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Special topics updated: 9/11 Israeli Dynamic Yemen Haiti 2010 Iran China

Operation "Titstorm" – Anonymous declares war on Australian Censorship [03/12/10] ".... “Operation Titstorm”, part of an assault targeting a range of government servers.... launched by hackers aligned with an internet protest group known as Anonymous.... Although the Australian government knew about the planned assault last Friday, it was powerless to prevent it.... The federal government plans to introduce a mandatory filtering system by early 2011 that would block a list of banned websites... some pornographic films are being rejected by censors because they feature women with small breasts who could be confused with under-age girls. Anonymous said in an email: “No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be ‘unwanted’.” Polls have found that the Australian public strongly supports the planned restrictions. The flyer through which Anonymous published the event states "emails/faxes should focus on small-breasted porn, cartoon porn, and female ejaculation, the 3 types banned so far" - even if you buy the implied assumption that 'small breasted porn's women's only attraction lies in their resemblance to children,' this does not explain why female ejaculation is on the list.... ..."

Israel aims its nuclear warheads at Europe [03/12/10] "The seventh Israeli radio broadcast an interview with Professor Martin Van-Crevel, a noted world specialist in low-intensity wars. Former Professor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Van-Crevel discussed publicly what he has been advocating for years in closed military academic circles in Israel and the United States. In his view, the continued struggle of the Palestinians will inexhorably lead to the collapse of the State of Israel. Which is why Tel-Aviv has no choice but to "transfer" the Israeli Arabs and the stateless Palestinians beyond safe borders (that is, not only outside the 1948 borders but also from the 1976 occupied territories and, ideally, from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip). In the event the Europeans opposed such a transfer, in order to survive Tel Aviv will be forced to destroy the European capitals with nuclear weapons, it being understood that the Europeans will be unable to retaliate without annihilating their Palestinian friends. “The Palestinians should all be deported. The people who strive for this (the Israeli government) are waiting only for the right man and the right time. Two years ago, only 7 or 8 per cent of Israelis were of the opinion that this would be the best solution, two months ago it was 33 per cent, and now, according to a Gallup poll, the figure is 44 percent.” The author of The Transformation of War forcefully stated that, as of now, there are already nuclear warheads aimed against Rome and other European capitals that render the threat credible and the "transfer" of the Palestinians possible. ..."

EU Parliament backs Goldstone Report on Israel's war crimes-Jerusalem Post [03/12/10] "In a move likely to worsen EU ties with Israel, the European Parliament urged its 27-member states Wednesday to monitor the Israeli and Palestinian probes into alleged war crimes in Gaza. The parliament also called on Israel to immediately open border crossings with the Gaza Strip, saying the blockade was worsening the humanitarian crisis there. The resolution backed the findings of a UN-appointed expert panel chaired by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, which concluded that both sides committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity throughout the IDF operation that began in December 2008 and ended in January 2009. The parliamentary move would give the EU an unprecedented role in evaluating the progress of Israel's war crimes probe ..."

Billionaires and Mega-Corporations Behind Immense Land Grab in Africa [03/11/10] "20+ African countries are selling or leasing land for intensive agriculture on a shocking scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era. ..."

Ron Paul on the Totalitarian ID Scheme [03/11/10] VIDEO [5:12] "Congressman Paul discusses NationalID with Megyn Kelly ..." Related: Lawmakers craft a new comprehensive immigration bill to mandate National Biometric Identification Card "Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. The ID card plan is one of several steps advocates of an immigration overhaul are taking to address concerns that have defeated similar bills in the past. The uphill effort to pass a bill is being led by Sens. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who plan to meet with President Barack Obama as soon as this week to update him on their work. An administration official said the White House had no position on the biometric card..... Last year, White House aides said they expected to push immigration legislation in 2010. But with health care and unemployment dominating his attention, the president has given little indication the issue is a priority. Rather, Mr. Obama has said he wanted to see bipartisan support in Congress first. So far, Mr. Graham is the only Republican to voice interest publicly, and he wants at least one other GOP co-sponsor to launch the effort .....   “By far the most significant negative aspect of biometric ID systems is their potential to locate and track people physically. While many surveillance systems seek to locate and track, biometric systems present the greatest danger precisely because they promise extremely high accuracy. Whether a specific biometric system actually poses a risk of such tracking depends on how it is designed,” explains the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Earlier this month, a biometric ID card was introduced at a large technology show in Hanover, Germany. The card will mandatory for all Germans on November 1, 2010. “The card has three functions: 1. biometric identity verification, 2. electronic identity verification, 3. authenticated electronic signature,” Fox News reported on March 2."    Note: Schumer and Graham ... two despicable individuals. ... ...

Oil companies look at permanent refinery cutbacks to raise gas prices for drivers [03/11/10] "Some of the nation's biggest oil companies are looking at permanently reducing how much gasoline and diesel fuel they make, a move that analysts say would almost certainly trigger higher prices for drivers. Energy companies are suffering huge losses from refining because of slumping gasoline use -- a product of the economic downturn and changing consumer habits and preferences. Energy experts say refining cutbacks have already begun and will accelerate as corporations strive for profits. Major refiners have been circumspect about their plans, saying they are considering options that could include closing refineries, selling parts of their operations, laying off workers or slashing spending. "Refineries will have to be closed," said Fadel Gheit, senior energy analyst with Oppenheimer & Co. "Unless this excess capacity is permanently shuttered, a recovery in refining margins is unsustainable." ..."

Collapse of the American Empire: swift, silent, certain [03/10/10] "The Consummation of Empire' focuses us on Ferguson's core message: At the very peak of their power, affluence and glory, leaders arise, run amok with imperial visions and sabotage themselves, their people and their nation. They have it all. But more-is-not enough as greed, arrogance and a thirst for power consume them. Back in the early days of the Iraq war, Kevin Phillips, political historian and former Nixon strategist, also captured this inevitable tendency in Wealth and Democracy: "Most great nations, at the peak of their economic power, become arrogant and wage great world wars at great cost, wasting vast resources, taking on huge debt, and ultimately burning themselves out." We sense the "consummation" of the American Empire occurred with the leadership handoff from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. Unfortunately that peak is behind us: Clinton, Bush, Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and all future American leaders are merely playing their parts in the greatest of all historical dramas, repeating but never fully grasping the lessons of history in their insatiable drive for "economic progress," to recapture former glory ... while unwittingly pushing our empire to the edge, into collapse. ...Then comes 'The Destruction of Empire,' the fourth stage in Ferguson's grand drama about the life-cycle of all empires. In "Destruction" "the city is ablaze, its citizens fleeing an invading horde that rapes and pillages beneath a brooding evening sky." Elsewhere in "The War of the World," Ferguson described the 20th century as "the bloodiest in history, one hundred years of butchery." Today's high-tech relentless news cycle, suggests that our 21st century world is a far bloodier return to savagery. At this point, investors are asking themselves: How can I prepare for the destruction and collapse of the American Empire? There is no solution in the Cole-Ferguson scenario, only an acceptance of fate, of destiny, of history's inevitable cycles..... "

America's Impending Master Class Dictatorship [03/10/10] "... Despite what you may hear from State Media, which includes virtually all establishment news organizations, particularly financial ones (e.g., CNBC), America is on the precipice. No bankrupt nation in history has ever defended or preserved the freedoms of its citizens. In fact, it has been the exact opposite: in desperation, bankrupt governments have routinely plundered their citizens’ wealth and imposed totalitarian controls. What will make things different for the United States, the largest debtor nation in all of recorded civilization? The United States government cannot ever, possibly pay its debts, is pathologically incapable of controlling its spending or curbing its hunger for both domestic and international empire and persistently refuses to tell the American people the truth. If America’s citizens were told the truth and given the benefit of true leadership, as opposed to the guile and dishonesty of an endless array of political liars and hacks, perhaps they could rally and defeat the problems that afflict them. But instead, they are fed by the Master Class a steady diet of narcotic propaganda that deludes, confuses and enervates them. The truth cannot set people free if it is never told, and that is the essence of America’s gathering tragedy. ..."

China in better position to absorb the ‘shock' of a decline in US economic relations and still land on its feet [03/10/10] "The Obama regime's escalating provocations against China may come at a very high price. It would be unrealistic to assume that China will continue to remain impassive, absorbing territorial threats, economic pressures and gratuitous diplomatic insults without taking counter-measures especially in the economic sphere. China may decide to unload a large share of its US securities holdings, inducing other foreign investors to follow suit. Those who claim Chinese economic interests would suffer from such a sell off, overlook the fact that China is in a better position to absorb the ‘shock' of a decline in US economic relations and still land on its feet. ..." Note: "US – China: Provoking the Creditor, Hugging the Holy man"

Film: Century of Self – A Study in Mind Control [03/09/10] 4 Video clips "Sigmund Freud believed that individuals were not driven by rational thought but by primitive unconscious desires and feelings. Freud’s nephew Edward Bernays believed that this meant that it was too dangerous to let the masses ever have control over their own lives. Consumerism was a way of giving people the illusion of control while allowing a responsible elite to managing society. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticizing the motorcar. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Bernay’s most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world. "

Where Does Genius Come From? [03/09/10] " Tracing talent to its origins probably isn’t ever going to be a precise science, but there’s a particular and pervasive brand of genetic determinism that butts its way into discussions, in scientific circles and in the media, about everything from health to intelligence to the roots of genius. According to author David Shenk, this line of argument leads us to make the wrong conclusions about human potential. ...

Kucinich Forces Congress to Debate Afghanistan [03/09/10] "The Pentagon doesn't want Congress to debate Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants Congress to fork over $33 billion more to pay for the current military escalation, no questions asked, no restrictions imposed for a withdrawal timetable or an exit strategy. ..."

The Grand Chessboard And Quotes From Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror [03/08/10] "Reading Webster Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror PDF, I stumbled upon some striking quotes from Johannes B. Koeppl, a former official in the German Defense Ministry and an advisor to the former NATO General Secretary, Manfred Woerner. Here is one such quote perhaps familiar to some: The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, The Trilateral Commission -- founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller -- and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens. Ok five years have passed, and at least outwardly perhaps Koeppl's dire prediction seems to have not yet been completely fulfilled. But I'm sure he would insist that behind the illusion of democracy in the West ""All we have now are pseudo-democracies." The parties might hate each other and play outwardly a tough football game over divisive issues, but when it comes to the central economic and foreign policy decisions, voters, at least in the U.S., are left with little choice. There is at least no question that we are moving in the direction of some kind of world government outlined by such figures as David Rockefeller in quotes like this from 1994: This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long - We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order..."

States Begin to 'Fix' Prison System [03/07/10] "David Cole of Georgetown University and formerly of the Center for Constitutional Rights has been doing some good writing, not only on our failure to enforce laws against powerful people, but also on our out-of-control epidemic of incarceration which has struck those too unimportant to gain immunity. Cole argues persuasively that we lock up a dramatically higher percentage of our people than any other nation because it is mostly poor African-American communities that get hit. He points out that when segregation was legal in the 1950s, African-Americans were 30 percent of the prison population, whereas now, with a monstrously increased prison population, African-Americans and Latinos make up 70 percent of it. Sixty percent of African-American high school dropouts have spent time behind bars. ...The many-fold increase in US incarceration over the past 35 years did not follow any crime increase; it was the creation of more punitive laws and policies. And scholars give it very little credit for having reduced crime. In fact, with prisons no longer concerning themselves with rehabilitation, there is always the possibility of incarceration increasing crime." Note: Too little too late.

Former Director Of National Intelligence Calls For “Re-Engineering” The Internet [03/06/10] "The latest attack on the free internet comes in the shape of suggestions by former director of national intelligence under George W. Bush, Mike McConnell, who writes in an op-ed that the web should be “re-engineered” in order that it can be completely controlled and managed by U.S. intelligence. ... McConnell’s comments prompted Wired to hit back, labeling him “the biggest threat to the open internet”, and commenting that cyberwar hype is being used as a pretext to destroy the freedom of the web: “He’s talking about changing the internet to make everything anyone does on the net traceable and geo-located,” Ryan Singel writes, “so the National Security Agency can pinpoint users and their computers for retaliation if the U.S. government doesn’t like what’s written in an e-mail, what search terms were used, what movies were downloaded.” As Singel points out, McConnell now works for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group – the global private equity investment firm that enjoyed business links with the Bin Laden family prior to 9/11 ....."

U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon is a "State within a State" [03/06/10] "The daily newspaper As-Safir published copies of correspondence that took place between the United States Embassy in Beirut and the General Command of the Lebanese Security Forces. At the end of this exchange, the United States obtained access to data from all mobile telephone operators making it possible to listen to all conversations and trace their location. Another daily, Al-Binaa, revealed that Beirut airport is being restructured so that the U.S. Embassy can have its own entry point and be able to move personnel and material in and out without undergoing any control. Nawaf al-Moussawi, Hezbollah member of the Lebanese Parliament, has denounced the creation of a "State within a State ". ..."

American Blitzkrieg: Loving the German War Machine to Death [03/06/10] "Remember the 100 hours of combat that made up the first Gulf War, the mere weeks it took for Kabul to fall in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, or the "shock and awe" wave of air attacks that led off the 2003 invasion of Iraq, followed by the 20-day blitzkrieg-like campaign that left American troops occupying Baghdad? Those were the days when, as retired lieutenant colonel and TomDispatch regular William Astore reminds us, the civilians in the Bush Pentagon thought they were the masters of lightning war. Now, skip almost seven years, and in Afghanistan the U.S. military has just launched the largest campaign since the invasion of 2001. Fifteen thousand U.S., British, and Afghan troops have been dispatched to take Marja, a single, modest-sized, Taliban-controlled city of 80,000 in one of more than 700 districts in Afghanistan, many under some degree of Taliban control or influence. How the time frame for success has changed. ..." Related: America's Permanent War Agenda

Unnatural Acts: Breaking the Fever of Militarism [03/06/10] "As we all know – or rather, as everyone but those who climb and claw their way to the top of power's greasy pole knows – the effects of war are vast, unforeseeable, long-lasting -- and uncontrollable. The far-reaching ripples of the turbulence will churn against distant shores and hidden corners, then roil back upon you in ways you could never imagine, for generations, even centuries. Nor is "victory" in war proof against these deleterious effects. For the brutalization, moral coarsening, corruption and concentration of elite power that attend every war do not simply disappear from a society when the fighting stops. They persist, like microbes, in myriad forms, working with slow, corrosive force to degrade and deform the victors. Indeed, victory in battle often leads a society to enshrine war's most pernicious attributes: violence is ennobled, and becomes entrenched as an ever-ready instrument of national policy. Militarism is exalted, the way of peace dishonored: cries of "Appeasers! Cowards! Traitors!" greet every approach that fails to brandish the threat of extreme violence, that fails to "keep all options on the table." ...

Delusions About Freedom: What FDR had in common with the other charismatic collectivists of the 30s [03/06/10] "On May 7, 1933, just two months after the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the New York Times reporter Anne O’Hare McCormick wrote that the atmosphere in Washington was “strangely reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the Blackshirts, of Moscow at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan.…America today literally asks for orders.” The Roosevelt administration, she added, “envisages a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as it exists in Italy.” That article isn’t quoted in Three New Deals, a fascinating study by the German cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch. But it underscores his central argument: that there are surprising similarities between the programs of Roosevelt, Mussolini, and Hitler. With our knowledge of the horrors of the Holocaust and World War II, we find it almost impossible to consider such claims dispassionately. But in the 1930s, when everyone agreed that capitalism had failed, it wasn’t hard to find common themes and mutual admiration in Washington, Berlin, and Rome, not to mention Moscow. (Three New Deals does not focus as much on the latter.) Nor is that a mere historical curiosity, of no great importance in the era following democracy’s triumph over fascism, National Socialism, and communism. Schivelbusch concludes his essay with the liberal journalist John T. Flynn’s warning, in 1944, that state power feeds on crises and enemies. Since then we have been warned about many crises and many enemies, and we have come to accept a more powerful and more intrusive state than existed before the ’30s. Schivelbusch finds parallels in the ideas, style, and programs of the disparate regimes —even their architecture. “Neoclassical monumentalism,” he writes, is “the architectural style in which the state visually manifests power and authority.” In Berlin, Moscow, and Rome, “the enemy that was to be eradicated was the laissez-faire architectural legacy of nineteenth-century liberalism, an unplanned jumble of styles and structures.” Washington erected plenty of neoclassical monuments in the ’30s, though with less destruction than in the European capitals. Think of the “Man Controlling Trade” sculptures in front of the Federal Trade Commission, with a muscular man restraining an enormous horse. They would have been right at home in Il Duce’s Italy. ..."

Defense Department, Inc. [03/06/10] "Obama also declared as “untouchable” the Pentagon budget of $1.5 trillion (including hidden costs in other government branches), which dwarfs the rescue package for the financial oligarchs. Both payouts, however, used the same logic: Congress taking from the have-nots and giving it to the have-mores. Indeed, the economic, political and military potentates depend on the federal budget to transfer taxpayer resources to them. ..."

Sen. Levin moves to block Blackwater’s $1 billion Afghanistan contract [03/05/10] "A senior Senate Democrat said Thursday the Pentagon should consider barring Blackwater, now called Xe Services, from a new $1 billion deal to train Afghan police because of "serious questions" about the contractor's conduct. The comments by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin suggests thinning patience in Congress for the Pentagon's heavy reliance on contractors on the battlefield. U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan using independent contractors has been a boon for companies like Blackwater and saved money and time for the Defense Department, whose forces are busy in combat. But the outsourcing has made it more difficult for military commanders to control what happens on the battlefield. In one recent incident in Afghanistan, two contractors tied to Blackwater allegedly killed two Afghan civilians and injured a third. U.S. officials say the May 2009 shooting damaged relations with the local population ..."

End Game Nears Climax J. Speer-Williams [03/05/10] "From planned financial meltdowns, to engineered economic collapses, to increased taxes and inflation, to social upheavals, laboratory concocted viruses, deadly vaccines, state sponsored terrorist attacks, and more wars, the Controllers of the International Monetary/Banking Cartel are bringing their end-game to a climax, which is their imperious One-World Government. ...We are all being herded into this one-world corral, by psychopaths, posing as the world’s elite, who by any human standards are the most insane among us; and yet, many people are largely unaware of this obvious phenomenon. Could there be something deeper than the Cartel’s controlled mass-media that is blinding so much of mankind to the geo/political realities of our world? Why is the bulk of mankind in such a stupor? Are these questions to which we are not meant to know the answer? Can we just be satisfied with the words of Winston Churchill: “It’s a riddle wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma....”." Note: Well, for some people it is.

Drive to Eliminate Social Security Accelerates [03/05/10] "In Washington each new day brings a fresh call to “reform entitlement programs” — Social Security, Medicare, etc., (in Congress, the word “reform” now means to eliminate, or drastically reduce). Tackling Social Security has been on the to-do list of the corporate elite for years, and they’re not waiting any longer. After years of promoting this cause, conservative think tanks have now garnered solid support from the political establishment as a whole, which includes the Republican and Democratic parties. ..."

UK: US Homeland Security Moving In On European Airfields? [03/05/10] "... According to the person I met, the US Dept of Homeland Security could visit airfields and monitor compliance at certain intervals. The companies' FAA Repair Stn certificate could be revoked if the aerodrome did not comply with the security requirements dictated by the US FAA. This would mean that US (N) registered aircraft could not be serviced at the airfield any longer. The CAA member also said that it was to keep unauthorised persons from entering and controlling US (N) registered aircraft (small single-engine aircraft and heritage types included). This would mean the airfields being closed to the public. ..."

Italian Mafia focuses on economic power [03/04/10] "Organized crime leaders in Italy are shifting their focus from violence and intimidation to seeking control of the economy, finance and politics, officials say. ..."

Judicial Watch Sues Homeland Security for Documents Detailing Distribution of S Visas [03/04/10] "Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to obtain information regarding the Obama administration's distribution of S Visas. S Visas are granted to alien informants who help U.S. law enforcement officers to investigate and prosecute criminal and terrorist activities. ..."

Muslims Are Their Own Worst Enemy Paul Craig Roberts [03/04/10] "Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi’ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control. Muslims cannot even play together. The Islamic Solidarity Games, a regional version of the Olympics, which were to be held in April in Iran, have been cancelled, ..."

MSM: "Cyberwar Scam Designed to Destroy Open Internet" [03/03/10] "On March 1, Ryan Singel, writing for Wired, accused the government of plotting to destroy the open and freedom-loving internet. Readers of Infowars and Prison Planet have known this for some time, but it is nice to know a quasi-establishment publication is now telling the truth and warning its readers ..." Related: Durbin calls for sanction on Web firms that do not promote Internet freedom "Internet companies that fail to take "reasonable steps" to safeguard human rights in foreign countries could face sanctions under a forthcoming bill by Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.). At a hearing on Tuesday, Durbin pitched the bill as his response to the growing number of U.S. tech firms that have failed to cooperate with congressional lawmakers on promoting Internet freedoms abroad."

The Politics of Obedience [03/02/10] "I see no good in having several lords: Let one alone be master, let one alone be king. ...These words Homer puts in the mouth of Ulysses, as he addresses the people. If he had said nothing further than "I see no good in having several lords," it would have been well spoken. For the sake of logic he should have maintained that the rule of several could not be good since the power of one man alone, as soon as he acquires the title of master, becomes abusive and unreasonable. Instead he declared what seems preposterous: "Let one alone be master, let one alone be king." We must not be critical of Ulysses, who at the moment was perhaps obliged to speak these words in order to quell a mutiny in the army, for this reason, in my opinion, choosing language to meet the emergency rather than the truth. Yet, in the light of reason, it is a great misfortune to be at the beck and call of one master, for it is impossible to be sure that he is going to be kind, since it is always in his power to be cruel whenever he pleases...."

USA: A Country of Serfs Ruled By Oligarchs [03/02/10] "Without growth in consumer incomes, the economy can go nowhere. Washington policymakers substituted debt growth for income growth. Instead of growing richer, consumers grew more indebted. Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan accomplished this with his low interest rate policy, which drove up housing prices, producing home equity that consumers could tap and spend by refinancing their homes. ..."

Legislation and Law in a Free Society [03/02/10] "Libertarians and classical liberals have long sought to explain what sorts of laws we should have in a free society. But we have often neglected the study of what sort of legal system is appropriate for developing a proper body of law. Historically, in the common law of England, Roman law, and the Law Merchant, law was formed in large part in thousands of judicial decisions. In these so-called "decentralized law-finding systems," the law evolved as judges, arbitrators, or other jurists discovered legal principles applicable to specific factual situations, building upon legal principles previously discovered, and statutes, or centralized law, played a relatively minor role. Today, however, statutes passed by the legislature are becoming the primary source of law, and law tends to be thought of as being identical to legislation. Yet legislation-based systems cannot be expected to develop law compatible with a free society. Certainty, which includes clarity of and stability in the law, is necessary so that we are able to plan for the future. Often it is thought that certainty will be increased when the law is written and enunciated by a legislature, for example in the civil codes of modern civil-law systems. ..."

America and world economic meltdown: the mystery of the Afghanistan war [03/02/10] "Christopher King argues that “a situation exists in which it may be in the interests of the United States to seek a ‘cold war’ situation with Russia and China as a pretext for defaulting on its external debt, attacking Iran, taking direct control of all Middle Eastern oilfields and effective control of Europe”. ..."    Related: Afghanistan “Awash with US Cash and US Blood” "The Washington Post reports that nearly one billion dollars per year in cash, suspected to include U.S. aid, opium receipts or both, is moving from Afghanistan to Dubai, where friends and family of Afghanistan’s President Karzai have multimillion dollar villas ... “Dubai real estate deals and a number of crooked enterprises connected to the Karzai family have created crony capitalism in a country awash with U.S. cash and U.S. blood...“Nearly 1000 U.S. soldiers have died. And for what? Hundreds of billions spent. And for what? To make Afghanistan safe for crooks, drug dealers and crony capitalism? ..."

Afghanistan bans coverage of attacks, will detain offending journalists [03/02/10] ""Afghanistan announced a ban on news coverage of Taliban strikes on Monday, saying such coverage only emboldened the Islamist militants, whose latest strikes killed six in the southern city of Kandahar," Reuters reports. Journalists will only be allowed to cover the aftermath of Taliban attacks with permission from the National Directorate of Security (NDS) spy agency, the agency said. It threatened to detain journalists who film attacks without permission and confiscate their equipment. "Live coverage does not benefit the government, but benefits the enemies of Afghanistan," NDS spokesman Saeed Ansari said. The agency summoned a group of reporters to announce the ban. No filming will be permitted while attacks are under way, and live broadcasts will be banned even from a distance, Ansari said. The move was denounced by Afghan journalism and rights groups, which said it would deprive the public of vital information about the security situation in the country. ..." Note: How 'coverage' would actually 'deprive the public of vital information' doesn't make sense. They have something to hide.

NanoTech, DynCorp, and NSA Goes B.A.N.G. : The Unholy Trinity and the Implosion of Freedom By A. True Ott, PhD, ND [03/02/10] "The year 2003 changed the world in many respects. The independent, oil-rich nation of Iraq was invaded by American and British forces without cause, while the shadowy “War on Terror” reached new heights in America. As a direct result of the events of September 11, 2001, the “Patriot Bill” greatly expanded the federal government’s power to spy on its citizens. The new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) quickly became a strategic partner with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Agency (NSA) while the “U.S. Spy Industry” as a whole spent billions on “nano- technology”. ..."

Parallel Lives: Rothbard versus Greenspan [03/01/10] "Here is Mises Institute chairman Lew Rockwell’s stirring address, “Parallel Lives: Liberty or Power?” MP3 Audio delivered on February 26, 2010 at the Mises Institute conference, The Birth and Death of the Fed, recorded at Jekyll Island, Georgia, the site of the secret 1910 clandestine meeting of elite Wall Street bankers who drafted the legislation that created the Federal Reserve banking cartel. The speech compares and contrasts the lives and legacies of Murray Rothbard and Alan Greenspan. Here is my September 29, 2003 LRC Blog article, “A Tale of Two Economists, ”which similarly compared and contrasted the lives and legacies of Murray Rothbard and Alan Greenspan. But Lew’s powerful, deeply personal remarks places these two titans within a wider, world significant context. In the era of the Federal Reserve, this struggle between Liberty and Power has been exemplified in the lives of these two titans: Rothbard, the liberating Prometheus who brought the light of liberty into the world; and Greenspan, the envious Cronus, who castrated the world economy as his namesake castrated his father Uranus, the ruler of the Universe, out of ego and power lust. In his impassioned speech, Lew models Rothbard’s principled life, dedicated to liberty while speaking truth to power, as contrasted with Greenspan’s coldly Machiavellian quest for power and prestige at the expense of liberty, truth, and integrity. ... Rothbard himself set the guiding framework for these remarks when he observed: “My own basic perspective on the history of man, and a fortiori on the history of the United States, is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power. . . I see the liberty of the individual not only as the great moral good in itself ( the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then stem the glories of civilized life. But liberty has always been threatened by the encroachments of power, power which seeks to suppress, control, cripple, tax, and exploit the fruits of liberty and production. Power, then, the enemy of liberty, is consequently the enemy of all the other goods and fruits of civilization that mankind hold dear. And power is almost always centered in and focused on that central repository of power and violence: the state. With Albert Jay Nock, the twentieth- century American political philosopher, I see history centrally as a race and conflict between ’social power’ — the productive consequence of voluntary interactions among men — and state power. In those eras of history when liberty — social power — has managed to race ahead of state power and control, the country and even mankind has flourished. In those eras when state power has managed to catch up with or surpass social power, mankind suffers and declines.”"

Afghanistan: Hamid Kazai invents "presidency-for-life democracy" [03/01/10] "Afghan President Hamid Kazai has changed the law to give himself control over the Electoral Complaints Commission by appointing all of its five members. In August 2009, Hamid Karzai supporters had rigged the first round of the presidential elections to ensure his victory over his contender Abdullah Abdullah. Certifying that the fraud involved at least one third of the votes, the Commission had cancelled the results and called for a second ballot. However, Hamid Karzai's camp exerted so much pressure on Abdullah Abdullah that he pulled out of the race, paving the way for Hamid Karzai's victory by default. It was therefore necessary to prevent a similar mishap from occurring a second time. As of now Karzai can rest assured of being re-elected regardless of the will expressed by the Afghan people. Hamid Karzai, who holds dual US-Afghan nationality, was installed in power in Kabul by the Anglo-Saxon coalition in order to "restore democracy" ..."

February 2010

London Becomes Large Laundry House [02/28/10] "Over 66,000 people hide from Russian justice in various parts of the world. Alexander Zvyagintsev, Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, said that wealthy fugitives prefer countries with liberal legislation and seek political asylum there although it usually goes about economic crimes. “We are concerned about refusals based on political motives, when other countries provide shelter on the basis of far-fetched reasons in violation of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Many of such fugitives found shelter in Great Britain. There are similar problems with Austria and Sweden. Last year we received far-fetches, as we believe, refusals from Germany and Finland,” the official said in an interview with the Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper. The majority of outlaws settled in Israel and Britain, the official said. The British capital has become known as Londongrad for that reason. “It seems that London, being a large financial center of the world, is becoming a large laundry house for criminally accumulated funds,” Zvyagintsev said. The geography of the countries, where Russian economic criminals are trying to hide, has been expanded recently owing to exotic states, with which Russia has no adequate agreements on delivery of economic criminals. ..."

House Ethics Panel Rules It's Okay To Steer Contracts To Campaign Donors [02/28/10] "The House ethics committee ruled Friday that seven lawmakers who steered hundreds of millions of dollars in largely no-bid contracts to clients of a lobbying firm had not violated any rules or laws by also collecting large campaign donations from those contractors. ..."

The Road to Armageddon: The Insane Drive for American Hegemony Threatens Life on Earth by Paul Craig Roberts [02/27/10] "Also at the press conference, physicist Steven Jones presented the evidence of nano-thermite in the residue of the WTC buildings found by an international panel of scientists led by University of Copenhagen nano-chemist Professor Niels Harrit. Nano-thermite is a high-tech explosive/pyrotechnic capable of instantly melting steel girders. Before we yell “conspiracy theory,” we should be aware that the architects, engineers, firefighters, and scientists offer no theory. They provide evidence that challenges the official theory. This evidence is not going to go away. If expressing doubts or reservations about the official story in the 9/11 Commission Report makes a person a conspiracy theory kook, then we have to include both co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission and the Commission’s legal counsel, all of whom have written books in which they clearly state that they were lied to by government officials when they conducted their investigation, or, rather, when they presided over the investigation conducted by executive director Philip Zelikow, a member of President George W. Bush’s transition team and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a co-author of Bush Secretary of State Condi “Mushroom Cloud” Rice. There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaida, non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the U.S. population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world. Moreover, it doesn’t matter to these Americans how often the government changes its story. ..."

IMF chief pushes for more power, new global currency [02/27/10] "The International Monetary Fund wants more power to police the global financial system and a bigger role in emergency financing, managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said Friday. In a speech to the Bretton Woods Committee, a finance reform think tank in Washington, D.C., he claimed that a stronger IMF also warrants a new global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar. ... Dominique Strauss-Kahn   [61, French, Jewish] , often referred to as DSK, (born 25 April 1949 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French economist, lawyer, and politician, member of the Socialist Party (PS). He was selected as the new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on 28 September 2007 ... Strauss-Kahn was first an activist member of the Union des Etudiants Communistes (UEC, Union of Communist Students) [3], before joining in the 1970s the Centre d'études, de recherches et d'éducation socialiste (Center on Socialist Education Studies and Research, CERES) led by Jean-Pierre Chevènement, future presidential candidate for the 2002 election. There, he befriended the future French prime minister Lionel Jospin (PS). After the election of President François Mitterrand (PS) in 1981, he decided to stay out of government. He got involved in the Socialist Party (PS), at the time led by Lionel Jospin and founded Socialisme et judaïsme ("Socialism and Judaism"). The next year, he was appointed to the Commissariat au plan (Planning Commission) as commissaire-adjoint."   Strauss-Kahn is widely expect to seek again the socialist primary for President of France in 2012.

Arrested Terrorist Leader Exposes Extensive CIA Connections [02/27/10] "The leader of a Pakistan based terrorist organisation closely affiliated with Al Qaeda has detailed how his group benefited from extensive political and financial support from the CIA in return for continued attacks against the government, the people and the infrastructure of Iran. ..."    Includes VIDEO [2:58] Webster Tarpley

US pushing for nuclear war; “leadership” treasonous for duping US into wars Paul Craig Roberts [02/27/10] "The morons in Washington are pushing the envelope of nuclear war. The insane drive for American hegemony threatens life on earth. The American people, by accepting the lies and deceptions of "their" government, are facilitating this outcome.” ..." Note:  Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most respected conservative voices in the nation. He is the former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A good read, and it includes a VIDEO [9:50]

Mortgage Electronic Registration, Inc. [02/27/10] "Mortgage Electronic Registration Inc. holds approximately 60 million American mortgages and is a Delaware corporation whose sole shareholder is Mers Corp. MersCorp and its specified members have agreed to include the MERS corporate name on any mortgage that was executed in conjunction with any mortgage loan made by any member of MersCorp. Thus in place of the original lender being named as the mortgagee on the mortgage that is supposed to secure their loan, MERS is named as the “nominee” for the lender who actually loaned the money to the borrower. In other words MERS is really nothing more than a name that is used on the mortgage instrument in place of the actual lender. MERS’ primary function, therefore, is to act as a document custodian. MERS was created solely to simplify the process of transferring mortgages by avoiding the need to re-record liens – and pay county recorder filing fees – each time a loan is assigned. Instead, servicers record loans only once and MERS’ electronic system monitors transfers and facilitates the trading of notes. It has very conservatively estimated that as of February, 2010, over half of all new residential mortgage loans in the United States are registered with MERS and recorded in county recording offices in MERS’ name. MersCorp was created in the early 1990’s by the former C.E.O.’s of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Indy Mac, Countrywide, Stewart Title Insurance and the American Land Title Association. The executives of these companies lined their pockets with billions of dollars of unearned bonuses and free stock by creating so-called mortgage backed securities using bogus mortgage loans to unqualified borrowers thereby creating a huge false demand for residential homes and thereby falsely inflating the value of those homes. MERS marketing claims that its “paperless systems fit within the legal framework of the laws of all fifty states” are now being vetted by courts and legal commentators throughout the country. ..."

The Death and Life of American Journalism [02/26/10] "Bob McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois. In 2008, the Utne Reader listed McChesney among their “50 visionaries who are changing the world”. He has written and edited 17 books, and his work has been translated into 21 languages. John Nichols is The Nation’s Washington correspondent, and the associated editor of the Capital Times in Wisconsin. John has covered seven presidential races and reported from two dozen countries. He is the author or coauthor of eight books on media and politics. ...McChesney and Nichols are co-authors of a new book "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again", described in review by Mike Francis of The Oregonian as "a book that diagnoses the collapse of traditional, commercial journalism and, as a solution, prescribes a dramatic recasting of the incentives and rewards that make the industry work" and looks "backward at the historical business and regulatory choices made by publishers, broadcasters and their enablers in Congress ....."

The Road to Armageddon Paul Craig Roberts [02/26/10] "The Washington Times is a newspaper that looks with favor upon the Bush/Cheney/Obama/neocon wars of aggression in the Middle East and favors making terrorists pay for 9/11. Therefore, I was surprised to learn on February 24 that the most popular story on the paper’s website for the past three days was the “Inside the Beltway” report, “Explosive News,” about the 31 press conferences in cities in the US and abroad on February 19 held by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, an organization of professionals which now has 1,000 members . I was even more surprised that the news report treated the press conference seriously. .... There will always be Americans who will believe whatever the government tells them no matter how many times they know the government has lied to them. Despite expensive wars that threaten Social Security and Medicare, wars based on non-existent Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, non-existent Saddam Hussein connections to al Qaida, non-existent Afghan participation in the 9/11 attacks, and the non-existent Iranian nukes that are being hyped as the reason for the next American war of aggression in the Middle East, more than half of the U.S. population still believes the fantastic story that the government has told them about 9/11, a Muslim conspiracy that outwitted the entire Western world. ... In the Middle Ages confessions extracted by torture constituted evidence, but self-incrimination has been a no-no in the U.S. legal system since our founding. But with the Bush regime and the Republican federal judges, whom we were assured would defend the U.S. Constitution, the self-incrimination of Sheik Mohammed stands today as the only evidence the U.S. government has that Muslim terrorists pulled off 9/11. If a person considers the feats attributed to Khalid Sheik Mohammed, they are simply unbelievable. Sheik Mohammed is a more brilliant, capable superhero than V in the fantasy movie, “V for Vendetta.” Sheik Mohammed outwitted all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies along with those of all U.S. allies or puppets, including Israel’s Mossad. No intelligence service on earth, or all of them combined, was a match for Sheik Mohammed."

Conquest and Censorship [02/25/10] "After the Battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror’s army buried its fallen comrades, but left the corpses of the English defenders to rot in the fields where they lay. Such is the brutal nature of war: the victor inflicts all manner of suffering and humiliation on the vanquished. What the United States is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is only marginally different. William the Conqueror made no pretense about his brutal subjugation of the English. They hated him and resisted his occupation for twenty years, during which time he took all their property and gave it to the Norman upper class. Over 300,000 English people were murdered and starved (one fifth of the population) and some 300,000 French and Normans were planted in England in positions of authority. An English nobleman was likely blinded, castrated, and thrown in a dungeon in one of the hundreds of prison William built across the countryside to terrorize the population into submission. England ceased being England, and William repented his sins on his deathbed. While the U.S. subjugation of Iraq and Afghanistan is following much the same pattern, it is different in one respect. Unlike William, whose oppression was done in the light of day, the U.S. conceals its crimes to preserve the pretense of moral superiority that defines American “exceptionalism.” Covert operations, cover-ups, and deception are essential because, without the belief in its inherent moral superiority, the American public might not support its government’s plundering of foreign nations on behalf of America’s ruling class. ..."

Cybersecurity Bills Drafted By Same Group Responsible for 9/11 Truth Hit Piece; Russia Today Covers Internet Control Coup [02/25/10] "Attempts to seize control over the internet and track the indentity of internet users are being escalated in new cybersecurity legislation being considered in Washington. In an AFP article, representative David Wu from Oregon fantatsizes about the Wild West of the internet. "We cannot stand by and let the most powerful tool for connecting Americans with each other and the world remain the Wild West of technology." ..."

Globalization's Impact on U.S. [02/25/10] "An international movement toward “free trade” and globalization shaped the latter half of the 20th century. Most nations have built in significant protections and regulatory frameworks to keep globalizing forces in line. One developed nation, the United States, has eschewed this protection almost completely; much to its detriment. ..."

We don't need US, says Latin America [02/25/10] "Latin American and Caribbean nations have agreed to create a new regional alliance, without the United States and Canada, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said at a summit here on Tuesday. The bloc "must as a priority push for regional integration ... and promote the regional agenda in global meetings," Calderon told participants from 32 nations, including 24 leaders, at the beach resort of Cancun. ..." Related: Americas bloc excluding US and Canada agreed "Latin American and Caribbean nations have agreed to set up a new regional body without the US and Canada. The new bloc would be an alternative to the Organisation of American States (OAS), the main forum for regional affairs in the past 50 years. ..."

Greek Police, Protesters Clash in Nationwide Strike [02/25/10] "Greek police fired tear-gas and clashed with demonstrators in central Athens after a march organized by unions to oppose Prime Minister George Papandreou’s drive to cut the European Union’s biggest budget deficit. ..."

Supreme Court urged to define ‘material support’ for terrorism [02/25/10] "The US Supreme Court was urged Tuesday to help pin down the definition of "providing material support to terrorism," a charge widely used in the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks. In a case brought by both the government and a rights group, the Humanitarian Law Project, the nine justices were called upon to define what kind of support can be included in such a broad allegation. The justices however appeared to be just as divided as the lawyers for both sides. An appeals court has already ruled that providing "personnel" could be used to bring such charges, whereas "training" and "services" were considered too vague. On a fourth term included in the charge of providing "expert advice or assistance," the appeals court returned a split decision. ..."

Socialists to Hold Emergency Conference on the Social Crisis & War [02/25/10] "An emergency national conference on the social crisis and war, to be held April 17-18 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. ... Conditions for the majority of the population in the US are dire and getting worse. Some 15 million people—or close to 10 percent of the working population—are officially counted as unemployed. Over 4.2 million jobs have been wiped out over the past year alone. The real unemployment rate, including those who have given up looking for work and those who are involuntarily working part-time, is close to double the official level. - - In some areas, unemployment is at depression levels. In Detroit, Michigan, where the median income was once among the highest in the nation, MORE THAN HALF THE POPULATION IS OUT OF WORK. --- Six million people in the country have absolutely no income, subsisting on food stamps alone. --- Throughout the country, states and cities are going bankrupt, schools are being shut down, factories are being closed, and college tuition is being raised. Wages and social services are being slashed at an unprecedented rate. Despite a multi-trillion-dollar bailout to protect the wealth of the financial elite, banks are choking off lending to individuals and small businesses. The net worth of US households fell 13 percent over the past decade—by far the worst decade since World War II. The “American Dream” of home ownership is turning into a nightmare. Nearly 3 million foreclosures were filed in 2009, and millions more families will be thrown out of their homes in 2010. The economic crisis has been exploited to increase social inequality and make the wealthiest sections of the population even richer. ..."

Shock Doctrine double down [02/25/10] "In The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Naomi Klein convincingly argued that "free market" capitalism did not spread worldwide because people welcomed it freely, but because it was forced on them against their will, imposed through a series of shocks--military coups, financial crises, physical disasters--that left people, and entire societies reeling, unable to get their bearings, much less respond critical to the most critical of situations. Now, however, we've reached a critical turning point: the entire system that was built up by Shock Doctrine strategy is itself coming apart at the seams--and now, rather than standing back, and saying, "Now wait a minute!" the elite consensus in most quarters is to double down on our past mistakes. Now, the very shock of the systems collapse is being used to try to extend it--not just a little further, but far further than ever before. The main focal point of this effort is the two-pronged battle to (1) prevent anything close to an adequate fiscal response to generate a full-employment recovery, and (2) prevent anything close the necessary re-regulation of the financial sector, so that the national and world economy can be restored to a sound financial foundation. The Obama Administration double-faulted on these twin challenges within its first few weeks in office, and things have been going downhill ever since. Now passive failure is being turned into active malevolence, as Obama has appointed a commission to address the issue of America's long-term debt--a problem that only exists in the far long term--2050 or so, and only then because we've had an out-of-control health care sector for almost as long as our financial sector has been out of control--as I argued in my diary "Health care costs over time--how the US became so different & why conservatives can't fix it" earlier today. Earlier this month, economist Dean Baker warned against the folly involved in a column titled "The Budget Deficit Crisis Crisis", which began thus: The country faces a serious crisis in the form of a manufactured crisis over the budget deficit. This is a crisis because concerns over the size of the budget deficit are preventing the government from taking the steps needed to reduce the unemployment rate. This creates the absurd situation where we have millions of people who are unemployed, not because of their own lack of skills or unwillingness to work, but because people like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke mismanaged the economy. ..."

The Uranium Coup [02/24/10] "U.S. House of Representative Alan Grayson led a Congressional delegation that just happened to be in Niger at the time of the recent military coup last Thursday that deposed the legitimate elected government of the Uranium-rich nation. ..." Niger junta announces plans for elections "Niger's military junta, which seized power in a coup this week, has announced plans to hold elections. ..."

Harvard University economist: "stimulus package" harmed the economy [02/24/10] "... viewed over five years, the fiscal stimulus package is a way to get an extra $600 billion of public spending at the cost of $900 billion in private expenditure. This is a bad deal. The fiscal stimulus package of 2009 was a mistake. It follows that an additional stimulus package in 2010 would be another mistake. ..."

Commentary: A Plane Crash: The Beginning Of Civil Unrest In The United States Of America [02/24/10] ".... Many people are going to be devastated financially as the wave of foreclosures, bankruptcies, job lay-offs/losses, and destruction of the currency unwinds. I see alot of employers not being able to pay their employees' payroll coming soon as well just like with the chain store Ink Stop. When all of the public services can no longer be funded, states go bankrupt, welfare ceases, un-employment no longer available, electricity turned off, food to expensive or just not available, and the toilet no longer able to flush; you can guarantee that social order cannot and will not be maintained. I am pretty sure you are smart enough to figure that one out, but also think of all of the firearms on the streets and owned by private citizens in this country. Just 2 days ago I was working out front when a customer got out of his car and his pistol fell onto the ground in plain sight. I am not trying being rude, but this was not exactly a model citizen that dropped his pistol. This is just a little more proof that social order cannot be maintained in the future. Let's look at a few aspects and quotes especially starting with Zbigniew Brzezinski: ..."

DHS and Pentagon Flex 'Media Muscle' on Domestic Terror [02/24/10] "On Issues of Domestic Terrorism and Cyber Security we have seen a rash of blatant over the top Pentagon fed news pieces and headlines into the main stream media with in this last week. ..." Note: The Pentagon and CIA are having increasing influence over social policy and procedures.

EU officials call for international conference to discuss Palestinian state [02/24/10] "French President Nicolas Sarkozy has reiterated his call for the creation of a "viable" Palestinian state but has not ruled out the possibility the international community could recognise a new state before its borders were set. ..." Note: Israel doesn't like this.

Barak heads to U.S. to discuss Iran, peace talks with Palestinians [02/24/10] Related: Israel turns to US for backup plan against Iran

Kremlin responds to US-NATO Threats: Russia Deploys Missiles on Western Frontier with European Union [02/24/10] "The question is what new threats from the West does the Russian Defense Minister need to realize what is going on? The US stated with utmost clarity that its missile defense infrastructures would be sited in Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria. Other countries – Georgia and Turkey – will possibly also host them in the future. Is that not enough? Shall we wait for more? The threats are listed in Russia's official military doctrine. Washington audaciously explains that it plans to site the missile shield in the proximity of Russia's borders to neutralize the missile threat posed by North Korea and Iran. The authors of such “explanations” must be making fun of Russia. ..."

Chicago Mob Linked Alexi Giannoulias' Brother Demetris : Familiar Radical, Anti-Israel Ties [02/23/10] "Until he raised lots of money for the Obama campaign, Alexi Giannoulias, an unknown in political circles, had never voted in an election. Today he is running for the hotly contested Illinois Senate seat once held by Obama, and a familiar cast of radical and anti-Israel ties are surfacing. ...Demetris Giannoulias, Alexi’s brother and Chief Financial Officer of the family’s Broadway Bank where Alexi was an officer, serves on the Board of Directors of the Crossroads Fund – a foundation that provides grants to left-wing community organizing groups in the Chicago area. Community organizing Chicago style means ACORN, the group being investigated for voter registration fraud and exposed in the national scandal involving underage prostitution and human smuggling. Sure enough ACORN is a recipient of the Giannoulias fund grants. Not surprisingly, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dhorn are active fundraisers for Crossroads....." Note: It gets quite involved. Related: Chicago Is a "Dark Pool Of Political Corruption" [02/23/10] "A major U.S. city long known as a hotbed of pay-to-play politics infested with clout and patronage has seen nearly 150 employees, politicians and contractors get convicted of corruption in the last five decades. Chicago has long been distinguished for its pandemic of public corruption, but actual cumulative figures have never been offered like this. The astounding information is featured in a lengthy report PDF published by one of Illinois’s biggest public universities. ..."   Jan Schakowsky and SEIU Get Out the Vote For Chicago Mob Linked Alexi Giannoulias VIDEO [2:32]

EU's three intel agencies may become one [02/23/10] "The European Union is creating a new department from three intelligence-sharing bureaus at its home base in Brussels, EU officials said. ..."

U.S. Will Share Intelligence With Mexico [02/23/10] "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will share intelligence and conduct joint operations with the notoriously corrupt Mexican Federal Judicial Police, under a new plan to "secure the U.S.-Mexico border." ...

Bill would ban security contractors from war zones [02/23/10] "Two congressional lawmakers have announced legislation that would effectively remove military contractors from war zones. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced the "Stop Outsourcing Security Act" on Tuesday. If passed, the act would force the United States to phase out its controversial use of private security contractors in war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. "The legislation would restore the responsibility of the American military to train troops and police, guard convoys, repair weapons, administer military prisons, and perform military intelligence," the lawmakers' offices said. "The bill also would require that all diplomatic security be undertaken by US government personnel," they added. While the bill is likely to meet stiff opposition from the Pentagon and the defense industry, it's certain to be well received among progressives and peace activists, who have watched with alarm as the use of private contractors in war zones has skyrocketed in recent years. ..."

The World's Most Corrupt Countries [02/23/10] "Corruption is hardly a victimless crime. A major contributor to the massive death toll from the Haiti earthquake was shoddily constructed buildings that couldn't have been erected under the oversight of professional and honest inspectors. Haiti ranked as the 10th most corrupt country in Transparency International's most recent corruption perception index. Globally, amid economic troubles, corruption seems to be one of the few things that has grown. Transparency International's latest corruption index shows that 75 of 180 countries surveyed scored below 3 on a 10-point scale of governmental honesty, an increase from 72 countries in 2008. There were a lot of repeat offenders, including perennially corrupt nations like Somalia, Iran and Venezuela. Russia slipped a notch to rank 147th with a corruption index score of 2.2. The U.S. can't afford to be smug, as it also fell one place to 19th with a score of 7.3. (Blame Congress: Surveys show "the legislature is perceived as the institution most affected by corruption" in the U.S., Transparency International said.) ...Chronic goodie-two-shoes New Zealand came in first with a score of 9.4, with Denmark in second with a score of 9.3, unchanged from 2008. At the other end of the scale was Somalia, which barely qualifies as a nation given its nonstop civil wars and economy based mostly on spectacular acts of piracy. Corruption is a fixture in countries like Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco and Pakistan, where 60% of executives surveyed reported having been solicited for a bribe. Transparency International figures bribes consume an estimated $20 billion to $40 billion a year worldwide, money that could be used for productive investment and jobs. And broadening the definition just a bit, Transparency International warns that excessive pay, opaque financial structures and offshore havens from financial regulation all work to undermine honesty throughout the system. "When high-level executives award themselves extraordinary pay packages, lower-level managers may be tempted to sweeten their own pay package by soliciting bribes from suppliers," the organization notes."

Pakistan warns US over Operation Moshtarak [02/23/10] "Islamabad has criticized the US over the ongoing military offensive in neighboring Afghanistan, saying the anti-Taliban offensive could threaten the stability of Pakistan. ..."

Waterboard Memo Authors Go Uninvestigated [02/22/10] "Officially closing the hotly-contested chapter on how the Bush administration conducts its war on terror, the Justice Department has rejected calls for ethics investigations against the two lawyers who wrote and signed off on the memos justifying the waterboarding of detainees. John Yoo and Jay Bybee will not be investigated by the Justice Department regarding their conduct while working at the Bush White House, though they may be referred to state authorities who have the power to revoke the lawyers’ law licenses ..."

'Hezbollah prepared for any surprise from Israel' [02/22/10] "Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem has said that the Lebanese resistance movement is prepared for any surprise from Israel, such that Tel Aviv must think twice before any act of adventurism. ..."

U.S. patriot missiles in Poland early April: report [02/22/10] "Poland is set to host a battery of U.S. Patriot missiles and the American troops to man it from the start of April, PAP news agency said Sunday. ..."

Probes overlook McChrystal's role in costly Afghan battles [02/21/10] "Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, kept a remote U.S. base in the country manned last year at the local governor's request despite warnings from his field commanders that it should be closed because it was vulnerable and had no tactical or strategic value. ..." Note:  The guy is a nut case. Related:   Field commanders who tried to warn McChrystal penalized "According to sources quoted today by McClatchy newspapers, two field commanders warned Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal repeatedly about a worthless Afghanistan outpost that was too costly to defend. The field commanders are now facing penalties after two high-level military investigations. ..."

Beleaguered US to blow up its chemical stockpiles [02/20/10] "Under the gun to destroy the U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles — and now all but certain to miss their deadline — Army officials have a plan to hasten the process: Blow some of them up. The Army would use explosives to destroy some of the Cold War-era weapons, which contain some of the nastiest compounds ever made, in two communities in Kentucky and Colorado that fought down another combustion-based plan years ago. Some who live near the two installations worry it's a face-saving measure, driven by pressure from U.S. adversaries, that puts the safety of citizens below the politics of diplomacy and won't help the U.S. meet an already-blown deadline. ..." Note: Not a good idea to explode this stuff ....

UN Report: Top Businesses Cause $2.2 Trillion In Environmental Damage [02/20/10] "Report for the UN into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment ..." Note: The Pentagon, the worlds greatest polluter, is exempt from regulation.

Second half of 2010: Sudden intensification of the global systemic crisis – Strengthening of five fundamental negative trends [02/20/10] ". the explosion of the bubble in public deficits and a corresponding increase in state defaults . the fatal impact of the Western banking system with mounting debt defaults and the wall of debt coming to maturity . the inescapable rise in interest rates . the increase in issues causing international tension . a growing social insecurity. ..."

Niger to double its uranium production by 2012 [02/20/10] "Niger, currently the world's third largest uranium supplier, plans to double its uranium production by 2012. China and France have been eager to explore mining opportunities in the west African nation. They are anxiously following up on the news about the coup d'état developments in the country. According to AFP, France's state controlled nuclear energy company, Areva, signed a contract with the Niger government in 2009 for mining at the Imouraren region, north of Niger. By signing the Imouraren contract, the former French colony, gave exclusive rights to France to extract most of Niger's uranium. The two countries announced last year that once mining at Imouraren begins in 2012, the production of uranium will double in the country, making it the world's second largest uranium supplier. Investing more than €1.2 billion in Imouraren mine and creating 1,400 jobs by 2012, Niger will produce an estimated 5,000 tons of uranium annually and the production will continue for another 35 years. China's National Uranium Corporation has also been exploring Niger's mining potential. The Chinese have concentrated their efforts in northern Azelik region since 2007. China's goal is to extract 700 tons of uranium per year from this region. Despite its riches, Niger is one of the world's least developed countries. Sixty percent of the country's 15.2 million people live below the poverty line while the bulk of the sub-Saharan country's foreign income stems from uranium production. ... Related: African Union (AU) suspends Niger membership after coup

UK: Migrationwatch Releases “Censored” Government Paper Which Outlines Political Objective of Mass Immigration [02/20/10] "The Migrationwatch think tank has just released a copy of the uncensored Home Office Economics and Resources Analysis Unit and the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit document which proves that mass immigration to Britain is a political tool used by the Labour Party to socially engineer society for its own ends. ..."

Cluster Bomb Ban to Become Law – Without US [02/20/10] ""Just over a year after it was opened for signature, an international treaty banning cluster bombs received the final two ratifications it needed to become international law Tuesday. . .The treaty will become international law Aug. 1, when use, production and trade in cluster munitions will be banned and deadlines for stockpile destruction will be set." ..."

Iran not producing weapon-grade uranium: IAEA [02/20/10] "Iran has not converted the low-grade uranium that it has produced into weapon-grade uranium, inspectors belonging to the International Atomic Energy Agency have said. The Austrian Press Agency quoted an IAEA expert as saying that the uranium substances that Iran has produced at its Natanz enrichment facility have been carefully recorded and remote cameras have been installed to supervise part of the stockpile. “If the Iranians intend to transport these uranium substances to a secret location for further processing, agency’s inspectors will find out,” he said. The expert added that “so far, Iran has carried out good cooperation with us in relevant verifications”. ..."

ICE Uses Threats of Deportation to Produce Terrorism ‘Intel’ [02/20/10] "It’s bad enough we know that the government tortured Abu Zubaydah, Binyam Mohamed, and countless others in an attempt to produce false confessions, faked intel about Iraq, and in general hype up a “terrorism” threat that would justify the billions bilked from the U.S. treasury for the bogus “war on terror.” But now apparently the campaign to find terrorist boogie-men has come home with a vengeance. Just ask Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) informants Emilio and Analia Maya of Saugerties, New York. According to a fascinating Associated Press report by Helen O’Neill, on November 17, 2009, Emilio was surrounded by nine ICE officers in flak jackets with guns. ... ICE and DHS apparently have little to fear from congressional inquiry. They are in a bureaucratic war to justify their existence, and in DC, it’s still, in the Obama years, all about terrorism."

Five NATO members want US nukes out of Europe [02/20/10] "Five NATO member states want the United States to remove all its nuclear weapons, mostly deployed during the cold war, from Europe. ...NATO members Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway are expected to make the request "in the coming weeks." The five argue that the "nuclear arms on European soil belonging to other NATO member states are removed," said a spokesman for Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme. Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are believed to hold some of the roughly 200 US nuclear weapons that remain in Europe. However, most of the nukes are estimated to be in Italy and Turkey. "

Israel's new strategy: "sabotage" and "attack" the global justice movement [02/20/10] "An extraordinary series of articles, reports and presentations by Israel's influential Reut Institute has identified the global movement for justice, equality and peace as an "existential threat" to Israel and called on the Israeli government to direct substantial resources to "attack" and possibly engage in criminal "sabotage" of this movement in what Reut believes are its various international "hubs" in London, Madrid, Toronto, the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. ..."

Two Israeli spies sentenced to death in Lebanon [02/20/10] " A Lebanese court on Thursday sentenced two men to death on charges of espionage and involvement in the killing of senior members of Lebanese and Palestinian resistance groups. ..." Note: That's going to be a provocation for Israel ..

Growing diplomatic row over Dubai assassination [02/20/10] VIDEO [5:11] "In this following interview the Guardian’s Robert Fisk lays out some likely scenarios regarding the fallout from the Mossad assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh who was a senior official with the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas. ..."

Senate Panel Announces Big Hearing on Blackwater’s Afghanistan Contract [02/19/10] "As far as I’m aware, this is the first Senate hearing exclusively devoted to Blackwater. The previous big Blackwater hearing came before the House oversight committee in 2007, and it mainly resulted in forcing the State Department’s conflict-of-interest-laden inspector-general, Cookie Krongard, to resign in disgrace after misrepresenting his ties to the company before the panel. From the looks of the witness list, there may be some real disclosures: Paravant’s ex-program manager, John R. Walker, is slated to testify, as is its ex-vice president Brian C. McCracken. So are a host of retired military officials, including the former head of the effort to train Afghan security forces, retired Col. Bradley Wakefield. A former Blackwater vice president for contracts, Fred Roitz, has been invited, but it’s unclear whether he’ll appear. ..."

World Economic Crisis and Military Expansion [02/19/10] Note: Select article collection under this tag.

EU president pushes for economic power [02/19/10] "Will the European Union use Greece's debt crisis to claw more economic power away from its member governments? ..." Note: Is this a coincidence, opportunistic, or planned?

Turkey reiterates Iran's right to nuclear technology [02/19/10] "Turkish Parliament Speaker Mehmet Ali Sahin throws his weight behind Iran despite recent US threats of new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. ..." Note: I'm sure Hillary Clintons recent physical tussle and argument with the Turkish prime minister isn't helping. She doesn't function well as as the speaker at the US 'bully pulpit' directed at the world. The 'cunt in chief' ought to be put out to pasture.

The Makings of a Police State-Part VII: Perpetual Wars by Sibel Edmonds [02/18/10] ""Perpetual Wars & the Permanent Wartime Presidency With almost a decade under its belt, our multi-front war on a vaguely defined notion of terrorism targeting never-really-defined enemies across the world and here in the newly rephrased ‘homeland’ has come to define the state of our nation. Even the meager limitations on presidential powers of the last six decades have in effect been nullified and replaced with a newly declared and interpreted authority mirroring those of past emperors and kings, and of any classic authoritarian regimes’ rulers. One look at the last decade’s successfully won legal arguments on behalf of the executive, the presidency, is enough to establish the common theme that ‘the war on terror is global and indefinite in scope, and that it effectively removes all traditional limits of wartime authority to the times and places of imminent or actual battle.’" ..."

Kremlin Establishes Military Cooperation Agreements in Latin America [02/18/10] "As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wraps up his tour of Latin America, Moscow is weighing its options in a turbulent region long dominated by American influence. Although much of Lavrov’s trip – which took him to Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico – was dedicated to the promotion of Russian culture and pressing humanitarian issues, there were several announcements that may turn some heads in the region, and especially north of the border. During Lavrov’s one-day visit to Nicaragua on Sunday, it was announced that the two countries had agreed to work jointly in combating drug trafficking and organized crime. “We have agreed on military and technical cooperation to jointly strengthen the potential of our army and police in fighting against drug trafficking and organized crime,” Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega told reporters after his meeting with Lavrov. ..."

All Systems Go: "No Dysfunction" in Profitable Afghan Enterprise [02/18/10] ".... Where Eisenhower, the top general in history's most destructive war, saw that the weapons business was a monstrous waste, an outright theft of the lives, blood, treasure and opportunity of all humankind, Obama and his handpicked Bush holdover Gates see it as a noble enterprise that actually "contributes to global security"! They are not concerned -- even rhetorically -- about the hungry being robbed of food and the cold being stripped of clothing. No, their focus is on "maintaining our competitiveness in the global economy" -- "competitiveness" in a business where, as Berrigan notes, the United States already controls almost 70 percent of the global market. So that's why no super-duper hi-tech death technology is going to be pulled from the order of battle in Afghanistan for longer than a single news cycle, just long enough to offset the bad headlines that a slaughter of civilians will momentarily produce. These death technologies cost too much money -- and, more importantly, make too much money -- to be set aside for any reason. ..." Note: A very good article!

Democracy Now: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage and Moonlighting CIA Operatives [02/18/10] VIDEO [14:49] "The CIA is under fire following the news it’s allowing active-duty operatives to work for private companies on the side. The previously undisclosed “moonlighting” has granted wealthy private entities such as financial firms and hedge funds access to top-level intelligence officials. It’s said to be viewed internally as a means to prevent agency defections to the private sector. A CIA spokesperson said “moonlighting” operatives are required to submit detailed information on their outside employment. But few details have been revealed, including how long the policy has been in place and how many operatives have taken part. We speak to Eamon Javers, author of the new book Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy: The Secret World of Corporate Espionage. ..... From the CIA in the classroom, we turn now to the CIA in the boardroom. The CIA is under fire following the news it’s allowing active-duty operatives to work for private companies on the side. The previously undisclosed “moonlighting” has granted wealthy private entities, such as financial firms, hedge funds, access to top-level intelligence officials. It’s said to be viewed internally as a means to prevent agency defections to the private sector. A CIA spokesperson said “moonlighting” operatives are required to submit detailed information on their outside employment. But few details have been revealed, including how long the policy has been in place and how many operatives are taking part..... "

Analysis: The Downward Spiral in US-Pakistan Intelligence Relations [02/18/10] "For decades, US geopolitical interests in southern Asia have centered on controlling the Indian Ocean, with its lucrative energy transport routes to and from Japan and China. The events of 9/11, however, in association with nuclear weapons proliferation and the rise of al-Qaeda, have immensely complicated US regional goals. This newfound complexity has created severe tensions between Washington and Islamabad, which are most notable in their rapidly deteriorating intelligence relations. In recent months, the inter-agency conflict between the CIA and Pakistan’s security agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, has intensified to a stage of open war. I explain how this situation came about in a guest article for Pragati, the English-language review of Southeast Asian international relations published in India. The article is available here. In fact, for those looking for informed views on Central and Southeast Asian diplomacy and security issues, it is worth downloading this (.pdf) ..."

Agenda 21 : The Sustainable Development of the Ruling Class [02/17/10] "The people of the United Kingdom are upset with the prospect of the French government buying the Port of Dover, when, in fact, they should be outraged! It is not the French government that proposes to buy the Port, but a governmental hybrid that follows the collectivists’ blueprint to take over the world’s profitable assets and land. The British government wants to sell the strategic Port of Dover, at the historic White Cliffs of Dover, to reduce its debt of $1.3 trillion dollars. While the sale of the Port could rake in over $500 million dollars, this is not even a drop in the bucket to pay down the debt, and the Port is expected to flourish and grow by 85% in the next 20- 30 years. Currently, it is a public corporation. ..."

Commentary: The CIA and NSA Want You to Be Their Friend on Facebook [02/17/10] "Don’t break out the foil, the U.S. News & World Report article states, because the spooks are telling you up front, here we are. Oh sure. What this shit-for-brains article doesn’t explore is how many hundreds or thousands of full time, professionally run honeypots, black propaganda outlets, sock puppets/trolls/shills etc. are operational ...The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the CIA, the US Department of Defense, Department of Justice and three other government agencies on Tuesday for allegedly refusing to release information about how they are using social networks in surveillance and investigations. The not-for-profit internet rights watchdog group formally asked more than a dozen agencies or departments in early October to provide records about federal guidelines on the use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr for investigative or data-gathering purposes, according to the lawsuit. The requests were prompted by published news reports about how authorities are using social networks to monitor citizen activities and aid in investigations. For example, according to the lawsuit, government officials have: used Facebook to hunt for fugitives and search for evidence of underage drinking; researched the activities of an activist on Facebook and LinkedIn; watched YouTube to identify riot suspects; searched the home of a social worker because of Twitter messages regarding police actions he sent during the G-20 summit; and used fake identities to trick Facebook users into accepting friend requests. ...... The third board member of Facebook is Jim Breyer. He is a partner in the venture capital firm Accel Partners, who put $12.7m into Facebook in April 2005. On the board of such US giants as Wal-Mart and Marvel Entertainment, he is also a former chairman of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Now these are the people who are really making things happen in America, because they invest in the new young talent, the Zuckerbergs and the like. Facebook’s most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock’s senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What’s In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. After 9/11, the US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which “identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions”. The US defence department and the CIA love technology because it makes spying easier. “We need to find new ways to deter new adversaries,” defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003. “We need to make the leap into the information age, which is the critical foundation of our transformation efforts.” In-Q-Tel’s first chairman was Gilman Louie, who served on the board of the NVCA with Breyer. Another key figure in the In-Q-Tel team is Anita K Jones, former director of defence research and engineering for the US department of defence, and – with Breyer – board member of BBN Technologies. When she left the US department of defence, Senator Chuck Robb paid her the following tribute: “She brought the technology and operational military communities together to design detailed plans to sustain US dominance on the battlefield into the next century ......"   Related: Eight-grade teacher in hot water for caustic remarks on Facebook [02/17/10] "Melissa Hussain was suspended with pay after some of her students and their parents objected to comments on her Facebook page, many revolving around her interaction with Christian students. For example, she wrote that it was a "hate crime" that students anonymously left a Bible on her desk. (Raleigh News & Observer) ..." Note: As if they had the inside track on reality.

UK: Airport body scanners 'may be unlawful' [02/17/10] "The use of body scanners at UK airports may be unlawful, the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned today. Scanners already in place at Heathrow and Manchester Airports may be breaking discrimination law as well as breaching passengers' rights to privacy, the commission said. ...

East Asian Security Framework Planned [02/17/10] "South Korea, Japan and China are discussing establishing a tripartite security framework this year ..."

US forces bogged down by Taliban forces [02/17/10] "US forces continue to press forward in the Marjah region of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province, put are said to be struggling mightily with home-made bombs and sniper fire ..."

The Devaluation of Suicide Bombing [02/17/10] " ... Analysts say the Taliban no longer have foreign expertise in preparing suicide bombers, and have a hard time finding competent recruits in a society that until recent years had little history of suicide attacks. ..."

Occupying forces send Afghan crack only to Iran [02/17/10] "Deadly narcotics like compact heroin, crack, is only produced, under the guidance of certain Western countries in Afghanistan, for consumption in Iran, commander of the drug squad says. ..."

Analysis: Fear Incorporated by Tom Engelhardt [02/16/10] "Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you’re not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen. ... So the next time a Flight 253 occurs and the Republicans go postal, the media morphs into its 24/7 national-security-disaster mode, the pundits register red on the terror-news scale, the president defends himself by reaffirming that he is doing just what the Bush administration would have done, the homeland security lobbyists begin calling for yet more funds for yet more machinery, and nothing much happens, remember those drunken drivers, arsonists, and tobacco merchants, even that single dust devil and say: Hold onto your underpants, this is not a national emergency. " Note: Very well written.

Midweek Politics with David Pakman - Victor Ostrovsky Interview (Ex-Mossad) [02/16/10] VIDEO [2:49] "Victor Ostrovsky, ex-Mossad case officer, former member of the Israeli Defense Force, and former Lieutenant Commander of the Israeli Navy, joins us live. Broadcast on February 3, 2010 . Midweek Politics with David Pakman is a nationally syndicated talk radio and program. ..." Note: Part 2 VIDEO [7:18]

Iran begins drilling for oil in Caspian Sea [02/16/10] "The Islamic Republic of Iran has started drilling its first exploratory well in the Caspian Sea to search for oil in the resource-rich body of water. “The Amir-Kabir semi-submersible drilling rig has started exploration drillings in the Caspian Sea. It will drill the country's first exploratory well at a depth of 1,550 meters under the seabed,” North Drilling Company Managing Director Hedayatollah Khademi told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday. ..."

Spying for Dollars: Military Contractors and Security Firms Reap Huge Profits [02/16/10] "As the Defense Budget Soars, Billions of Dollars are Channelled Offshore to Avoid Paying Taxes ..."    Related: "Tax Me If You Can" [02/16/10] 5 Video clips "Frontline special on corporate tax evasion schemes. ..."  As Defense Budget Soars, Security Firms Reap Huge Profits, Go Offshore to Avoid Taxes [02/16/10] "The Obama administration is seeking to increase the obscenely bloated U.S. Defense Department budget to a whopping $708 billion for fiscal year 2011, 3.4% above 2010’s record level, The Wall Street Journal reported. ..."

America’s Shadowy Base World by Nick Turse and Tom Engelhardt [02/16/10] "Once is an anomaly; twice is the beginning of a pattern. Right now, we’re seeing the same sequence of events for the second time in less than a decade, and it looks like the signature American way of war in our time is coming into focus. In 2003, when the Bush administration invaded Iraq, the Pentagon already had on its drawing boards plans for building a series of permanent mega-bases in that country. (They were charmingly called "enduring camps.") Once Baghdad fell and it turned out that, Saddam Hussein or no, the U.S. was going to have to fight rather than settle in and let the good times roll, hundreds of micro-bases were added to the mega ones – 106 of them by 2005, more than 300 in all. Then, in 2005, Washington decided to trade in its embassy in one of Saddam’s old palaces for something a little spiffier. In its place, on a 104-acre plot by the Tigris River in the middle of Baghdad, for at least three-quarters of a billion dollars after cost overruns, it built the largest, most expensive embassy on the planet. It was planned for a staff of 1,000 "diplomats" with all the accoutrements of the good life and plenty of hired help. (Even now, despite much discussion about "ending" the American role in Iraq, further plans are reportedly being made for the embassy’s staff to double.) This was clearly to be U.S. mission control for the Greater Middle East. ..."

Russia, Saudi Arabia in talks on major arms deal [02/16/10] "Russia and Saudi Arabia are finalizing an array of agreements on the sale of Russian armored vehicles anti-aircraft systems and combat helicopters, a Russian defense industry official said on Monday. ..."

History: Another Take on Eva Braun [02/16/10] "Eva Braun has been dismissed as an inconsequential figure (and, of course, a “dumb blonde”) in Adolf Hitler’s life, but a new biography of Braun by German historian Heike Görtemaker recasts Hitler’s lover as a more significant force who was relegated to the background out of necessity. ..."

CIA and the NAZIs: How we got where we are today [02/15/10] 2 Video clips "By understanding our past we can better understand how we got where we are today - that is - how America has become a nation supporting torture, government sanctioned murder, government murder of its own citizens, wars of aggression - essentially how we've become NAZIs. ... CIA and the Nazis reveals how over 4,000 former Nazis went to work for the U.S. government, without the public's knowledge, to help fight the Soviet Union. Reinhard Gehlen, an intelligence officer for Hitler's General Staff, was tapped to head the U.S. intelligence program in West Germany to spy on the Russians. At the same time, former Nazi scientists and engineers were welcomed onto American soil. But the extent of these operations is only now becoming clear: In 1998, a law was passed mandating declassification of documents concerning recruitment of former Nazis. CIA AND THE NAZIS examines these files to see how far the U.S. went in recruiting its former enemy to fight its new one. "

Online Book: Interventionism: An Economic Analysis [02/15/10] Note: And, downloadable PDF of this book, by Ludwig Von Mises. Understand what the USA is, and has been, doing for decades, to other countries and itself, internally. It's the 'bible' that describes the fallout of polarity intervention in other people's business. This has been around since 1940, with the effects fully known, yet the US has gone ahead and specialized in intervention worldwide.

The Alex Jones Show [02/14/10] 16 Video clips "On today's encore presentation of the Feb 12, 2010 show, Alex talks with former New Jersey Superior Court Judge and now a political and legal analyst for Fox News Channel, Andrew Napolitano [first 2 clips] Additional guests include the chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Health Committee who has called for an inquiry into undue influence exerted by pharmaceutical companies on the World Health Organizations global H1N1 flu campaign, Wolfgang Wodarg, the drug trafficker who sold CIA cocaine in the 1980s, "Freeway" Ricky Ross, and Dr. Doug Rokke, a health physicist responsible for cleaning up depleted uranium after the Gulf War. ..." :

Twilight of the Psychopaths LINK FIXED [02/14/10] "Civilization, as we know it, is largely the creation of psychopaths. All civilizations, our own included, have been based on slavery and “warfare.” Incidentally, the latter term is a euphemism for mass murder. ...P sychopaths have played a disproportionate role in the development of civilization, because they are hard-wired to lie, kill, injure, and generally inflict great suffering on other humans without feeling any remorse. The inventor of civilization — the first tribal chieftain who successfully brainwashed an army of controlled mass murderers—was almost certainly a genetic psychopath. Since that momentous discovery, psychopaths have enjoyed a significant advantage over non-psychopaths in the struggle for power in civilizational hierarchies — especially military hierarchies....."

Halliburton "sold nuclear technology to Iran" (as late as 2005) [02/14/10] "Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. This clip shows Democratic Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) grilling Sherry Williams, V.P. and Corporate Secretary for Halliburton about the company's deplorable ethics and questionable practices. ..."

Why the Eurosceptics were right all along [02/14/10] "... Thus, as the Eurosceptics warned, a single currency leads to loss of sovereignty, which sounds like an abstract idea until you get a crisis like this. It applies even to the more economically successful countries. If the eurozone is to survive, Germany may have to keep rates lower than it might wish, risking inflation. Eventually, like Greece, it will have to accept greater EU control over public spending levels. Neither country can run a wholly independent fiscal policy within the eurozone, any more than Cardiff or London can within the sterling zone. You could argue that, with proper democratic controls, a single European treasury would be good for everybody. But the pro-Europeans never made that argument, preferring to insist that the loss of sovereignty was an illusion. ..."

The Case Against Corporate Speech: by Ralph Nader and Robert Weissman [02/13/10] "Last month, by a vote of 5 to 4, the U.S. Supreme Court gave carte blanche to the world's largest corporations to spend unlimited sums of money to support or oppose candidates for elected office. Big Business domination of Washington and state capitals will now intensify. --- The case of Citizens United portends dire consequences for the nation's constitutional premise of "we the people," not we the corporations. --- Our constitution, at its origins and through all of its amendments, makes no mention of corporate entities, only human beings and their government. --- For 120 years, it was not Congress but the Supreme Court that expanded the definition of "persons" to include for-profit corporations for the purposes of applying constitutional protections. For 30 years, the court has granted First Amendment speech protections to corporations as "artificial persons." --- --- But not until last month has the court declared that the First Amendment gives corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections. The court majority, self-styled believers in precedent and judicial restraint, overturned two major Supreme Court decisions and reversed decades of campaign-finance laws aimed at preventing corporations from having undue influence over local, state and national elections. --- --- Corporations are not humans. They do not vote. They should not be accorded a constitutional right to influence elections or public policies, especially given their enormous embedded privileges and immunities compared to real people. --- --- The Framers did not intend for the First Amendment to confer protections on businesses beyond freedom of the press. --- The robust guarantees of the First Amendment are vital for real, live human beings, to ensure their expressive and democratic participative rights are protected. --- There can be no level playing field between the giant multinational corporations and individual citizens without such differential rights. --- It is worth recalling that representative democracy is rule by the people. --- Corporations, first chartered into existence over 200 years ago by the states, were meant to be our servants, not our masters. ..."

U.S., Afghan forces launch major offensive [02/13/10] "The U.S. Marines and Afghan soldiers initiated a major offensive against a key Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, officials said. ..."

The Empire Falls Back [02/12/10] "The story of Rome from the point of view of the Britons, German, Gauls, Greeks, Persians, and Africans, is, perhaps, a foretaste of the contrarian history of the United States that is sure to be written. "The Vandals didn't vandalize - the Romans did. The Goths didn't sack Rome - the Romans did. Attila the Hun didn't go to Constantinople to destroy it, but because the Emperor's daughter wanted to marry him. And far from civilizing the societies they conquered the Romans often destroyed much of what they found." ..."

Dr. Bruce Levine on Alex Jones TV : The Psychology of Tyranny [02/12/10] 5 Video clips "Alex welcomes Bruce Levine, a clinical psychologist in Cincinnati, Ohio, to the show. Mr. Levine is the author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic and Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy. Levine provides a compelling alternative approach to treating depression that makes lasting change more likely than with symptom-based treatment through medication. Dr. Levine has been a regular contributor to AlterNet, Z Magazine, and The Huffington Post and his articles and interviews have been published in Adbusters, The Ecologist, High Times and numerous other magazines. He is an editorial advisor for the Icarus Project/Freedom Center Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs and on the editorial advisory board of the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. ..."

Totally Occupied: 700 Military Bases Spread Across Afghanistan [02/11/10] "In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces. In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities. In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation. On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country. Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces. Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns. Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year. Existing in the shadows, rarely reported on and little talked about, this base-building program is nonetheless staggering in size and scope, and heavily dependent on supplies imported from abroad, which means that it is also extraordinarily expensive. It has added significantly to the already long secret list of Pentagon property overseas and raises questions about just how long, after the planned beginning of a drawdown of American forces in 2011, the U.S. will still be garrisoning Afghanistan. Colonel Wayne Shanks, a spokesman for the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), tells TomDispatch that there are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes outlets, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors ......   “Currently we have over $3 billion worth of work going on in Afghanistan,” says Colonel Wilson, “and probably by the summer, when the dust settles from all the uplift, we’ll have about $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion worth of that [in the South].” By comparison, between 2002 and 2008, the Army Corps of Engineers spent more than $4.5 billion on construction projects, most of it base-building, in Afghanistan."

Ron Paul talks Tea Party with Maddow [02/11/10] "VIDEO [7:37]    Related: Ron Paul: ‘Neocon influence’ is infiltrating tea parties "In the face of several electoral challenges from tea party-connected candidates, Texas Republican Congressman Ron Paul cautioned in a recent interview that "neocon influence" is "infiltrating" the movement he is often credited for creating. Speaking to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Tuesday night, Paul first took up for the tea parties as a natural reaction of the people when they are unhappy with government. What they are not, he explained, are entirely adherent to his ideas. Paul suggested that the group only "sometimes" represents his views. "My message is somewhat different," he said. "The message gets somewhat diluted" with large movements of this nature. "Everybody likes to join what looks like a popular movement, then they want to come in and influence that movement," Paul continued. His core issues, such as creating transparency at the Federal Reserve, recalling overseas soldiers and ending the drug war, are "not what is generally heard from the Republican party," he said. ..." Tea Bag Movement: Harbinger of Fascism? "Anybody inclined to laugh off the current Tea Bag Movement as just a passing fancy involving a few isolated kooks had better guess again. Analyze what was said at the group’s recent convention where Sarah Palin regaled her audience along with the series of preceding rallies cheer led by Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and others and a disturbing trend surfaces. These Teabaggers hold some discomforting points in common with the Brownshirts of Germany’s pre-Third Reich period. Many from the progressive movement in Germany during that period laughed off the appearance of “a funny looking little man with a mustache” along with those “kooky guys in the Brownshirts” as one conclusion was clear to them. This strange breed of crude malcontents could not hope to prevail in a land of rich culture such as Germany. This was, after all, the nation of Goethe, Bismarck, Bach, Beethoven, Schiller. Yes, Wagner held some of those same bigoted views of Hitler and the Brownshirts, but that was seen by many as a tragic aberration of a great composer and he had a genius that these presumed misfits did not. ..."

Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Israel, a smoking gun? [02/11/10] "Dr. Hilal Khashan, a Palestinian-American scholar chairing of Department of Political Studies and Public Administration at the American University of Beirut, said that "the war is looming."

US' Expanded Weapons Stockpiling in Israel [02/11/10] "According to a January 11 report in the weekly paper Defense News, the Obama administration previously mapped out a plan that would place $400 million worth of military arsenal in Israel, but that project was exactly doubled after a meeting in December between the Israeli military's technology and logistics branch, and Rear Adm. Andy Brown, logistics director of the US Army European Command. Included in this agreement is the caveat that Israel, after approval from the US government, would be able to access the American weapon and ammunition stockpile in case of a military "emergency." The terms and definition of such an "emergency," including against whom the weaponry could be used, remain unclear. ..."

Bad weather foreseen for Afghan poppy crop [02/11/10] "Adverse weather could put a dent in this year's Afghanistan opium poppy crop, United Nations officials said Wednesday. ..."

India to test new 5000-km nuclear missile within year [02/11/10] "India aims to test a new nuclear-capable missile with a 5000-km (3,100-mile) range, a top military scientist said on Wednesday, a move that could complicate security in a volatile region. ..."

The U.S. Military: A Mindset of Barbarism, Part 1 [02/11/10] "Dr. Stjepan Mestrovic, a professor of sociology at Texas A&M University, has written three books on US misconduct in Iraq: “The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor,” “Rules of Engagement?: Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq,” and “The ‘Good Soldier’ on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq.” He has three degrees from Harvard University, including a Master’s degree in clinical psychology, and has been an expert witness in psychology and sociology at several Article 32 hearings, courts-martial, and clemency hearings involving US soldiers accused of committing crimes of war in Iraq, including the trials of prison guards involved in the Abu Ghraib scandal. Dr. Mestrovic’s books meticulously document how the US Army, as an institution, has become dysfunctional, and how illegal rules of engagement (ROE) are issued by officers and politicians at the top of the Army’s hierarchy, but only low-ranking soldiers are punished for carrying out those same rules and orders. As an example, in one of the several hearings Dr. Mestrovic has attended as an expert witness, US soldiers openly admitted they had shot a 75-year-old man who had emerged unarmed from his house, but because the soldiers were following the rule to shoot all “military aged males,” neither they nor their officers were charged for that death. Truthout recently conducted an extended two-part interview with Dr. Mestrovic: ....." Related: The U.S. Military: A Mindset of Barbarism, Part 2

War, Budgets and Blind Ambition: The Limited Minds of the American Elite by Chris Floyd [02/10/10] "The American elite's unbounded, unquestioned, indeed unconscious sense of imperial entitlement and dominance -- based ultimately on war, the threat of war and the profit from war -- is one of the defining characteristics of our age. --- --- The ending of the imperial wars and the dismantling of America's global military empire -- and its global gulag -- would save trillions of dollars in the coming years. Not only from direct military spending, but also from the vastly reduced need for "Homeland security" funding in a world where the United States was no longer invading foreign lands, killing their people, supporting their tyrants -- and inciting revenge and resistance. This would release a flood of money for any number of "new domestic initiatives," while also giving scope for deep tax cuts across the board. Working people would thrive, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable would be bettered, businesses would grow, opportunity would expand, the care and education of our children would be greatly enhanced, our infrastructure could be repaired and strengthened, our environment better cleansed and cared for. In short, people could keep more of their own money while government spending could be directed toward improving the quality of life of all the nation's citizens. -- This is no utopian vision. Many problems, much suffering would remain. But it would be a better society -- more humane, more just, more secure, more peaceful, more prosperous than it is now. Such an alternative is entirely achievable, by ordinary humans; it would require no divine miracles, no god-like heroes to bring it about. --- But such a society is precisely what our elites cannot -- or, to be more accurate, will not -- imagine. ..."

Sun Tzu and America’s Way of War [02/10/10] "America’s way of war is, actually, not so new under the sun. Centuries ago, China’s Sun Tzu would have recognized some of our ways and errors. Indeed he would be rolling over in his grave at seeing how his famous dictums for successful wars are ignored and violated by America: a trillion-dollar war in Iraq, losing our allies, creating more and more fanatical enemies willing to do suicide missions against us, borrowing from foreigners to finance our wars. In fairness, part of our failure is the simple determinant that democracies can’t run empires and most armies hate occupation duty. Our military still trains to re-fight World War II, not for unending wars of occupation and trans-national terrorism. So now we fear and isolate ourselves from most Muslims, nearly a quarter of the world’s population, and are nearly bankrupted. However, bin Laden’s campaign followed Sun Tzu’s teachings to a "T." ..."

UK: Unlawful anti-terror powers planned for use during 2012 Olympics [02/09/10] "Police are planning to use an anti-terror law deemed unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights across the country during the London Olympics, The Times has learned. Senior officers are considering using Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 at every Underground and railway station nationwide. Privacy campaigners criticised the proposal yesterday. The powers would enable police to stop and search members of the public without any suspicion that they were involved in terrorism. The Times understands that this would be the first time that the powers would have been used across such a wide area. Police said that Section 44, which must be granted by the Home Secretary for a designated area, would be used only in the event of an escalated terror threat. Officers are being trained to use behavioural profiling to spot suspicious characters during stop- and-search operations. Privacy experts said that the plan could heighten tensions between the public and police. Simon Davies, the director of Privacy International, said: “The history of stop and search in this country is abhorrent. I wouldn’t trust the police to make the right judgment. “It is well known that stop-and- search powers have created extraordinary tensions among a range of ethnic groups,” he said. “There’s no doubt that extension of the use of those powers would exacerbate those tensions.” Last month the use of the terror law was criticised by the European Court of Human Rights. It found that Section 44 violated individual freedoms guaranteeing the right to private life. ..."

America Presents Unsettling Parallels With the Disintegration of Rome [02/09/10] "erhaps because we are a young country, Americans tend not to pay much attention to the lessons of history. Well, we should start, because those lessons are brutal. Power, even great power, if not well tended, erodes over time. Nations, like corporations and people, can lose discipline and morale. Economic and political vulnerability go hand in hand. Remember, without a strong economy, a nation's international standing, standard of living, national security, and even its domestic tranquility will suffer over time. Many of us think that a superpowerful, prosperous nation like America will be a permanent fixture dominating the world scene. We are too big to fail. But you don't have to delve far into the history books to see what has happened to other once-dominant powers. Most of us have witnessed seismic political shifts in our lifetime. In 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev settled into his job as the Soviet Union's young and charismatic new leader and began acting on his mandate to reenergize the socialist empire. Seven years later that empire collapsed and disappeared from the face of the Earth. Gorbachev runs a think tank in Moscow now ...... After all, as the homily goes, if you don't learn from history, you may be doomed to repeat it. Great powers rise and fall. None has a covenant to perpetuate itself without cost. The millennium of the Roman Empire - which included five hundred years as a republic - came to an end in the fifth century after scores of years of gradual decay. We Americans often study that Roman endgame with trepidation. We ask, as Cullen Murphy put it in the title of his provocative 2007 book, are we Rome? The trouble is not that we see ourselves as an empire with global swagger. But we do see ourselves as a superpower with global responsibilities - guardians if not enforcers of a Pax Americana. And as a global power, America presents unsettling parallels with the disintegration of Rome - a decline of moral values, a loss of political civility, an overextended military, an inability to control national borders, and a growth of fiscal irresponsibility by the central government. Do these sound familiar? Finally, there is what Murphy calls the "complexity parallel": ..."

Freeze on HIV spending sparks concern in Africa [02/09/10] "A US decision to freeze spending on treatment for HIV in several African countries has prompted concern that some of the gains made against the AIDS epidemic since 2003 could be reversed. President George W. Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), launched in 2003, focused largely on treating patients in urgent need of medicine, but the new US administration's program has shifted away from emergency treatment. ..." Note: They want Africa to die, so why should they continue treating anything? Conflicts in Africa "Recent violence in the Gaza Strip, or terrorism in Mumbai results in sustained and details media coverage for days and days. And rightly so. However, by comparison, African conflicts, where usually far more people are killed and displaced, receives a lot less coverage or background analysis to help understand those conflicts. Some 88% of conflict deaths in the last two decades have occurred in Africa, for example, yet the mainstream media coverage has been nowhere near the scale of other conflicts in Europe, Asia or the Middle East. Some additional graphs and notes added on this. ..."

Justice Department seeking lawyers with ‘mental retardation’ [02/09/10] "In its ostensible attempt to create a nondiscriminatory application process, the Department of Justice is inviting candidates with "mental retardation" to pursue attorney posts. A DOJ job listing at its official Web site reveals that its Civil Rights Division is seeking 10 "experienced" trial attorneys for its Voting Section in Washington, D.C. and is encouraging "qualified applicants with targeted disabilities to apply." The targeted disabilities it mentions include "mental retardation" and "mental illness," among others such as blindness and deafness. Successful applicants are tasked with "enforcing federal statutes and executive orders that prohibit, among other things, unlawful discrimination in voting, education, employment, housing, police services, public accommodations and facilities, and federally funded and conducted programs." Eugene Volokh, a law professor at UCLA, described the posting as "pretty striking in a call for applications from experienced attorneys" but suggested it was merely "boilerplate that was designed for a wide range of federal jobs." ..."

A devastating war between Israel & Hezbollah is on the horizon [02/09/10] "While the war of words is escalating around the clock between Israel on the one side and Hezbollah and Syria on the other, analysts in the Middle East and Europe strongly believe that war is inevitable and will break out within a few months. In this scary context, senior Lebanese sources told the Saudi daily Al-Okaz that Hezbollah has announced emergency readiness in all areas of the country where it operates. Senior figures of the organization were asked to exercise greater caution in their movements amid fears they would be targeted by Israel. Hezbollah´s leaders are bragging that they are capable of defeating, humiliating and destroying Israel´s war machine. Meanwhile, the verbal sparring between Jerusalem and Damascus continued over the weekend, even if in lower tones. The official Syrian newspaper Tishrin said in an editorial that "the threats from Israel make it clear that it intends to initiate a new war whose limits are unknown." The editorial added that "death and destruction may occur if Israel responds to the logic of some of its leaders, in whose veins flows crime. Damascus is ready for any path that Israel chooses, whether it is peace or war." The editorial's author is the newspaper's editor-in-chief, who wrote that the "logic of war and threats is the dominant logic in Israel. Talk of peace is chatter void of substance that is mere media propaganda. There is no real political decision for peace in the Zionist entity, despite promises of this, on the basis of restoring rights to their rightful owners." Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem last week threatened that an Israeli attack against Syria would be total war. His Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, warned that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his family would not remain in power as a result of the next war. ..."

Falklands oil prospects stir Anglo-Argentinean tensions [02/09/10] "Argentina's anguish has sharpened with realisation it may have lost valuable natural resources in the South Atlantic as well as national pride. Argentina has claimed "Las Malvinas" since Britain occupied them in 1833, making the archipelago a source of national yearning for Argentinians. Losing the 73-day conflict in 1982 aggravated the sense of injustice. It has worsened since the islands began to thrive: fisheries licences generate millions of pounds, which could be dwarfed by oil and gas revenues. A scramble is under way off South America's Atlantic coast and the Antarctic. Argentina and Britain have extended claims over the continental shelf around the Falklands, and with Australia, China, France, New Zealand and Russia claim waters further south. President Cristina Kirchner has raised the prospect of Argentinian troops in the Antarctic to protect resources. Brazil, meanwhile, has posted troops in the Amazon and is beefing up its forces to protect oil and gas deposits 200 miles off its Atlantic coast. ..."

The Terror-Industrial Complex [02/09/10] "The conviction of the Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui in New York last week of trying to kill American military officers and FBI agents illustrates that the greatest danger to our security comes not from al-Qaida but the thousands of shadowy mercenaries, kidnappers, killers and torturers our government employs around the globe. ..."

The Israeli-US Unbreakable Relations [02/09/10] ".... Another key reason behind the failure of the US peace diplomacy in the Middle East is the US reluctance and consistent refusal to exert meaningful pressure on Israel to abide by international law, which further emboldened Israel and made the Jewish state bask undisturbed in its rejectionism and arrogance of power. ..."

Yemen and The Militarization of Strategic Waterways [02/08/10] "Socotra is at the crossroads of the strategic naval waterways of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden (See map below). It is of crucial importance to the US military. From a military standpoint, the Socotra archipelago is at a strategic location. Socotra is some 3000 km from the US naval base of Diego Garcia, which is among America's largest overseas military facilities. On January 2nd, 2010, President Saleh and General David Petraeus, Commander of the US Central Command met for high level discussions behind closed doors. ..." Related: Yemen on the Brink: Implications for U.S. Policy – Ron Paul

'Syria to back Lebanon in case of Israeli attack' [02/08/10] "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that Damascus would stand by Beirut, should Israel launch another war on Lebanon. ..."

Russia for nuke strikes against potential aggressors [02/08/10] "President Dmitry Medvedev has signed country’s new military doctrine which allows preventive nuclear strikes against potential aggressors. 'The President informed the members of Russia's Security Council yesterday that he has approved two documents - the military doctrine and the Fundamentals of the state policy on nuclear deterrence until 2020,'' presidential press secretary Natalia Timakova said. ..."

Hillary to China: Vote for Iran Sanctions, or Face Gulf Conflagration and Oil Cutoff [02/07/10] VIDEO [5:51] "US and China havent been on great terms as of late because the Americans are sending $6.3 billion worth of arms to Taiwan - the Americans are trying to provoke China into helping them impose sanctioning Iran to try to halt Tehran's nuclear ambitions. China got really upset at the arms sale and threatened sanctions against US companies supplying the arms, suspended key military-to- military contacts, and warned Obama that his planned meeting with the Dalai Lama will further damage U.S.-China relations. ..." Note: So much for the pretense of the "cunt-in-chief" as a representation of sanity.

2010 Curious Deaths of Scientists: BARC scientist commits suicide in Trombay [02/07/10] "MUMBAI: A scientist from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre reportedly committed suicide on Thursday morning by jumping from his third floor flat in Kamet building, Anushakti Nagar, in Trombay. The scientist, Amrish Bose (44), was suffering from depression for several years, the police said. He is survived by his wife and a 13-year-old son. “He has not left behind any suicide note. But inquiries with family members revealed that Mr Bose had suffered a head injury following an accident in 1986. Following this he had bouts of depression for which he was undergoing treatment. Last month he met with another accident following which his mental condition became worse,’’ a police officer stated. Note: Oops. Related: Scientist's disappearance a mystery to colleagues "A scientist who disappeared from Deep River, Ont., in mid-January showed no changes in his behaviour in the days before he vanished, say those who worked with him. ...Lachlan Cranswick, 41, who worked at the National Research Council's Canadian Neutron Beam Centre, based at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Chalk River Laboratories, has been missing since Jan. 18 from the small community 200 kilometres northwest of Ottawa. He was last seen leaving work that day. Colleague Daniel Banks, who is the strategic planning and communications officer at the centre, said he was surprised to hear about Cranswick's disappearance. "There was no indication that anything was unusual," he said. None of the two dozen people who work at the centre reported noticing anything different about Cranswick's mood in the days before his disappearance. "He seemed quite normal as far as that goes," Banks said."  Iran seeks US extraditions over scientist killing "Iranian officials have blamed both Israel and the United States for the January 12 bomb attack that killed professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi. ...Iranian officials have described the slain professor as a nuclear scientist ..... The January 12 bombing -- a rare attack in the Iranian capital -- occurred at a time of heightened tension in the country, seven months after a disputed presidential election plunged the major oil producer into turmoil." UK: Scientist dies after mountain fall "A scientist from Edinburgh has been killed while climbing on Ben Lui, near Tyndrum, it has emerged. Dr Timothy Garn, 27, a researcher in extragalactic astrophysics at the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh, fell more than 300ft near the summit. ..." Andrew Lange, noted universe researcher at Caltech, dies    "Andrew E. Lange, Goldberger Professor of Physics at Caltech and a preeminent cosmologist of his generation, has died. He was 53. Caltech President Jean Lou Chameau reported the Jan. 22 death to the institute's community with "great sadness and regret" and said it appeared Lange had taken his own life. ... Lange, who came to Caltech in 1993, was named chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy in 2008. He had recently resigned from the position, Caltech officials said. Chameau called Lange "a truly great physicist and astronomer who had made seminal discoveries in observational cosmology." "He was the best possible scientist and person," Professor Marc Kamionkowski , a 10-year department colleague, said Monday. Lange's death, he said, had left everyone shocked and confused. " Charles Schnetzler dies; was authority on planetary sciences "Charles C. Schnetzler, 79, a leading scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who analyzed moon rocks and was instrumental in efforts to use satellites to monitor changes in the Earth's environment, died Dec. 15 at his home Columbia. According to his family, he was in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease and suffered debilitating injuries in November, when he was struck by a car while walking on a street near his home at night. ... In the early 1970s, Dr. Schnetzler grew interested in studying environmental changes on Earth and recruited a cadre of NASA scientists to study the problem. He helped devise methods to interpret data gathered by NASA's Landsat satellites on variations in vegetation and other environmental factors. As a result, he became one of the first experts in the new science of remote sensing, or collecting information about Earth from space. "He was one of the scientists who started that kind of monitoring of the Earth," said Jim Garvin, NASA's chief scientist, who worked with Dr. Schnetzler for 22 years. "He was doing the research but also building the teams at NASA to make things happen ..."    Related: Closest 2009 death: Netherlands   Murdered inhabitant of Rijswijk appears to be nuclear physicist 24 Dec 2009. "The 54 year old man that was found dead on Thursday in his flat on the Mayor Elsenlane in Rijswijk ( near The Hague ) appears to be a renowned nuclear physicist. The Italian engineer Antonio Ferrigno was brutally murdered. He was in a large pool of blood and his hands were tied. A spokesperson of the Hague PD confirmed Ferrigno’s identity on monday. Lately he had received threatening phone calls, the reason for the threats is unknown."

New Russian military strategy names NATO as chief threat [02/07/10] "Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Friday signed a new version of its main military strategy document which named NATO expansion as one of the chief threats to the country's security. ..."

Is it just the calm before the storm in Israel? [02/07/10] "It's been a year since the election that brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power in Israel and, for most Israelis, it's been the best year in recent memory. There has been almost no violence or breaches of security, and the country's economy weathered the world recession remarkably well. Israelis, for the most part, feel safe and secure, and the Prime Minister's rating in public opinion surveys reflects that satisfaction: Netanyahu is retaining his hold on his centre-right supporters and is gaining support among voters in the centre and on the left. The only drop he has suffered is among voters of the far right who reject his temporary freeze on construction in some Israeli settlements on the West Bank. Now, it seems, 2010 is supposed to be even calmer. The country's annual intelligence assessment released this week spoke of "low probability of war" and little likelihood of serious clashes. But as veteran Israeli observers will tell you, when you hear such rosy forecasts, it's time to head for the shelters. "Experience in the Middle East shows that calm can turn into tension, and tension can turn into war, in an instant," wrote Aluf Benn in yesterday's Haaretz newspaper. A flare-up in sabre-rattling with Syria is the exception that proved the rule. Syrian officials warned that, if there were a war, Israeli cities would become targets, and that drew a bellicose response from Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who said that, in that event, the Assad regime would be toppled. ..."

10 Geopolitical Predictions for 2010 & Short Term Strategic Outlook [02/06/10] "A great - and still growing - divergence appeared in 2009 between public statements by leaders and their public performance. The politicized, romanticized theater of increasingly populist “democratic” leaders and media seemed to be of a different planet from activities taking place in the real world. While a large part of the global population appears still transfixed by words, there is a growing perception that great fissures already rend the global strategic architecture. This is a trend which will compound during 2010. ... There is a widespread belief that the world has “ducked the strategic bullet” of global economic collapse, but this is merely the delusionary euphoria of the severely wounded patient. Severe structural damage has occurred to the key driver of global economic stability, the United States. Most major economies of Western Europe and Asia, although in plight, have been protected in their fall by a complex web of structures and the fact that they were not, in many respects, as leveraged as the US. Britain and Japan, however, remain leveraged in their debt-to-asset ratio, to a death-defying degree ....."

Law professor: Assassinating US citizens raises ‘troubling’ issues [02/06/10] "The admission by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair that the United States intelligence community is authorized to assassinate Americans working with terrorists overseas has raised serious questions of constitutionality. "It's troubling, Keith, because it's not on the books," constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Thursday. "This is something that President Bush developed," Turley explained. "We actually saw the Bush administration kill an American citizen named Kamal Derwish in 2002 with a Predator strike. ... The Obama administration, once again, seems to be morphing into the Bush administration." According to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, the American officials who directed the strike that killed Derwish in 2002 were not aware that he was in the targeted car. In contrast, the attempt to take out al Qaeda operative Anwar al Awlaki last December with a cruise missile directly targeted the America-born cleric. "The problem is that there's a term for this," Turley went on. "It's called assassination. You're taking out someone, a US citizen, who's had no chance to prove that they're innocent. ... US citizens are entitled to trials." ..."It doesn't say you can't kill a US citizen who's engaged in a terrorist act," Turley cautioned. "But to use this term of 'involved' in an organization raises some very troubling legal and constitutional issues." Note:  Includes video from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Feb. 4, 2010.
Dalai Lama to meet Barack Obama as US relations with China worsen [02/06/10] "The sudden deterioration in US-Chinese relations is set to accelerate after the White House confirmed today that Barack Obama will meet the Dalai Lama in Washington later this month in defiance of Beijing. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, did not set a date, but the Dalai Lama's secretary has said he will be in Washington on 17 and 18 February. Beijing claims Tibet is part of China, views the Dalai Lama as a troublemaker and has lobbied firmly against the visit. Although other US presidents have met the Dalai Lama, China had hoped that Obama might adopt a different approach, given the enthusiasm with which he wooed Beijing last year. The controversial visit comes on top of a series of rows over the last few weeks in which relations between the US and China have taken a turn for the worse. Obama told US legislators on Wednesday that he will take a tougher line towards China over its huge US trade surplus. Other grievances include US plans to sell arms to Taiwan, the row with the leading search engine Google over alleged cyber attacks, and US disappointment at China's failure to support it over climate change at Copenhagen and on sanctions against Iran. ..."

Israel seeking to ease tensions with Syria [02/06/10] "Israeli officials are making efforts to ease the tension with Syria that has come about following remarks made by Israeli Foreign Minister (and ex-nightclub bouncer) Avigdor Lieberman. ..." Israeli Media: We’re Too Weak To Overthrow Regime In Syria! “Syrian President Bachar Assad must realize that if he provokes Israel his regime will collapse,” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, thrilled by the “art” of threats to the region, warned on Friday. But only hours after his “fascinating” threats, Lieberman and those surrounding him perceived that he has made a huge “mistake.” ..."   Netanyahu Tells Ministers To Keep Mum On Syria; US Urges To Show Restraint "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed Cabinet Secretary Tzvi Hauser to call all government ministers Thursday and order them to refrain from making any Syria-related remarks. The move followed heightened tensions vis-à-vis Damascus in recent days. ..."

Russia, Iran begin talks on nuclear issues [02/06/10] "The Russian and Iranian foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Manouchehr Mottaki, started talks on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Friday. ..."

Empire strikes forward: US, NATO gather largest offensive in years [02/06/10] VIDEO [3:36]

Iran, IAEA agree on nuclear fuel swap scheme [02/06/10] "Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have agreed on a scheme of nuclear fuel swap, but some details are still to be coordinated. ..."

Alex Jones TV – How The CIA Supplies, Controls, and Operates The Drug Business [02/05/10] 5 Video clips "Ricky Donnell Ross (aka Freeway Ricky Ross), the convicted drug dealer who was featured in a Gary Webb expose on CIA involvement in the drug business. ... In the follow-up to his ground-breaking documentary ‘American Drug War,’ filmmaker Kevin Booth traces the fight against Federal drug regulation in the State of California. A public majority has spoken and said yes to states rights, allowing for the use of medicinal marijuana and opening up a new front in controversial medicinal ‘dispensaries.’ While users herald the freedom of legally-licensed “weed,” powerful forces at the DEA and law enforcement haven’t given up their federal enforcement power yet. Many dispensaries have been raided, targeting their distribution of marijuana and challenging their authority to rise into legitimate business. "

The Great Global Arms Bazaar – “The military industrial complex” is thriving by Michael Werbowski [02/05/10] "We all would do well to read or re-read perhaps, Anthony Sampson’s outstanding anatomical study or investigation into the international arms trade: “The Arms Bazaar”. As it gives us some perspective on how the “defence industry” has grown to become what it is now; an unwieldy Golem, that’s out of control. Currently, “the military industrial complex” seems to be thriving even in these hard times. There are mammoth weapon sales galore underway on a global scale. For instance in Asia, the U.S is bolstering militarily co-operation with its close alley and Chinese foe, by selling a large weapons package to the island of Taiwan. A regional arms race seems to be developing. This has really riled the Chinese who have “vehemently” protested by means of all diplomatic channels available to them. The reaction to Washington’s planned military shipment to Taipei was swift and strident. “The People’s Daily” considers the U.S. move to be a sign of a” pre-emptive cold-war mentality and moral hypocrisy,” it stated. In response to the $ 6.4 billion USD deal, Beijing has cut off all “military dialogue” with Washington in the wake of the arms deal with Taiwan. China has also threatened economic reprisals. Beijing is considering sanctions against U.S defence firms involved with Taiwanese the deal such as “Boeing” corporation which has reportedly sold 12 missiles to Taiwan as part of the overall sale. The arms shipment to Taiwan totals in all, 114 patriot missiles and 60 attacks Black Hawk helicopters (1). Analysts are concerned about the growing tensions which could perhaps occur along the strait of Taiwan for instance, which separates mainland China from the “break-away” Island. At a recent meeting meeting of strategic experts in London this week, the IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies) chief specifically referred to a possible stand-off developing, between the US and Chinese navies. "Defining ways in which the two navies might acceptably operate in areas near to China would be a good subject for the military-to-military talks... that unfortunately can easily be placed in jeopardy when the countries find themselves in a political dispute, especially over Taiwan,” the institute’s director, John Chipman remarked recently (2). Hence the risk of an armed confrontation between the old (U.S) and new (rising China) superpower rises each day. Middle-East, Persian Gulf: More military tinder is stacked for the pyre or fire to come. Shifting to the Middle East, there are resurging tensions with Iran. They are reaching potentially explosive levels. The U.N. plans further and more stringent sanctions against Tehran, as part of the on-going efforts by the West to curb Iranian nuclear ambitions. In the view of NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, “If these sanctions prove incapable of getting Iran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program, the chances for a U.S. or Israeli military strike against Iran will grow very high before the end of this year. Here in the Persian Gulf, apprehension is off the charts.” His words of warning appear to be far from empty rhetoric. They may be a veiled threat of what may happen next... ..."

Russia finally ratifies Strasbourg Court reform [02/05/10] "Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday signed a law on the ratification of Protocol 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights, opening the way for European Court of Human Rights reforms. ..."

Deeper Politics: For Profit Government, Intelligence, Foreign Policy, and War [02/05/10] "Last week we heard Peter Dale Scott, former Canadian diplomat and University of California at Berkeley Professor, and author of Drugs, Oil, and War (2005), The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (2007), The War Conspiracy: JFK, 9/11 and the Deep Politics of War (2008), talk with Paul Jay of The Real News in the The Deep State, A Powerless President, The CIA, Afghanistan, And Heroin, the first and second parts of a multipart series about the corrupted mindset in Washington that chooses who becomes president, and about the war machine that co-opted Obama into his escalation of a drug-corrupted war in Afghanistan. Scott also talked about an "iceberg" analogy of US politics in which which "the visible part, the public politics, or, if you like, what goes on in the public state, is only a small percentage of the totality of what's going on, a lot of this is not subject to the restraints of the Constitution at all" Here in part 3 of the series Scott again talks with Jay, this time about something much more sinister that permeates American political reality penetrating and corrupting much deeper than the normal military-industrial complex we've read about in the past - about the fact that the way to succeed in Washington has become to support the next use of the war machine to attack its next chosen target - about privatized intelligence services creating for profit wars, representing a private business that has become a form of permanent government - and concludes that the only way he can see out of the mire is that "We have to pull back from the two-party system and start a new kind of politics. We have to essentially build a new kind of civil society in America. And this is not easy, and I'm not confident that it will happen. The most likely thing to happen is that America will just go into decline from overextension the way that Britain went into decline from overextension before it" ... ..."
Syria: President Assad: Israel Pushing Region Towards War [02/05/10] "Speaking during a business conference at Bar-Ilan University on Thursday, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, “Whoever thinks (Israeli) territorial concessions will separate Syria from the axis of evil is mistaken. Syria must be made to understand that it has to relinquish its demand (that Israel cede) the Golan Heights.” ..."

Dubai: We Will Go After Netanyahu If Mossad Killed Member Of Hamas [02/05/10] "“Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, will be the first to be wanted for justice as he would have been the one who signed the decision to assassinate Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai,” Halfan reportedly said. “We will issue an arrest warrant against him,” he added. ..."

Israel threatens force over Iran nuclear standoff [02/05/10] "Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon raised on Wednesday the possibility of using force to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons, something Tehran vehemently denies it is seeking. AFP February 4, 2010 “Iran’s plan will probably be stopped by a regime change or, if there is no other choice, by a recourse to force ..."

Russia may send drug police to Afghanistan [02/05/10] "Russia offered on Thursday to send police to help fight drug production and smuggling in Afghanistan, the head of the Federal Drug Control Service (FDCS) said. ..."

'Russia guarantees delivery of S-300 system to Iran' [02/05/10] "Iran's ambassador to Russia says Moscow has guaranteed that it will deliver the S-300 missile defense system to Iran. ..."   Related: Technical issues delay S-300 deliveries to Iran - ambassador "A contract on the delivery of advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran has been stagnated by technical reasons, the Iranian ambassador to Russia said on Thursday. ..." Note: This delay is deliberate ... at whose beckon?

Afghanistan 'a goldmine' [02/04/10] "Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, is sitting on mineral and petroleum reserves worth an estimated US$1 trillion ($1.43 trillion), President Hamid Karzai says. ..." Note: The opium production's not too bad, either ....

U.S. to send ambassador to Syria after five-year absence [02/04/10] "The United States has said it will name an ambassador to Damascus after a five-year absence, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said on Wednesday. ..."

A Brief History of US Interventions in the Middle East 1949-2002 [02/04/10] Note: Interesting.

Commentary: Yoda Bets on Strategic Deception to Save the Empire Webster G. Tarpley [02/04/10] "Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon’s legendary Yoda, is at it again. The resident futurologist and gray eminence of the US Department of Defense is now 89 years old and has been running Office of Net Assessment for 37 years, since he founded it in 1973. ..."

U.S. to attack Afghan Taliban: 'We are going to alter the ecosystem considerably' [02/04/10] ""We are going to gain control," Col. George "Slam" Amland told reporters. "We are going to alter the ecosystem considerably." ..." Note:  Yep, the Pentagon and the military industrial complex of the United States, together with Israel, are collapsing the entire civilization, and the environment with it, yet the Pentagon and it's activities are EXEMPT from all international laws. There is no stopping these psychopathic factions ....

Budgets, War and Blind Ambition: The Limited Minds of the American Elite [02/03/10] "The American elite's unbounded, unquestioned, indeed unconscious sense of imperial entitlement and dominance -- based ultimately on war, the threat of war and the profit from war -- is one of the defining characteristics of our age. And if you would like to see a glaring example of this attitude in action, look no further than the front page of Tuesday's New York Times, where one David Sanger gives us his penetrating "news analysis" of the Administration's just-announced $3.8 trillion budget. Sanger focuses on the huge, continuing deficits that the budget forecasts over the next decade. Completely ignoring the plain truth that his own expert source tell him later in the story -- that "forecasts 10 years out have no credibility" -- Sanger boldly plunges forward to tell us just what it all means. You will not be surprised to hear that the upshot of these big deficits is that neither Obama nor his successors will be able to spend any money on "new domestic initiatives" for years to come. But let's let Sanger, savant and seer, tell it in his own words: ..."
Intelligence Officials Warn "Attempted Al Qaeda Attack Months Away" [02/03/10] "Al Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday. ... Panetta also warned of the danger of extremists acting alone: "It's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country," he said." Note: These people are not intelligent. They are thugs in a scam. This official should have been arrested on the spot. Check out the astrological stuff in September 2010 .... Leon Panetta LIES .... it's the return of the Mossad .... and the 'lone wolf' metaphor suggests an assassination or something else a single person could be blamed for in another false flag mind control operation ....

Ahmadinejad: Iran ready to send uranium abroad as UN wants [02/03/10] "In policy about-face, Iranian president rejects critics, saying that if West doesn't fulfill deal, Iran will resume uranium enrichment on its own. "If we allow them to take it, there is no problem. We sign a contract to give 3.5 percent enriched uranium and receive 20 percent enriched one after four or five months," Ahmadinejad said. ..."

Karzai's Brother Tied To Corrupt Afghan Land Deals : NPR [02/03/10] "In one instance, he says, his team was told a high-ranking official took $52 million to Dubai in one trip. Land 'Given Away' The money leaving Afghanistan, says Meyer and others, is increasingly coming from land grabs. Government officials misuse the law to take control of public and even private land for development — and developers and corrupt officials split the profits, Meyer says. The Taliban is using the land-grab issue as a recruiting tool. The land grabs started not long after Karzai came to power six years ago, according to Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Some Kabul residents were evicted from their property. And Nadery says the land was made available for a fraction of the cost to the president's political allies. "It was pretty much given away," Nadery says. The government set up a commission to investigate, and recommendations were made to compensate those who lost property, says Nadery. "None of those recommendations of the commission of inquiry was met. The president failed to implement them properly. Those powerful people still [have] those lands," he says. Complaints to the Human Rights Commission about land grabs have doubled in the past two years. Last year, there were more than 500 complaints from across the country. ..."

US ups pressure but China won't buckle on Iran issue [02/03/10] "The United States is strongly urging China to respond to its call to impose new sanctions on Iran, but Beijing has not succumbed to the pressure to turn against Tehran. ..." Note:  China has no reason to comply.

Alyona Minkovski Show: US gives Pakistan ultimatum [02/03/10] VIDEO [27:05] "First Alyona talks to Christina Larson from Foreign Policy Magazine about mccrystal and Pakistan. Next we take a look at whats happening now with Battle in Seattle organizer Ananda Tan. Then we catch up with the Slutsky brothers about a recent DARPA experiment. Also, we look at what British banks are doing to curb inappropriate bonuses, and how a hard core rapper ended up on the Vaticans Myspace playlist. ..."

Obama's Base Pact With Columbia Accelerates 'Dangerous Trend' in Latin America [02/03/10] "The Obama administration’s pact to use seven Colombian military bases accelerates “a dangerous trend in U.S. hemispheric policy,” an article in The Nation magazine warns. The White House claims the deal merely formalizes existing military cooperation but the Pentagon’s 2009 budget request said it needed funds to improve one of the bases in order to conduct “full spectrum operations throughout South America” and to “expand expeditionary warfare capability.” “With a hodgepodge of treaties and projects, such as the International Law Enforcement Academy and the Merida Initiative, Obama is continuing the policies of his predecessors, spending millions to integrate the region’s military, policy, intelligence and even, through Patriot Act-like legislation, judicial systems,” writes historian Greg Grandin, a New York University professor. Although much of Latin America is in the vanguard of the “anti-corporate and anti-militarist global democracy movement,” Grandin writes, the Obama administration is “disappointing potential regional allies by continuing to promote a volatile mix of militarism and free-trade orthodoxy in a corridor running from Mexico to Colombia.” Grandin’s article in The Nation’s February 8th issue is titled, “Muscling Latin America.” The fountainhead of this effort is Plan Colombia, a multibillion-dollar U.S. aid package that over the past decade “has failed to stem the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States,” Grandin says, noting that more Andean coca was synthesized into cocaine in 2008 than in 1998. Underlying the anti-drug fight, however, is a counterinsurgency struggle for control of “ungoverned spaces” via a “clear, hold and build” sequence urged by the U.S. military to weaken Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces(FARC). The Bush White House condoned the right-wing paramilitaries who, along with their narcotraficante allies “now control about 10 million acres, roughly half of the country’s most fertile land,” Grandin reports. They also spread terror in the countryside and are responsible for many killings and for driving peasants from their land. ...“The country’s sprawling intelligence apparatus is infiltrated by this death squad/narco combine, as is its judiciary and Congress, where more than forty deputies from the governing party are under investigation for ties to (the right-wing) AUC (United Self Defense Forces). .... “Unable or unwilling to make concessions on these and other issues important to Latin America—normalizing relations with Cuba, for instance, or advancing immigration reform—the White House is adopting an increasingly antagonistic posture,” Grandin explains. He notes that after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Brazil, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Latin Americans to “think twice” about “the consequences” of engagement with Iran. An Argentine diplomat responded, “The Obama administration would never talk to European countries that way.”" Note:  Map of Columbia

Calderon Says Mexico Violence Stoked by U.S. Weapons [02/03/10] ""Mexican President Felipe Calderon said drug violence in his country reflects demand for narcotics in the neighboring U.S. and easy access to weapons. ... More than 90 percent of guns used in violent crimes in Mexico are brought in illegally from the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives." ..."

Analysis: the worsening relationship between America and China [02/03/10] "A year ago, American hopes were high for a friendly relationship with China. But the White House seems unwisely to have raised expectations – the Chinese have been consistent in their unwillingness to change positions on key issues. ..."   Related: Inside Story - US - China relations VIDEO [24:00] "Tact and diplomacy, a sign of mutual respect, and cautious optimism between an established superpower, and an emerging giant. They're two of the world's biggest economies and the world's two biggest polluters... Is China hoping to grow to match the United States' economic and military might? And can Washington succeed in gaining its biggest creditor, as an ally. ..."

US launches largest Asian war games in Thailand [02/02/10] "The US military began its largest war games in the Pacific region Monday -- an annual training exercise with troops from Thailand, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore, now joined by South Korea. At the opening ceremony in the eastern Thai province of Rayong, US Ambassador Eric G. John said that the "Cobra Gold" exercise, now in its 29th year, had become a "multinational showcase event". "The US continues to view this exercise, which is our premier training event in Thailand, as an important symbol of US military commitment to maintaining peace and security in Asia," he told the audience. John welcomed South Korea's participation in the event, which runs until February 11 and will see soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen from the six countries taking part in operations across Thailand. ..."
Archaeology in Jerusalem: Digging Up Trouble [02/02/10] "But many experts find Elad's archaeological claims dubious. Israel Finklestein, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv University says that while there may be ruins on the Elad site dating back to the 9th century B.C., "there's not a single piece of evidence about David's palace. These people are mixing faith with science." Yoni Mizrahi, an independent archaeologist formerly with the IAA, concurs: "You'd think from Elad's guides that they'd excavated a sign saying WELCOME TO DAVID'S PALACE. Their attitude seems to be that if you believe in the Bible, you don't need proof." Raphael Greenberg, lecturer at Tel Aviv University, says Elad ignores key archaeological practices. "You're supposed to dig for six weeks and then report on what you find. ..." Note:  Even the Nazis went around digging, trying to come up with historical evidence to justify their concepts and practices.

Out of slump-swamp: China a global economy 'prime mover'? [02/02/10] VIDEO [5:34] "Asian leaders say it's their part of the globe that will lead the world out of recession. Twenty one nations are participating in this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit. As part of that Chinese leader Hu Jintao has put forward a four-point proposal to boost economic growth and revive the world economy. ..."

The Deep State, A Powerless President, The CIA, Afghanistan, And Heroin [02/01/10] VIDEO [5:00] "This is part one of an interview in which Scott talks with Paul Jay of The Real News Network about the corrupted mindset in Washington that chooses who becomes president, and about the war machine that co-opted Obama into his escalation of a drug-corrupted war and is not just a bureaucratic cabal inside Washington, but rather is solidly grounded in and supported by a wide coalition of forces in society, and about the need for a new kind of American foreign policy. ... I think I have talked about the deep state. I prefer now just to talk about deep politics, that there are things which we just don't face in our society, things we're not willing to talk about. With respect to Afghanistan, one of the things that we don't want to face and talk about is the presence of drug trafficking in the plans of the CIA for controlling remote areas of this world. And when you have a number of facts which are not being talked about, our politics becomes more and more like an iceberg, in which the visible part, the public politics, or, if you like, what goes on in the public state, is only a small percentage of the totality of what's going on, a lot of this is not subject to the restraints of the Constitution at all. And that's the part that I call deep politics. The phrase "deep state" is a bit dangerous, 'cause it might make people think that there's a secret Pentagon and a secret White House, it's nothing like that. It's more this matter of the mindset that I'm talking about ..... You know, when Bush first went in in 2001, they had a list of the main refineries, and they were never touched, because America's coalition for developing local support in Afghanistan was made up very largely of warlords who were involved in the drug traffic. Our principal ally was going to be [Ahmad Shah] Massoud, and there was a big debate in Washington, before we went into Afghanistan, whether to make him an ally or not, because they knew he was involved in the drug traffic. Well, he was in fact assassinated, just a day or two before 9/11. But the Northern Alliance, which was the only faction in Afghanistan in that year that was growing poppy, they were our allies. And if you look at almost any newspaper story about drugs in Afghanistan, it's going to be talking about the Taliban. But the Taliban are getting at most about a tenth of the revenues that are being raised by opium and heroin in Afghanistan, and the vast majority of it is going to the big warlords who essentially make up, to this day, the coalition that are supporting [Hamid] Karzai in Kabul. " Note:  Full Transcript
CIA chief holds secret talks with Egypt, Israel [02/01/10] "The Director of the CIA, Leon Panetta, has held secret talks with Egyptian and Israeli officials over expanded US intervention in Yemen. Panetta met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Defense Minister Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and intelligence minister, Gen. Omar Suleiman to ask them to dispatch forces to Yemen to help the US troops. ..." Note: You can bet that something wicked this way comes .... Related: Yemen clashes continue, ceasefire offer rejected "Yemen rejected a ceasefire offer from Shi'ite rebels on Sunday and said fighting was continuing, as neighbouring Saudi Arabia accused the insurgents of mounting sniper attacks inside its territory. The conflict with the northern rebels, who complain of social, religious and economic discrimination in the southern Arabian state, has rumbled on since 2004, but intensified last year and drew in oil-rich Saudi Arabia. ..." Yemen offensive rages despite Houthi peace offer   "Yemen said Sunday it killed at least two dozen Houthis after the fighters launched a fourth attempt to make peace with the government. ..." Note: See the Yemen page link on the Special Articles page for related stories.

China Threatens Sanctions Over U.S. Arms Sale to Taiwan [02/01/10] "Angered by a $6 billion U.S. arms sale to Taiwan, Beijing puts security exchanges with U.S. on hold and threatens sanctions against U.S. firms selling to Taipei. ..."

January 2010

US and UK refuse discussion of Afghanistan’s opium problem during conference [01/31/10] "Like every other Afghanistan conference, this latest held January 28 in London failed to address the country’s opium problem. More than 70 countries and international organizations met in London and declared the goals of creating “a more stable and secure Afghanistan,” transferring power to the Afghan government, and reintegrating “those who renounce violence, cut links to terrorism and agree to work within the democratic process” into Afghan society. While failing to touch upon one of the very most central issues affecting all the others- the opium production and the corruption that surrounds it. The United States and Great Britain do not like to discuss what for them is a delicate issue. Russia has tried for years to convince them to launch anti-drug projects in Afghanistan and surrounding regions, as the Central Asian countries’ borders with Afghanistan are completely unprotected. However, these pleas have fallen on deaf ears- both the United States and Great Britain refuse to even discuss the issue, whatever the importance might be to the Russians. Or anyone else either. Even a cursory analysis of the issue will reveal why. The United States would prefer the subject not be brought up at all, especially at an international conference where many embarrassing facts would come to light. The evidence would quickly turn into an avalanche of data drawing all to the inevitable conclusion that opium production- and the profits gained from it- is actually controlled by the occupiers themselves. That opium production soared in Afghanistan after the U.S. led invasion in 2001 is a fact that cannot be ignored. However, an analysis of who actually profits from this multi-billion business would prove even more embarrassing. ..."

Beijing sanctions US defense firms, freezes arms control talks [01/31/10] "China said Saturday it was suspending military exchanges and security talks with Washington and would impose sanctions on US firms involved in a 6.4 billion-dollar deal to sell arms to Taiwan. A statement from the foreign ministry a day after Washington approved the sale said Beijing would also halt high level talks on arms control and non-proliferation. "Cooperation between China and the US on key international and regional issues will also inevitably be affected," the ministry said. "China will also implement relevant sanctions on US companies involved in the arms sales to Taiwan," it added. The measures were announced a day after Washington approved the sale of an arms package that includes Patriot missiles, Black Hawk helicopters, and communications equipment for Taiwan's F-16 fleet. ... The last US arms package for Taiwan, announced under previous president George W. Bush in October 2008, also led China to cut off military relations with the United States temporarily. But this time the sanctions went further. Defence ministry spokesman Huang Xueping said the measures reflected the "severe harm" the weapons deal presented. "It runs counter to the principles of the joint statement issued during US President Barack Obama's visit to China in November," Huang told the official Xinhua news agency. China considers Taiwan, where nationalists fled in 1949 after losing the mainland's civil war, a territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary. It had warned Washington repeatedly against the arms sales .... Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou, on a flight home from a state visit to Central America, said the sales would help the island further develop ties with China. "It will let Taiwan feel more confident and secure so we can have more interactions with China," Ma was quoted by Taiwan's Central News Agency as saying. Taiwan's defense ministry was also upbeat, saying: "The defense ministry welcomes and thanks the US decision.... This would enable Taiwan to be more confident in seeking reconciliation with China and help peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait." "The various defensive weapons provided by the US will also facilitate the transformation and modernization of our national defense," the Taiwanese ministry said. In Beijing, however, the deal's approval set in motion a flurry of angry activity."   Related: China suspends military contacts with U.S. over Taiwan arms

Mossad orchestrated Christmas Day bomb plot [01/30/10] "The Nigerian terrorist suspect accused of attempting to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day had been arranged by the Israeli-owned 'International Consultants on Targeted Security' to perform a “walk around” without a passport in Amsterdam. Despite tighter screening processes since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 experienced no delays in takeoff. According to the Mathaba News Agency “It is evident that clearing the terrorist with higher-ups took a matter of a minute or so and the Indian man, who had arranged the boarding, obviously had a high-level security pass. Then, during the flight, onlookers noted that another passenger spent a great deal of time filming the 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with his camcorder. Even stranger, once the suspect tried to ignite his “crotch bomb,” throughout the incident, the man continued filming the terrorist, calmly and without interruption. Next, after the plane landed, another Indian man was led away in handcuffs after the bomb-sniffing dogs detected explosives in his luggage. Officials, however, have refused to release the Schiphol CCTV airport footage from Amsterdam, the air-bound “video passenger” film, or the identity of the man arrested in Detroit. The Indian link doesn't seem surprising since Israel and India are very close business partners, especially via their military contracts. Also, the Indian intelligence agency works hand-in-hand with Israel. Abdulmutallab's home country, Nigeria, is also clandestinely controlled by the Israeli army and Mossad. Mossad's reach extends even further, directly into Yemen. On Oct. 7, 2008, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said that security forces had arrested a group of militants linked to the Israeli intelligence agency..... (continued)"

Arab time capsule: Once we were the leaders of Islamic civilization   "It is highly probable that but for the Arabs, modern European civilization would never have arisen at all; it is absolutely certain that but for them, it would not have assumed the character that has enabled it to transcend all previous phases of evolution. For although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic culture is not traceable, nowhere is it so clear as in the natural sciences." ..." Related: Documentary Films: An Islamic History of Europe [01/30/10] VIDEO [90:00] "In this 90-minute documentary, Rageh Omaar uncovers the hidden story of Europe's Islamic past and looks back to a golden age when European civilization was enriched by Islamic learning. ..." | When the Moors Ruled in Europe VIDEO [102:00] "Join British historian Bettany Hughes as she examines a long-buried chapter of European history–the rise and fall of Islamic culture in what is now Spain and Portugal. ..."

Corporation Runs For Congress [01/30/10] VIDEO [1:14] The Supreme Court has decreed that corporations are persons and money is speech, so it was only a matter of time before a company decided to exercise its Constitutional right to run for Congress. "Until now, corporations only influenced politics with high-paid lobbyists and backroom deals. But today, thanks to an enlightened supreme court, corporations now have all the rights the founding fathers meant for us. That's why Murray Hill Incorporated is taking democracy's next step-- running for Congress. ... The progressive PR firm Murray Hill Inc. has announced that it plans to satirically run for Congress in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th congressional district to protest the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision. A press release on its website says that the company wants to “eliminate the middle man” and run for Congress directly, rather than influencing it with corporate dollars:" Related: Corporation Runs For Maryland Congressional Seat To Protest SCOTUS Campaign Finance Decision

Brezezinski's Folly: Obama Makes Clear that Missile Shield is About Russia, not Iran [01/30/10] "The missiles will be within 35 miles of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which makes clear that this is geographically about dealing with a perceived Russian threat to Eastern Europe, rather than an Iranian threat to the West. This is not about Iran, this is about Russia, and the Cold War lives on. ..." Related: Pentagon Confronts Russia In The Baltic Sea "Persistent U.S. and NATO military moves are threatening to turn the Baltic Sea region into a powder keg that another hostile encounter between Western and Russian military aircraft could ignite at any time. As to government officials and the news media in Russia, a year is a sufficiently long period of time to awaken from the illusion of an imaginative rest button that will reverse a decade of NATO penetration of the Baltic Sea and the consolidation of military infrastructure there aimed squarely - and exclusively - at their own nation. ..."

Commentary: They Don't Own Shovels, Crowbars Or Even Gloves By J. Speer-Williams [01/30/10] "The ever exploding twin towers of US debt and trade deficits are to be expected from a country that's engaged in two foreign invasions, maintains over 170 military bases overseas, gives trillions of dollars to foreign bankers, yet produces nothing anyone in the world wants or can use. With corruption, graft, fraud, deception, ignorance, and mismanagement, political regime after political regime has finally collapsed the US economy, and our middle-class along with it, all by the careful design of the International Monetary/Banking Cartel. Soon, we'll be hearing of the glories of "Recapitalization" from the chattering-class of Cartel mouth-pieces, those who perform on television as talking-heads, that pretend to analyze the day's news. Long story cut short, Recapitalization is being conducted by those who destroyed our economy, the International Monetary/Banking Cartel, by buying up our nation's natural resources, our water, and our infrastructure, with about 10 cents on a very inflated dollar. We are giving the Cartel the very rope with which to hang us from a tree on property we used to own. Yes, now that the Cartel has bankrupted America, with the help of their many stooges in government, their current governmental underlings are selling off America to the very same Cartel that has bankrupted us all. This Cartel stratagem is obvious and easy to see, as it has been played out in so many 3rd world countries, like Haiti. The Cartel ensures that national debts become so large, that people in these impoverished countries don't even own shovels, or crowbars, or even gloves with which to dig each other out of rubble caused by earthquakes. Wide spread individual poverty, begins at a national level, when a government goes into such debt to the international bankers that they have no resources to put into their infrastructure of factories, mills, highways, water treatment plants, railroads, harbors, bridges, and anything else that makes national production possible; and these infrastructure facilities fall into disuse and disrepair; then jobs disappear and citizens face poverty, the exact deterioration of our economy that has been going on in America for, at least, the past half century .. ..."

Blackwater, US Military Working For Taliban Drug Lords [01/29/10] "The following article is by Gordon Duff, a Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a UN Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East. ..."

Northwest flight terror attack staged [01/29/10] "Accounts from passengers of the Flight 253, aboard which Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to detonate explosives, suggest that the attack was staged. ... According to American Free Press, the security firm in charge of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport is the Israeli-owned International Consultants on Targeted Security (ICTS) — the same security firm at the airports where the 9/11 terrorists hijacked the three planes. Despite tight security screening procedures performed after the 9/11 attacks, passengers who boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 said they found security at Amsterdam's airport to be surprisingly lax. Richelle Keepman, who was one of the passengers onboard Flight 253, told CNN that security did not have them remove their shoes as they walked through the scanners and metal detectors. Keepman also said that her mother was allowed to take a large bottle of water onboard the plane. Another passenger onboard flight 253, Detroit attorney Kurt Haskell, told CNN that he saw a polished Indian man escort Abdulmutallab to the ticket agent, and tried to convince the agent to allow Abdulmutallab board the plane without a passport..... "   Related: Federal agents now looking for crotchbomber's helper they denied existed   "Federal agents also tell ABCNews.com they are attempting to identify a man who passengers said helped Abdulmutallab change planes for Detroit when he landed in Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria. Authorities had initially discounted the passenger accounts, but the agents say there is a growing belief the man have played a role to make sure Abdulmutallab "did not get cold feet." ..." Note:  “Discounted”? The feds denied and persecuted the heroic passenger Kurt Haskell for telling the truth.

The Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons As a Means of Mass Genocide and Depopulation [01/29/10] "... The military use of DU violates current international humanitarian law, including the principle that there is no unlimited right to choose the means and methods of warfare (Art. 22 Hague Convention VI (HCIV); Art. 35 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention (GP1); the ban on causing unnecessary suffering and superfluous injury (Art. 23 §le HCIV; Art. 35 §2 GP1), indiscriminate warfare (Art. 51 §4c and 5b GPI) as well as the use of poison or poisoned weapons). The deployment and use of DU violate the principles of international environmental and human rights protection. They contradict the right to life established by the Resolution 1996/16 of the UN Subcommittee on Human Rights ..." Note: Sequential slime.

‘Office of Strategic Deception’ [01/28/10] "Deception is a common war-time tactic nations use to gain a leg up on their enemies, but as Wired notes, the Pentagon apparently believes the United States must begin engaging in strategic tricks even before it wages war against another country. "Deception cannot succeed in wartime without developing theory and doctrine in peacetime," the DSB report reads. "In order to mitigate or impart surprise, the United States should [initiate] deception planning and action prior to the need for military operations." "By Deception Thou Shalt Do War" Now, where have I heard that before? ..." Note: The Mossad.

Foreign Corporations Begin Lobbying For Right To Spend Money In American Elections [01/28/10] "Last week, the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision invalidated a sixty-three year-old ban on corporate money in federal elections. The ruling gives corporations essentially the same rights as individuals in their ability to spend freely on political advertising, even if those advertisements explicitly advocate the election or defeat of a federal candidate. One consequence of this decision is that foreign corporations with U.S.-subsidiaries are likely to be able to now spend unlimited amounts on American elections. Congressional Democrats, led by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), are drafting legislation to curb the influence of foreign corporations and foreign governments following the decision. However, the National Journal reported today that corporate lobbyists representing foreign corporations are already organizing to defeat such a proposal. The Organization for International Investment, a trade group representing foreign banks, oil companies, and other foreign corporations operating in the United States, “lashed out” at Van Hollen’s proposals. ..."

Glenn Greenwald: The Sanctity of Military Spending [01/28/10] "The clear fact is that, no matter how severe are our budgetary constraints, military spending and all so-called "security-related programs" are off-limits for any freezes, let alone decreases. Moreover, the modest spending freeze to be announced by Obama tomorrow is just the start; the Washington consensus has solidified and is clearly gearing up for major cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, with the dirty work to be done by an independent "deficit commission." It's time for "everyone" to sacrifice and suffer some more -- as long as "everyone" excludes our vast military industry, the permanent power factions inside the Pentagon and intelligence community, our Surveillance and National Security State, and the imperial policies of perpetual war which feed them while further draining the lifeblood out of the country. ..."

Russia discovers massive East Siberian oil field [01/28/10] "Russia has discovered a new large oil deposit with estimated reserves of over 150 million metric tons (1.1 billion barrels) in East Siberia ..." Note: When would they ever drop 'OIL' and use other sources of energy ... never ... Hey, charge them a huge 'carbon tax' ... force other developments ... right.

Obama's War for Oil in Colombia [01/28/10] "As for the extra-judicial killings by the Colombian military, these were carried out as part of the “false positive” scandal – a controversy involving the military murdering civilians and then dressing them up to look like guerillas in order to increase their body count numbers, thereby guaranteeing further U.S. aid ..."

Analysis: Bases, Missiles, Wars: U.S. Consolidates Global Military Network [01/27/10] "From invading and establishing military bases in the Middle East and Central and South Asia to operating a satellite surveillance base in Australia and taking charge of seven military installations in South America. In the vacuum left in much of the world by the demise of the Cold War and the former bipolar world, the U.S. rushed in to insert its military in various parts of the world that had been off limits to it before. And this while Washington cannot even credibly pretend that it is threatened by any other nation on earth. ..."

Anthony Sutton's Research on Blacked-Out History [01/27/10] VIDEO [39:53]   Note: One of many parts. Good research by Sutton.

Analysis: The war on terrorism and the countdown to the 2010 Olympics [01/26/10] "Whether or not you buy into the whole war on terrorism, it is being used to launch wars of aggression and further expand the American empire. It is also very much intertwined with the whole process of deep North American integration and plans for a continental security perimeter. ... The Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics will be the largest security operation in Canadian history. It will include more than 15,000 Canadian Forces, private security personnel, along with the RCMP and other police agencies. The U.S. will also provide security and support for the Games. With the Olympics fast approaching, the fear of terrorism is back in the public’s psyche. Although there has been no specific threats to the Games, more than anything, it is the danger of terrorism which is used to justify the huge security operation. This is further advancing the militarization of North America and U.S.-Canada military and security integration. The Olympics will take bi-national security cooperation to a whole new level. Unmanned drones are patrolling the U.S.-Canada border as part of the war on terrorism and to curb smuggling, along with drug trafficking. It is unclear if they will be used for surveillance during the Games, but U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman, Juan Munoz-Torres has stated that, “If the RCMP or Canadian government believes they can make use of the aircraft for support during the Olympics, we will be more than willing to provide it.” In Afghanistan, Pakistan and other parts of the world, armed American drones continue to carry out strikes against suspected terrorists and insurgents. It is interesting that many of the weapons used in the war on terrorism overseas are later deployed for domestic purposes. The use of unmanned drones on the northern border will only add to the further militarization of North America ...." Note:  A dog and pony show supreme.

The Silence and the Shield: Depraved Indifference to the Atrocities of Power [01/26/10] "Scott Horton draws tellingly on Auden and Homer in this follow-up to his remarkable piece, "The Guantanamo 'Suicides'," the story of three captives – all of them innocent men, cleared for later release – who were almost certainly murdered in a secret site in the American concentration camp in 2006, apparently for protesting prison conditions. (We examined Horton's story here.) The men were evidently killed during "strenuous interrogation" -- i.e., they had rags stuffed down their throat while being beaten. When they died, a ludicrous story of a mutual suicide pact -- under impossible physical conditions -- was concocted by American authorities, complete with outright lies about the men being "hardcore" terrorists who killed themselves as an act of "asymmetrical warfare." The cover-up of these killings goes up to the highest levels of the U.S. government – and it continues most forcefully to this day under the Obama Administration. It is a sickening -- but most instructive -- story. ..."

Focus on Haiti: Washington's Militarized Takeover [01/26/10] "Haiti is no stranger to adversity and anguish - over 500 years of severe oppression, slavery, despotism, colonization, reparations, embargoes, sanctions, deep poverty, starvation, unrepayable debt, and natural calamities from destructive hurricanes to a dozen magnitude 7.0 or greater Caribbean region earthquakes in the past 500 years. The last major one was in 1946 at 8.1 in the adjacent Dominican Republic, also striking Haiti. Earlier catastrophic ones were in 1751 and 1770, both devastating Port-au-Prince, and the 1842 one destroying Cap-Haitien in the north. ..."

Analysis: Outsourcing War: The Rise of Private Military Contractors (PMCs) by Stephen Lendman [01/25/10] ".... In an August 11, 2009 Global Research article titled, "The Real Grand Chessboard and the Profiteers of War," Peter Dale Scott called Private Military Contractors (PMCs) businesses "authorized to commit violence in the name of their employers....predatory bandits (transformed into) uncontrollable subordinates....representing....public power in....remote places." True enough. Those performing security functions are paramilitaries, hired guns, unprincipled, in it for the money, and might easily switch sides if offered more. Though technically accountable under international and domestic laws where they're assigned, they, in fact, are unregulated, unchecked, free from criminal or civil accountability, and are licensed to kill and get away with it. Political and institutional expediency affords them immunity and impunity to pretty much do as they please and be handsomely paid for it. So wherever they're deployed, they're menacing and feared with good reason even though many of their member firms belong to associations like the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) and the British Association of Private and Security Companies (BAPSC). Their conduct codes are mere voluntary guidelines that at worst subject violators to expulsion. ..."

Alan Grayson: "We Can’t Let Blackwater Take Over The Government" [01/25/10] " "The Supreme Court’s recent decision to open the floodgates and allow corporate funds to be used in federal elections will further strengthen the influence of the military-industrial complex. We talked to U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson (FL-08) about his efforts to push back against the influence of war contractors and other corporations in our elections. And "High-Priced Private War Contractors Driving Up Cost of Afghanistan War" Brave New Foundation talked today with U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson about the huge increase in the number of war industry contractors in Afghanistan during the first year of the Obama presidency. Grayson explained that the high price of war contractors drives up the cost of the Afghanistan war. He’s introduced legislation to de-fund private firms who behave as Blackwater/Xe has in Afghanistan." ..." Note: Two videos included. Related: Matthews Tells Congressman Grayson That He Doesn’t Represent ‘The Real World Of Congress’   "As Congress enters the final stretches of the health care debate, members are looking for the best way forward following the election of Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) to the U.S. Senate. One path being suggested is for the House to pass the Senate bill as is and then later use the reconciliation process — which requires only a simple majority vote in the Senate — to amend the bill and make it more progressive and acceptable to members of the House ..."

Operation Sarkozy : how the CIA placed one of its agents at the presidency of the French Republic [01/25/10] "One should judge Nicolas Sarkozy according to his actions, and not according to his personality. Yet when his doings surprise even his own constituents, it is legitimate to take a detailed look at his biography and question the bonds that brought him to power. Thierry Meyssan has decided to write the truth about the French Republic’s president background. All the information included in this article is provable, except for two assertions signalled by the author who alone takes full responsibility. Tired of the overextended presidencies of François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, the French elected Nicolas Sarkozy counting on his energy to revitalize their country. They were hoping for a break with years of no-change and ideologies of the past. What they got instead was a break with the very principles which founded the French nation, and have been shocked by this “hyper-president”, seizing every day a new dossier, attracting towards him the right and the left wing, and tearing apart all points of reference to the point of creating a total confusion. Like children who have just made a boo-boo, the French are too busy trying to find excuses for themselves to admit the magnitude of the damages and of their naiveté, and they refuse all the more to see who Nicolas Sarkozy really is, that they realize they should have known since a long time who he was. One must say the man has talents. Like a magician he tricked them. By offering them the spectacle of his private life and posing in People’s magazines, he got them to forget his political history. The aim of this article must be clearly understood. It is not to reproach M. Sarkozy his family, his friends or his professional ties, but the fact of having hidden those ties from the French who believed, wrongly, they were electing a free man. To understand how a man whom all agree today to view as an agent of the United States and of Israel was able to become the head of the Gaullist party and the president of the French Republic, we must go back in time, very very far back. We must make a long digression in the course of which we will present the protagonists who are today taking their revenge. ..."

Commentary: Freedom of Speech for a Fiction [01/25/10] "The Trouble with Corporate Personhood:.... In the annals of lying and devious deception we can now add what will hopefully be remembered as one of the foulest decisions – but not a surprising one – by the Supreme Court to be imposed on the American public, namely the majority opinion in Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission. ..."   Related: Corporate money to finance US political campaigns See details further down this page.

Haiti Occupation Army [01/24/10] VIDEO [3:09] "Haiti earthquake aid, or USA army occupation - Al Jazeera TV reports Sunday 17 January 2010. Every country that richer than Haiti is trying to help, but only American government is sending armed occupation forces to build more bases, and never pull out. Karachi-based charity worker, Abdul Sattar Edhi, pledged cash as former US president George Bush ordered. Food rots and cash disappears without traceable accountability. Pakistan has also pledged to send others relief items. Other Muslim and Arab countries are sending cash or kind. Most countries are helping in any way they can, a lot more than what six billion people see, hear or read in the anti-Muslim media. Many Muslim-Arab states and charities gave America billions dollars after the recent, Katrina, hurricane. Many other Muslim countries provided aid relief, including: Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Morocco, Jordan, Islam Relief USA/UK, Muslim Aid, etc. But, by a remarkable coincident, Muslims countries, where USA imposed and sustained despots, and has occupation army, have donated almost nothing ..." Note: Very Good video clip

America's Impending Master Class Dictatorship [01/24/10] "At certain times, focusing on the big picture is important not just for investment success, but for personal welfare, and even survival. We believe such times are here. It is estimated that 98% of Americans have never held a gold coin in their hands. Yet 100% of Americans regularly handle Federal Reserve Notes. From a contrarian standpoint, the financial message from those two statistics is clear. Even so, gold is much more than money or an investment medium; it stands for liberty and throughout history has facilitated escape and ensured freedom. Never having touched a gold coin is the monetary equivalent to never having breathed fresh air, felt the warmth of sunshine, looked up at the stars or risen from the gutter. Fiat Federal Reserve Notes are becoming nothing more than sewage decomposing in the vast, toxic septic tank of predatory Washington politics, epic Federal Reserve arrogance and error, blatant Wall Street fraud and outright Master Class plunder. Below, we outline America’s troubling and compounding predicament, and urge you to think about how to protect yourself from its consequences, both financially and personally. ..."

USGS claims Venezuela sits on Earth’s largest oil reserves [01/24/10] "Venezuela may have just become the center of an energy-starved world. The Orinoco Belt, situated squarely underneath the South American nation, may hold some 513 billion barrels of crude oil, according to a new report by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). That's twice the size of Saudi Arabia's oil reserves, placing Venezuela firmly atop the list of oil-rich nations. The timing of the USGS announcement is striking. On Jan. 28, international firms will take part in an auction for contracts to drill in the Orinoco Belt. The deadline for auction registration was Jan 18, according to industry publication Petroleum World. Results will be announced on Feb. 10. However, the USGS did not make an estimate of how much oil is actually recoverable. The Orinoco Belt's reserves are typically thick and tar-like, with some patches difficult to reach with current drilling technology. ..."   Note: See the Special Articles page on Haiti, which is said to have even more oil than Venezuela.

Pentagon backtracks after Gates ‘admits’ Blackwater operating in Pakistan [01/23/10] "The Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan. The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban .... In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked "about another issue that has come up and again ... about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?" "Well, they're operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq," Gates replied. "If they're contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves." ..."

Amnesty International accuse US for sending arms to Somalia [01/23/10] "mnesty international accused United States for sending uncontrolled arms to war-torn country Somalia which is said could be used to commit "gross and widespread abuses." Amnesty International gave details of US arms' shipments, including mortars, ammunition and cash for the purchase of more weapons to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). ..."

Hague court team to probe start of South Ossetia conflict [01/23/10] "International investigators will arrive in Georgia in early February to investigate the start of the August 2008 war between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, a Russian daily said on Friday. ..."

Russia, U.S. to resume arms talk in early February - Lavrov [01/23/10] "Russia and the United States will resume talks on a new strategic arms deal at the start of February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday. ..."

Obama authorizes covert economic war against Venezuela [01/23/10] "WMR’s intelligence sources have reported that the Obama administration has authorized an economic war against Venezuela in order to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez. ..."

Obama Admin negotiating trade agreements w/34 countries, the text of which it refuses to make public, citing national security [01/23/10] "The Obama administration is negotiating a trade agreement with 34 other countries — the text of which it refuses to make public, citing national security concerns — that according to leaked reports would include increased liability for content hosting companies and service providers. The goal is to combat the global piracy of movies and music. ..."

Group Calls For Constitutional Amendment to Overturn High Court’s Campaign Finance Ruling [01/23/10] "Congresswoman Donna Edwards and constitutional law professor Jamie Raskin speak out against Thursday’s Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and call for a mass movement of people to support a constitutional amendment. ...A coalition of public interest organizations strongly condemned today’s ruling by the US Supreme Court allowing unlimited corporate money in US elections and announced that it is launching a campaign to amend the United States Constitution to overturn the ruling. The groups, Voter Action, Public Citizen, the Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance, say the Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. FEC poses a serious and direct threat to democracy. They aim, through their constitutional amendment campaign, to correct the judiciary’s creation of corporate rights under the First Amendment over the past three decades. Immediately following the Court’s ruling, the groups unveiled a new website – www.freespeechforpeople.org – devoted to this campaign......"

Corporate money to finance US political campaigns [01/22/10] "The American corporate businesses can now freely spend their money to prop-up political candidates as the US Supreme Court overrules a ban on campaign financing by corporations. ..." Related: SCOTUS ruling = Powell Memo goal = Fall of democracy... "A coalition of public interest organizations strongly condemned today's ruling by the US Supreme Court allowing unlimited corporate money in US elections and announced that it is launching a campaign to amend the United States Constitution to overturn the ruling. The groups, Voter Action, Public Citizen, the Center for Corporate Policy, and the American Independent Business Alliance, say the Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC poses a serious and direct threat to democracy. They aim, through their constitutional amendment campaign, to correct the judiciary's creation of corporate rights under the First Amendment over the past three decades. Immediately following the Court's ruling, the groups unveiled a new website devoted to this campaign. "Free speech rights are for people, not corporations," says John Bonifaz, Voter Action's legal director. "In wrongly assigning First Amendment protections to corporations, the Supreme Court has now unleashed a torrent of corporate money in our political process unmatched by any campaign expenditure totals in US history. This campaign to amend the Constitution will seek to restore the First Amendment to its original purpose." The public interest groups say that, since the late 1970s, a divided Supreme Court has transformed the First Amendment into a powerful tool for corporations seeking to evade democratic control and sidestep sound public welfare measures. For the first two centuries of the American republic, the groups argue, corporations did not have First Amendment rights to limit the reach of democratically-enacted regulations ..... In 1971, Lewis F. Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell's nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell's legal objectivity. Anderson cautioned that Powell "might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice...in behalf of business interests." Though Powell's memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades." In short, the Powell Memo outlined an attack on our nation by corporations which championed fascism over democracy. You can read the whole memo at the above link. SCOTUS has now ruled that corporations can actively alter elections via funding, undermining the very nature of the democratic process. Corporations have moved closer to a formal merger with government. This is called fascism by definition.   ..."    Judicial Watch Statement regarding the Supreme Court Ruling on Campaign Finance Reform | Critics: ‘Destructive’ Supreme Court decision ‘empowers corruption’ [01/22/10] "The US Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a 20-year ruling which had set limits on campaign financing by US businesses, and critics, including nonpartisan watchdogs and Congressional Democrats, are up in arms about the decision, which most had feared for a long time. Meanwhile, aside from Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Republicans appear to be gleeful about their second apparent victory of the week. The nine justices ruled that American corporations could dip freely into their general funds to finance campaign ads either in support or against a particular political candidate. The move overturns a ruling made two decades ago which had forced companies to only use specially earmarked funds from a political action committee. ..."

Supreme Court Strikes DownKey Section of McCain-Feingold [01/22/10] "The Supreme Court today killed a central part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and ruled that corporations may spend as much as they wish to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress. The 5-4 vote left intact limits on corporate gifts to individual candidates. Writing in dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said the majority "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation." But Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, called McCain-Feinberg's restrictions "censorship ... vast in its reach." Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit, filed suit after it was blocked from airing its anti-Hillary Clinton movie, "Hillary: The Movie," on pay-per-view TV before the 2008 primary elections. The group said the decision by the Federal Election Commission violated its free-speech rights. The movie features various pundits discussing Clinton's bid for the presidency. Last year, a federal court in Washington, D.C., deemed the film corporate engineering, saying it was "susceptible of no other interpretation than to inform the electorate that Senator Clinton is unfit for office, that the United States would be a dangerous place in a President Hillary Clinton world, and that viewers should vote against her." After initially turning down the case, the high court reconsidered and convened early to hear it. Citizens United urged the justices to decide the case on narrow grounds, arguing that "Hillary" doesn't qualify as "electioneering communication" under campaign-finance law and that video-on-demand doesn't constitute a commercial broadcast. But the Supreme Court said its ruling had to be broad, because a narrow decision would chill political speech. A broad approach required the justices to tackle the validity of Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, in which the Supreme Court rejected a First Amendment challenge of a Michigan campaign-finance law. "The ongoing chill upon speech that is beyond all doubt protected makes it necessary in this case to invoke the earlier precedents that a statute which chills speech can and must be invalidated where its facial invalidity has been demonstrated," Kennedy wrote. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens in dissent. ..."

Russia warns against remilitarization of Georgia [01/22/10] "Russia will call for the international community to prevent the remilitarization of Georgia, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. ..."

Obama authorizes covert economic war against Venezuela [01/22/10] "WMR’s intelligence sources have reported that the Obama administration has authorized an economic war against Venezuela in order to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez. After a successful coup against Chavez ally, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, and the very thin 51-49 percent electoral win by Chile’s billionaire right-winger Sebastian Pinera on January 17, a buoyed Obama White House has given a green light for political operatives in Venezuela, many of whom operate under the cover of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to set the stage for massive street demonstrations to protest Chavez’s devaluation of the bolivar, Venezuela’s currency. ..."

Russia Urges Immediate Uproot of Afghan Drug Production [01/21/10] "The head of Russia's drug control agency said on Monday that it brooked no delay to eradicate drug production in Afghanistan. The Afghan drug production problem "needs an urgent and radical solution," said Viktor Ivanov, Director of the Federal Service for Control of Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Circulation, at a press conference. "For the last eight years the heroin production in Afghanistan skyrocketed 40 times and currently the heroin production is twice the volume than the whole world produced ten years ago," he said. The fact that 92 percent of the world opiates production originated from the troubled Central Asian state has rendered the Afghan drug production "a really global phenomenon, the world problem," he said. Ivanov thus proposed five measures to genuinely eradicate drug production in the country. Firstly, the UN Security Council should raise the status of the Afghan drug problem "to the level of a threat to international peace and security." Secondly, infrastructure development programs shall serve as the basic instruments to solve the issue. Thirdly, opium poppy crops in Afghanistan shall be collected and destroyed. Fourthly, joint efforts shall be exerted on training highly qualified Afghan drug policemen. And finally, an international committee propounded by Russia and the European Union on uprooting Afghan drug production shall be set up, said Ivanov. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of heroin. The international community has been split on how to best tackle the issue with some arguing that military operations should stick to fighting terrorists while others thinking armed groups should target opium production. ..."

The Merchants of Fear: Israel’s Profiting from Homeland Insecurity [01/21/10] "In the wake of the weird Christmas Day "underwear bomber" incident on Northwest Flight 253, former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, as if on cue, was all over the mainstream media touting whole-body scanners as the answer to America’s airline security problems. Since leaving public office in 2009, Chertoff had co-founded the Chertoff Group, a security and risk-management firm whose clients include a manufacturer of body-imaging screening machines. While some in the media noted this rather commonplace conflict of interest, ignored by all was a far more significant abuse of the American public’s trust. In a CNN interview, Chertoff cited the Detroit incident as "a very vivid lesson in the value of that machinery." One lesson that he hasn’t drawn, however, was about the unreliability of the security firm which allowed the young Nigerian Muslim without a passport to "slip through" Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. ICTS International N.V., the Dutch-based security firm, was established in 1982 by former members of Israel’s secret police, the Shin Bet, and El Al security. Menachem Atzmon, who holds the controlling shares in the firm, was convicted in 1996 for campaign finance fraud while co-treasurer of the Likud party. The other co-treasurer Ehud Olmert, who was acquitted of those charges, resigned as Israeli Prime Minister in 2008 amid multiple corruption charges ....... On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Senator Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. The bipartisan Department of National Homeland Security Act of 2001 was co-sponsored by Republican Senator Arlen Specter, who is, perhaps not coincidentally, also a Jewish Zionist. The day after 9/11, Benjamin Netanyahu let slip that the deaths of almost 3,000 Americans was "very good" for Israel. In particular, the mass murder was very good for an emerging sector of the Israeli economy. In "Laboratory for a Fortressed World," Naomi Klein detailed the post-9/11 "explosion of Israel’s homeland security sector." "Before 9/11 homeland security barely existed as an industry," Klein wrote in 2007. "By the end of this year, Israeli exports in the sector will reach $1.2 billion – an increase of 20 percent. The key products and services are high-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems – precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories." And the Department of Homeland Security, the Lieberman-Specter brainchild then headed by Michael Chertoff, had become one of Israel’s most reliable markets ....." Note:  Very good report. Worth reading all of it.

Smuggled US Arms Flood Pak Tribal Belt [01/20/10] "We have various kinds of US-made arms, which we procure from Afghan arms smugglers”, an arms dealer from the town of Darra Adamkhel in Pakistan’s western frontier province (NWFP) told IslamOnline.net ..." Related: Arms Sent by U.S. May Be Falling Into Taliban Hands

Boiling Frogs: The Privatization of Security & the Militarization of Society- Part III [01/20/10] "The US and UK intelligence communities have known for decades of al-Qaeda’s presence in Yemen. The presence, however, is not simply peripheral to the question of international terrorism. US intelligence investigations into major terrorist attacks such as the 1998 US embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing, as well as 9/11 (among others) have consistently revealed that Yemen has been used by al-Qaeda as a central communications hub for the coordination of transnational terrorist activities – with the tacit (and often not-so-tacit) complicity of the Yemen government. In fact, abundant evidence from the History Commons shows that the National Security Agency has, and continues to, monitor al-Qaeda communications in Yemen extensively. But from 1996 all the way through to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the NSA consistently failed (in violation of mandatory security protocols) to share the detailed mountains of intercept evidence on Osama bin Laden’s activities thus obtained with the rest of the US intelligence community, despite repeated urgent requests from the CIA in the context of then ongoing terrorism investigations. After 9/11, however, much of this information became public knowledge – the US thus has extensive and intimate understanding of al-Qaeda’s activities in Yemen, and their direct connection with the execution of terrorist attacks against US and Western targets. The failures that facilitated the 25th December 2009 crotch bombing must be understood against this background – how could the same loopholes remain open now?… unless our relationship with the terrorists is a little more complicated than officials would like us to believe. ..." Note:  Part 2   Part 1

Blackwater's Owner Has Spies for Hire [01/20/10] "The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks -- high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence -- that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency's more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas. ..."

Congress takes bold stand against surveillance abuses - Glenn Greenwald [01/19/10] "Fixating on and condemning abuses of other countries is one of the greatest weapons the U.S. Government wields for distracting attention away from its own transgressions: like those gossip-obsessed individuals endlessly mucking around in and passing judgment on the personal lives of others as a means of ignoring their own failings. ..."

Blackwater/XE behind terrorist bombings in Asia and Africa? [01/18/10] "WMR’s intelligence sources in Asia and Europe are reporting that the CIA contractor firm XE Services, formerly Blackwater, has been carrying out “false flag” terrorist attacks in Afghanistan, Somalia, the Sinkiang region of China, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, in some cases with the assistance of Israeli Mossad and Indian Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) personnel. Fingers are being pointed at Blackwater/XE and Mossad operatives for the motorbike bomb in Tehran that killed Tehran University nuclear physicist Dr. Moussad Ali-Mohammadi. ..."    Related: American Blackwater terrorists accused of being behind Ashura blast in Karachi "Al Qaeda" is not the name for religious terrorists -- the name is Blackwater/Xe. "Rally taken out against Karachi carnage -- A protest rally was taken out by Jamaat-e-Islami Jacobabad against the recent Karachi carnage on Friday. The rally was led by the Provincial Amir of JI, Asadullah Bhutto and Abdul Hafiz Bajarani, while a large number of JI activists participated in it. The rally participants marched through various roads and staged sit-in in front of the local press club, suspending vehicular traffic for several hours. Addressing the rally, the JI leaders said that Blackwater is allegedly involved in the Karachi Ashura blast and arson. They accused the US of hatching conspiracies for getting control over Karachi and the economic lifeline of the country. They appealed to the Supreme Court to take notice of the incidents." ..."

Why is Blackwater/Xe in Somalia? [01/18/10] "Press TV reports that “There are . . . allegations of US-sponsored bomb plots in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. As of 12 Jan 2010, at least 18 people have been killed in clashes between rival factions in southern and central Somalia, and there are reports that Blackwater/Xe mercenaries have entered the country.” That’s for starters. ..."

Obama’s EEOC Nominee: Society Should ‘Not Tolerate Private Beliefs’ That ‘Adversely Affect’ Homosexuals [01/18/10] "Chai Feldblum, the Georgetown University law professor nominated by President Obama to serve on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has written that society should “not tolerate” any “private beliefs,” including religious beliefs, that may (fill in the blank) negatively affect homosexual “equality.” ..." Note: The LATEST sequential Nutcase Obama has pulled from his hat.

Bella Gerens: The Tale of the American hoon [01/18/10] "Let’s talk about Cass Sunstein. For those of you out of the know, Sunstein is head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a part of the Executive Office of the president of the US. He is informally known as the Information Czar, roughly equivalent to one of the many, many posts held in the UK by Peter Mandelson. It is a creepy competency, and it is perhaps only fitting that it should be filled by a professor of law at Harvard, which Sunstein also is. The North West LPUK blog flagged him up today as a dodgy customer, and indeed, it looks as if he is one. For someone expert in constitutional law, Cass Sunstein is all about some bansturbation that would interfere directly with the rights explicitly protected in that constitution, namely the right of free speech. ... Sunstein’s objection to the First Amendment comes as a result of his theory of ‘cyber balkanisation,’ in which growing use of the internet has isolated people from the opinions of those who do not share their views .... In short, the solution for reducing alienation is more transparency in government and more democratic accountability. But to implement this solution requires that those with power in the establishment acquire a little humility and cease to act as if they believe they are smarter, wiser, and know what’s best for people. Unfortunately, ‘humble and willing to accept his own fallibility’ seems pretty much the complete opposite of Cass Sunstein, so I doubt this is a solution he, in his unelected, unaccountable power, will be pushing for anytime soon." Related: Bella Gerens: More on Cass Sunstein ".... he’s still making a major mistake. That mistake is to lay the responsibility for false beliefs and conspiracy theories entirely on the shoulders of those who hold them, and absolve the establishment of any responsibility for the phenomena. Indeed, for Sunstein, conspiracy theories are a problem which government officials must solve, seeking out ways to promote the right sources of information and improve people’s ‘crippled’ epistemologies. And isn’t that always how it is for people like this? The Herd have a pathology! Government must fix! Until people like Sunstein realise that it takes two to tango, they’re never going to reach their solution, whether it be through nudging, taxes, prohibitions, bans, thought crimes or any other ridiculous measure that fails to take into account that public officials are part of the problem. So, the government wants people to believe the information it gives them, to trust them, to feel that society is open and transparent free? Public officials, I’ve got your solution right here: STOP LYING TO US. ..." Note: Both of these pieces are VERY well written and very much to the point, in analyzing what Cass Sunstein says and what the overall picture is.

Commentary: The Creepy Mindset Behind Cass Sunstein's Creepy Proposal [01/18/10] "Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and psuedo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites – as well as other activist groups – which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here. ..."

In reversal, federal regulators now propose to limit oil and gas commodities [01/18/10] "The proposal from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which oversees oil and energy trading, would introduce new restrictions on what the largest traders can do. Concerned that some firms can amass such large holdings in energy commodities that their trades can have an outsize effect on the price of gasoline, heating oil or natural gas, officials said they would prevent traders "from establishing extraordinarily large positions." ..."

World Trade Organization Risks Financial 'China Syndrome' [01/18/10] VIDEO [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 ..." "Apparently, one meltdown isn't enough for the World Trade Organization. They met in Geneva on the tenth anniversary of the "Battle in Seattle," when tens of thousands of people from around the world protested the organization's practices. Related: Commentary: World Trade Organization: Fundamentally Flawed "The World Trade Organization is a fundamentally flawed organization run by the rich, for the rich. The bylaws of the organization, in many cases, supersede our own Constitution. ..."

Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan tops $1 trillion [01/18/10] ""I think that in general the American people, while obviously this is very difficult financially for us, will continue to support the troops that are there and the Congress will reflect that," Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said this week. But with Americans tiring of war and getting more concerned about U.S. indebtedness, political pressures are expected to grow for winding down U.S. military operations and their costs in Iraq and Afghanistan. ..."

U.S. spending in Afghanistan plagued by poor U.S. oversight [01/18/10] "In the report released Friday, auditors with the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction blamed poor communication between U.S. officials and the two companies that are working on the majority of the projects. While the U.S. Agency for International Development has relied on the companies, Louis Berger and Black & Veatch, for updates on projects, "that reporting has not always been timely or sufficient," the auditors said. The companies also had trouble meeting deadlines for projects because of dangerous conditions. ..."

UK: "We can't defeat Taliban": Army chief [01/18/10] "The fight against the Taliban will not be won by military means alone, one of the most senior British commanders in Afghanistan has said. The Afghan people must be persuaded to reject the insurgency and take responsibility for their own security, said Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kitson, Commanding Officer 3rd Battalion The Rifles Battlegroup. ..."

Conspiracy Theory - Reason vs. the Crowd [01/17/10] "... If being vigilant means considering conspiracies, which means formulating theories, then do it! Who are the originators of labels, like conspiracy theorist, that discourage Americans from heeding the warnings from past Presidents? Why would so many people in the corporate media ceaselessly label those who dare publicly to theorize about a conspiracy as if it is an irrational act? If one hopes to find truth shouldn't all possibilities be considered? How about the possibility of conspiracy? Do you think Abraham Lincoln would have been well advised to consider there was a conspiracy to assassinate him? What would todays corporate media have to say about a conspiracy theory to kill Abraham Lincoln the night before a conspirator shot him? Would you call Obama's guardians "crazy" for considering a conspiracy against him? Let's take a look at history... ..."

Afghanistan and the U.S. Withdrawal [01/17/10] "Despite some ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ related to US withdrawal expressed by some US officials following President Obama’s speech laying out his new policy on Afghanistan, there is absolutely no doubt that President Obama will begin to wind down the US involvement in Afghanistan by 2011, taking at best a year or so to complete it. “...after eight years... it is my intention to finish the job” he said. With the domestic situation and public opinion not supportive to the Afghan war but his military establishment insisting on a surge, Obama has made a compromise. He agreed to a limited surge and limited time frame for the military and at the same time promised to the American people a withdrawal beginning by 2011, in time for his next presidential bid. ..." Related: Japan ends refueling mission for US forces "Japan's Democratic party-led government in an unprecedented decision has ended its nearly a decade-long refueling mission of the US-led forces in Afghanistan. ..."

U.N. Can’t Account for Millions Sent to Afghan Election Board [01/17/10] "The United Nations cannot account for tens of millions of dollars provided to the troubled Afghan election commission, according to two confidential U.N. audits and interviews with current and former senior diplomats. ..."

Turkey And Israel: The End Of A Love Affair [01/16/10] "The tense stand-off between Israel and its closest Muslim ally, Turkey, began to subside Thursday following Turkey’s acceptance of Israel’s second, stronger apology for its treatment of Ankara’s ambassador to Jerusalem. But the incident revealed a fundamental shift in the leadership and regional standing of the two countries that is likely to affect relations going forward. ..." Related: Israelis Furious Over Humiliating Gov’t Handling Of Row With Turkey "The Israeli media on Thursday slammed the government's handling of a diplomatic row with Turkey in which it humiliated Ankara's ambassador and then retreated with public apologies. "The policy of 'no more groveling' led by Foreign Minister (Avigdor) Lieberman, was transformed within a matter of days into a situation in which Israel was forced to dispatch an official and diplomatic apology," Israel's Maariv newspaper said in an article entitled "Capitulation." The spat again turned the spotlight on the controversial minister, an ultra-nationalist who has said Israel should strike back at international criticism and defend its "national honor." ..."

Soros funds infiltration of 9/11 truth, election protection, and “independent” journalism [01/16/10] "The modus operandi is that Soros operatives either help establish “progressive” organizations or join them after they are established with a new infusion of a modest to substantial funding. The agenda of the organization is then altered to make it look either like a far-out “conspiracy” association or the infiltrators of the organization create internecine battles between factions or tamp down its fervor. In some cases, the organizations ultimately cease to exist or are combined with other Soros-controlled or influenced organizations. ..."

Fast Food, Fast Capitalism, Fast Politics [01/15/10] "Fast food is a metonym - both a part and a figurative representation of fast capitalism. Fast capitalism is the tendency of capitalism to extract surplus value with as little investment as possible for the greatest possible return, while adding as little to the real economy as possible, often by means of financial speculation and the quickening of production to the point of making next to nothing. It is the necessary consequence of capitalism. Fast capitalism caused the current economic crisis. And fast capitalism leads to fast politics. Fast politics is the promise of quick political fixes to critical socio-political and economic conditions. Obama is the epitome of fast politics. ..."

Business as Usual in Kazakhstan [01/15/10] "A Louisiana-based oilfield services company created false documents to cover up its payoffs to corrupt officials in Kazakhstan, the SEC says in Federal Court. Workers for NATCO Group's subsidiary, TEST Automation & Controls, acquiesced to the corrupt demands by "paying extorted immigration fines" from their own pockets, which TEST and NATCO reimbursed, the SEC says. ..."

Empire reloaded- Pepe Escobar [01/15/10] ""As much as 9/11 was the "Pearl Harbor" dreamed of by the neo-conservatives to unleash the American Eagle - which started with the bombing of Afghanistan and morphed into the disastrous invasion of Iraq - Abdulmuttalab's failed attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day in the skies above Detroit is a godsend mini-Pearl Harbor destined to advance the Pentagon's "full spectrum dominance" doctrine. Yemen could not be a more strategically mouth-watering proposition - with Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden to the south leading to the Arabian Sea, and on the other side, in Africa, Somalia. As far as the Pentagon's "full spectrum dominance" goes, Yemen falls right into the Pentagon net alongside Somali pirates and the new bogeyman, al-Qaeda in the Arabic Peninsula (AQAP), when it comes to the militarization of a key strategic oil chokepoint, the Bab el-Mandab, no matter the avalanche of denials from the Barack Obama administration of any intention to put US boots on the ground in Yemen...."

2010: Global Erosion Of Freedom [01/15/10] "For the fourth consecutive year, global declines in freedom outweighed gains in 2009, as measured by Freedom House's annual survey of political rights and civil liberties, Freedom in the World 2010. This represents the longest continuous period of decline for global freedom in the nearly 40-year history of the report. ..."

Blast near car of Israeli diplomats in Jordan [01/15/10] "A bomb has exploded near a car carrying three Israeli diplomats in Jordan, in a rare incident in the Arab country. ..."

New Russian Navy task force to patrol Somali waters [01/15/10] "A new task force from Russia's Baltic Fleet will join international efforts to fight piracy off the Horn of Africa, a Russian Navy spokesman said on Tuesday. ..."

Hamas Fears Gaza Fence Part of Three-Way Siege [01/15/10] "Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip have admitted that they are concerned over the Egyptian underground barrier under construction along the Gaza-Egypt border. The fence is expected to reach a depth of 18 meters, and span 10 km, and threatens to strangle the Strip’s only lifeline – the smuggling tunnels. Hamas fears that via this channel, Egypt is joining the Palestinian Authority and Israel in creating a three-way siege on the Strip that would severely hurt the resistance movement. ..."

Finally,The Lebanese Army Fires At Israeli Warplanes [01/15/10] "South Lebanon was once again the center of attraction on Monday as President Michel Sleiman started an inspection tour in it, shortly after Lebanese anti-aircraft guns opened fire on four Israeli warplanes which were flying at low altitude over Marjayoun. “The army’s anti-aircraft guns fired at four enemy Israeli planes that had been overflying the southern area of Marjayoun this morning,” an army spokesman told AFP. ..."

Defense May Buy From Caucasus Region [01/15/10] "To shorten supply lines to operations in Afghanistan and to promote good will in the troubled Caucasus region, the Defense Department has proposed to amend Federal Regulations to allow purchase of goods and supplies from nine countries in the area ..."

Lithuanian president urges further probe into secret CIA prisons [01/15/10] "Lithuanian prosecutors should launch an investigation into secret CIA prisons on the country's territory without the parliamentary approval. ..."

Obama Expands Federal Power Over the States with Executive Order [01/14/10] "Obama has issued another executive order, this time establishing a so-called “Council of Governors.” The order, signed on January 11, further diminishes the sovereignty of the states and builds on a framework for possible martial law. The executive order was completely ignored by the corporate media. “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1822 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-181), and in order to strengthen further the partnership between the Federal Government and State governments to protect our Nation and its people and property,” the order reads. ..."

UN's Internal Policing Efforts: "Not a single significant fraud or corruption case has been completed" [01/14/10] "The United Nations has cut back sharply on investigations into corruption and fraud within its ranks -- shelving cases involving the possible theft or misuse of millions of dollars, an Associated Press review has found. ..."

Greece condemned for falsifying data [01/14/10] "The European Commission has condemned Greece for falsifying data about its public finances and allowing political pressures to obstruct the collection of accurate statistics. ..."

The Big Lie and the Paradigms of Deceit [01/13/10] "The following essay, entitled "The Paradigms of Deceit," is written by a Danish friend and supporter named Kaj Krinsmøe. It is an excellent explanation of the well known propaganda tactic used to shape public opinion, described and employed by Adolf Hitler as "The Great Lie" or "Colossal Untruth" -- and how the Great Lie is currently being used by our corrupt political leaders and the Zionist-controlled media on the people of North America and Europe. The "colossal untruths" of our time are the government and media lies about the events of 9-11, Islamic terrorism and Afghanistan, global warming, and the Iranian nuclear threat. The Zionist deception known as the "War on Terror" is a complete fraud -- and an extremely expensive one at that. ..."

Red Dusk: Vision and Deceit at Empire's End [01/13/10] "In the latest London Review of Books, Neal Ascherson provides a revealing vignette of the machtpolitik that is the true guiding principle of the Potomac Empire -- despite all its never-ending evangelical cant about promoting "democracy" and "freedom" around the world. Ascherson shows American leaders confronting the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1989 in "Gorbachev Betrayed." Here we see American elites scrambling to preserve the "stability" of Soviet rule across Eastern Europe -- even at one point signalling U.S. approval for armed intervention by the Soviets to control the situation. But this should not be surprising. In an imperial system, power exists for its own sake; it is not an instrument for the advancement of principles or the public good. Its only true goal is self-perpetuation, and so it seeks to protect itself against any and all possible threats, however remote or minor. "Instability" is always one of the great bugbears of power-systems. Any movements that arise outside established norms are always highly suspect (even those in line with the system's professed ideals) -- and subject to the most strenuous attempts to bring them to heel as soon as possible. (Such as the murderous dose of economic "shock doctrine" that was administered to the former Soviet Union.) ..."

Chemical analysis links ISI to CIA killings in Khost [01/13/10] "The chemical fingerprint of the bomb used by the Jordanian double agent that killed seven Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officers at a US base in Khost Province of Afghanistan last week reportedly matches the kind produced by Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). ..."

“Gaza” – The writings on the Wall [01/13/10] Palestine Telegraph "What is of extreme concern is a new tactic coming out of the US when the following was announced in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: "U.S. to store $800m in military gear in Israel"....maybe Obama and the US Congress would like to define the term "Store".....is this a new secretive means of getting weapons exported to Israel without the normal process of passing this through Congress for approval without a transmittal notice? Is this another Obama WMD - Weapons of Mass Deceit? The report states the following: The U.S. Army will double the value of emergency military equipment it stockpiles on Israeli soil, and Israel will be allowed to use the U.S. ordnance in the event of a military emergency. The Haaretz report went on to say: This is the final phase of a process that began over a year ago to determine the type and amount of U.S. weapons and ammunition to be stored in Israel, part of an overarching American effort to stockpile weapons in areas in which its army may need to operate while allowing American allies to make use of the ordnance in emergencies. The American public and the more friendly members of Congress (if they exist) should now be asking many question regarding the change of US policy (or should I say aggression). Some of those questions could be along the following lines: ..." Note: Well-written article.

Blackwater/Xe set for a daring comeback [01/13/10] "An up-for-grabs State Department deal could help the infamous US 'security' contractor Blackwater stage a comeback as a leading security firm, reports say. ..." Related: Blackwater/Xe mercs arrive in Somalia, Al-Shabab says   "There are also allegations of US-sponsored bomb plots in the capital. The bombings will be carried out in order to create a pretext to launch a campaign against Al-Shabab, a spokesman of the group, Sheikh Ali Mohammed Rage, told Reuters. “We have discovered that US agencies are going to launch suicide bombings in public places in Mogadishu,” he told reporters. “They have tried it in Algeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan… We warn of these disasters. They want to target Bakara Market and mosques, then use that to malign us.” ..."

Supreme Court: George W. Bush–Still With Us (In Black Robes) [01/12/10] "In Washington, D.C., a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals minced its way toward fashioning new rules to govern habeas corpus decisions brought by three prisoners at the Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. And a decision by three different judges of the same court affirmed the government’s authority to hold people taken prisoner in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban – thus making it more difficult for detainees to challenge the basis of their detention. ..." Note: To have a 9 individuals determine the fate and disposition of hundreds of millions of people is a stupid idea. They are a living anachronism! Related: SCOTUS Bars Video Coverage of Prop. 8 Trial

US injustice and arbitrariness as sources of terrorism [01/12/10] "Paul J. Balles argues that post-9/11 arbitrariness and blind revenge by the USA lay behind acts of counter- vengeance by Al-Qaeda and likeminded groups, the latest of which was the attempt by a Nigerian man to bomb an American airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. ”What was the post-9/11 madness but blind revenge? What were the lockups at Guantanamo but revenge? What is joining Al Qaeda but revenge? Is revenge a legitimate response to an attack on America? Why isn't it equally appropriate for those who have suffered sadistic American brutality?” ..."

"The CIA Misspells "Al Qaeda" Terrorists Names and Bypasses TSA to Let 'Terrorists' Fly" [01/12/10] "Veteran investigative reporters Susan and Joseph Trento, who first obtained and exposed the flaws in the no-fly list in 2006, have completed a new investigation of the CIA’s role in airline security. It reveals that the CIA is bypassing other government agencies and following terrorists on airplanes without telling TSA or the airlines involved. It shows how terrorists and nuclear proliferators have been allowed to fly because the CIA has refused to add their correct names or aliases to the no-fly list. ..."

China tests missile-defense system [01/12/10] "China tested a ground-based system to intercept missiles in midflight on Monday, the Xinhua news agency reported. ..."

US to store $800m in military gear in Israel [01/12/10] "The U.S. Army will double the value of emergency military equipment it stockpiles on Israeli soil, and Israel will be allowed to use the U.S. ordnance in the event of a military emergency, according to a report in Monday’s issue of the U.S. weekly Defense News.This is the final phase of a process that began over a year ago to determine the type and amount of U.S. weapons and ammunition to be stored in Israel, part of an overarching American effort to stockpile weapons in areas in which its army may need to operate while allowing American allies to make use of the ordnance in emergencies. .... The deal allows Israel access to a wider spectrum of military ordnance, and the U.S. official said his government was considering which forms of military supplies would be added to stores in Israel. Missiles, armored vehicles, aerial ammunition and artillery ordnance are already stockpiled in the country. The agreement is expected to aid Israel in its effort to bolster its weapons stockpiles for use in an emergency. Israel’s stores of aerial and artillery ammunition were depleted during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, nearly reaching levels the IDF considers dangerously low."

Blackwater Fever: High Crimes and Hired Guns [01/11/10] "Scott Horton of Harper's gives us chapter and verse of the Justice Department's very deliberate -- and insultingly brazen -- sabotaging of its own case against the Blackwater mercenaries who murdered 17 Iraqis in Nisoor Square back in September 2007. As any sentient observer could have told you then, these hired killers -- gorging on taxpayer dollars as they assisted the mass-murdering invasion and occupation of Iraq -- were never going to do time. Why should they? They were just doing what they were paid, by us, to do: kill 'ragheads'. The case was dismissed by a federal judge last week due to prosecutorial misconduct. In an interview with Democracy Now, Horton explained how the bad deal went down: ..."

Xe Services aims for $1 billion Afghan deal [01/11/10] "Blackwater Worldwide's legal woes haven't dimmed the company's prospects in Afghanistan, where it's a contender to be a key part of President Barack Obama's strategy for stabilizing the country. ..."

Women Choose Suicide in Afghanistan [01/11/10] "Women in Afghanistan are choosing suicide to escape "their dire circumstances," according to a new report issued by Canada's Foreign Affairs Department. Even in the relatively peaceful region of Herat, over 80 women reportedly set themselves on fire in 2008. Consider women's situation in Afghanistan. Last year, a law was passed that legalized marital rape, and although President Hamid Karzai temporarily withdrew it due to international outrage, he pardoned two men guilty of gang rape. Human Rights Watch found in one survey that an astonishing 87 percent of female respondents had undergone "forced marriage or at least one form of physical, sexual or psychological violence." (HRW) In addition, according to the Afghan Penal Code, victims of rape can be penalized for adultery. ..."

Gerald Celente Predictions for 2010, Trends Research Institute [01/11/10] "Gerald Celente is back with his predicitions for 2010 and many people think that Gerald Celente from the Trends Research Institute says a lot of things that come true and that he accurately predicts what will happen. ...Unfortunately Gerald Celente seems to think that 2010 is not going to be the year for America either. He predicts another attack like the magnitue of 9/11 because other countries don't like the United States foreign policy. He says that people who live in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will want to get revenge against America for what they have done to their countries. He also predicts that Israel may attack Iran to take out their nuclear facilities, and the U.S exerting more sanctions against Iran. Gerald Celente says this could be the beginning of World War III. He says no one can wipe out Iran, if they think they can they better read up on their persian history and realize that they have been around a long time and they are not going anywhere. Gerald also talks about what he calls 'The Crash of 2010' where the Stimulus money will run out and interest rates cannot be lowered any more.... " Note:  Page includes three (3) video clips of an interview with him.

Shorting China [01/11/10] "James S. Chanos built one of the largest fortunes on Wall Street by foreseeing the collapse of Enron and other highflying companies whose stories were too good to be true. Now Mr. Chanos, a wealthy hedge fund investor, is working to bust the myth of the biggest conglomerate of all: China Inc. As most of the world bets on China to help lift the global economy out of recession, Mr. Chanos is warning that China’s hyperstimulated economy is headed for a crash, rather than the sustained boom that most economists predict. Its surging real estate sector, buoyed by a flood of speculative capital, looks like “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse,” he frets. He even suspects that Beijing is cooking its books, faking, among other things, its eye-popping growth rates of more than 8 percent. “Bubbles are best identified by credit excesses, not valuation excesses,” he said in a recent appearance on CNBC. “And there’s no bigger credit excess than in China.” He is planning a speech later this month at the University of Oxford to drive home his point. As America’s pre-eminent short-seller — he bets big money that companies’ strategies will fail — Mr. Chanos’s narrative runs counter to the prevailing wisdom on China. Most economists and governments expect Chinese growth momentum to continue this year, buoyed by what remains of a $586 billion government stimulus program that began last year, meant to lift exports and consumption among Chinese consumers. Still, betting against China will not be easy. Because foreigners are restricted from investing in stocks listed inside China, Mr. Chanos has said he is searching for other ways to make his bets, including focusing on construction- and infrastructure-related companies that sell cement, coal, steel and iron ore. ..."   Related: China, the world's new leading exporter "As the prospects of China over-shadowing the struggling US economy grow stronger, Beijing robs Berlin of its title as the world's leading exporter...." | China Is The New Detroit "With the U.S.‘s economic slump and the seemingly never-ending boom to Chinese manufacturing, it comes as no surprise to discover that China has become the world’s biggest car market, producing 13.5 million vehicles in 2009—or 2.1 million more the U.S. ..."

Notorious and influential, private Pentagon contractors must be watched carefully by Pakistan Government [01/11/10] "A wave of public concern swept through Pakistan over the news of clandestine activities of the US contractor DynCorp International that has been reportedly engaged by the Pentagon to provide security for US diplomatic personnel. Until some ugly episodes occurred in Islamabad and Peshawar where DynCorp operatives, displaying their weapons in violation of Pakistani laws, publicly roughed up Pakistani citizens and were allowed to get away by the Ministry of Interior, their presence had remained unnoticed. The uproar led to uncovering the record of DynCorp and Blackwater, US military contractors, which are suspected to be linked. Blackwater’s activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan turned out to be very disturbing. Blackwater faces legal proceedings in the US for a variety of crimes such as murder, manslaughter, weapons smuggling, use of unnecessary, excessive and unjustified deadly force against civilians, etc. Five Blackwater employees are awaiting trial on manslaughter charges and a sixth has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter and attempting to commit manslaughter in the aftermath of the September 16, 2007 Nisour Square shootings in Baghdad, which left seventeen Iraqis dead. Blackwater is accused of using weapons in Iraq not authorized by the US contracting authorities, such as hand grenades and hand grenade launchers for unnecessarily killing scores of innocent Iraqis. Ammunition illegally obtained from LeMas, an American company, designed to explode after penetrating the human body was frequently used to inflict maximum human damage. The present Iraqi government outlawed Blackwater. ..."   Note:  LeMas ... wonder who owns it and where it is...

Former CIA agent: Bush made intelligence problems worse [01/11/10] "A former CIA field officer says the Bush administration's reforms of the intelligence community have made it more difficult to prevent terrorist operations. Speaking to MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Jack Rice, now an on-air personality at Air America radio, said the creation of the National Counterterrorism Center and the office of the Director of National Intelligence in the years after the 9/11 attacks means that information is being shuffled around too many different offices and agencies. "The problem with that is sometimes you may not get the context of that information," Rice said. "So they only get pieces of it. When you break this up into so many moving parts -- and there are already incredible numbers of moving parts -- you sort of misunderstand how the entire process works. So now they're having to cobble it back together, and try to come up with an answer, and they're still failing at that." Olbermann cited a 2005 essay (PDF) by National Counterterrorism Center Deputy Director Russell Travers, which argued that the Bush-era reforms "severed the collection of the data from the analysis of the data." "Are we on the road to 'fixing' intelligence, or are we at risk of making it worse?" the essay asked. "In truth, either outcome is entirely possible." ... Rice also said the Bush administration wasn't "as concerned about quality" of information. "Hence, they were willing to waterboard somebody 183 times in one month." Rice cited the phenomenon of "garbage in, garbage out" -- if your intelligence is faulty or misunderstood, you can't take proper steps to ensure security. The video on the page is from MSNBC's Countdown, broadcast Jan. 7, 2010."

Balance of Terror: From Detroit City to Ghazi Khan [01/11/10] "A lone man on an airliner makes a badly botched attempt to ignite what appears to be some kind of hastily cobbled-together device that might or might not have caused some kind of unspecified but apparently non-crippling damage to the plane. The plane lands safely; no one is killed. Yet the reverberations from this half-baked enterprise quickly roiled the entire world. Within hours, a whole range of new, even more intrusive and draconian security procedures were imposed on travelers across the globe. Governments hastened to launch "security reviews," and promise "tough new measures" not only to thwart terrorists but to root out nests of agitators and "radicalizers" clinging to the soft underbelly of our all-too-tolerant, too-nice-for-its-own-good Western world. Perhaps most significantly, the non-igniting of the homemade device has "rejuvenated [the] debate ... over the proper balance between security and privacy," the New York Times informs us -- while quoting several "experts" who let us know just which way this "balance" is now going to tilt. These "experts" include Bush retreads like ex-Homeland Security commissar Michael Chertoff, who now dabbles profitably in the "risk management and security consulting" industry -- yet another of our great and good for whom every act of terror (real or imagined, successful or unsuccessful) means boffo box office. The sudden insertion of Chertoff into the story gives us another example of a grim, enduring truth: the construction of "conventional wisdom" among our media and political elites is always driven, in large part or in whole, by raw, brutal self-interest. The new CW now being assembled before our eyes is a "rejuvenation" of one of the ruling tropes of the 21st century: "Liberty bad, security good...."

Was the attempt to blow up Detroit bound plane a false flag? [01/11/10] by Peter Eyre - Middle East Consultant "As we have seen so many times in the past conspiracy theories bounce around the world whenever we hear such dramatically presented stories that emanate out of the US and UK media machine. Many times such stories appear to coincide with a political low in a Presidents or Prime Minister career It is at such times that frequently our illustrious leaders, senior advisors or their intelligence organization concoct a diversionary story to attract our attention away from the real issues. Such tactics are well known around the world and unfortunately in some case this becomes the foundation stones for a full on war. The President or Prime Minister will re ignite patriotism as a means off bringing the sheep under the shepherd’s control. ..." Note:  Part 2 Part 3

Does Al Qaeda Really Exist Or Is This A Totally False Façade? [01/11/10] by Palestinian Telegraph editor Sarah Price "After studying the build up to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars it was evident that an attack was planned months before 9/11. It is now also obvious that the focus of the Afghanistan War is not to capture or eliminate Al Qaeda but to secure the proposed TAPI pipeline route that will be constructed between the Turkmenistan border via Herat and across through Helmand and onwards to Pakistan via Kandahar. The question must therefore remain was the establishment of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda a Bush/CIA invention or simply a figment of their imagination? ..."

30 Million Productive Jobs to Rebuild US Infrastructure, Industry and Agriculture: The Program to End the Economic Depression [01/10/10] "The US and the world are gripped by a deepening economic depression. There is no recovery and no automatic business cycle which will revive the economy. This bottomless depression will worsen until policies are reformed. The depression results from deregulated and globalized financial speculation, especially [...] ..."

Karzai: I don't need foreign forces in Afghanistan [01/10/10] "Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai says he does not need anymore 'the favor' of the US-led foreign forces in his war-weary country...." Note: I detect an assassination coming.

British MP George Galloway deported from Egyptian soil [01/10/10] "Leader of the Viva Palestinan convoy and British MP George Galloway was deported from Egyptian soil moments after he set foot on it, crossing the border at Rafah from Gaza, organizers of the convoy said. ..."

Turkish army shells northern Iraq - reports [01/10/10] "The Turkish army has carried out an artillery attack on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq, Turkish media said on Friday. ..."

Ugandan lawmaker refuses to withdraw ‘kill the gays’ bill [01/10/10] "A Ugandan lawmaker on Friday refused to withdraw proposed legislation that would impose the death penalty for some gays and lesbians despite international condemnation and presidential opposition to a measure that could scare off foreign investors. ... Lawmaker David Bahati said he will not heed a call late Thursday from the government to drop the proposed bill, as he feels such a measure is necessary in the conservative East African country. On Thursday, Minister of State for Investment Aston Kajara said the government would ask Bahati to scrap the bill because they fear backlash from foreign investors. The bill, which Bahati proposed in September, has provoked criticism from gay-rights groups and protests in London, New York and Washington." Note: Sequential moron.

Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map [01/10/10] "The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline on Wednesday connecting Iran's northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan's vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is "apocalypse now" for the Islamic regime in Tehran. ..."

Iraq gets tough with foreign security contractors [01/10/10] "In line with a new tough approach, Iraqi security forces have seized huge storages of weaponry belonging to the foreign security contractors whose mandates had expired. ..."

Amish families exempt from insurance mandate [01/10/10] "The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a "religious conscience" exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections. ..."   Note: That underscores the unconstitutionality of the whole bill. People will resist this shit until the end.

Mystery Surrounds Contractors' Role at CIA Base - ABC News [01/09/10] "Two of the seven CIA personnel killed in last week's suicide bombing in Afghanistan worked as contractors for the company formerly known as Blackwater, but what role Dane Paresi and Jeremy Wise played at the CIA's forward base in Khost remains unknown. The base collected intelligence used in the CIA's drone attacks across the border in Pakistan, but CIA director Leon Panetta has said that the former Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, is no longer involved in the drone program. Spokesman for both the CIA and Xe/Blackwater declined to comment whether Paresi and Wise were employed through Xe, but two private intelligence sources and one current government official familiar with CIA operations at the Afghanistan base confirmed to ABCNEWS.com that the two were there as Xe employees. A source familiar with Xe's contracts said that their role was not to provide security for the base, but provided no further details. ..."

U.S., NATO Expand Afghan War To Horn Of Africa And Indian Ocean [01/09/10] "In parallel with the escalation of the war in South Asia - counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and drone missile attacks in Pakistan - the United States and its NATO allies have laid the groundwork for increased naval, air and ground operations in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden. ..."

Blind in Afghanistan [01/09/10] "One of the paradoxes of America's bumbling intervention in Afghanistan is that the United States knows next to nothing about the country it is occupying. Not only that, but America's learning curve is so steep that it will be years, or decades, before our military and our intelligence services finally figure out which end is up -- if they ever do. Which raises the question: how does years-long counterinsurgency learning curve sqaure with President Obama's pledge to start withdrawing troops by July, 2011?....Chas Freeman, the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told me years ago, after the US blundered into Iraq, "We haven't invaded Iraq, we've invaded the Iraq of our dreams." What President Bush and his fellow bunglers did was to invade a country it knew virtually nothing about. The same can be said of Afghanistan. In both cases, the nations that America dreamed about have turned into nightmares. ..."

Putin warns Russia is prepared to go on the weapons offensive [01/09/10] "The Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, last week issued what has become one of his customary trademark warnings by announcing that Russia will start to build offensive weapons to counter American global aggression. ..."

US Military Aggression against Venezuela escalating [01/09/10] "Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez revealed today on his Sunday television and radio program, Aló Presidente, that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have illegally entered Venezuela’s airspace during the past several days. “A few days ago, one of these military planes penetrated Venezuela as far as Fort Mara,” a Venezuelan military fort in the State of Zulia, bordering Colombia. The drone was seen by several Venezuelan soldiers who immediately reported the aerial violation to their superiors. President Chávez gave the order today to shoot down any drones detected in Venezuelan territory. Chávez also directly implicated Washington in this latest threat against regional stability by confirming that the drones were of US origin. ..."

The Mafia Is Running the Giant World Casino [01/09/10] A breathtakingly powerful Mafia is running away with the world as we knew it. We now have indiscriminate killings, torture and deprivation of civil rights. We have unbound aggression on countries that present an obstacle to U.S. global power. We have colossal negligence of the environment, we have an impending economic disaster (although band-aided over for the moment in order to protect Big Money, at the expense of the taxpayers) where the poor people are the first to suffer, although this fact is barely mentioned in the mainstream media. We have an erosion of the legal system and complete disregard for the Constitution. The world-wide Mafia operates under the system of Neoliberalism, which means Free Trade that favors the rich countries, the corporatocracy (a coalition of government, banks, and corporations), financiers who do not see any further than multiplying their assets in a second with a stroke of the computer, and the arms industry that delivers the tools to empower this fundamentally corrupt system. The military, whose major function is to secure free access to gas, oil and other essential resources, is clearly also an important link in the project of world domination. NATO is just a U.S.-governed tool to keep Europe on its toes and do its bidding. Among the most powerful and predatory institutions founded by the rich nations, led by the United States, for reaching out to countries in financial distress are the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Free trade pacts (NAFTA,CAFTA, FTAA) [1] and economic strangulation of the countries in need of help cause drastic financial crises in poverty-stricken nations. [2] The Unites States is on its way to becoming a third-world country as far as the poor are concerned. ..."

Suicide Claims More US Military Lives Than Afghan War [01/08/10] "American military personnel are continuing to take their own lives in unprecedented numbers, as the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq wars drag on. By late November, at least 334 members of the armed forces had committed suicide in 2009, more than the 319 who were killed in Afghanistan or the 150 who died in Iraq. While a final figure is not available, the toll of military suicides last year was the worst since records began to be kept in 1980. --- M--- ilitary service has seriously impacted on the physical and mental health of the victims. -- The suicide figures for serving personnel are only one indication. The most alarming statistics are those on mental illness related to the hundreds of thousands of veterans of the two wars who have left the military and sought to reintegrate into civilian life. -- While there is no exact figure, studies estimate that as many as 20 to 30 percent of veterans suffer some degree of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), hindering their ability to hold down jobs, maintain relationships, overcome substance abuse and, in some cases, maintain their will to live. The worsening economic conditions facing working people in the US are aggravating the difficulties. - ..." Note: War - It's all insane, and death is the game. One way or another.

Commentary: Scanning the Abdulmutallab story for more lies [01/08/10] "After reading my article Scripting the ‘fear of flying,’ my friend John McCarthy, retired Marine captain from the Vietnam War clued me via email: “Jerry, the false flaggers forgot that a blasting cap is required to detonate PETN and other plastic explosives. Sure, it will burn and we used it in winter to heat our cans of food, but a blasting cap is missing from the mix. So, the PTB’s [Powers That Be] wanted to raise the fear factor, which this incident did, without loss of life and a $75 million dollar airplane . . . now the Israeli firms that make the full body scanners will reap millions!” Note: Since an Israelis security firm let the "crotch bomber" on the plane, it's a sure fire plan.

Commentary: 'The fall of Europe is looming' [01/08/10] "Two recent news items concern the progressive Islamization of Europe: one from Dr. Bruce Bawer on the sustained, emotional and physical attacks on critics of Islamic traditions, including the harsh treatment of women; and another from Cardinal Miloslav Vlk, retiring Archbishop of Prague, who warns, "The fall of Europe is looming." When one reads the important insights from Bawer, one can see that, given the current trend, the Cardinal is correct. ..."

Afghan govt. demands arrest of US "death squad" who handcuffed, executed 8 children. US refuses [01/08/10] "Kai Eide, UN Representative to Afghanistan confirmed the Afghan government’s investigative conclusions that US troops handcuffed and then executed eight students enrolled in grades 6 through 10 in a night raid on December 27, 2009. The US military and NATO responded the troops involved were non-official. The most likely source of para-military “non-official” troops in Afghanistan is Blackwater/Xe. President Hamid Karzai demanded arrest of the US troops engaged in the break-in and mafia-style execution of their children. The US responded to the Afghan demand of January 1 by rejecting the findings of the Afghan government and UN with a vague promise of their own self-investigation at some later date. ..."

IMF REVOLT: Greece, Iceland, Latvia may lead the way [01/08/10] "Total financial collapse, once a problem only for developing countries, has now come to Europe. The International Monetary Fund is imposing its “austerity measures” on the outer circle of the European Union, with Greece, Iceland and Latvia the hardest hit. But these are not your ordinary third world debtor supplicants. Historically, Iceland was settled by the Vikings, who successfully invaded Britain; Latvian tribes repulsed even the Vikings; and the Greeks conquered the whole Persian empire. If anyone can stand up to the IMF, these stalwart European warriors can. ..."

Despite China fury, US to sell missiles to Taiwan [01/08/10] "The US Defense Department has approved the sale of upgraded missile equipment to Taiwan, despite an opposition by China. The announcement came late on Wednesday. The deal will allow weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Corp to sell Taiwan over 250 advanced Patriot air defense missiles. The deal rounds off a USD 6.5bn package originally approved by former US President George W. Bush in 2008. Taiwan estimates that China has up to 1,500 missiles aimed at the self-ruled island, which Beijing claims as its own. The announcement followed close on the heels of a warning from China. In a regular briefing on Tuesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing "firmly opposes the US selling arms to Taiwan." She also said that Beijing has held what she called "serious consultations" with Washington on the issue. ..." Note:  This is a HUGE provocation to China .... right in line with Zbigniew Brzezinski's policies from the Carter administration days in the 1970's. Also, considering the fact that China holds so much US debt .. China could ruin the US overnight if it wanted to .... Obama wants it to.

Minot/Barksdale Nuclear Bent Spear Incident-Part II by Sibel Edmonds [01/07/10] "Last month I posted part 1 of my piece on Minot/Barksdale here. In it, I reviewed the incident and the Defense Science Board’s final report on the incident in question. When the story broke, there were reports and writings all over the blogosphere connecting it with possible strikes against Iran, possible diversion for false-flag attacks here at home and even Chinese electronic tampering through backdoor access to Chinese-made semiconductors allegedly used in Air Force electronics. In this piece, I will examine some of these allegations as well as some of the deaths of Air Force personnel in an attempt to determine any relationship to the above incident. As stated in Part 1, over 36 hours on August 29-30, 2007, two pylons of 6 AGM-129 cruise missiles one package containing inert payloads, the other 6 active nuclear warheads, were removed from the 5th Bomb Wing secure ordnance storage at Minot AFB, mounted on a B-52H bomber like the one pictured above carrying identical pylon payloads and flown 1100 miles to Barksdale AFB where they were discovered by ground crews after sitting, unguarded on the tarmac for 11 hours. The resulting Nuclear Security Alert and it’s aftermath investigations led to a wholesale review of Air Force Nuclear Weapons Handling procedures and precipitated an unprecedented wave of disciplinary actions across the ranks, up to and including the resignations of the Air Force Chief of Staff Michael Moseley and Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne. Although the weapons never left overall Air Force custody, they passed through five separate chain-of-custody handoffs requiring visual inspections on two bases until being discovered by the unloading crew at Barksdale. ..."

Scott Horton Interviews Sibel Edmonds [41:00][ Listen or download ] [01/07/10] "Former FBI contract translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds discusses the corruption of “political termite” former Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, the systemic rot indicated by the disappearance of accountability and oversight in all levels of US government, pervasive political self-dealing and foreign espionage based in Chicago, bribes and lucrative salaries given to current and former US politicians by Turkish operatives, ignorant or apathetic voters that keep voting for incumbents, the special set of ethical and legal exceptions given to Israel and the bribery and espionage investigations that have targeted Dan Burton, Bob Livingston, Jane Harman and others in Congress." Jan 4, 2010 Interview

Drug Empire Investigations: Will secret deal bring old management back to Venice Airport? [01/06/10] by Daniel Hopsicker "The hand-picked new ownership at the former Huffman Aviation FBO (Fixed Base of Operations) at the Venice Municipal Airport has links to private military contractors in Georgia involved in CIA extraordinary renditions around the world, as well as other covert activity on behalf of the U.S. Government. This same company turned over between 12-15 mid-sized regional jets to another owner of Huffman Aviation, Wallace J. Hilliard, ten years ago, for Hilliard's doomed from the start “start-up airline,” an operation so inept that on at least one publicized route, they never sold a single ticket. The company or network of companies which has had so much involvement with recent owners of Huffman Aviation is known variously as “Phoenix Air,” “Phoenix Air Services,” and “Phoenix Continental." Oddly, long after his start-up airline quit flying scheduled trips, Hilliard still had jets on the tarmacs and aprons of various airports. And he continued to pay pilots to be ready... Perhaps just in case. Details of how and what we found out in a moment. The Venice Airport FBO, which used to be called Huffman Aviation, is a government utility paid for with tax money, as well as the only significant cash-flow business at the Venice Airport. Now, in a grab reminiscent of the so-called "privatization" of Russia during the early 1990’s, it is about to disappear. ..... It’s impossible to miss the pain and humiliation felt by citizens of the decent, peaceful, and entirely pleasant city of Venice, Fl. over the unwelcome recognition their community has received because of it’s Municipal Airport, and its links to terrorism, drug smuggling, and covert intrigue. ... .... The recently named buyer of the Venice FBO, “TriState Aviation Group LLC," is a company which could use some time in the bull-pen before being thrown into regular rotation. .... one of TriState’s three principals ..... Henry Paulino ... had been 37 when he was arrested for felony grand larceny, possession of stolen property, and possession of a forged instrument, etc. Did Henry Paulino, about to become an owner of a multi-million dollar operation that is a tax-payer funded public utility get busted shoplifting $1,600 in clothes ...

The Criminalization of Protest [01/06/10] "Want to see an authoritarian state? Look around you. "The most egregious actions took place on September 25, when police began ordering students who were in public spaces to disperse despite the fact that they had broken no laws. Those who moved too slowly, even from public spaces on their own campus or in front of their dorms, were arrested. ...That standard is a license for the police to arrest anyone anywhere in the city at any time, regardless of whether they’ve done anything wrong. In all, 190 people were arrested during the summit, including at least two journalists. ...more than 1,800 people were arrested at the previous Republican National Convention in New York City.... Denver’s police union later issued a commemorative T-shirt of the event emblazoned with an illustration of a menacing cop wielding a baton and the slogan, “We get up early to beat the crowds.” ... These are precisely the kinds of events where free speech and the freedom to protest need protection the most: when influential figures make high-level decisions with far-reaching consequences. Instead, we see the opposite. The higher the event’s profile, the more powerful the players involved, and the more important the decisions being made, the more determined police and politicians are to make sure dissent is kept as far away from the VIPs as possible. Or silenced entirely." ..."

UK: The war on terror has been about scaring people, not protecting them [01/05/10] "So there was no ticking time bomb. No urgent need ever arose to torture anybody who was withholding crucial details, so that civilisation as we know it could be saved in the nick of time. No wires had to be tapped, special prisons erected or international accords violated. No innocent people had to be grabbed off the street in their home country, transported across the globe and waterboarded. Drones, daisy-cutters, invasions, occupations were, it has transpired, not necessary. ..."   Related: Downing Street blunders over Detroit plane bomber   "Downing Street was today forced to retreat from its claim MI5 warned US intelligence over the alleged Christmas Day plane bomber in the face of a blunt denial from America. ..."

A General, his Son, a Spook & the Godmother of Neocons : Afghan Carpetbaggers Hit Pots of Gold in Washington [01/05/10] "Once upon a time there was an Afghani general named Abdul Rahim Wardak. He had studied in both US and Egyptian military schools before joining the army in Afghanistan. In the 1980s, a few years after he joined the army, he decided to defect and joined the Mujahideen movement. We don’t know exactly who in the United States gave him the order to defect, because no one is willing to go on record. However, we know very well that due to their fight against the Communist Soviet Union, the Mujahideen were significantly financed, armed, and trained by the CIA, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, along with several other not as significant nations. We also know that back then, when we were supporting, financing, training and cheering for the Mujahideen as ‘freedom fighters,’ those labeled today as terrorist evil-doer radicals, Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban, were viewed and treated as our allies and entourage. Now, back to our General. He joined the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan arm of the Mujahideen and fought against the Soviets. Interestingly, during those years, the mid to late 80s, our general Wardak was brought to the United States and coached to testify before the US Congress; not once but several times. He was even flown to the US once to receive medical treatment for a wound he received from a scud missile. I am sure you are savvy enough to know that this was considered ‘highly special’ treatment for a Mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan. Our general was truly loved when it came to our CIA and certain high-level people within the Reagan Administration. So how good of a military officer was Mr. Wardak? Not a good one – and this assessment seems to be pretty much unanimous. ..."

World Conflict Total for 2009 [01/05/10] "The year 2009 was an improvement as far as global wars were concerned, according to the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research. The institute’s annual conflict analysis found there were a total of 365 political trouble spots in 2009, including seven wars and 24 “severe crises.” ..."

MI5 'still using threats to recruit Muslim spies' [01/05/10] "MI5 faces accusations that its officers have blackmailed and harassed vulnerable immigrants living in Britain as part of a campaign to recruit spies to report on Muslim communities. In one case, a man who escaped persecution in Africa where members of his family were murdered claims that for the past nine months he has been harassed by MI5 agents who have tried to force him to work for the Security Service. Isahaq Elmi, 31, says he was bombarded with more than 200 phone calls and tricked into attending meetings at police stations in Birmingham. In one of the most recent phone calls, Mr Elmi says an MI5 officer calling himself Jahil threatened him by saying: "One way or another we are going to get you." Ahmed Diini, a Dutch citizen who has settled in Britain, says that he was visited by agents at the Birmingham school where he worked and threatened with arrest. When he went on holiday he says he was twice detained at UK airports. Mr Diini, 21, alleges he was also bombarded with phone calls and threatened with detention under the Terrorism Act. On three occasions, he claims, MI5 agents, a man called James and a female officer, suggested that his life would be made easier if he agreed to work for MI5. He also alleges that his wife was harassed by a female MI5 officer while she was shopping at an airport. Both men are originally from Somalia. Mr Diini came to Europe when he was three years old and Mr Elmi was granted British citizenship in 2006. The new allegations raise concerns about the tactics used by MI5 to recruit informers from Muslim communities. Last year The Independent reported five cases in London where young Somali men complained of similar harassment. British Muslim groups have warned that these alleged heavy-handed tactics risk alienating Asian communities. They also question the quality and reliability of the intelligence being gathered if it is secured through coercion. Britain's security services stepped up covert operations in 2008 against Britain's Somali and Yemeni communities over concerns that UK citizens were travelling to Africa and the Middle East to join extremist training camps with links to al-Qa'ida. The attempt to blow up a US-bound airliner by a Nigerian man who spent time in Yemen and a suspected similar attack launched from Somalia has increased MI5's interest in British residents with links to both states. ..." Note:  recruiting 'Muslim spies' like the patsy crotch-bomber

Poverty in the New Iraq [01/05/10] "Occupied, raped, destroyed Iraq remains a priority even more so, precisely because it is NOT getting coverage in either mainstream or "alternative" media. But this is another subject matter that I will have to delve into in greater depth in some future post, because this SILENCE around the Iraqi cause is criminal in itself. ..." Note:  This is a brutally honest assessment of the fate of far too many occupation-era Iraqis you will never get through the corporate media.

Bolivia eyes lithium with hopes to transform economy [01/04/10] VIDEO [6:01] "Bolivia controls nearly half of the world’s reserves of lithium, a metal crucial for electric cars and other alternative energy technologies. But who will benefit from this discovery is creating controversy. Worldfocus’ Ivette Feliciano, Bryan Myers and Ara Ayer venture to the “Salar de Uyuni” — the largest salt flat in the world, and one that may turn out to be the key to Bolivia’s future economic growth. ..." Note:

China extends its commercial reach into Afghanistan [01/04/10] VIDEO [3:47] "China has spent 3.5 billion dollars to purchase a huge copper mine in Afghanistan -- the largest foreign investment project in that country. Roben Farzad, a senior writer for BusinessWeek, joins Martin Savidge to discuss China's increasingly assertive role on the world stage and the state of the global economy as the year 2009 draws to a close. ..."

Afghan War To Control Caspian Oil, Gas Routes [01/04/10] "Let the high-minded causes of bringing peace, democracy, stability or anything but pain and pillage to Afghanistan and Pakistan be brought down like flags to half mast, and let us realize there are far baser motives of wealth, power, and geopolitical control rising. It's not really rocket science and shouldn't be, especially for a Harvard constitutional lawyer, yes, our own Barrack Obama, "President for Change". ..."   Note: and the war is about drugs.

Haskells Speak Out Against Criticism Of Challenging Official Story [01/04/10] "Kurt wants nothing but a full investigation to be done into this. He saw things that nobody else is claiming to see, and wants to feel safe flying again. ..." Note:  The family blog ... both are lawyers...

State Secrets Privilege: The Puppets & Puppet Masters [01/03/10] "... The last time I wrote about the State Secrets Privilege and how it was being misrepresented and twisted by puppets in the media my blood was very close to reaching the boiling point. This time, with this recent Horn case and its direct SSP implications, my blood actually did reach the boiling point. In fact it is boiling now! Here are a few excerpts from my previous piece on the State Secrets Privilege, starting with the intro: ..."

Bombing Afghanistan: Where Have All the Photos Gone? [01/03/10] "Where are these photographs in the no-coverage coverage of Afghan casualties by our simply despicable mainstream media? Why don’t they show us the real ugly face of our aimless, objective-less, but nonetheless vicious assault tagged as a War on Terror in Afghanistan? ..."

Lithuania & CIA Black Sites, the Case of Mysterious Helicopters in Afghanistan & More [01/03/10] "Towards late December the Lithuanian Parliament finally released its findings into a probe of CIA dark activities in Lithuania, and confirmed that the agency operated two ‘Black Sites’ inside the Lithuanian Capital City Vilnius. The probe also confirmed that at least five CIA planes landed in the city and that Lithuania’s spy agencies didn’t let their border guards inspect those planes. Lithuania’s government is still denying that they were informed of these activities in advance, and Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius called it a “matter of great concern.” Of course, so far the US government has declined to provide any confirmation or comments. Last August a little bit of description of these sites and the treatment given to these detainees were published in an article: ..."

Afghan Parliament Rejects Most Cabinet Nominees In Rebuke To Karzai [01/03/10] "A chastened President Hamid Karzai must submit new Cabinet picks after defiant lawmakers rejected 17 of his 24 nominees Saturday, including a powerful warlord and the country's only woman minister. The Afghan parliament rejected nominees viewed as Karzai's political cronies, those believed to be under the influence of warlords and others deemed unqualified. "I think, unfortunately, that the criteria were either ethnicity or bribery or money," lawmaker Fawzia Kufi said of Karzai's picks. The vote was a setback to Karzai, though one political analyst in Kabul speculated that it could free up the president to appoint qualified professionals rather than settle political debts. "There were lots of demands on Karzai from people asking for Cabinet positions because they campaigned for him," Mohammad Qasi m Akhgar said. "This was the only way he could reward them and if parliament didn't approve them, it wasn't his fault. Very soon, Karzai will come out with a new list with the names of people he really wants to have in his Cabinet." ..."

Making Afghanistan Safe for Heroin : US Media & The Perpetual Flip-Flopping on Drug-Related Stories [01/03/10] By David Guyatt

Israeli ICTS Connection To Pollard & Schiphol Airport [01/03/10] By Wayne Madsen "ICTS is also linked with Israeli espionage against the United States. An ICTS board member, retired Major General Amos Lapidot, served as commander of the Israeli Air Force and authorized Israeli Air Force Colonel Aviem Sella, operating under official cover at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, and Rafael Eitan, head of LAKAM, an Israeli military technical intelligence gatherer, to accept U.S. Navy intelligence official Jonathan Pollard's offer to spy for Israel. ..." Note: A lot of interesting connections and information here.

Social Unrest and Global States of Combustibility [01/02/10] "“If the world appears to have escaped relatively unscathed by social unrest in 2009, despite suffering the worst recession since the 1930s, it might just prove the lull before the storm. Despite a tentative global recovery, for many people around the world economic and social conditions will continue to deteriorate in 2010. An estimated 60m people worldwide will lose their jobs. Poverty rates will continue to rise, with 200m people at risk of joining the ranks of those living on less than $2 a day. But poverty alone does not spark unrest—exaggerated income inequalities, poor governance, lack of social provision and ethnic tensions are all elements of the brew that foments unrest.“ ..." Note:  See Graph

The Makings of a Police State [01/02/10] The National Security Generation "Our children who were born on and around September 11, 2001 are now almost eight years old. These children, who we usually refer to as ‘the future,’ have only known a nation that has been engaged in perpetual wars, and to them it is ‘forever.’ How many times a day do they hear and read the word ‘war’? Whether it’s the TV they are tuned in to, or their parents’ daily paper they happen to get a glimpse of, or the radio news program they listen to during their car rides…they can’t help but hear and see ‘wars’: war on terror, war in Iraq, the Afghan war… They know a nation whose state is defined by a color coded alert system. They are being told and taught to be ‘alert’ against a vague and never-defined threat posed by an even more vague enemy. To them the days when their parents traveled with dignity is a sweet bed-time story; one that starts with ‘Once upon a time we boarded our planes without going through metal detectors and puff-machines, without bending over before the ‘badge-men’ to remove our shoes, without being searched and probed…without fear; the fear of becoming a chosen one by our state and it’s badge-men…’ ..."   Related: Part II   The Discretion Factor & TSA Black Hole | Part III   National Security Letters: In Peril or Deep Trouble? | " Part IV Secret reports, Secret budgets, Secret operations, Secret courts"

Neocon Ex-Congressman & His ‘Laundering’ Business in Afghanistan [01/01/10] "As the bodies in Afghanistan are piling up and the number of wounded keeps escalating, while Washington is buzzing with the long-known but selectively-buried corrupt and criminal past and present of our installed government officials there, some are cashing in on both sides, and some are paving the way to the next pot(s) of gold reserved for carpetbaggers and war-profiteers in every war or conflict. In this game there are always a few known names and faces who are publicized and who draw the spotlight, and there are those who enjoy operating and profiting quietly without drawing deserved attention and needed scrutiny. That’s how Washington’s war and conflict machine works, and that’s the way our foreign policy decisions are influenced and made. I am going to introduce one such character as an introduction to my upcoming longer story on this same topic. Ladies and gentlemen please meet our Neocon Ex Congressman, Don Ritter, and be informed of his new lucrative ‘Laundering Business’ in Afghanistan. ... Don Ritter, former Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania from 1979 until 1992, is known to have received positions and benefits due to his consistent and heavy involvement in Afghanistan related operations and activities, starting when Brzezinski’s vision was put in practice in 1979. He authored the “Material Assistance” to Afghanistan legislation in the Congress, created the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan to promote such material assistance of all kinds to the Afghan resistance (including the Bin Laden Group), and held numerous meetings on Afghanistan with representatives of the State Department, CIA, and DIA to enhance U.S. assistance to the Mujahideen (which included now-evil Osama Bin Laden, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistani ISI). These are only the ‘known’ activities of Mr. Ritter during his years in Congress. Now let’s look at what he’s been busy with since he left the Congress in 1992. According to Mr. Ritter’s openly available biography, provided on various websites including Wikipedia, he founded and chaired the Afghanistan Foundation in 1996. He’s been living in Washington DC, and very interestingly, since the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks, he has spent about one-third of his time in Afghanistan! Why? This is what he says when you ask him the question: Since 2002, he has been active in developing a market economy in Afghanistan: personally as a businessman and investor in Afghan companies, and public policy wise in promoting’ free market policies of the Afghan government through organizations like the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce (AACC) and the Afghan International Chamber of Commerce (AICC). ......"

2010: Welcome to Orwell’s World [01/01/10] "In Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell described a superstate called Oceania, whose language of war inverted lies that "passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.’" Barack Obama is the leader of a contemporary Oceania. In two speeches at the close of the decade, the Nobel Peace Prize winner affirmed that peace was no longer peace, but rather a permanent war that "extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan" to "disorderly regions and diffuse enemies." He called this "global security" and invited our gratitude. To the people of Afghanistan, which America has invaded and occupied, he said wittily: "We have no interest in occupying your country." ... In Oceania, truth and lies are indivisible. According to Obama, the American attack on Afghanistan in 2001 was authorized by the United Nations Security Council. There was no UN authority. He said the "the world" supported the invasion in the wake of 9/11 when, in truth, all but three of 37 countries surveyed by Gallup expressed overwhelming opposition. He said that America invaded Afghanistan "only after the Taliban refused to turn over [Osama] bin Laden." In 2001, the Taliban tried three times to hand over bin Laden for trial, reported Pakistan’s military regime, and were ignored. Even Obama’s mystification of 9/11 as justification for his war is false. More than two months before the Twin Towers were attacked, the Pakistani foreign minister, Niaz Naik, was told by the Bush administration that an American military assault would take place by mid-October. The Taliban regime in Kabul, which the Clinton administration had secretly supported, was no longer regarded as "stable" enough to ensure America’s control over oil and gas pipelines to the Caspian Sea. It had to go. Obama’s most audacious lie is that Afghanistan today is a "safe haven" for al-Qaeda’s attacks on the West. His own national security adviser, General James Jones, said in October that there were "fewer than 100" al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. According to US intelligence, 90 percent of the Taliban are hardly Taliban at all, but "a tribal localized insurgency [who] see themselves as opposing the US because it is an occupying power." The war is a fraud. Only the terminally gormless remain true to the Obama brand of "world peace." Beneath the surface, however, there is serious purpose ....."

Evidence Mounts For U.S. Complicity in Terrorism [01/01/10] "Terror War": Response By Gop And Israel Against Threats To Their Global Plans? "We do know a couple of things. Dad, back in Nigeria, ran the national arms industry (DICON) in partnership with Israel, in particular, the Mossad. He was in daily contact with them. They run everything in Nigeria, from arms production to counter-terrorism. Though Islamic, Muttalab was a close associate of Israel. He has been misrepresented. His "banking" is a cover. Next, what do we know about the two Al Qaeda leaders Bush had released, the ones who planned this? According to ABC news, the Al Qaeda leaders running the insurgency in Yemen were released from Guantanamo, although two of the highest ranking known terrorist there, without trial. Guantanamo prisoner #333, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, and prisoner #372, Said Ali Shari, were sent to Saudi Arabia on Nov. 9, 2007, according to the Defense Department log of detainees who were released from American custody. Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden's personal secretary. With all the hoopla about trials in New York, not a word is said when top level terrorists are released to Saudi friends of the Bush family who let them go. We are now fighting these two Bush friends in Yemen. They are running a major insurgency there. We have been using Cruise missiles and our jets to attack their bases in the last weeks. ... CBS News has learned that as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed "The Nigerian," suspected of meeting with "terrorist elements" in Yemen. Sources tell CBS News "The Nigerian" has now turned out to be Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. But that connection was not made when Abudulmutallab's father went to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria three months later, on November 19, 2009. It was then he expressed deep concerns to a CIA officer about his son's ties to extremists in Yemen, a hotbed of al Qaeda activity ..... It is claimed by groups claiming to be Al Qaeda in Yemen that the Detroit attack was in retaliation to US attacks on bases in Yemen run by Al Qaeda leaders released by Bush. The government of Yemen, as reported in the BBC , says that the Al Qaeda terrorists, led by those released by Bush, are really Israeli agents though they have organized attacks against US targets: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has said the security forces have arrested a group of alleged Islamist militants linked to Israeli intelligence ......" Note: Much more to read on this page.

Provocative Russia Today Ads Rejected in US Airports [01/01/10] VIDEO [9:34] Note:  Major US airports refused to display images intended for use in the RT's December'09 US advertising campaign. An alternative version (the one saying 'Our Ad. Politically correct.) was accepted though, and can be seen on display in airports of New York NY, Washington DC, Baltimore MD and Newark NJ. RT advertisements, which are turning heads in the UK, juxtapose provocative images which show different sides of a story. RT asks questions and encourage viewers to question more, since you can only reach a balanced judgment by being better informed. By challenging the accepted view, RT reveals a side of the news that you wouldn't normally see. After all, the more you question, the more you know.

John Yoo: Obama Is A Continuation Of Bush On Executive Powers [01/01/10] "n his new book, former Bush administration attorney and infamous torture memo collaborator John Yoo favorably argues that President Barack Obama is wielding executive powers in the same manner as his White House predecessor. Titled "Crisis and Command," Yoo's 500-plus-page work looks at the evolution of presidential powers from Washington to Bush, but with an afterword added for the current White House occupant. Few people have theorized as much about the limits of the powers granted to the presidency under the constitution (though, in Yoo's case, much of that theorizing went into figuring out how to stretch or defy those limits). And, in his writing, the current U.C. Berkeley law professor insists that Obama has -- due to the challenges of elected office -- shunned the anti-Bush posture he struck as a presidential candidate. "President Obama has come to have more in common with the ends of the Bush administration's terrorism policies than did Candidate Obama," Yoo writes. "It should be clear, further, that this would not be possible were it not for a broad view of presidential power." Yoo points to a continued American presence in Iraq, enhanced deployment to Afghanistan, the continuation of the NSA's warrantless wiretapping power and the "extensive use of predator drones" as examples of a Bush-like wartime executive operating under the reduced (but still present) constraints of Congress and the judicial branch. "Even ordering the CIA to follow military rules in interrogating enemy combatants depends wholly on the president's authority to command the military and determine operational tactics and strategy," he adds. "Congress itself refused to place the CIA under the rules of the Army Field Manual on interrogation." "Obama has done nothing less than exercise many of the executive's broader powers in time of emergency of way," Yoo writes, in words that will undoubtedly irritate the White House and cause howls among Obama's progressive critics. ..." Note: Yoo should know ... he's just as 'dangerous' to free thought as Bush is. He's lucky he hasn't been convicted of treason ... yet.

Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children [01/01/10] "American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead. Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed. ..." Note:  If, in fact, US and NATO soldiers are dragging kids from their beds to kill them in cold blood, our policy in in Afghanistan has become absolute insanity, writ large. You do not win the hearts and minds of the country, smarting under your military occupation, by killing their children in cold blood. Related: 'Afghan soldier' kills CIA staff "Eight Americans working for the CIA have died in a bomb attack in Afghanistan, the worst against US intelligence officials since 1983. A bomber wearing an explosive vest entered Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost Province, near Pakistan. ..." Note: Payback is a bitch! CBS News: Was the Afghan Bomb Attack an Inside Job? "It all happened at a well-fortified combat outpost in Eastern Afghanistan. Somehow a suicide bomber was able to bring his explosives on the base, walk up to a group of American civilians and blow himself up. It will take an investigation to determine how he did it. ..." Note: More tangled webs of intrigue. CIA base chief killed in attack [01/01/10] "The CIA said Thursday that seven of its employees were killed and six others wounded in a suicide bombing at a base in Afghanistan. The Associated Press has learned that one of them was the chief of the CIA's post in Afghanistan's southeastern Khost Province. ..."

Commentary: Billions in Recent Yemeni Investments and The Underwear Bomber’s Daddy. It’s a Small World Ain’t It? [01/01/10] "Daddy Warbucks, whose banking ties are under threat of serious set-backs, goes to the State Department and then the CIA and all of a sudden his lonely, college drop-out, populist son, ends up getting on a flight and setting his nuts on fire and the good-old U.S. of A can now come running in to the rescue to save all those precious investments in Yemen that are directly tied to, you guessed it, the underwear bomber’s daddy. A small world, ain’t it? I hope that clears things up a little bit. Either that or they just “hate us for our freedom”. Take your pick. ..."

Bombshell Eyewitness Revelations: Confirmed FBI Cover-Up Of Flight 253 Attack [01/01/10] "Detroit attorney Kurt Haskell dropped bombshell revelations concerning his eyewitness experience of the Flight 253 attack and how the FBI detained a second man after dogs detected a bomb in his luggage on The Alex Jones Show today. The FBI has not only ignored Haskell’s story, but they have launched a cover-up by refusing to even acknowledge the existence of another man who filmed the entire flight, including the aborted attack, as well as the well-dressed man who aided the bomber to board the plane even though he had no passport and was on a terror watch list. ..."   VIDEO clips accompany article.

Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell: 'I was visited by the FBI' [01/01/10] "Following up on a visit from FBI officials about an eyewitness account first described to MLive.com, Michigan attorney Kurt Haskell described the visit in comment sections across MLive on Wednesday. Haskell and his wife, Lori, were aboard Flight 253 when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to destroy the plane. They say another man tried to help Abdulmutallab board the plane in Amsterdam. Haskell had two detailed posts in two different stories. Here is Part One, originally posted here: ..."

Evidence Clearly Indicates Staged Attack on Detroit Flight [01/01/10] VIDEO [8:23]

Michigan couple claims it saw Nigerian terror suspect trying to board Flight 253 without a passport [01/01/10] "Kurt and Lori Haskell, both bankruptcy lawyers, told the Daily News they saw a sharply dressed Indian man in his 50s - who did not get on the flight - trying to talk an Amsterdam gate agent into letting the suspect board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 without his passport. If the suspect did get on the plane without showing his passport, the security lapse would be the most shocking yet. Nigerian authorities said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, left Lagos on a KLM flight to Amsterdam with a valid Nigerian passport - No. A3921640. It was not immediately clear if he showed the passport at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport (where an Israeli-owned firm manages security) . The Haskells, who were playing cards on the floor near the Northwest check-in desk in Amsterdam, say they saw Abdulmutallab, 23, with an escort who was arguing with the gate agent. "He said, 'He needs to get on this plane, but he doesn't have a passport.' The ticket-taker said something like, 'You can't board without a passport.' The Indian man said, 'He is from Sudan, we do this all the time,'" said Lori Haskell. "I think they were trying to make this guy look like a Sudanese refugee and take pity on him," she said ...)"    Note: If you go to all the trouble of planning to blow up an airplane, don't you make sure you travel documents are in order? Getting on board without a passport is AN ATTENTION-GETTING DEVICE!

Irony: Detroit flight 'hero' says failed ' bombing' mirrors a script he wrote [01/01/10] "The Dutch traveler who has been hailed as a hero for stopping a suspected bomber on a U.S.-bound flight says the whole thing felt like a movie script -- his own. Jasper Schuringa, a video producer who leapt onto the Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, says he wrote a script eight years ago about a failed suicide attack on Amsterdam's airport, the same place from which the Christmas Day flight took off. "It is about a suicide bomber who wants to murder a politician at Schiphol. But at the crucial moment the bomb doesn't go off," Schuringa said in an interview in Miami published in the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad today ....."      Note:  Now this is getting a little creepy. But, the Israeli's are involved, so what else is new?

Archive of last years files in this category is stored for research purposes, but not online due to size