False history gets made all day, any day, the truth of the new is never on the news
Adrienne Rich

note: SHEDDING LIGHT ON THE APPARENTLY BIZARRE BIDEN & POWELL PREDICTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL CRISIS...AND FURTHER REVEALING THE GROWING DEPTHS, DESPERATION AND VULNERABILITY OF U.S. CAPITALIST-IMPERIALISM

THE WAR SECRETARY OBAMA WANTS TO RETAIN

Gates Says Long-Term Safety of Nuclear Weapons Is “Bleak“: the nuclear stockpile is getting old. sensitive parts don't last forever...the US has not built a new nuclear weapon since 1992.
http://www.news25.us/dsp_story.cfm?storyid=9455&RequestTimeout=500

Gates Gives Rationale for Expanded Deterrence
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Tuesday that the United States would hold “fully accountable” any country or group that helped terrorists to acquire or use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.The statement was the Bush administration’s most expansive yet in trying to articulate a vision of deterrence for the post-Sept. 11 world. It went beyond the cold war notion that a president could respond with overwhelming force against a country that directly attacked the United States or its allies with unconventional weapons.
“Today we also make clear that the United States will hold any state, terrorist group or other nonstate actor or individual fully accountable for supporting or enabling terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction — whether by facilitating, financing or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts,” Mr. Gates said. The comments came in an address in which he said it was important to modernize the nation’s nuclear arsenal as a hedge against what he described as “rising and resurgent powers” like Russia or China, as well as “rogue nations” like Iran or North Korea and international terrorists. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/washington/29gates.html?_r=1&th=&emc=t...

Undetected Fire in Nuclear Launch Site
http://www.military.com/news/article/undetected-fire-in-the-nuke-hole.ht...
31 Oct 2008 A fire caused $1 million worth of damage at an unmanned underground nuclear launch site last May 23, alleged;y due to faulty battery charger, but the Air Force didn't find out about it until five days later, an Air Force official said yesterday. The fire burned itself out after an hour or two, and multiple safety systems prevented any threat of an accidental launch of the Minuteman III missile, Maj. Laurie Arellano said. She said she was not allowed to say whether the missile was armed with a nuclear warhead at the time of the fire.

...strategic rivals for world dominance...
World faces growing risk of war: US intelligence chief
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hdpW2hUy5fhRrbRIebQL3YUmlEFg
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The world faces a growing risk of conflict over the next 20 to 30 years amid an unprecedented transfer of wealth and power from West to East, according to the US intelligence chief. Michael McConnell, the director of national intelligence, predicted rising demand for scarce supplies of food and fuel, strategic competition over new technologies, and the spread of weapons of mass destruction. "What I'm suggesting -- there's an increased potential for conflict," McConnell said in a speech Thursday to intelligence professionals in Nashville, Tennessee. "During the period of this assessment, out to 2025, the probability for conflict between nations and within nation-state entities will be greater," he said.

Conditions for "large casualty terrorist attacks using chemical, biological, or less likely, nuclear materials" also will increase during that period, he said.

McConnell described a multi-polar world in 2025 shaped by the rise of China, India and Brazil, whose economies will by then match those of the western industrial states."In terms of size, speed, and directional flow, the transfer of global wealth and economic power, now underway, as noted from West to East is without precedent in modern history," McConnell said.
Territorial expansion and military rivalries are not likely but cannot be ruled out, he said. "We judge these sweeping changes will not trigger a complete breakdown of the current international system, but the next 20 years of transition to a new system are fraught with risks and many, many challenges," he said.

By 2025, China is likely to have the world's second largest economy and to have emerged as a major military power, the largest importer of natural resources and the largest contributor to world pollution. "China is poised to have more impact on the world over the next 20 years than any other country," he said. India will have either the third or second largest economy and will press to become "one of the significant poles of this new world," he said. Russia also will be part of that group but only if it expands and diversifies its economy and integrates it with the world global economy, he said.
"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, demographics, access to natural resources, investments and technological innovation. There will be a struggle to acquire technology advantage as the key enabler for dominance," he said.

Bio Terror 'Next Threat' For US
October 31, 2008
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20081031/twl-bio-terror-next-threat-for-us-3f...
Nuclear and biological terrorism is the emerging threat the next US President should focus on, the US security chief told Sky News. In an exclusive interview, homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff said sources of radioactive and biological materials must be properly secured "at all costs". He warned terrorists are actively seeking to acquire such materials.... he did not think a weapon of mass destruction, like a biological or nuclear bomb, was a danger that could be just months away. But he warned: "...we can't afford to waste this time waiting for that event to happen.
"We've got to stay ahead of the issue of weapons of mass destruction..."
His comments echo those of the British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, who told Sky News last year that intelligence suggested terrorists were trying to get their hands on materials and know how to make a dirty bomb....
Mr Chertoff also warned nuclear proliferation was a major concern.... But the security chief said biological threats posed the most pressing and "challenging issue" to security, "because the raw material exists in nature". "The internet and the proliferation of knowledge is an increasing challenge. "It will require the whole world to make sure people aren't setting up laboratories where they're beginning to fashion biological weapons."
Mr Chertoff told Sky News the intent of terrorists to get their hands on such weapons was clear. He pointed to the discovery of al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, where experiments with biological and chemical agents had taken place, saying: "Al Qaeda would, if they could, use these types of weapons. "It is not a lack of intent, it is a lack of capability. I don't think we want to wait in addressing these issues and that's why this is a very hot priority for us."

Pentagon Senior Advisor Warn Of Coming International Crisis... Echoes Biden, Powell Warnings
Steve Watson
On the same day Biden made his prophesy, Colin Powell appeared on Meet The Press and stated “There’s going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don’t even know about right now.” The chairman of a key Pentagon advisory panel has echoed recent claims by both Joe Biden and Colin Powell, warning that the next administration will face an international crisis within months of taking office. Michael Bayer, chairman of the Defense Business Board and veteran Pentagon consultant announced during a public meeting late last week that the new President should "prepare for a likely first-270-days crisis." Accordingly, the Defense Business Board says the new administration should set a goal to win Senate confirmation of key Pentagon posts in the first 30 days of the inauguration, in order to have a full team in place to deal with such a contingency, an Inside Defense report reveals. The incoming administration “must not wait until June” to get assistant secretaries confirmed and October for deputy assistant secretaries to be Senate confirmed, Bayer's briefing http://www.defenselink.mil/dbb/index.html(PDF) states

"First 270 Days", list of Presidents with crisis events next to their names:

Given that the Iranian revolution and the Bay of Pigs were both engineered by the CIA, and that the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the '93 WTC bombing and 9/11 have all been exposed as false flag events, one wonders... http://www.infowars.net/articles/october2008/281008crisis.htm

U.S. global supremacy agenda requires new approaches, new faces
Will the U.S. have to turn to Iran for help on Afghanistan?
Posted by Myra MacDonald
Will the United States have to turn to its old nemesis Iran for help in Afghanistan? A couple of articles out this month suggest it will....in article published by the MIT Center for International Studies, the authors argue that the hostility between Washington and Tehran has been bad for the United States, Iran and Afghanistan, and played into the hands of the Pakistan military, the Taliban and al Qaeda. After 9/11, Iran cooperated with the Uni ted States to hep defeat the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan (...) They argue that to stabilise Afghanistan, Washington should recognise it shares a common interest with Iran in combating Sunni Islamist militancy there, while recalibrating its relationship with Pakistan... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48322
:

The contributions of Iran
By Lawrence J. Korb and Laura Conley, Center for American Progress
October 24, 2008
Few countries were as helpful to the United States in its early involvement in Afghanistan as Iran. Yet... the US failed to capitalize on the possibilities of that strategic relationship. Now coalition and Afghan troops are losing ground against the same insurgents they confronted in 2001, in a war that the United States is unlikely to win unless it rethinks its relationship with Iran.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/1...

The U.S. and Iran in Afghanistan: Policy Gone Awry
By Barnett Rubin with Sara Batmanglich
M.I.T. Center for International Studies
October 2008
http://web.mit.edu/cis/editorspick_rubin08_audit.html
The U.S. government should first of all recognize privately and publicly that it has many common interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan with Iran, whatever differences it may have on other issues. During the first few years of the Afghanistan operation (through the ambassadorship of Zalmay Khalilzad, who left in 2005), the U.S. and Iran carried on regular discussions on subjects of mutual interest in Kabul. The U.S. should offer to renew such discussions with no further conditions. Several officials of the government of Iran, who may not represent the current policy, have asked to renew such talks...
Since the Iranian revolution, the U.S. has overreacted to the Iranian threat and engaged in systematic appeasement of Pakistan, which is now home to the leadership of both al-Qaida and the Taliban (both Afghan and Pakistani). These countries are rivals for influence in Afghanistan and are sponsoring competing infrastructure projects for road transport and energy trade. Iran and India are building a combined rail and road link from the Iranian port of Chah Bahar to Afghanistan’s major highway. Pakistan, with Chinese aid, is building the port of Gwadar in Baluchistan, aiming at a north-south route to Central Asia. Pakistan charges that India is supporting Baluch insurgents from its consulates in Afghanistan....
A reevaluation of the threats originating in Iran and Pakistan should lead to a recalibration of U.S. policy in Afghanistan to tilt away from Pakistan and more toward Iran. Yet it would be wrong and destructive to treat Pakistan with the type of enmity now reserved for Iran.... Using Afghanistan as a base for anti-Iran policies handicaps the U.S. in pressing for Pakistani cooperation, thus undermining one of the country’s most important strategic objectives. Of course, such recalibration will also require shifts in Iranian policy away from the path it has taken. Clearly abandoning any U.S. agenda of forcible regime change in Iran will make such a shift much more likely.

WHO IS CHALLENGING U.S. DOMINATION CHALLENGED ?
THE CRUCIAL QUESTION ISN'T WHETHER A FORMAL NEW POWER BLOC EMERGES FROM A U.S. DOMINATED WHEELING-DEALING CIRCUS, OR EVEN THAT MAJOR U.S. CAPITALIST RIVALS ARE COLLABORATING AGAINST ITS GLOBAL SUPREMACY, BUT, SINCE ALL RULING CAPITALISTS ARE INHERENTLY OPPOSED TO THE INTERESTS OF WORKING AND OPPRESSED CLASSES WORLDWIDE, THE REAL QUESTION IS WHEN WILL WE BEGIN TO MOVE IN INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH THE EXPLOITED & OPPRESSED DEALING IT CRIPPLING BLOWS WHILE OUR COMMON CLASS ENEMY IS MOST VULNERABLE?
RULING CAPITALISTS RECOGNIZE THEIR ENEMIES AND ACT ACCORDINGLY .... WHY DON'T WE?

“The Middle Class Proletariat — The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx. The globalization of labour markets and reducing levels of national welfare provision and employment could reduce peoples’ attachment to particular states. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat to social order and stability, as the burden of acquired debt and the failure of pension provision begins to bite. Faced by these twin challenges, the world’s middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest.” — ‘UK Ministry of Defence report, * The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007-2036’ (Third Edition) p.96, March 2007
excerpt from William Bowles http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21112.htm

* DCDC: Foreword by the Director General, Development, Concepts & Doctrine – Rear Admiral Chris Parry CBE
Strategic Trends programme... is our assessment of the strategic context out to 2036. It is the result of over a year’s research by my team and me. The programme not only underpins and guides our wider work here at the Development, Doctrine and Concepts Centre (DCDC), but also informs the development of the United Kingdom’s Defence Policy.

U.S. STATE TERRORISTS 'LIBERATE' & SECURE IRAQ FOR U.S. SOVEREIGNTY.
Iraqi militant to hang for killing US soldiers
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5idLo092P6BbDgjqHefNgKZudaziAD943JUFG0
An Iraqi militant accused of killing three American soldiers in a grisly checkpoint ambush was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. Two other men accused in the 2006 deaths were acquitted. The killing of the three 101st Airborne Division soldiers was one of the most brazen attacks against U.S. forces since the Iraq war began in 2003... court hearing was held in the fortress-like Law and Order Complex that was built last year in eastern Baghdad as part of a U.S. push to establish rule of law in Iraq and protect judicial officials from attacks by insurgents and criminal gangs... U.S. Col. Rafael Lara, an adviser to the Iraqi court system, told reporters after the verdict was announced...the trial showed that "the rule of law is back to Iraq and being forced equally by an independent judiciary. We honor the Iraqi court and we respect this decision."... The U.S. military said at least one other suspect has been killed. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48328

Wall Street's Trojan Horses
by Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10707

The Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors of G-20 countries will meet in Sao Paulo in November ahead of the Summit meetings in Washington....
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said earlier this month the crisis had shown the BRIC nations would be “the locomotive of the world economy in coming years.” (The Hindu, October 26, 2008)
Russia's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has announced that Brazil, Russia, India and China will "coordinate efforts in overcoming the financial crisis". The statement suggests that the four countries will confront the dominant US-UK-EU alliance, which personifies Western banking interests, at the forthcoming Summit in Washington. “We are going to coordinate our moves with the leading emerging economies. We are in direct contact with India, China and Brazil; we are interacting in the BRIC and RIC [Russia-India-China] formats,” he added....

The G-20 countries/union are made up of the G-8 (US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Russia) and the G-11 (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey) plus the European Union. (The G-8 is the G-7 plus Russia). Most of the G-11 countries, are heavily indebted to Western creditors. The neoliberal consensus prevails. With perhaps the exception of Australia and Saudi Arabia, these countries obey the diktats of the Bretton Woods institutions and Wall Street.

There are many World Bank and Wall Street Trojan Horses, scattered around the World in central banks and ministries of finance. The G-20 meetings and negotiations are part of a ritual.
The creditor's cartel, Wall Street and the Bretton Woods institutions are always in on the debate and discussions behind closed doors, with their G-20 colleagues and cronies.

The crucial question: Is there a policy alternative to that proposed by Wall Street and the US Treasury, which might emanate from the BRIC and/or G-20 Summit discussions.
Does the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) constitute a "Strategic Triangle" as suggested by Moscow's official press dispatch? ....

The G-20 countries/union are made up of the G-8 (US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Canada, Italy, Russia) and the G-11 (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey) plus the European Union. (The G-8 is the G-7 plus Russia). Most of the G-11 countries, are heavily indebted to Western creditors. The neoliberal consensus prevails. With perhaps the exception of Australia and Saudi Arabia, these countries obey the diktats of the Bretton Woods institutions and Wall Street.

There are many World Bank and Wall Street Trojan Horses, scattered around the World in central banks and ministries of finance. The G-20 meetings and negotiations are part of a ritual.
The creditor's cartel, Wall Street and the Bretton Woods institutions are always in on the debate and discussions behind closed doors, with their G-20 colleagues and cronies. It's "the old boys network". It is highly unlikely that an "alternative" distinct from the Washington-Wall Street consensus will emerge from the BRIC or G-20 meetings. ...

Surging Into Syria: American Incursion Opens New Front in Quagmire
Chris Floyd
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1636-surging-into...
Taking a page from the new bipartisan strategy now being employed in Afghanistan -- waging cross-border military raids into sovereign countries in order to protect a failing military occupation in a neighboring country -- the United States has apparently launched its first known incursion into Syria: the usual assault from on high with the usual tally of children as "collateral damage."...
aimed at "foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda."... remarkable how every single person killed by American forces in the global War on Terror is somehow "linked to al-Qaeda"... Even the children. I guess American bullets and bombs have some kind of super-secret al-Qaeda sorting software embedded in them, guiding the munitions directly to the evil ones -- including the little evil ones: the doctrine of "pre-emption" in its purest form...

It's unlikely that Obama will need much encouragement to keep a substantial U.S. military force in Iraq; that's been his plan all along. And as he has also advocated "carefully targeted" cross-border strikes into Pakistan, he can hardly object to the same tactic in Iraq. What's more, Joe Biden has already warned us that he and Obama are going to plunge head-first into an unspecified "foreign crisis" sometime next year, adopting highly unpopular policies that the poor, dumb benighted citizenry are just not going to be able to understand at first. A major incursion into Syria would certainly fit that bill -- although, admittedly, the venues and opportunities for Barry and Joe to prove their "toughness" are legion, given the vast and goading scope of America's military empire.

... the rape of Iraq...and now it turns out... the recent big-monkey chest-beating aimed at Syria -- threats of sanctions, "surgical" strikes, and "regime change" -- was also carefully planned...long before the Bush Regime... [In] September 2000 the... Project for the New American Century, proudly published their blueprint for the direct imposition of U.S. "forward bases" throughout Central Asia and the Middle East. They even foresaw the need for what they called a "Pearl Harbor-type event" to galvanize the American public into supporting their ambitious program...to ensure U.S. political and economic domination of the world... enforced by the ever-present threat -- and frequent application -- of violence. (A tactic known elsewhere as "terrorism.")
PNAC was also very honest about the role of Iraq in this crusade for empire, stating plainly that the need for a U.S. military presence in the area "superseded" the "issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." There was no sanctimonious posturing about "liberation," weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections. To dominate the oil wealth centered in that region -- and hence the economic/political development of the world in the coming decades -- they needed a military presence in Iraq; it's as simple as that.

....A few months before PNAC's prophetic 2000 report, an allied group with an overlapping membership published a similar document outlining steps to be taken against Syria: first "tightening the screws" with denunciations and economic sanctions, then escalating to military action, as Jim Lobe of Inter-Press Agency reports. The architects of this document included Elliot Abrams, the convicted perjurer now running Bush's Middle East policy; Douglas Feith, one of [Don Rumsfelds'] top aides; Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary to Colin Powell; and influential Pentagon advisors such as David Wurmser, Michael Leeden and everyone's sweetheart, Richard "Influence-Peddler" Perle.

The report sprang largely from the loins of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, a curious grouping of right-wing American Christians, right-wing American Jews, and a sprinkling of Lebanese exiles. They object -- rightly -- to the fact that Syria has maintained "long-term access to major military bases" in Lebanon, using this minatory presence to exercise undue sway over Lebanon's political and economic life. Of course, some cynics would say this situation is remarkably akin to Israel's own 18-year occupation of, er, Lebanon, or the United States' decades-long -- and still-continuing -- military presence in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Panama, etc. But you know what cynics are like.

The USCFL also provides highly insightful and very nearly literate analyses of vital regional issues, such as its seminal paper, "Even Arabs Don't Like Arabs." But the mindset of the group -- whose members now stalk the corridors of power in Imperial Washington -- is perhaps best displayed in its thoughtful 2001 treatise, "A Petition Demanding War Against Governments That Sponsor Terrorism" (Except, of course, for governments who enforce their will by the ever-present threat and use of violence -- i.e. terrorism -- but are run by nice white men educated at Yale and Oxford.)

Here, the proto-Bushist group demands that six "rogue nations" -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya and Sudan -- "turn over their governments to the United States" on pain of massive military response. The United States will then "occupy these territories until proper governments" -- ones that allow "long-term access" to major military bases, no doubt -- "can be established." And just how massive should that threatened U.S. military response be? The USCFL is, as always, admirably -- and brutally -- forthright: "America must set a clear example-identical to that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you tread on me, I will wipe you off the face of the earth."

U.S. imperialism's 2 major capitalist rivals....
PM Putin Suggests Russia, China Ditch Dollar in Trade Deals
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081028/117991229.html
"We should consider improving the payment system for bilateral trade, including by gradually adopting a broader use of national currencies," Putin told a bilateral economic forum. He admitted the task would be tough, but said it was necessary amid the current problems with the dollar-based global economy. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin proposed on Tuesday that Russia and China gradually switch over to national currency payments in bilateral trade, expected to total $50 billion in 2008.
"We should consider improving the payment system for bilateral trade, including by gradually adopting a broader use of national currencies," Putin told a bilateral economic forum.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao described strengthening bilateral relations as "strategic." "Mutual investment by Russia and China has already exceeded $2 billion, this is a very good index," Jiabao said. He praised the success of numerous projects, including additional construction of China's Tianwan nuclear power plant and the opening of a joint pharmaceuticals center in Moscow. A number of large Russian companies, including state-run oil producer Rosneft and aluminum champion RusAl, are seeking to develop investment projects in China, Jiabao said....

"FREEDOM OF CHOICE": BRIBERY OR BIGGER BOMBING
U.S. May Talk With Taliban to Quell Afghan Insurgency, WSJ Says:
The recommendation calls for the talks to be led by the Afghan government, with the participation of U.S. officials, according to the report.... is supported by General David Petraeus, who assumes responsibility this week for U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan... Petraeus used a similar approach in Iraq, where the U.S. enlisted the support of Sunni tribesmen in the fight against al-Qaeda. The U.S. would be willing to pay moderate Taliban members to lay down their weapons and join the political process... The Central Intelligence Agency has been mapping Afghanistan's tribal areas in an attempt to understand the allegiances of clans and tribes, according to the report.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aUhZCf2aqF6w&refer=c...

U.S. Missile Strikes Kill at least 27: Pakistan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/31/pakistan-alqaida

[U.S.] World Bank Cancels $300 Million Loan To Pakistan:
 The economic stabilization program was initially estimated at $500 million under which the World Bank had asked Pakistan to end all subsidies in the economy. The World Bank has also postponed disbursing another $300 million loan toward National Trade Corridor Project, estimated to cost $6 billion
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx cpath=20081028\ACQDJON200810280152DOWJONESDJONLINE000057.htm&selected=9999&selecteddisplaysymbol=9999&StoryTargetFrame=_top&mkt=WORLD&chk=unchecked&lang=&link=&headlinereturnpage=http://www.international.na

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's foreign minister, warned on Tuesday that the world had less than a week to prevent a full-blown financial crisis in Pakistan, as Islamabad said it expected to strike a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund in a day or two.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d44428c-a4e2-11dd-b4f5-000077b07658.html

Division of labor: U.S. Proxies:
Turkey's Warplanes Bomb Kurdish Rebel Targets In Northern Iraq
(RTTNews) - Turkey's warplanes have successfully bombed several Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq on Tuesday, the country's army said in a statement. The army said that its warplanes successfully carried out a bombing operation on Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) hideouts in the regions of Hakurk, Avashin-Basyan and Zap in northern Iraq.
The PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by most of the international community including the United States and the EU, has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey for more than two decades
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/NewsStory.aspx?cpath=20081028\ACQRTT200810281223RTTRADERUSEQUITY_1106.htm&selected=9999&selecteddisplaysymbol=9999&StoryTargetFrame=_top&mkt=WORLD&chk=unchecked&lang=&link=&headlinereturnpage=http://www.international.nasd

Somalia: a U.S. declared 'ungoverned space' ---- thanks to decades of imperialist 'aid'
Somalia's hard-line insurgents vowed to fight on despite Ethiopia's pledge to respect a UN-sponsored deal reached a day earlier that allows for a phased pullback of Ethiopian occupation troops.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article...

another genocidal U.S. proxy...
signs point to Ethiopia soon ending its nearly two-year occupation of Somalia, a U.S.-instigated aggression that led to "Africa's worst humanitarian crisis."
Somalia After the Ethiopian Occupation
by Abukar Arman
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
...Ethiopia is unable to feed her own people and thus could not feasibly sustain this occupation without Washington 's financial, political and technical support. In fiscal year 2007, the U.S. awarded the Ethiopian regime approximately $300 million dollars in a non-humanitarian aid, and it was supposed to award double that amount in fiscal year 2008 in order to "fight against Islamists in neighboring Somalia." Be that as it may, unless Ethiopia takes drastic measures (and soon) it can become the next epicenter of violence in the Horn of Africa. The cruel occupation and the violent insurgency that it inspired have paved the way for the creation of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. According to the UN estimate, 3.5 million Somalis are now on the verge of starvation, and about 1.5 million are IDPs (internally displaced persons). This, coupled with the widely documented brutal oppression against ethnically Somali people of Ogadenia, has profoundly contributed to the rapid erosion of Ethiopia 's international image. Ethiopia has become Africa 's hegemonic brute with a long record of gross human rights abuses and war crimes violations.

Now, the question is: Would an end to occupation establish peace and order in Somalia? ... it would be naïve to think that the Somali political problem, an intertwined set of complex issues, could be solved the day after the Ethiopian troops vacate Somalia . It will take a process, a painful one at that; but certainly nothing like the current nightmare.

Naturally, the insurgents will declare victory. But, they are not monolithic; neither in ideology nor in identity. They are a mixture of what's left of the ICU (Islamic Courts Union) and its radical wing Al-Shabaab, secularist nationalists, victims of the occupation, and clan loyalists. However, it's highly plausible for an inter-factional power struggle to ignite. One that is reminiscent of the May 2006 when ICU was fighting for its survival against a CIA-backed gang of the most abhorred warlords in Mogadishu who called themselves the Alliance for Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism.

"The Islamists have an unmatched record of public service."
In due course, there will be peaceful surrenders, amnesty, and disarmaments. How soon will this come to pass, and, whether or not the triumphant entity will be willing to share power, and, how susceptible would they be to radicalization depends mainly on how Washington reacts. And the last thing that Washington wants to do is to repeat the same ill-advised reaction that led to the current catastrophe in the first place. For almost a decade, the mention of the word "Islamist" has blurred the West's sense of perspective. Everything was seen through the biased prism of "global war on terrorism," hence a blanket rejection was thrown over any form of "political Islam" - a loaded phrase that, to many Western ears, connotes something sinister and evil.
However, even in this landscape of predisposed negative attitudes toward anything that mixes Islam with politics, the Islamists have an unmatched record of public service. They operated schools, hospitals, and for six months before the occupation removed every checkpoint in Mogadishu and brought a semblance of peace.... course, the Islamists have made many reckless mistakes. Certain hardliners within the courts have haphazardly restricted certain liberties such as the right to watch movies and the right of women to opt out of wearing hijab. But Islamists still ride high when it comes to sincerity of action. However, the masses, with their vigilant skepticism, will ultimately prevail. People look forward to a new, consensus-building... leadership that would bring an end to the kidnapping, rape, human-trafficking, and piracy. Leadership that would subscribes to enlightened nationalism devoid of irredentist aspiration. People will embrace pluralistic, non-puritanical Islamic governance.

Slowdown in Persian Gulf Reverberates in Middle East
CAIRO — For many of the financially strapped nations of the Middle East, the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf have served for years as an economic lifeline, providing jobs for their citizens, who in turn sent millions of dollars back home; tourists, who filled their hotels when Westerners were reluctant to visit; direct investment; and the kind of checkbook diplomacy that has helped stabilize an often volatile region.
Suddenly, that lifeline appears frayed, dangerously so for countries like Egypt and Jordan, as the energy-rich nations find themselves pulled into the global financial crisis and undermined by dropping oil prices. Across the Persian Gulf, stock markets are down, causing panic among investors. Even in the boomtown of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the once-mighty real estate market has cooled as access to credit has tightened....

“We are not calling a recession in the gulf,” said Marios Maratheftis, regional head of research for Standard Chartered Bank in Dubai. “We are looking at a slowdown.”
But a slowdown in the Persian Gulf might feel like a crash landing in places like Egypt, Jordan and Syria, where gulf money has helped prop up strained economies.“When there is growth in the gulf, there will be growth in the whole Arab world,” said Rashad Abdou, a professor of economics and international finance at Cairo University. “There would be more tourism, more money in the stock market, more investments. And the opposite is true. With a shrinking or recession, they will not come for tourism, they will not put their money in the stock market, they will not invest and they will not be able to hire Egyptian workers.”
Egypt receives about half of its $6 billion in annual remittances from more than two million citizens living and working in the Persian Gulf area, while about 60 percent of its tourists come from that region, Egyptian economists estimated. Syria has benefited from gulf investments in large real estate projects, helping offset some of the isolation imposed by United States sanctions. Jordan receives about $2 billion annually in remittances from workers in the Persian Gulf and takes in about $500 million in financial aid from Saudi Arabia alone.
“I expect investments from the gulf to slow down or stop because they have to deal with their own problems before they invest in other countries,” said Nabil Samman, an economist who runs the Damascus-based Center for Research and Documentation. “Syria will be affected in terms of the Syrian people who send money from the gulf. There are close to a million Syrians in the gulf area.” .... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html?th&emc...

Thousands of Syrians Rally Against "No to American terrorism" and "American democracy":
30 Oct 2008
photo: Syrians demonstrating in Damascus
Tens of thousands of Syrian people staged a mass rally Thursday in Damascus to protest deadly US raid that killed 8 civilians including four children in a Syrian village. Demonstrators waved Syrian flags and banners reading "No to American terrorism" and "American democracy": the killing of civilians at Abu Kamal," the border area targeted in Sunday's US raid. "Colonialists, listen, the people of Syria will never be brought to their knees," chanted the protesters as they gathered in the heart of Damascus. Security was boosted in the area in Damascus housing the US embassy closed due to the demonstration. http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=73741&sectionid=351020206

AIMED AT U.S. PROXY ETHIOPIA & COLLABORATORS:
Suicide [SIC] blasts kill at least 31 in Somalia according to security officials
Security experts said the attacks appeared timed to disrupt the regional meeting in Nairobi aimed at jump-starting a peace process for Somalia, without a functioning government since 1991. [note: a US declared "ungoverned space", thus open to "humanitarian aid" and "UN peacekeeeping", where all resistance to imperialism is de facto 'linked to al qaeda terrorism]. The insurgency is led by a militant group known as al Shabaab, which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization which has claimed ties with al Qaida. The group has boycotted the peace talks, and its leaders have said they won't respect a cease-fire that was signed over the weekend until all troops from neighboring Ethiopia, which invaded Somalia nearly two years ago with U.S. intelligence support to oust a hard-line Islamist regime, leave the country....
Although no group immediately claimed responsibility, the strike had the markings of an al Qaida attack because of its timing and organization, Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said in Nairobi, where regional leaders were holding meetings on Somalia's long-running political crisis.
Frazer rejected charges that U.S. policy in Somalia — which has included backing the Ethiopian invasion and launching several airstrikes on reported terrorist targets since last year, some of which reportedly have killed civilians — has contributed to the chaos. She noted that the Bush administration has provided $237 million in humanitarian aid this year and long has called for the Somali government to reach out to moderate Islamist leaders. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/54963.html

Colombia’s Political Horizon: The Rise of a New Left
Council on Hemispheric Affairs - analysis by prepared by COHA Research Associate Orion Cruz
http://www.creative-i.info/?p=1789
The centerpiece of Uribe’s 2006 platform was the establishment of maximum security throughout the nation, but the strengthening of the economy was a close second, which he masterfully tied into the security issue. Without stability, he argued, Colombia would lack the proper business climate necessary to draw investment and continue to develop. Eloquently, lip service was accorded to social injustice. Uribe’s government claimed it would invest in the health and education sectors, as well as insisted it was working to bring about a more socially just society by fighting to establish a government monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. What the government was really committed to was personal security, which translated into a reduction in the number of kidnappings and the ability of people to travel along previously perilous roads. Performance in these areas would indicate his firm stance in dealing with the country’s rebel groups and his zero tolerance for the offensive postures taken by the leftist guerilla group, the FARC. Promises to expand the offensive against the ELN and the FARC with the massive help of $5 billion in U.S. funding ignited public expectations that peace through the annihilation of the rebels—read war—was a realistic possibility....

Since Uribe has been installed in office, his approach to the country’s problems has largely revolved around the use of military force, counter-narcotics operations, and an emphasis on the full military spectrum of US-Colombia relations. The distinction between these has blurred significantly and their conflation has produced the country’s ‘war on terror,’ with all of its concomitant vagaries. Overarching policy initiatives such as Plan Colombia and Uribe’s Democratic Security Policy are some of the clearest and most visible manifestations of this. Uribe’s intense emphasis on waging an all-out crusade against terrorism as a means to help Colombia ‘progress,’ has led some commentators to praise him for the increased security to be found in urban areas and to celebrate the nuetralization of ‘terrorist’ leaders... one of the most commonly perceived problems with Uribe’s policies is that too much of Colombia’s resources are being spent fighting a U.S. subsidized war, more than a half century old and exacerbating the conditions of the 20 million Colombians suffering from hunger, increased human rights abuses, lack of access to healthcare, accelerated environmental degradation, increased inequality, and a deeply flawed educational system....

Since the 2006 elections almost 50 senators and congressman associated with Uribe’s far-right coalition have been exposed by the country’s attorney general for having links to the paramilitaries and who later resigned or been ousted from office. It has also become increasingly clear to Colombians both domestically and within the international community, that the Uribe government is not only disinterested in restraining the rise of the paramilitaries, but actually has undermined attempts to do so....

Ironically, this increasingly militarized approach undertaken by the Uribe government to fight its ‘war on terror’ has boosted support for his democratic opposition, which has not shied away from criticizing it on any number of fronts. As PDA senator Jorge Robledo has contended, Plan Colombia is not just about the war on drugs either, it includes the economic and political realms as well. ‘Everything happening in Colombia has to do one way or another with Washington. We’re in the orbit of the empire, by way of Plan Colombia. Plan Colombia of 2000 did more than just impose a way of managing ‘narcotrafficking’. There were also 20 pages of small type in the Plan that detailed the reorganization of Colombia’s economy.’

Uribe has also attempted to dichotomize the population in a manner similar to what Bush has done in the United States. This is evident in his speeches, as well as on billboards throughout Colombia, stating ‘either you’re with Colombia or you’re with the terrorists.’ The ramifications of this divisive strategy have generated both a sense of division and unity among the country’s social movements. These include largely impoverished indigenous and afro-Colombiano populations, as well as journalists and trade unionists, who have faced increasing degrees of repression when they have the temerity to oppose the government’s policies, especially its neoliberal economic strategies. Recently, for example, approximately 10,000 protesting indigenous commenced a 62 mile-march to Cali to publicize the oppression they faced, including a lack of land. They claimed that at least 1,200 members of their communities had been brutally killed since Uribe became president in 2002 and demanded that they receive land which must be protected from the depredations of multinational companies. As a consequence, their march invited the wrath of the state’s upgraded security forces, leaving at least one dead and many wounded...

US-Colombian analyst Forrest Hylton noted ‘After Venezuela and Mexico, Colombia has the third largest source of Latin America oil for the US-(3% in 2006 of US consumption)-even though most of the country’s oil resources have remained uncharted so far…We might add that contrary to popular misconceptions, the US imports more oil for its domestic consumption from Latin America than the Middle East. Colombia also shares with Venezuela and Ecuador the Venezuelan-Orinoco belt which is widely suspected of having perhaps the largest pool of hydrocarbons in the world. Thus, the future of US-Colombia relations are of rising importance to the US’...
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Orion Cruz

COLUMBIA: U.S. SPONSORED "DRUG WAR": MILITARY 'ETHNIC CLEANSING' TO CRUSH PEASANT RESISTANCE
... Even before the most recent disappearances and killings, prosecutors and human rights groups were examining a steady increase in the reports of civilian killings since 2002, when commanders intensified a counterinsurgency financed in no small part by more than $500 million a year in American aid.
But more than 100 claims of civilian deaths at the hands of security forces have emerged in recent weeks from nine areas of Colombia....catalogued as insurgents or criminal gang members and killed by the armed forces....researchers are investigating hundreds of such deaths and disappearances, contending that Colombia’s security forces are increasingly murdering civilians and making it look as if they were killed in combat, often by planting weapons by the bodies or dressing them in guerrilla fatigues... The wave of killings has heightened focus on the American Embassy here, which is responsible for vetting Colombian military units for human rights abuses before they can receive aid. A study of civilian killings by ...human rights groups found that 47 percent of the cases reported in 2007 involved Colombian units financed by the United States....“If we are receiving aid and vetting from a government in Washington that validates torture, then what kind of results can one expect?” asked Liliana Uribe, a lawyer in Medellín who represents victims’ families....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/world/americas/30colombia.html?pagewan...

Bolivia: Unprecedented alliance defeats right-wing assault
After three months of intense class struggle, there can be no doubt that the US-backed right-wing opposition to the government of President Evo Morales has suffered three important defeats.
http://links.org.au/node/710

Anti-government protests rock Peru:
Around 40 per cent of Peruvians live in poverty with little relief despite seven years of economic growth.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/10/20081029221431742222....

Like many left academics/intelligentsia, Mayer, blind to massive global anti-imperialist struggles that have upset U.S. 'best-laid' plans to conquer the world, can see only U.S. strength, not its geostrategic weakness and vulnerability...blind to reality of potential for revolutionary change
Two Parties, One Imperial Mission
The US Empire will Survive Bush
Arno Mayer, emeritus professor of history, Princeton University
http://mondediplo.com/2008/10/05usempire
John McCain or Barack Obama may reshape US foreign policy. But neither will abandon the imperial status and mission of the US.
The United States may emerge from the Iraq fiasco almost unscathed. Though momentarily disconcerted, the American empire will continue on its way, under bipartisan direction and mega-corporate pressure, and with evangelical blessings.It is a defining characteristic of mature imperial states that they can afford costly blunders, paid for not by the elites but the lower orders. Predictions of the American empire's imminent decline are exaggerated: without a real military rival, it will continue for some time as the world's sole hyperpower.

But though they endure, overextended empires suffer injuries to their power and prestige. In such moments they tend to lash out, to avoid being taken for paper tigers. Given Washington's predicament in Iraq, will the US escalate its intervention in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia or Venezuela? The US has the strongest army the world has ever known. Preponderant on sea, in the air and in space (including cyberspace), the US has an awesome capacity to project its power over enormous distances with speed, a self-appointed sheriff rushing to master or exploit real and putative crises anywhere on earth. In the words of the former secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld: "No corner of the world is remote enough, no mountain high enough, no cave or bunker deep enough, no SUV fast enough to protect our enemies from our reach." The US spends more than 20% of its annual budget on defense, nearly half of the spending of the rest of the world put together....Instead of establishing classic territorial colonies, the US secures its hegemony through some 700 military, naval and air bases in over 100 countries, the latest being in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Rumania, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ethiopia and Kenya. At least 16 intelligence agencies with stations the world over provide the ears and eyes of this borderless empire.
The US has 12 aircraft carriers. All but three are nuclear-powered, designed to carry 80 planes and helicopters, and marines, sailors and pilots. A task force centerd on a supercarrier includes cruisers, destroyers and submarines, many of them atomic-powered and equipped with offensive and defensive guided missiles. Pre-positioned in global bases and constantly patrolling vital sea lanes, the US navy provides the new model empire's spinal cord and arteries. Ships are displacing planes as chief strategic and tactical suppliers of troops and equipment. The navy is now in the ascendant over the army and the air force in the Pentagon and Washington.
The US military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean from 2006 to 2008 shows how the US can flex its muscles half-way around the globe (and deliver humanitarian relief at gunpoint for political advantage). At least two carrier strike groups with landing craft, amphibious vehicles, and thousands of sailors and marines, along with Special Operations teams, operate out of Bahrain, Qatar and Djibouti. They serve notice that, in the words of the current defense secretary, Robert Gates, speaking in Kabul in January 2007, the US will continue to have "a strong presence in the Gulf for a long time into the future".

A week later the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Nicholas Burns, said in Dubai: "The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the US station two carrier battle groups in the region." This is not new. In his farewell address in January 1980, weeks after the start of the hostage standoff in Tehran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter made it "absolutely clear" that an attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf will be regarded as an assault on the US, and such an assault will be repelled by any means including military force. He said that the Russian troops in Afghanistan not only threatened a region that "contains more than two-thirds of the world's exportable oil" but were at the ready "within 300 miles of the Indian Ocean and close to the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which most of the world's oil must flow". A quarter of a century later, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger updated the Carter Doctrine, displacing the threat from Moscow to Tehran: should Iran "insist on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervour, it simply cannot be permitted to fulfil a dream of imperial rule in a region of such importance to the rest of the world".

Ultra-modern conventional armed forces and weapons are ill-suited to fight today's asymmetrical wars against non-state actors resorting to sub-conventional arms and tactics. But supercarriers, supersonic aircraft, anti-missile missiles, military satellites, surveillance robots, and unmanned vehicles and boats are not going out of season. Intervention, direct and indirect, open and covert, military and civic, in the internal affairs of other states has been standard US foreign policy since 1945. The US has not hesitated to intervene, mostly unilaterally, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Bolivia and Colombia, in pursuit of its imperial interest.

Taking the USAID (United States Agency for International Development), Fulbright Programme and Congress for Cultural Freedom of the anti-Communist cold war as their model, the stalwarts of the new global war on terror have created equivalents in the State Department's Millennial Challenge and Middle East Partnership Initiative [digest: usually partnered with and 'led' by NGOs].
The defense department enlists universities through Project Minerva to help with the new model counterinsurgency warfare and unconventional military state-building operations.....
The empire has extraordinary reserves of hard and soft power for persisting in its interventionism.
The US has the wherewithal and will to stay a face-saving course in Iraq. There is a deficit of combat troops for large conventional ground operations and a strategic incoherence in the face of irregular warfare against insurgent, guerrilla and terrorist forces. But the deficit of soldiers will be remedied. Private contractors will raise armed and civilian mercenaries, preferably at cut-rate wages from third world dependencies.

Washington masks its imperial self-interest with declamations about the promotion of civil rights, social welfare, women's liberation, the rule of law and democracy....

The Iraq Study Group's report of December 6, 2006, prepared by the bipartisan Baker-Hamilton Commission, was not so much concerned with the turmoil on the Tigris as with its impact on the US empire: "Iraq is vital to regional and even global stability, and is critical to US interests...."...James Baker (Republican) and Lee Hamilton (Democrat) take it as given that Washington will continue to make the law in the Greater Middle East, as it has since 1945. The report is clear: "Even after the United States has moved all combat brigades out of Iraq, we would maintain a considerable military presence in the region, with our still significant force in Iraq and with our powerful air, ground, and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, as well as an increased presence in Afghanistan."

Baker-Hamilton turned for help to the best and the brightest of non- or bi-partisan organisations and think tanks that mushroomed since the Vietnam war. Several of these institutions, some of whose staffers prepared questions, position papers and partial drafts for the Iraq report, make no secret of their engagement. The "bipartisan" Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), partly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was a major contributor to the Commission. Drawing trustees and advisers "equally from the worlds of public policy and the private sector," its aim is to "advance global security and prosperity in an era of economic and political transformation by providing strategic insights and practical solutions to decision makers."

The "non-partisan" International Republican Institute is deeply implicated in Iraq and chaired by John McCain; it means to "advance freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, good governance and the rule of law." And the non-profit National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, chaired by the former secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, works "to strengthen and expand democracy worldwide". The self-advertised bipartisan but far-right Washington Institute for Near East Policy claims "to advance a balanced and realistic understanding of American interests in the Middle East [and to] promote an American engagement in the Middle East".

The Baker-Hamilton Commission also took counsel with ex-officials and pundits of certified research and public policy institutes like the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, the Rand Corporation and the American Enterprise Institute. Whatever their political proclivities, very few of the collaborators, associates and patrons of these policy centers rigorously question the political, economic or social costs and benefits of empire for the US and the world. Their disagreements and debates are about how best to secure, exploit and protect the empire.

Underscoring that the role of the US is unique in a world in which few problems can be resolved without it, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice affirms that "we Americans engage in foreign policy because we have to, not because we want to, and this is a healthy disposition - it is that of a republic, not an empire". Defense Secretary Gates says the US must keep its "freedom of action in the global commons and its strategic access to important regions of the world to meet our national security needs", which entails supporting a global economy contingent on ready access to energy resources.
Even centrist censors do not challenge Washington's unconditional support of Israel. They, like the neocons, oppose any hard-and-fast linkage between the Iraqi morass and the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. Both baulk at the Baker-Hamilton report's suggestion that the US "cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability". Democrats and Republicans are of one mind in their resolve to step up undercover operations in Iran backed by the threat of a full-scale economic blockade or military action....
Neither presidential candidate proposes an alternative to the imperial charge except perhaps to muffle the moralising and messianic rhetoric in contentious relations with Iran, China and India, and a resurgent Russia - all four driven by untried, nationally conditioned forms of capitalism. Both candidates have used foreign capitals as stages for attesting to their imperial bona fides and determination. (digest: all emphases added)
http://www.counterpunch.org/mayer10292008.html

" Obama’s job is to present a benign, even progressive face..."
The diplomacy of lying
John Pilger
As I write this, the dispossessed people of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean await the decision of the Law Lords, hoping for a repetition of four previous judgments that their brutal expulsion to make way for a US military base was "outrageous", "illegal" and "repugnant". That they must endure yet another appeal is thanks to the Foreign Office – whose legal adviser in 1968, one Anthony Ivall Aust (pronounced "oarst" and since knighted), wrote a secret document headed "Maintaining the fiction". This advised the then Labour government to "argue" the "fiction" that the Chagossians were "only a floating population". Today, the depopulated main island, Diego Garcia, over which the Union Jack flies, serves the "war on terror" as an American interrogation and torture centre. When you bear this in mind, the US presidential race becomes surreal...As ever, the Orwell Inversion Test is necessary. Obama claims that his vast campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, yet he has also receiv ed funds from some of the most notorious looters on Wall Street. Moreover, the "dove" and "candidate of change" has voted repeatedly to fund George W Bush’s rapacious wars, and now demands more war in Afghanistan while he threatens to bomb Pakistan. Dismissing the popular democracies in Latin America as a "vacuum" to be filled by the United States, he has endorsed Colombia’s "right to strike terrorists who seek safe havens across its borders"... this means the "right" of the criminal regime in that country to invade its neighbours, notably uppity Venezuela, on Washington’s behalf....
As in many parts of the world, the British role is that of subcontractor to Washington. The bloody "Plan Colombia" was the design of Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president and inspiration for Blair’s and Brown’s new Labour. Clinton’s administration was at least as violent as Bush’s – see Unicef’s report that 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the Anglo-American blockade in the 1990s. The lesson learned is that no presidential candidate, least of all a Democrat awash with money from America’s "banksters", as Franklin Roosevelt called them, can or will challenge a militarised system that controls and rewards him. Obama’s job is to present a benign, even progressive face that will revive America’s democratic pretensions, internationally and domestically, while ensuring nothing of substance changes.
Among ordinary Americans desperate for a secure life, his skin colour may help him regain this unjustified "trust", even though it is of a similar hue to that of Colin Powell, who lied to the United Nations for Bush and now endorses Obama. As for the rest of us, is it not time we opened our eyes and exercised our right not to be lied to, yet again? www.uruknet.info?p=48351
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48351

ISO a kinder, gentler imperialism...
Making America safe for the world
By Yu Bin, Senior Fellow of the Shanghai Association of American Studies.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JJ29Ak04.html
...Both Afghanistan and Iraq are now devastated by years of warfare. The mighty American military, too, is dangerously overstretched. Financially, the price tag for the Iraqi and Afghan wars is fast approaching US$1 trillion, while victory is still out of sight. Without a comprehensive approach, including political reconciliation, diplomatic compromise and economic reconstruction, military means alone are of limited utility. At a minimum, the continuous presence of foreign troops in those nations is likely to breed more grievances and anti-Western and anti-American sentiments, which are the best recruiting tools for terrorist groups....
This grim and deteriorating prospect of the Bush "war on terror", however, does not seem to factor into the current presidential race in America.... both prefer to expand the war in the Afghanistan-Pakistani border area... The difference between them is whether to take unilateralist military actions into the tribal areas (Obama's position) or to work with the Pakistani government for joint military action (McCain).... the Bush administration is taking the Obama approach by dispatching special units and unmanned Predator drones to this area. The mounting civilian casualties are now dangerously destabilizing Pakistan. On his campaign trail, Obama has repeatedly claimed credit for Bush’s new strategy in Pakistan. He insists that his strategy aims to kill Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in this mountainous area. In so doing, Obama is paradoxically getting very close to Bush’s "one-bullet" solution in the early days of the Afghan war, when Bush wanted to get the super terrorist, "live or dead"... For both candidates, the "war on terror" will have to be won or significant gains must be achieved.... Obama’s unilateralist recipe for Pakistan, therefore, is naive, if not dangerous, for a volatile region of South and Central Asia where all of the world's civilizations - Islam, Christianity, Hinduism and Confucianism - converge and became nuclearized by the end of the past century. America's "war on terror", with all of its good intentions [SIC], allows very little margin for error in the age of weapons of mass destruction...
Henry Kissinger['s] book, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? ...published 95 days before 9/11.... targets the liberal internationalist/interventionist policies of Clinton, many of whose foreign and defense team are now advising Obama....
A 2002 study by the US Congressional Research Service shows that the average US overt use of military force under the Clinton administration increased more than five times to eight instances per year, as compared to 1.15 per year during the Cold War (1945-91), [4] or the "long peace" according to John Gaddis (1989). This longest stability of the century was not only relative to the first half of the 20th century, but also to the post-Cold War decades when US power is unchallenged, unbalanced and without self-restraint.... the US had emerged from World War II as the world's most powerful nation...
A society that consumes 25% of the world's energy and has a quarter of the world's prisoners with less than 5% of the world's population, according to the New York Times on April 23, 2008, is not a model for others..... www.uruknet.info?p=48353

welcome to capitalist democracy, capitalist dictatorship by the few for the few
"Democracy, n.: - A government of the masses. - Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of direct expression. - Results in mobocracy.- Attitude toward property is communistic... negating property rights.- Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it is based upon deliberation or overned by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences. Result is demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, [chaos]." -- U. S. Army Training Manual No. 2000-25 (1928-1932) - Source: published by the US War Department, Washington, D.C., November 30, 1928

WHY THE U.S. NEEDS NEW FACES IN HIGH PLACES
Speaking for white supremacist u.s. capitalist - imperialism: "A nation is a collection of people who share an ethnicity...." Unless an 'ethnicity' is in a U.S. declared 'ungoverned space' needed for its geostrategic domination agenda:
2008 and the Return of the Nation-State
George Friedman, Strafor.com
Aug. 7, Georgian troops attacked the country’s breakaway region of South Ossetia. On Aug. 8, Russian troops responded by invading Georgia. The Western response was primarily rhetorical. On the weekend of Oct. 11, the G-7 met in Washington to plan a joint response to the global financial crisis. Rather than defining a joint plan, the decision — by default — was that each nation would act to save its own financial system with a series of broadly agreed upon guidelines.
The Aug. 7 and Oct. 11 events are connected only in their consequences. Each showed the weakness of international institutions and confirmed the primacy of the nation-state, or more precisely, the nation and the state. (A nation is a collection of people who share an ethnicity. A state is the entity that rules a piece of land. A nation-state — the foundation of the modern international order — is what is formed when the nation and state overlap.) Together, the two events posed challenges that overwhelmed the global significance of the Iraqi and Afghan wars. ....

The year 2008 did not end the U.S.-jihadist war, but it overlaid it with far more immediate and urgent issues. The financial crisis, of course, was one. The future of Russian power was another. We should point out that the importance of Russian power is this: As soon as Russia dominates the center of the Eurasian land mass, its force intrudes on Europe. Russia united with the rest of Europe is an overwhelming global force. Europe resisting Russia defines the global system. Russia fragmented opens the door for other geopolitical issues. Russia united and powerful usurps the global stage.
The year 2008 has therefore seen two things. First, and probably most important, it resurrected the nation-state and shifted the global balance between the state and business. Second, it redefined the global geopolitical system, opening the door to a resurgence of Russian power and revealing the underlying fragmentation of Europe and weaknesses of NATO.
The most important manifestation of this is Europe. In the face of Russian power, there is no united European position. In the face of the financial crisis, the Europeans coordinate, but they do not act as one. After the summer of 2008, it is no longer fair to talk about Europe as a single entity, about NATO as a fully functioning alliance, or about a world in which the nation-state is obsolete. The nation-state was the only institution that worked.
This is far more important than either of the immediate issues. The fate of Georgia is of minor consequence to the world. The financial crisis will pass into history, joining Brady bonds, the Resolution Trust Corp. and the bailout of New York City as a historical oddity. What will remain is a new international system in which the Russian question — followed by the German question — is once again at the center of things, and in which states act with confidence in shaping the economic and business environment for better or worse.
The world is a very different place from what it was in the spring of 2008. Or, to be more precise, it is a much more traditional place than many thought. It is a world of nations pursuing their own interests and collaborating where they choose. Those interests are economic, political and military, and they are part of a single fabric. The illusion of multilateralism was not put to rest — it will never die — but it was certainly put to bed. It is a world we can readily recognize from history.

SAVING CAPITALISM
Army and NIMH Agency Will Collaborate in 5 year Study to identify causes and risk factors for Rising Suicide Rate Among Soldiers
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/30/us/30soldiers.html?th&emc=th

Goldman Sachs ready to hand out £7bn salary and bonus package... after its £6bn bail-out:
The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out. As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees. News of the firm's largesse will revive the anger over the 'rewards for failure' culture endemic in the world of high finance. The same bankers who have brought the global economy to its knees seem to be pocketing the same kind of rewards they got during the boom years. Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.... The news comes after it was revealed that even bankers working for collapsed Wall Street giant, Lehman Brothers, could receive huge payouts. Its 10,000 U.S. staff are expected to share a £1.5billion bonus pool
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1081624/Goldman-Sachs-...

Reserve Fund’s Investors Still Await Their Cash
The crisis that hit last month at the Reserve Fund, the nation’s oldest money market fund, has frozen hundreds of thousands of customer accounts for more than six weeks — with no sure end in sight. At least 400,000 people, perhaps as many as a million, can’t get access to their savings, a problem that has quietly persisted in spite of widely publicized federal efforts to restore confidence in money-fund investments. Some of these customers — who, like most Americans, assumed their money funds were as safe and accessible as bank accounts — are getting desperate....
The news occasionally posted on the fund’s Web site got steadily worse. On Sept. 18, investors in a host of other Reserve money funds learned that their money would be tied up for as long as a week; that delay later became open-ended. On Sept. 19, the fund delayed redemptions from both the Primary Fund and the US Government Fund indefinitely.Since then, investors have been on a roller coaster of broken promises, with the company repeatedly blaming its record-keeping systems for delays. Several requests for comment from management of the Reserve Fund have been declined.... The Reserve has posted updates on its Web site, www.ther.com. In those reports, it has asked customers to be patient as it tries to cope with “these unprecedented events.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/29/business/29fund.html?th=&emc=th&pagewa...

WHERE ARE 'PROGRESSIVE' DEMS. DEFENDING WOMENS RIGHT TO ABORTION, FIGHTING MALE SUPREMACIST "HUMAN LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION" AND...
...Any day President Bush’s secretary of health and human services, Michael Leavitt, is expected to deliver a parting blow to women’s reproductive freedom: new regulations further limiting access to abortions, contraceptives and accurate information about reproductive health care options....
In 2004, a version of the bill known as the Weldon Amendment [Individual health care providers long had the right to refuse to perform or assist in abortion or sterilization procedures on moral or religious grounds. The bill proposed extending that right to hospitals, H.M.O.’s, insurance plans and an array of other health care institutions. Under the bill, any law or regulation mandating such services was deemed “discriminatory,” and could trigger a loss of federal financing] was tacked onto the spending bill for the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services Departments. It remains in force. Mr. Leavitt appears poised to enlarge the Weldon Amendment’s reach, for example, by adding abortion counseling and the provision of accurate reproductive health information to the list of services health care providers may refuse. He also would open the door for providers to decline to make emergency contraception available, even to rape victims....

"Arpaio is the modern version of the southern sheriff with hound dogs and bullwhips."
Racist Sheriff Rules in Phoenix
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
It is broadly received wisdom that America has turned the corner on race, that the nation has already entered a post-Civil Rights era, in which those who complain about institutional racism and the vestiges of old-time Jim Crow should be dismissed as misguided at best, subversive at worst. It's rather easy to counter this false picture on the institutional racism front: the comparative racial statistics show an undeniable, living connection between past oppressions and present Black conditions. The sheer weight of numbers tells the tale in ways that no amount of celebrity anomalies like Tiger Woods, Oprah - even Barack Obama - can contradict. Some of the old structures of brazen, unashamed racism are very much alive and kicking. Old-time racism in its most raw and barbaric form thrives in the criminal justice system: the American Gulag that is the shame of the planet. And the man who proudly personifies this system is Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes metropolitan Phoenix. Arpaio was born in Massachusetts, but he is the living, breathing example of the racist lawman whose popularity flows from utter contempt for society's "Others," principally non-whites and the poor.

Arpaio is extremely popular because he acts out the worst prejudices and hatreds of a huge segment of the citizenry - large majorities of voters share his pathological personality traits, as demonstrated by Arpaio's consistent success at the polls. TV's 60 Minutes has twice featured Arpaio, whom they treat as a likeable character. This jailhouse tyrant is an American icon: the professional sadist as hero and role model. And there can be no doubt that racism is at the core of Arpaio's fame, as citizens lash out vicariously through him to mete out cruel humiliations on the hated "Other."

"Old-time racism in its most raw and barbaric form thrives in the criminal justice system."...
Arpaio has made a career of abusing inmates. He operates so-called "volunteer" chain gangs for both men and women, makes male inmates wear pink underwear to humiliate them, and set up a tent city where daytime temperatures have been recorded at 150 degrees in the top bunks. Arpaio displays his barbarism like a badge; he has been re-elected with strong majorities since 1992. Decent people in the Phoenix area tried to recall the sheriff in 2007, but failed to get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot. The recall would have failed, anyway. A survey taken during the petition drive found that "nearly three out of four respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent...held a positive opinion of Arpaio."

The Sheriff has recently taken to staging raids on public buildings in cities around the county, searching for undocumented aliens. Arpaio is the modern version of the southern sheriff with hound dogs and bullwhips, operating in one of the nation's biggest cities. Don't dare say old-style racism is a thing of the past. It is very much alive, and has many names; one of them is Joe Arpaio.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this BAR commentary visit the archive page: http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...

Federal Charges for Ex-C.E.O at Meatpacker
Federal immigration agents on Thursday arrested the former chief executive of Agriprocessors Inc., the nation’s biggest kosher meatpacking company, accusing him of harboring illegal immigrants at a plant in Postville, Iowa, where about 400 immigrant workers were arrested in a raid in May. .... and was released on $1 million bail after a hearing... He is also accused, in a criminal complaint unsealed Thursday, of abetting aggravated identity theft, which carries a mandatory two-year minimum sentence. Many of the immigrant workers were charged with that crime.
Mr. Rubashkin and his father, both Lubavitch Hasidic Jews, built Agriprocessors into a kosher giant. Kosher consumers faced meat shortages since the raid, and the scandal fueled a debate about kosher ethics. According to the complaint, Mr. Rubashkin participated directly in efforts in the days before the raid to obtain fraudulent documents that could pass immigration agents’ scrutiny for dozens of illegal immigrants working in Postville. The complaint suggests that plant managers had heard a raid was coming...
[buried at the very end of article] Mr. Rubashkin and his father also face state charges for child labor violations. And Iowa labor authorities on Wednesday levied $10 million in fines against the company for wage violations. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/us/31immig.html?th&emc=th

Inquiry Finds Under-Age Workers at Meat Plant, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/us/06meat.html:
State labor investigators found "egregious violations of virtually every aspect of Iowa’s child labor laws,” Dave Neil, the Iowa Labor Commissioner, said ... the number of under-age workers, 57, was by far the largest in an Iowa child labor case... At least 24 under-age workers, as young as 13, were arrested in the raid in May. Others who were not caught in the morning raid because they worked at night... Immigration authorities dismissed criminal charges against the minors, although many were put in civil deportation proceedings.... many of the young workers said they felt they had nothing to lose in speaking out about their work at the plant. In interviews, they said they were forced to work long hours on night shifts, sometimes up to 17 hours a day, and were not paid all of their overtime. They said they were put to work on racing production lines using knives to cut meat and poultry with little or no safety training. .. The number of minors makes the Iowa investigation “a huge case” by national standards as well, said Reid Maki, coordinator of the Child Labor Coalition, a group of teachers and consumer organizations that seek to stop employment of under-age workers. “It is especially troubling since this industry is as dangerous as it gets” ....

SECRECY NEWS from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2008, Issue No. 106 October 31, 2008
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
VIOLATIONS OF LAW MAY BE CLASSIFIED, COURT RULES
Information that would reveal a violation of the law may be properly classified as long as it is not deliberately classified for the purpose of concealing the violation, a federal judge indicated this week. That view, in a ruling against the ACLU by DC District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, all but nullifies one of the principal limitations on national security secrecy contained in the executive order on classification policy. In section 1.7 of executive order 12958, as amended, on "classification limitations and prohibitions," the President directed that "In no case shall information be classified in order to ... conceal violations of law...."
The ACLU cited this provision in a recent FOIA lawsuit to argue that transcripts of detainee tribunal hearings could not be properly classified under the executive order if they revealed evidence of prisoner abuse or other illegal conduct. The court rejected that argument:
"Plaintiffs [ACLU] claim that some material was improperly classified because it may contain evidence that the government has violated the law," Judge Lamberth wrote in an October 29 ruling. "But plaintiffs misapprehend the Executive Order," he wrote (at page 6). "Executive Order 12958 prohibits classifying information 'in order to ... conceal violations of th law.' However, there is no indication that these materials were classified 'in order to' conceal violations of the law...."
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/aclu102908.pdf

......more important but omitted is the fact that hundreds of millions are waging just armed struggle to defeat the aggression, destruction and domination of u.s. imperialism
Hatred of America unites the world
By Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph
25/02/2007
... who hates Americans the most? You might assume that it's people in countries that the United States has recently attacked or threatened to attack. Americans themselves are clear about who their principal enemies are. Asked by Gallup to name the "greatest enemy" of the United States today, 26 per cent of those polled named Iran, 21 per cent named Iraq and 18 per cent named North Korea. Incidentally, that represents quite a success for George W. Bush's concept of the "Axis of Evil". Six years ago, only 8 per cent named Iran and only 2 per cent North Korea.
Are those feelings of antagonism reciprocated? Up to a point. According to a poll by Gallup's Centre for Muslim Studies, 52 per cent of Iranians have an unfavourable view of the United States. But that figure is down from 63 per cent in 2001. And it's significantly lower than the degree of antipathy towards the United States felt in Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Two thirds of Jordanians and Pakistanis have a negative view of the United States and a staggering 79 per cent of Saudis. Sentiment has also turned hostile in Lebanon, where 59 per cent of people now have an unfavourable opinion of the United States, compared with just 41 per cent a year ago. No fewer than 84 per cent of Lebanese Shiites say they have a very unfavourable view of Uncle Sam.
These figures suggest a paradox in the Muslim world. It's not America's enemies who hate the United States most, it's people in countries that are supposed to be America's friends, if not allies....when Americans themselves are asked to rate foreign countries, they express the most favourable views of none other than Britain, Germany and Canada.
Back in the 1990s, Madeleine Albright pompously called the United States "the indispensable nation". Today it seems to have become the indefensible nation, even in the eyes of its supposed friends....

Fed Adds $21 Billion More [our debt] for A.I.G. Bailout
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/business/31aig.html
The American International Group said Thursday that it had been given access to the Federal Reserve’s new commercial paper program. The company said it would be able to borrow up to $20.9 billion under the new program, raising its maximum available credit from the Fed to $144 billion under three different programs. A.I.G.’s big borrowings underscore the company’s bewilderingly rapid decline. When it suddenly faced a cash crisis in mid-September, the original estimate of the amount it needed was just $20 billion. A few days later, the Fed stepped forward with its $85 billion credit line. And now, the stunning size of that original bailout has grown by almost 70 percent.
[A Question for A.I.G.: Where Did the Cash Go?

Chevron "let's-put aside-our-differences" profits hit new record of $7.89 billion
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_10865486
Chevron Profits Doubled After Oil Tops $147 a Barrel
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqw_pkxudTYY

........................

GARY ZATZMAN REVEALS NEW TRICKS OF DEM PARTY'S MAJOR FINANCIER ...HOW THE SOROS FUCKERS CAPTURE PEOPLE'S NAMES AND EMAIL ADDRESSES

A joke video site appears called CNNBC in which you can make up fake videos with messages such as: "Because [you supply a name] didn't vote, John McCain won"; at the time you see this and participate by sending one of these mockups to friends, there is no indication who is behind "CNNBC". After you do this, they harvest your email address and send you this:

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:44:47 -0700
From: "Peter Koechley, CNNBC News"
Subject: Don't let your friends lose the election.
To: Gary Z ...........

Dear Gary,
Wow. Thanks to people like you, this nonvoter video has now been sent to over 6.3 million friends. It's going out to more than 30 new people per second.
Research shows that this kind of social "nudging" is extremely effective. So we're aiming to reach 10 million people before Election Day-only a few days away.

Can you help by sending this video to a few more friends today?
http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/taf.html

Studies show that by far the best way to get people out to vote is to convince them that (a) everyone else is voting, and (b) everyone will know if they don't vote. This video does both-with a smile (or smirk, in some cases).It takes just seconds to send, and it could be the thing that actually pushes a friend of yours to the polls.
Click here to send more personalized videos to your friends:
http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/taf.html
Thanks for all you do.
-The CNNBC team

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