RINGING IN THE OLD AGAIN WITH UNFINISHED BUSINESS: 'OLD' U.S. DOMINATION AGENDA UP TO 'NEW' ADMIN.

‘I Am Proud Of The Decision’ To Invade Iraq
"We tend to forget very quickly what Saddam Hussein meant. … In the post 9/11 environment, you couldn’t let a threat to international peace and stability like that remain." She added: Yes, it’s been very, very tough. But I know that great historical events go through difficult phases and often emerge with the world left for the bet ter. And I am proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

I am proud of the liberation of 25 million Iraqis....
Condoleeza Rice

1,297,997 Iraqis Liberated to Death in U.S. Invasion, Occupation and Destruction of Iraq
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html

"They're trying to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny, in a region of the world that has been hostile to freedom. And they're doing it while under assault from one of history's most brutal terrorist networks"
Bush speech 3/27/8. National Museum of the United States Air Force, Dayton.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23828282/

Harold Pinter : "Blatant state terrorism"
As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11239.htm

CRISIS HELPS TO RING IN THE OLD, AGAIN
'NEW' U.S. DOMINATED SYSTEM: CONFIRMING BENEFITS OF U.S. TERROR WAR, 'JIHADIST CRISIS' & FINANCIAL CRISIS TO U.S. GLOBAL SUPREMACY UNDER OBAMA REGIME
Kissinger Calls For New International System Out Of World Crisis
Video by Steve Watson
Global Research, December 21, 2008
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11467
Speaking with Charlie Rose this week, Kissinger cited the chaos being wrought across the globe by the financial crisis and the spread of terrorism as an opportunity to bolster a new global order. “I think that when the new administration assess the position in which it finds itself it will see a huge crisis and terrible problems, but I can see that it could see a glimmer in which it could construct an international system out of it.”
The former National Security advisor and Secretary of State compared the current world climate to the period immediately following the second world war [note: resulting in U.S. global domination with help of UN, NATO] , which led to the creation and empowerment of global bodies such as the UN and NATO. “If you look back to the end of the second world war, many people now think that the period between the end of 1945 and 1950 was in many ways the most creative period or one of the most creative periods of foreign policy, but it started with chaos and fear of Russian invasion of Europe and governments that were very weak.” ... “The new administration is really coming into office at a strange period in this sense,” he continued. “It looks like a period of horrendous crisis all over the world. And we ourselves are in a severe crisis financially, but at the end of it our relative position in the world is actually stronger than it has been in the sense that Russia, China, India all have strong reasons to contribute to a quiet international environment because of the preoccupation they must have with their domestic affairs.” “They do not wish and have good reasons not to wish for an international atmosphere of crisis. So Paradoxically, this moment of crisis is also one of great opportunity.” Kissinger commented.

“When you talk about a new structure...you’ve used the term new world order, what is it? Is it simply a world order that is defined by new interest and new mutuality of interest?” Rose asked.
“That’s certainly how you have to start. I know the view that you start by converting the whole world to our political philosophy. I don’t think that can be done in one or two terms of an administration. That is an historic process that has its own rhythm.” Kissinger replied.... “The jihadist crisis is bringing it home to everybody, that international affairs cannot be conducted entirely by drawing borders and defining international politics by who crosses what borders with organized military force.” he said. “This has now been reinforced by the financial crisis, which totally unexpectedly has spread around the world. It limits the resources that each country has for a foreign policy geared to an assertion of its own pure interests.” ... the key players in international politics, India, China, Russia, America, Europe, should recognize they have parallel concerns and work together to forge what he termed an “age of compatible interests”.

No Substitute for Victory
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
In Berlin, Barack Obama will surely pledge our commitment to victory in the struggle for freedom.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/opinion/21kristol.html?th&emc=th

OBAMA'S BROAD VISION OF THE STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM....
In his address on foreign policy, Mr. Obama argued that the war in Iraq had distracted the United States from what he called the central front in the fight against terrorism... Senator Obama said on Tuesday that the addition of tens of thousands of combat troops to Iraq last year had significantly reduced violence in the country. But he said that positive developments there had not changed his mind about the need to pull troops from Iraq so America could focus more on the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.... to address the resurgent Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he said posed a far greater danger to American security than did the chaos in Iraq.... Mr. McCain also said the United States should help strengthen civil institutions in Afghanistan and help eradicate the heroin trade, proposals echoed by Mr. Obama on Tuesday.... Mr. Obama has been laying out a broad vision of America’s role in the world in an Obama presidency. He has spoken of reducing American combat forces in Iraq and adding as many as 10,000 troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has emphasized the application of so-called soft power, the use of diplomacy and economic aid...

Among Iraqis, Obama is not Topic No. 1
Ordinary citizens appear skeptical of differences between the U.S. presidential candidates....
"I remember Iraqis being very hopeful that Clinton would lift the sanctions [against then-President Saddam Hussein's regime] when he came to power in the '90s," said rental truck driver Amer Abdullah, 38. "But history will tell us that this was not the case."... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=45882
Said Rifai and Saif Rasheed, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

Mideast Sees More of the Same if Obama Is Elected:
From the religious center of Jerusalem to the rolling hills of Amman to the crowded streets of Cairo, dozens of interviews revealed a similar sentiment: the United States will ultimately support Israel over the Palestinians, no matter who the president is. http://tinyurl.com/65f745

Obama: I condemn bulldozer attack, will always back Israel's war on terror:
"I strongly condemn this attack and will always support Israel in confronting terrorism and pursuing lasting peace and security," Obama told a news conference in Amman, Jordan, before a visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1004447.html

"new international order" means old u.s. domination aided and secured by its 'solutions' to current crisis
excerpts From Global Crisis to "Global Government"
US Intelligence: A Review of Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World
by Andrew G. Marshall
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=11426
December 19, 2008
Introduction
The United States’ National Intelligence Council has released a report, entitled "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World" [www.dni.gov]. This declassified document is the fourth report of the Global Trends 2025: The National Intelligence Council’s 2025 Project [ http://www.dni.gov/nic/NIC_2025_project.html].

The report outlines the paths that current geopolitical and economic trends may reach by the year 2025, in order to guide strategic thinking over the next few decades. The National Intelligence Council describes itself as the US Intelligence Community’s “center for midterm and long-term strategic thinking,” with the tasks of supporting the Director of National Intelligence, reaching out to non-governmental experts in academia and the private sector and it leads in the effort of providing National Intelligence Estimates. The report was written with the active participation of not only the US intelligence community, but also numerous think tanks, consulting firms, academic institutions and hundreds of other experts. Among the participating organizations were the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Wilson Center, RAND Corporation, the Brookings Institution, American Enterprise Institute, Texas A&M University, the Council on Foreign Relations and Chatham House in London, which is the British equivalent of the CFR.[1]

The discussion of global economics begins with analyzing the potential repercussions of the current global financial crisis: the crisis “is accelerating the global economic rebalancing. Developing countries have been hurt; several, such as Pakistan with its large current account deficit, are at considerable risk. Even those with cash reserves—such as South Korea and Russia—have been severely buffeted; steep rises in unemployment and inflation could trigger widespread political instability and throw emerging powers off course.” However, it states, “if China, Russia, and Mideast oil exporters can avoid internal crises,” they may be able to buy foreign assets, provide financial assistance to struggling countries and “seed new regional initiatives.” It says that the biggest change for the West will be “the increase in state power. Western governments now own large swaths of their financial sectors and must manage them, potentially politicizing markets.” It continues in saying that there is a prospect for a new “Bretton Woods,” to “regulate the global economy,” however, “Failure to construct a new all-embracing architecture could lead countries to seek security through competitive monetary policies and new investment barriers, increasing the potential for market segmentation....

“Outside the Middle East, Russia will potentially be the biggest loser, particularly if its economy remains heavily tied to energy exports, and could be reduced to middle power status. Venezuela, Bolivia, and other petro-populist regimes could unravel completely, if that has not occurred beforehand because of already growing discontent and decreasing production.”

Terrorism
The report states that terrorism will by no means disappear from the international stage by 2025...there is a possibility of Al-Qaeda’s influence as a terrorist group greatly diminishing, or all together disappearing, being replaced with new terrorist threats....many governments will be “expanding domestic security forces, surveillance capabilities, and the employment of special operations-type forces.” Counterterrorism measures will increasingly “involve urban operations as a result of greater urbanization,” and governments “may increasingly erect barricades and fences around their territories to inhibit access. Gated communities will continue to spring up within many societies as elites seek to insulate themselves from domestic threats.”[21] Essentially, expect a continued move towards and internationalization of domestic police state measures to control populations.

A New International System
“By 2025, nation-states will no longer be the only – and often not the most important – actors on the world stage and the ‘international system’ will have morphed to accommodate the new reality. But the transformation will be incomplete and uneven.”...
“Most of the pressing transnational problems – including climate change, regulation of globalized financial markets, migration, failing states, crime networks, etc. – are unlikely to be effectively resolved by the actions of individual nation-states. The need for effective global governance will increase faster than existing mechanisms can respond.”[23] In other words, due to the growing threat of international problems, which are essentially the result of Western political-economic-intelligence activities and policies, the solution is a move toward international governance, which will be overseen and run by those same Western interests.

In discussing the rise of the emerging powers, particularly China and India, the report observes that their economic progress has been “achieved with an economic model that is at odds with the West’s traditional laissez faire recipe for economic development.” So the question is, “whether the new players – and their alternative approaches – can be melded with the traditional Western ones to form a cohesive international system able to tackle the increasing number of transnational issues.” It continues, saying that “the national interests of the emerging powers are diverse enough, and their dependence on globalization compelling enough, that there appears little chance of an alternative bloc forming among them to directly confront the more established Western order. The existing international organizations – such as the UN, WTO, IMF, and World Bank – may prove sufficiently responsive and adaptive to accommodate the views of emerging powers, but whether the emerging powers will be given – or will want – additional power and responsibilities is a separate question.”[24] So, as the new powers emerge, as a result of Western elite-directed globalization, they will likely merge with the Western controlled world order as opposed to becoming an alternative or opposition force to it...

when the report suggests the likely fractionalization of Pakistan, they do not say that it is a US objective to do so, but that it is a likely possibility that such a scenario will occur. Thus, it is important to comprehend... that those who wrote the report, have been, are currently, and will...continue to be among the most powerful actors shaping the world order and the new[SIC] international system.
Global Trends 2025
Jun 2008
Security Environment of 2025 Conference

Apr 2008
Disruptive Civil Technologies
Conference

Feb 2008
Global Scenarios to 2025

CHERTOFF'S DEC. 3 THREAT, BASED ON A 1/08 REPORT, SUDDENLY BECOMES MAJOR 'NEWS' DEC. 26
Global Risks 2008 – A Global Risk Network Report
Title: Global Risks 2008 – A Global Risk Network Report
Date: January 2008
Institution: World Economic Forum, Citigroup, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Swiss Re, Wharton School Risk Center, Zurich Financial Services
Electronic Link: http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/risk/downloads/WEF_Global_Risks_2008.pdf
Summary of Key Points, Issues, Conclusions:
This report on the global risk trends in 2008 concludes that uncertainty about the short- and medium-term future is as high as it has been for a decade. Economically, the uncertainty centers on how the global economy will respond to the spreading liquidity crunch of 2007. The mis-pricing of financial risk, a central theme of Global Risks 2007, may have further to unwind. Geopolitically, uncertainty is focused on the possibility of an escalation in tensions with Iran and concerns over the long-term integrity of the states of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The result of uncertainty could be inaction in dealing with other, less immediate, global risks. Action to mitigate climate change, for example, may be put in danger should the global economy weaken substantially – even though many of the political, economic and investment decisions which will shape the future path of global climate will need to be made in the next five years. Proactive management of globalization to ensure its long-term sustainability may be derailed by the prevailing currents of uncertainty. But inaction on long-term risks will only weaken the global capacity to manage future challenges.

The report attempts to put some structure to the vast issue by focusing on four emerging issues that are shaping the global risk landscape: systemic financial risk, food security, supply chains and the role of energy. In the second part of the report, the collective assessment of global risks in 2008 is presented based on a revised taxonomy of risk, and building on the assessments of past years. In the third part, the methodological hurdles around the representation of interconnectedness are explored and how risk “squeezing” and homogenization of risk are changing the way risk is perceived globally. In the fourth part of the report, the role of financial markets as tools of risk transfer and risk mitigation for an increasingly broad range of global risks is examined. Finally, the fifth part examines construction of risk mitigation coalitions and country risk management, establishing a set of principles for country risk management which the Global Risk Network will develop in 2008-2009.
Institution: Integrative Center for Homeland Security, Texas A&M University
Date Posted: 1/30/2008
http://homelandsecurity.tamu.edu/framework/management-budget-for-hls-pro...

Homeland Security Threat Assessment for 2008-13.
AP excerpts
Biological strike, dirty bombs pose threats in next 5 years, report says
WASHINGTON -- The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security and increasing Internet savvy, says a new intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction remains "the highest priority at the federal level." Speaking to reporters on Dec. 3, Chertoff explained that more people, such as terrorists, will learn how to make dirty bombs, biological and chemical weapons. "The other side is going to continue to learn more about doing things," he said. Marked "for official use only," the report does not specify its audience, but the assessments typically go to law enforcement, intelligence officials and the private sector. When determining threats, intelligence officials consider loss of life, economic and psychological consequences....
the cyber terror threat is expected to increase over the next five years, as hacking tools become more sophisticated and available. "Youthful, Internet-savvy extremists might apply their online acumen to conduct cyber attacks rather than offer themselves up as operatives to conduct physical attacks," according to the assessment. Currently, Islamic terrorists, including al-Qaida, would like to conduct cyber attacks, but they lack the capability to do so, the assessment said. The large-scale attacks that are on al-Qaida's wishlist—such as disrupting a major city's water or power systems—require sophisticated cyber capabilities that the terrorist group does not possess. But al-Qaida has the capability to hire sophisticated hackers to carry out these kinds of attacks, the assessment said. And federal officials believe that in the next three to five years, al-Qaida could direct or inspire cyber attacks that target the U.S. economy. Counterterrorism expert Frank Cilluffo says the typical cyber attack would not achieve al-Qaida's main goal of inflicting mass devastation with its resulting widespread media coverage. However, al-Qaida is likely to continue to rely on the Internet to spread its message, said Cilluffo, who runs the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University.
Officials also predict domestic terrorists in the forms of radical animal rights and environmental extremists will become more adept with explosives and increase their use of arson attacks....

OBAMA ADMIN'S 'NEW' OLD JOB
CENTCOM's Master Plan and U.S. Global Hegemony
By Robert Higgs
7/22/08
Many people deny that the U.S. presides over a global empire. If you speak of U.S. imperialism, they will fancy that you must be a decrepit Marxist-Leninist who has recently awakened after spending decades in a coma. Yet the facts cannot be denied, however much people's ideology may predispose them to distort or obfuscate facts.... more than 800 military facilities in more than 140 different foreign countries... hundreds of thousands of troops [note: plus thousands of mercenary contractors] who operate those bases and conduct operations from them, not to mention the approximately 125,000 sailors and Marines aboard the U.S. warships that cruise the oceans, are not going door to door selling Girl Scout cookies. United States of America is the name; intimidation is the game...

Of course, the kingpins who control this massive machinery of coercion never describe it in such terms. In their lexis, American motives and actions are invariably noble. Listening to these bigwigs describe what the U.S. forces abroad are doing, you would never suspect that they seek anything but "regional stability," "security," "deterrence of potential regional aggressors," and "economic development and cooperation among nations." Inasmuch as hardly anybody favors instability, insecurity, international aggression, economic retrogression, and mutual strife among nations, the U.S. objectives, and hence the actions taken in their furtherance, would appear to be indisputably laudable.

The United States government divides the world into six military regions called Unified Combatant Commands. A separate Africa Command [AFRICOM] has been created recently. Once it is fully operational, it will include all of the African countries except Egypt. A few other northeastern African countries were previously included in the Central Command's area of responsibility. The Central Command, abbreviated as CENTCOM, stretches from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen in the West to Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan in the East. The easternmost reaches of this combatant area butt up against India, China, and Russia....

In seeking funds in 2007 for construction of a $62 million ammunition storage facility at Bagram Air Base, Admiral William J. Fallon, then the commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), referred to Bagram as "the centerpiece for the CENTCOM Master Plan for future access to and operations in Central Asia."

Looking carefully at the map, one discovers that Israel is not included in the CENTCOM area, but in the European Command area. In a sense, however, we may describe the twenty-one countries in CENTCOM's newly defined "area of responsibility" as a sort of logical complement of Israel: the people of every one of these countries devoutly wish (and here I have chosen my adverb carefully) that Israel had never come into existence and that it will go out of existence as soon as possible.... http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20334.htm

OBAMA MAKES IT CLEAR HE'S THE MAN TO EXECUTE U.S. GLOBAL DOMINATION AGENDA
“Let me make this clear,” Obama said in a speech prepared for delivery at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. “There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans. They are plotting to strike again. It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaida leadership meeting in 2005. If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won’t act, we will.”...
Obama said that as commander in chief he would remove troops from Iraq and putting them “on the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” He said he would send at least two more brigades to Afghanistan and increase nonmilitary aid to the country by $1 billion.
He also said he would create a three-year, $5 billion program to share intelligence with allies worldwide to take out terrorist networks from Indonesia to Africa.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20070536/#storyContinued

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, speech on Iraq, March 19, 2008, Fayetteville, North Carolina.
posted by The Council on Foreign Relations
http://www.cfr.org/publication/15761/obamas_speech_on_iraq_march_2008.ht...

...The war in Iraq has emboldened Iran, which poses the greatest challenge to American interests in the Middle East in a generation, continuing its nuclear program and threatening our ally, Israel. Instead of the new Middle East we were promised, Hamas runs Gaza, Hizbollah flags fly from the rooftops in Sadr City, and Iran is handing out money left and right in southern Lebanon.
The war in Iraq has emboldened North Korea, which built new nuclear weapons and even tested one before the Administration finally went against its own rhetoric, and pursued diplomacy.
The war in Iraq has emboldened the Taliban, which has rebuilt its strength since we took our eye off of Afghanistan.
Above all, the war in Iraq has emboldened al Qaeda, whose recruitment has jumped and whose leadership enjoys a safe-haven in Pakistan – a thousand miles from Iraq.
The central front in the war against terror is not Iraq, and it never was. What more could America’s enemies ask for than an endless war where they recruit new followers and try out new tactics on a battlefield so far from their base of operations? That is why my presidency will shift our focus. Rather than fight a war that does not need to be fought, we need to start fighting the battles that need to be won on the central front of the war against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan....

What I have talked about today is a new strategy, a new set of priorities for pursuing our interests in the 21st century. And as President, I will provide the tools required to implement this strategy. When President Truman put the policy of containment in place, he also invested in and organized our government to carry it out –creating the National Security Council and the CIA, and founding NATO. Now, we must upgrade our tools of power to fit a new strategy.

That starts with enhancing the finest military in the history of the world. As Commander in Chief, I will begin by giving a military overstretched by Iraq the support it needs. It is time to reduce the strain on our troops by completing the effort to increase our ground forces by 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 Marines, while ensuring the quality of our troops. In an age marked by technology, it is the people of our military – our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen – who bear the responsibility for complex missions. That is why we need to ensure adequate training and time home between deployments. That is why we need to expand our Special Forces. And that is why we must increase investments in capabilities like civil affairs and training foreign militaries.
But we cannot place the burden of a new national security strategy on our military alone. We must integrate our diplomatic, information, economic and military power. That is why, as soon as I take office, I will call for a National Strategy and Security Review, to help determine a 21st Century inter-agency structure to integrate the elements of our national power.
In addition, I will invest in our civilian capacity to operate alongside our troops in post-conflict zones and on humanitarian and stabilization missions. Instead of shuttering consulates in tough corners of the world, it’s time to grow our Foreign Service and to expand USAID. Instead of giving up on the determination of young people to serve, it’s time to double the size of our Peace Corps. Instead of letting people learn about America from enemy propaganda, it’s time to recruit, train, and send out into the world an America’s Voice Corps....

The Future of Iraq
Nationalism or religious fundamentalism. Sectarianism or secularism. Unified sovereignty or Balkanization. Occupation or resistance. A future Iraq or no Iraq at all?
October 02, 2007
The plan for Iraq is (was) partition.
The White House will be occupied by a Democratic president in 2009. This president will wax condemningly of the previous tenants and the failed policies inherent to the predecessor administration. The Bush (GOP) administration will be painted as the "bad cop". The Democratic president will be the "good cop" valiantly trying to correct the errors of predecessors...
Prospects of Iraqi leaders being able to establish a multiethnic democracy are now "fanciful," the nonpartisan Washington think tank says in its report titled * "A Way Out: The Union of Iraqi States." Based on data tracked monthly since before the U.S. invasion in 2003, the report authored by Fund president Pauline Baker concludes that Iraq is now "near total collapse." "While there may be pockets of improvement from the 'surge,' these are transitory and limited achievements that are about four years too late . . . Rather than fight fragmentation, it would be better to manage the trend with a view toward establishing an entirely new political order," the report concludes. Observe the terminology. "New political order."
http://futureiraq.blogspot.com/2007/10/plan-for-iraq-is-was-partition.ht...

911: THE NECESSARY 'MINI PEARL HARBOR' TO DECLARE 'WAR ON TERROR', ATTACK AFGHANISTAN, THEN IRAQ
False Flag Prospects, 2008 -- Top Three US Target Cities
by Captain Eric H. May
The easiest way to carry out a false flag attack is by setting up a military exercise that simulates the very attack you want to carry out. As I'll detail below, this is exactly how government perpetrators In the US and UK handled the 9/11 and 7/7 "terror" attacks, which were in reality government attacks blamed on "terrorists."
My aim, as a former military intelligence officer who spent five years with the U.S. Army 75th Division conducting military war games, is to convince the American people that the "next 9/11" -- constantly promised by officials and the media -- is likely to be carried out under the guise of future military exercises. If the American people are aware of pending exercises and the danger they represent, then the exercises cannot "go live" and effect the very terror events that they are supposed to be rehearsing against.[...]http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8165 http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2008/07/globalstrike.php

US ready to seize Gulf oil in 1973
"The greatest risk of such confrontation in the Gulf would probably arise in Kuwait where Iraq might be tempted to intervene"
The U.S. considered using force to seize oilfields in the Middle East during an oil embargo by Arab states in 1973, according to British government documents just made public.
2 January, 2004
by Paul Reynolds, BBC News Online world affairs correspondent
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3333995.stm

U.S. Iraq 'war' began under Clinton
After the 1991Gulf War, led by the U.S., the UK, and other major imperialist powers maintained a policy of “containment” towards Iraq including numerous, calculatedly crushing economic sanctions to destroy its highly developed infrastructure, economy and strength. In October 1998, the U.S. began to shift from containment towards “regime change,” with President Clinton's "Iraq Liberation Act. This escalated tp full-bore, unprovoked military aggression with the judicial selection of G. W. Bush in the 2000 'elections'.

'CONTAINMENT PLUS' [Madeleine Albright] : "Cohen comes with plans to divide up Iraq..."
March 11, 1999
U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen's just concluded six-nation tour of the Persian Gulf states led editorial pages in many Arab papers and received some attention from South Asian media as well. A New Delhi analyst concluded that Secretary Cohen's two-fold "mission to sell arms and the administration's new policy on Iraq" was successful on the former, but failed on the latter. Some in the Arab world worried...that the Cohen tour, together with the recent visit by another U.S. official, Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk, marks a shift in U.S. policy "from the planning to the implementation phase regarding the future of Iraq" and urged that Arabs "not allow the American schemes to materialize and...not be partners in the destruction and partition of Iraq." ...

"The U.S.' Grand Plan In The Gulf", Sanaa Al Said, Al Wafd 3/7/99
...The United States imposed the status quo since it created the no-fly zones in the north and south, disregarding international legitimacy. The embargo it imposed on Iraq in 1991 was the beginning of the real division of Iraq into three entities....The shelling is increasing day after day. Secretary Cohen confirmed this. His tour of the Gulf, Egypt, Jordan and Israel is certain proof that the countdown is about to end and the United States is about to implement its plans--oust the regime and divide Iraq."

"Espionage In Baghdad: Caught Red-Handed"
An article on the International Page of the Cuban Communist Party organ Granma said (3/6): "It is clear that it is not enough for the United States to use the Security Council for its own designs, but it also openly deceives it, placing its spies in a commission which, far from finding peace, has turned the Iraqi conflict into a war of attrition, of low intensity and an inhumane continuation of sanctions. This U.S. intelligence operation and its consequences should be a warning to the world about the reach of U.S. imperial policy. The world, which only knew about the 'Iraqi refusal' to cooperate with the UN inspectors through the most advanced media--which serve the Western powers--should now know that many of the so-called inspectors, or at least their chiefs, were receiving instructions from Washington and working under its orders. And now they can clearly understand the position of Iraq..."
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/03/wwwh9m11.htm

Scramble to carve up Iraqi oil reserves lies behind US diplomacy
Manoeuvres shaped by horsetrading between America, Russia and France over control of untapped oilfields
Ed Vulliamy in New York, Paul Webster in Paris, and Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Sunday October 6, 2002
The Observer
Washington's predatory interest in Iraqi oil is clear.... The US National Energy Policy Report of 2001 - known as the 'Cheney Report' after its author Vice President Dick Cheney

War on Iraq: Opinion
http://www.defencejournal.com/2002/nov/war-iraq.htm
Contributing Editor Air Marshal (Retd) Ayaz Ahmed Khan
...why [is] Saddam Hussain considered a threat to US Security interests? The answer lies in Saddam Hussian’s mind set. According to Amir Taheri the celebrated Arab political analyst, Saddam Hussain’s political vision is the real threat to US and Western interests. What is Saddam’s vision? “Saddam Hussain’s vision is based on the basic assumption that there is a single Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean”. Saddam firmly believes in pan-Arabism and that is the real threat to Western interests. He is the only Arab leader capable of settling scores with Israel, for its barbarities and genocide of Palestinian Arabs. Amir Taheri states that, “At different times, history which determines the fate of nations chooses a leader with vision to assume leadership. As things stand today, it is the Iraqi part of the Arab nation that has been chosen by history to assume leadership.” American, Israeli and British intellectuals and politicians are aware that their designs for the oil in the oil rich Arab lands will be challenged if Saddam Hussian has a say in the region. This is the reason why Washington, Tel-Aviv and London want Saddam Hussian out of the way. They want to exploit the Arab oil wealth unhindered...

In an article titled “OPERATION ENDLESS DEPLOYMENT” military analysts William D Hartung, Frida Berrigan and Michelle Ciarrocca state that, “The war on Iraq is part of the larger US plan for global dominance... Under the guise of fighting “terrorists and tyrants”, US military has built, upgraded and expanded military facilities in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Bulgaria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Pentagon has authorized and expanded training missions or open ended troop deployments in Djibouti, Philippines and Georgia. Access has been negotiated to airfields in Kazakstan. The United States is engaged in major military exercises involving thousands of US military personnel in Jordan, Kuwait and India. (The writers forgot that ten thousand US military personnel are already stationed in Afghanistan). Thousands of tons of military equipment has been stock piled in Middle Eastern and Persian Gulf stations, including Israel, Jordan, Kuwait and Qatar. Discussions are underway for access to facilities in Yemen and establishing intelligence gathering installations to monitor “terrorist” activities in Sudan, and Somalia. The port of Aden is strategically located, and US Navy operations from Aden will help control of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean. Through secretive arrangements the US has a substantial military presence of sixty thousand (60,000) troops in the Gulf, Caucus and South Asia. Twenty five thousand US troops are already poised to serve as the first wave of US invasion of Iraq. Several thousand more are on the way. The US plan clearly is for flexible military infrastructure to initiate hot wars from the Middle East, the Gulf, the Caucus and East Asia”...

2003 IRAQ: THE MEDIA WAR PLAN
January 2003 Pentagon White Paper recommended the creation of a "Rapid Reaction Media Team" for Iraq.
White Paper and PowerPoint Briefing on "a critical interim rapid response component of the USG's strategic information campaign for Iraq - in the event hostilities are required to liberate Iraq." National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 219

Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq
In late 2001, with the Pentagon's focus on information warfare as an integral facet of the American war doctrine increasing, the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence was formed. This office was created with a mandate to propagandize throughout the Middle East, Asia and Western Europe, with the help of the abovementioned Rendon Group. In February 2002, amid a backlash of public outcry resulting from a New York Times article, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed he lacked knowledge of the program and the OSI was closed down. [3]
In January of 2003, with the Office of Strategic Influence dismantled, President Bush formally announced "the creation of a White House "Office of Global Communications" to broadcast the United States' message worldwide ahead of possible war on Iraq," [4] which had been effectively operating for several months prior. [5] According to the White House, the office will disseminate the policies of the US Government to media sources, domestic and foreign, and send "teams of communicators to international hot spots, areas of media interest."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations_preparations_for_2003_inva...

ORCHESTRATED DECEPTION ON PATH TO TO WAR
The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews....
http://www.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/Default.aspx?source=home&context=...

U.S. Considers Dividing Iraq Into Three Separate States After Saddam Is Gone
FORECASTS & TRENDS, Oct 1, 2002
http://www.profutures.comarticle.php/91/%20
Stratfor.com http://www.stratfor.com/ reports that one of the leading long-term strategies being considered by US war planners is to divide Iraq into three separate regions. Under this plan Iraq would cease to exist. (emphasis added)
Stratfor says that such a plan reportedly was discussed at an unusual meeting between Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and pro-US Iraqi Sunni opposition members in London in July. Further, they say that in September, the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, stated that the US goal in Iraq was to create a United Hashemite Kingdom that would encompass Jordan and Iraq's Sunni areas. Also, Israeli terrorism expert Ehud Sprinzak recently echoed this sentiment on Russian television on September 24.
So whose idea is this? According to Stratfor, Sprinzak stated that the authors of the "Hashemite" plan are Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz...

Drafting of U.S.-Iraq Security Agreement Began Nearly Five Years Ago
By National Security Archive
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 252
June 13, 2008
Documents obtained by the National Security Archive under the Freedom of Information Act indicate the U.S. started drafting the agreement in November 2003. - These preliminary planning documents show that from the outset U.S. aspirations for conducting military operations based in Iraq were essentially without limit... the plan would give the U.S. more than 50 military bases in Iraq, provide complete freedom of action to conduct military operations, allow complete freedom to arrest and detain Iraqis, and grant U.S. forces and contractors total immunity from Iraqi law. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20138.htm

"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)
www.wrhstore.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html

Journalism and the CIA: The Mighty Wurlitzer
by Daniel Brandt
From NameBase NewsLine, No. 17, April-June 1997
http://www.namebase.org/news17.htm
... The Office of Strategic Services, the CIA's predecessor, had jurisdiction over wartime covert operations and propaganda.... OSS chief William Donovan recruited heavily among social and academic elites.... OSS veteran Frank Wisner ran most of the early peacetime covert operations as head of the Office of Policy Coordination. Although funded by the CIA, OPC wasn't integrated into the CIA's Directorate of Plans until 1952, under OSS veteran Allen Dulles. Both Wisner and Dulles were enthusiastic about covert operations. By mid-1953 the department was operating with 7,200 personnel and 74 percent of the CIA's total budget.
Wisner created the first "information superhighway." But this was the age of vacuum tubes, not computers, so he called it his "Mighty Wurlitzer." The CIA's global network funded the Italian elections in 1948, sent paramilitary teams into Albania, trained Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan, and pumped money into the Congress for Cultural Freedom, the National Student Association, and the Center for International Studies at MIT. Key leaders and labor unions in western Europe received subsidies, and Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty were launched. The Wurlitzer, an organ designed for film productions, could imitate sounds such as rain, thunder, or an auto horn. Wisner and Dulles were at the keyboard, directing history.

An Army of Propaganda
The military's slick propaganda campaign borrows from the corporate PR world, and keeps the war sanitized for public consumption.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15507
The PR War: The general who devised the "embedded" program deserves a fourth star.
By Jack Shafer,Slate Magazine
March 25, 2003

Crying Wolf: Media Disinformation and Death Squads in Occupied Iraq
by Max Fuller
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=FUL20051...
Abstract
The phenomenon of death squads operating in Iraq has become generally accepted over recent months. However, in its treatment of the issue, the mainstream media has zealously followed a line of attributing extrajudicial killings to unaccountable Shia militias who have risen to prominence with the electoral victory of Ibramhim Jafaari’s Shia-led government in January. The following article examines both the way in which the information has been widely presented and whether that presentation has any actual basis in fact. Concluding that the attribution to Shia militias is unsustainable, the article considers who the intellectual authors of these crimes against humanity are and what purpose they serve in the context of the ongoing occupation of the country....the purpose of stating or implying that unaccountable militias are behind the extrajudicial executions and/or that sectarian rivalries... is to distance the US from the almost unthinkable ongoing crimes against humanity. Comparable disinformation strategies have been employed in every counterinsurgency conflict with which the US has been involved... known as establishing ‘plausible deniability’ [...]

Military Report: Secretly 'Recruit or Hire Bloggers'
By Noah Shachtman March 31, 2008
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/03/report-recruit.html
Ff_118_milblogs2_fA study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."

"We will welcome the Americans to Iraq. Unfortunately, we ran out of candy so we will have to substitute bullets."
Tariq Aziz
'There is no Iraqi National Resistance', just 'insurgents', 'terrorists', 'al-qaeda'

U.S. UNCOVERS THE RIDDLE: ALL RESISTANCE IS 'AL-QAEDA'
Pepe Escobar
www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE24Ak01.html

War declared on resistance
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/06/1068013331454.html
The Los Angeles Times has ordered its journalists to stop describing anti-American forces in Iraq as resistance fighters, saying the term romanticises them and evokes World War II-era heroism. An email circulated this week asked staff to instead use the terms insurgents or guerillas.

Islamic Army in Iraq fighter
speaking on condition of anonymity
Ahmed Janabi, Aljazeera.net
"First of all, there is nothing called an improved security situation, all that has happened is the government-backed militias who used to butcher people, were stopped from doing so for tactical reasons. "As to us, Iraqis and non-Iraqi volunteers who dedicated ourselves to driving the US occupation out of Iraq, we never stopped working, but the US officials like to distract the world with the monster they created, al-Qaeda. "More than 4,000 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, who killed them? The resistance of course, but they [the US] do not want to talk about it, they only continue crying 'al-Qaeda' ...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=43322
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/003860EB-7666-4E9D-B4EB-A182FD88E0C2.htm

"Religious enlightenment"
U.S. Working to Reshape Iraqi Detainees
Moderate Muslims Enlisted to Steer Adults and Children Away From Insurgency
By Walter Pincus
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/18/AR200709...
September 19, 2007
The U.S. military has introduced "religious enlightenment" and other education programs for Iraqi detainees, some of whom are as young as 11, Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, the commander of U.S. detention facilities in Iraq, said yesterday. Stone said such efforts, aimed mainly at Iraqis who have been held for more than a year, are intended to "bend them back to our will" and are part of waging war in what he called "the battlefield of the mind." Most of the younger detainees are held in a facility that the military calls the "House of Wisdom."....
As a result of the increased U.S. troop presence in Iraq this year, the number of Iraqis in U.S. detention has swelled from about 10,000 last year to more than 25,000. The effort to reshape attitudes among the growing detainee population is aimed at addressing a problem that has vexed U.S. troops in Iraq for the past four years: Military detention facilities have served as breeding grounds for extremist views, transforming some prisoners into hard-core insurgents, according to military analysts. Stone wants to identify "irreconcilables" -- those detainees whose views cannot be moderated -- and "put them away" in permanent detention facilities. Psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors and interrogators help distinguish the extremists from others, he said....
After reassessments and interrogations, Stone said, some detainees are recommended for release. "If a detainee is an imperative security risk . . . then I'm going to reduce that risk and I'm going to replace that destructive ideology," he said. "And then when he's assessed to no longer be a threat, I'm going to release the detainee being less likely to be a recidivist."...
Other initiatives at the facilities include vocational training and basic education programs for about 7,000 detainees. Stone said he believes his approach is "compelling because it's how you win this war, not only the one in Iraq, but the one on a greater basis." He quoted Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi as saying that "America could win the war if they just applied the exact process that you're putting in detention to the rest of the entire nation," in Stone's words.
The 25,000 detainees now being held in U.S. facilities in Iraq include more than 820 juveniles, Stone said, most of whom are held in the House of Wisdom, which opened last month and is located at the Camp Victory military base near Baghdad's airport. He said that six additional young people had been sent to him just yesterday, and that "the trend is towards the youth," including 11-, 12- and 13-year-olds. He described older juveniles -- the 15-, 16- and 17-year-olds -- as "harder nuts" and said that 50 to 60 of them have been removed from U.S. detention facilities and turned over to Iraqi authorities for trial.

The new religious training, Stone said, helps U.S. forces pinpoint the hard-core extremists. "I want to know who they are," he said. "They're like rotten eggs, you know, hiding in the Easter basket." Stone said his staff conducts polygraph tests for detainees who promise to change after undergoing the religious training program. "We were trying to figure out if they're messing with us. . . . You're not talking about radicals going to choirboys." But he also added that they're succeeding in countering extremists in the facilities. "We're busting them down, we're making whole moderate compounds that didn't exist before."

Stone described a sort of religious insurgency that occurred at one detention facility on Sept. 2. "We had a compound of moderates for the first time overtake . . . extremists. It's never happened before. Found them, identified them, threw them up against the fence and shaved their frickin' beards off of them. . . . I mean, that is historic." Jack Holt, the spokesman for the Pentagon's new media operations, said that 60 people were invited to join the Stone interview yesterday but that only four bloggers did so. Of those four, at least two appear to be active-duty military, but as of yesterday evening none so had discussed Stone's presentation online.
Other elements of Stone's program are being developed. He said he has created a "transition-out barracks" where detainees being released discuss civics and human rights. He has also begun a "huge, expensive" Rand Corp. research study on detainee motivation and morale and has plans for a major communication campaign....

Re-educating Armed Occupation Resisters
Iraq Detention 'counter-insurgency' Imams Work for $2 Billion Private Equity Fund
By Nick Mottern and Bill Rau
2008-11-18
When Iraqi imams sit down with prisoners at a US detention center in Iraq to discuss Islam, they are working for a subsidiary of Global Innovation (GI) Partners LLP, a California- and London-based private equity firm that claims to have “$2 billion in capital under management”. GI Partners sells, among other things: base maintenance for US military forces in Iraq; psychiatric care in the United Kingdom; in-room television and movies for hotels; wine; movie production studios and pubs. GI Partners also manages hundreds of millions of dollars for California and Oregon public employees pension funds and, according to the GI Partners website, pension funds in the Netherlands and the Middle East.

The imams...“certified, trusted and moderate Islamic clerics” offering “detainees a broader understanding of Islam"... work in a “counter-insurgency” program apparently intended to undermine religious arguments that have provided underpinning for armed resistance to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and to the US-Iraqi government. (See Truthout October 14, 2008.) The imams join the GI Partners world when they go to work for Russian and East European Partnerships (REEP) Inc., the GI Partners subsidiary hired by the US military to run Islamic discussion, civics, and vocational programs in its Iraq detention centers. These centers now hold about 16,600 Iraqis and are under the command of Multi-National Force – Iraq’s Task Force 134 (MNF-I/TF-134).

REEP, which does business under the trade name Operational Support and Services (OSS), “advises DoD (Department of Defense) personnel on all local nationals (Imams and Social Workers) that may be hired to work in TF-134 programs,” according to a TF-134 spokesman.... the work of the imams, which is shrouded in secrecy, appears to violate international principles protecting religious freedom. It is work that may be unwelcome news to GI Partners investors, such as public employee pension funds reeling from the economic downturn that is traceable in significant measure to the Iraq War.

US military to teach Iraqi prisoners how to be moderate Muslims
The Wall Street Journal reports US commanders in Iraq have begun releasing hundreds of Iraqi prisoners after concluding the military’s detention policy might be harming US goals in Iraq. The US is currently holding about 23,000 Iraqis, many without charge. The US military has begun building a pair of large halfway houses in Taji and Ramadi, where detainees will undergo vocational training. The Wall Street Journal reports the US military also plans to teach religious courses to the former prisoners about how to be a moderate Muslim. Imams will be brought in by the military to teach courses that highlight the Islamic precepts that bar the killing of innocents and offer alternative interpretations of jihad... The reality in the detention system is that, according to TF-134, participation in the Islamic Discussion Program and other courses is likely to help speed a prisoner’s release. Religious discussion with and “education” of a person who is a prisoner and whose resistance has a religious base can be described as a form of coercion.
The use of a private contractor for religious work in US detention facilities, says international human rights lawyer Karen Parker, provides the US government with a layer of protection against charges of human rights violations: “They try to hide behind yet another wall.”
Full article: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/37762

"I Freed Millions From Barbarism"
GWB

U.S. strategy: invade, occupy and destroy the nation, create 'sectarian violence' / 'civil war', then resolve it by more massive destruction and death in the name of 'peace and stability'

Destruction of Holiest Shia Shrine Brings Iraq to the Brink of Civil War
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0223-Mosque.html
Robert Fisk, "All This Talk of Civil War, and Now This Carnage. Coincidence?," Associated Press, March 3, 2004
The horrific attack which destroyed much of the Golden Mosque generated sectarian outrage which led to attacks on over 50 Sunni mosques. Many Sunni mosques in Baghdad were shot, burnt, or taken over. Three Imams were killed, along with scores of others in widespread violence.This is what was shown by western corporate media. As quickly as these horrible events began, they were called to an end and replaced by acts of solidarity between Sunni and Shia across Iraq. This, however, was not shown by western corporate media. . .
Iraq's monumental catastrophe has become routine, shapeless, an incipient "civil war". Note how the American framework of disaster is now being portrayed as an Iraqi vs Iraqi war, as if the huge and brutal US occupation has nothing to do with the appalling violence in Iraq.--Robert Fisk, "Defeat is victory. Death is life," Independent, February 26, 2006]

VIDEO: Iraq is not a sectarian society...People are intermarried. Shiites and Sunnis marry each other. . . . Some form of militias and death squads want a civil war. There never has been a civil war in Iraq. The real question I ask myself is: who are these people who are trying to provoke the civil war? Now the Americans will say it's Al Qaeda, it's the Sunni insurgents. It is the death squads. Many of the death squads work for the Ministry of Interior. Who runs the Ministry of Interior in Baghdad? Who pays the Ministry of the Interior? Who pays the militia men who make up the death squads? We do, the occupation authorities.--Robert Fisk, "Somebody is trying to provoke a civil war in Iraq," ABC Lateline (Australia), March 2, 2006]

Former U.N. envoy Bolton says U.S. has 'no strategic interest' in united Iraq.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/29/europe/EU-GEN-France-US-Iraq.p...

The text of the Biden-Gelb Amendment as incorporated in H.R. 1585 and Sec. 1537 as passed by both Houses of Congress
http://www.operationsmartexit.com/biden-gelb-plan.pdf

Obama likes the Biden-Gelb 'Soft Partition' Plan- if the Iraqi puppet govt. does, U.S. can 'facilitate' eliminating Iraq under guise of stabilizing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lH0w_103Ec

Documents Describe Murder And Torture Of Prisoners In U.S. Custody
The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents today from the Department of Defense confirming the military’s use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19766.htm

The Pentagon’s “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)” Fomenting the Civil War in Iraq
Into the Dark: The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks
by Chris Floyd
November 1, 2002
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/

Darkness Visible: The Pentagon Plan to Foment Terrorism Now in Operation
From the Moscow Times, Jan. 25, 2005.
http://collectioncf72.blogspot.com/2005/04/darkness-visible-pentagon-pla...
http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/4

USA needs nuclear explosion to turn the world into dictatorship:
Is the United States going to put dictatorship into effect under the guise of the anti-terrorist struggle? What may trigger another major transformation in 2009? The answer is obvious: another 9/11 in the USA
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/106864-0/

Blackwater brass forms intelligence company Total Intelligence Solutions
By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=119833&ran=88794
© February 21, 2007
Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, announced Tuesday the formation of a new CIA-type private company to provide intelligence services to commercial clients. The executive roster for the new venture, Total Intelligence Solutions, is loaded with veterans of U.S. intelligence agencies, including two other Blackwater officials.
Among the key personnel and their positions at Total Intelligence, which will be based in Alexandria:
*Black, chairman. He joined Blackwater two years ago after three decades in the CIA and State Department. He was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, a job with ambassador rank.
*Robert Richer, chief executive officer. He is vice president for intelligence at Blackwater and retired from the CIA in November 2005 as associate deputy director for operations.
*Enrique "Ric" Prado, chief operating officer. He is vice president of special government programs at Blackwater and a 24-year veteran of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, including 10 years with the agency's paramilitary Special Operations Group. In his last overt job with the CIA, Prado worked under Black as chief of operations for the Counterterrorist Center.
* Matthew Devost, president. He is an information security consultant and founding director of the Terrorism Research Center.
* Caleb "Cal" Temple, senior vice president for intelligence and analysis. A former FBI intelligence specialist, he was most recently chief of the Office of Intelligence Operations in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Blackwater's primary specialties are tactical training and security, but it is no stranger to the intelligence world. The 10-year-old company's first security contract, awarded in 2002, was for a classified operation. In his book "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror," author Robert Young Pelton identified the company's client as the CIA.
The concept of marketing intelligence services to commercial clients is not new, Pelton said Tuesday, but the new venture represents "a continuing evolution in what Blackwater's doing."
"Total Intel brings the intelligence gathering methodology and analytical skills traditionally honed by CIA operatives directly to the board room," Black said in a statement Tuesday. "With a service like this, CEOs and their security personnel will be able to respond to threats quickly and confidently - whether it's determining which city is safest to open a new plant in or working to keep employees out of harm's way after a terrorist attack."
The statement said the company will operate a "24/7 intelligence fusion and warning center" that will monitor civil unrest, terrorism, economic stability, environmental and health concerns, and information technology security around the world.
Reach Bill Sizemore at (757) 446-2276 or bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com.

Declassified Paper proves torture was taught by CIA 
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/ciatortu.htm

U.S. urges Havana to start moving to democracy
Cuba without Fidel Castro as president should move toward "peaceful, democratic change" and allow Cubans the chance to become "masters of their own lives," the Bush administration said Sunday.

'Stop exporting terror,' Bush tells Ahmadinejad
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080301/wl_mideast_afp/iraniraqdiplomacyus

Weeding out dissidents: fascist National Security Investigations
The Justice Department is considering letting the FBI investigate Americans without any evidence of wrongdoing, relying instead on a terrorist profile that could single out Muslims, Arabs or other racial and ethnic groups.... echoes the FBI's COINTELPRO under Director J. Edgar Hoover in the 1950s and 1960s to monitor and disrupt groups with [suspected] communist and socialist ties.... Before it was shut down in 1971, the domestic spying operation -- formally known as Counterintelligence Programs -- had expanded to include civil rights groups, anti-war activists... "COINTELPRO for the 21st century," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union. "But this is much more insidious..."

To imprison citizens indefinitely without charges or trial is not some abstract 'radicalism', as pundits pretend, it is fascism ....
[ The Fourth Circuit's 5-4 ruling July 15 is a major] step in the creeping extremism of the last seven years -- like torture and warrantless eavesdropping, this power (allowing the President to imprison U.S. citizens in military brigs with no charges) is one that was until quite recently inconceivable, but is now a defining part of how our Government operates....the President has the power to arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the U.S., and imprison them indefinitely in a military prison, without charging them with any crime, based on his assertion... the President can order anyone in the U.S. imprisoned in a military brig as an "enemy combatant" -- even if they have never fought on a battlefield or with a foreign power against the U.S. Rather, mere accusations by the President of "terrorism" are sufficient to justify the indefinite incarceration of such an individual as an "enemy combatant," who is then denied basic Constitutional guarantees. To say that such individuals can be held "for the duration of relevant hostilities" means, of course, that such individuals can be imprisoned... for decades[...] http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/16/al_marri/index.html

How to Train Death Squads and Quash Revolutions from San Salvador to Iraq
From Wikileaks
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20125.htm
How to covertly train paramilitaries, control the press, ban unions, employ terrorists, conduct warrantless searches, suspend habeas corpus, conceal breaches of the Geneva Convention and make the population love it
JULIAN ASSANGE (investigative editor)
Wikileaks has released a sensitive 219 page US military counterinsurgency manual. The manual, Foreign Internal Defense Tactics Techniques and Procedures for Special Forces (1994, 2004), may be critically described as "what we learned about running death squads and propping up corrupt government in Latin America and how to apply it to other places". Its contents are both history defining for Latin America and, given the continued role of US Special Forces in the suppression of insurgencies, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, history making. The leaked manual, which has been verified with military sources, is the official US Special Forces doctrine for Foreign Internal Defense or FID.
FID operations are designed to prop up a "friendly" government facing a popular revolution or guerilla insurgency. FID interventions are often covert or quasi-covert due to the unpopular nature of the governments being supported ("In formulating a realistic policy for the use of advisors, the commander must carefully gauge the psychological climate of the HN [Host Nation] and the United States.")

U.S. forces in Iraq have detained 10,000 prisoners with no evidence to convict them a U.S. detention centers commander in Iraq said
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=105044

Baghdad University condemns U.S. troops storming of campus
Hadeel al-Jawari, Azzaman
12/23/08
The students and faculty of Baghdad University of Technology demonstrated against U.S. occupation troops for violating their campus. Heavily U.S. troops barged into dormitories where female students are housed last night, breaking doors and "using bad words," according to Ahmad Shakir, the university’s information officer..."The troops alleged there were explosives in the dormitories. When the students refused to let them, they barged into the building," Shakir said. But no explosives found... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=4985

AfriCom will preside over all countries on the continent except Egypt and is expected to be operational by the fall, according to Pentagon officials. They say it is needed to secure vast, lawless areas where terrorists have sought safe haven to regroup and threaten U.S. interests.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20070430-124131-8532r.htm

Africom and the new scramble for Africa.
“imperialist assimilation” and the hundred year war for Africa’s energy reserves.
http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=159812

The US War In Darfur
by Keith Harmon Snow
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
The Darfur region of Sudan possesses the third largest copper and the fourth largest uranium deposits on the planet, in addition to strategic location and significant oil resources of its own. Is the US-based “Save Darfur” movement snowing the US public on the fundamental nature of the conflict in Sudan? Are “Save Darfur” and the prevention of genocide the covers of convenience for the next round of US oil and resource wars on the African continent?...

The Unholy Trinity: Death Squads, Disappearances and Torture - From Latin America to Iraq
By Greg Grandin
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121107F.shtml

Latin American Crisis “Made in the USA”
By Bill Van Auken
One would never guess that Washington had any role in the bloody events on the Colombian-Ecuadoran border. The Bush administration portrays itself—and is largely portrayed by a compliant media—as a selfless champion of democratic values and faithful ally of the people’s of the southernhemisphere.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19475.htm

"The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel. It is not up to us to pick and choose from among the political parties."
Ann Lewis, Hillary Clinton representative at United Jewish Communities Conference about best presidential candidate
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR200803...

The Audacity of Imperial Airbrushing:
Barack Obama’s Whitewashed History of U.S. Foreign Policy
By Paul Street
“In Obama's world view, as in that of his Harvard friend and former foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, American crimes generally don't exist. They didn't happen.” Denial is serious business. “Candidate Obama's foreign policy pronouncements have been loaded with promises of future criminality under an Obama administration.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20257.htm

The Bush administration has begun expanding the US Army and Marine Corps to create a combined strength of around 750,000 active duty troops - a process backed by Sen. Barack Obama ...McCain believes a combined strength of up to 900,000 troops is necessary.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1887010

Obama backs off from pledge to talk with Iran:
The emerging position is much more guarded than Obama's pledge during a YouTube debate last July to meet the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea without preconditions during his first year in the White House... http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/22/barackobama.usforeignpolicy

Obama Supports FISA Legislation
By Paul Kane
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.[...] http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/20/obama_supports_fisa_...

STATE TERRORIST THREAT...
Chertoff: US vulnerable to attack during election, transition to new administration
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i3uIGU_Clf36waqYlsaWDls9HP2gD91VURDO0

The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world's population but almost a quarter of its prisoners.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/us/23prison.html?th&emc=th

STATE TERROR REHEARSALS INCLUDE MORE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS ...BESIDE ALL THE 'NEWS' WIRES & CAPITALIST 'NEWS' MEDIA
Terror exercise contract reviewed for ethics issue (not satire}
TOPOFF is a congressionally mandated exercise intended to test the response of local, state and federal agencies across the country. Private businesses and other countries have participated in the past exercises as well. The first of these biennial exercises was in 2000. It has become more expensive over the years, as new capabilities have been added to the exercise — such as a fake news network. Federal officials are investigating whether millions of dollars are being steered improperly toward a government contractor to run the country's largest counterterrorism exercise. The Federal Emergency Management Agency would not say how much the TOPOFF 5 contract is worth. The last exercise cost about $25 million. The contract for TOPOFF 5 has not been awarded. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hZ7iAxwf5E5jfqgaCIBlaVVUyvGgD91VOS581

Robert Gates warns of unilateral strikes on Pakistan:
The United States has warned that it can conduct unilateral strikes inside Pakistan if it [Pakistan] does not take measures to stop Taliban activities, Aaj TV reported on Thursday.
http://tinyurl.com/5ksexf http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008\07\18\story_18-7-2008_pg1_5

India Awaits Green Light for Raids on Pakistan
By Usman Khalid
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21536.htm
December 26, 2008
The Pentagon has announced that the US would withdraw troops from Iraq to reinforce Afghanistan sending one brigade soon after the New Year and another three in spring 2009. This has the approval of President Elect Barack Obama. It is believed that the objective is a ‘surge’ in Afghanistan on the lines General Petreus had in Iraq. But President Hamid Karazai would like the additional troops to supplement the clandestine operations by RAW (India’a CIA) on Pakistan’s border. It now appears that President Zardari of Pakistan is just as eager for India and America to shift focus to his country. His reason: he wants the ISI and the Army to be tamed. It seems that Pakistan has the reincarnation of the Sheikh Mujib as a leader. And it was Mujibs’s treachery that precipitated the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war and Pakistan’s defeat.

The grim anniversary of the fall of Dhaka on 16 December 1971 is commemorated every year in Pakistan but this year it had more poignancy than ever before. Pakistan appears to be living through similar trauma all over again. The war clouds gather after ‘free and fair’ elections. In 1971, an indicted RAW Agent – Sheikh Mujib – secured the most seats in Pakistan’s parliament. Despite having contested the elections on the basis of Six Points that sought to make Pakistan a confederation, President Yahya Khan decided to honour the verdict of the people. He met Sheikh Mujib in Dhaka and asked him to assume the office of the Prime Minister. Sheikh Mujib accepted the offer and the press were briefed accordingly. Three days later, he informed the President that he had to decline the offer under pressure from his party colleagues. Now we know (from the chapter written by Dr Mu’min Chowdhury of Bangladesh in ‘Authentic Voices of South Asia’) why? Sheikh Mujib had asked for confirmation directly from India Prime Minster Indira Gandhi that India would invade East Pakistan if he made UDI – Unilateral Declaration of Independence. When he met President Yahya Khan, that confirmation had not been received. When he got the confirmation he declined the offer to become the Prime Minister and preferred to become a prisoner instead. That shows the dilemma of traitors. Once Sheikh Mujib agreed to work for RAW, he was a pawn; he had to do the bidding of his agent handlers. A maverick like him was more valuable in a Pakistani jail to give substance to the propaganda that Pakistanis would never transfer power to a Bengali as Prime Minister. The fact that most of the Prime Ministers of united Pakistan belonged to East Pakistan did not matter. Propaganda is more credible than the truth in the hands of the disciples of Kautaliya.

Pakistan had another elections on 18 February 2008 in the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. No one was surprised that her party won the most seats; sympathy vote was very substantial. But there had been disquiet over Asif Ali Zardari – her husband with dubious record who has been known as ‘Mr Ten Percent’ – assuming the leadership of her party on the basis of a ‘will’, which remains shrouded in secrecy. But the bold forthrightness showed by him in controlling the outrage on Benazir’s assassination and the riots, arson and plunder in Sindh that followed, he built a broad constituency of trust in himself. Everybody in Pakistan was pleasantly surprised when he set up a broad based coalition government with his archrival – Nawaz Sharif. He outmanoeuvred Pervez Musharraf and displayed impressive political skill in getting him to resign. However, his support has waned very fast because he went back on written undertaking to reinstate the Chief Justice Musharraf had removed. He is the victim of the Sheikh Mujib syndrome. Mujib could be prime minister of Pakistan but he chose to be a prisoner. He did become the President of Bangladesh only to be assassinated by his own soldiers who saw the truth – he was an Indian agent. Asif Zardari must be pinching himself every morning wondering if he was the President of Pakistan. But agent handlers are not known to be kind and merciful; their business is blackmail; they keep their agents on a tight leash. They want Asif Ali Zardari to deliver; the time is running out fast.

For some more time a debate will continue whether Asif Zardari is an Indian agent or not but the penny has dropped with the vote in the UN Sanctions Committee that declared some of the Pakistani NGOs to be the supporters of the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. It has now come out that he did ask the Pakistan’s representatives at the UN to get the ‘terrorist’ label put on some very respected names among Islamic NGOs. It has also come out that he did not consult Pakistan’s Foreign Office or use the diplomatic channels. He acted through co-conspirators – Hussain Haqqani and Hussain Haroon - Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US and the UN respectively. He has thus given a handle to India and America to interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan. The USA and India would want progress reports and mobilise international support to condemn and isolate Pakistan as a ‘terrorist’ state and a ‘failed state’ to make the country an international pariah.

Asif Zardari (AZ) may be naive but he is no fool. He has help from India and the US to focus the ire of the international community on the ISI and the armed forces of Pakistan. America wants ‘full spectrum dominance’ over the world and Zardari (and co-conspirators) are telling them that the only institutions that stand in their way in South Asia are Pakistan’s intelligence and the armed forces. India and America are already working with him to make the armed power of the state of Pakistan to be directed against the Afghan and Kashmiri resistance. If they find the military leadership un-cooperative, AZ would turn on them. AZ tell his party that he seeks to end the military defying him on the pretext of ‘professional advice’ not because of Indian or American pressure, not because of lack of sympathy for the Kashmiri liberation struggle, but to establish the primacy of politicians for all times to come.

AZ wants to establish ‘full spectrum domination’ of his party over all the institutions of the state of Pakistan with the help of India and America under the cover of ‘war on terror’. He has already got his way over all the political parties, the judiciary and the civil service; the only resistance comes indirectly from those fighting the occupation in Kashmir and Afghanistan. India, America and Asif Zardari have a meeting of minds. They all see the resistance (in Afghanistan and Kashmir) as the enemy. If they could get the armed forces of Pakistan to fight the resistance in Kashmir and Afghanistan , both the challengers to ‘full spectrum domination’ (of America over the world and of AZ over Pakistan) would be mortally wounded in fighting each other. AZ hopes that the armed forces would have so little public adulation and support that they would never stand in the way of the political class whatever its wills, wants or does.

It appears that the narrative for AZ war against the ISI and the armed forces of Pakistan is being written by Hussain Haqqani with the help of his former colleagues in US think tanks. Haqqani is the author of ‘Military and the Mosque’. In that book he identifies both the Mosque and the Military as the scourge that destabilise the region and the world, meaning that they pose a challenge to Indo-US hegemony. He earned a professorship in the USA for that thesis and ambassadorship to the USA from AZ for the same. No wonder that the new direction of foreign policy in Pakistan has the signature of Hussain Haqqani all over. He is not hopeful that the military would take on the mosque; in his narrative of AZ’s war, Haqqani depends on India and America against the military and the mosque. Not since the Communist engineered the defeat of the Czarist Army in order to bring about the Bolshevik Revolution, has a national political party sought to engineer the defeat of its national army. But the Communist Party was not in power at that time. The AZ led PPP would be the first ruling political party any where in the world ever that enlisted the support of the enemy to weaken the foundation of its armed power – its nuclear deterrent as well as its intelligence and the armed forces.
All this would fit nicely into the scheme of President Elect Obama’a guru – Professor Brzezinski...

U.S. Draws India Into The Afghan "War"
The time has come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago.
M.K. Bhadrakumar
December 25, 2008 "The Hindu" --- The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States armed forces, Admiral Mike Mullen, has lent his voice to the incipient idea of a “regional” approach to the Afghanistan problem. He said the over-arching strategy for success in Afghanistan must be regional in focus and include not just Afghanistan but also Pakistan and India. The three South Asian countries, he stressed, must figure a way to reduce tensions among them, which involves addressing &# 8220;long-standing problems that increase instability in the region.”
Adm. Mullen then referred to Kashmir as one such problem to underline that if India-Pakistan tensions decreased, it “allowed the Pakistani leadership to focus on the west [border with Afghanistan].” He regretted that the terror attack in Mumbai raised India-Pakistan tensions, and “in the near term, that might force the Pakistani leadership to lose interest in the west,” apart from the likelihood of a nuclear flashpoint. Interestingly, he gave credit to the Pakistani top brass for its recent cooperation in the tribal areas which, he said, has had a “positive impact” on the anti-Taliban operations.
The Pentagon’s number one soldier has legitimised an idea that was straining to be born — U.S. mediatory mission in South Asia. Adm. Mullen announced that the U.S. was doubling its force level in Afghanistan from the present strength of 32,000 troops. The Afghan war is about to intensify. All this comes in the wake of the recent hint by Senator John Kerry that the appointment of a U.S. special envoy for South Asia by the Obama administration is on the cards.
The time has indeed come to carefully assess the U.S. motivations in widening the gyre of the Afghan war, which commenced seven years ago as a vengeful hunt for Osama bin Laden and metamorphosed into a “war on terror.” What is in it for India? It is very obvious that the U.S. thought process on a “regional approach” to the Afghan problem and the appointment of a South Asia envoy go hand in hand. The U.S. design confronts India with a three-fold challenge: it insists that India is a protagonist in the U.S.-led war; India-Pakistan relationship is a crucial factor of regional security and stability which directly affects the U.S. interests and, therefore, necessitates an institutionalised American mediatory role; and, it asserts a U.S. obligation to be involved in “nation-building” in South Asia on a long-term footing.
Vulnerable to U.S. pressure
What is to be done? First, we need to realise that the Afghan war is a classic Clausewitzean affair politics by other means. The U.S. has ensured a permanent presence in the strategic highlands of the Pamir mountains. Even the current highly simulated disruption of transit routes for NATO supplies via the Pakistani territory is providing a pretext for the establishment of fresh U.S. military presence in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and in the Caucasus for the first time ever. While the U.S.’ close partnership with the Pakistani military continues intact, the search for new supply routes becomes the perfect backdrop for ruthlessly expanding American influence in the Russian and Chinese (and Iranian) backyards in Central Asia and the Caucasus.

This signifies a great leap forward for NATO, which is poised to wade ashore from the Black Sea into the Caucasus and Central Asia. Also, the U.S. is effectively undercutting the raison d’etre of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In short, the “war on terror” is providing a convenient rubric under which the U.S. is incrementally securing for itself a permanent abode in the highlands of the Pamirs, the Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus that form the strategic hub overlooking Russia, China, India and Iran.
We must, therefore, be vigilant about the veiled U.S. threat of reopening the “Kashmir file,” which Admiral Mullen held out. It aims at keeping India off balance. Plainly put, the U.S. faces a real geopolitical challenge in the region only in the eventuality of a coalition of like-minded regional powers like Russia, China, Iran and India taking shape and these powers seriously beginning to exchange notes on what the Afghan war has so far been about and where it is heading and what the U.S. strategy aims at. So far, the U.S. has succeeded in stalling such a process by “sorting out” these regional powers individually. Indeed, Washington has been a net beneficiary of the contradictions in the mutual relations between these regional powers...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21532.htm

Playing with Fire in Pakistan
Talha Mujaddidi in Pakistan. Axis of Logic exclusive
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_29145.shtml
The reports that emerge from Western think tanks on Pakistan are one-sided and reflective of U.S Foreign Policy rather than independent analysis. ..

Pakistan became a frontline ally of U.S after 9/11... Vast majority of the Pakistani public just like the majority of the Muslim world views U.S war on terror as a War against Islam....Muslim world does not see any justification for U.S troops to be stationed in almost all of the Middle East with few exceptions like Iran, and Syria. Secondly... lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction has proved to be a fatal blow for U.S image in the Muslim world. The common man on the street views U.S as an aggressor nation and compares U.S military adventurism in the Middle East with Imperial history of United Kingdom, and other European Nations...

Pakistan is a country with 180 million people, nuclear weapons, and half million army. Pakistani population is turning against the Pakistani government seen as a spokesman of Washington D.C. To give readers some idea of how the Pakistani population looks at this Zardari government I will quote some slogans and jargons that are used by the public in Pakistan. This government of President Zardari which the U.S is supporting just like they supported Ngo Dinh in South Vietnam is called "sellout to the CIA", "mouth piece of the U.S", "slaves of the Yankees", and the harshest of all the slogans "Traitors". This is the opinion of the common man on the streets of Pakistan against the current government... The U.S plans to neutralize Pakistan, as it has done so before with other countries.... U.S plans to disband ISI, cut down Pakistan army, and break Pakistan into smaller parts... Lt. Col Ralph Peters, in a 2006 article of Armed Forces Journal... argues that redrawing the map of Middle East is a must in order to control the strategic locations and assets of Middle East and Central Asia....
U.S is used to dealing with one dictator after another. First it was Musharraf, a military dictator who was in power obliging to U.S demands, now its Zardari, a civilian dictator who is trying his best to out flank Musharraf in serving U.S interest.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=49870

PAKISTAN'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS UNDER U.S. CONTROL : STRATFOR REPORT
11/20/07
Pakistan's nuclear weapons are already under American control In a stunning disclosure...the a well-regarded intelligence journal Stratfor reported that the "United States delivered a very clear ultimatum to Musharraf in the wake of 9/11: Unless Pakistan allowed US forces to take control of Pakistani nuclear facilities, the United States would be left with no choice but to destroy those facilities, possibly with India's help." ...
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/The_United_States/Pak_nukes_alr...

Pakistan: FBI rules the roost
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Oct 4, 2003
September 11, 2001... saw Pakistan throw in its lot with the US. This entailed ...opening its air bases to the US military for operations in Afghanistan...It also allowed US intelligence to establish a finger-hold in the country, which the FBI has now turned into a vice-like grip through an ever-expanding network that has infiltrated, to various degrees, Pakistan's armed forces, the police and intelligence agencies... The FBI initially kept a low profile, working mostly at the direction of the all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan's premier intelligence outfit and effectively the architect and orchestrator of Pakistan's strategic policies.Now, however, the FBI works autonomously, with its own separate organizational setup... "After September 11, 2001, we were given instructions to work along with FBI operators. Initially they were given a room in the ISI's operations office. They used to give commands to us, and we had to obey them. For instance, once they asked us to send a packet somewhere. We packed it and informed them that the parcel was ready. They unpacked the parcel and asked an ISI employee to repack it in front of them. This is the way the FBI operators showed their domination over the ISI staff. At first they asked us to coordinate in operations. Later on they were given a separate place of work, then they cultivated local police officers, and several times they did not bother to inform the ISI about their operations."... Some military experts take a dim view of this. One told Asia Times Online that having army units trained by a foreign intelligence apparatus was like handing over the keys of the country to another nation ...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EJ04Df04.html

Pakistan Moves Forces as Tensions With India Rise
published 12/26
Indian and American intelligence officials have blamed the Mumbai attacks on a Pakistani militant group that has long had ties to the Pakistan intelligence service. But Pakistani leaders reject that argument, saying they have been shown no evidence proving who carried out the attacks. The troop movements away from northwestern Pakistan may also deepen concerns among American officials about Pakistan’s commitment to battling Taliban militants in the country’s lawless western frontier regions.... If the Pakistani troops are being sent toward the Indian border, the action is in sharp contrast to efforts earlier this month to cool hostilities between the two countries, which have fought three wars since 1947.
Two weeks ago, for example, Pakistani officials went out of their way to play down as “inadvertent” two incursions of Indian warplanes into Pakistani airspace. Their response to the airspace violations — which the Indian military denied — won praise from United States leaders even as Pakistani officials privately said the incursions were likely a test or provocation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/asia/27pstan.html?hp

note: U.S. propaganda correction
Pakistan Said to Cancel Troop Leave
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan has started to redeploy thousands of troops to the Indian border from the tribal areas near Afghanistan, intelligence officials said Friday, raising tensions in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks. The move was expected to frustrate the United States, which has been pushing Pakistan to step up its fight against al-Qaida and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.... An Associated Press reporter in Dera Ismail Khan, a district that borders Pakistan's militant-infested South Waziristan tribal area, said he saw around 25 trucks loaded with soldiers and equipment heading away from the Afghan border Friday...The White House said it was discussing the reported troop movements with U.S. embassies in the region and was urging both countries to cooperate in investigating the attacks and fighting terrorism....
(This version CORRECTS that Pakistani intelligence officials say the military has begun to move 20,000 troops, rather than that they are already on the move, and that an AP reporter saw 25 trucks rather than about 40.)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2008/12/26/world/AP-AS-Pakistan.html 12:34pm

BRIBES BEYOND BULLETS: SOFT POWER
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at an international policy dinner of the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign, a coalition of businesses, non-governmental organizations and community leaders that support international affairs programs." ... "We cannot kill or capture our way to victory," Gates said, adding that military operations should support measures that promote economic and political growth. That effort, he said, must be coordinated with the U.N., NATO, other nations and agencies such as United States Agency for International Development...the U.S. may not be toppling a regime and rebuilding a nation, but there will be a need to help countries that are struggling with insurgents, failed governments or natural disasters. The most persistent threats, he said, will come from failing states that can't meet the basic needs of their people.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-gates,0,171... http://tinyurl.com/5akkrw

Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan
December 26, 2008
The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift. Four blue pills. Viagra.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/25/AR200812...

Cultural domination has been an underappreciated facet of American global power.... As the imitation of American ways gradually pervades the world, it creates a more congenial setting for the exercise of the indirect and seemingly consensual American hegemony. And as in the case of the domestic American system, that hegemony involves a complex structure of interlocking institutions and procedures, designed to generate consensus and obscure asymmetries in power and influence.
Zbigniew Brzezinski

'Disneyland In Iraq': Multi-Million Dollar Entertainment Park Coming To Baghdad
Mr Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing The Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the same firm that developed Disneyland....An "Iraq government" spokesman is equally excited about the entertainment park (from Times Online)... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=43346

Iraqi Christians mark first official Christmas
BAGHDAD -- Iraq's Christians, a scant minority in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, quietly celebrated Christmas on Thursday with a present from the government, which declared it an official holiday for the first time.
AP

Christmas as Cultural Genocide
By Dr. June Terpstra
The Baghdad Christmas celebration includes a large poster of Jesus.
 
This mornings headlines in the U.S.A. are touting the official public celebration (meaning paid for by the USA/CIA) of Christmas in Baghdad.  This marks yet another nail in the coffin of Iraqi culture and this is exactly how cultural genocide works.  Flying a garish hot air balloon in the Baghdad sky with a picture of the white man’s Jesus on his bogus birthday; manufacturing the depression and suicide that comes with the unnecessary consumption of crap which families cannot afford; and paying Santas to prance in the streets of Baghdad tempting children with desires which only benefit the invader is not merely offensive to Iraqis and Muslims everywhere but part of the ongoing cultural genocide campaign that comes with imperialism and colonialism.  
The proof, as American and African histories demonstrate, is in the proverbial Christmas pudding.  With every crusade come the priest, preacher, and missionary whose church pimps him and her out with bibles paid for by the corporation for which it stands.  With an assumption of racial, ethnic, religious and intellectual superiority and entitlement comes the imperialist assets-- the preacher, teacher, social worker, and culture manager.   They insist everyone speaks English; they change the children’s names from Mohammed to Joe and Fatima to Mary; they sneer and disrespect all aspects of ancient and sacred traditions; they spit on the Quran while giving you their bible.

Today's imperialist scribes are already revising the Iraqi history books with lies about the superiority of the occupier and the inferiority of the occupied.  The children are taught to be humiliated and debilitated with hate for themselves and their people.  They are  programmed to turn against each other in the "divide and conquer' strategy that works time and again for the invader. Nothing is easier to control than a group of sheep convinced that they are each and every one of them, a wolf for the other. In other words, Sunnis fearing Shiites, Muslims fearing Christians, women fearing men, the poor fearing the rich, the “legal” fearing the “illegal” and on and on it goes. The triumphs of cultural genocide will be evident when the people exist obsessed with individualism, property and consumption as the way to respond to their grief, despair and fear....

Begun by the European imperialist and perfected by the American imperialist, a pervasive social construction, a set of positions in the global structure is being put in place. This cultural imperialism is so structured as to have negative ramifications for every sphere of Arab Muslim life---juridical standing, moral status, personal racial and ethnic identity, epistemic reliability, existential plight, political inclusion, social metaphysics, sexual relations, and aesthetic worth.  For those assigned the category of Arab and Muslim the socialization one receives, the life world in which one moves, the experiences one has, and the view one develops is based on an anthropology, and an ethic of the master “race” which is Judeo-Christian.

American Christian and Zionist expansionism solidifies the global social reality of the critical conceptual division being between "Judeo-Christian Euro-American" and "Muslim Arab"...
The rules of the imperialist game of cultural genocide are foundational to occupation and are designed primarily to transmit advantage and disadvantage across generations of the occupiers over the occupied.  Social control is maintained by the invader through domination in the economic, political and cultural arenas.  These men and their few select women will be chosen from groups which promote the illusion that positions of power come through merit and everyone will have a chance at becoming rich and powerful, like Obama! [...]

Dr. June Terpstra
Faculty
Justice Studies
Northeastern Ilinois University
 http://juneterpstra.com

Coal Ash Spill Is Much Larger Than Initially Estimated
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/us/27sludge.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
A coal ash spill that blanketed residential neighborhoods and contaminated nearby rivers in Roane County, Tenn., earlier this week is more than three times larger than initially estimated, the Tennessee Valley Authority said on Thursday.Coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal, contains toxic heavy metals that can cause cancer and neurological problems.
Authority officials initially said that about 1.7 million cubic yards of wet coal ash had spilled when the earthen retaining wall of an ash pond breached, but on Thursday they released the results of an aerial survey that showed the actual amount was 5.4 million cubic yards, or enough to flood more than 3,000 acres one foot deep. The amount now said to have been spilled is larger than the amount the Authority initially said was in the pond, 2.6 million cubic yards...
The spill occurred at the Kingston Fossil Plant, one of the authority’s largest electrical generating sites, located on the banks of the Emory River about 40 miles west of Knoxville. The ash ponds were separated from the river only by earthen walls. Environmentalists have long argued that coal ash, which can contaminate groundwater and poison aquatic environments, should be stored in lined landfills. But hundreds of plants around the country, most located near rivers that supply the water they need to operate, have similar ponds and mounds of coal ash on site.

...300 million gallons. acres of glossy sea of sludge 4-6 feet thick, dotted with icebergs of ash...
Coal Ash Spill Revives Issue of Its Hazards
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html?em
KINGSTON, Tenn. — What may be the nation’s largest spill of coal ash lay thick and largely untouched over hundreds of acres of land and waterways Wednesday after a dam broke this week, as officials and environmentalists argued over its potential toxicity. The spill took place at the Kingston Fossil Plant, a Tennessee Valley Authority generating plant about 40 miles west of Knoxville on the banks of the Emory River, which feeds into the Clinch River, and then the Tennessee River just downstream.

Federal studies have long shown coal ash to contain significant quantities of heavy metals like arsenic, lead... can cause cancer and neurological problems. But with no official word on the dangers of the sludge in Tennessee, displaced residents spent Christmas Eve worried about their health and their property, and wondering what to do... Holly Schean, a waitress whose home she shared with her parents was swept off its foundation when millions of cubic yards of ash breached a retaining wall early Monday [Dec. 22, news report 12/25] morning... The T.V.A., Ms. Schean said, has not yet declared the house uninhabitable....she said: “I don’t need your apologies. I need information.”...

Angela Spurgeon, a teacher and mother of two whose dock was smothered in the ash-slide, said she was worried about the health effects, saying that on the night of the accident everyone was covered in sludge....

Even as the authority played down the risks, the spill reignited a debate over whether the federal government should regulate coal ash as a hazardous material. Similar ponds and mounds of ash exist at hundreds of coal plants around the nation.

The Tennessee Valley Authority has issued no warnings about the potential chemical dangers of the spill, saying there was as yet no evidence of toxic substances... Gilbert Francis Jr., a spokesman for the authority. “It does have some heavy metals within it, but it’s not toxic or anything.” Mr. Francis said contaminants in water samples taken near the spill site and at the intake for the town of Kingston, six miles downstream, were within acceptable levels.... Despite numerous reports from recreational anglers and television news video of a large fish kill downstream of the spill, Mr. Francis said the T.V.A.’s environmental team had not encountered any dead fish. On Swan Pond Road, home to the residences nearest the plant, a group of environmental advocates went door to door telling residents that boiling their water, as officials had suggested, would not remove heavy metals...

But a draft report last year by the federal Environmental Protection Agency found that fly ash, a byproduct of the burning of coal to produce electricity, does contain significant amounts of carcinogens and retains the heavy metal present in coal in far higher concentrations. The report found that the concentrations of arsenic to which people might be exposed through drinking water contaminated by fly ash could increase cancer risks several hundredfold. Similarly, a 2006 study by the federally chartered National Research Council found that these coal-burning byproducts “often contain a mixture of metals and other constituents in sufficient quantities that they may pose public health and environmental concerns if improperly managed.” The study said “risks to human health and ecosystems” might occur when these contaminants entered drinking water supplies or surface water bodies.

In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed stricter federal controls of coal ash, but backed away in the face of fierce opposition from utilities, the coal industry, and Clinton administration officials. At the time, the Edison Electric Institute, an association of power utilities, estimated that the industry would have to spend up to $5 billion in additional cleanup costs if the substance were declared hazardous. Since then, environmentalists have urged tighter federal standards, and the E.P.A. is reconsidering its decision not to classify the waste as hazardous.

A morning flight over the disaster area showed some cleanup activity along a road and the railroad tracks that take coal to the facility, both heaped in sludge, but no evidence of promised skimmers or barricades on the water to prevent the ash from sliding downstream. The breach occurred when an earthen dike, the only thing separating millions of cubic yards of ash from the river, gave way, releasing a glossy sea of muck, four to six feet thick, dotted with icebergs of ash across the landscape... The spill, which released about 300 million gallons of sludge and water, is far larger than the other two similar disasters...

United States coal plants produce 129 million tons of postcombustion byproducts a year, the second-largest waste stream in the country, after municipal solid waste. That is enough to fill more than a million railroad coal cars, according to the National Research Council.... 2007 E.P.A. report said that over about a decade, 67 towns in 26 states had their groundwater contaminated by heavy metals from such dumps.

Stephen A. Smith, the executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said it was “mind-boggling” that officials had not warned nearby residents of the dangers. “The fact they have not warned people, I think, is disastrous and potentially harmful to the residents,” Mr. Smith said. “There are people walking around, checking it out.” He and other environmentalists warned that another danger would arise when the muck dried out and became airborne and breathable....
Environmentalists point to the accident as proof of their long-held assertion that there is no such thing as “clean coal"...

The Change We Need | Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan... Develop and Deploy Clean Coal Technology. ...
www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/ VIDEO

As a U.S. Senator, Obama has worked tirelessly to. ensure that clean coal technology becomes commercialized. An Obama administration will ...
www.barackobama.com/pdf/factsheet_energy_speech_080308.pdf

Obama yields to greener side
June 13, 2007
“Senator Obama supports research into all technologies to help solve our climate change and energy dependence problems, including shifting our energy use to renewable fuels and investing in technology that could make coal a clean-burning source of energy,” the e-mail said. “However, unless and until this technology is perfected, Senator Obama will not support the development of any coal-to-liquid fuels unless they emit at least 20% less life-cycle carbon than conventional fuels.” Obama’s aides described the statement as a “clarification,” distributed to correct what they said were false media reports describing the senator’s views on the issue...
Luke Popovich, a spokesman for the National Mining Assn. said the industry had been impressed by Obama’s “willingness to take a stand that’s unpopular with some of his party’s constituents.” He called the senator’s new statement the result of a “jihad” waged by some environmentalists against the coal industry....
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/jun/13/nation/na-energypol13

Obama, in New Stand, Proposes Use of Oil Reserve
Senator Barack Obama altered his position on Monday to call for tapping the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower gasoline prices as he outlined an energy plan that contrasts with Senator John McCain’s greater emphasis on expanded offshore drilling and coal and nuclear technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/05/us/politics/05campaign.html?ref=politi...

Does Obama Want to Bankrupt Coal?
Nov 5, 2008 ... Rather than trying to destroy the coal industry, Ward says Obama’s position is a “conservative, business-minded approach ...
www.coalinvestingnews.com/112-does-obama-want-to-bankrupt-coal.html

CLEAN COAL: THE MYTH ENDS TODAY
by Hank Green
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/667/
29 May 2007
For the last few years energy independence and the green movement have almost become synonymous. But coal...supported by Barack Obama and myriad congressional Democrats... threatens to break down that synergy.
The technology to convert coal to liquid fuel has existed since the 1920s. If congress were to mandate and fund its implementation America would begin to slowly gain energy independence, Peabody Coal's net worth would increase tenfold to roughly $3.6 trillion, the Appalachian Mountains would be destroyed and U.S. carbon emissions would double. This is a bad idea. Unfortunately, there's a bill working through congress right now that would give coal companies billions of dollars to help them build coal-to-liquid plants. It would guarantee coal companies government contracts, including a $40-billion, 25-year deal with the air force. Peabody coal is literally fighting for trillions of dollars here....