its partners have no effective way of monitoring how successfully Afghan forces operate, US auditors say. [...]"
The “Hitler” option in Afghanistan [06/29/10]
"It presages a drastic increase in the level of US military violence, and especially the scale of civilian casualties among the Afghan population. Their “crime” is to sympathize with and support the anti-US insurgency.
Petraeus is already, according to one media report, preparing to modify the rules of engagement to allow for greater use of force. [...]"
Afghan parliament backs cabinet picks [06/29/10]
"Afghanistan's parliament has approved five out of seven nominees to fill cabinet seats, including the important post of
interior minister. [...]"
Note: Natural resources.
American casualties total 500,000, counting injury and disease, writer claims
[06/29/10]
"A blogger and writer claims American military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan now exceed 500,000.
That's if you count certain injuries and diseases including mental illness that he alleges the Department of Defense doesn't include in its official combat-related casualty toll in an effort to soften U.S. military losses in the wars and win funding for them from the Congress.
For example, cases of traumatic brain injury and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or
PTSD, as a result of serving in Iraq and Afghanistan are excluded from the official list of casualties.
"Under this scheme, chronic injuries and many acute internal injuries such as hearing impairment, back injuries, mild traumatic brain injuries, mental health problems and a host of diseases suffered by personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan are usually not counted as being war-related regardless of how debilitating they are," writes Matthew Nasuti in an article published on the Afghan news site and media organization Kabul Press. "They are either generally lumped into the category of 'non-hostile wounded' or simply not counted at all."
Masuti is a former Air Force captain and Los Angeles deputy city attorney who worked for the State Department in Iraq for a spell. He's now a critic of the U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The writer claims that 95% of injured soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen were not reported as casualties due to what he refers to as the Pentagon's "fudging the numbers" in a bid to win funding from American lawmakers to finance the wars.
"Wounded in action is narrowly defined to essentially be an injury directly caused by an adversary," he writes. "So called 'friendly fire' injuries and deaths would apparently not be counted. The emphasis is on acute injuries caused by enemy munitions which pierce or penetrate."
He cites sources such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Navy to conclude that the more than 170,000 U.S. soldiers suffer from hearing damage, the 130,000 or more cases of milder brain injuries, and the 200,000 troops suffering from mental problems are left out of the casualty count.
If they were to be included in the Pentagon's official numbers of 5,500 troop deaths and 38,000 injuries, the total American military casualty toll in Iraq and Afghanistan would amount to well over 500,000.
And it doesn't end there. The 500,000 tally would increase significantly if one also added to the count what Nasuti claims are around 30,000 cases of serious disease and hundreds of accident injuries and suicides, among many other types of disease and injury-related military casualties. [...]"
Note: Not to mention the millions of deaths in other countries.
60
Years Into War, US Delays South Korea Forces Handover [06/29/10]
"Earlier this week, the Korean War turned 60 years of age. Though the
combatants all signed a temporary ceasefire decades ago, the conflict has
never actually been ended and the United States has declined, as recently
as January to sign a formal peace treaty to end the conflict. It cannot
but be noticed that the pledges of US staying power mirror those in
Afghanistan, which are behind the Obama Administration’s disavowal of the
July 2011 drawdown date in that nation. Perhaps in another 50 or so years, the
US will be comfortable with setting a handover date for the Afghan War.
[...]"
FLASHBACK: Someone Stole A Nuclear Warhead in 2007
[06/29/10]
"This is the definitive article on the B-52 incident. Most sources get the story only partly right, or only tell part of it -- either six leave, or five arrive -- and thus do not tell it at all. Some mention a series of "mistakes" the sheer impossibility of which is easily shown. The article, though lengthly, is accurate, clear, uncompromising, and very much worth your time.
Because the bomb is still unaccounted for. [...]" Now what was that that Bill Clinton said recently, about Iran?
Bill Clinton: Iran Poses 'Suitcase Nuke' Threat
"The key nuclear threat that Iran poses to the world, according to former President Bill Clinton, is the risk that it may sell dangerous materials that could be used in suitcase bombs.
That’s what Clinton said Sunday at the Global Economic Forum in South Africa. [...]"
Danger of British 'Perpetual War' Policy Identified in Afghan War Debate
[06/29/10]
"Behind the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal— who, in spite of himself, was a vehicle for the uproar in the U.S. military against Obama Administration policy—was the commitment of the Administration to a policy of perpetual war, argues an op-ed by defense analyst Andrew J. Bacevich in the Washington Post today. Previously, American leaders understood what Gen. George Marshall once said, "A democracy cannot fight a Seven Years War." Yet, that's what the U.S. has done, again and again, starting with the Vietnam War, he writes. [...]"
OPEC Warns War With Iran Would Cause 'Unlimited' Oil Price Hike
[06/29/10]
"Still, OPEC's secretary general acknowledged that dangers to steady supply exist. Addressing one — the threat of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran because of its nuclear defiance — he warned that his organization was unprepared — and unable — to make up for resulting oil shortfalls.
"It is impossible to replace the production of Iran," OPEC's No. 2 producer, Abdalla Salem El-Badri told reporters at the presentation of the organization's long term oil market outlook. “The prices would go unlimited ... I can’t give you a number.” [...]"
Five
Things You Didn't Know About Mexico’s Drug War [06/28/10]
"Bullets, drugs, gangsters. The news out of Mexico has been a steady stream of violence since President Felipe Calderon began his war on the drug cartels.
Several hundred Mexicans have died in the last few weeks alone — adding to the toll of nearly 23,000 drug-related deaths since 2006.
Beyond the warring gangs and struggle for drug-trafficking routes, here are five things about Mexico’s drug war that may surprise you. [...]"
Commentary: Is the Fed Too Big To Fail?
[06/28/10]
"The mark of political sovereignty is legal immunity from failure. For example, the government of the United States cannot be sued without its consent. It is above the law. It must consent to expose itself to the possibility of failure in a court. [...]"
Karzai holds secret talks with Taliban in Meeting Mediated By Pakistani ISI
[06/28/10]
"Afghan president Hamid Karzai has reportedly met with the Taliban's most senior commander Serja-eddin Haggani in Kabul as UK calls for peace with the militants.
The report said the meeting was mediated by Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services intelligence (ISI). [...]"
G20 Summit Legacy: Toronto G20 Riot Fraud: Undercover Police engaged in Purposeful Provocation At Tax Payers’ Expense
[06/28/10]
"Toronto is right now in the midst of a massive government / media propaganda fraud. As events unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that the ‘Black Bloc’ are undercover police operatives engaged in purposeful provocations to eclipse and invalidate legitimate G20 citizen protest by starting a riot. Government agents have been caught doing this before in Canada.
At the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership’ meeting protests at Montebello Quebec on August 20, 2007, a Quebec union leader caught and outed three masked undercover Quebec Provincial Police operatives dressed as ‘black bloc’ protestors about to start a riot by throwing rocks at the security police.
See the distinctive yellow dots on the thick corrugated soles of the boots which are the
giveaway. See the following videos documenting this event: [...]"
Related: G20 Protest – Agent Provocateurs and the
"New World Order" 5 Video clips
"As the world elite meet to discuss their plans for total control, we have witnessed some very familiar events.
Anarchist provocateurs took to the streets in mass on Saturday, starting fires and smashing windows in a scene reminiscent of past protests in Pittsburgh and London. During the violence, the so called, “Black Bloc,” was left to run freely through the streets, terrorizing peaceful protesters and property alike. Later, frustrated that the police let the Black Bloc run free, people were seen intimidating entire lines of riot police and on one occasion actually pushed the entire police line back.
Unmarked snatch and grabs have taken place on several occasions. From all indications, it is clear that most of the protesters were peaceful people, assembled for various causes, in a completely legal and legitimate way. Peaceful protesters, in mass, are the elites worst nightmare and have always been dealt with by using provocateurs and a massive, violent police force. With over 500 people arrested, one has to wonder how many innocent protesters and journalists were actually arrested in one of the largest roundups in Canadian history. Most of the 400 protesters arrested last night and others who may have avoided arrest didn’t see that violence. From their perspective, they were facing a violent police state. These demonstrations, militant but overwhelming peaceful, were resisting the right of the police to hold them to Queen
Street. They think the people have a right to protest in a place where political leaders can hear them. They had nothing to do with torching police cars or trashing windows.
One reporter even tweeted, “Shame on those that ordered peaceful protesters attacked and arrested. that is not consistent with democracy in
Toronto, G20 or no G20.” Evidence is mounting that journalists have been arrested, while violent demonstrators were allowed to run free.
Guardian reporter Jesse Rosenfeld was arrested and beaten for what was described as, “talking to much.” Inquires into when people will be released have so far proved useless. [...]"
G20 Summit Legacy:
A Staged G20 Deception as it Unfolds
[06/28/10]
[3:37]
"While millions of people around the World have seen the images of the BLAC BLOC breaking stuff, a few people might be interesting in seeing this raw footage of riot police arriving on University Ave minutes before a lone van parked across the street is vandalized. Please try to understand how this happened. [...]"
Note: See all the other links on the page to videos revolving
around the G20 conference.
LaRouche
Webcast: June 26, 2010 [06/27/10]
Note: See his opening
remarks
Video clip [78:54] LaRouche Webcast Text Transcript: June 26, 2010
Toronto G20 Riot Fraud: Undercover Police engaged in Purposeful Provocation
[06/27/10]
"Toronto is right now in the midst of a massive government / media propaganda fraud. As events unfold, it is becoming increasingly clear that the 'Black Bloc' are undercover police operatives engaged in purposeful provocations to eclipse and invalidate legitimate G20 citizen protest by starting a riot. Government agents have been caught doing this before in Canada. [...]"
Interview: Norway Takes Aim at G-20: 'One of the Greatest Setbacks Since World War II'
[06/27/10]
"...Støre: The G-20 is a self-appointed group. Its composition is determined by the major countries and powers. It may be more representative than the G-7 or the G-8, in which only the richest countries are represented, but it is still
arbitrary. We no longer live in the 19th century, a time when the major powers met and redrew the map of the world. No one needs a new Congress of Vienna... [...]"
Note: Not only the demonstrators are unhappy with the G-20 as we can see from this Spiegel interview with Norway's Foreign Minister.
Interesting read.
20 million people are “to have to evacuate the gulf states” says prominent oil-industry insider
[06/27/10]
"A tropical wave has formed in the Caribbean and could conceivably blow through the gulf.
“We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states,” said Matt Simmons, founder of Simmons and Co., an oil investment firm and, since the April 20 blowout, the unflagging source of end-of-the-world predictions. “Can you imagine evacuating 20 million people? . . . This story is 80 times worse than I thought.” … [...]"
See Oil/Gas/Coal link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary:
America Detached from War: Bush's Pilotless Dream, Smoking Drones, and Other Strange Tales from the Crypt
Tom Engelhardt [06/27/10]
"As it happens, the enthusiasm for drones is as much a fever dream as the one President Bush and his associates offered back in 2002, but it’s also distinctly us. In fact, drone warfare fits the America of 2010 tighter than a glove. With its consoles, chat rooms, and "single shooter" death machines, it certainly fits the skills of a generation raised on the computer,
Facebook, and video games. That our valorous warriors, their day of battle done, can increasingly leave war behind and head home to the barbecue (or, given American life, the foreclosure) also fits an American mood of the moment.... After all, while this country garrisons the world, invests its wealth in its military, and fights unending, unwinnable frontier wars and skirmishes, most Americans are remarkably detached from all this. If anything, since Vietnam when an increasingly rebellious citizens’ army proved disastrous for Washington’s global aims, such detachment has been the goal of American war-making. [...]"
The
Cold War: Reagan
Set Up Russia for Chernobyl [06/27/10]
".... Articles about the possibility that Chernobyl 'accident' was staged by foreign secret service agencies started to emerge in the Russian press
(Sovietskaya Rossiya, June 16, 1992, April 25, 1996, Za Ruskoe Delo 6, 38, 1996,
Trud, April 26, 1995) and elsewhere, recently reappearing on Pravda.ru (February, 2004) . These allegations were based on observations that, under scrutiny,
"It is unlikely that the sequence of events that led to the meltdown of the Chernobyl
nuclear reactor could have been accidental" and that "Technicians which disconnected the safety
mechanisms of the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant, Alexandrov, Feinberg, Sagdeev,
Zaslavsky, are now living in comfort abroad." While the second allegation might have been a happenstance, perusing the sequence of events that led to the Chernobyl nuclear explosion leaves one with a doubt that these events could have been unintentional or accidental.
.....In 1982 Reagan approved the transfer of US technologies with hidden
malfunctions to the Soviet Union. Two years later, a US software consulting firm
' upgraded' Chernobyl’s software .... [...]"
Commentary: The Coming Gulf Coast Firestorm: How the BP oil catastrophe could destroy a major U.S. city
[06/26/10]
"... So let's say the oil blowout continues, and the Gulf of Mexico is carrying millions of gallons of crude oil as a massive hurricane approaches. It's a hot July day in the Gulf of Mexico, with temperatures soaring
towards 110 degrees, accelerating the evaporation of volatile oils which get mixed in with hurricane-force winds.
The hurricane makes landfall in New Orleans, let's say, dumping potentially hundreds of thousands of gallons of what is essentially "volatile fuel" on the city of New Orleans. Now, at first it's just a wet, slippery toxic mess that kills trees and grass. But what happens after the storm when the sun dries out the city?
All the dead trees killed by the oil turn into kindling. The sun evaporates off the rain water, leaving behind fuel. A few days of sun baking and you have a city doused in fuel, ready to burst into flames. It's every fireman's worst nightmare. The whole city is essentially turned into a giant match.
Now, sure, the more volatile fuels might evaporate, but as they do, they'd fill the city with explosive fumes. One spark, one fire, one lightning strike and your whole city literally goes up in flames. The BP oil spill, in other words, provides the fuel that could turn an ordinary hurricane into Mother Nature's arson attack on an entire city. [...]
Now, BP is at least $20 billion in the hole in an effort to compensate some of the Gulf Coast businesses for the damage they've caused. But how will they compensate people if an entire city burns to the ground?
The answer? They won't. That would be the end of BP. Immediately bankruptcy. B.P. = "Bankruptcy Protection," after all.
No more payments go out to anyone. BP goes belly up just like all the fish being murdered by CorExit dispersant chemicals in the Gulf right now. The company goes down in flames just like New Orleans (or some other major city on the coast).
Of course, the scenario I'm describing here is theoretical, and I hope it's a worst-case scenario, too. But it is possible. Catastrophe is what happens at the intersection of poor planning and bad luck. BP has given us poor planning, and now Mother Nature may be about to deliver a heavy-handed dose of bad luck in the form of a seasonal hurricane that takes oil from the Gulf and dumps it on land.
We can only hope that these two elements do not collide on our shores. For if they do, we may witness loss on a scale our world hasn't seen since the dropping of atomic weapons on civilian populations in World War II. If a hurricane drops oil on New Orleans (or any other Gulf Coast city) and it goes up in flames a few days later, the aftermath will, indeed, resemble the effects of a nuclear bomb explosion.
"
See Oil/Gas/Coal link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Tropical Storm Alex expected to churn toward Gulf of Mexico
"A potentially dangerous tropical storm named Alex that experts say could complicate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill clean-up formed Saturday in the Caribbean Sea."
Note: There are some that say that using HAARP, storms
can be steered ... there have been allegations that the Katrina storm was
steered towards New Orleans using the HAARP array. Whether this is the really
case remains uncertain. What is certain is that the above scenario could
happen naturally, and there are at least 10 hurricanes expected this year -
probably closer to 14 ... so this is going to get interesting.
Russia plans second military base in Kyrgyzstan [06/26/10]
"The Kremlin tried and failed to win approval for the base in the south of the country last year but saw its chances evaporate when the man it was close to making a deal with, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, was deposed in a coup earlier this year.
However, as the interim government that succeeded him struggles to maintain order after an outbreak of ethnic violence in the south of the country that left more than 200 people dead, the Kremlin has quietly revived the controversial plan.
The base, to be located in either Osh or Jalalabad, would extend Russia's geopolitical influence deep into Central Asia and bolster its position with both China and the United States. [...]"
Note: This will further impact US fuel supplies for use
in Afghanistan.
Commentary: Historical and cultural roots of Zionist domination of Western politics
Gilad Atzmon [06/26/10]
"Gilad Atzmon views the historical and cultural roots of Zionist domination of Western politics, especially in Britain and the United States, tracing the Israel stooges’ tools of choice – political donations, think tanks and media control – to the tales of the Book of Esther and Purim. [...]"
Commentary: What
If Israel is Behind the 'terrorists'? [06/26/10]
"Just for a moment, I want you to consider the possibility that maybe 99% of the terrorists in the world are manufactured fakes, a bloody theater to serve the interests not of fringe groups, but of entire nation-states?
Now before you laugh and head off to get a coffee, just stop and think for a moment. Would any real group of oppressed people needing the support of world opinion to affect change intentionally set out to commit such an horrific atrocity that it destroys that very support? [...]"
Abu Zubaydah and the Case Against Torture Architect James Mitchell [06/26/10]
"Attempts to call to accountability any of the architects of the Bush administration’s torture program have so far been depressingly unsuccessful. First, any hopes that President Obama would lead the way were dashed when, even before taking office, the President-Elect declared “a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards.”
Then, in January this year, the best hope to date — the final report of a four-year internal investigation into the Justice Department lawyers who wrote the “torture memos” in 2002 and 2003 that purported to redefine torture so that it could be practiced by the CIA, and later by the US military — was shattered when a senior Justice Department official was allowed to override the report’s damning conclusions, declaring that, instead of facing disciplinary measures for “professional misconduct,” the men in question — John Yoo, now a professor at Berkeley, and Jay S. Bybee, now a judge in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — had only exercised “poor judgment.” [...]"
KSA, UAE border dispute escalates
[06/25/10]
"Tension between Saudi Arabia and the neighboring United Arab Emirates are reportedly on the rise over a disputed region linking the UAE to Qatar. [...]"
Related: Gulf states seek to cash in on arms buys
"Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two of the world's leading arms buyers, are out to bolster their defense industries by upgrading offset programs under which foreign defense manufacturers would transfer technology and set up joint ventures. [...]"
Obama internet ‘kill switch’ bill approved
[06/25/10]
"The US senators pushing a controversial new bill that some fear would give President Barack Obama the powers to seize control of and even shut down the internet have rejected claims it would give Obama a net "kill switch".
The bill, titled Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, has been unanimously approved by the US Homeland Security committee and will be put to a vote on the Senate floor shortly.
Any internet firms and providers must "immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by a new section of the US Department of Homeland Security, dubbed the "National Centre for Cybersecurity and Communications".
The critics said that, rather than combat terrorists, it would actually do them "the biggest favour ever" by terrorising the rest of the world, which is now heavily reliant on cyberspace.
Australian academics criticized the description in the bill's title of the internet as a US "national asset", saying any action would disrupt other countries as most of the critical internet infrastructure is located in the US.
This week, 24 privacy and civil liberties groups sent a letter raising concerns about the legislation to the sponsors, including that it could limit free speech and free inquiry, Computerworld reported.
"We are concerned that the emergency actions that could be compelled could include shutting down or limiting internet communications," the letter reads.
But the architects of the plan, committee chairman Senator Joe Lieberman and Senator Susan Collins, have this week released a "Myth v. Reality" document that hits back at these criticisms. [...]
Any action would be limited to 30-day increments and the President must use the "least disruptive means feasible" to respond to the threats. Action extended beyond 120 days would need Congressional approval.
The bill would not give the President the authority to take over the entire internet, target specific websites or conduct electronic surveillance.
"Only specific systems or assets whose disruption would cause a national or regional catastrophe would be subject to the bill's mandatory security requirements," the senators wrote."
Note: Lieberman has a history of consistently proposing and/ or backing anything that smacks of a police state fascism.
Analysis: "Soros Launches British Empire Attack Against
Germany" [06/25/10]
"Her Majesty's speculator George Soros is leading the attack against Germany, and President Barack Obama has joined him. Soros's Humbolt University attack on Germany is all over the European press, especially the English press. [...]"
Related: The City's Golem, George Soros, Exposed in Berlin
[06/25/10]
"None other than the British Empire's Golem, George Soros, was slavishly invited to whip the Germans, collectively, for not overcoming their fear of hyperinflation and for being responsible for the euro-crisis, in a speech at Humboldt University of Berlin on Wednesday evening. Soros spoke on the topic of "Europe in Crisis", as part of a series titled "Forum Constitutionis
Europae," organized by the Walter Hallstein Institute (see Addendum below), the Robert Bosch
Stiftung, and the EU Commission. [...]"
Group of 20
[06/25/10]
"The leaders of the world's largest countries gather in Canada this weekend trying to figure out how to keep their economies growing.
The economy -- and the different ways with trying to deal with it -- will be at the forefront for the Group of 20 meetings. The Group of Eight gathers before the larger body meets. Key agenda items involve foreign aid and illegal drugs along with the economy.
.... The larger G20 will focus on staving off a dip back into global recession. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to continue his argument that cutting national debts too much at the expense of economic stimulation threatens a recovery; European counterparts can be figured to point to the problems crushing debt in countries such as Greece and Spain have caused as reasons for moving in the opposite direction. [...]"
Note: See Banking and
Finance panel for more on this subject.
Czechs
to help establish chemical warfare unit in Texas [06/25/10]
"Soldiers from the Czech military 31st brigade of radiation, chemical and biological protection might help their U.S. counterparts establish a similar unit in Texas, General Jose Mayorga, Texas National Guard chief commander on a visit to Prague, told CTK Tuesday.
Since the Texas guard is considering establishing a similar unit, Mayorga said he would like to see how the Czech unit, seated in Liberec, north Bohemia, is organised and how it
prepares for emergency situations, and also its way of reacting to them. The Czech chemical warfare unit is world-renowned. This April it protected the U.S.-Russian summit in Prague. Previously it ensured the security of the Olympic Games in Athens and was deployed in the Gulf War and other conflicts.
[...]"
Note: Of course. Where else but Texas?
“IAF Jets Unload Equipment Meant for Attacking a Muslim State at Saudi Airport”
[06/25/10]
"Following last week’s reports by Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper and UK daily The Times in which they said that the Saudi Arabia has given the green light for the IAF to use its airspace in order to launch an attack against Iran, another news agency joined the chorus.
A semi-official Iranian news agency reported Wednesday that Israeli Air Force helicopters recently landed at a Saudi Arabia airport and unloaded equipment intended for attacking targets in a Muslim state.
[...]"
US and Russia attempt to 'reset' ties
[06/25/10]
"Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have tried to hammer out the differences that saw the relationship between the two countries 'drifting'. [...]"
Israeli Experts: Ofek 9 Will Detect Iranian Activity
[06/25/10]
"The chairman of the Israeli Space Agency (ISA) says the new Ofek 9 spy satellite will be able to detect any material transferred by the Iranians.
Israeli experts explain that Israeli satellite, which was successfully launched Tuesday evening, will be able to broadcast images from around the world within days. Its abilities, they say, are much higher than what has been cleared for publication. [...]"
Note: When maniacs look through good optics, it doesn't mean
they can really see.
Canada: G20 Toronto — Provocateurs, Metal Cages and the Global Elite
[06/24/10]
"With just one week left until the international banksters invade Toronto I went downtown with PFT members Steven Davies and Bryan Law to document all the activity surrounding the up and coming G20 summit. Three meter high metal fences surround the inner security perimeter known as “the red zone” and thousands of police have already taken to the streets in an unprecedented show of force.
While reporting near the CN tower I was surrounded by police who wanted to know who I was and what I was doing. I took the opportunity to inform them about our freedom of speech, freedom of the press, agent provocateurs and the difference between the mainstream media and
Press For
Truth. They eventually backed off (a few feet) and we continued our report.
For more information as the situation develops stay tuned to Press For Truth for our extensive coverage of the G8 and G20 summits. [...]"
See Video
clip
[10:59]
Related: Toronto Turned Into a Police State
Globalism and
Control: Chinese Secret Society Challenges Illuminati
[06/24/10]
"... First the Illuminati are really inbred families of European and North American traditional aristocracy and banking families. They control the U.S., England, Europe (except for Scandinavian countries, Germany and Italy; Italy kicked them out in the 1970′s),Japan, Africa, Iran, Canada and Mexico. They do not control China, Russia
(Putin kicked them out for the first time since 1917), India, South East Asia, South America, Cuba etc.
“Their goal is to create a world government. Until 2 years ago the plan was the New World Order. That was outlined pretty clearly in the Project for a New American Century. However, with the debacle in Iraq, the secret government of the West changed to a new plan that is a world government based on the EU. To do this they will sabotage the U.S. economy.
“However, there is a big schism in the secret government. Jay Rockefeller and Philip Rothschild support one faction, the Global Warming Faction. Opposing them is the War on Terrorism Faction supported by David Rockefeller and the JP Morgan descendants (Bush, Harriman, Walker etc.). The warming people want to sell 500 nuclear power plants to China and a similar amount to the rest of the world. The terrorism guys want to keep U.S. dominance by maintaining control over oil. Putin was a huge setback for them.
“They are also neo-Nazis who want to reduce the amount of colored people in the world by at least half through disease, starvation and war. The Chinese secret society got wind of this and is preparing to stop them.”
[...]"
Note: I have never been able to decide what I think about
Fulford ...
CIA gives Blackwater firm new $100 million contract
[06/23/10]
"The Central Intelligence Agency has hired Xe
Services, the private security firm formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, to guard its facilities in Afghanistan and elsewhere, according to an industry source.
The previously undisclosed CIA contract is worth about $100 million, said the industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the deal, which is classified.
“It’s for protective services … guard services, in multiple regions,” said the source.
Two other security contractors, Triple Canopy and
DynCorp
International, put in losing bids for the CIA’s business, the source said.
The revelation comes only a day after members of a federal commission investigating war-zone contractors blasted the State Department for granting Blackwater with a
new $120 million contract to guard U.S. consulates under construction in Afghanistan.
CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano stopped short of confirming the contract, saying only that Xe personnel would not be involved in operations.
“While this agency does not, as a rule, comment on contractual relationships we may or may not have, we follow all applicable federal laws and regulations,” Gimigliano said.
The spokesman added, “We have a very careful process when it comes to procurement, and we take it seriously. We’ve also made it clear that personnel from Xe do not serve with CIA in any operational roles.”
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Xe Services president Erik Prince, said the company would have no comment. [...]"
Flashback: When False Flags Don't Fly
[06/23/10]
"Those who have studied history know that nothing invigorates and empowers an authoritarian regime more than a spectacular act of violence, some sudden and senseless loss of life that allows the autocrat to stand on the smoking rubble and identify himself as the hero. It is at moments like this that the public—still in shock from the horror of the tragedy that has just unfolded before them—can be led into Acts of terror and violence never benefit the average man or woman. They only ever benefit those in positions of power. This is why Nero fiddled while Rome burned: it gave him a chance to throw the Christians to the lions and rebuild the capital of the Roman Empire in his own image. This is why Hearst and the warmongers of the emerging American Empire were delighted by the destruction of the
U.S.S. Maine in Havana Harbor: it gave them the excuse they needed in order to rouse the public into supporting the Spanish-American War. This is why Israel attacked the
U.S.S. Liberty in 1967 during the Six Day War, strafing and torpedoing it relentlessly for hours in a vain attempt to send it to the bottom: the Israelis believed that the loss of the Liberty could be blamed on Egypt and draw the Americans into war. This is why there are hundreds of documented examples of governments staging attacks in order to blame them on their political enemies. In every civilization, in every culture, in every historical period, authoritarians have known that spectacular acts of violence help to further consolidate their own power and control. And sadly, throughout history there have been all too many willing to allow attacks to occur, to pretend that attacks have occurred or even to attack their own population in order to further their political agenda. To think that such staged provocations and false flag attacks no longer occur would be as unrealistic as believing that human nature itself has changed, that powerful people no longer seek to increase their power, that influence is never used for deceit or manipulation, that lies are no longer told to satisfy greed or slake the thirst for control. It is to believe that our society is
immune from those things that we have seen in every other society in every other era. In short, it is a dangerous delusion. The people are once again learning the power of this delusion. They are learning the extent to which they have been lied to. They are once again studying their history.the most ruthless despotism: despotism that now bears the mantle of "security." [...]"
U.S. Said to Fund Afghan Warlords to Protect Convoys
[06/23/10]
"American taxpayers have inadvertently created a network of warlords across Afghanistan who are making millions of dollars escorting NATO convoys and operating outside the control of either the Afghan government or the American and NATO militaries, according to the results of a Congressional investigation released Monday.
The investigation, begun last year by the House Subcommittee for National Security, found that money given to these Afghan warlords often amounts to little more than mafia-style protection payments, with some NATO convoys that refused to pay the warlords coming under attack.
The subcommittee, led by Representative John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, also uncovered evidence suggesting that American taxpayer money is making its way to the Taliban. Several trucking company supervisors told investigators that they believed the gunmen they hired to escort their convoys bribed the Taliban not to attack.
The warlords who are paid with American money, the investigators said, are undermining the legitimate Afghan government that Americans soldiers and Marines are struggling to build, and will most likely threaten the government long after the Americans and NATO leave.
The source of the taxpayer money is a $2.1 billion contract called Host Nation Trucking, which pays for the movement of food and supplies to some 200 American bases across this arid, mountainous country, which in many places has no paved roads.
The 79-page report, entitled “Warlord Inc.,” paints an anarchic picture of contemporary Afghanistan, with the country’s major highways being controlled by groups of freelance gunmen who answer to no one — and who are being paid for by the United States.
Afghanistan, the investigation found, plays host to hundreds of unregistered private security companies employing as many as 70,000 largely unsupervised gunmen. [...]"
U.S. Spends Millions To Promote Condoms In Asia
[06/23/10]
"In a deplorable waste of taxpayer dollars, the U.S. government has spent millions to promote condom use among injecting drug addicts in a Central Asian country known for illicit drug production and opiate consumption.
The National Institutes of Health has actually given an Ivy League university professor more than $2 million in federal funds to study methods that could help combat the spread of AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections
(STI) and Hepatitis C among intravenous drug users in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet socialist republic that serves as a main route for Russia and Europe bound narcotics. Another goal is to “reduce unsafe injection practices” among junkies.
This unbelievable waste of public resources was exposed this week by a conservative news organization, which links the Columbia University Social Work professor’s description of the study on the U.S. Department of Health website. The goal is to “rigorously test the efficacy of an innovative, couples-based
HIV/STI risk reduction intervention to decrease new cases of HIV and Hepatitis C and incidence of sexually transmitted infections as well as to reduce unsafe injection practices and increase condom use among injecting drug users and their heterosexual, intimate partners in
Shu, Kazakhstan.”
Indeed, a noble cause but most likely one that doesn’t create a sense of urgency for most Americans. Regardless, the studies were funded by the U.S. government over three years with the first chunk of cash—$676,058—coming in 2008. In 2009 Uncle Sam forked over $670,914 and $670,212 this year for a grand total of $2,017,184 to entice druggies thousands of miles away to use condoms.
The professor, Nabila El-Bassel, convinced the government to fund her project by claiming that a “sharp increase in injection drug use” has led Central Asia to experience one of the world’s fastest growing AIDS epidemics and that there is a “race to develop and implement” effective AIDS interventions for injection drug users and their sexual partners to stem the spread of the deadly disease in Central Asian towns along “drug trafficking routes.” Eligible participants in the U.S.-funded study must have at least one partner report “unsafe injection and unprotected sexual intercourse in the past 30 days.”
U.S. paying millions to insurgents, Taliban and Afghan warlords
[06/22/10]
"As CLG has reported for *years,* the PentaPost *finally* observes: U.S. paying millions to insurgents, Taliban and Afghan warlords 22 Jun 2010 The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators. The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion transport contract, violate laws on the use of private contractors terrorists, as well as Defense Department regulations, and
"dramatically undermine" larger U.S. objectives of curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance in Afghanistan, a report released late Monday said. The report describes a Defense Department that is well aware that some of the money paid to contractors winds up in the hands of warlords and insurgents. [...]"
Related:
U.S. Troops, Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan Suspected of Corruption
"The U.S. government, which is pressing Iraqi and Afghan leaders to get tough on internal corruption, is doing the same in its ranks. [...]"
Pakistan’s slide into total chaos
[06/22/10]
Note: In a May 22 speech to military cadets at West Point, Obama said: "We need intelligence agencies that work seamlessly with their counterparts to unravel plots that run from the mountains of Pakistan to the streets of our cities." This is the same rhetoric his discredited predecessor used: we attack them "there" before they attack us here. The Western media talk about Obama’s belief in "reconciliation" — through drone attacks and Xe Service mercenaries; the people of Pakistan pay the price.
Some Americans still wonder, why they are hated.
Related: India, Pakistan to hold talks
"The Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries will be holding a meeting this week as India says it is ready to bridge the differences with its neighbor. [...]"
Faisal Shahzad Pleads Guilty To Times Square Bomb Plot
"A Pakistan-born American citizen accused of plotting to detonate a car bomb near Times Square pleaded guilty on Monday to the first of a series of charges related to the failed attack, according to published reports
[...]"
Afghan opiate use has doubled in 5 years, UN says (AP)
[06/22/10]
"Drug addicts as young as a month old. Mothers who calm their children by blowing opium smoke in their faces. Whole communities hooked on heroin with few opportunities for treatment. [...]"
"Predictive" Programming: Are Theses Really Movies?
[06/21/10]
"There are 2 movies [supposedly fictional....] that really strike a nerve in me when I see them. The movies I will cover in particular are “Oil Storm” and the supposed upcoming film “Red Dawn 2010″. Oil Storm came out in 2005 [2 weeks prior to Hurrican Katrina matter of fact....] and is full of spooky revelations [considering what is portrayed came to light in the wake of Hurrican Katrina] and the possiblities of things to come out of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Red Dawn 2010 is due out in October 2010 [whether it really comes out or not...] and entails some interestingly spooky themes from the threat of Red China’s rise [which is real mind you...]. [...]"
Note: This is one of the ways they let people know what
they want to do.
Iceland
rewrites law to create haven for investigative reporting [06/21/10]
"Iceland has passed a sweeping reform of its media laws that supporters
say will make the country an international haven for investigative journalism.
The new package of legislation was passed unanimously at 4am yesterday in one
of the final sessions of the Icelandic parliament, the Althingi, before its
summer break. Created with the involvement of the whistleblowing website
Wikileaks, it increases protection for anonymous sources, creates new
protections from so-called "libel tourism" and makes it much harder
to censor stories before they are published. "It will be the strongest
law of its kind anywhere," said Birgitta Jonsdottir, MP for The Movement
party and member of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative, which first made
the proposals. "We're taking the best laws from around the world and
putting them into one comprehensive package that will deal with the fact that
information doesn't have borders any more." Wikileaks has been involved
in the drafting of the package of laws alongside Ms Jonsdottir from the
beginning of the process more than a year ago. Its founder, Julian Assange,
worked from Iceland on the organisation's release of the incendiary video of
an apparently unprovoked American helicopter attack in Iraq that left eighteen
people dead, including two journalists. [...]"
Methane is Newest BP Oil Spill Threat for Gulf of Mexico
[06/21/10]
"The US Geological Survey team estimates that since the April 20th accident on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform that 4.5 billion cubic feet of methane has already been released but the total amount could be as high as 9 billion cubic feet. Scientists are now increasingly worried about the long term effect on maritime life and how long it will take the environment to heal naturally before the habitat restores itself. This is the first time that the lasting negative effects of methane gas have been brought to the attention of the US Government. The focus has always been on the cleanup of the oil spill for which no solution is available immediately but is clearly visible on the shores of the Gulf States. The methane gas problem was put on the backburner initially because it is invisible to the naked eye. That may change very soon as scientists fear that the methane gas spill has far more repercussions on local maritime life than the oil spill. [...]"
Related: Methane could create Gulf 'dead zones'
"The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.
That means huge quantities of methane have entered the Gulf, scientists say, potentially suffocating marine life and creating "dead zones" where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives.
"This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Kessler said. [...]"
See 'Oil and the Environment" link above for current
related stories.
Japan Has 'Priority' On Rights To Mine Afghanistan Mineral Deposits, Says Hamid Karzai
[06/21/10]
"Afghan President Hamid Karzai said this week that Japan -- not the U.S. -- takes priority over other nations when it comes to mining his country's vast mineral deposits. [...]"
Note: Now they have a reason to kill Karzai and his brother.
Political Theatrics: Le Cercle and the Struggle for the Eurasian Continent
[06/21/10]
"Each time a visitor mentions that he has been invited to Le Cercle, he gives away details what this group is about. In our previous article we already suspected that the Cercle is not only continuing the Cold War by trying to undermine capitalist opposition in Russia and Eastern Europe, but also that it has always been severely biased in favor of the Arab countries, this to the detriment of Israel. These newly identified members pretty much confirm this theory. Their biographies also made it possible to identify the apparent long term strategy of the Cercle. Following are some details on the new members… [...]"
Global Economy:
Slide in shipping shows global recovery running out of steam
[06/21/10]
"Europe’s woes are showing early signs of stalling the recovery of global trade. The Baltic Dry Index, a measure of global shipping that is followed closely by economists, is suddenly raising red flags over the pace of the economic rebound.
The index declined 3.8 per cent Thursday to 2,784 points, reflecting the slump in the shipping industry’s prices to transport dry raw materials over 26 global routes. Economists watch the index because the amount of raw materials being shipped – from coal to grain to iron ore – provides a key indicator of consumption and manufacturing trends. [...]"
Note: Baltic Dry Index
News
UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report
[06/21/10]
"On June 3, largely unnoticed in the Western media, the UN Human Rights Council held an interactive dialogue to discuss the “Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in the Context of Counter-Terrorism,” prepared by Martin Scheinin, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Manfred Nowak, the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Shaheen Ali, the vice-chair of the Working Group on arbitrary detention, and Jeremy Sarkin, the chair of the Working Group on enforced or involuntary disappearances.
The study (A/HRC/13/42) was published on February 19, 2010, and is available here as a PDF.
[...
Anomalies:
Australian
mining chiefs missing in Africa [06/21/10]
"A plane carrying several Australian mining executives goes missing on a flight between Cameroon and Congo. [...]"
Related: Mining
company. plane missing in Cameroon
"Cameroon's Communications Ministry says an aircraft carrying eleven foreigners has gone missing since minutes after take off. [...]"
Note: This is SO unlikely ...To understand what a BIG thing
this is, see the Video documentary Uranium – Is It a Country?
Description: "In Europe nuclear energy is more and more often celebrated as saving the climate. Clearly, nuclear power plants need uranium.
The aim is to comprehensively illustrate the opportunities and risks posed by nuclear energy, whilst paying particular attention to uranium mining.
Australia has the world’s largest deposits of this resource. We will travel to the “land down under” to exemplify where uranium comes from, where it goes to and what is leftover from it.
There is plutonium (used mostly together with uranium) and thorium. And by now there is just one thorium nuclear reactor in India. (what concerns nuclear fusion, deuterium and tritium could be use, but this is just hypothetical).
By now the most used combustible for the nuclear energy production is uranium and the world has many problems and risks because of this. This film is about uranium and its use for the nuclear energy production. It doesn’t want to be comprehensive of everything concerning nuclear reactors. And it is a very good film, based on a accurate inquiry about uranium. [...]" I
found it to be kind of a surreal experience, and of course the subject
enhances the picture of how Australia fits into world politics, and where the
sequentials are focused. Aussie
nuclear scientist's body found in Canadian river [06/21/10]
"Mr Cranswick, 41, went missing in wintry conditions in January near his home in Deep River, Ontario.
His Melbourne-based brother initially thought the disappearance was suspicious.
But Rupert Cranswick has told PM that it now appeared his brother's death was accidental..."I still find it hard to believe that he was going for a walk at 11:30 at night when he had to work the next morning," he said. [...]"
Related:
Body in Ottawa River likely scientist's: friend
"Cranswick's role as a scientist at the Chalk River facility led to speculation and international attention after he disappeared, but police said there was no evidence suggesting foul play.
But the disappearance was strange: Cranswick vanished after taking out the garbage not long after finishing work on Jan. 18. His car was still in his garage and his wallet and personal belongings were in his unlocked house. [...]"
Commentary: Unrest in Pakistan: Moving Beyond "the U.S. National Interest"
[06/21/10]
"The military is the muscle that protects the ruling elite from the wrath of the people,” says Pakistani political analyst Dr. Mubashir Hassan. “Right now, people are out on the street; blocking roads, attacking railway stations, etc. If you read the papers, it seems as though a general uprising has started all over Pakistan.”
Dr. Hassan says that sporadic outbursts of anger in Pakistan won’t coalesce into a people’s revolution anytime soon. The demonstrators are too disorganized. But, the sheer volume of daily protests shows that many sectors of Pakistani society have pressing needs and priorities that do not include enlistment as foot soldiers in a proxy force for the United States’ War on Terror. [...]"
Related:
US cautions Pakistan over pipeline deal with Iran
"The US special envoy to Pakistan said Sunday he had warned Islamabad against signing a deal with Iran on a gas pipeline, saying the US was preparing laws that could affect the project.
"We cautioned the Pakistanis not to over-commit themselves until we know the legislation," Richard Holbrooke, US President Barack Obama's special envoy to Afghanistan as well as Pakistan, told reporters.
"Pakistan has an obvious major energy problem. We are very sympathetic to it. In regard to the specific project, legislation is now being prepared which may apply to this project," said
Holbrooke. He declined to give details, saying he was not involved in drawing up the legislation, but cautioned that it could be "comprehensive."
"This can range from legislation which could be so comprehensive that something like this could create a major problem for any company or country," Holbrooke said.
Iran and Pakistan last week formally signed an export deal which commits Iran to selling natural gas to its eastern neighbour from 2014.
Iran has already constructed 907 kilometres (564 miles) of the pipeline between Asalooyeh, in southern Iran, and Iranshahr, which will carry natural gas from Iran's giant South Pars field.
The pipeline was originally planned to connect Iran, Pakistan and India, but the latter pulled out of the project last year.
Pakistan plans to use the gas purchased from Iran for its power sector.
[...]"
Concepts
and Practices:
Driven by Globalization, Today’s Slave Trade Thrives at Home and Abroad
[06/21/10]
"The legacy of slavery in America is inextricably bound with the history of the nation. And the State Department has finally acknowledged that, even today, people continue to be bought and sold as property.
The 2010 Trafficking in Persons
report, a global review of human trafficking and civic and legal responses to it, for the first time ranks the United States among the nations that harbor modern-day slavery.
Although the report gives the United States relatively high marks for its law enforcement and civic efforts to combat trafficking, victims are scattered throughout the workforce: the captive migrant tomato picker, the prostitute bonded by a smuggling debt, the domestic servant working around the clock without pay.
The media have often focused on dramatic narratives of young girls lured into prostitution rings. But government data suggests that "more foreign victims are found in labor trafficking than sex trafficking," particularly in "above ground" sectors like hotel work and home health care. Official estimates vary widely, but the number of victims could be more than 12 million children and adults worldwide. [...]"
Note: Many more links on the story page that involve these
issues.
Internet: MSM: Napolitano
"Internet Monitoring" Needed to "Fight Homegrown
Terrorism"
[06/21/10]
"Fighting home-grown terrorism by monitoring internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the US government must make to beef up national security, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said. As terrorists increasingly recruit US citizens, the government needs to balance civil rights and privacy with the nee
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