"What we cannot do is let pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals. We cannot rid Iraq of all who oppose America or sympathize with our adversaries ..."
Obama
THE U.S. INVASION & OCCUPATION OF IRAQ:
THE WORLD’S BIGGEST LIES AND THE DISASTROUS RESULTS
by Jeff Archer
More than six years after an invasion that the experts said would take only a few weeks, Iraq is in turmoil. Sectarian differences are the rule and there is no program to stop these actions that once were unheard of in Iraq. One thing is sure, the occupation did not go according to U.S. plans and the Iraqis have not been the only recipients of violence. An Iraqi resistance comprised of various factions is strong enough to keep the U.S. hands tied in Iraq for years. Only when the occupation forces totally leave Iraq will there be a solution to the internal affairs of the country.
One person’s assessment of what would occur after an invasion was very precise, however. Mohammed Sahaff, the Iraqi Information Minister, aka "Baghdad Bob," told the world:
Do not be hasty because your disappointments will be huge. You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat. We will embroil them, confuse them and keep them in the quagmire. They cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them. They are the ones who will find themselves under siege.
http://malcomlagauche.com/id1.html
imperialist sovereignty
New deal for Blackwater
Days after the Baghdad government decided it no longer wanted the company then known as Blackwater -- since renamed Xe -- in Iraq, the State Department signed a $22.2 million deal in February to keep the embattled contractor working there through most of the summer, contract records show... longer than suggested publicly, raising questions why the U.S. would pay a contractor for work in Iraq if it may not be able to operate there legally... Xe was aware the State Department had indicated that it did not plan to renew its contracts in Iraq but Xe officials had not received specific information about leaving the country. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/new-deal-for-blackwater-buck...
Gates Carries Over Iraq-WMD Lie
Melvin A. Goodman
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Gates to be Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), but he was denied confirmation because a majority of members on the Senate Intelligence Committee believed he was lying about his knowledge and role in the Iran-Contra Affair. Iran-Contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh "found insufficient evidence to warrant charging Robert Gates with a crime," but he concluded that Gates had been "less than candid" about his knowledge of Oliver North’s illegal support for the Contras and the illegal diversion of funds from Iranian arms sales. In 1991, after being re-nominated by then-President George H.W. Bush, Gates survived the confirmation process to become DCI despite the opposition of more than 30 senators who also found Gates less than candid in discussing his role in the politicization of intelligence on the Soviet Union, Central America and Southwest Asia...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=52676
"It is possible that the decisions about covert actions will never be publicly announced."
U.S. Weighs Taliban Strike Into Pakistan
By DAVID E. SANGER and ERIC SCHMITT
President Obama and his advisers are considering expanding the war in Pakistan beyond the tribal areas to strike at a different center of Taliban power.... Mr. Obama’s advisers are also urging him to sustain orders issued last summer by President George W. Bush to continue Predator drone attacks against a wider range of targets in the tribal areas. They also are recommending preserving the option to conduct cross-border ground actions, using C.I.A. and Special Operations commandos, as was done in September. Mr. Bush’s orders also named as targets a wide variety of insurgents seeking to topple Pakistan’s government. Mr. Obama has said little in public about how broadly he wants to pursue those groups.A spokesman for the National Security Council, Mike Hammer, declined to provide details, saying, “We’re still working hard to finalize the review on Afghanistan and Pakistan that the president requested.”... expansion of the war is bound to upset those in Mr. Obama’s party who worry that he is sinking further into a lengthy conflict in Afghanistan, even while reducing forces in Iraq. It is possible that the decisions about covert actions will never be publicly announced.
The extensive missile strikes being carried out by Central Intelligence Agency-operated drones have until now been limited to the tribal areas, and have never been extended into Baluchistan, a sprawling province that is under the authority of the central government, and which abuts the parts of southern Afghanistan where recent fighting has been the fiercest. Fear remains within the American government that extending the raids would worsen tensions. Pakistan complains that the strikes violate its sovereignty... Missile strikes or American commando raids in the city of Quetta or the teeming Afghan settlements and refugee camps around the city and near the Afghan border would carry high risks of civilian casualties, American officials acknowledge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/world/asia/18terror.html?_r=1&th&emc=t...
John Kerry, Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, and Richard Lugar, top Republican on that panel, are expected to introduce legislation soon that would triple non-military aid to Pakistan, to US$1.5 billion (Dh5.5bn) annually, over the next five years. They have proposed another $7.5bn in assistance for the five years beyond that.
http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090318/FOREIGN/370516782/1002
AS THE U.S. 'ANTI-WAR' FORCES CHEER ON BELOVED KILLER-IN-CHIEF
PREDATORS WEAPON OF CHOICE AGAINST 'AL QAEDA' ... in the 'homeland' yet?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/business/17uav.html?th=&emc=th&pagewan...
A missile fired by an American drone killed at least four people late Sunday at the house of a militant commander in northwest Pakistan, the latest use of what intelligence officials have called their most effective weapon against Al Qaeda. Pentagon officials say the remotely piloted planes, which can beam back live video for up to 22 hours, have done more than any other weapons system to track down insurgents and save American lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The planes have become one of the military’s favorite weapons despite many shortcomings resulting from the rush to get them into the field.
An explosion in demand for the drones is contributing to new thinking inside the Pentagon about how to develop and deploy new weapons systems...
Col. Eric Mathewson, who directs the Air Force’s task force on unmanned aerial systems....said the service has been scrambling to train more pilots, who fly the drones via satellite links from the western United States, to keep up with a near-tripling of daily missions in the last two years.Field commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Air Force is in charge of the Predators, say their ability to linger over an area for hours, streaming instant video warnings of insurgent activity, has been crucial to reducing threats from roadside bombs and identifying terrorist compounds. The C.I.A. is in charge of drone flights in Pakistan, where more than three dozen missiles strikes have been launched against Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in recent months.
Considered a novelty a few years ago, the Air Force’s fleet has grown to 195 Predators and 28 Reapers, a new and more heavily armed cousin of the Predator. Both models are made by General Atomics, a contractor based in San Diego. Including drones that the Army has used to counter roadside bombs and tiny hand-launched models that can help soldiers to peer past the next hill or building, the total number of military drones has soared to 5,500, from 167 in 2001.
The urgent need for more drones has meant bypassing usual procedures. Some of the 70 Predator crashes, for example, stemmed from decisions to deploy the planes before they had completed testing and to hold off replacing control stations to avoid interrupting the supply of intelligence...
Complaints about civilian casualties, particularly from strikes in Pakistan, have stirred some concerns among human rights advocates. Military officials say the ability of drones to observe targets for lengthy periods makes strikes more accurate.
They also said they do not fire if they think civilians are nearby.
The Predators were still undergoing basic testing when they were rushed into use in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s and then hastily armed with missiles after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.But it was only after the military turned to new counterinsurgency techniques in early 2007, that demand for drones became almost insatiable. Since then, Air Force Lt. Gen. Gary North, the air-component commander for the combined forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the service has gone to “amazing lengths” to increase their use. The Predators and Reapers are now flying 34 surveillance patrols each day in Iraq and Afghanistan, up from 12 in 2006. They are also transmitting 16,000 hours of video each month, some of it directly to troops on the ground...
Given the demand for video intelligence, the Air Force is equipping 50 manned turbo-prop planes with similar cameras. And it is developing new camera systems for Reapers that could vastly expand the intelligence each plane can collect. P. W. Singer, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the Predators have already had “an incredible effect,” though the remote control raised obvious questions about whether the military could become “more cavalier” about using force [...]
U.S. = LIBERATORS, NATIONAL RESISTANCE = "al qaeda"
U.S. military: " 80% of civilian deaths due to "Taliban insurgents' "
4 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan Sunday in the worst of several attacks by insurgents around the country U.S. military said
Taliban spokesman denies that Mullah Omar gave the green light to talks
"Such statements are baseless lies"
AFP
...Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone however: "We'll not talk to anybody unless the invading foreign forces leave Afghanistan." He had the same message in a round table discussion on private television late Saturday, in which he took part by phone, with two former members of the Taliban government also on the panel. Ahmadi also rejected a media report that the Taliban's elusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had given the green light to talks. "Such statements are baseless lies," ...
America’s Search for the “Good Taliban”
Tom Burghardt
March 14, 2009
...In March 8 interview with The New York Times, President Barack Obama declared that the United States "was not winning the war in Afghanistan and opened the door to a reconciliation process in which the American military would reach out to moderate elements of the Taliban, much as it did with Sunni militias in Iraq."Reflecting desperation and ignorance when it comes to the war-scarred Central Asian nation, like its Republican predecessor, the Democratic administration has failed to come to grips with ubiquitous facts on the ground. A rapidly-expanding Taliban insurgency against the U.S.-led NATO occupation and the warlord-dominated Karzai regime has brought imperialism's regional domination project to a screeching halt...After seven years of occupation and the slow bleed-out of a protracted war, the Pashtun populated southern Afghan provinces and Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) are effectively controlled by a melange of far-right Islamist Talibs and drug-linked militias loyal to the Hezb-i-Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. [linked to u.s./cia]...
And what of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, suddenly everyone's newest "best friend forever" ...is positioning himself for whatever he can grab....Biden certainly knows that late last year a select group of Afghan diplomats plus Karzai's brother, Ahmad Wali, finally talked to some Taliban, good or bad, with mediation by notorious Taliban-enabler Saudi Arabia. That means, with US approval. ...Recently in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Karzai people thought they had handed Hekmatyar the famous "offer he can't refuse": asylum in Saudi Arabia first, then return to Afghanistan with full immunity. They forgot that a proud Hekmatyar does not want asylum. He wants a piece of the action in Kabul--preferably the meatiest part. (Pepe Escobar, "Taliban set to burn the Reichstag?", Asia Times Online, March 13, 2009)
Lest we forget, this former darling of the United States, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) during the anti-Soviet jihad received the bulk of CIA-Saudi largesse as America's plan to hand the Soviet Union "its own Vietnam" worked splendidly--for the international narcotics trade and American-linked terrorist jackals.
As Alfred W. McCoy pointed out, it was none other than Hekmatyar, with Hezb-i-Islami as the "beard" for rather profitable operations on both sides of the "Afpak" border, who pioneered refining heroin inside Afghanistan...
When the Carter administration began its destabilization campaign against Kabul's socialist government at the behest of current Obama foreign policy éminence grise, Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, Hekmatyar was waiting in the wings. McCoy writes:
Instead of arranging a meeting with a broad spectrum of resistance leaders, ISI offered the CIA's envoy an alliance with its own Afghan client, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the small Hezb-i-Islami guerrilla group. The CIA accepted the offer and, over the next decade, gave more than half its covert aid to Hekmatyar's guerrillas. It was, as the U.S. Congress would find a decade later, a dismal decision. Unlike the later resistance leaders who commanded strong popular followings inside Afghanistan, Hekmatyar led a guerrilla force that was a creature of the Pakistan military. After the CIA built his Hezb-i-Islami into the largest Afghan guerrilla force, Hekmatyar would prove himself brutal and corrupt. Not only did he command the largest guerrilla army, but Hekmatyar would use it--with the full support of ISI and the tacit tolerance of the CIA--to become Afghanistan's leading drug lord. (The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1991, pp. 449-450) [...]
www.uruknet.info?p=5263 antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/2009/03/americas-search-for-good-taliban.html
Angry mob surrounds official building in Logar
hundreds of protesting people chanting anti-American slogans
Shahpur Arab
Angry with reported killing of five persons of a family by the US forces in a raid in central Logar province last night, protestors besieged the building of Charkh district headquarters on Saturday. More than three hundreds protesting people, chanting anti-American slogans, called for immediate trial of the killers...Abdul Zahir, a protestor warned to continue their protest by blocking roads unless those responsible for the killing of five innocent people were punished.Locals and government officials said the victims were local farmers...http://www.uruknet.de/?p=52694
u.s. global grand chessboard game
"Prevent the Reemergence of a New Rival"
The Making of the Cheney Regional Defense Strategy, 1991-1992
Declassified Studies from Cheney Pentagon Show Push for U.S. Military Predominance and a Strategy to "Prevent the Reemergence of a New Rival"
Originally pub. New York Times March 8, 1992.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1D7173AF93BA35750C0A...
Medvedev to Bolster Military in Russia
“An analysis of the military and political situation in the world shows that there are a range of regions where there remains serious potential for conflicts,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Threats remain that can bring about local crises and international terrorism. NATO is not halting its efforts to widen its military infrastructure near the borders of our country. All of this demands a quality modernization of our armed forces.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/world/europe/18medvedev.html?em
the NYT omitted:
Kissinger, Baker Visit Moscow as Obama Resets Ties
March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Henry Kissinger and James Baker, two former U.S. secretaries of state, will fly to Moscow for talks with Russian officials after President Barack Obama pledged to “reset” relations with Russia. Kissinger, who met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in December, is scheduled to return later this week, according to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Baker, traveling separately, will hold talks with American investors and address a conference on developing Caspian Sea energy resources. “These guys are building the bridge from the real diplomacy of the Bush Sr. administration to Obama,” said Nina Khrushcheva, an international affairs professor at the New School in New York. “Diplomatically inclined Republicans can make a better opening line because they come from successful relations in the past.”
Obama, a Democrat, is seeking to strengthen ties to Russia and win Kremlin support for his policies on Afghanistan, Iran and nuclear arms reduction. Vice President Joe Biden said in February it was time to “reset” relations after they reached a post-Cold War low under former President George W. Bush. Kissinger is among a group of U.S. “wise men,” including former Secretary of State George Shultz, ex-Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn, who will see Medvedev on March 20. They will also meet with Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and ex-Chief of General Staff Yury Baluyevsky, Kommersant newspaper said. Obama, who is expected to meet Medvedev for the first time in London next month, may visit Russia in July, the Moscow-based newspaper said, citing unidentified Russian government officials. The Kremlin press service declined to comment on the report. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&refer=europe&sid=amDHePi...
U.S. owes major global capitalist rival 1 trillion $
CHINA'S FOREIGN AID ACTIVITIES IN AFRICA, LATIN AMERICA & SOUTHEAST ASIA
Congressional Research Service for Congress, 2/25/09, R40361, pages 1-25
Overall, China’s foreign assistance during the past several years has been driven primarily by
Beijing’s desire to secure and transport natural resources and secondarily for diplomatic reasons.
According to the NYU Wagner School study, during the 2002-2007 period, Africa received the
greatest amount of loans and development assistance, followed by Latin America and Southeast
Asia. The study suggests that China’s foreign aid activities in Africa and Latin America serve the
PRC’s immediate economic interests, while those in Southeast Asia relate to longer term
diplomatic or strategic objectives. In Africa and Southeast Asia, Chinese infrastructure and public
works projects constitute the most common form of aid, while in Latin America, where some
countries are more developed, PRC-sponsored natural resource development activities are more
prominent.
China is fast becoming a top trading partner to Africa and Southeast Asia, and it is second to the
United States as a market for Latin American commodities and goods. Although the PRC’s aid
projects are a highly visible reminder of China’s growing “soft power,” other countries and
regions, such as the European Union, the United States, and Japan, continue to dominate foreign
direct investment in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. This report will not be updated.
Stealth fighter & bomber deployed to Guam for first time
March 12, 2009 (by SrA Ryan Whitney) - For the first time, F-22 Raptors and B-2 Spirits, the only stealth platforms in the Air Force's current inventory, are deployed outside the continental United States to Andersen AFB, Guam... During these training missions, both units operate as if it were a real world event, in order to better prepare for any possible situation... showcasing the U.S. commitment to peace and stability in the region. http://www.f-16.net/news_article3315.html http://www.legitgov.org/
Intifada: A third chapter
By Ramzy Baroud
Though the dust has settled in Gaza, the rubble from the untold number of demolished buildings, homes and mosques is far from being cleared away. Graves continue to receive victims, young and old alike, from Israel's most recent offensive. And in the midst of this, with the hopes of some respite and recovery on the horizon, rumors of a third Intifada swell among politicians, scholars and everyday people alike....In a recent interview with Ma'an news agency, the Palestinian Authority's governor to Jerusalem warned that the planned demolition of 100 Palestinian homes and the displacement of nearly 1,000 people in the occupied Jerusalem area would certainly increase the growing possibility of a third Intifada. "It is now clear to the international community, and our position within the Palestinian Authority is very clear - no negotiations, no peace process with settlements," he stressed.
There is a great fear that the Israeli plan, which some have described as "slow-motion ethnic cleansing", is now augmenting into a fast-paced settlement project. These worries have been confirmed by the Israeli "Peace Now" movement, in a press release, issued on March 2."The Ministry of Construction and Housing is planning to construct at least 73,300 housing units in the West Bank," Peace Now reported. It further stated that the plans outlined in the Israeli Ministry of Housing report "represent only a small part of the total number of the plans existing in the settlements".
"At least 15,000 housing units have already been approved and plans for an additional 58,000 housing units are yet to be approved," said the group, which also concluded that of the units already approved by the Israeli government, nearly 9,000 have been built. "If all the plans are realized, the number of settlers in the territories will be doubled."It follows that the construction of thousands of units will lead to permanent demographic realities in the West Bank that would strongly impede any possibility of Palestinian statehood, according to the standard "vision" of a two-state solution. The new illegal units are built on stolen land, illegally confiscated from their rightful Palestinian owners. With such a move, Israel purposely renders the so-called two-state solution permanently incapacitated, while insisting that a one-state solution is the equivalent to the "annihilation" of the Jewish state. Israel is once again molding the very desperate environment that led to the revolts of 1987 and 2000, at the cost of thousands of lives.
So, what is a nation to do under such circumstances? Can stone throwing, general strikes and boycotting Israeli products deter such a scheme? More, what is the responsibility of the free world in this conflict? Will they sit by, as they did in the recent and tragic attacks on Gaza, and view the crimes from afar? Will they again expect Palestinians to bear down and endure such harsh and cruel realities, or will the onset of yet another popular revolution come as no surprise?
As for two generations of Palestinians who lived through the first and second Intifadas, scribing rebellious graffiti, hurling stones at occupying soldiers and refusing to buy the Israeli products that were imposed on them (while impeding the growth of Palestinian local industry) may not have unshackled a hostage nation. Indeed, it may not in the future, but a third Intifada, in the eyes of many, could accomplish one vital task. It could provide the platform for the Palestinians to reclaim their unity... and declare they will struggle until the day when they finally embrace freedom. If this is all that a third Intifada accomplishes, in the eyes of many Palestinians, then it is certainly a necessary and worthy endeavor.
Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His latest book is The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle (Pluto Press, London).
DESPERADO DOMINATION DOOMED
Obama 'urged to engage Hamas'
AlJazeera.net
The Boston Globe Sunday reported that days before he took office in January, several ex-senior officials in the US government wrote Barack Obama and the group called on the White House urging him to seek dialogue with the "terrorist" Palestinian Hamas leaders to persuade the Palestinian group to lay down arms and join the rival Fatah in a unity government... Washington has said it will not deal with Hamas, which effectively governs the Gaza Strip, unless it renounces violence and agrees to recognise Israel's right to exist. "I see no reason not to talk to Hamas," Brent Scowcroft, a former US national adviser to president George Bush senior, was quoted as saying. Scowcroft signed the letter along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, another former national security adviser and Paul Volcker, Obama's economic recovery adviser, the Boston Globe said....
Calls for negotiations with Hamas have grown since Israel ended its 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip in January. More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed in an operation Israel said targeted Hamas infrastructure and rocket-launching squads... Six European politicians, meanwhile, met Hamas officials, including Khaled Meshaal, the exiled political chief, in the Syrian capital, Damascus on Saturday. "We need to talk to Hamas to make progress because they represent a big proportion of the Palestinians," Clare Short, a former minister in Britain's ruling Labour party who led the delegation, said...Hamas won parliamentary elections in 2006 and entered into a short-lived unity government with Fatah prior to the forcible takeover of Gaza....relations between the two factions are fraught following Hamas's bloody uprising against security forces loyal to [USRAEL] Abbas in the Gaza Strip in June 2007. www.uruknet.info?p=5268 english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/03/2009315142916846637.html
It's All Good: Media Reports for Duty as Militarists Plan More Wars
Surely there is no one who still needs to be apprised of the fact that the New York Times is one of the chief organs of the American Empire, operating in a semi-official fashion to disseminate the intentions and wishes of our rulers. The fact that the paper also publishes some excellent reporting -- and can even, on occasion, assume an adversarial stance against one faction of the elite or another -- in no way undermines its essential function in the imperial power structure....But despite the glaring transparency of the NYT's stovepiping duties, it is still instructive to watch these operations in action now and then, if only to keep one's bullshit detector in fighting trim. And a story by Thom Shanker highlighted in the Times on Saturday provides an excellent example of this venerable and pernicious process.
The nugget of "news" in the story was unsurprising -- but its implications were no less disturbing for that. Shanker, in the usual cringing courtier mode of our higher media, funnels the usual unexamined, unquestioned spin of the usual anonymous "senior official" to let the rabble know that the poobahs on the Potomac are gearing up to fight even more wars simultaneously all over the globe. Specifically, what we have is -- as Shanker puts it in the inelegant prose that characterizes most NYT pieces - a "rethink [of] 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."
No, what we need now, says Shanker's Anonymous Militarist, is the ability to fight every damn body every damn where in every damn kind of way. Not just a two-front war, but three-front wars, four-front wars, counterinsurgencies, police actions, nation-building (with the preceding nation-destroying, of course), on and on, all at the same time.
Nowhere -- absolutely nowhere -- does the story give the slightest space for even the briefest consideration of a viewpoint that questions in even the mildest way the assumption that the United States should and must be prepared at all times to wage war on multiple fronts all over the world, forever. No, this "need" is simply a given -- for Thom Shanker, for the New York Times, and for the bipartisan Beltway elite.
But let's give credit where it's due. We should note that Shanker does not rely solely on the word of the anonymous Senior Pentagon Official in preparing the American people for decades of endless war. To provide some needed context and nuance on this issue, he also quotes two Serious Experts. Who are they? Try not to laugh when you hear.
One of them is Thomas Donnelly, the author of the report published in 2000 by the Cheney-Rumsfeld group Project for a New American Century, which we have detailed so often in these pages and elsewhere. The other is astroturf "liberal" Michael O'Hanlon – yes, the same Iraq warhawk who falsely painted himself as a progressive opponent of the Iraq War who had been "converted" to the noble cause by Bush's vaunted "surge." That's right: the "perspective" on the Administration's move to a multi-war strategy was provided by two ardent proponents of aggressive military intervention around the world....
This now has become the theme of the Obama Administration as it seeks "to develop the ability to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.'" But what else to be expected from a new president who chose to retain the militarists' hand-picked Pentagon poobah – longtime Bush Family factotum Bob Gates – as head of the nation's war machine? This unprecedented action -- carrying over a Defense Secretary from the regime of a party vanquished at the polls – was entirely Obama's decision. Thus he is not being sandbagged or undermined or played by Bushist moles in the Pentagon, as many Obamalators like to believe; the people in the Pentagon now are there because the new president wants them to be there.
So there you have the considered, professional and, above all, serious analysis of the New York Times and its "experts." A strategy to commit the United States, and its cannon fodder – sorry, its citizens – to the service of a war machine capable of fighting endless, multi-level, violent conflicts simultaneously around the world does not occasion any demur, objection, pause for thought or – God forbid! – the slightest consideration that an ever-expanding, ever-meddling global empire of more than 700 military bases in 160 countries, and the aggressive foreign policy which put them there, might not be the best way to guarantee the peace and security of the American people. (Much less the bombed, droned, death-squadded and meddled-with targets of the strategy.)
No, when it comes to expanding American domination by force, menace, violence and death, our bipartisan courtiers and conduits of empire agree: It's all good!
www.uruknet.info?p=5266 www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1719-its-all-good-media-... for-duty-as-militarists-plan-more-wars.html
"Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy"
Henry Kissinger
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Military
The Obama administration proposal to bill veterans' private insurance companies for treatment of combat-related injuries intended to save the Department of Veterans Affairs $530 million a year prompted veterans groups to condemn the idea as unethical and powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill to promise their opposition.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR200903...
ISRAEL AS A NUCLEAR POWER
A 2008 Defense Department study of future national security trends seems to have escaped many of the conventional filters that normally limit the candor of such public documents.
As previously noted, the Joint Operational Environment 2008 (JOE 2008) study set off alarms in South Korea because of its discussion of North Korean nuclear weapons and it aggravated Mexican officials with its consideration of potential political instability in that country. ("DoD Future Trend Study Provokes Foreign Reaction," Secrecy News, March 5.)
But JOE 2008 also departed from the norm in U.S. Government documents by identifying Israel as a nuclear weapons state.
"In effect, there is a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east," JOE 2008 stated in a discussion of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (at page 37). http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/joe2008.pdf
The unusual reference to Israel's nuclear status was noticed by Amir Oren in Ha'aretz, who explained that "Israel's nuclear program is rarely, if ever, explicitly mentioned in public, unclassified U.S. official documents." See"U.S. Army document describes Israel as 'a nuclear power'," Ha'aretz, March 8. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1069303.html
FAS AS A "FRONT COMPANY"
The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is a "front company" that seeks "to expose national security information," according to a new briefing o classification policy prepared by a U.S. Marine Corps official. See "Derivative Classification Requirements 2009," U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Pacific. http://www.fas.org/sgp/othergov/dod/front.pdf
The 13 page briefing, which pedantically explains the proper marking of derivatively classified records, suddenly veers off at page 10 into a factually mistaken claim that "all classified material is being challenged with a view to declassification."
Out of nowhere, the anonymous briefer asserts that "The Federation of American Scientists is a good example of a front company trying to expose
National Security Information under the pretense [probably should be: pretext] of 'World Peace'."
"'No secrets in government' is their mantra," the briefing states.
That's close, but the correct mantra is "No stupidity in government."
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the Federation of American Scientists. The Secrecy News Blog is at http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
"The financial crisis drives home to other nations that 'without an America that is successful financially, economically and therefore also politically, they're not going to be successful...If we don't function well, no one functions well...we have the chance again to establish our legitimacy internationally'.''
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Tom Raum, "Global woes pose risks, also openings for US", (Yahoo! The AP, Sun 14 December 2008)
Fed to Buy More Than $1 Trillion in Securities
As the recession continues to deepen the Federal Reserve announced it would pump an extra $ trillion into the mortgage market and longer-term Treasury securities to revive the economy... Since last September, the central bank has roughly doubled the size of its balance sheet to nearly $2 trillion from $900 billion before this action.... Since last September, new lending programs — including money for bailouts of individual companies like Citigroup, American International Group and Bank of America—have caused the Fed to print new money at the fastest pace in history....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/economy/19fed.html?hp
u.s. national debt surpassed $11 trillion Monday, the largest in U.S. history.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/20139.html
Obama pushes Congress to pass $3.6 trillion budget
Barack Obama is again asking Congress to pass his $3.6 trillion budget, saying ... the country "can't go back to a bubble economy, an economy based on reckless spending and spending beyond our means"..
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn//world/2009-03/17/content_7588372.htm [photo is worth the trip]
Bracing for a Backlash Over Wall Street Bailout
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama’s agenda... a shifting political mood challenges Mr. Obama’s political skills, as he seeks to acknowledge the anger without becoming a target of it. A central question for Mr. Obama is whether his cool style — “in a time of crisis, we cannot afford to govern out of anger,” he said in his address to Congress last month — will prove effective when the country may be feeling more emotional...aides acknowledged the risks of a backlash as Mr. Obama tries to signal that he shares American anger but pushes for more bail-out money for banks and Wall Street.For all his political skills and his capturing of the nation’s desire for change in the 2008 election, Mr. Obama...has shown little inclination to strike a more populist tone. The danger, aides said, is that if [!] he were to become identified as an advocate for the banks and Wall Street, people could take out their anger on him.http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16assess.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
capital crisis not 'wasted'
The super rich in 2009: the Americans are back
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/northamerica/090313...
By Perro de Jong
A pile of dollars from here to the moon and far beyond: in the past year that's how much the richest people in the world have lost. But Forbes' billionaires list is making a surprising comeback in the very place the financial crisis began - the United States. Dollars and eurosAccording to the glossy business magazine, the average billionaire has lost a third of his or her wealth. Take US Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who is "only" worth 40 billion dollars in 200. In spite of this Mr Gates is the richest man in the world again, last year he dropped down to third place. The number of Americans in the top 15 has even almost doubled compared to 2008. It's the emerging economies where billionaires have been worst hit...
"Bernanke Sees Recovery Beginning in 2010"
"Economic Advisers Warn of No Quick Turnaround"
Mr. Obama and top aides last week issued some of their most optimistic remarks since the new president took office, concerned that a grim outlook among investors or the public at large might become part of the problem.... Administration officials remained cautious Sunday about whether a second economic stimulus package might be needed. The impact of the first was only beginning to be felt, they said... Top administration economic advisers walked a careful line Sunday, saying that despite a few hopeful indicators and President Obama’s call to investors to consider returning to the share markets, that it would “take some time” to turn a corner...Mr. Obama and his senior aides also sought over the weekend to quell Chinese concerns about the long-run security of U.S. Treasury notes, which had brought a rare expression of high-level concern last week from Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. “Not just the Chinese government, but every investor can have absolute confidence in the soundness of investments in the U.S.,” Mr. Obama said Saturday...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/us/politics/16econ.html
public rage diverted from the trillions to depress billions and expand wars to save u.s. capital
President Barack Obama spoke with reporters on the White House lawn and called on Americans to “channel our anger in a constructive way.”... Q -- you received $100,000 from AIG during the campaign. How do you feel about those contributions today? Do you plan to do anything about it? And at least one member of Congress has now called for your Secretary of the Treasury to resign. Your thoughts. THE PRESIDENT: Well, I have complete confidence in Tim Geithner and my entire economic team....“making all the right moves” in playing a bad hand....
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/us/politics/18text-obama.html?pagewant...
"Will Rage over AIG wound Obama"
The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and complicate President Obama's agenda.
innocent bystander control - ops
"How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?"
PRESIDENT OBAMA, reacting to the payment of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives of American International Group.
"Obama Orders Treasury Chief to Try to Block A.I.G. Bonuses"
"Obama on ‘Tonight Show"...Candidates often appear on TV shows when trying to get elected, but first time a commander in chief appears on TV shows except as joke fodder.
Who Is David Goldman to rate massive state involvement?
Obama, Brazil leader focus on economy, energy...[and Goldman]
Brazil has huge new sources of offshore oil and is the world's largest exporter of ethanol, which could give it an important role in helping the U.S. wean itself from Venezuelan crude and shift to cleaner sources of energy....Obama also privately raised the custody case of David Goldman, a Tinton Falls, N.J., man who is trying to bring his 8-year-old son back from Brazil. The boy was taken there in 2004 by his mother, who died years later while giving birth. She had divorced Goldman and married a lawyer from Rio de Janeiro. Both children are being raised by the lawyer's family.The House has urged Brazil to "act with extreme urgency" to return the boy to Goldman. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she has discussed the case with high-ranking Brazilian officials....
Administration Open to Taxing Health Benefits
The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers... Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1&th&emc=...
helping make religion more powerful WMD to 'turn the other cheek' of the oppressed and angry
Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five
The Obama administration has reached out to hundreds of religious leaders across the country to mobilize support and to seek advice on policy. These five pastors...have been brought into a more intimate inner circle. President Obama has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics... Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush.
Mr. Wallis recently joined conservatives in pressing the president’s office of faith-based initiatives to continue to allow government financing for religious social service groups that hire only employees of their own faith... Most... do not take liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice. Pinning down Mr. Obama’s theological leanings is not easy, the ministers said in interviews. They said he is well read in the Bible, but has not articulated views consistent with the racially inflected interpretation of his former pastor, Mr. Wright... Their role could change if Mr. Obama joins a church in Washington, but that could take some time because of the logistical challenges finding a church that can accommodate the kind of crowd the Obamas would attract.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15pastor.html?em
Imperialists & religious: predatory partners
Cameroonian security forces destroyed the street stalls, beat the stallholders and smashed the merchandise in the capital of Yaounde as part of an effort to clean up the city for a visit next week by Pope Benedict as part of his first official trip to Africa, according to a recent Reuters article... as the state radio reported on March 9 after the incident to "embellish the city and give it a new face-lift." Cameroon is a place where millions live in poverty. The stalls destroyed range from wooden shelves to more secure structures made from concrete and steel.... simple stalls as well as boutiques, and businesses such as a typing and printing shop. These businesses gave thousands of poor Cameroonians a way of living and making money.... this leaves thousands of people without means of survival...
holy father of pedophile inc. says...
«Here in Africa, as in so many parts of the world, countless men and women long to hear a word of hope and comfort... In the face of suffering or violence, poverty or hunger, corruption or abuse of power, a Christian can never remain silent,» the pontiff who spoke in French and English said as President Paul Biya and his wife Chantal listened close by. The declaration was interpreted as an indictment of African leaders who impoverish their people through plunder and mismanagement and then use violence and constitutional manipulation to cling to power.
http://www.theheraldcameroon.com/
No condoms, benedict says breed babies breed
Condoms are not the answer to Africa’s fight against H.I.V., Pope Benedict XVI said as he began a weeklong trip to the continent. Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Catholic Church, though Catholicism competes with Islam and evangelical churches.
According to Vatican Information Service, “Cameroon has a population of 18,160,000 of whom 4,842,000 (26.7 percent) are Catholic. There are 24 ecclesiastical circumscriptions, 816 parishes and 3,630 pastoral centres of other kinds. Currently, there are 31 bishops, 1,847 priests, 2,478 religious, 28 lay members of secular institutes and 18,722 catechists. Minor seminarians number 2,249 and major seminarians 1,361.
‘A total of 410,964 students attend 1,530 centres of Catholic education,
from kindergartens to universities. Other institutions belonging to the
Church or run by priests or religious in Cameroon include 28 hospitals, 235 clinics, 11 homes for the elderly or disabled, 15 orphanages and nurseries, 40 family counselling centres and other pro-life centres, 23 centres for education and social rehabilitation, and 32 institutions of other kinds.’’
Published March 3,2009 by http://www.mwcnews.net/
From CLG http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news
Citigroup CEO awarded $10.8 million 16 Mar 2009 --Citigroup got $45 billion from TARP and the government agreed to share losses on $300.8 billion of troubled assets. 16 Mar 2009 Citigroup Inc awarded Chief Executive Vikram Pandit $10.82 million of compensation in 2008, a year when the government propped up the bank with $45 billion of capital. The bank faces increased government pressure to right itself [LOL!] after more than $85 billion of writedowns and credit losses since the middle of 2007. Pandit's compensation was higher than the $9.96 million that Bank of America Corp, which has also received $45 billion of TARP money, awarded its CEO, Kenneth Lewis.
Citi, Morgan Stanley look to sidestep bonus caps: report 17 Mar 2009 Anticipating restrictions on bonuses, officials at Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley are exploring ways to sidestep tough new federal caps on compensation, the Wall Street Journal said . Executives at these banks and other financial institutions that received government aid are discussing increasing base salaries for some executives and other top-producing employees, the paper said, citing people familiar with the situation.
Greek extremists threaten more bombings after Citibank attacks
In an eight-page proclamation published in Greek weekly Pontiki, far-left group Revolutionary Struggle said its aim remained to foment "revolution" and use the global economic crisis against capitalism.
Greece, UK Police Step Up Anti-terrorism Collaboration 16 Mar 2009 Two U.K. police officers were due in the Greek capital Monday to reinforce anti-terrorism collaboration with Scotland Yard amid mounting violence by Greek extremist groups in recent months. Two groups - the far-left Revolutionary Struggle and the Revolutionary Sect - have multiplied their attacks here, including two recent bomb strikes against U.S.-based banking [terrorist] group Citibank, for which Revolutionary Struggle claimed responsibility.
Secret ICRC file says US practiced torture: report 16 Mar 2009 The International Committee of the Red Cross produced in 2007 a secret report, in which it concluded that the treatment of 'al-Qaeda' captives by CIA interrogators "constituted torture," The Washington Post reported Monday. The newspaper quotes the ICRC report as saying that the treatment of inmates at secret prisons run by the US Central Intelligence Agency amounted to "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," which is prohibited by the Geneva Conventions.
Obama lawyers: Ex-Guantánamo detainees have no rights --The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia unanimously ruled against them early last year, saying because the men were foreigners held outside the United States, they are not covered by the definition of ''person'' protected by the act. 13 Mar 2009 The Obama administration argued in court documents filed Friday that four former prisoners at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp who have sued over their treatment have no constitutional rights. The suit was brought by four British men who say they were beaten, shackled in painful stress positions, threatened by dogs and subjected to extreme medical care [?] during their time in the lockup at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba. They also say they were harassed while practicing their religion, including forced shaving of their beards, banning or interrupting their prayers, denying them prayer mats and copies of the Koran and throwing a copy of the Koran in a toilet.
true 'homeland' terror tale
Liberty City Six Judge Refuses to Pay Private Investigator After He Speaks Out
By Bob Norman
March 12, 2009
http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/content/printVersion/739284
...McMahon's crime: He had the nerve to criticize the judge during the first trial in a story of mine in New Times ("Have Terror, Will Travel," November 22, 2007)...
He became part of the case back in 2007, when Miami defense attorney Albert Levin hired him to work on behalf of Liberty City defendant Patrick Abraham, an impoverished 20-something Haitian immigrant with no prior criminal record. Abraham was swept up in the case the Bush administration once hailed as a rare victory in the War on Terror. Then-U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez famously claimed during a nationally televised news conference that Abraham and the rest of the so-called Liberty City Seven defendants were prepared to wage a "ground war" on the United States and that they had plans to blow up the Sears Tower. But as the facts came out, it became increasingly clear that the case was a government-cooked farce and that the men had no real capability or intent to do harm to the country.
McMahon, who has worked on other high-profile federal cases, located numerous witnesses and dug up damning evidence on the government informants who were key witnesses for the prosecution. He learned that one of the men had been involved in an extortion plot. The informant had blackmailed a man who had raped his girlfriend by promising she would drop the charges in exchange for cash. On top of that, the informant had been charged in Miami with beating the same girlfriend.
The other key government witness was once banned from FBI work after failing a polygraph test in another federal case. McMahon found a former FBI supervisor, James Wedick, who was willing to testify that the informant never should have been used in the Liberty City case. It was the two dubious informants who lured the seven defendants (one has since been acquitted) into the terrorism conspiracy. To entice the dirt-poor group of men into a fictitious al Qaeda plot, the informants promised them $50,000 while federal agents directed the farce from behind the scenes [....]
