the burbank digest

Digest commentary:
Freedom and life for capital means death and destruction for millions. Peoples' freedom worldwide means revolutionary resistance against capitalism. All the heroic freedom fighters called "terrorists" for impeding imperialist freedom are our sisters and brothers, our allies and inspiration in the struggle for freedom.
Fascist state terror, 24/7 racist "perception management" psywar, torture and death, nothing can destroy the reality history reveals: oppression breeds resistance. Reality will trump rhetoric. We will decide our friends and enemies based on their actions. Here in the "homeland" class and race privilege buys the loyalty -- the enslavement -- of many who betray their true allies and interests for blood-soaked crumbs.
In a world-historic conjuncture such as this, contradictions reach a boiling point that presents rare opportunities -- as well as exceptional dangers -- for making fundamental global shifts in the balance of forces of political power. Individual political positions too are shifting under pressure, becoming clarified into powerful active forces for the revolutionary change necessary.
U.S. imperialism's predatory life is on the line, in deep capitalist crisis, increasingly vulnerable--and dangerous-in the face of defeats it is suffering from growing international resistance and unity. Karl Marx examined why democracy is the best shell for capitalism. V.I. Lenin analyzed how capital's global nature, its necessity to eliminate rivals and resistance to expand its basis for capital accumulation, drives it to unjust imperialist wars to redivide the world and restructure capital under its domination.

The combination of, diversified global leadership, politically awakened masses, makes a much more difficult context for any major power including, currently, the leading world power, the United States.
Zbigniew Brzezinski

"Defense officials jokingly described Michael Vickers as being in charge of the "take-over-the-world plan."
Key Pentagon strategist plots global war on terror
By Ann Scott Tyson, The Washington Post
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=20040...
WASHINGTON —In the Pentagon's newly expanded Special Operations office, Assistant Secretary of Defense Michael Vickers is working to implement the U.S. military's highest-priority plan: a global campaign against terrorism that reaches far beyond Iraq and Afghanistan. Vickers' job also spans the modernization of nuclear forces for deterrence and retaliation, and the retooling of conventional forces...a portfolio so expansive he and some Pentagon officials jokingly referred to his efforts as the "take-over-the-world plan." Senior Pentagon and military officials regard Vickers as a rarity: a skilled strategist, creative and pragmatic. "He tends to think like a gangster," said Jim Thomas, a former senior defense planner who worked with him..

CONTEXT
BASIS OF THE U.S. BIPARTISAN GLOBAL aka National Security AGENDA DESTROYING THE WORLD & ENVIRONMENT
Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival'
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE1D7173AF93BA35750C0A...
http://www.princeton.edu/~ppn/docfiles/pentagon_1992.html
NYT March 8, 1992

KOREA DELIVERED A MAJOR DEFEAT TO U.S WORLD-DESTROYING CRUSADE FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION

"The Korean War established that the USA was prepared to intervene militarily to stop the spread of communism. After 1953 the Korean peninsula remained a Cold War battleground."
encyclopedia.farlex.com/KoreanWar

"Top U.S. General Draws Comparison Between Korean War, Afghanistan ... honors veterans of the Korean War, which began 60 years ago this week. ..."
www.fox4kc.com/news/wdaf-gen-petraeus-korean-war-vets-062110,0,3824262.s...
INDEPENDENCE, MO - U.S. Army General David Petraeus, America's top commander in Afghanistan, told an audience of about 400 Korean War vets that just as they faced a new kind of threat 60 years ago, so do our troops in the Middle East today.... just as it took decades to win the Cold War, the same is true in the fight against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda... Nearly 1.8 million American troops fought in Korea, 34,000 Americans died and another 92,000 were injured in the war that began 60 years ago this week...a war often called America's 'Forgotten War,' and Petraeus says that he wants to make sure doesn't happen...

The Korean Crisis Breaking News, Cui Bono?
by F. William Engdahl*
11 June 2010
The alleged North Korean sinking of a South Korean boat in March has dramatically escalated tensions between north and south Korea. It has also caused a reversal of a planned Japanese government push to close the US military base on Okinawa. The major question in the bizarre affair is Cui Bono?...

Digest:
NYT and other major western media have suppressed any mention of these highly provocative, dangerous military moves, which, even if designed as militarily-enforced 'soft power diplomatic' pressure, will clearly have seen and/or unseen, intended and/or unintended global effects. Debka, israel's major intel site, like its US counterparts, is notorious for disinformation, but these developments appear to be real. Meanwhile we are being distracted by ongoing state-corporate games in the Gulf of Mexico.

"President Barack Obama ordered all US missile interceptors in the Middle East to go on war alert in the second week of June, including batteries aboard US Sixth Fleet vessels on the Mediterranean and the US Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. DEBKAfile's military sources add that Israel's missile's shield, including Arrow anti-missile missiles, was similarly on standby."

US-led armada secretly drilled bombing Iranian targets, missile defense with Israel
DEBKAfile DEBKA-Net-Weekly June 21, 2010, 6:54 PM (GMT+02:00)
http://www.debka.com/article/8866/

The armada of 10 US warships plus an Israeli and German battle vessel each, which transited the Suez Canal Friday, June 18, has reached the Persian Gulf, DEBKAfile's military sources report.
But first, from June 6 through June 10, the USS Harry S. Truman carrier Strike Group was deployed 50 miles of the shore of southwestern Israel, secretly drilling the interception of incoming Iranian, Syrian and Hizballah missiles and rockets against US and Israeli targets in the Middle East.
This was first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 449 on June 18.
The fleet let by the Truman then headed for the Persian Gulf through the Suez Canal accompanied by an Israeli missile ship (not identified) and the German missile frigate FGS Hessen F221.

DON'T MISS THE POINT: A MICROCOSM OF FINANCE CAPITALIST GLOBAL DOMINATION
'Informed' by the state and its media to focus inward, this disaster's causes and consequences cannot be understood if we allow our eyes to be riveted on 'our backyard'. The systemic forces work globally. The oil industry relationship with the state, is like all major corporate enterprises, but more central and critical to its hegemonic agenda. As is the horrendous human and ecological destruction.
The essential political lesson of the capitalist state's absolute power, its dictatorship, as the governing body of the US bipartisan ruling class -
which Obama and all electoral politicians, represent, imust be obscured by capital's agents and apologists. As usual, congessional cover-up is center stage, Waxing outrage, diverting attention from the fact that 'the good company' the largest US oil co. is in, is in fact the states' because to keep us in the killer gane, state-corporate industry relationship must appear adversarial. part 1 at http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/295

corporate context analysis
Analysis: BTC pipeline explosion
http://www.energy-daily.com/reports/Analysis_BTC_pipeline_explosion_999....
by John C.K. Daly
Washington (UPI) Aug 6, 2008
Following the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, a new "Great Game" began, this time between Russia and the United States, which replaced Britain in a protracted, covert struggle for the Caucasus and Central Asia, the ultimate prize being the region's vast energy reserves, particularly those of the Caspian. A decade ago Vice President Dick Cheney, then Halliburton CEO, remarked, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian."

U.S. OIL SPILL ONE TAR BALL IN GLOBAL OIL INDUSTRY SLIME
BP: major finance corp. and U.S. partner

OFFSHORE --- OUT OF TOUCH --- OBSCURANTISM
u.s. capitalist propaganda focus: 1] obscuring the intractable merger of US state & monopoly capital, political-economic nexus of fascism
2] relationship to the Marshall Islands, one of U.S. imperialism's key dependent surrogates
3] U.S. domination of Mexico and 'ownership' of the Gulf of Mexico ( part 2,forthcoming)

"We appreciated the constructive meeting conducted by the President and his senior advisers and are confident that the agreement announced today will provide greater comfort to the citizens of the Gulf coast and greater clarity to BP and its shareholders. We welcome the administration's statements acknowledging that BP is a strong company and that the administration has no interest in undermining the financial stability of BP. This agreement is a very significant step in clarifying and confirming our commitment to meet our obligations. We regret the cancellation and suspension of the dividends, but we concluded it was in the best interests of the Company and its shareholders."
BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg

BP Stock Bobbles on $20 Billion Gulf Oil Spill Fund
Posted 12:31 PM 06/16/10
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/bps-stock-pops-on-20-billion...
BP's (BP) stock rallied [nearly 5%] after the energy giant agreed to put $20 billion into an escrow account to pay for clean-up and damages...BP will also set up a $100 million fund for unemployed oil rig workers -- and announced it's suspending dividend payments for the remainder of the year.
full article http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/investing/bps-stock-pops-on-20-billion...

BP shares climb as company suspends dividend
June 16, 2010, 3:05 p.m. EDT

NYT 'Breaking News Alert'
Sun, June 13, 2010 -- 9:22 PM ET
"one one of missed opportunities and the distractions of war"
U.S. SUDDEN "DISCOVERY" of VAST AFGHAN MINERAL RESOURCES: saga of imperialist war and 'development'
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?emc=na
(all emphases added by the digest)
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world...An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and Blackberries.
The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said....The mineral deposits are scattered throughout the country, including in the southern and eastern regions along the border with Pakistan that have had some of the most intense combat in the American-led war against the Taliban insurgency...

IN CONTEXT
REPELLED, REBUFFED, REPLACED & DESPERATE, INCREASING STATE TERROR PRODUCES EVER--INCREASING GRAVEDIGGERS
Capitalist China & Russia's unstoppable advances 'threaten' U.S. global supremacy, once again making them the major U.S. enemies they were as revolutionary socialist nations. U.S. world domination bloodlust drives and connects its barbaric aggression, now in the name of 'national security' from "islamic terrorism", etc. in place of 'communism'

"NEW" U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY STRATEGY
http://www.voltairenet.org/article165591.html
27 May 2010 President Obama released the 2010 U.S. National Security Strategy... persists since September 11, 2001 its main enemy is Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates... reserves the right to intervene anywhere in the world where a group claims to belong to Al-Qaeda - on that pretext troops are engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet no hard evidence has been presented of any complicity on the part of the Taliban Emirate or the government of Saddam Hussein in the 11 September attacks attributed to Al Qaeda. Lies die hard.

U.S. $13 Trillion Debt to Overtake GDP
President Barack Obama increase of U.S. debt to a level that will exceed the value of the nation’s annual economic output
Obama is borrowing record amounts to fund spending programs to help the economy recover from its longest recession since the 1930s.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aa0cI64Gx.4E&pos=15

China's Exports Surge 48.5% as Demand Withstands European Debt Crisis China’s exports jumped 48.5 percent in May from a year earlier, the biggest gain in more than six years, indicating that Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis has yet to pose a restraint on the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/worldwide/

u.s #1

digest note: GENOCIDAL WAR NOT 'PIRACY'
The coldblooded Gaza flotilla massacre is another USraeli state terrorist act which, regardless of reliable information regarding its planning, has generated controlled and manipulated 'news' serving the US and its proxy's mutually coordinated hegemonic agendas with their favorite 'terrorist' card.
While worldwide we denounce this crime and its manipulation worldwide, welcome and stand with all those denouncing the killers, we should also recognize and resist falling into the trap of US 'humanitarian' NGOs to further imperialist 'soft power' against Palestine. Executing genocide against the Palestinian nation 'israel' acts with US support. This fundamental fact is being buried by 'progressives' in tune with major media, exonerating the US while blaming its attack dog partner and proxy. We musn't be fooled into support for the enemy's hard and/or soft power. So as we denounce US-Israel, don't fall into the trap of supporting USAID/NGO 'soft power' agencies --- including 'Free Gaza' ---- established by the major enemies of Palestinian liberation to seduce well-meaning activists into organizations designed to undermine the Palestinian just armed struggle for national liberation. more at http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/113

NB: NECESSARY BACKGROUND, CONTEXT & CORRECTIVE by EECRO
What is Professor Mearsheimer up to? (excerpts)
May 24, 2010
http://eecro.wordpress.com/
Prof Mearsheimer, like millions of his countrymen, still has not learned the fundamental lessons of the so-called “Israeli-Palestinian” conflict. What appears to be “Israel” versus Palestine is in fact U.S. imperialism versus Palestine. Israel is the U.S. proxy.

digest note:
In the genocidal oppression of the Palestinian nation, as in all else, U.S. proxy 'israel' exists and acts on its behalf, with its support. Denounce US-Israel, but avoid falling into the trap of supporting its USAID/NGO 'soft power' agencies --- including 'Free Gaza' ---- established by the major enemies of Palestinian liberation to seduce well-meaning activists into organizations designed to undermine the Palestinian just armed struggle for national liberation -- see below and more at http://www.burbankdigest.com/node/113

World Bank - PNGO Project
January 07, 2006
The World Bank PNGO Project website states that it aims to "strengthen NGOs' capacity to deliver sustainable services to poor and marginalized Palestinians, while supporting the overall professional, and strategic development of the Palestinian NGO sector" will have provided US$41.9m for Palestinian NGOs by June 2006.

from the Index of NGO Funders:

UK - Department for International Development (DFID)
USA - USAID
World Bank - PNGO Project

Palestinian Non - Governmental Organization's Network - PNGO
http://arabinfomall.bibalex.org/En/OrgData.aspx?orgid=205&sectionid=3
History and Background