"...At the very moment when I believe we can see, through the myths, the end of capitalism, as we have seen the death of the investment banks as we knew them, they are dead. They are zombies. All that might mean in terms of how long capitalism will maintain its edifice, at that very moment we get a Barack Obama. Such a clever man. Such an attractive candidate. And who appears to be an answer to African Americans’ historical dreams, then he arrives at this very juncture when the crack in capitalism is so evident, and as a result of his arrival, neutralizes the most consistently progressive group of citizens in the United States, Black America, without whose activism there cannot be a viable progressive movement in the United States. In other words, at precisely the moment in history when we should be running as progressives, running through that crack in the wall of capitalism, we have been neutralized, and certainly we on the Black side, and put to sleep by this singularly attractive, clever, and I think ultimately, dangerous, president.?
Glen Ford, executive editor Black Agenda Report, interview http://www.malcomlagauche.com/id1.html
Seven Years in Iraq The War is Not Over
By John Ross
March 12, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- The day we human shields rolled into Baghdad in February 2003, 12,000,000 protestors were pounding the pavement all over the world in a global tidal wave of protest aimed at stopping the criminal U.S. invasion of Iraq before it began and for once I entertained a sliver of hope that we would be heard. Fat chance. Bush dismissed the rest of the planet as a "focus group" and proceeded to eviscerate the cradle of civilization.... caused the death of a million Iraqis not to mention 5000 of his own troops (20,000 wounded), destroyed the nation's infrastructure, forced 4,000,000 citizens into internal and external exile, embezzled $2,000,000,000,000 from the taxpaying public to finance these war crimes, and doled out billions to his corrupt cronies and the cronies of his cronies in lucrative contracts to perpetuate this egregious slaughter - and now here was Obama calling this butcher to advise him of his plans.... Seven years later nearly to the day, his successor showed up at Camp Lejeune North Carolina for a presidential photo op before 10,000 marines ready to storm the next Halls of Montezuma (Afghanistan) to frame his mendacious declaration of an end to the U.S. invasion of that ravaged country. Before he delivered the goods, Barack Obama felt obligated to dial up Bush at his Texas ranch and apprise him of the speech....Indeed, Obama congratulated the killer marines for having completed their mission "with honor." ... The first step in this charade of false closure is Obama's drawdown. The next is to make the citizens of the occupying power forget Iraq ever happened - a brainwashing that has been in process since the "success" of Bush's "surge." One problem though: how do you brainwash the brain dead? [...]... http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22197.htm
Exxon aims for big role in Iraq's oil sector
"I hope Iraq creates the conditions that will allow a company like Exxon Mobil to be a participant in a significant way," Chief Executive Rex Tillerson told Reuters in an interview ahead of an energy conference in Qatar. "That's the dialogue we are having with them to make them understand what conditions will be necessary for us... to take risk with our capital and have the opportunity to be successful over the long term."Iraq is drawing up the contract terms for a bidding round for six giant fields, which together hold more than a third of its reserves. The country has sweetened the terms for deals on offer but international oil firms remain concerned they will be taking on huge risk for little reward. Tillerson pointed to Qatar as an investment model that attracts international oil companies. Exxon is the largest foreign investor in the Gulf Arab state and projects due to start there make up the bulk of the company's global production growth in 2009. www.uruknet.info?p=52534 www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52812L20090309
US staying the course for Big Oil in Iraq
By Pepe Escobar
Dec. 14, 2006
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL14Ak03.html
It is now clearer than ever before that the blueprint for Iraq from the very start was to deliberately allow the country to descend into chaos and encourage Muslim to kill Muslim as the Neo-Con juggernaut of ethnic cleansing roars on to steamroll its next victim.//In brief, the Iraq "civil war" essentially started on February 22, 2006 with the bombing of the Askariya mosque in Samarra which was done in an American-controlled city under American auspices. Witnesses reporting military movement around the mosque during a dusk-to-dawn curfew. The bombing required extensive drilling in stone pillars and was done by demolition experts. The SCIRI death squads operating mainly in Baghdad were trained by US agents. This is the "Salvadoran Option" mentioned by Cheney in his debate with Edwards. From Asia Times: The Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group [P20G] implemented by the Pentagon is regarded by Sunnis and quite a few Shi'ites as being the mastermind of...of the car bombings, assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings and attacks on mosques fueling the "civil war". The "Salvador option" has developed into the "Iraqification option". US-trained death squads in Iraq are not much different from the death squads in El Salvador during the 1980s - subordinated to the same "divide and rule" tactics. This is the "civil war" dirty secret: let the Arabs kill one another with the US posing as "victims"....
1,311,696 Iraqi Slaughtered in U.S. Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
Iraqi shoe-thrower sentenced to three years for 'assault' on Bush
An Iraqi reporter acclaimed as a hero across much of the Middle East after he threw his shoes at President Bush was sentenced in Baghdad to three years in prison yesterday. "What I did was a natural response to the occupation," said Muntadhar al-Zaidi to the three-judge panel. As the sentence was read out he shouted "Long live Iraq" ...he had suddenly decided to throw his shoes when he saw Mr Bush smile during the press conference because it made him think of "the killing of more than a million Iraqis, the disrespect for the sanctity of the mosques and houses, and the rapes of women." Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who was sitting beside Mr Bush at the press conference and tried to intercept one of the shoes midflight, described the incident as "barbaric". The judge Abdulamir Hassan al-Rubaie declared Mr Bush's visit official, and said Mr Zaidi was liable to a sentence of up to 15 years in prison. On hearing the verdict his sister Ruqaiya burst into tears and shouted: "Down with Maliki, the agent of the Americans." ...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraqi-shoethrower-se...
U.S. Halted Some Raids in Afghanistan
The commander of a secretive branch of America’s Special Operations forces last month ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower are jeopardizing broader goals there. The halt lasted about two weeks after a series of nighttime raids by Special Operations troops in recent months killed women and children, and months of mounting outrage in Afghanistan about civilians killed in air and ground strikes... Military officials said the halt was ordered in part to allow American commanders time to impose new safeguards intended to reduce the risk of civilian deaths. They said it was also intended to help the military release information about civilian casualties more quickly, to pre-empt what some said have been exaggerated accounts by Afghan officials... General McKiernan’s two-page directive followed American military operations last year that left dozens of civilians dead. In perhaps the most notable case, American airstrikes on Aug. 22 in a village in western Afghanistan killed far more civilians than American commanders initially acknowledged. A military investigator’s report found that more than 30 civilians, not 5 to 7 as the military had long insisted, had died in the airstrikes against what was believed to be a Taliban compound in Azizabad. The strikes were in support of allied ground forces, including American Special Operations forces. The Afghan government insisted that 90 civilians died in the raid, and never fully accepted the American military’s revised death toll...
The order covered all commando missions except those against the highest-ranking leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, military officials said. American commanders in Afghanistan rely on the commando units to carry out the most delicate operations against militant leaders, and the missions of the Army’s Delta Force and classified Navy Seals units are never publicly acknowledged. But the units sometimes carry out dozens of operations each week, so any decision to halt their missions is a sign of how worried military officials are that the fallout from civilian casualties is putting in peril the overall American mission in Afghanistan, including effort to drain the Taliban of popular support.... The rising civilian death toll in Afghanistan has soured relations between American commanders and the Afghan government led by President Hamid Karzai, who has vocally criticized the raids. The stand-down began in mid-February, and the raids have since resumed. It is unclear, though, whether the Special Operations missions are being carried out with the same frequency as before the halt. As President Obama sends thousands more troops to the war-ravaged country, some officials worry that each civilian death may only drive Afghans toward the Taliban and other militant groups. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/10/world/asia/10terror.html?_r=1&hp=&page...
democrat senators theater: setting public opinion stage for U.S. plans already underway
U.S.: Taliban operate freely from Quetta
The central nervous system for the next major terrorist attack on US soil lies in Pakistan, say senior US officials and lawmakers. Pakistan came under immense pressure at a US Senate hearing as both officials and senators accused Islamabad of allowing terrorists to use its soil for planning attacks on the United States...‘A government is losing authority in the north and the west and even in the more developed parts of the country mounting economic hardships and frustration over poor governance have given rise to greater radicalization,’ said Admiral Blair.... http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/w...
Obama Afghan Plan Focuses on Pakistan Aid and Appeal to Militants
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/washington/13policy.html?ref=world
The emerging outlines of President Obama’s plan for Afghanistan include proposals to shift more American efforts toward problems in neighboring Pakistan and to seek some kind of political reconciliation with the vast majority of insurgents in the region, according to administration officials.... After seven years of a United States-led war effort in Afghanistan, officials involved in the review say that the military to date has succeeded primarily in driving the most hard-core Taliban and other extremist militants out of Afghanistan and into western Pakistan, including the mountainous tribal areas and the city of Quetta. To put more pressure on those Pakistani sanctuaries, United States and Pakistani officials said they expected the plan to recommend at least a continuation of what amounts to a covert war carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, using drone aircraft for missile strikes on insurgent hide-outs. The plan will also call for an increase in military and financial aid to Pakistan... how exactly the Afghan government and the United States will pry away those insurgents remained unclear. Whatever is decided must be presented by the Afghan government, Mr. Biden said... before leaving the Senate for the White House, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden sponsored legislation to triple nonmilitary aid to Pakistan over the next five years, to $1.5 billion a year....Beyond the Pakistan aid proposal, there is agreement that the Afghan National Army, which has proved to be an effective force for internal security and has earned popular respect, should be expanded — but no decision has been made on its ultimate size, according to senior Pentagon officials.. It is not clear whether the Obama administration intends to extend the secret authorizations signed last summer by President George W. Bush that allow American commandos to carry out limited raids inside Pakistan....
U.S. Eyes Iran for Resupply of Afghan Forces
By RICHARD SALE (Middle East Times Intelligence Correspondent)
The administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is mulling a plan that would use Iranian territory to rescue the deteriorating logistics network currently used to supply U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, administration officials said. As first reported by the Iranian media, William Perry, secretary of defense under former U.S. President Bill Clinton and a high-level group of non-proliferation specialists held four meetings with Iranian diplomats in The Hague and Vienna last year to discuss the matter...
"It's a mess," said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro... With Obama recently planning to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan, the U.S.-NATO forces will require some 3,500 tons of fuel and 250 tons of water per day, U.S. officials said. The pressing urgency of the need was made worse when the government of Kyrgyzstan recently denied the United States the use of its vast base at Manas to backstop the air war and help with resupply. Russia offered railway routes to send in materiel, but loads were restricted to non-lethal goods... In addition, trains traveling from Russia to Afghanistan via the Russia-Kazakhstan-Uzbekistan route would be charged "extortionate customs and transit fees," amounting to $300 to $500 per ton, the costs of which could rise far higher if the administration beefs up its military activities. In addition, the goods from Russia have to be shipped by road into the battle areas located in the middle and south of the country. U.S. officials said the supplies would probably use the Soviet-built Salang Tunnel which was under constant attack by the Afghan mujahedin during the 1980s war.
It is hardly a surprise the Obama administration would turn to Iran since the best and shortest highway networks run between Tehran and Kabul... In spite of all the squaring off between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program, Iran has its own strategic interests in Afghanistan and is unremittingly hostile to the Taliban and al-Qaida. Both countries exchanged intelligence on both groups during the 2001 war, Cannistraro said.
Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezezinski agreed, saying Thursday at a Senate hearing that Iran and the United States had engaged in bilateral dialogue on Afghanistan back in 2001. "We had a rather constructive relationship ... regarding the Taliban issue in Afghanistan," he said.
A former CIA official said that what Iran is looking for is "a quid pro quo" – an end to the covert activities set afoot by the defunct George W. Bush administration. These included a plan to set off a small electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) explosion near key Iranian nuclear sites that would fry the electronic grids essential to the operation of the program. Using Iran as a base for U.S.-NATO resupply may already apply to more than "non-strategic goods." Although diesel fuel for allied forces is brought in from Pakistan, one U.S. intelligence source said that some 10,000 tons of jet fuel per month is already entering Afghanistan via Iran.
www.uruknet.info?p=5252 www.metimes.com/Politics/2009/03/09/us_eyes_iran_for_resupply_of_afghan_...
U.S. Strike Kills 24 in Pakistan
Missiles thought to have been fired from U.S. aircraft struck a Taliban camp in northwestern Pakistan, according to a local official and news reports... Nine other people were wounded in the strike at around 9:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., directed at a training camp some 20 miles from Parachinar, the capital of the remote tribal area where 31 people were killed in a similar attack on Feb. 16... The attacks on Mr. Mehsud’s camps over the past month represent an expansion by the Obama administration of the covert war run by the Central Intelligence Agency, carried out largely by remotely piloted aircraft.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/world/asia/14drone.html?ref=world
(not satire)
American Envoys Try to Defuse a Political Crisis in Pakistan
The Obama administration apparently fears rising tensions between the politicians could further derail Pakistan’s efforts to quell a growing insurgency by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/world/asia/13pstan.html?ref=world
OBAMA EXTENDS IRAN SANCTIONS
Citing a continued "unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security," President Obama on Thursday extended sanctions against Iran for one year in a public notice.
http://snipurl.com/drogn
AHMADINEJAD DUBS SANCTIONS 'CHILDISH'
"You take your decisions and we do our work, since knowingly or unknowingly you have opened our nation's path to progress, and you are too small to block our path," he said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090313/wl_mideast_afp/usiransanctionsobama
forbidden voices...
Iran's president blames West for economic crisis
AP, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/irans-president-blam...
Iran's president blamed the West today for the global economic meltdown, saying capitalism had failed and US efforts to bail out companies was proof of its collapse... During today's summit, Ahmadinejad called for a new global economic system based on respecting human rights. He did not provide details. He also called for greater regional economic integration and urged member states to begin discussing the establishment of a single currency and a bank that would promote trade. The Economic Cooperation Organisation includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraqi-shoethrower-se...
KCNA Brands U.S. as World's Worst Human Rights Abuser
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
Pyongyang, March 11 (KCNA) -- The United States is not entitled to talk about human rights as it is the world's worst human rights abuser...Those in authority in the U.S. are talking about "freedom", "equality" and "democracy" but in fact, the political and socio-cultural rights of the overwhelming majority of working masses are institutionally violated and stamped out. As for election, it strictly serves the rich only. Outwardly, the U.S. professes "freedom" of speech, demonstration and assembly but the reality is quite contrary. Even the trade unions are denied their rights. The corruption of cultural life is institutionally fostered, thus leaving a great number of people degenerated and hopeless and pushing them to committing crimes.
The U.S. tops the world list of violators abusing human rights...Racial discrimination is getting more serious with each passing day there...The U.S. administration has not yet endorsed the "Convention on the Rights of the Child" nor admitted such rights as growth and education of children and ban on child labor. The same holds true for infringement upon women's rights....
The U.S. violates rights of other countries as it pleases. After the "September 11 incident" it escalated wars of aggression against several countries under the pretext of "war on terrorism" while savagely infringing upon human rights in different parts of the world...Terrorist outrages sponsored by the U.S. against state leaders and democratic figures of various countries are a vivid expression of human rights abuses. The number of assassination and terrorist operations conducted by the U.S. against prominent statesmen and VIPs of governments in various countries reached as many as more than 900 in the period from 1961 to 1976. All the facts go to clearly prove that the U.S. is, indeed, a kingpin of human rights abuses. The U.S. had better address its own human rights issue before conducting human rights campaign on the international arena.
The Korean Central News Agency is the state-run agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. News is transmitted to other countries in English, Russian, and Spanish.
STATE TERRORISM UNABLE TO BUY OR KILL PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE
About $900 million pledged by the United States to the Palestinians will be withdrawn if the expected Palestinian Authority coalition government between Fatah and Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist, Western and Israeli diplomats said. http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22195.htm
surprise!
Obama won't cut military aid to Israel
$30 billion in aid promised to Israel will not be harmed by the world financial crisis, U.S. official told Israel Radio.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1070318.html
cipher comes through again to prove that all who agree are 'terrorists'
Bin Laden: Gaza offensive was a 'holocaust'
CAIRO -- Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden called Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip a "holocaust" and lashed out at Arab governments that he said failed to stop the bloodshed in an audio recording broadcast Saturday. The terror leader again urged Muslims to fight Israel. A spokesman for Al-Jazeera refused to say how the network obtained the recording... It was not possible to verify the message's authenticity.
u.s. makes it politically-economically-militarily possible
Israel-Palestine Conflict 101: Taking Off The Blinders In The U.S.
A.M. Khan
Now that Israel’s bombardment of Gaza is off the front page and the Gazans are left to deal with the aftermath outside of world media attention, it makes sense to step back and review how the Israel-Palestine conflict is depicted in U.S. mainstream media. This depiction shapes how the U.S. public views the recent events in Gaza. It also shapes how the public understands what constitutes a just resolution to the conflict. The nature of U.S. mainst ream media coverage of events in Gaza and of the Israel-Palestine conflict renders Americans grossly misinformed. U.S. media representations are largely absent of historical context and omit the fact that for decades Israel has committed human rights violations against the Palestinian people and occupied their land... What holds all this in place and allows it to continue is that Israel has the multibillion dollar per year financial support and diplomatic cover of the most powerful nation in history, the United States. The U.S. has agreed to provide Israel with $30 billion dollars in military aid over the next 10 years and has provided billions upon billions of dollars in aid to Israel in the past. For decades, Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid and receives one-third of the total U.S. foreign aid budget. The U.S., a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, has also vetoed each and every resolution put forward by the United Nations in response to Israel’s multiple violations of international law. In each of the U.N. votes on these resolutions against Israeli government actions, year after year, the U.S. and Israel (and a few small Pacific Island nations) stand alone against the rest of the international community in siding with Israel against international law and world opinion. we foot the bill to the tune of $8 million a day in aid to Israel. All of us who pay U.S. income taxes funded the recent atrocities in Gaza. We paid to drop white phosphorus on civilians. We paid to level homes, clinics, and schools. We paid to kill children and whole families as they slept in their beds. We are complicit in the bloodbath in Gaza. We are complicit in children starving to death laying next to their dead mothers buried in rubble as the International Red Cross documented in Gaza. We fund acts of state terror in which people watch their beloved daughter, son, father, mother be literally torn apart. We pay for a military machine that maims, kills, and holds captive an unarmed civilian population of men, women, and children, enclosing them in prison-like cantons within the West Bank and Gaza. For decades, we have been paying for the slow annihilation of a society and people... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=52597
INDIA
OVER A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEASANTS PROTEST MARCH THROUGH CALCUTTA
More than a hundred thousand peasants under the banner of All India Krishak and Khet Mazdoor Sangathan (All India Peasants and Agricultural Labourers Organization) from all over the state of West Bengal in India congregated in the city of Calcutta and marched with a charter of demands. They were voicing their protest against the anti-peasant policies of the Central and State Governments who are uprooting the peasants from fertile agricultural lands and handing them over to national and foreign capitalists as SEZs for setting up industries and for real estate business. Last year, in spite of the atrocities unleashed by the state machinery and ruling party cadres, determined and militant peasants struggle could stave off the
forcible acquisition of peasants land at Nandigram and the setting up of a small-car factory at Singur. Never before has the city witnessed such a massive peasant rally. The starved and oppressed peasants but with determination writ on the faces marched through the streets throwing a challenge to the so-called 'Left Front' Government led by the Communist party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)): "Either meet our demands or shoot us down".... (1) stop black marketing and supply at a fair price seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc. to the peasants, (2) withdraw tax on diesel and supply free electric power to farmers with less than 3 acres of land, (3) ensure fair price for the agricultural produce, e.g., rice, potatoes, jute, (4) supply essential commodities at fair price, (5) stop police atrocities on the poor peasants and the tribal people, (6) stop investment of foreign capital and national monopoly capital in retail trade, (7) conserve and protect agricultural lands, (8) protect the rural people from the ravages of draught, flood, river erosion, (9) introduce free medical care and education for the rural poor, (10) stop trafficking of women. The peasants initially planned to stage an indefinite sit-down in the central square of the city till their demands are met, but the CPI(M) conspired to make the police ban such an assembly, and this part of the programme had to be cancelled. The march ended with a huge public meeting where leading intellectuals of the state and political
leaders from the Socialist Unity Centre of India came to express solidarity with the peasants' struggle. The speakers said that the CPI(M) has forfeited the right to be called a Communist or Marxist party and the true banner of communism and socialism was held up by the fighting peasants. The militant peasants pledged to carry on their fight against the anti-people policies of the Government till victory is achieved. Samir Sikdar, Office Secretary, AIAIF, Kolkata marxistfront@yahoo.co.in
Obama the Executor for the improved, expanded aggression planned: propaganda pretends it's all 'new' and 'defensive'
With Two Wars, U.S. Begins to Rethink an Old Doctrine
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/washington/15military.html?hp
WASHINGTON — The protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are forcing the Obama administration to rethink what for more than two decades has been a central premise of American strategy: that the nation need only prepare to fight two major wars at a time. For more than six years now, the United States has in fact been fighting two wars, with more than 170,000 troops now deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The military has openly acknowledged that the wars have left troops and equipment severely strained, and has said that it would be difficult to carry out any kind of significant operation elsewhere. To some extent, fears have faded that the United States may actually have to fight, say, Russia and North Korea, or China and Iran, at the same time. But if Iraq and Afghanistan were never formidable foes in conventional terms, they have already tied up the American military for a period longer than World War II.
A senior Defense Department official involved in a strategy review now under way said the Pentagon was absorbing the lesson that the kinds of counterinsurgency campaigns likely to be part of some future wars would require more staying power than in past conflicts, like the first Iraq war in 1991 or the invasions of Grenada and Panama. In an interview with National Public Radio last week, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made it clear that the Pentagon was beginning to reconsider whether the old two-wars assumption “makes any sense in the 21st century” as a guide to planning, budgeting and weapons-buying.
The discussion is being prompted by a top-to-bottom strategy review that the Pentagon conducts every four years, as required by Congress and officially called the Quadrennial Defense Review. One question on the table for Pentagon planners is whether there is a way to reshape the armed forces to provide for more flexibility in tackling a wide range of conflicts. Among other questions are the extent to which planning for conflicts should focus primarily on counterinsurgency wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what focus remains on well-equipped conventional adversaries like China and Iran...
Thomas Donnelly, a defense policy expert with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said he believed that the Obama administration would be seeking to come up with “a multiwar, multioperation, multifront, walk-and-chew-gum construct.” “We have to do many things simultaneously if our goal is to remain the ultimate guarantor of international security,” Mr. Donnelly said. “The hedge against a rising China requires a very different kind of force than fighting an irregular war in Afghanistan or invading Iraq or building partnership capacity in Africa.” But Mr. Donnelly cautioned that the review now under way faced a familiar challenge. “If there has been one consistent thread through all previous defense reviews,” he said, “it is that once the review is done, there is an almost immediate gap between reality and force planning. Reality always exceeds force planning.”...
IMPERIALIST WAR: AN AMERIKAN TRADITION
Deaths In Other Nations Since WW II Due To Us Interventions
By James A. Lucas
24 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org
This study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths during the Korean and Vietnam Wars and the two Iraq Wars. The Korean War also includes Chinese deaths while the Vietnam War also includes fatalities in Cambodia and Laos.
The American public probably is not aware of these numbers and knows even less about the proxy wars for which the United States is also responsible. In the latter wars there were between nine and 14 million deaths in Afghanistan, Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Guatemala, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sudan.
But the victims are not just from big nations or one part of the world. The remaining deaths were in smaller ones which constitute over half the total number of nations. Virtually all parts of the world have been the target of U.S. intervention.
The overall conclusion reached is that the United States has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world. To the families and friends of these victims it makes little difference whether the causes were U.S. military action, proxy military forces, the provision of U.S. military supplies or advisors, or other ways, such as economic pressures applied by our nation...
An accurate count of the number of deaths is not easy to achieve, and this collection of data was undertaken with full realization of this fact. These estimates will probably be revised later either upward or downward by the reader and the author. But undoubtedly the total will remain in the millions.
37 VICTIM NATIONS (plus good sources)....
The author can be contacted at jlucas511@woh.rr.com
http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm
NYT pimps thinktank marching orders for u.s. Global Domination National Security Strategy: influential thinktanks including:
Council on Foreign Relations (www.cfr.org), Brookings Institution (www.brookings.edu) , Cato Institute (www.cato.org), American Enterprise Institute (www.aei.org), Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org), Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org), Center for Strategic and International Studies (www.csis.org), American Diplomacy (http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/), Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org), and Center for Defense Information (www.cdi.org)
1/28/9 from Heritage Foundation:
Quadrennial Defense Review: Building Blocks for National Defense
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/bg2234.cfm
...Ultimately, the QDR's findings must be derived from the fiscal policy and National Security Strategy of the new Administration. These essential policy instruments should be used to set the stage for the QDR's delivery. The review itself should define the essential programmatic building blocks of the overall defense structure and dictate that adequate resources will be devoted to maintaining and, where necessary, creating these building blocks. If done correctly, the QDR can put in place a defense structure that meets U.S. national security needs and that has the resources to sustain itself... The Quadrennial Defense Review will be one of the first major defense strategies generated under the Obama Administration, and this seminal document will guide the military's strategic planning. President Barack Obama should first seek to establish a buffer between the budget process and defense policy to prevent the budget process from driving defense policy. At the outset, the Administration should announce that it will carry over the Bush Administration's defense policies and budgets for an interim period. The explicit message would be that U.S. defense policy and budget changes will be the product of the pending National Security Strategy and subsequent QDR. Specifically, the new Administration should announce that the defense budget plan of the Bush Administration for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2009, including anticipated supplemental appropriations, will remain in place. Next, the new leadership should announce that the President's budget requests for FY 2010 through FY 2014 should be considered placeholders until the QDR is completed, when the Administration can frame a coherent defense plan for the coming years... While military power will trump economic power in the short term, economic power will trump military power in the longer term...Congress should ensure that the new assessment goes back to the basics... to achieve sound national security planning with significant buy-in from Capitol Hill.
Global Stability and U.S. National Security
America's interests span the world, and its military has global reach and responsibilities. The U.S. military's primary purpose is to deter attacks on and to defend the homeland. When required, America's military must fight and win wars to protect U.S. security interests. Success requires a military capable of defeating traditional threats posed by nation-states, transnational threats from terrorist organizations and organized crime, and dangers from collapsed states, such as piracy. The United States cannot arbitrarily pick the enemies that it wants to fight or ignore potential threats that may become challenges or conflicts.
Employing military power involves successful direct action as well as engagement and the presence of U.S. forces abroad. It is everything from a show of force to power projection, including training indigenous military elements. U.S. forces also protect America's friends and allies and bolster their military capabilities. The U.S. maintains a substantial deterrent force on the Korean peninsula, has overseen Japanese security for the past half-century, and upholds security guarantees to Taiwan. Similarly, in the Middle East, the U.S. military presence contained the expansive ambitions of Saddam Hussein, decapitated the belligerent governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, conducted nation-building to put these two countries on the path toward modernity, ensured continued access to affordable petroleum for itself and the global economy, committed to the protection of Saudi Arabia, and balanced against the unpredictable actions of Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.
Further, America's nuclear weapons and missile defenses not only deter against and protect the country from attack, but also alleviate the concerns of U.S. allies so that they do not need to develop their own potentially destabilizing strategic arsenals. In addition, America's military does more than fight. Because U.S. economic growth is connected to the stability and prosperity of the global economy, the U.S. uses its naval capabilities to protect sea trade, thereby ensuring all maritime assets may transit freely and safely. Eighty percent of international trade and 67 percent of petroleum is transported by sea. One-quarter of global trade passes through the Strait of Malacca alone, and one-third of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is derived from trade.
Additionally, when humanitarian disaster strikes, a strong military enables policymakers to commit America's unique and vast resources to assist countries in need, such as after the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean and the devastating earthquake in Pakistan in 2005....
Because of the relentless demands of the budget calendar, the new Administration needs to set the stage for proper delivery of the QDR by creating a buffer between the demands of the budget calendar and the strategy policy process. Further, to become an enduring strategy for years to come, the QDR must serve the broader purposes of the National Security Strategy. Therefore, both the initial budget decisions and the conduct of the National Security Strategy should precede the QDR....
the U.S. military must plan its forces around a grand strategy and hedge with specific capabilities to meet any future requirements. These core capabilities--many of which the military possesses today--should be the mainstays of strategic planning. They include:
Protecting and defending the U.S. and its allies against attack,
Air dominance,
Maritime control,
Space control,
Counterterrorism,
Counterinsurgency,
The ability to seize and control territory against organized ground forces,
Projecting power to distant regions, and
Information dominance throughout cyberspace.
No Administration can ignore the annual budget calendar, and the Obama Administration will undoubtedly invest much time and effort in the budget process. President Barack Obama should first seek to establish a buffer between the budget process and defense policy to prevent the budget process from driving defense policy. At the outset, the Administration should announce that it will carry over the Bush Administration's defense policies and budgets for an interim period. The explicit message would be that U.S. defense policy and budget changes will be the product of the pending National Security Strategy and subsequent QDR. Specifically, the new Administration should announce that the defense budget plan of the Bush Administration for the remainder of fiscal year (FY) 2009, including anticipated supplemental appropriations, will remain in place. Next, the new leadership should announce that the President's budget requests for FY 2010 through FY 2014 should be considered placeholders until the QDR is completed, when the Administration can frame a coherent defense plan for the coming years. [...]
new admin. get it bigger, better and right this time...
1/15/04 Principles for Next QDR:
http://www.heritage.org/Research/NationalSecurity/em954.cfm
...The war on terrorism should influence--but not drive--long-term decision making. The armed forces must be prepared for many 21st century missions, and the war on terrorism is just one mission. One risk of conducting long-term analysis during a conflict is that the conflict could disproportionately influence the analytical conclusions. While the war on terrorism should influence the QDR, it should not drive the review. The war on terrorism indicates the types of capabilities that the U.S. may need in the future, but it alone does not define what those capabilities should be. The next QDR should be about building a force that is relevant for the next half century, not about finishing a war that has already begun. Although it is unclear who or what may threaten the United States during the next 50 years, the U.S. will clearly need a very flexible force that can take on any number of diverse threats....
The Quadrennial Defense Review is meant as a long-term analysis of the nation's defense requirements. This is precisely the sort of guidance that is now needed to advance the Pentagon's stated transformation agenda. Transformation is not about the war on terrorism, peacekeeping in the Balkans, or any other current operation. It is about the force that the United States should have in 20 years. By following the principles stated above, the QDR can provide that guidance.[...]
NOT ON YOUR NIGHTLY 'NEWS': perfect state terrorist mercenary gunfodder
U.S. recruiting misfits for army: Felons, racists, gang members fill the ranks
Nick Turse
[T]he Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, found that because of pressing manpower concerns, "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" are now serving in the military. "Recruiters are knowingly allowing neo-Nazis and white supremacists to join the armed forces, and commanders don't remove them from the military even after we positively identify them as extremists or gang members," said Scott Barfield, a Defense Department investigator quoted in the report.
The New York Times noted that the neo-Nazi magazine Resistance is actually recruiting for the U.S. military, urging "skinheads to join the Army and insist on being assigned to light infantry units." As the magazine explained, "The coming race war and the ethnic cleansing to follow will be very much an infantryman's war. ... It will be house-to-house ... until your town or city is cleared and the alien races are driven into the countryside where they can be hunted down and 'cleansed.' " Apparently, the recruiting push has worked. Barfield reported that he and other investigators have identified a network of neo-Nazi active-duty Army and Marine personnel spread across five military installations in five states. "They're communicating with each other about weapons, about recruiting, about keeping their identities secret, about organizing within the military," he said.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/1...
FBI gang investigator Jennifer Simon said in an e-mail to Stars and Stripes this week that gang members have been documented on or near U.S. military bases in Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Iraq. “It’s no secret that gang members are prevalent in the armed forces, including internationally,” Simon said, adding that the FBI is preparing to release a report on gangs in the military....Gang-related activity in the military is highly underreported, the Army is the only branch of the military that collects gang-related statistics...“It’s often in the military’s best interest to keep these incidents quiet, given low recruitment numbers and recent negative publicity. The relaxation of recruiting standards, recruiter misconduct and the military’s lack of enforcement (gang membership is not prohibited in the Army) have compounded the problem and allowed gang member presence in the military to proliferate”... http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=41005&archive=tru...
pretext for new state terror against immigrant Somalis
Domestic terror threat growing, Senate committee warns
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/11/terrorism.recruitment/index.html
http://www.legitgov.org/
There is an increasing threat of homegrown terror stemming from segments of a deeply isolated and alienated Somali-American community, a U.S. Senate committee hearing concluded Wednesday. The hearing, conducted by the Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee, focused on the attempted recruitment of young Somali-American men by al-Shabaab, "a violent and brutal extremist (Somali) group" with significant ties to al Qaeda according to the U.S. State Department.
FBI TERRORIST WATCH LIST HIT A MILLION LAST JULY
There is no legal restriction on who can be placed on the watch list, nor is there presently any legal right to have your name removed from the list once it appears. According to a 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office, an individual may be nominated to the list if they are subject to an ongoing counterterrorism investigation, or if the individual is the subject of a preliminary investigation "to determine if they have links to terrorism." The second category potentially includes the entire population of world... The agency argued that the 1 million entries represent "only" 400,000 unique individuals, with the balance consisting of duplications due to misspellings, variant spellings and conflicting demographic information...
The FBI statement to USA Today confirms, eight months later, the estimate made public by the American Civil Liberties Union, which calculated, based on previous TSA figures about the growth rate of the watch list, that the total had reached the 1 million mark in July 2008... While Obama took office claiming his government would do away with some of the worst features of the Bush administration's assault on civil liberties, there has been no presidential directive to reform, let alone eliminate, such abominations... Instead, the executive branch is moving ahead with even more draconian information-gathering on travelers, under the new Secure Flight program, devised under Bush but being implemented under Obama. Under Secure Flight, the TSA, not the airlines, will check passenger names against watch lists, and only passengers cleared by the TSA will be given boarding passes.
Passengers will be required to supply considerably more personal data, including their birth date and sex, at the time they book their seats, and this data must exactly match their personal ID presented at the time they check in. That requirement takes effect soon on domestic flights and by late 2009 on international ones. The TSA will thus gain access to the personal information on all airline passengers, some 2 million people each day. Officially, this information can be retained for no more than seven days, but there is no way to enforce that provision. Federal authorities now claim that more information must be collected to avoid the repetition of "mistakes" like the identification of well-known public figures like Senator Kennedy and Congressman Lewis as potential terrorist threats. In other words, they are using the absurdities of the previous "anti-terror" efforts to justify even more reactionary and anti-democratic measures. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/mar2009/watc-m12.shtml
FBI Can't Find Records 66% of the Time (Rest of Government Averages 13%)
"The FBI knowingly uses a search process that doesn't find relevant records," commented Tom Blanton, the director of the Archive. "Not only does this woeful performance lead to unnecessary litigation, but the Bureau apparently uses the same searches in its criminal investigations as well."
For more information contact the National Security Archive staff:
Thomas Blanton, Kristin Adair
202/994-7000
http://www.nsarchive.org
CIA responds to Seymour Hersh
By Eric Black
http://www.legitgov.org/
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/12/7344/the_cia_responds_t...
Seymour Hersh, Tues., at U of M, included a description of a story he is working on that "the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state...."
http://www.minnpost.com/ericblackblog/2009/03/11/7310/investigative_repo...
CIA spokester George Little emailed me: "I saw your story on Seymour Hersh’s recent allegations regarding CIA activities since 9/11. If you wish, you can attribute the quoted portion that follows to me, in name, as a CIA spokesman: 'This is utter nonsense.' "
sleazy semantic switch -- same fascist terror
U.S. Won’t Label Terror Suspects ‘Combatants’
The Obama administration said Friday that it would abandon the Bush administration’s term “enemy combatant” as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies....But in a much anticipated court filing, the Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration.
The filing, in Federal District Court in Washington, was meant to provide a definition of those detainees who can be held and bitterly disappointed critics of Guantánamo, who said it seemed to continue the policies they have criticized for more than seven years. It was the latest example of the Obama administration’s taking ownership of Guantánamo, even after having announced it would close the prison, where 241 men remain.“This seems fundamentally consistent with the positions of the prior administration,” said Steven A. Engel, who was a senior lawyer responsible for detainee issues in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel until the final day of the Bush administration. Mr. Engel added that the term “enemy combatant” was not the issue. “The important point is that they recognize that we can detain members of the enemy” during a war, he said.
The filing, which was made in some 40 habeas corpus cases of detainees’ challenging their imprisonment, is expected to be the government’s position in more than 200 such cases and to govern a separate review of all cases outside of court that has been ordered by President Obama...some critics of Guantánamo said that Friday’s filing fitted a pattern of recent moves by the administration that seemed intended to undercut continued criticism of Guantánamo but did not make significant changes in detention policy... that after Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. visited the detention camp last month, he proclaimed it “well run.”... they had been stung as well by a Pentagon report commissioned by the new administration that said... the detention camp on the naval base at Guantánamo Bay meets the humane-treatment requirements of the Geneva conventions. Ramzi Kassem, a detainees’ lawyer who teaches at Yale Law School, said Friday that the new administration had yet to deal effectively either with efforts to release many of the detainees or to improve the conditions at the camp....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/politics/14gitmo.html?_r=1&th&emc=t...
Another Treasury nominee bites the dust
George Stephanopoulos is reporting that H. Rodgin Cohen, a prominent banking industry lawyer, has "withdrawn from consideration" for the post of Deputy Treasury Secretary.
Cohen isn't just a prominent banking lawyer -- he is the banking lawyer, the chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm entangled with every major player on Wall Street. As a Wall Street Journal profile noted last October, "Over the past five weeks alone, Mr. Cohen and his team have advised Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Wachovia, Barclays PLC, American International Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in a blitz of mergers, rescues and cash infusions. Not only does he know the landscape, he helped create the landscape: 'Mr. Cohen is also in demand because he helped mold the financial system that is now under assault. He helped draft the rules that led to the emergence of powerful national banks, waged the first hostile bank takeover in the U.S. and lobbied, in the early 1990s, to expand the Federal Reserve's power to provide the emergency loans now being employed by the government.' http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2009/03/12/rodgin_cohen/index.html?source...
'hopeful' obama ostriches complicit saving this killer system
A.I.G. to Pay $100 Million in Bonuses After Huge Bailout
Bailed out with more than $170 billion from the Treasury and Federal Reserve, the American International Group is preparing to pay about $100 million in bonuses to executives in the same business unit that brought the company to the brink of collapse last year. http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na
'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND' AGENDA EXPANDED & FUNDED
The federal No Child Left Behind Act links every school’s financing and its teachers’ jobs to student performance on standardized tests.
Obama Outlines Plan for Education Overhaul
...he hoped to double financing for charter schools eventually, another campaign promise, and that the Department of Education would help create “new, high-quality charter schools” while supporting the closing of those guilty of “chronic underperformance.” He called on states to impose tougher curriculum standards, and in an echo of language often used by President George W. Bush, he chided states that he said were “low-balling expectations for our kids.” Saying he would “cultivate a new culture of accountability in America’s schools,” Mr. Obama said states and school districts should weed out bad teachers.... he also pledged to pursue programs that would provide more incentives and support for teachers and indicated he would back a program in up to 150 school districts that would reward teachers “with more money for improved student achievement.”
leaving no agents of higher education behind
Minerva Unveiled: Pentagon Invites Applicants for Social-Science Grants
http://chronicle.com/news/article/4688/minerva-unveiled-pentagon-invites...
Mr. Gates offered warm and conciliatory words for academe, calling it “this pillar of American society.” He said his remarks had been shaped by his stint as president of Texas A&M University from 2002 to 2006... the United States “must return to the acceptance of eggheads and ideas if it is to meet the Russian challenge.” The same is true today, Mr. Gates said, if America is to confront new threats...Two months after the secretary of defense, Robert M. Gates, publicly sketched a new university-based program to support defense-oriented social science, the Pentagon has made the concept official. In a new announcement, the Department of Defense has invited universities to apply for grants to study topics including terrorist ideologies, the Chinese military, cultural change in the Islamic world, and the records of Saddam Hussein’s regime... many academics are wary of closer ties to the military. Mr. Gates acknowledged that fact while defending the Human Terrain System, a controversial effort under which anthropologists have advised combat units in war zones.
[Is Pentagon's Minerva Program related to German–Israel Minerva Program 2008, http://lists.bgu.ac.il/pipermail/phys-board/2008/000958.html ?]
Roche Agrees to Buy Genentech for $46.8 Billion
The deal represents the third major pharmaceutical combination this year. On Monday, Merck, an American drug giant, said it would pay $41 billion to acquire Schering-Plough. In January, Pfizer, the world’s biggest drug maker, bid $68 billion for Wyeth. Thursday, Gilead Sciences said it would buy CV Therapeutics of Palo Alto, Calif., for $20 a share, or $1.4 billion, gaining the rights to drugs for cardiovascular diseases. Gilead topped a hostile offer of $16 a share, or $1 billion, made by Astellas Pharma, a Japanese pharmaceutical company.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/business/worldbusiness/13drugs.html?pa...
terrorist hamburger-helper coming up
Ex-New York Health Commissioner Is F.D.A. Pick
Each year, about 76 million people in the United States are sickened by contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized and about 5,000 die, public health experts estimate.
The Obama administration’s 2010 budget will propose spending more than $1 billion on food-safety efforts, nearly double the amount spent in 2007. The money will pay for increased inspections, domestic surveillance, laboratory capacity and illness prevention efforts. The F.D.A. has estimated that inspecting all 150,000 domestic food facilities once every four years would cost $1.9 billion annually. Inspecting the 216,000 foreign food plants registered with the F.D.A. would cost far more...
President Obama intends to nominate Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner, to lead the Food and Drug Administration, sidestepping a battle between drug safety advocates and the drug industry, according to people briefed on the decision.She left New York in 1997 to become assistant secretary for planning and evaluation at the Department of Health and Human Services, where she created a bioterrorism initiative and led planning for pandemic flu response. That background makes her a more obvious candidate to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than the F.D.A.... the Obama administration considered experts more steeped in the kind of drug safety issues that the food and drug agency confronts daily, including Dr. Steven E. Nissen, a cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic, and Dr. Robert M. Califf, a cardiologist from Duke University. But Dr. Nissen and Dr. Califf would have been divisive candidates, with rival supporting camps. Dr. Hamburg’s selection avoids the usual debate between industry and consumer advocates. “She has the personal skills to collaborate with the pharmaceutical industry and the science community in a way that isn’t confrontational,” said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/us/politics/12hamburg.html?hp
VILE LIBERAL PATERNALISM APPROVES IMPERIALIST SLUMDOGS' MILLIONAIRE EXPLOITATION - PROPAGANDA
Did Slumdog Millionaire Exploit its Slum-Dwelling Child Actors?
— By Josh Harkinson |February 23, 2009
Their parents seem to think so. The mother of Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail—the 10-year-old who plays the lead character's brother, Salim, in the Oscar-sweeping film—still lives lives with her son in a hovel made of tarps and blankets in Mumbai's Behrampada shanty, where rats roam and sewage runs untreated. "He's supposed to be the hero in the movie, but look how he's living," she told Australia's Herald Sun...
And then there's the movie's other slum star: Rubina Ali, 9, who plays the young version of Latika, the film's heroine, lives nearby. Her shack is brightly coloured but an open sewer runs close by. Her father, Rafiq Ali Kureshi, a carpenter, broke his leg during filming and has been out of work since....
But British director Danny Boyle says he's trying to be smart about how he pays the child actors: They said they paid painstaking attention to how Azharuddin and Rubina's involvement in the film could be of lasting benefit over and above the payment for their work. The children have been enrolled in school since last June at the production company's expense until they are 18. Azharuddin and Rubina will receive a lump sum when they finish their education, and Boyle said money was in place to cover health care and emergencies. They decided not to shower the children with cash because they could not handle it psychologically and practically. For the most part, Boyle's approach sounds wise. But in addition, why not give the parents just enough money to move out of the slums into a half-decent apartment somewhere? They certainly deserve it now that the film has grossed $155 million....
http://www.motherjones.com/riff/2009/02/did-slumdog-millionaire-exploit-...
white supremacists not 'terrorists' ...
Man pleads guilty to illegal cache of weapon
A 65-year-old Spokane man pleaded guilty Thursday to having an arsenal of illegal military weapons and explosives in a Bellevue storage unit. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives arrested Ronald Struve in January after his cache of weapons -- which included dozens of machine guns and blocks of C-4 plastic explosives...agents found crates of firearms, munitions and high explosives, including 54 40 mm M406 grenades, silencers, flares, CS gas grenades, 41 pounds of gunpowder and blasting caps. Agents tracked Struve to Spokane, where he was arrested Jan. 6 and returned to Seattle. Struve pleaded guilty Thursday to five felony counts, including possession of plastic explosives, a North Vietnamese machine gun, a silencer, a grenade and a grenade launcher. Federal prosecutors said much of the arsenal had been stolen from the military. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Woods declined to say what motive Struve had for collecting the weapons other than to note that Struve had said "he might have to use it some day. Under terms of a plea agreement, Struve faces a sentence of 63 to 78 months in a federal prison.http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/403337_grenade13.html
Madoff to appeal bail, billions of net worth revealed
The District Court erroneously failed to release Mr. Madoff because the evidence clearly shows that Mr. Madoff is not a flight risk and does not pose a threat to the community," a court document said. It said Madoff does not have the means to flee... lawyers argued Madoff needs to be released so he could contribute to resolving a dispute over restitution and/or forfeiture.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52C57L20090313?pageNu...
capitalist culture does its duty distracting, depoliticicizing dumb sheep
Tabloid TV turns lens on barons of bailout It could be called "To Catch a Rich Guy."
