"If voting could change anything it would be illegal "
 Russell Means
video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-17192464717026682&q=russell+means&total=129&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0
 

"They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke."
Eugene Victor Debs

"Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they 'choose' to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and.. the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer."
H. L. Menchen
 

"There never was an idea stated that woke men out of their stupid indifference but its originator was spoken of as a crank."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American Poet, "Over the Teacups", 1891

USA'S NEW BATTLE HYMN
"Red, white and true blue With newfound patriotism, Seattleites want to wave the flag."
Seattle P.I.

The Obama '08 Phenomenon: What Have We Learned?
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
"This generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like."
Without question, the nation has experienced an election of historical significance, for reasons that go beyond the obvious "first Black" aspect of race. This has also been the most-hyped presidential campaign in U.S. history, if for no other reason than the simple fact that every presidential campaign is more hyped than the last, since hype is what corporate media sells. But what has the experience taught us?

We have learned that a large and decisive national minority of whites can be persuaded to vote for a certain kind of Black man for president if that Black man possesses the following characteristics:

A family history that includes no African American lineage, and is thereby untainted by the negative cultural baggage associated with North American slave descendants. (This is similar to the special white dispensation afforded in past generations to Afro-Caribbean baseball players.)

An eagerness to embrace racist political icons such as Ronald Reagan, while vociferously denying that white racism is and has been "endemic" to America. This man must also be willing to without hesitation denounce, repudiate and otherwise vilify other Black individuals - even those who have been personally dear to him - at the first sign of white displeasure with that person.

A compulsion to telegraph whites that he shares their disdain for Blacks as a group. This specially endowed individual must be prepared to castigate Blacks in every arena of life, from incompetent child-rearing (the cruelty of fried chicken breakfasts) to failures of Black manhood (acting like "boys" rather than responsible adults), the shame of Black female promiscuity (stopping black girls from having babies out of wedlock is "the single biggest thing that we could do to reduce inner-city poverty") and Blacks' collective lack of good hygiene ("You know what would be a good economic development plan for our community would be if we make sure folks weren't throwing their garbage out of their cars"). But the Black man who would woo white presidential votes must have the smarts and discipline to never, never, never subject whites to such egregious, blanket group criticisms.

"This specially endowed individual must be prepared to castigate Blacks in every arena of life."
He must possess an imagination fertile enough to declare that Blacks have already come "90 percent of the way" towards racial equality - a statement without statistical validity based on any social or economic indexes, but one which assures whites that their long suffering at the hands of bothersome Black complainers is nearly over. This Black president-to-be must implicitly promise that his own election will provide the missing ten percent, and bring the race issue definitively to a close.

We have learned that whites took the candidate's words to heart, en masse. A CBS/New York Times poll taken one week before the election showed that 68 percent of whites believe that Blacks and whites "have about an equal chance of getting ahead" in American society. This fantastic conclusion was clearly inspired by Barack Obama's singular success, since less than half of whites gave that answer in July. Even more astonishingly, 43 percent of Blacks said the same thing -a response unlike any ever recorded in the history of professional polling, and totally divorced from Black realities. We have learned that Obama-L'aid kills healthy Black brain cells.

We have learned that Black politicians and activist-poseurs have an infinite capacity to celebrate not having engaged in struggle with Power, and that the Black masses can be made drunk by the prospect of vicariously (through Obama) coming to power. Having failed to make even the mildest of demands on Obama in return for unquestioning support, Black misleadership vowed they would press for firm commitments on issues of importance to African Americans once Obama had passed the final hurdle. (White progressives who were similarly self-neutered during the campaign also promise to begin acting like real people's advocates, any day now...just you wait and see.) We have already learned that "Progressives for Obama" of all ethnicities, who failed to put pressure on the candidate early on, when it might have made a difference, are full of crap.

"Sixty-eight percent of whites believe that Blacks and whites "have about an equal chance of getting ahead" in American society."

We have learned that even in failure and collapse, the Lords of Capital are smart enough to know they desperately need a new face, and are willing to bankroll the Black man who can provide it. During this election cycle we learned that capital can switch its party allegiances in an instant, first vetting and then jump-starting the Black candidate who would become the biggest campaign spender in U.S. election history, by far. In 2008, the Democrats became the party of Big Capital, whose choice was Barack Obama. We have learned that capital is never blind to color, when it can be used to capital's advantage.

We have learned that this generation will have to learn from damn near scratch what a real social movement looks like - which will be doubly hard, since they have been misled to believe that this year's frenzied electioneering was actually a "movement." Now it is over, and one Black man is moving - into the White House, having never promised his Black supporters a single thing of significance. But of course, hardly anyone Black made any demands of Obama.

Some folks never learn that Power concedes nothing without a demand.
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 .

A Day Of Rejoicing For The Empire
Gaither Stewart, 5 November, 2008 Paris
http://www.creative-i.info/?p=2008
Today we’re all Americans.’ As after 9/11 those same incredible words echoed from the pages of France’s Le Monde this morning. Today, the day after, media of France and Italy (and assuredly of the rest of the world except Israel and a couple client dictatorships) competed with each other in praise of American democracy where ‘anything is possible’. The race barrier has fallen. Honor to the USA. ... ‘Obama’s organization is almost military. Political analysts in Paris refer in admiration of Obama’s trademark, his brand name, and a prerequisite for success in modern politics. Nicolas Sarkozy’s staff labels Obama’s electoral campaign an ‘inspiration.’ With the President’s popularity falling and next elections in 2012 already in mind, has been studying Obama’s electoral campaign as the model for French conservatives.

in case you missed this...
An Obama Presidency: More Of The Same Only Worse
By Larry Pinkney, former Black Panther leader
If the masses of people in this nation knew or had known the pertinent facts pertaining to the war mongering “we can fight the war better,” pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery tongued Barack Obama, it is doubtful they would have been so thoroughly bamboozled and hoodwinked to their own detriment and that of the world.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21159.htm

WIBDI: A Prism for the New Paradigm
by Chris Floyd
http://www.chris-floyd.com/
As the United States enters a new and unprecedented political era -- or, as killjoy cynics would have it, as the American empire gets a new set of temporary managers -- the fate of the "dissident" movement that arose under the Bush Regime seems greatly occluded. So many of those who set out their stalls as bold outsiders "speaking truth to power" now find themselves on the inside, enthralled by power, speaking for power, as it is personified by President-elect Barack Obama -- who, ironically, has consistently repudiated many of the tenets and principles that provoked the dissidents' outrage in the first place.
I have always disliked this phrase "speaking truth to power" (although I'm sure I've lazily employed it myself on several occasions). No one needs to speak truth to power: power knows the truth well enough, it knows what it is doing, and to whom, and why. What we need, most desperately, are people who will speak truth about power, and speak it to people who might not have heard that truth through the howling cacophony of media diversion, corporate spin and political manipulation.

So for those of dissident bent who would still like to speak truth about power -- and who are not sending their CVs to the Obama transition team or signing on as happy warriors to defend the new imperial managers from revenge attacks by bitter partisans of the ousted faction -- the question of how best to comport oneself in this brave new world takes on some urgency. In this regard, we would like to suggest the following conceptual framework for analyzing and understanding the moral, ethical, social, economic and legal implications of the policies and actions of the coming administration. (And it even comes with its own handy acronym!):

"WIBDI: What If Bush Did It?"
This user-friendly analytical tool provides a quick and easy way of determining the value of any given policy while correcting one's perception for partisan bias. Simply take a particular action or proposal and submit it to the WIBDI test: If Bush did this, would you think it was OK? Or would you condemn it as the act of a warmonger, or a tyrant, or a corrupt corporate tool, etc.? The just-concluded campaign has already shown us how hordes of our quondam dissidents have signally failed this test, excusing, countenancing, defending or even embracing the actions and positions enumerated below .....
In measuring and judging the operations of power, we must judge an action or policy for what it is, in reality, for what it does, to actual living human beings, not for who has ordered it....

"As an African-American, I am especially proud because this is a country that's been through a long journey in terms of overcoming wounds and making race not the factor in our lives"
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Those who supported Obama: you will be disappointed ...
"Those who supported Obama: you will be disappointed and will remember my caution... when Obama will endorse an Israeli war on a refugee camp and on a Lebanese village, he will call that justified self-defense... when Obama will mourn the deaths of Israelis and will celebrate the deaths of Arabs and Muslims... when he orders his first bombing campaign on some remote area of Pakistan... when he betrays the poor in favor of Wall Street... when he betrays the aspirations of black people in favor of the white middle class... when Obama will not fight for his health reform plan, will he not deliver on many of his promises.... when Obama stick to his campaign promise of opposing gay marriage... when Obama will continue to blame the failure of the American occupation of Iraq on the Iraqi people themselves....
 Angry Arab 
 http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2008/11/remember-me-obama-bashing-begins-here.html
Arabian Sights
gzahran@wanadoo.fr To subscribe/unsubscribe send a blank message with the appropriate request in the subject window. Feel free to forward for information and educational purposes with Signature intact, please!

AROUND THE WORLD: NEW REGIME'S PRETTIER FACE ON THE SAME FASCIST U.S. GLOBAL AGENDA ...
WHEN HOPE FOR CHANGE IS BETRAYED, ANTI-IMPERIALIST-ZIONIST STRUGGLE WILL GROW FIERCER

Obama picks pro-Israel hardliner for top post
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada
November 5, 2008
During the United States election campaign, racists and pro-Israel hardliners tried to make an issue out of President-elect Barack Obama's middle name, Hussein. Such people might take comfort in another middle name, that of Obama's pick for White House Chief of Staff: Rahm Israel Emanuel...
Rahm Emanuel was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1959, the son of Benjamin Emanuel, a pediatrician who helped smuggle weapons to the Irgun, the Zionist militia of former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin, in the 1940s. The Irgun carried out numerous terrorist attacks on Palestinian civilians including the bombing of Jerusalem's King David Hotel in 1946.
Emanuel continued his father's tradition of active support for Israel; during the 1991 Gulf War he volunteered to help maintain Israeli army vehicles near the Lebanon border when southern Lebanon was still occupied by Israeli forces.
Emanuel became a senior advisor to Clinton at the White House from 1993 to 1998. In the White House, Emanuel was initially Assistant to the President for Political Affairs and then Senior Advisor to the President for Policy and Strategy.
As White House political director in the first Clinton administration, Emanuel orchestrated the famous 1993 signing ceremony of the "Declaration of Principles" between Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin....
One of the most influential politicians and fundraisers in his party, Emanuel accompanied Obama to a meeting of AIPAC's executive board just after the Illinois senator had addressed the pro-Israel lobby's conference last June.
In Congress, Emanuel has been a consistent and vocal pro-Israel hardliner, sometimes more so than President Bush. In June 2003, for example, he signed a letter criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of Israel. "We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of Israel for fighting acts of terror," Emanuel, along with 33 other
Democrats wrote to Bush. The letter said that Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian political leaders "was clearly justified as an application of Israel's right to self-defense" ("Pelosi supports Israel's attacks on Hamas group," San Francisco Chronicle, 14 June 2003).

In July 2006, Emanuel was one of several members who called for the cancellation of a speech to Congress by visiting Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki because al-Maliki had criticized Israel's bombing of Lebanon. Emanuel called the Lebanese and Palestinian governments "totalitarian entities with militias and terrorists acting as democracies" in a 19 July 2006 speech supporting a House resolution backing Israel's bombing of both countries that caused thousands of civilian victims....

On 14 June 2007 he wrote to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "on behalf of students in the Gaza Strip whose future is threatened by the ongoing fighting there" which he
blamed on "the violence and militancy of their elders." In fact, the fighting between members of Hamas and Fatah, which claimed dozens of lives, was the result of a failed scheme by US-backed militias to violently overthrow the elected Hamas-led national unity government. Emanuel's letter urged Rice "to work with allies in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan, to either find a secure location in Gaza for these students, or to transport them to a neighboring country... Palestinians view such proposals as a pretext to permanently "transfer" them from their country, as many Israeli leaders have threatened. Emanuel has never said anything in support of millions of Palestinian children whose education has been disrupted by Israeli occupation, closures and blockades.

Emanuel has also used his position to explicitly push Israel's interests in normalizing relations with Arab states and isolating Hamas. In 2006 he initiated a letter to President Bush opposing United Arab Emirates (UAE)-based Dubai Ports World's attempt to buy the management business of six US seaports. The letter, signed by dozens of other lawmakers,
stated that "The UAE has pledged to provide financial support to the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority and openly participates in the Arab League boycott against Israel." It argued that allowing the deal to go through "not only could place the safety and security of US ports at risk, but enhance the ability of the UAE to bolster the Hamas regime and its efforts to promote terrorism and violence against Israel" ("Dems Tie Israel, Ports," Forward, 10 March 2006).

Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, told Fox News that picking Emanuel is "just another indication that despite the attempts to imply that Obama would somehow appoint the wrong person or listen to the wrong people when it comes to the US-Israel relationship ... that was never true."

Over the course of the campaign, Obama publicly distanced himself from friends and advisers suspected or accused of having "pro-Palestinian" sympathies. There are no early indications of a more balanced course.
electronicintifada.net/v2/article9939.shtml Necdp_info mailing list Necdp_info@onepalestine.org

Like father like son
Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, once a member of the Irgun militia that fought for Israel's statehood, was asked in an interview with the Hebrew daily Maariv if his son's appointment would be good for Israel. "Obviously, he will influence the President to be pro-Israel," said the elder Emanuel, who immigrated to the U.S. from Israel in the 1950s. "Why shouldn't he do it? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to clean the floor of the White House."
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2008/11/06/2008-11-06_obama_chi...

Israel warns Obama against dialogue with Iran:
Israel said US president-elect Barack Obama's stated readiness to talk to Iran could be seen in the Middle East as a sign of weakness in efforts to persuade Tehran to curb its nuclear programme. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/1106/breaking17.htm

PARTNERS IN PALESTINIAN GENOCIDE
Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and head of the right-wing opposition party, Likud. Mr. Netanyahu eschews the model of negotiating a two-state solution, arguing instead for building an “economic peace” between Israelis and Palestinians from the bottom up. In a letter to President-elect Barack Obama, congratulating him on his victory in the American presidential election, Mr. Netanyahu said, “I am confident that we will act together to achieve peace, security and prosperity for our region.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/middleeast/07mideast.html?_r=1&h...

U.S. ZIONISTS APPROVE FORMER IDF 'NON-COMBATANT VOLUNTEER'
William Daroff, director of the Washington office of the United Jewish Communities (UJC), an umbrella organization representing 155 Jewish Federations and 400 independent Jewish communities across North America, said Thursday "Rep. Emanuel is among the smartest political tacticians and policy-makers that is on the scene in Washington. He was singularly responsible for guiding many of the top legislative priorities of the Clinton administration when he was a senior White House aide. He crafted the House Democrats plan to regain the majority when he was their campaign committee chairman ...Choosing Rep. Emanuel is a sign that President-elect Obama is learning from the mistakes of the two most recent Democratic Presidents, who brought in Washington outsiders to run the White House, and did so at their own peril - often finding themselves in battles with the Washington Democratic establishment. Emanuel's selection will avoid such 'freshman mistakes'"... http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1035128.html

"Rep. Emanuel is also a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun stock, davening at an Orthodox synagogue, and sending his children to Jewish day schools," Daroff concluded.
Emanuel's quick rise to a party leadership position in the House underlines his political acumen, and his choice by Obama points to the president-elect's preparations to move quickly on getting his legislative agenda through Congress. Emanuel will play a major role in facilitating and selling Obama's plans. In his previous positions Emanuel was in charge of political and domestic issues, but in Clinton's administration in 1993, as senior presidential adviser for domestic affairs, he also dealt with foreign policy...

Rahm Emanuel Accepts Post as White House Chief of Staff
With Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, President-elect Obama has chosen a consummate navigator of the capital's political terrain... Wednesday, Mr. Obama named John D. Podesta, a former Clinton White House chief of staff, to lead his transition team, along with Valerie Jarrett, a longtime adviser, and Pete Rouse, his Senate chief of staff.
In turning to Mr. Emanuel and Mr. Podesta, Mr. Obama sought out two of the hardest-hitting veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration, known for their deep Washington experience, savvy and no-holds-barred approach to politics. Neither is considered a practitioner of the “new politics” that Mr. Obama promised on the campaign trail to bring Republicans and Democrats together, suggesting that the cool and conciliatory new president is determined to demonstrate toughness from the beginning.
The selection of Mr. Emanuel, known by some as “Rahmbo” because of his toughness, was met with criticism by some Republican lawmakers. The House minority leader, John A. Boehner of Ohio, said in a statement, “This is an ironic choice for a president-elect who has promised to change Washington, make politics more civil and govern from the center.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/us/politics/07elect.html?8au&emc=au

"The Promised Land"? Obama, Emanuel and Israel
By John V. Whitbeck
....Obama repeatedly pledged unconditional allegiance to Israel during his campaign, most memorably in an address to the AIPAC national convention which Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery characterized as "a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning", and America's electing a black president has always been more easily imagined than any American president's declaring his country's independence from Israeli domination.... one of the greatest advantages for the United States in electing Barack Hussein Obama was the prospect that the world's billion-plus Muslims, who now view the United States with almost universal loathing and hatred, would be dazzled by the new president's eloquence, life story, skin color and middle name, would think again with open minds and would give America a chance to redeem itself in their eyes and hearts -- not incidently, drastically shortening the long lines of aspiring jihadis eager to sacrifice their lives while striking a blow against the evil empire.

The profound loathing and hatred of the Muslim world toward the United States, which has always had its roots for America's unconditional support for the injustices inflicted and still being inflicted on the Palestinians, can fairly be considered the core of the primary foreign policy and "national security" problems confronting the United States in recent years. Why would Obama, a man of unquested brilliance, have chosen to send such a contemptuous message to the Muslim world with his first major appointment? Why would he wish to disabuse the Muslim world of its hopes (however modest) and slap it across the face at the ealiest opportunity?
A further contemptuous message is widely rumored to be forthcoming -- the naming as "Special Envoy for Middle East Peace" of Dennis Ross, the notorious Israel-Firster who, throughout the 12 years of the Bush the First and Clinton administrations, ensured that American policy toward the Palestinians did not deviate one millimeter from Israeli policy and that no progress toward peace could be made and who has since headed the AIPAC spin-off "think tank", the Washington Institute for Near East Policy....

undercover of u.s. election hysteria...
Deadly Israeli rocket air and ground attack in Gaza
http://www.france24.com/en/20081105-deadly-israeli-attack-gaza-strip-ham...
05 November 2008
An Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip killed five Hamas members and a ground raid killed a militant on Tuesday, Palestinian medics said, in the first armed clash in the strip since a ceasefire took hold there in June.... A statement from Hamas’s armed wing said “the current calm agreement will not prevent us from defending our people against Zionist (Israeli) arrogance. It warned of a harsh response. The Israeli army spokeswoman said “... this is a pinpoint operation to thwart an immediate threat and there is no intention to bring about the end of the ceasefire.”

Hamas: Israel's claims of having no intention to escalate is disinformation
05/11/2008
GAZA, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement spokesman Fawzi Barhoum on Wednesday stated that the Israeli war minister's declaration that Israel still wants the calm and has no intention to escalate is "disinformation" and another trick to deceive the public opinion after he murdered six Palestinian fighters.
Necdp_info@onepalestine.org http://onepalestine.org/mailman/listinfo/necdp_info_onepalestine.org

Student Detained After Refusing to Shake Hands with Israel’s President, Calling him a Murderer
November 2, Hebrew University student Ali Bahar was detained for three hours after refusing to shake hands with Israeli president Shimon Peres. Visiting the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Peres was congratulating students on the opening of the academic year. Upon approaching Bahar, the student refused to shake Peres's hand and stated "I will not shake hands with murderer of kids." Immediately following the encounter, Bahar was detained by university security personal and his student ID was confiscated. His student ID will not be returned until a disciplinary committee at Hebrew University investigates the incident. Bahar is currently chair of the Arab Student Body of Hebrew university and a member of Abna al-balad... a democratic organization active inside 1948 Israel, calling for "the return of all Palestinian refugees, and end to the Israeli occupation and the Zionist apartheid, and the establishment of a democratic secular Palestine."
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/11/04/18548823.php

A New False Dawn
By Seth Freedman
Obama won four in every five Jewish votes as Israel's invasion of Gaza continued overnight.... "... Obama has an opportunity to weaken anti-US sentiment, and by extension anti-Israel sentiment too"... http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21154.htm

TRUTH, DISINFO OR COMBO? whatever deals are going down, you can be sure Obama's threat to of 'unilateral attacks' are approved
Pakistan's secret cooperation with America
By David Ignatius
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_...
Pakistan is publicly complaining about US air strikes. But the country's new chief of intelligence, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, visited Washington last week for talks with America's top military and spy chiefs, and everyone seemed to come away smiling....
Behind the stepped-up Predator missions in recent weeks is a secret understanding between the United States and Pakistan about the use of these drones. Given Pakistani sensitivities about American meddling, this accord has been shielded in the deniable world of intelligence activities. Officially, the Pakistanis oppose any violation of their airspace, and the Pakistani defense minister issued a public protest Monday about the Predator raids. But that's not the whole story.
The secret accord was set after the September visit to Washington by Pakistan's new president, Asif Zardari. It provided new mechanics for coordination of Predator attacks and a jointly approved list of high-value targets. Behind the agreement was a recognition by the Zardari government, and by Pakistan's new military chief, General Ashfaq Kiyani, that the imminent threat to Pakistan's security comes from Islamic terrorists, rather than from arch-rival India. .... A confidential Pakistani military report on the recent fighting in Bajaur and neighboring provinces counted 1,140 insurgents killed or wounded and 197 captured. Civilian casualties totaled 848 killed or wounded, plus 400,000 refugees. The US is quietly helping by sending at least 25 Special Forces soldiers to train the Pakistani Frontier Corps. But the Americans, recognizing public sensitivity to foreign interference, are keeping a low profile.
What's different on the Pakistani side isn't just the secret cooperation with America. ....

At least 25 killed in Pakistan:
Fifteen Taliban fighters have been killed in a Pakistani air raid in the northwest of the country, government officials say. A second attack occurred in Bajaur on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding 45 more, a government official said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2008/11/2008116105041653879.html

Obama to ask Britain for 3,000 more elite troops in Afghanistan
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-11/02/content_10295822.htm

U.S. OCCUPATION & DOMINATION IS DOOMED: UNDERESTIMATING NATIONALIST ANTI-IMPERIALIST RESISTANCE -- BY WHATEVER PSYWAR NAME
Afghan Officials Aided an Attack on U.S. Soldiers
Afghan and American forces had started building the makeshift base five days before the attack ...repeatedly warned... that militants were plotting a strike, the report found...the warnings did not include details, and troops never anticipated such a large and well-coordinated attack. The assault involved some 200 fighters, nearly three times the number of Americans and Afghans defending the site. At the time of the attack, 48 American troops and 24 Afghan soldiers, were still building fortifications of sandbags and earthen barriers around the main outpost and a small observation post about 100 yards away. In some places, those troops were protected only by strands of concertina wire and a ring of gun-mounted, armored Humvees, the report said. The militants apparently detected the vulnerability and moved to exploit it. On the evening of July 12, the militants slipped into the village, undetected by the Americans, ordered the villagers to leave and set up firing positions inside houses and a mosque. At 4:20 a.m. on July 13, the militants struck with a fusillade of heavy machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades, destroying the Americans’ most potent weapons: 120-millimeter mortars and a TOW missile launcher. At the same time, the militants blasted the observation post with rifle fire and more grenades. Within 20 minutes, all nine Americans inside the observation post were dead or wounded... American soldiers were at times flushed out into the open when they fled what they thought were grenades, but were in fact rocks thrown by Taliban attackers, the report said. The day before the attack, the militants began flowing water through an irrigation ditch feeding an unused field, creating background noise that masked the sounds of the advancing fighters.... Nine Americans died and 27 were injured, most in the first 20 minutes of the fight. Four Afghan soldiers were also wounded. The intensity of the attack was so fierce, the report said, that American soldiers shot at insurgents as close as about 15 yards away, often until their weapons jammed, and at militants who shinnied up trees overhanging their positions to shoot at the Americans. The attack on the outpost, near Wanat, caused the worst single loss for the American military in Afghanistan since June 2005, and one of the worst over all since the invasion in late 2001. It underscored the vulnerability of American forces in Afghanistan, as well as the continuing problem posed by uncertainties over the loyalties of their Afghan allies, especially the Afghan police. The attackers were driven back after a pitched four-hour battle, in which American artillery, warplanes and attack helicopters were ultimately called in. Still, the militants fought in ways that showed imaginative military training, if not sophisticated weapons.... [U.S. military report] concluded that despite reports earlier in July that 200 to 300 militants had been massing to attack another remote outpost in the vicinity, the commanders at Wanat had no reason to expect such a large frontal assault. just days after the attack, American forces abandoned the outpost at Wanat...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/world/asia/04military.html?_r=1&th=&or...

U.S. ANGLE NOW "PEACE JIRGAS"
Pakistani and Afghan officials and tribal leaders agreed Tuesday to make contact with Taliban militants in an attempt to end the raging insurgent violence along their porous border....
The United States has stepped up missile attacks on militant targets in Pakistan in the past two months, killing dozens of people and further inflaming the already tense situation on the border. Despite US and Afghan opposition to peace deals that Pakistan struck with militants in 2005 and 2006, the idea of engaging the Taliban in talks has gathered pace this year.
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said a week ago that the kingdom has been sponsoring talks between the government of Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban militia. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday the United States was considering [SIC] taking part in talks with elements of the Taliban in a sharp change in tactics in Afghanistan...
said the new approach was contained in a draft recommendation in a classified White House assessment of US strategy in Afghanistan.Talks would be led by the Afghan government, "but with the active participation of the US," it said on its website. http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iXxSpkidka2hP18Kog7gxcF3eqxA

US Airstrike kills 90 in Afghan wedding party:
"It was a mistake - they hit the wedding party and thought it was the Taliban," Gov. Rahmatullah Raufi told a late afternoon news conference.
http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/530904

US raids kill another 10 Afghan civilians:
Separate coalition operations have claimed ten civilian casualties in Afghanistan, a day after an air strike killed 40 in the south.
Since January, US-led operations, relying heavily on airstrikes, have left hundreds of civilians dead, sparking resentment... among Afghans over the presence of foreign troops.
Official figures suggest at least 4,000 people, more than a third of them civilians, have been killed in fighting with pro-Taliban [SIC] militants this year.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=74486&sectionid=351020403

Karzai 'demands' Obama end civilian death
WECH BAGHTU, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan president Hamid Karzai referred to the incident at a news conference Wednesday held to congratulate Obama on his U.S. presidential election victory... demanded that President-elect Barack Obama put an end to civilian casualties as villagers said U.S. warplanes bombed a wedding party. Karzai...said "race, color and ethnicity" will disappear as a factor in politics around the world because of Obama's election. He used the occasion to press the U.S. government to "take the fight (to) where the training centers and the resources of the terrorists are," a reference to Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.Obama has said... he could launch unilateral attacks on high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan as they become exposed "if Pakistan cannot or will not act" against them.
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hvWEqwq3CrRvaQCmt21MfoYhjZJQD948OTO80

Hope for heavier role for USAID/CIA/George Soros Imperialist 'soft power strategic non-violence', the other side of U.S. 'hard power'
Obama win hailed by US Afghan aid workers
There has been a warm welcome among aid workers in the Afghan capital, Kabul, over the election of Barack Obama as US president. Aid workers, including many senior staff working in the US government's aid agency, USAID, have often expressed extreme frustration with the approach of the White House, especially during President's Bush's second term. There is now a real sense among aid workers that their period of alienation under the Bush administration, especially in the post-9/11 period, is coming to an end..."We have been able to show a more tolerant and open side to America," he said.
'Strategic significance': Aid workers argue that Mr Obama's victory will also go a long way towards reducing animosity towards America by securing solidarity from other countries.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7714244.stm

OBAMA-POWELL TO BOOST PREVIOUSLY REJECTED U.S. AFRICOM
Africa celebrates Obama victory with pride, hope
NAIROBI, Kenya -- For many across Africa and the world, Barack Obama's election seals America's reputation as a land of staggering opportunity.. Scenes of jubilation broke out in the western Kenya village of Kogelo, where many of Obama's Kenyan relatives still live. People sang, danced in the streets and wrapped themselves in U.S. flags. A group of exuberant residents picked up the president-elect's half brother Malik and carried him through the village..
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/386599_worldreax06.html

SOFT POWER PLUS...
Congo-Kinshasa: CFR Urges U.S. Military Action
The US should help initiate multilateral military action against rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo if a UN force fails to stabilise areas now rocked by turmoil, an influential US-based think tank [the Council on Foreign Relations] said last week. Washington must act on the fact that "important US strategic interests are at stake" in Congo, the council says.In addition to playing a potentially decisive role in ensuring stability in Central Africa, Congo "is endowed with vast lodes of important minerals," the report notes. "Large-scale international investors are re-investing in the Congo, including US-based Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold, Inc, one of the largest copper and gold mining companies in the world."
Prior to organising a new intervention force, the US should seek to bolster the existing UN peacekeeping force in the Congo known as Monuc, says the report.
"The most important [short-term] action the United States can take is to use its full diplomatic power at the UN Security Council to ensure that Monuc has the necessary personnel and mandate to fulfil its central role," says the report written by Anthony Gambino, a former Congo mission chief for the US Agency for International Development.
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200811031419.html

U.S./U.K. Allies Grab Congo Riches and Millions Die
Professor Peter Erlinder
4 November, 2008 Global Research
Once again, the suffering of African people caught up in a war that makes little sense to non-Africans has made the front pages in western media, as more than a million people have been displaced in the past week by renewed fighting in the Eastern Congo.[2] For most Americans who don’t pay much attention to the details of African history and politics, the humanitarian disaster in the Congo has exploded into public consciousness, as if the 25-year war to control Central Africa began only yesterday.

The “ Congo story” Behind the Headlines
But, in fact, the human rights disaster that the people of the world are watching on our TV screens is just the most recent human tragedy in a 25 year struggle for economic and political dominance in Central Africa that has been raging since the decline and eventual collapse of the Soviet influence in Africa in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. A sad fact of the 20th Century is that, even after the end of formal “colonialism” in the mid-20th Century, ruling African elites in virtually every African nation have looked to one or more powerful “sponsors” in the developed world to gain or retain power. And, to grab the personal wealth that goes with political/military power in Africa.

Origins of the Congo War: 2001-03 UN Experts’ Reports
In fact, evidence has long existed that the war in the Eastern Congo , between 1996 and today, has little or nothing to do with “ethnicity” or capturing “genocidaires.”[7] Like “weapons of mass destruction” used to justify another war of aggression by the U.S. on Iraq. .“ethnic” and “response to the genocide” have been used by both Uganda and Rwanda to justify a war of aggression, waged for economic reasons, described in the UN Experts Reports. Not coincidentally, Uganda and Rwanda are two of the largest recipients of US and British economic and military assistance in Africa.8 Wars initiated by Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, have raged in Central Africa since Museveni’s 1981 invasion to seize power in Uganda,[9] which the Red Cross reported had killed at least 300,000 civilians by the time he took power in 1986.[10]

The real reasons for the ongoing war in the Congo is described in great detail in several United Nations Security Council Expert Reports,[11] make clear that war and massive civilian deaths in the Eastern Congo since 1996 have little, if anything to do with “tribalism,” “ethnicity,” or even the “Rwanda genocide.” But, rather, have everything to do with the rape of the Congo’s resources by the militaries of Rwanda and Uganda and their local surrogates.

According to three separate UN Security Council Reports, issued between 2001 and 2003, war on the Congo began when Uganda and Rwanda made common-cause with local Congolese leader Laurent Kabila, and other Congolese elites, to control the vast resources of the Eastern Congo in 1996. The UN Reports show that that since, the 1996 invasion and a second invasion in 1998, Rwanda and Uganda have become the major trading centers for diamonds, precious metals and other natural resources that are not found in either country…..but which exist in great quantities in the Congo.[12] As of 2003, the UN Security Council Reports put the cost of civilian lives at some 3 million (the current estimate is more than 5 million lives so far).

The Rwanda/Uganda Rape of the Congo Continues Today
For more than 3 decades, the “anti-Communist” credentials of the former Congolese Joseph Mobutu had protected him from western criticism during the Cold War, despite his brutal kleptocracy that had been matched only by vicious pre-independence colonial rule of Belgian King Leopold.[13] But, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s and Mobutu became politically expendable, Uganda/Rwanda-supported “Congolese rebels” replaced him with Laurent Kabila in 1997 and Kabila agreed to a treaty that split economic dominance of the Eastern Congo between Uganda and Rwanda in the areas adjacent to their own borders.
By 1998, however, Uganda and Rwanda invaded Eastern Congo again, after the new President Kabila began attempting to reclaim military and economic influence in the areas of his country controlled by Rwanda and Uganda . Unlike 1996, Kabila had made alliances with other African nations that opposed the foreign-supported aggression against the Congo and troops from Angola , Zimbabwe and Namibia entered the war in support of the Kabila government. Despite a 1999 Lusaka peace treaty, which also provided for the creation of MONUC (UN Observer Mission in the Congo ), the war continued. In 2000, while the U.S. media was distracted by the Bush/Gore campaign, the Uganda/Rwanda began vying for control over portions of the Congo and the long-standing alliance split over control of the resources of the Eastern Congo.[14] ...

The Rwanda/Congo “Genocide” Connections
Perhaps most important, at least from an American perspective, recently de-classified UN[39] and State Dept documents show that U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher had reports of massive civilian killings by Kagame’s no later than September 1994.[40] And, despite the evidence in contemporaneous UN and US documents, the U.S. has permitted Kagame’s crimes to be blamed on others and to be re-characterized by Kagame and the ICTR as a “genocide” committed by Kagame’s enemies.[41] Which, if true, would make the Rwanda War the first in history in which only the losing side in the war committed crimes and atrocities. A WWII analogy would to blame the Japanese, not only for their own crimes, for U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, too, or blaming the Germans for the fire-bombing of Dresden, the massacres on the Eastern Front and the sack of Berlin....
Prof. Peter Erlinder, ICTR Lead Ntabakuze Defence Counsel, Past-President, National Lawyers Guild, NY, President of ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda)-ADAD (Association des Avocats de la Defense), Wm Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul, MN 55105/651-290-6384.

u.s. covers its ugly bare ass to create wiggle room in dealing with Russia & its Georgian proxy
Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
Newly available accounts raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia's insistence that it acted defensively against Russian aggression.... Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm....
The monitors were members of an international team working under the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or O.S.C.E. A multilateral organization with 56 member states, the group has monitored the conflict since a previous cease-fire agreement in the 1990s. The observations by the monitors, including a Finnish major, a Belarussian airborne captain and a Polish civilian, have been the subject of two confidential briefings to diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, one in August and the other in October. Summaries were shared with The New York Times by people in attendance at both. Details were then confirmed by three Western diplomats and a Russian, and were not disputed by the O.S.C.E.’s mission in Tbilisi, which was provided with a written summary of the observations.
The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West.
The O.S.C.E. itself, while refusing to discuss its internal findings, stood by the accuracy of its work but urged caution in interpreting it too broadly. “We are confident that all O.S.C.E. observations are expert, accurate and unbiased,” Martha Freeman, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message. “However, monitoring activities in certain areas at certain times cannot be taken in isolation to provide a comprehensive account.” .... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?th&emc=th

same U.S./Soros forces now behind reversing the results of their 'color revolution' to install U.S. proxy prez.
Georgians rally against president
About ten thousand opposition activists demonstrated Friday in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi - their first major protest since the conflict with Russia. Critics accused President Mikhail Saakashvili of starting a war with Russia that Georgia could not win.They crowded the steps outside parliament, holding banners and waving flags, calling for democratic reforms. "We are starting a new wave of civil confrontation, and we will not give up until new elections are called," opposition leader Kakha Kukava said. Mr Saakashvili is facing questions, both at home and abroad, about whether Georgia used indiscriminate force at the outset of the war in August. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7715735.stm

"Russian President Medvedev delivers chilling words on missile plans"
Mr Medvedev, making his first state of the union address only hours after the victory of Barack Obama, used tough rhetoric, attacking the United States for its role in the war in Georgia, the financial crisis and accusing it of moving aggressively against Russia. The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that his country would place missiles in the Baltic region of Kaliningrad in response to US missile defence plans. ... Despite the rhetoric Mr Medvedev said Russia was not anti-American and he hoped the new administration could help improve ties. "I would like to stress: we have no problems with the American people," the President said. "We have no innate anti-Americanism." Russia is facing mounting economic problems. With the rouble under pressure and the price of oil sinking, Russia's huge reserves saved under the oil boom are starting to shrink and Russians are becoming more nervous about the economic future. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/medvedev-delivers-chillin...

What to Do About Iran: New Beltway Debate
By Carol Giacomo
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/opinion/03mon4.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&p...
It is a frightening notion, but it is not just the trigger-happy Bush administration discussing — if only theoretically — the possibility of military action to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Of course, no president or would-be president ever takes the military option off the table, and Barack Obama and John McCain are no exception.
What is significant is that inside Washington’s policy circles these days — in studies, commentaries, meetings, Congressional hearings and conferences — reasonable people from both parties are seriously examining the so-called military option, along with new diplomatic initiatives.
One of the most thorough discussions is in a report by the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, founded by four former senators — the Republicans Robert Dole and Howard Baker and Democrats Tom Daschle and George Mitchell — to devise policy solutions both parties might embrace.
The report warns that the next administration “might have little time and fewer options to deal with this threat.” It explores such strategies as blockading Iran’s gasoline imports, but it also says that “a military strike is a feasible option and must remain a last resort.”
Its authors include Dennis Ross, top Mideast adviser to Mr. Obama, and former Senator Dan Coats, a McCain adviser.
Ashton Carter, a senior Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, wrote a paper for the Center for a New American Security, a prestigious bipartisan think tank, that asserts military action must be only one component of a comprehensive strategy, “but it is an element of any true option.”

At a conference in September in Virginia sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, “surrogates” for Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama insisted America must focus on preventing Iran from developing a bomb, not on allowing Iran to produce one and then deterring its use....
“John McCain won’t wait until after the fact,” declared the columnist Max Boot, from the McCain team. The Arizona senator has previously said risking military action may be better than living with an Iranian nuclear weapon (and to his regret jokingly sang a song about bomb, bomb, bombing Iran).
Richard Danzig, Mr. Obama’s surrogate, said his candidate believes a military attack on Iran is a “terrible” choice, but “it may be that in some terrible world we will have to come to grips with such a terrible choice.” Early in the primary campaign, Mr. Obama declared that as president he would sit down in his first year in office with — among others — Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (He has been reparsing that commitment ever since.)
Given the global economic meltdown and other crises, it is not surprising if the American public is largely unaware of this discussion....

Obama advisers discuss preparations for war on Iran
By Peter Symonds
...Behind the backs of American voters, top advisers for President-elect Barack Obama have been setting the stage for a dramatic escalation of confrontation with Iran as soon as the new administration takes office. A report released in September from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, argued that a nuclear weapons capable Iran was “strategically untenable” and detailed a robust approach, “incorporating new diplomatic, economic and military tools in an integrated fashion”.

A key member of the Center’s task force was Obama’s top Middle East adviser, Dennis Ross, well known for his hawkish views. He backed the US invasion of Iraq and is closely associated with neo-cons such as Paul Wolfowitz. Ross worked under Wolfowitz in the Carter and Reagan administrations before becoming the chief Middle East envoy under presidents Bush senior and Clinton. After leaving the State Department in 2000, he joined the right-wing, pro-Israel think tank—the Washington Institute for Near East Policy—and signed up as a foreign policy analyst for Fox News.

The Bipartisan Policy Center report insisted that time was short, declaring: “Tehran’s progress means that the next administration might have little time and fewer options to deal with this threat.” It rejected out-of-hand both Tehran’s claims that its nuclear programs were for peaceful purposes, and the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate by US intelligence agencies which found that Iran had ended any nuclear weapons program in 2003.

The report was critical of the Bush administration’s failure to stop Iran’s nuclear programs, but its strategy is essentially the same—limited inducements backed by harsher economic sanctions and the threat of war. Its plan for consolidating international support is likewise premised on preemptive military action against Iran. Russia, China and the European powers are all to be warned that their failure to accede to tough sanctions, including a provocative blockade on Iranian oil exports, will only increase the likelihood of war.

To underscore these warnings, the report proposed that the US would need to immediately boost its military presence in the Persian Gulf. “This should commence the first day the new president enters office, especially as the Islamic Republic and its proxies might seek to test the new administration. It would involve pre-positioning US and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, [and] emplacing other war materiel in the region,” it stated.

In language that closely parallels Bush’s insistence that “all options remain on the table”, the report declared: “We believe a military strike is a feasible option and must remain a last resort to retard Iran’s nuclear program.” Such a military strike “would have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.”

Significantly, the report was drafted by Michael Rubin, from the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute, which was heavily involved in promoting the 2003 invasion of Iraq. A number of Obama’s senior Democratic advisers “unanimously approved” the document, including Dennis Ross, former senator Charles Robb, who co-chaired the task force, and Ashton Carter, who served as assistant secretary for defense under Clinton.
Carter and Ross also participated in writing a report for the bipartisan Center for a New American Security, published in September, which concluded that military action against Iran had to be “an element of any true option”. While Ross examined the diplomatic options in detail, Carter laid out the “military elements” that had to underpin them, including a cost/benefit analysis of a US aerial bombardment of Iran.
Other senior Obama foreign policy and defense advisers have been closely involved in these discussions. A statement entitled, “Strengthening the Partnership: How to deepen US-Israel cooperation on the Iranian nuclear challenge”, drafted in June by a Washington Institute for Near East Policy task force, recommended the next administration hold discussions with Israel over “the entire range of policy options”, including “preventative military action”. Ross was a taskforce co-convener, and top Obama advisers Anthony Lake, Susan Rice and Richard Clarke all put their names to the document.

As the New York Times noted on Monday, Obama defense adviser Richard Danzig, former navy secretary under Clinton, attended a conference on the Middle East convened in September by the same pro-Israel think tank. He told the audience that his candidate believed that a military attack on Iran was a “terrible” choice, but “it may be that in some terrible world we will have to come to grips with such a terrible choice”. Richard Clarke, who was also present, declared that Obama was of the view that “Tehran’s growing influence must be curbed and that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon is unacceptable.” While “his first inclination is not to pull the trigger,” Clarke stated, “if circumstances required the use of military force, Obama would not hesitate.”
While the New York Times article was muted and did not examine the reports too deeply, writer Carol Giacomo was clearly concerned at the parallels with the US invasion of Iraq. After pointing out that “the American public is largely unaware of this discussion,” she declared: “What makes me nervous is that’s what happened in the run-up to the Iraq war.”
Giacomo continued: “Bush administration officials drove the discussion, but the cognoscenti were complicit. The question was asked and answered in policy circles before most Americans know what was happening… As a diplomatic correspondent for Reuters in those days, I feel some responsibility for not doing more to ensure that the calamitous decision to invade Iraq was more skeptically vetted.”
The emerging consensus on Iran in US foreign policy circles again underscores the fact that the differences between Obama and McCain were purely tactical. While millions of Americans voted for the Democratic candidate believing he would end the war in Iraq and address their pressing economic needs, powerful sections of the American elite swung behind him as a better vehicle to prosecute US economic and strategic interests in the Middle East and Central Asia—including the use of military force against Iran.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/iran-n06.shtml

U.S. Plan Colombia Doing Just Fine
According to a United States Congressional report Plan Colombia, which has cost more than 4.5 billion euros, has not achieved its [ALLEGED] goal of halving the production of cocaine. Instead, between 2000 and 2006 production rose by 15 percent....Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs agrees that in general there should be no high expectation of a dramatically different Obama policy towards the region. http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/6041347/Plan-Colombia-......

Latin America awaits Obama "change of tone"
Mr Obama has spoken in support of the current Plan Colombia and the US$400m Plan Merida for combating drugs trafficking in Mexico and Central America..."No major changes or initiatives, but a change in tone" is the commonly-held view of Washington analysts on Barack Obama's likely policies towards Latin America.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/us_elections_2008/7710855.stm

U.S. Merida Initiative: Update on Spending Plan
The Merida Initiative will serve as a catalyst for a new era of joint U.S.-Mexico law enforcement action. Our objectives of the initiative are to break the power and impunity of criminal organizations; strengthen border, air, maritime controls; improve the capacity of justice systems in the region; curtail gang activity; reduce the demand for drugs throughout the region.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2008/oct/111035.htm

the great 'anti-imperialist' reveals his inner anti-Bush social democrat
Venezuela's President, Hugo Chávez, congratulated Barack Obama for his "historic election" and confirmed his desire to establish "new relations" with the United States and re-launch "a constructive bilateral agenda" for the wellbeing of the two peoples.
http://english.eluniversal.com/2008/11/05/en_pol_esp_chavez-reasserts-in...

“No matter how they cast their ballots, all Americans can be proud of the history that was made yesterday. They showed a watching world the vitality of American democracy and the strides that have been made toward a more perfect union.”
prez.GWB

“I have to share in the pride that Americans have now for the fact America did this,”
Gen'l.Colin Powell

“Obama won mainly because he convinced voters he was a centrist, schooled and accomplished in the politics of moderation... “That’s quite an accomplishment when you take into consideration the facts about his record, which is archetypical of a liberal politician and product of the Chicago political machine.”
Mitt Romney’s spokesman during the Republican presidential primaries, Kevin Madden

THE HOPES OF THOSE HE WILL BETRAY: WILL A NEW BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT EMERGE?
A Time to Reap for Foot Soldiers of Civil Rights
...foot soldiers of the civil rights movement could not suppress either their jubilation or their astonishment at having voted for an African-American for president of the United States.
“They didn’t give us our mule and our acre, but things are better,” Miss Harris, 67, said with a gratified smile. “It’s time to reap some of the harvest.”. “We marched, we sang and now it’s happening...it's really a feeling I cannot describe.” ... It was a day most never imagined that they would live to see. From their vantage point amid the cotton fields and pecan groves of Dougherty County, where the movement for voting rights faced some of its most determined resistance, the country simply did not seem ready.

Yes, the world had changed in 47 years. At City Hall, the offices once occupied by the segregationist mayor, Asa D. Kelley Jr., and the police chief, Laurie Pritchett, are now filled by Mayor Willie Adams and Chief James Younger, both of whom are black. But much in this black-majority city of 75,000 also seems the same: neighborhoods remain starkly delineated by race, blacks are still five times more likely than whites to live in poverty and the public schools have so resegregated that 9 of every 10 students are black.

“He’s of a different time and place, but he knows whose shoulders he’s standing on,” ....

“This is what we prayed for, this is what we worked for,” he said. “We have a legitimate chance to be a democracy.”

Over and again, the civil rights veterans drew direct lines between their work and the colorblindness of Mr. Obama’s candidacy. But they emphasized that they did not vote for him simply because of his race. “I think he would make just as good a president as any one of those whites ever made, that’s what I think about it,” said 103-year-old Daisy Newsome, who knocked on doors to register voters “until my hand was sore,” and was jailed in 1961 during a march that started at Mount Zion Baptist. “It ain’t because he’s black, because I’ve voted for the whites.” She added, “I know he can’t be no worse than what there’s done been.”...
“We sang through the years that we shall overcome, but our Father, our God, we pray now that you show that we have overcome.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05civil.html?th&emc=th

The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent
Gore Vidal

Another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals, which they serve.
Eric Fromm

BORDERS ARE FOR SISSIES
ron jacobs
..the October 26th helicopter raid into Syria from Iraq by US Special Forces was an intentional attack on a village within the sovereign borders of Syria. Naturally, Pentagon spokespeople say that only militants were killed. News outlets, meanwhile, show the faces of grieving parents and siblings of the family Syrian officials insist were killed. Either way, the fact remains that Washington has proven itself to be an international outlaw once again.

In a similar raid last month, US Special Forces landed in a village in Pakistan and killed several Pakistanis. When protests over this raid reached to Islamabad, the Pentagon decided it would only use predator drones to do their killing in Pakistan for the time being. Although the reason given is that the Pentagon wants to recognize Pakistani sensitivities to foreign troops killing people uninvited on their territory, one can assume that another, perhaps greater, reason is the Pentagon knows it could very well lose a few men if they land in that area again. As everyone knows, dead GIs never play well on the US television news no matter how they are spun.

The crassness of this calculation is as old as airpower if not older. Airborne missiles and bombs are somehow considered by those who launch them to be less immoral than raids involving soldiers on the ground–raids that often incorporate the killing of civilians. This is despite the fact that ground raids rarely kill as many civilians as air strikes, be they predator drones, carpet bombing or something in between.

Despite the clear disregard for civilian life inherent in these raids whether airborne or otherwise, the aspect of these raids that is potentially the most dangerous is the blatant disregard for national borders shown by the Pentagon. This isn’t a band of terrorists that is crossing national borders to kill and destroy. It is the largest military in the world–the military of a nation that considers its borders inviolable. Yet, it seems to have little regard for those of other nations, allies or foes. Indeed, an anonymous US official was quoted in a Washington Post article on October 28, 2008 “You have to clean up the global threat that is in your back yard, and if you won’t do that, we are left with no choice but to take these matters into our hands.” By global threat, the official obviously meant a threat to the designs of Washington for the globe, not a threat against the planet itself. As most readers are well aware, Washington often confuses its security with that of the world and, by doing so, places the entire planet at even greater risk every time it acts to preserve that security.

Another aspect of this raid is the use of Iraq as a launching pad for the operation. This flies in the face of the post-Saddam Iraq “constitution” and is one of the reasons so many Iraqis oppose the Status of Forces Agreement currently being negotiated in Baghdad’s Green Zone. Raids on neighboring countries that use Iraq as a base put Iraq in an untenable position with its neighbors and ties the government of Iraq irrevocably tot he United States, even if it does not know about the raids in advance. This is one more reason all US forces must leave Iraq. As long as US troops remain in the country, they will use Iraq as a base to plan and conduct operations outside of Iraq’s borders, no matter what the Green Zone government says.

This time around, the Green Zone government initially supported the attack, although later statements seem to have reversed that support. One can be reasonably certain, however, that if the US launched a raid on Iran, the Iraqis might not be so agreeable. Given their supine position to Washington, however, their words of protest would be without any power. Washington knows this and the Green Zone government accepts it, however begrudgingly. After all, what are they going to do? Bite the hand that put them in their fancy kennel?

Speaking of supine creatures, why does Congress let the Pentagon continue these raids into countries Washington is theoretically not at war with? Why is there no protest from the Democrats who were elected on the understanding that they would begin removing US troops from Iraq almost two years ago? To be succinct, let me put it this way. One reason is because the Bush administration has successfully linked the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to their so-called “war on terror.” By doing so, they can do whatever they want. If one recalls, the wording of the resolution that began this deadly imperial episode states very clearly:
“That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”
The other reason is the failure of the American people to maintain a popular movement against the two occupations. Because of this failure, the occupations/wars continue and, as the aforementioned raids into Pakistani and Syrian territory make clear, there are still very few limits to their scope.
Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. His most recent novel Short Order Frame Up is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net .

FOR A 'NEW AMERIKA', WHEN WILL OBAMA REPEAL THE U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDA: THE STATE TERRORIST WORLD WAR CALLED A 'WAR ON TERROR' INCLUDING A "PERSISTENT, PERPETUAL WAR" STRATEGY FOR FULL-SPECTRUM DOMINANCE, THE PATRIOT ACT & ITS SPAWN, FISA, WAR ON THE INTERNET,etc. ?
2008 Army Modernization Strategy:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0922/1221998220381.html
Under the auspices of the US department of defence and department of the army, the US military have just published a document entitled 2008 Army Modernization Strategy which makes for interesting reading against the current backdrop of deteriorating international fiscal, environmental, energy resource and security crises.

The 2008 modernisation strategy, written by Lieut Gen Stephen Speakes, deputy chief of staff of the US army, contains the first explicit and official acknowledgement that the US military is dangerously overstretched internationally. It states simply: "The army is engaged in the third-longest war in our nation's history and . . . the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has caused the army to become out of balance with the demand for forces exceeding the sustainable supply."
Against this backdrop, the 90 page document sets out the future of international conflict for the next 30 to 40 years - as the US military sees it - and outlines the manner in which the military will sustain its current operations and prepare and "transform" itself for future "persistent" warfare.

The document reveals a number of profoundly significant - and worrying - strategic positions that have been adopted as official doctrine by the US military. In its preamble, it predicts a post cold war future of "perpetual warfare". According to its authors: "We have entered an era of persistent conflict . . . a security environment much more ambiguous and unpredictable than that faced during the cold war."...
"A key current threat is a radical, ideology-based, long-term terrorist threat bent on using any means available - to include weapons of mass destruction - to achieve its political and ideological ends."
Relatively new, "emerging" features are also included in the document's rationale for future threats. "We face a potential return to traditional security threats posed by emerging near-peers as we compete globally for depleting natural resources and overseas markets."

This thinly-veiled reference to Russia and China will, perhaps, come as little surprise given recent events in Ossetia and Abkhazia. The explicit reference in this context to future resource wars, however, will probably raise eyebrows among the international diplomatic community, who prefer to couch such conflicts as human rights-based or rooted in notions around freedom and democracy.

The document, however, contains no such lofty pretences. It goes on to list as a pre-eminent threat to the security of the US and its allies "population growth - especially in less-developed countries - [which] will expose a resulting 'youth bulge'." This youth bulge, the document goes on to state, will present the US with further "resource competition" in that these expanding populations in the developing world "will consume ever increasing amounts of food, water and energy". The document goes on to describe in broad-strokes the manner in which its downsized military might ensure survival of the fittest for the US and its allies in future resource wars for water, food and energy. As a consequence of identifying growing populations in the developed world as a threat in itself, the strategy document highlights a number of paradigm shifts in the way future wars are to be conducted. It predicts that "21st Century operations will require soldiers to engage among populations and diverse cultures instead of avoiding them"...that new US tactical doctrine provides a template by which air, naval and field commanders will no longer just secure traditional strategic targets such as airspace, seaports and bridgeheads, but will, of necessity, also deploy and fight amongst and against the target population itself to win wars. The document refers to this euphemistically as "commanders employing offensive, defensive and stability or civil support operations simultaneously".

The remainder of the document is devoted to describing in detail how a downsized all volunteer US military - numbering approximately one million soldiers, aircrew and sailors - could maintain an ever-present, international, offensive posture in many countries across many time-zones.

It describes how information communication technologies and digital technologies will create a new "networked" human soldier - the 'Future Force Warrior' - who will deploy among the target population and will operate simultaneously several remote, unmanned ground and air weapons systems.To this end, the US military is rapidly expanding its inventory of computerised, robotic ground weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles .

According to the strategy document, by supplementing relatively small forces of US troops - brigade combat teams - with ever-larger fleets of remotely controlled, unmanned weapons systems, America will be able to successfully deploy its downsized military to maximum effect among the emerging international youth bulge.

Supplementing these future global offensive operations, according to the strategy document, is the US military's planned domination of inner space or the earth's exo-atmospheric zone.
The document states: "Space is a significant area of joint development that supports battle space awareness and is the backbone for the national and military intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance architecture, as well as being the domain of choice for commercial broad-area sensing enterprises with military utility."

Together with the US Missile Defence Agency, the US military is currently developing "space-based assets continuously monitoring the globe".

The report elaborates on this stating that "army space forces are deployed worldwide supporting US efforts to fight and win the global war on terror." The report adds that US military "space control operations ensure freedom of action in space for the United States and its allies and when necessary, deny an adversary freedom of action in space".

The document refers to operations in Iraq in the past tense. It implies that operations in Afghanistan may be expanded.

It states explicitly that the US military is preparing to fight continuous resource wars "for the long haul".
The document also describes explicitly the manner in which the earth's orbit is now deemed a legitimate zone for offensive military activity. This extraordinary document describes US strategic doctrine in terms worthy of 20th century science fiction.
The mix of 20th century science fiction and Orwellian perspectives unwittingly contained in the document appear rapidly to be materialising as fact.
Dr Tom Clonan is the Irish Times Security Analyst. He lectures in the School of Media, DIT. tclonan@irish-times.ie

OBAMA SELECTED AS FRONTMAN FOR THE JOB
Worlds Cities Have Become “The Weakest Link In The American Empire”
By Mike Davis,
TomDispatch.com, April 19, 2004
Tom's Comment:
Forty years ago, the perceived danger came from peasant-based insurgencies led by nationalist intellectuals.  This story indicates some in the U.S. military leadership have a clue as to the new problem for maintaining capitalist class rule. 
Today the world is dominated by huge cities, concentrating the working classes of various nations, including the USA, and shifting the balance of power to them. 
Despite promises and strategies to the contrary articulated here, this new problem for the capitalists and their governments is insoluble.
1.  It assumes that the United States ruling class has the human and financial resource capability to send American soldiers to impose its will everywhere necessary on the face of the earth.   We see now how hopeless that silly fantasy is. 
2.  It assumes that the troops will remain loyal to imperial dreams. 
3.  It is silent on the key question:  what do the troops do with rebellion at home?  In Indonesia, Serbia, and this month in Iraq, troops refused to serve hated governments and open fire when their own people rose up in insurrection. 

PLANET OF THE SLUMS
By Mike Davis
TomDispatch.com

The Mogadishu debacle of 1993, when neighborhood militias inflicted 60% casualties on elite Army Rangers, forced U.S. strategists to rethink what is known in Pentagonese as MOUT:  "Militarized Operations on Urbanized Terrain."  Ultimately, a National Defense Panel review in December 1997 castigated the Army as unprepared for protracted combat in the near impassable, maze-like streets of the poverty-stricken cities of the Third World.

"The future of warfare," the journal of the Army War College declared, "lies in the streets, sewers, high-rise buildings, and sprawl of houses that form the broken cities of the world."

Military theorists are now deeply involved in imagining how the evolving capacity of high-tech warfare can contain, if not destroy, chronic "terrorist" insurgencies rooted in the desperation of growing megaslums. To help develop a geopolitical framework for urban war-fighting, military planners turned in the 1990s to the RAND Corporation. One of the most important RAND projects, initiated in the early 1990s, has been a major study of "how demographic changes will affect future conflict."  The bottom line, RAND finds, is that the urbanization of world poverty has produced "the urbanization of insurgency" (the title of their report)....
A leading Air Force theorist Captain Thomas (whose article is provocatively entitled "Slumlords: Aerospace Power in Urban Fights") Using the "sea of urban squalor" that surrounds Pakistan's Karachi as an example... portrays the staggering challenge of "asymmetric combat" within "non-nodal, non-hierarchical" urban terrains against "clan-based" militias propelled by "desperation and anger." [...]

WATCH OBAMA CONTINUE BAILING OUT THE SYSTEM THAT'S DESTROYING WORKING PEOPLE EVERYWHERE WHILE MOUTHING CAUTIOUS POPULIST PLATITUDES
Auto Leaders to Press for More Federal Aid:
Top auto industry executives and the president of the United Auto Workers to meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today to ask for additional federal aid for the struggling U.S. carmakers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR200811...

Jobs lost in 2008: 1.2 million: . Unemployment soars to 6.5%: (reflects only those currently getting benefits}
With most economic indicators signaling even more difficult times ahead, job losses will likely deepen and continue through at least the first half of 2009.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/07/news/economy/jobs_october/?postversion=2...

not workers, not human beings, just capitalism's profit producers and consumers
Consumer bankruptcies in October top 100,000
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/2008-11-04-bankruptcies_N.htm

NEXT STOP U.S. or already?
Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP)
Government black boxes will 'collect every email' Home Office says all data from web could be stored in giant government database
By Robert Verkaik, Law Editor
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/government-black-boxes-wi...
Internet "black boxes" will be used to collect every email and web visit in the UK under the Government's plans for a giant "big brother" database, The Independent has learnt.
Home Office officials have told senior figures from the internet and telecommunications industries that the "black box" technology could automatically retain and store raw data from the web before transferring it to a giant central database controlled by the Government. Plans to create a database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK have provoked a huge public outcry. Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, described it as "step too far" and the Government's own terrorism watchdog said that as a "raw idea" it was "awful". Nevertheless, ministers have said they are committed to consulting on the new Communications Data Bill early in the new year. News that the Government is already preparing the ground by trying to allay the concerns of the internet industry is bound to raise suspicions about ministers' true intentions. Further details of the database emerged on Monday at a meeting of internet service providers (ISPs) in London where representatives from BT, AOL Europe, O2 and BSkyB were given a PowerPoint presentation of the issues and the technology surrounding the Government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP), the name given by the Home Office to the database proposal.

========

FYI to avoid Google's Grip...

Scroogle Scraper
www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm - Similar pages

Scroogle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scroogle is a web service that disguises the Internet address of users who want to run Google searches anonymously. [4] Scroogle also gives users the option ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroogle