Pearl Harbor: Official Lies in an American War Tragedy
Wednesday, May 24, 2000
Speaker Robert B. Stinnett
http://www.independent.org/events/detail.asp?eventID=28
Former Journalist, Oakland Tribune and BBC. Author of the books, George Bush: His World War II Years and Day of Deceit: The Truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor.
The great question of Pearl Harbor—what did U.S. government officials know and when did they know it?—has been argued for years. After decades of Freedom of Information Act requests, Robert Stinnett was finally able to examine the long-hidden evidence, shattering every shibboleth of Pearl Harbor. He finds that not only was the attack expected, it was deliberately provoked through an eight-step program devised by the Navy for President Franklin Roosevelt. Could Pearl Harbor have neither been an “accident” nor a mere “failure” of U.S. intelligence nor a “brilliant” Japanese military coup? Could the tragedy at Pearl Harbor have been a carefully orchestrated design, initiated at the highest government levels in order to galvanize a peace-loving American public to go to war? Robert Stinnett will discuss this startling issue in detail.
Media Inquiries: please contact Ms. Wendy Honett, Publicity Manager, at (510) 632-1366 (ext. 116)

“A New Pearl Harbor”
By John Pilger
New Statesman
December 16, 2002
Richard Perle is one of the founders of the Project for the New American Century, the PNAC set up two years ago...that said what America needed was “a new Pearl Harbor.”... The threat posed by US terrorism to the security of nations and individuals was outlined in prophetic detail in a document disclosed only recently. What was needed for America to dominate much of humanity and the world’s resources, it said, was “some catastrophic and catalysing event – like a new Pearl Harbor”. The attacks of 11 September 2001 provided the “new Pearl Harbor”, described as “the opportunity of ages”... I interviewed Perle when he was advising Reagan... he spoke about “total war” in describing America’s “war on terror”. “No stages,” he said. “This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there. All this talk about first we are going to do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq... this is entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely and we don’t try to piece together clever diplomacy, but just wage a total war... our children will sing great songs about us years from now.”

Nuke, bioterror attack called likely
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/12/01/Nuke_bioterror_attack_called_like...
Dec. 1, 2008
* Report faults U.S. bioterror efforts
* Ashkenazi: Terrorism is greatest threat
* NYPD wants more terror wiretaps

WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 (UPI) -- The United States and other nations need to act urgently to prevent a nuclear or biological terrorism attack in the near future, a bipartisan panel says.A report to be released Monday by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism says urgent security measures need to be taken soon or the world is likely to undergo an incident of terrorism using weapons of mass destruction within the next five years, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported. "Unless the world community acts decisively and with great urgency, it is more likely than not that a weapon of mass destruction will be used in a terrorist attack somewhere in the world by the end of 2013," the report states in the opening sentence of the executive summary.
The panel was created by Congress as part of the recommendations of 9/11 Commission, and its nine members include several Democrats who are active in U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's transition team.
It cited Pakistan as a trouble spot where extremism, terrorism and nuclear capabilities intersect and urged that Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs be contained, even if it means taking military action, the Times reported.

ALL IS NOT LOST YET: PREDATORS PLAN TO REGAIN WORLD DOMINATION WITH NEW REGIME
Editorial
Gloom, but Not Doom
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/opinion/04thu1.html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=t...
There’s been a fair amount of hand-wringing since the nation’s intelligence community surveyed the world of 2025: America losing dominance; China and India rising; fierce competition for water, food and energy; increased danger that terrorists will get a nuclear weapon. That’s all sobering. But the headlines from “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World,” published by the National Intelligence Council, are not the whole story.
President-elect Barack Obama is inheriting a world that is more complicated and more frightening than the one George W. Bush found in 2001. But while the trends may be apparent, the end results are not inevitable. Decisions Mr. Obama and other leaders make will matter more.
Take the assertion that the world is on a path to a multipolar system with China, India and Russia plus various businesses, tribes, religious groups — even criminal networks — vying for influence.
Commentators have been predicting this dreaded multipolarity since the end of the cold war. And Vice President Dick Cheney and former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz notably vowed to do everything they could to head it off — up to and including ensuring that close European allies never aspired to power and influence to rival the United States.
That arrogance and bullheadedness has instead weakened this country — creating new enemies and making it harder to win cooperation on important challenges, like the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. If there is one clear lesson from the last eight years, it is that bullying other countries — and jockeying for zero-sum gains — doesn’t work.

It also is the new conventional wisdom that this will be the century of China or India. But both face serious economic, demographic and other challenges — including the threat of terrorism, as the Mumbai attacks so tragically demonstrated.
A relative decline in power also does not mean that the United States will not remain powerful. This country can and must continue to lead. There will be a particular premium on quick, nimble and farsighted decision-making and cooperation.
Giving rising powers a bigger role — in the United Nations Security Council, for instance — could help persuade them to take more responsibility for problems like terrorism, climate change, nonproliferation and energy security.
The report suggests that Al Qaeda’s indiscriminate use of violence and its failure to focus on problems like poverty and unemployment could diminish its appeal. But other extremist groups that curry favor with social programs will likely have more staying power. The next administration will have to counter their influence by promoting economic development in the Middle East as well as a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Warnings that terrorists will have an easier time acquiring nuclear, biological and advanced conventional weapons argue for serious new initiatives to control the spread of these horrifying weapons.
Mr. Obama appears to understand the challenges. So do some of the experts who are expected to be part of his administration, including Susan Rice, his choice for ambassador to the United Nations, and James Steinberg, reported to be on the short list for deputy secretary of state. As members of a group called the Phoenix Initiative, they spent several years formulating a concept of American strategic leadership for the 21st century.
Their report on the concept states that “leadership is not an entitlement; it has to be earned and sustained. Leadership that serves common goals is the best way to inspire the many different peoples of the world to make shared commitments.” That is a good place to start.

Barack Obama's Kettle of Hawks
by Jeremy Scahill
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/02-1

U.S. UNLEASHING ITS PROXY
India has right to protect itself: Obama
Sovereign nations have the right to protect themselves, US president-elect Barack Obama said on Monday, when asked if India could follow the same policy he advocated during his election campaign — of bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan if there was actionable evidence and Islamabad refused to act on it... Obama said he did not want to comment on the specific situation involving India and Pakistan... The president-elect... said he had spoken to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to tell him that the United States is with India in this dark hour. ''In the world we seek, there is no place for those who kill innocent civilians to advance hateful extremism...What I can say unequivocally is that both myself and my team are absolutely committed to eliminating terrorism,'' he said. ''We cannot tolerate attacks based on twisted ideology of hate...we will bring the full force of our military, economic and diplomatic power to defeat this. I will be monitoring the situation closely.'' ...
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/India_has_right_to_protect_itse...

he never did - it's not his decision, his slimy hypocrisy serves the ruling class agenda....
Obama Doesn't Plan to End the Iraq Occupation
by Jeremy Scahill
Announcing his national security team this week, Obama reasserted his position. "I said that I would remove our combat troops from Iraq in 16 months, with the understanding that it might be necessary — likely to be necessary — to maintain a residual force to provide potential training, logistical support, to protect our civilians in Iraq." While some have portrayed this as Obama going back on his campaign pledge, it is not. What is new is that some people seem to just now be waking up to the fact that Obama never had a comprehensive plan to fully end the occupation. Most recently, The New York Times:
"On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified and motivated his liberal base, vowing to 'end the war' in Iraq," wrote reporter Thom Shanker on Thursday. "But as he moves closer to the White House, President-elect Obama is making clearer than ever that tens of thousands of American troops will be left behind in Iraq, even if he can make good on his campaign promise to pull all combat forces out within 16 months."...
Richard Danzig, President Clinton's former Navy Secretary who may soon follow Robert Gates as Obama's Defense Secretary, said during the campaign that the "residual force" could number as many as 55,000 troops. That doesn't include Blackwater and other mercenaries and private forces, which the Obama camp has declared the president-elect "can't rule out [and] won't rule out" using. At present there are more "contractors" in Iraq than soldiers, which is all the more ominous when considering Obama's Iraq plan.
In April, it was revealed that the coordinator of Obama's Iraq working group, Colin Kahl, had authored a paper, titled "Stay on Success: A Policy of Conditional Engagement," which recommended, "the U.S. should aim to transition to a sustainable over-watch posture (of perhaps 60,000-80,000 forces) by the end of 2010 (although the specific timelines should be the byproduct of negotiations and conditions on the ground)." Kahl tried to distance the views expressed in the paper from Obama's official campaign position, but they were and are consistent.
In March, Obama advisor Samantha Power let the cat out of the bag for some people when she described her candidate's 16-month timetable for withdrawing U.S. "combat" forces as a "best case scenario." Power said, "He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he's crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator." (After that remark and referring to Sen. Hillary Clinton as a "monster," Power resigned from the campaign. Now that Obama is president-elect, Power's name has once again resurfaced as a member of his transitional team.)
The New York Times also raised the prospect that Obama could play semantics when defining his 16-month withdrawal plan, observing, "Pentagon planners say that it is possible that Mr. Obama's goal could be accomplished at least in part by relabeling some units, so that those currently counted as combat troops could be 're-missioned,' their efforts redefined as training and support for the Iraqis."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/05-1

WHERE IS YOUR CONSCIENCE AMERICA?
Ibrahim Ebeid
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=49353&s2=06
Iraqi prisoners of war in U.S. occupation jails in Iraq are being exposed to torture, lynching and assassination at the hands of the reactionary sectarian "Criminal Court". This Court was created by the United States of America to kill the legitimate Leadership of Iraq and pave the way for dividing Iraq and erasing its Arab identity. In order to seize control over it and steal its resources, the occupiers had to distort its history and create puppet entities to serve its bidding....

Stephen C. Pelletiere, author of ''Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf'', wrote a brilliant article about Halabjah in which he was not surprised that President Bush lacked even "smoking-gun" evidence of Iraq's falsely alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.. Mr. Pelletiere revealed to the World that all we know for certain is that Kurds were bombarded with poison gas that day at Halbajah. It cannot be said that Iraqi chemical weapons killed the Kurds. This is not the only distortion in the Halabjah story. The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part litany of falsehoods recited by the Bush administration as pretexts for invading Iraq. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halbajah in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halbajah, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein.

Stephen Pelletiere is in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, he said I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, he headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report going into great detail on the Halbajah affair.
Immediately after the battle, the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas or other substances....

These were some of the facts as stated by Professor Pelletiere that put the lie to what the Bush Administration, the Media and even the "Antiwar Movement" claim. Bush and his Administration lied to the American people and duped America to launch a war of destruction and mass murder against Iraq and its people.
The Arab Ba'ath Socialist Party government built a very advanced country, with many dams and huge irrigation systems that made Iraq self sufficient in agriculture. Petrochemical projects were developed, the healthcare system was the best in the area, and unemployment negligible. Water and electricity reached to furthest points of Iraq. Iraq became the Jewel of the Arab Homeland. Iraq was strong and kept the Imperialists at bay, struggling to achieve and maintain self-determination and promoting the welfare of the people.
Shame on the so-called US "Anti War Movement" and on the falsely titled "Human Rights" Organizations for their deafening silence.
Americans, is your conscience dead?

before silently buying Obama admin's 'surge' in Afghanistan you should know the horrifying truth...
Afghanistan: Another Untold Story
By Michael Parenti
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism.... In sum, well in advance of the 9/11 attacks the US government had made preparations to move against the Taliban and create a compliant regime in Kabul and a direct US military presence in Central Asia. The 9/11 attacks provided the perfect impetus, stampeding US public opinion and reluctant allies into supporting military intervention.
The war against Afghanistan, a battered impoverished country, continues to be portrayed in US official circles as a gallant crusade against terrorism....it also has been a means to other things: destroying a revolutionary social order, gaining profitable control of one of the last vast untapped reserves of the earth’s dwindling fossil fuel supply, and planting US bases and US military power into still another region of the world. In the face of all this Obama’s call for “change” rings hollow.
www.michaelparenti.org. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21387.htm

ITS MASTERS' VOICE: NYT DELIVERS U.S. ORDERS TO SUPPRESS KASHMIR'S LIBERATION STRUGGLE and A BARELY VEILED THREAT
EDITORIALS -
The Pakistan Connection
Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, must face up to his country's involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attacks -- whether official or nearly so.... Islamabad must finally shut down all the Lashkar training camps and recruitment activity.... India and Pakistan must settle their dispute over Kashmir, the biggest flashpoint....
If the two countries are going to inch back from the brink, they will need strong support from the United States, China and others powers. These countries also must develop a strategy to strengthen Pakistan’s fragile civilian government and stop the country from becoming even more ungovernable.... the leaders of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services must finally realize that the extremists pose a clear and present threat to their own country’s survival.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06sat1.html?th&emc=th

Is Pakistan to Blame?
Mumbai Terror Attacks
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
...It is alleged that the perpetrators of the 26/11 violence entered Mumbai by sea and arrived by trawlers from Karachi. Karachi is 500 nautical miles from Mumbai; not an easy distance to cover in a trawler. Even if one were to assume that this was the case, India has twenty-one separate radar systems that monitor the coastal line between Karachi and Mumbai. More importantly, Sir Creek is the un-demarcated boundary along the Arabian Sea and the Rann of Kutch, straddling Pakistan’s Sindh province and the Indian state of Gujarat. This is both an international border and a source of dispute between India and Pakistan. The 1965 war between the two nations began at the Rann of Kutch.
In August 1999, a Pakistani surveillance aircraft was shot down by the Indian Air Force in the Rann of Katch. The area is heavily patrolled. How the trawler made it all the way to Mumbai without being detected is a mystery, especially since fishermen on both sides of the border, both Indian and Pakistani, regularly find themselves apprehended as they mistakenly cross over into hostile territory. Every year, both countries arrest hundreds of fishermen for illegal intrusion. Fishermen complain that they don’t know whose side they are on because of the dispute. Every time Pakistan and India decide to re-start their peace process, one of the first measures taken is the release of the poor fishermen, who are caught and detained, through no fault of their own, their boats confiscated upon arrest. But somehow the trawler dodged all patrols and made it all the way to Mumbai. Regular procedure for boats and ships docking at Mumbai entails thorough checks, but it appears that the terrorist trawler was able to evade that as well. Too many questions remain.... www.uruknet.info?p=49260

FILTHY FASCIST FRIEDMAN
Calling All Pakistanis
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Who in the Muslim world, who in Pakistan, is ready to take to the streets to protest the mass murders of real people, not cartoon characters, right next door in Mumbai, India?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/opinion/03friedman.html?th&emc=th
what can we expect from Pakistan and the wider Muslim world after Mumbai? India says its interrogation of the surviving terrorist indicates that all 10 men come from the Pakistani port of Karachi, and at least one, if not all 10, were Pakistani nationals.
First of all, it seems to me that the Pakistani government, which is extremely weak to begin with, has been taking this mass murder very seriously, and, for now, no official connection between the terrorists and elements of the Pakistani security services has been uncovered. ...
I am still hoping — just once — for that mass demonstration of “ordinary people” against the Mumbai bombers, not for my sake, not for India’s sake, but for Pakistan’s sake. Why? Because it takes a village. The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities.
Sure, better intelligence is important. And, yes, better SWAT teams are critical to defeating the perpetrators quickly before they can do much damage. at the end of the day, terrorists often are just acting on what they sense the majority really wants but doesn’t dare do or say. That is why the most powerful deterrent to their behavior is when the community as a whole says: “No more. What you have done in murdering defenseless men, women and children has brought shame on us and on you.”
Why should Pakistanis do that? Because you can’t have a healthy society that tolerates in any way its own sons going into a modern city, anywhere, and just murdering... If you do that with enemies abroad, you will do that with enemies at home and destroy your own society in the process.

DEC. 3 WAS ANNIVERSARY OF U.S. CORPORATE MASSACRE IN BHOPAL
Dec. 3, 1984 Toxic gas leaking from an American-owned insecticide plant in central India killed at least 410 people overnight, many as they slept, officials said today.... Most of the victims were children and old people who were overwhelmed by the gas and suffocated, after a cloud of gas escaped from a pesticide plant operated by a Union Carbide subsidiary in Bhopal, India... it was still unclear whether it would be necessary to evacuate parts of Bhopal. The poison gas spread through about 25 square miles of Bhopal, an area said to be populated largely by poor families... the gas spread over an area of about 200,000 people, many of whom awoke vomiting and complaining of dizziness, sore throats and burning eyes. Many could hardly talk, it reported, and some complained of brief spells of blindness.
United News of India said the factory siren did not sound to alert the neighborhood until two hours after the leak began, and it said the police and doctors did not come into the area until four hours after that. The Bhopal plant was opened in 1977 and produces about 2,500 tons of pesticides based on methyl isocyanate annually. In 1978, six people were reported killed when they were exposed to phosgene gas, another lethal mixture produced in the plant. According to a Union Carbide spokesman, the underground tank in which the leak occurred today contained 45 tons of methyl isocyanate in its liquid form. The chemical is colorless, burns easily and has a low evaporation level. The spokesman said enormous pressure had built up inside the tank, forcing a rupture of a valve and allowing the gas to pass into the air. ... Authorities said five [Indian] factory officials had been arrested and charged with criminal negligence in the disaster. (In Danbury, Conn., the Union Carbide Company said the reports that the managers had been arrested were incorrect.) http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20081203.html

US backing for India fuels tensions with Pakistan
K. Ratnayake and Peter Symonds
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=49352
Far from damping down tensions between India and Pakistan, the visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the two countries in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attacks added more fuel to the fire. In New Delhi on Wednesday, Rice publicly backed India's demands on Pakistan for tough measures against the alleged perpetrators of the atrocity. The following day, after meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad, she declared that Pakistan was "very focussed and committed" to fighting terrorism, but reinforced the message that the Pakistani government had to provide "unequivocal assistance" to India.

Rice's trip took place amid a rash of leaks in the Indian and US media blaming the Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba for masterminding the Mumbai attacks. Citing unnamed Indian officials, the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday declared that India had identified Yusuf Muzammil as the man who orchestrated the plan. In the Indian press, a myriad of leaked accounts have been published based on the alleged confessions of the one captured gunmen, Ajmal Amir Kasab, who, it is said, admitted to being a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba and training in Pakistan.
An article in today's Hindu went one step further to claim that India had "proof" that the Pakistani military intelligence—the Inter-Services Intelligence agency—was involved in the Mumbai terrorist attacks. Significantly, the New York Times yesterday cited an unnamed former US Defence Department official as saying that "American intelligence agencies had determined that former officers from Pakistan's Army and its powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency helped to train the Mumbai attackers".

No evidence has been made public to confirm any of these assertions. Several articles have cast doubt on even the basic claims made about the detained gunman. The British-based Times noted that Pakistani officials had been unable to trace Kasab to the village of Faridkot in Punjab—a fact widely cited by Indian police—and pointed out that there were in fact three villages with that name in the province. An article in the Asia Times today noted that contradictory stories in the Indian press variously described Kasab as a small-time pickpocket, an impoverished villager and a well-educated youth fluent in English.

Pakistani leaders have repeatedly denied any involvement in the attacks. Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, President Zardari cast doubt over the identity of the arrested gunman, saying: "We have not been given any tangible proof to say that he is definitely a Pakistani. I very much doubt that he's a Pakistani." He blamed "stateless actors" operating throughout the region, and reiterated that Pakistan "itself has been a victim of terrorism and [is] fighting the menace resolutely".
The media leaks, particularly those by US officials, are aimed at undercutting Pakistani disclaimers and reinforcing American demands ... that the Pakistani government had to engage in "rooting out terrorists and rounding up whoever perpetrated this [Mumbai] attack, from wherever it was perpetrated, whatever its sources, whatever the leads"....
The US stance will encourage the Indian government to take a more belligerent stand against Pakistan. Speaking in a joint press conference on Wednesday with Rice, Indian foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee declared there was "no doubt" that the gunmen had come from Pakistan. He warned that "whatever the government considers necessary to protect its territorial integrity, safety and security of its citizens, the government will do".Mukherjee's open-ended threat was accompanied by a growing clamour in the Indian media and from opposition Hindu supremacist parties for tough action against Pakistan. On Monday, Mukherjee summoned the Pakistani high commissioner and presented a list of Indian demands, including for Islamabad to arrest and hand over 20 terrorist suspects, most of whom have not even been mentioned in connection with the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistani President Zardari has dismissed Indian demands, saying that New Delhi has provided no evidence against the twenty men. He also insisted that anyone involved in the Mumbai attacks would be dealt with in Pakistani courts rather than extradited to India. Pakistan is yet to formally respond to India but the refusal to hand over the men sets the stage for a further escalation of tensions.
Various diplomatic measures have been discussed in the media by unnamed Indian officials, including suspending ongoing negotiations between the two countries. There are growing demands for military action against "terrorist training camps" in Pakistan. Mukherjee's comment, making clear that all options are under consideration, carries the danger of military conflict between the two nuclear-armed powers.... Right-wing Hindu extremist groups are whipping up communal tensions inside India. The fascistic Shiv Sena based in Mumbai has called in its newspaper for the dismantling of "mini-Pakistans" inside India, before teaching "Pakistan a lesson by launching an attack on it". The reference to mini-Pakistanis is a provocative incitement to pogroms against India's large Muslim minority. Despite claiming to be secular and democratic, the ruling Congress Party, which faces national elections next year, has repeatedly bowed to pressure from the Hindu right in the past... The intrusion of the US into this explosive political mixture in pursuit of its own strategic interests—in the first place to consolidate its occupation of Afghanistan— heightens the danger of war.

The Bollywood Mermaids.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
"The gunmen who attacked Mumbai set out by boat from the Pakistani port of Karachi, then later hijacked an Indian fishing trawler that carried them toward this financial capital on their suicide mission, a top police official said Tuesday." OK, so a dozen mermaids took a boat from Karachi...and in the middle of the sea, hijacked an Indian fishing trawler, undetected by radars, marine patrols and check points...They must have hijacked the boat and propelled it underwater all the way to Mumbai, uncaught. Even Walt Disney could not come up with this one. Paragraph 2 reads : "As evidence of the militants' links to Pakistan mounted, Mumbai police commissioner Hasan Ghafoor said ex-Pakistani army officers trained the group —some for up to 18 months — and denied reports the men had been planning to escape the city" OK so these mermaids not only managed to swim through the vast Indian ocean but they were also trained by Pakistani army officers and for 18 months. Like what did the ex-army officers do, train them to hold their breath in deep waters ?... But this bit is not funny at all. "Nobody is talking about military action," Mukherjee said Tuesday, according to the Press Trust of India news agency. However, he later appeared to backtrack, telling the NDTV news channel that "every sovereign country has the right to protect its territorial integrity and take appropriate action." Pakistan replied by stating : "We are examining it, we are considering it, and after consultation we will give a reply," Qureshi said of the list. "We do not want to do anything which could fan tension. We want to de-escalate matters." He said he had told India, "We will fully cooperate with you, so that we can reach the bottom." I'll tell you what the bottom is -- a badly directed Bollywood trash with a third class Producer in Washington D.C. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=4928

Barack Obama says US 'will maintain strongest military on planet', as Clinton confirmed top diplomat
Obama has declared that the United States should maintain the "strongest military on the planet", while aiming to restore his country's global moral leadership.
By Alex Spillius in Washington
03 Dec 2008
Mr Obama promised greater use of diplomacy and greater emphasis on building alliances around the world as he formally introduced his national security team, which included Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.But the former Illinois senator, whose rise was built on his opposition to the Iraq war, delivered a message of surprising toughness that at times could have come from George W Bush... "To ensure prosperity here at home and peace abroad, we all share the belief we have to maintain the strongest military on the planet. With the responsibilities of office just seven weeks away, he added that his administration was "absolutely committed to eliminating the threat of terrorism". "We cannot tolerate a world where innocents are being killed by extremists," Mr Obama said in the wake of Bombay attacks, adding that he was "heartbroken" by the deaths of six Americans in the massacre. "We have to bring the full force of our power, not only military but diplomatic and political, to deal with the threats," he said, also vowing that the US would stand with India. ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/3...

Continuity Error: Guts, Goo and Obama's Imperial Dream
Chris Floyd
Barack Obama's new "national security team" is a grim conglomeration of war criminals, warmongers and apologists for torture and empire who have been praised justly by some rightwingers as a continuation and validation of the Bush Regime's foreign policy. But despite the growing unease these choices have induced in some "progressive" quarters, they in no way constitute a "betrayal" on Obama's part. He has always made it abundantly clear that he stands squar ely on the side of a militarist empire – expansive, dominating, brooking no challenge or hindrance to its actions or its preeminence. An empire conceived in bloodshed and dedicated to the proposition that no nation is created equal to the divine American state...
Obama's forthright stand on the issue of empire was evident throughout the campaign, in speeches, on his website, in his Senate votes and in his publicly announced positions – such as his always conditional, circumscribed promise to "end" the war in Iraq, on essentially the same terms by which George W. Bush claims to be ending it now. At no point in his much-ballyhooed "opposition" to the nation-gutting in Iraq did Obama ever once call it what it is: a crime. An abomination. An act of mass murder that has left more than a million innocent people dead.

Who then can be surprised that he has chosen as his own war chief a man who has presided over this pointless slaughter for two of the five years that it has been going on? And who can be surprised that he has chosen as his secretary of state a woman whose chief contributions to foreign policy have been: urging her husband to bomb civilians in an illegal, undeclared war against Serbia; promising to "obliterate" an entire nation of 65 million people from the face of the earth; and voting for one of the worst war crimes in the last half-century – then damning the victims as lousy ingrates for not appreciating America's benevolent destruction of their country and murder of their children?
Really now, what did anyone expect from a man who walks into a room where a dozen children have had their head bashed in by a thug in a silk suit still holding the blood-dripping bat in his hand, and says, "My word! I think a mistake has been made here. By gum, I think beating these children into a steaming pulp of guts and goo might have been a 'stupid policy.' If you give me that bat, I promise to stop beating these children into a steaming pulp of guts and goo within the next 16 months – depending, of course, on the conditions in the room at the time, and the advice of my new top adviser, an experienced, pragmatic, safe pair of hands who has just spent the last two years helping this thug – who should not be prosecuted, by the way, because that would just criminalize political differences – beat these children into a steaming pulp of guts and goo." This, in a nutshell, is Obama's Iraq policy, and always has been. Where then is the betrayal?

This is the philosophy that has guided American foreign policy for decades; it is the philosophy that has guided it during the Bush Administration; it is the philosophy that will guide it in the Obama Administration. Obama has made this clear, once more, with his "national security" appointments. But he has not betrayed us. He has indeed brought the promised change – a change in the faces that will mouth the required pieties when the next small child is beaten into a steaming pulp of guts and goo.

A Balanced Strategy
Reprogramming the Pentagon for a New Age
By Robert M. Gates
From Foreign Affairs , January/February 2009
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20090101faessay88103/robert-m-gates/a-bala...
" The United States cannot take its current dominance for granted and needs to invest in the programs, platforms, and personnel that will ensure that dominance's persistence."

In world affairs, "what seems to work best," the historian Donald Kagan wrote in his book On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, ". . . is the possession by those states who wish to preserve the peace of the preponderant power and of the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve that purpose."

Summary: The Pentagon has to do more than modernize its conventional forces; it must also focus on today's unconventional conflicts -- and tomorrow's.
Robert M. Gates is U.S. Secretary of Defense.

The defining principle of the Pentagon's new National Defense Strategy is balance. The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs.

The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States' existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done.

UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING
The United States' ability to deal with future threats will depend on its performance in current conflicts. To be blunt, to fail -- or to be seen to fail -- in either Iraq or Afghanistan would be a disastrous blow to U.S. credibility, both among friends and allies and among potential adversaries.

In Iraq, the number of U.S. combat units there will decline over time -- as it was going to do no matter who was elected president in November. Still, there will continue to be some kind of U.S. advisory and counterterrorism effort in Iraq for years to come.

In Afghanistan, as President George W. Bush announced last September, U.S. troop levels are rising, with the likelihood of more increases in the year ahead. Given its terrain, poverty, neighborhood, and tragic history, Afghanistan in many ways poses an even more complex and difficult long-term challenge than Iraq -- one that, despite a large international effort, will require a significant U.S. military and economic commitment for some time.

It would be irresponsible not to think about and prepare for the future, and the overwhelming majority of people in the Pentagon, the services, and the defense industry do just that. But we must not be so preoccupied with preparing for future conventional and strategic conflicts that we neglect to provide all the capabilities necessary to fight and win conflicts such as those the United States is in today.

Support for conventional modernization programs is deeply embedded in the Defense Department's budget, in its bureaucracy, in the defense industry, and in Congress. My fundamental concern is that there is not commensurate institutional support -- including in the Pentagon -- for the capabilities needed to win today's wars and some of their likely successors.

What is dubbed the war on terror is, in grim reality, a prolonged, worldwide irregular campaign -- a struggle between the forces of violent extremism and those of moderation. Direct military force will continue to play a role in the long-term effort against terrorists and other extremists. But over the long term, the United States cannot kill or capture its way to victory. Where possible, what the military calls kinetic operations should be subordinated to measures aimed at promoting better governance, economic programs that spur development, and efforts to address the grievances among the discontented, from whom the terrorists recruit. It will take the patient accumulation of quiet successes over a long time to discredit and defeat extremist movements and their ideologies.

The United States is unlikely to repeat another Iraq or Afghanistan -- that is, forced regime change followed by nation building under fire -- anytime soon. But that does not mean it may not face similar challenges in a variety of locales. Where possible, U.S. strategy is to employ indirect approaches -- primarily through building the capacity of partner governments and their security forces -- to prevent festering problems from turning into crises that require costly and controversial direct military intervention. In this kind of effort, the capabilities of the United States' allies and partners may be as important as its own, and building their capacity is arguably as important as, if not more so than, the fighting the United States does itself.

The recent past vividly demonstrated the consequences of failing to address adequately the dangers posed by insurgencies and failing states. Terrorist networks can find sanctuary within the borders of a weak nation and strength within the chaos of social breakdown. A nuclear-armed state could collapse into chaos and criminality. The most likely catastrophic threats to the U.S. homeland -- for example, that of a U.S. city being poisoned or reduced to rubble by a terrorist attack -- are more likely to emanate from failing states than from aggressor states.

The kinds of capabilities needed to deal with these scenarios cannot be considered exotic distractions or temporary diversions. The United States does not have the luxury of opting out because these scenarios do not conform to preferred notions of the American way of war.

Furthermore, even the biggest of wars will require "small wars" capabilities. Ever since General Winfield Scott led his army into Mexico in the 1840s, nearly every major deployment of U.S. forces has led to a longer subsequent military presence to maintain stability. Whether in the midst of or in the aftermath of any major conflict, the requirement for the U.S. military to maintain security, provide aid and comfort, begin reconstruction, and prop up local governments and public services will not go away.

The military and civilian elements of the United States' national security apparatus have responded unevenly and have grown increasingly out of balance. The problem is not will; it is capacity. In many ways, the country's national security capabilities are still coping with the consequences of the 1990s, when, with the complicity of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, key instruments of U.S. power abroad were reduced or allowed to wither on the bureaucratic vine. The State Department froze the hiring of new Foreign Service officers. The U.S. Agency for International Development dropped from a high of having 15,000 permanent staff members during the Vietnam War to having less than 3,000 today. And then there was the U.S. Information Agency, whose directors once included the likes of Edward R. Murrow. It was split into pieces and folded into a corner of the State Department. Since 9/11, and through the efforts first of Secretary of State Colin Powell and now of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department has made a comeback. Foreign Service officers are being hired again, and foreign affairs spending has about doubled since President Bush took office.

Yet even with a better-funded State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, future military commanders will not be able to rid themselves of the tasks of maintaining security and stability. To truly achieve victory as Clausewitz defined it -- to attain a political objective -- the United States needs a military whose ability to kick down the door is matched by its ability to clean up the mess and even rebuild the house afterward.

Given these realities, the military has made some impressive strides in recent years. Special operations have received steep increases in funding and personnel. The air force has created a new air advisory program and a new career track for unmanned aerial operations. The navy has set up a new expeditionary combat command and brought back its riverine units. New counterinsurgency and army operations manuals, plus a new maritime strategy, have incorporated the lessons of recent years in service doctrine. "Train and equip" programs allow for quicker improvements in the security capacity of partner nations. And various initiatives are under way that will better integrate and coordinate U.S. military efforts with civilian agencies as well as engage the expertise of the private sector, including nongovernmental organizations and academia...

I have learned many things in my 42 years of service in the national security arena. Two of the most important are an appreciation of limits and a sense of humility. The United States is the strongest and greatest nation on earth, but there are still limits on what it can do. The power and global reach of its military have been an indispensable contributor to world peace and must remain so. But not every outrage, every act of aggression, or every crisis can or should elicit a U.S. military response.

In world affairs, "what seems to work best," the historian Donald Kagan wrote in his book On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, ". . . is the possession by those states who wish to preserve the peace of the preponderant power and of the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve that purpose." I believe the United States' National Defense Strategy provides a balanced approach to meeting those responsibilities and preserving the United States' freedom, prosperity, and security in the years ahead.

topdog think tank behind Obama regime
Strategic Leadership: Framework for a 21st Century National Security Strategy
Published on Center for a New American Security (http://www.cnas.org) 07/24/2008
Source URL: http://www.cnas.org/phoenixinitiative
PDF Version: SlaughterDaalderJentleson_StrategicLeadership_July08.pdf

A Bipartisan Discussion with Five Former Secretaries of State
September 15, 2008
The Center for a New American Security and its consortium partners hosted a bipartisan roundtable discussion to assess the U.S. foreign policy challenges confronting the next American president with five former Secretaries of State -- Madeleine K. Albright, James A. Baker, III, Warren Christopher, Henry Kissinger, and Colin L. Powell. The forum took place on Monday, September 15, 2008, from 2:45pm to 4:30pm in George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium. This important discussion entitled “The Next President: A World of Challenges” occurred as the general election campaign swung into high gear, and the presidential candidates and the world focus on complex global issues ranging from violent extremism, the global economy, and climate change. Secretaries Albright, Baker, Christopher, Kissinger and Powell’s unique discussion offered valuable insight to the national debate that was underway over the future direction of American global leadership and the role of diplomacy. The event was hosted by The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and School of Media and Public Affairs, Center for a New American Security, Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, and The City College of New York’s Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies. Cooperating as media partners, CNN and America Abroad broadcasted the event as a special report. The event was moderated by Frank Sesno, director of GW’s Public Affairs Project and CNN special correspondent, and Christiane Amanpour, CNN chief international correspondent.

Much of CNAS work falls under the broader topic of foreign policy. CNAS specifically focuses on policy toward Asia and the wider Middle East region, and thinks stragically about the role of America in the world through projects on grand strategy.

The Phoenix Initiative is a collective effort to provide an intellectual and policy framework for the next administration. The group initially came together three years ago to discuss on a regular basis the state of the world, America’s place in it, and the best ways for advancing America’s interest and values...

Preface by Susan E. Rice:
As one of the founders of the original Phoenix Initiative in early 2005, I felt strongly that it was time for a
group of younger foreign policy thinkers to come together and work through common positions not only
on a set of specific issues, but also on how America should define and pursue its interests in a post-Cold
War world, a world still resistant to tidy categorization. The point was not to write a paper in support of
a specific candidate or for a specific occasion or political purpose, but instead to consider a fresh strategic
perspective. I regret that my responsibilities as a Senior Advisor to the Obama campaign prevented me
from seeing this project to fruition. We must recognize that the
world has not stood still over the past decade, waiting for America to reclaim the mantle of global leadership.
Our ability to lead requires the kind of leadership—strategic leadership—laid out in this report.

--Susan E. Rice, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution (on leave)

WALL STREET JOURNAL: OBAMA DIPS INTO THINK TANK FOR TALENT
Wall Street Journal
Author Yochi J. Dreazen
November 16, 2008 - The Center for a New American Security, a small think tank here with generally middle-of-the-road policy views, is rapidly emerging as top farm team for the incoming Obama administration. When President-elect Barack Obama released a roster of his transition advisers last week, many of the national-security appointments came from the ranks of the center, which was founded by a pair of former Clinton administration officials in February 2007.
The think tank's central role in the transition effort suggests that its positions -- which include rejecting a fixed timeline for a withdrawal from Iraq -- will get a warm reception within the new administration.

Michele Flournoy, who co-founded the center with Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton National Security Council and Pentagon official, now serves as its president. She is one of two top members of Mr. Obama's defense transition team and is likely to be offered a high-ranking position at the Pentagon. Some Obama advisers say she could eventually be tapped as the nation's first female defense secretary.

Wendy Sherman, co-head of the Obama State Department transition team, also serves on the center's board of advisers and is expected to land a high-ranking post. Richard Danzig, a front-runner for defense secretary, is on the think tank's board of directors. Susan Rice and James Steinberg, both of whom are on Mr. Obama's short list for national security adviser, serve on its board of advisers.

Although most of the center's staffers are Democrats, its boards include prominent Republicans, and its policy proposals have largely sought to find a middle ground between standard Democratic and Republican positions. On Iraq, for instance, Ms. Flournoy helped write a June report that called for reducing the open-ended American military commitment in Iraq and replacing it with a policy of "conditional engagement" there.

Significantly, the paper rejected the idea of withdrawing troops on the sort of a fixed timeline Mr. Obama espoused during the campaign. Mr. Obama has in recent weeks signaled that he was willing to shelve the idea.
At least half a dozen of the think tank's policy experts -- including John Nagl, a retired Army colonel and a counterinsurgency specialist -- are expected to get tapped for midlevel national security positions.
The potential departures mean that the center could be a victim of its own success. "The challenge will be convincing our board, our funders and our staff that we are a going concern and will remain that way into the future," said Jim Miller, its senior vice president.
Mr. Miller said he is confident the center would weather the departures. Other officials said the center is planning to recruit departing Bush administration officials to fill some vacancies. The center's budget comes mainly from foundations such as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and it also gets some government money to study particular issues.

New presidents regularly raid Washington think tanks for experts and policy ideas. The Reagan administration drew heavily from the right-leaning Heritage Foundation after the 1980 election, while the Clinton administration hired from the left-leaning Brookings Institution.
More recently, staffers at the conservative American Enterprise Institute took senior positions in the Bush administration and drafted some of its signature policies, including the "surge" strategy for Iraq.
The success of conservative think tanks sparked the creation of some left-leaning counterparts, most prominently the Center for American Progress. Former Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta started it in 2003 with tens of millions of dollars from wealthy liberals. "The success of Brookings begat AEI. The success of AEI begat Heritage. And the success of Heritage begat CAP and CNAS," said Murray Weidenbaum, an economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis who wrote a book on Washington think tanks.
Mr. Podesta is now running the Obama transition effort. He also serves on the CNAS board of directors of the Center for a New American Security, which Ms. Flournoy founded along with Kurt Campbell, a former Clinton National Security Council and Pentagon official.

CNAS PROJECTS
http://www.cnas.org/projects

“No Child Left Behind ": “Trojan Horse" for Pentagon Recruiters
Sherwood Ross
The Pentagon has used the No Child Left Behind Act as a Trojan Horse to propagandize vulnerable teenage students, invade their privacy, harass them, and get them to enlist. Passage of the NCLB in 2001 has given Pentagon recruiters "unprecedented access to public high schools and to students’ personal information" and has "changed the landscape of military recruitment in public high schools across the U.S.," the American Civil Liberties Union(ACL U) charges...
Read the full article / Leggi l'articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=49241