“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” - Marcus Tullius Cicero
Commentary: "New York City Surveillance Center Staffed With Employees
From Wall Street Firms Charged With Fraud" [02/08/12]
"The New York Times, the worldwide news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP), Wired Magazine, the New York City Council had all previously reported the location of the supposedly super secret counter terrorism center on their public web sites: 55 Broadway in the bowels of the financial district. What was a secret about the operation, and not reported by 60 Minutes to its viewers, despite being well aware of the facts, is that the center is jointly staffed and operated by the NYPD along with the largest Wall Street firms – the same firms under investigation in 50 states for mortgage and foreclosure fraud and widely credited with causing the Nation’s economic collapse. The Wall Street firms that were involuntarily bailed out by the 99% are now policing the 99%.
In a telephone conversation with the co-producer of the program, Robert Anderson, he conceded that he was aware of the presence of the Wall Street firms in the center. It would have been hard to miss them. The facility is designed with three long rows of computer workstations. The outside of each cubicle bears a brass plaque with the names of the occupants: Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorganChase, etc. [...]" 
Note: The criminal 1% are afraid the 99% will kill them for
what they've done, so they've erected a national security state to protect the
1%, justifying it by way of false flag events and other fabrications presented
to the population alleging 'terror', when in fact the 1% and the cooperating
part of the military-industrial/corporate/congressional complex are doing the
actual terrorizing, and inside multiple countries. These unimaginative people
are so conceptually hobbled that they have always been stuck in repetitive
behavioral loops which blind them to solutions to the problems that they
create for themselves, and they have no foresight and no ability to change
direction, even when a path clearly is untenable, unwise and unsupportable.
Very pathetic, immature and chronically insecure and body-driven people. These
people are totally unable to manage a civilization with foresight and reason,
and robotically stick to the same motivators: control, manipulation, greed,
etc. I will be glad to leave here and be in a different format.
Commentary:
"The DHS Defends Globalism, Not America" [02/08/12]
"The Department Of Homeland Security is the very epitome of unnecessary bureaucracy. Its formation was predicated on the existence of terrorist threats, many of which the U.S. government and orbiting alphabet agencies either created through acts of war, or fabricated out of thin air. Its policies of centralization were sold to the public as necessary to prevent systemic “miscommunications” that never actually took place. Throughout our history, it has been a rare occasion indeed when an attack falls upon American infrastructure or interests that was not influenced, directly or indirectly, by the actions of agencies which were supposedly employed to prevent such events from ever occurring. Whether through ‘blowback’, or through ‘false flag’, frankly, most of the harm that comes to our nation is perpetrated by the guiding hand of our inexorably corrupt government.
Knowing that the DHS was established on false pretenses forces us to question the agency’s true intentions, especially when a professional fear-monger like Secretary Janet Napolitano announces that the globalization of the world economy falls within her
jurisdiction. Average citizens would assume that the DHS is a U.S.-centric institution, and regardless of its Orwellian behavior, is at the very least a distinctly American brand of tyranny. However, under encroaching strategies enforced since 2006 through the National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP), it is becoming very apparent that the Department Of Homeland Security is quickly taking on an “all-of-nation” role, most prominently in the defense of
globalization. [...] In her most recent op-ed / propaganda piece published by Reuters, Napolitano makes it clear that the business of the DHS is lately focused on what she calls “global supply chain security”. This by itself could be seen as a perfectly logical extension of the DHS mandate to protect America. Unfortunately, the situation is not that simple. A few talking points and guidelines within the NIPP platform are rather disturbing, and create an open door for the internationalization of the DHS.[...]
The global supply chain encompasses everything! It is a vast artificial international construct. For the DHS to truly “defend” its integrity, it will be REQUIRED to sacrifice the specific and sovereign interests of the U.S. In a globalized trade system, every economy is important, as long as it does not compete with any other economy. The U.S. economy is no exception. Harmonization diminishes the wealth of more successful nations and transfers it to less successful nations. This transfer of wealth does, in a sense, create equality; it makes everyone equally poor. By becoming the militant hand of globalization, the DHS is put in the position of hurting America in order to “save” America. [...]"
Note: I know, they're nuts. Reincarnated Soviet/Stalinisty and
German/Nazi WWII bureaucrats and goons .... that's the truth. Notice how
quickly they filled all the positions with those, and minions.
Flashback:
"Brookings: ‘Horrific Provocation’ and ‘Tehran-Sponsored 9/11′ Needed to Trigger Iran Invasion" [02/07/12]
"In a 2009 policy paper, published by the influential Brookings Institute, the authors propose almost anything to guarantee dominance of Persia, including such measures as bribery, lying, cheating and mass murdering in the shape of an all-out military assault on Iran.
The paper ‘Which path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran’ is just one of many recent and not so recent examples of an unwavering resolve by the Anglo-American establishment to engage Iran militarily and acquire its natural resources at the same time.
The group of authors — a cozy little convergence of globalists — contemplate four separate options on ‘how to deal with Iran’ in the cold bureaucratic language that poses as scientific but really amounts to little more than the intelligent musings of a calculating psychopath. [...]
The first option, ‘Dissuading Tehran’ through diplomatic means is being discussed as something tried, tested and discarded into the trashcan of history.
The second option, ‘Disarming Tehran’ covers several ways of rallying the ‘international community’ around the
globalists’ intentions. In the third part, ‘Toppling Tehran’ the warmongering increases as the writers contemplate both covert and overt military action against the Islamic republic of Iran.
In the fourth and last section, ‘Deterring Tehran’ the option of ‘containment’ is elaborated upon. The proposed final strategy predictably involves all of the above mentioned options, in roughly the same order of appearance.
To ensure the cooperation of surrounding countries, the authors propose bribery as an effective tool.
After the authors assert that ‘it may be necessary to cut some deals in order to secure Moscow’s support for a tougher Iran policy’, the authors continue with their ‘brainstorming’, advising a widespread bribery campaign in order to ensure international cooperation in regards to Iran:"
Commentary: "The State of US Surveillance"
Doug Hornig
[02/07/12]
"Lovers of liberty have seemingly had a good bit to celebrate recently. First, there was an unprecedented outpouring of negative public sentiment about the Congressional bills SOPA (House) and PIPA (Senate); they are legislation that would have thrown a large governmental monkey wrench into the relatively smooth-running cogs of the Internet. Millions of Americans signed online petitions against the bills after seeing websites' various protests. Google shrouded its search page in black; Wikipedia and Reddit went dark entirely (although Wikipedia could be accessed if one read the information available via clicking the sole link on its protest page); Facebook and Twitter urged users to contact their representatives; and many other core Internet businesses also raised their voices in opposition.
Such was the outpouring of dissent that even Washington, D.C. had to listen. The bills, which a week earlier had seem assured of swift passage, suddenly turned to poison. Supporters, forced to concede that the public really was pissed off this time, fled. Leadership in both houses tabled the legislation, pending further review and revision.
But before we get too self-congratulatory, however, it's wise to note that this victory dish is probably best enjoyed with a serving of caution. As Casey Extraordinary Technology editor Alex Daley summed up the situation for us here at Casey Research: "Be sure this will come back again, likely post-election, and snuck through as part of a bigger package. It arrests power from the judiciary, and the legislature likes nothing more than to thumb its nose at those ridiculous judges and all their due process this and Constitution that. It will eventually pass, just not like this." [...]"
Related: See below.
MSM:
"Czech Government Suspends ACTA Ratification" [02/07/12]
"Following Poland's lead, the Czech Prime Minister, Petr Necas has announced that the government there will suspend the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) ratification process until the country has had more time to analyze the agreement. This follows a "wave of protests" across Europe, in which this agreement, that everyone assumed was going through with no questions asked, has suddenly generated significant public interest [...]"
Related: See "European Parliament Official In Charge Of ACTA Quits, And Denounces The ‘Masquerade’ Behind ACTA "
[01/29/12]
and related stories; "ACTA: The Corporate Usurpation Of The Internet" Nile Bowie
[01/28/12]
and related stories; "ACTA Worse Than SOPA And Classified As National Security By Obama And Bush"
[6:32] "Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA"
[01/28/12]
below.
Commentary: "Under
The Jackboot Of An American Secretary General, INTERPOL Now Tracking
Dissidents" Wayne Madsen
[02/06/12]
"Welcome to the new INTERPOL – the International Criminal Police Organization -- a carbon copy of the INTERPOL that was briefly headquartered in Berlin under the Nazi regime. Today, INTERPOL, an international law enforcement agency composed of 190 members nations, INTERPOL, headquartered in Lyon, France, is under the control of Secretary General Ron K. Noble, a former Undersecretary for Enforcement of the U.S. Treasury Department. Under Noble, INTERPOL is tracking political dissidents while leaving gangsters and other criminals, especially those wanted by Russia, remain at large.
Noble was the head of the Treasury Department’s “Waco Administrative Review Team,” which covered up the actions of his Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in their siege of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. That siege resulted in the deaths of 84 members of the separatist Seventh Day Adventist sect, including their leader David
Koresh, and four of Noble’s BATF agents in a deadly shootout that was followed by the burning down of the sect’s compound.
In 2000, Noble was elected the first American Secretary General of INTERPOL. He is now in his third term. Perhaps it was fitting that Noble was re-elected INTERPOL Secretary General in 2005 at the INTERPOL General Assembly in Berlin. In 1942, INTERPOL headquarters were moved from Vienna to Berlin. From 1938, following the Austrian union with Nazi Germany, INTERPOL’s Secretaries General included four German SS generals: Otto
Stenhausl, Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Security Service chief Reinhard Heydrich – assassinated in a Prague suburb by Czechoslovak agents in 1942, Arthur Nebe – head of the KRIPO criminal police and executed for his part to assassinated Adolf Hitler in 1944, and Ernst Kaltenbrunner – executed for war crimes after the Nuremburg trials.
During INTERPOL’s control by Nazi generals, the international law enforcement organization became a virtual arm of Nazi German intelligence. Today, the so-called international law enforcement organization is a subsidiary of not only American intelligence, but the intelligence and security services of its dictatorial member states. [...]
There is no reason for an American, with his open and hidden agendas, to serve as Secretary General of INTERPOL. In his State of the Union address, President Obama declared that those who believed American is in decline “don’t know what they’re talking about.” To the contrary, Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about. America is in decline as a superpower and it is high time that Americans no longer be granted automatic lordship over such institutions as the World Bank, INTERPOL, and the military command of NATO. In fact, all three institutions can do the proper thing and dissolve themselves or be prepared to be dissolved. [...]
"
US
Politics: "Rand Paul Introduces Amendment To Force Former Elected Officials To Forfeit ALL Benefits If They Become Lobbyists" [02/06/12]
[1:57]
"Sen. Rand Paul today took to the Senate floor to introduce an amendment that would bring an end to the revolving door between federal employees and companies lobbying for federal funding or loans. This corrupt relationship has led to billions in wasted taxpayer dollars—money awarded on highly debatable grounds to companies who were better politically connected than they were capable of actually repaying a government loan.
" Note: Jan. 31, 2012. This law is approximately 40 years overdue, and it took a neophyte Senator to be the first to propose such legislation in the history of the U.S. Senate. $20 bucks and box of Cracker Jack says it has exactly zero chance at passing our captured Congress. [...]"
Commentary: "The Crucial Pillar of the New World Order"
Lew Rockwell [02/05/12]
"One of the most alluring temptations that face men is the desire to enter the inner ring. C. S. Lewis wrote a wonderful essay with this title. It should be part of every person's rite of passage into adulthood.
The desire to enter the inner ring is closely related to the desire to maintain a New World Order. There is always an institutional claimant to New World Order status. It is always structured in terms of a series of concentric rings. These rings are always vertical. They are part of a pyramid of power. They are best represented by a stepped pyramid.
Every empire has been founded in the name of – on behalf of – some version of a New World Order. Empires all have this in common: they are eventually replaced.
... About 6,000 people, 94% male, average age 61, meet from time to time to set the agenda for the rest of us. Here is the central fact: about 30% of them attended one or more of about 20 elite universities. [...]"
Related: "Superclass and the Inequity of Globalization"
Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
"To ensure world stability, a private sector–dominated super class
driving globalization needs reining in. Like nature, power also abhors a vacuum. On the global stage this has meant that thanks to weak or underdeveloped international institutions and a general lack of consensus as to how to manage this integrated and interdependent world, a
super class of elites is stepping in to fill the void. They pursue their agendas often unchecked by institutions representing the will of the people at large, operating with a freedom typically impossible in nation-states where the checks and balances of governance have evolved to help counteract the over-concentration of power in the hands of the few. What is more, the market-centric approaches regularly advocated by this private sector–dominated group seem to have resulted what may well be the most inequitable world in history, posing a palpable danger to international stability.
The power structure of a society is like any other product of its citizens, be it a city or a system of beliefs. It’s an artifact, a cultural fingerprint, one which distinguishes the society from past and future eras or from other civilizations and which can offer clues to the society’s rise and fall, the degree of order or chaos within it, and a sense of its collective priorities. Generally all citizens are touched by and help in creating the power structure and its internal dynamics through their actions, reactions or simply their tolerance of others’ actions.
[...]"
Commentary: "Most US States Are Ignoring The World's Fastest Growing Criminal Enterprise:
Human Trafficking" [02/04/12]
"Human trafficking is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world—but you wouldn't know it based on the laws in most US states.
By CIA estimates, there are 45,000-50,000 victims of sex slavery and trafficking each year in the U.S. alone.
City and state involvement are seen as critical in stopping a crime around half of which is organized by local pimps, according to a study several years ago by the Justice Department.
Yet despite a call to action by the Department of Defense and President Obama naming January "National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month," most states remain woefully behind in their response to the problem.
A study conducted by Shared Hope International rated each state's sex trafficking laws, including how each law addresses the crime, the criminal provisions for traffickers, the protective provisions for victims, and the tools utilized for investigation and prosecution.
Only three states (Illinois, Missouri and Texas) received grades higher than C. 27 states received an F grade. No state got an A.
Some local governments are taking the matter seriously, like Westchester (New York) County's unveiling of a new trafficking task force.
Others are waiting for the problem to come to them, such as Indiana, which received a D on the Shared Hope analysis but recently tightened its laws in time for the Super Bowl, perhaps one of the biggest sex trafficking events of the year. Indeed an estimated 10,000 prostitutes were brought to the 2010 Super Bowl in Miami, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. [...]"
Explorations: "How
To Predict When A System Is About To Collapse" [02/04/12]
"Predicting when a complex system will go through a sudden change is hard — either you need vast swathes of information, or you make rather bad predictions. But we want to spot critical transitions before they happen, regardless of whether we're talking about irreversible damage to coral reefs, stock market crashes, or fishery collapses. It can be done if you know what to look for, but getting a sufficient amount of data be tough.
Enter a new proposal by Steven Lade from the Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany and Thilo Gross from the University of Bristol published yesterday in the journal PLoS Computational Biology (free online). In it, the scientists argue that there is a way to see these things in advance without needing quite as much data. Their "generalized model" allows the use of partial information, and
allows for unknown and un-measurable variables. Their idea is designed to be used in conjunction with existing models to provide extra warning before things go pear-shaped. Sure, it might not be quite as accurate, but it's easier and faster. [...]"
Related: "Early Warning Signals for Critical Transitions: A Generalized Modeling Approach"
"Critical transitions are sudden, often irreversible, changes that can occur in a large variety of complex systems; signals that warn of critical transitions are therefore highly desirable. We propose a new method for early warning signals that integrates multiple sources of information and data about the system through the framework of a generalized model. We demonstrate our proposed approach through several examples, including a previously published fisheries model. We regard our method as complementary to existing early warning signals, taking an approach of intermediate complexity between model-free approaches and fully parameterized simulations. One potential advantage of our approach is that, under appropriate conditions, it may reduce the amount of time series data required for a robust early warning signal.
Fisheries, coral reefs, productive farmland, planetary climate, neural activity in the brain, and financial markets are all complex systems that can be susceptible to sudden changes leading to drastic re-organization or collapse. A variety of signals based on analysis of time-series data have been proposed that would provide warning of these so-called critical transitions. We propose a new method for calculating early warning signals that is complementary to existing approaches. The key step is to incorporate other available information about the system through the framework of a so-called generalized model. Our new approach may help to anticipate future catastrophic regime shifts in nature and society, allowing humankind to avert or to mitigate the consequences of the impending change. [...]"
Commentary: "Corruption in Fascist Business Model" [02/03/12]
"Few can define fascism. Many cannot recognize it. History provides shocking stories of its past episodes. But its root structural feature is the tight relationship between the state and large corporations of a nation, which permit enormous fraud and lead to grand inefficiency, even while aggression and war accompany its handiwork in an ugly fabric weave. Nowhere is the bond more scummy and corrupt than with the banking industry, not in general but in Wall Street where defense of the USDollar has come. That defense was contracted from the USGovt to Wall Street, whose ties developed into a vast network of corruption. That cozy relationship led to the gutting of Fort Knox and its gold bullion in the 1990 decade of so-called prosperity. The 0% gold leasing resulted in vast speculation schemes, private
multi- $trillion profit, and absent collateral for the USDollar itself. The other cozy connection is with the defense contractors, where war generates colossal cash flows, some of which result in kickbacks to Congress. The Fascist Business Model is a cord to strangle the neck of a nation. The rage of nationalism, the eradication of liberties, the pursuit of conjured enemies, the constant sense of alert, the attack on enemies with alienation of allies, all tend to effectively conceal the theft and corruption. The other tell-tale infection is of inefficiency, where the most insolvent lead in policymaking, where the most connected are not the best in class, where the most corrupt are shielded by cronies in watchdog posts. These ordinary teams have dominated, not from capability according to the marketplace forces or Darwinism, but from connection to the power center.
The United States of America had been the beacon of capitalism and freedom. In the last 20 years, it has proven to be the epitome of anti-capitalism, shown mortal wounds from the NeoCon assault on liberty and the more recent collectivism assault typical of Soviet regimes. The global revolt against the USDollar is not just an organized movement to protect against a reserve currency suffering declining value. It is a movement also intended to avoid a climax in corruption, the likes of which modern history has never witnessed. The bright light from the beacon has attracted a deadly swarm of moths, which tragically have enveloped the light completely, masked its wondrous effect, and disguised the vile cobwebs of fascism. The historians all too well are aware that the final chapter of a capitalist nation is embedded in fascism, as its institutions suffer from profound corruption, as inefficiency depletes the wealth structures, as the system breaks down, as the rule of law vanishes. [...]"
MSM: "Gasland"
Director Arrested For Attempting To Film Congressional Hearing On Fracking" [02/03/12]
"Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Josh Fox was arrested Wednesday morning after attempting to film a House Science Committee hearing on hydraulic fracturing.
Fox was led out in handcuffs by the Capitol police shortly after 10 a.m., before the hearing could be gaveled into order. The “Gasland” director was attempting to film the hearing looking into EPA’s investigation of potential water contamination from natural gas drilling in Pavillion, Wyo.
“I’m within my First Amendment rights, and I’m being taken out,” Fox shouted as he was led away.
Fox has been charged with unlawful entry, according to Capitol police spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider.
Fox is working on a sequel to his Oscar-nominated “Gasland.” An ABC news crew was also turned away from the hearing. The committee chairman has the discretion on whether to allow uncredentialed members of the media to film hearings, according to a democratic staffer. [...]"
Commentary:
"Asia
Times: The Myth Of An "Isolated' Iran" [02/03/12]
"Washington continues to push a vision of a world from which Iran has been radically disconnected. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland is typical in saying recently, "Iran can remain in international isolation." As it happens, though, she needs to get her facts straight.
"Isolated" Iran has $4 billion in joint projects with Venezuela including, crucially, a bank (as with Ecuador, it has dozens of planned projects from building power plants to, once again, banking). That has led the Israel-first crowd in Washington to vociferously demand that sanctions be slapped on Venezuela. Only problem: how would the US pay for its crucial Venezuelan oil imports then?
Much was made in the US press of the fact that Ahmadinejad did not visit Brazil on this jaunt through Latin America, but diplomatically Tehran and Brasilia remain in sync. When it comes to the nuclear dossier in particular, Brazil's history leaves its leaders sympathetic. [...]"
US
Politics: "House
Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa Threatens Eric Holder With Contempt" [02/01/12]
"House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) threatened Tuesday to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress if the Justice Department did not provide certain documents in response to the committee’s subpoena.
In a letter to Holder, Issa wrote that “this committee will have no alternative but to move forward with proceedings to hold you in contempt of Congress” if Holder and the DOJ didn’t produce documents they demanded relating to the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal.
Holder has until Thursday, Feb. 9. to comply, according to Issa. Issa accused the Justice Department of trying to “obstruct our investigation and deceive
the public” by withholding documents. “Your actions lead us to conclude that the department is actively engaged in a cover-up,” he said in a four-page letter.
The California Republican pointed to a document that the DOJ released last Friday, which indicated that Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer had promoted gun-walking to Mexico on the same day that Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich wrote to Congress denying that the DOJ had allowed guns to walk.
“It is inconceivable that the Department just became aware of this highly damaging document,” writes
Issa, pointing out that the Oversight Committee had originally issued a subpoena on Oct. 12, 2011.
Issa outlines certain documents which the DOJ has which has not been provided to the Oversight Committee, and demands their release to the committee by Feb. 9 at 5 p.m.
“The department has worked with the committee over the last year providing numerous witnesses for interviews, officials for testimony at hearings and thousands of pages of documents and we will continue to do so,” a DOJ official told POLITICO in response to the letter. [...]"
MSM:
"U.S.
Defense Department Can't Account For Billions For Iraq, Audit Finds" [01/31/12]
"The U.S. Defense Department cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses and is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits.
The reports come from the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
The Iraqi government in 2004 gave the Department of Defense access to about $3 billion to pay bills for certain contracts, and the department can only show what happened to about a third of that, the inspector general says in an audit published Friday.
Although the Department of Defense (DoD) had "internal processes and controls" to track payments, the "bulk of the records are missing," the report says, adding that the department is searching for them. [...]"
Commentary:
"Davos:
Day One" [01/30/12]
"Davos:
Day Two"
"Davos:
Day Three"
World leaders continue to debate capitalism, the eurozone, and Iran at a snowy Davos[...]"
MSM:
"Israel Drone Crashes During Flight" [01/30/12]
"The Israeli military says a drone that can fly as far as Iran has crashed in central Israel on a routine experimental flight.
The military says there were no injuries in Sunday's crash, and it was investigating the incident.
The Heron TP drone is also known locally as the Eitan. It has a wingspan of 86 feet (26 meters), making it the
size of a Boeing 737 passenger jet. It is the largest unmanned aircraft in Israel's military arsenal.
The drone figures to be featured prominently in any potential Israeli operation against Iran and its expanding nuclear program.
Heron TP could provide surveillance, jam enemy communications and connect ground control and manned air force planes. It's unclear if is could carry a deployable payload in a potential strike. [...]"
Corbett Report:
"The Past, Present and Future of Internet Censorship
" [01/29/12]
[11:08]
"In recent weeks the general public has mobilized to face US legislative threats to Internet freedoms. Far from a conclusive victory, however, the death of SOPA and PIPA only highlight the latest in a series of measures that are seeking to create a legal framework for government-administered Internet censorship.
Find out more about this contentious topic in this week's GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV. [...]"
MSM:
"European Parliament Official In Charge Of ACTA Quits, And Denounces The ‘Masquerade’ Behind ACTA
" [01/29/12]
"Kader Arif, the “rapporteur” for ACTA, has quit that role in disgust over the process behind getting the EU to sign onto ACTA. A rapporteur is a person “appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue.” However, it appears his investigation of ACTA didn’t make him very pleased: [...]"
Related: "ACTA
Anger: Polish Protests Grow Into Anti-Govt Rage"
[4:44] |See also "ACTA: The Corporate Usurpation Of The Internet" Nile Bowie
[01/28/12],
below.
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [01/29/12]
MP3 Audio
[70:00] 
Select
Jan 28, 2012
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments. Tarpley
covers the worsening situation in the Middle East, and more updates.
Related:
"Pentagon Seeks Mightier Bomb vs. Iran"
MSM: "Iran
Finalizes Bill To Ban EU Oil Exports" [01/29/12]
"An Iranian lawmaker says the Majlis (parliament) Energy Committee has finalized a draft bill to stop the country's oil exports to EU member states in reaction to the bloc's recent decision to ban oil imports from Iran.
Nasser Soudani, deputy chairman of the committee, said on Saturday that the double-urgency bill for halting Iran oil exports to Europe had been finalized in four clauses.
“According to one of the main clauses, the Islamic Republic of Iran will halt all oil exports to European countries as long as they continue to ban oil imports from Iran,” he added.
The lawmaker said the bill may undergo further modifications as some Iranian parliamentarians believe that oil exports to EU should be stopped for five years.
“Another clause obliges the government to forbid imports of all goods from countries which have imposed sanctions on our country,” he added. [...]"
Related: See below.
Commentary:
"Iran Turns Embargo Tables: To Pass Law Halting All Crude Exports To Europe" [01/28/12]
"In what is likely a long overdue move, Iran has finally decided to give Europe a harsh lesson in game theory. Instead of letting Euro-area politicians score brownie points at its expense by threatening to halt imports and cut off the Iranian economy, the Iranian government will instead propose a bill calling for an immediate halt to oil deliveries to Europe. [...]"
Related: Commentary: "Iranian
Crude For Gold - Beginning Of The End Of Dollar?
"
"The proposed move by India, if effectuated, will dynamite the world of global finance and destabilise global economies, writes M R
Venkatesh. [...]"
MSM: "Israeli Finance Minister Pushes Naval, Aerial Blockade of Iran" [01/28/12]
"In an interview today with Bloomberg Businessweek, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz rejected the European Union’s ban on importation of Iranian crude oil, insisting it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Instead, Steinitz called for the international community to impose a full naval and aerial blockade across all of Iran so that “no one can even go out [sic].” This is the only option with any chance of success, he said. [...]"
Note: Which would be an act of war. Even proposing anything
like this, under International Law, is considered a provocation for war, and
is not allowed.
Commentary: "ACTA:
The Corporate Usurpation Of The Internet" Nile Bowie
[01/28/12]
"In the wake of a public outcry against internet regulation bills such as SOPA and PIPA, representatives of the EU have signed a new and far more threatening legislation yesterday in Tokyo. Spearheaded by the governments of the United States and Japan and constructed largely in the absence of public awareness, the measures of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) dramatically alter current international legal framework, while introducing the first substantial processes of global internet governance. With complete contempt towards the democratic process, the negotiations of the treaty were exclusively held between industry representatives and government officials, while excluding elected representatives and members of the press from their hearings. [...]"
Related: "ACTA
Protests Break Out As EU States Sign Up To Treaty"
"The UK and 21 other European Union member states on Thursday signed an international copyright agreement treaty called Acta (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), sparking more demonstrations by internet users who have protested for days both virtually and physically over fear it will lead to online censorship.
Following the signing, protesters rallied in the Polish cities of Poznan and Lublin to express their anger over the treaty. Lawmakers for the left-wing Palikot's Movement wore masks in parliament to show their dissatisfaction, while the largest opposition party the right-wing Law and Justice party called for a referendum on the matter.
The signing has yet to be ratified by the European Union parliament, and is scheduled to be debated in June. MEPs are already coming under intense pressure from activists on both sides over the forthcoming vote.
Poland's ambassador to Japan, Jadwiga Rodowicz-Czechowska, signed the agreement in Tokyo. Speaking on Polish television, she said that Poland was one of several EU countries to sign Acta on Thursday, including Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Greece.
Several other industrialised countries – including the US, Canada and South Korea – signed the agreement last year.
Poland's support for Acta has sparked attacks on Polish government websites by the hacking collective Anonymous that left several of them unreachable off and on for days. Street protests of hundreds, and in some cases thousands of people, have broken out across Poland for the past three days. [...]" |
"ACTA
Worse Than SOPA And Classified As National Security By Obama And Bush"
[6:32]
"Obama Signs Global Internet Treaty Worse Than SOPA"
Internet:
"Uproar Follows
As Twitter Ponders Censorship" [01/28/12]
"Reporters Without Borders joined the chorus of outrage following Twitter's announcement that it might enforce country-specific censorship.
Twitter made the controversial announcement on its blog on Thursday night. "As we continue to grow internationally, we will enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression," the post states. "Some differ so much from our ideas that we will not be able to exist there. Others are similar but, for historical or cultural reasons, restrict certain types of content, such as France or Germany, which ban pro-Nazi content." "Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries' limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country - while keeping it available in the rest of the world. We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld, and why." The announcement comes weeks after Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin
Talal, the second largest shareholder in News Corp. after Rupert Murdoch, invested $300 million in Twitter. Within hours, users created the hashtag
#TwitterBlackout to announce a boycott of the social media company on Saturday. Reporters Without Borders, whose 2011-12 Press Freedom Index was largely devoted to the journalist clampdowns caused by mass protests worldwide, wrote a letter urging Twitter chairman James Dorsey to reconsider the announcement. [...]"
Commentary:
"The U.S. Constitution Vs. Law Enforcement Surveillance Technology" [01/28/12]
"The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that law enforcement could not use GPS technology to track cars or their occupants without a warrant issued by a judge.
This judgment was not expected given the Supreme Courts record on upholding law enforcements actions that trample on the Constitutional rights of the American people.
A similar case, Olmstead V. United States, came before the Supreme Court in 1928. This case involved the use of wire tapping and whether or not it violated the fourth and fifth amendments.
The plaintiffs argued that wire tapping violated Olmsteads fourth and fifth amendment rights guaranteed under the Constitution and that wiretapping was the same as illegal search and seizure and therefore in violation of the Constitutional rights of all United States citizens.
The Supreme Court justices at the time of the ruling did not see it that way, stating: [...]"
MSM:
"Cocaine
Seized At UN Headquarters In New York" [01/27/12]
"A bag containing 16kg (35.5lb) of cocaine was found at the United Nations headquarters in New York last week, police have said.
The drugs were in a bag printed with a version of the UN symbol which arrived at the organisation's mailroom, setting off a security alert.
Spokesman Paul Browne said they seemed to have been delivered by accident. There was no name or address on the shipment sent from Mexico City through Cincinnati, he added.
The white bag raised suspicions when it was being scanned because a poor imitation of a UN logo had been stamped on it, apparently in an attempt to pass it off as official baggage.
Inside the bag, the drug was hidden in hollowed-out notebooks, UN undersecretary-general for safety and security, Gregory Starr, told reporters.
"In my humble opinion this was the work of narcotics traffickers that were trying to ship something into the United States and their plan must have gone wrong," Mr Starr was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.
UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told AP news agency that neither the UN nor anyone located at its headquarters was the intended recipient of the shipment.
[...]"
MSM: "US
Unveils Strategy For A Global Supply Chain Crisis" [01/26/12]
"The US has unveiled a strategy at the Davos World Economic Forum to protect the global supply chain in the event of a terror attack or natural disaster.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano announced the policy, signed by Obama.
The US has set aside six months to identify specific potential contingency plans.
The supply chain includes provision of food, medicines, fuel or any goods that underpin the American way of life.
The strategy would plan for worst case scenarios, enabling the government and industries to respond quickly to disasters that could disrupt access to vital commodities.
Ms Napolitano cited a 2010 incident in which al-Qaeda operatives in the Arab Peninsula plotted to send explosive devices into the US via cargo planes that were thought to be carrying printer toner cartridges.
"That really brought to the forefront of my own recognition that we need to have a sense of urgency about the importance of the global supply chain,'' Ms Napolitano said as she addressed a crowd at the World Economic Forum.
"When the unknown occurs, you have no time." Events such as Hurricane Katrina, Iceland's volcanic eruption and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan can also affect international supply chains.
The new strategy directs federal agencies to address "those components of the worldwide network of transportation, postal and shipping pathways, assets, and infrastructures by which goods are moved until they reach an end consumer''.
It also encourages international co-operation and involvement from industry. [...]"
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [01/26/12]
MP3 Audio
[120:00]
Select
Jan 21, 2012
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments. Tarpley
covers the ongoing uprisings in society and the political arena worldwide.
MSM:
"Iran Embargo May Speed Refinery Closures"
[01/26/12]
"The European Union’s embargo on Iranian oil threatens to accelerate refinery closures in Europe, the head of Italy’s refiners’ lobby said.
“Asian countries not applying the embargo could buy the Iranian oil at a discount and sell cheap refined products back to us,” Piero De Simone, general manager of Unione
Petrolifera, said in an interview in Rome yesterday. “Italy already risks the closure of five refineries and at a European level we’re talking about 70 possible shut downs.” [...]"
Related:
"Iran Tensions Push Oil Prices Past $110 As Europe Plans Sanctions
"
"Oil prices rose above $110 per barrel amid an ongoing dispute over Iran's nuclear
programme, with Tehran threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to Western sanctions. [...]" "European
Oil Refiners Sever Links To Iran" [01/12/12]
Commentary: "The Secret Facebook of Power" [01/25/12]
"At the Toronto based G20 summit in 2010, the men and women holding the purse strings of the world were forced to get on the
Facebook-style network to access documents and communicate with each other, because email was strictly banned. Only 125 members were accepted - the finance and deputy finance ministers of the twenty countries along with a
"sherpa" or guide for each member state. 55 of them decided to upload profile pictures too, giving the financial negotiations a more personal touch. It's highly likely that the remaining 60-odd invites were parcelled out to the global premiers, which means that it is likely, though not certain Barack Obama was/is on there.
Users on the network were able to upload documents, read documents, message each other,
blog, have live instant message conversations and see who was talking about topics they were interested in.
"The idea is that there are communities around concepts - in the case of the G20 that could be where to stay in Toronto but it could also be hey - we've got this climate change summit coming up what are we going to do about it," said
Heaslip. A "pyramid of privacy" allowed users to finely grade how widely they shared information. Opentext turned the software around in 3 months.
It's not just global power-mongers who like to share documents on secure cloud-based software, it is used by other SECRET people, the Register was informed.
"Lots of the world's most private and high security organisations use our software. Behind the barbed wire and high fences, these organisations need to communicate within themselves," Simon
Lill, OpenText head of sales told the Reg. "We have several customers who require very secure networks."
But these customers are so secret that he couldn't tell us who they were. [...]
Opentext refused to disclose whether any of their top-secret ultra-secure networks had suffered attacks in the past few years, but gave a sketch outline on how secure the systems were.
"The main strategy is decoupling it from the internet. All our software is highly-secure, penetration tested by security experts," said OpenText honcho Simon Ward, adding that they have different solutions for different clients - depending on whether the documents are about bin collection rotas in Surrey or TOP-SECRET things.
"There are lots of elements in security, we're just one piece in the secure environment, our customers also work with RIM, Fujitsu, we just drop in the software," said Ward. [...]
"
Commentary: "Davos 2012: From Capitalism to Fascism" Robert Wenzel
[01/25/12]
"On Friday, I attacked Larry Summers for blaming the current crisis on capitalism. I thought he was a lone wolf attempting to see how far the anti-capitalist agenda could be pushed. I was wrong.
It appears Summers simply fired the first shot in a new aggressive move by elitists to discredit capitalism outright. The elitists are gathering in Davos, Switzerland right now for the 2012 World Economic Forum. [...]
Economic and political elites meeting this week at the Swiss resort of Davos will be asked to urgently find ways to reform a capitalist system that has been described as “outdated and crumbling.”
“We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations,” said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.
“Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole.
“We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual,” the 73-year-old said, adding that “capitalism in its current form, has no place in the world around us.”
Some 1,600 economic and political leaders, including 40 heads of states and governments, will be asked to come up with new ideas as they converge at eastern Switzerland’s chic ski station for the 42nd edition of the five-day World Economic Forum which opens Wednesday.
[...]
"
Commentary:
"Putin
And The Rise Of The Russian Power" [01/25/12]
"The world is anticipating the Russian presidential elections, although their outcome has already been settled in favor of the return of Vladimir Putin to the presidency, in an event which will complete Kremlin’s exit from the state of retreat which was characterized by the humoring of the American unilateral hegemony project over the world. [...]"
Commentary: "Psychology of Tyranny for a Philosophy of Despotism" [01/24/12]
"The underpinnings that fallaciously attempt to justify despotic regimes rely upon the perverted practice of controlling the public mindset in weak societies.
The indisputable evidence that civilization is regressing at lightening speed is all around us. Governments are becoming irrelevant with the passage of illegitimate authority consolidating into the hands of oligarchic cabals and global tyrants. An objective study of the voluntary abandonment of individual sovereignty is worthy of an entire scholarly discipline.
However, before confused citizens seek psychoanalysis on a couch of technocrat design, the basic principles of a classical education should be applied.
Philosophical inquiry is meant to seek an understanding of the truth. Truth, when known, vindicates the dignity of the person and the value intrinsic within the human race. Therefore, it comes as a great letdown to face up to the horrendous savageness that society accepts as typical behavior. The psychological techniques used to train people to accept tyranny as the normal course of conduct is practiced by every despotic regime.
Jon Roland in an essay, Principles of Tyranny provides a valuable insight: Perhaps one of the things that most distinguishes those with a fascist mentality from most other persons is how they react in situations that engender feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.
[...] The emergence of tyranny, therefore, begins with challenges to a
group, develops into general feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, and falls into a pattern in which some individuals assume the role of “father” to the others, who willingly submit to becoming dependent “children” of such persons if only they are reassured that a more favorable outcome will be realized. [...]"
Commentary: "World
Economic Forum: Global Experts Fear Geopolitical Disruption" [01/24/12]
"As world leaders head to Davos for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting starting tomorrow, there’s growing fear of a major geopolitical disruption over the next 12 months among international experts.
This fear, according to the WEF’s third Global Confidence Index, has risen sharply to 54 per cent just as confidence in the state of global cooperation has dropped.
The swiss resort of Davos on Monday. Experts expect a jittery 12 months owing global economic uncertainties.
The bleak outlook at the start of this year is shared by a majority of 345 respondents from business, government, international organisations and academia.
“A major geopolitical disruption early in the new year would certainly tip the global economy in the wrong direction given current confidence levels,” said Lee Howell, the managing director at the WEF responsible for the Forum’s Global Risks Report 2012.
“The possibility of a geoeconomic disruption, such as sovereign default, is to some degree reflected in the market, but a major geopolitical disruption clearly is not,” added Howell.[...]"
Interviews:
"US,
Iran and Sanctions: Analysis" PressTV
[01/19/12]
[23:11]
"Trying to flex its muscles again, the United States want the world to go along with its demands. And this time it wants the world to boycott Iranian oil or be punished by Washington.
According to Chinese authorities, Washington wants the world to listen to them based on their own domestic law, and that is simply not right.
Many experts believe that the US will face strong resistance from other powers such as China and Russia over Washington’s decision to impose sanctions on Iran’s oil sector, arguing that “the US sanctions are not even in line with the content and sprit of the related resolutions on Iran, adopted by the United Nations Security Council.”
Press TV has conducted an interview with author and journalist, Webster Griffin
Tarpley, to further discuss the issue of the US administration efforts to oblige other sovereign countries such as China, India, S. Korea, Japan and many others, to obey its domestic laws and put an embargo on the Iranian Oil industry in order to deter the country’s peaceful nuclear program. [...]"
Trends:
"War
On Drugs "Transferred" To Private Mercenaries Including Blackwater/Xe"
[01/18/12]
"Since the drug war has become so unpopular with the electorate, instead of politicians actually changing the drug laws, the Department of Defense seeks to reduce and conceal the real costs by transferring the "dirty work" to private contractors to do what "U.S. military forces are not allowed or not encouraged to do."
The BBC (in Spanish) is reporting that the U.S. Department of Defense is delegating the war on drugs to private mercenary companies. Of those companies, the increasingly infamous organization previously known as Blackwater is said to have received several multimillion-dollar government contracts for "providing advice, training and conducting operations in drug producing countries and those with links to so-called
"narco-terrorism" including Latin America." The "no bid" contracts, issued under the
Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office's $15 billion dollar budget, are described as "non-specific" and are said to be "juicy" for the private contractors. The Pentagon says "the details of each cost in very general contracts do not go through bidding processes."
An unnamed analyst says "the responsibility of the public and national security changing from a state's duty to be a private business...has become the trend of the future." [...]"
MSM: "Expert Says Beheadings in Arizona and Oklahoma Look Like Work of Cartels" [01/18/12]
[2:30]
"Three beheadings in two different states and they happened here in the United States, not Mexico.
Former DEA supervisor Phil Jordan says all three beheadings have cartel written all over them. They happened in Arizona and Oklahoma in the past year.
A murder mystery is now unraveling on a stretch of North Reservation Road in Tucson, Ariz. County workers found a headless man lying on the side of the road Jan. 6. The man's hands and feet were reportedly missing, too.
"It would lead me to believe the message wanted to be sent. This is one of the ways they do it in Mexico, Colombia and other places," says Jordan.
Jordan says the cartels are getting bolder in carrying out their beheadings across the border. He says we only used to see these crimes in Mexico.
"They don't have any borders," says Jordan. More than 600 miles from the border, a 19-year-old human trafficking victim was found beheaded in Oklahoma. Carina Saunders was stuffed into a bag and left in a grocery store parking lot.
"People know if they get on the wrong side of the fence, they'll be dealt with," says Jordan.
The police chief in the area says two men running the trafficking ring killed Saunders to send a message to the other victims. Jordan says the cartels' calling card is all over this case. Trafficking and smuggling are their top moneymakers. Revenge is the price of doing business. [...]"
Lecture:
"From Darwin to Hitler
" [01/18/12]
[58:05]
"In his book, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (2004), Richard Weikart explains the revolutionary impact Darwinism had on ethics and morality. Darwinism played a key role in the rise not only of eugenics (a movement wanting to control human reproduction to improve the human species), but also on euthanasia, infanticide, abortion, and racial extermination. This was especially important in Germany, since Hitler built his view of ethics on Darwinian principles. [...]"
Commentary: "America, Welcome to the Fourth Reich" [01/17/12]
"American Fascism did not start with World War II. Before Operation Paperclip, the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of the conflict, the annals of internal despotism were well established. With the open door policy for German engineering, the political ideology of state worship was bound to travel across the Atlantic.
The Pampas of Argentina or the backwaters of Paraguay were the preferred location for those who openly professed their reprehensible loyalty to the Führer principle. However, do not blame all those ex-Nazis for selecting the shores of the Americas for their new domicile; their seeds were planted long ago in the offices of Wall and Broad Streets. Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will saga shares more than what one wants to admit about the dark side of American History.
Do not be confused. National Socialism is an abhorrent notion to most Americans. Nevertheless, the political foundation of that false ideology is based upon pure Fascism forged in a marriage of the Corporate/State that produces this demented offspring. The systematic destruction of the essential purpose and motivation for the American Revolution is undeniable with any objective examination of the regretful legacy of domestic tyranny.
This record of monocracy is one of a criminal class, as opposed to the iron fist of a single man. If you believe this is an erroneous assessment, consider the following chronicle. [...]"
MSM:
"Saudi Arabia, China Ink Nuke Cooperation Deal" [01/17/12]
"The world's biggest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia has signed an agreement with China for cooperation in the development and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes, which will help to meet the Kingdom's increasing demand for energy and cut its growing dependence on depleting oil resources.
The deal was signed in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Sunday in the presence of King Abdullah and visiting Chinese Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao. The agreement seeks to establish a legal framework to strengthen scientific, technological and economic cooperation between Riyadh and Beijing, while the two sides reaffirmed their desire to place the highest priority on nuclear safety and environmental protection, the Arab News reported quoting officials.
Another agreement to expand cooperation in the field of academics and library affairs was signed by the Riyadh-based King Abdulaziz Public Library
(KAPL) and Beijing University. The pact will broaden the scope of cooperation between the two premier institutions and allow KAPL to open its branch in the Chinese capital.
Asked about details of the talks Wen had with King Abdullah, Chinese Embassy spokesman Li Lianghua said the talks with the monarch was preceded by Wen's meetings with Gulf Cooperation Council
(GCC) Secretary-General Abdullatif al-Zayani and Organization of Islamic Conference
(OIC) Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. The talks with King Abdullah covered the whole gamut of bilateral issues and regional development, said another Chinese official. [...]"
Related: "Saudi,
Chinese Oil Giants Ink Joint Refinery Deal"[01/16/12]
Flashback:
"Corporatism
And Socialism In America" [01/16/12]
"Principled advocacy of the free market requires an understanding of the differences between genuine free enterprise and “state capitalism.” Although the Left frequently exaggerates and overemphasizes the evils of corporate America, proponents of the free market often find themselves in the awkward position of defending the status quo of state capitalism, which is in fact a common adversary of the free marketer and the anti-corporate leftist, even if the latter misdiagnoses the problem and proposes the wrong solutions.
Indeed, corporatism, implemented by the state — whether through direct handouts, corporate bailouts, eminent domain, licensing laws, antitrust regulations, or environmental edicts — inflicts great harm on the modern American economy. Although leftists often misunderstand the fundamental problem plaguing the economy, they at least recognize its symptoms.
Conservatives and many libertarians, on the other hand, frequently dismiss many ills such as poverty as fabricated by the left-liberal imagination, when in fact it does a disservice to the cause of liberty and free markets to defend the current system and ignore very real and serious problems, which are often caused by government intervention in the economy. We should recognize that state corporatism is a form of socialism, and it is nearly inevitable in a mixed economy that the introduction of more socialism will cartelize industry and consolidate wealth in the hands of the few.
Leftists usually understand how wartime provides politically connected corporations with high profits and cushy contracts. What is more often neglected is that the history of the American domestic welfare and regulatory state also corresponds closely to the rise of corporatism. It is no coincidence. [...]"
Explorations:
"Gilad
Atzmon: Zionism and Jewish Identity" [01/16/12]
[84:35]
"Anti-Zionist activist and Jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon spoke at ArgusFest at the Mercury Cafe in Denver on July 1, 2010. [...]"
Note: Quite cogent and thoughtful lecture on the Zionist/Israeli psychosis.
Music:
"Gilad
Atzmon - Alekos Vretos - Live In Athens"
[120:00] Gilad Atzmon: saxophones, clarinet.
Related: The Coming Breakup of American Zionism"
[90:00] Part 2
Q&A [55:29]
"Independent scholar and author, Norman Finkelstein, speaking at Evergreen State College in Olympia,
WA.
Commentary: "The
Turkish-Iranian Partition Of The Middle East" [01/15/12]
"During the last decade many right-wing American and Israeli analysts have described the geo-strategic struggles unfolding in the Middle East as a new “Cold War” pitting the United States against Shiite Iran. They have warned of an Arab “Shiite Crescent” ― stretching from Lebanon to Iraq ― connected to Iran via ties of religion, commerce and
geostrategy. The new year has started with an attempted Shiite power play by Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki to dominate the Iraqi government, and an Iranian demonstration of missile and nuclear fuel rod capacity coupled with threats to close the Straits of Hormuz if Iranian oil exports are blocked. These events can be interpreted as ample evidence of Iranian expansionism and combined with fears that Iran will obtain a nuclear weapon, rendering its present regime and regional clients untouchable. [...]"
Flashback:
"Cheney
Considered Killing American Servicemen Dressed As Iran To Start World War 3" [01/15/12]
[3:51]
"The Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reveals how the neocons convened around Dick Cheney and brainstormed ways to kick off World War IV, as they fondly call their pet project to take out the Muslims and foment a contrived "clash of civilizations."
According to Hersh, this meeting occurred after the neocons failed miserably to stage a rehashed version of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Strait of
Hormuz, mostly because it is no longer 1964 and such Big Lies — thanks to the internet and bloggers — are far more difficult to float. "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there," quipped LBJ about the imaginary act of North Vietnamese boats supposedly attacking U.S. ships, leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and undeclared war in Southeast Asia, ultimately resulting in the death of nearly 60,000 Americans and around 3 million Southeast Asians.
In an exclusive Think Progress story, we learn the meeting took place in Cheney's office and the subject on the table was "how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington," part of an ongoing effort to provide an excuse to attack Iran. "There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war," Hersh explains. "The one that interested me the most was why don't we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of
Hormuz, start a shoot-up." Hersh would have us believe this scenario did not play out because "you can't have Americans killing Americans," an absurd explanation considering the fact the attacks of September 11 were just that — "Americans killing Americans," a calculated and cold-blooded act of mass murder carried out by elements in the U.S. government as a "new Pearl Harbor," a cynical pretext to launch the "war on terror," now grinding into its seventh year. [...]"
Note: From 2008.
Commentary:
"High Level Contacts Between State Department and Muslim Brotherhood" [01/14/12]
"Deputy Secretary of State William Burns has met with Mohammed Morsi, head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said on Wednesday.
Nuland characterized the meeting as a chance to reinforce U.S. expectations that Egypt’s parties will support human rights, women’s rights and religious tolerance, according to the Associated Press.
Burns visited Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood ahead of an IMF delegation that will discuss a $3 billion loan. He encouraged the north African country to cooperate with the
IMF. The Muslim Brotherhood is a documented intelligence asset. [...]"
Note: Of course, Tarpley was right about this.
MSM: "Iran
Agrees To UN Inspection" [01/14/12]
"Maybe Iran isn't barreling toward war after all. Western diplomats say Iran has agreed to allow UN nuclear inspectors into the country, with the trip currently scheduled for Jan. 28, the Wall Street Journal reports. That surprise move came as the speaker of Iran's parliament announced yesterday that the country had agreed to Turkey's proposal to host nuclear talks between Iran and the permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany.
"The negotiations can yield results if they are serious and not a game," the speaker said on state-run TV, according to the
AFP, which notes that both moves follow the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist on Wednesday and increasingly tighter economic sanctions. So far it's unclear how much latitude the UN team will have, or whether it'll finally get its long-sought interview with suspected nuclear program leader Mohsen
Fakhrizadeh. "The exact agenda isn't clear," said one Western diplomat. "We're expecting the meeting to happen." [...]"
MSM: "Downtown
Chicago Will Be On Lockdown During NATO, G-8 Summits" [01/13/12]
"A large security perimeter will prevent motorists from driving and parking on some downtown streets during the NATO and G-8 summits, but the host committee agreed Wednesday to cover the cost of lost parking meter revenues.
The 75-year, $1.15 billion lease that privatized Chicago parking meters requires the city to compensate the concessionaire — at the newly increased downtown rate of $5.75 an hour — whenever metered spaces are temporarily taken out of commission.
In the case of the May 19-21 event expected to draw President Barack Obama and other world leaders to McCormick Place, that compensation could be substantial.
Specific boundaries will be dictated by the U.S. Secret Service and won’t be known until four weeks before the event. But city officials acknowledged Wednesday that parts of the downtown area would be off-limits to motorists to protect visiting dignitaries.
They are expected to stay in downtown hotels, eat in downtown restaurants and move to and from McCormick Place and about the city as Mayor Rahm Emanuel seeks to showcase Chicago on the world stage.
Protesters contend the measures could stifle public dissent in Chicago for years to come. They include: dramatically higher fines for resisting arrest, more surveillance cameras, parks and beaches closed until 6 a.m., sweeping parade restrictions and higher fees for those events and empowering Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to “deputize law enforcement personnel” and forge cooperative agreements with state, federal and local law enforcement agencies. [...]"
Note: May 20: Solar Eclipse in Gemini 0 degrees.
Critical degree. There will be fallout beginning at this point.
Commentary:
"Davos:
10 Power Brokers To Watch At The World Economic Forum" [01/13/12]
"In just two weeks' time, global power brokers will meet in Switzerland in an attempt to pull the eurozone back from the brink of destruction.
Fur and finance, snow and supremacy: there are just two weeks to go before global leaders converge at the World Economic Forum's annual jamboree in the Alpine resort of
Davos. Off the piste the heady mix of royalty, billionaire tycoons and top politicians are officially tasked with tackling "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models".
Rarely has a conference title had more poignant urgency: the European Union leaders' summit on the advancing debt crisis follows immediately on
January 30. Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Nicolas Sarkozy, Christine Lagarde of the IMF and Mario Draghi, the boss of the European Central Bank (ECB), are among those most likely to spend the week crafting mechanisms to prevent the eurozone sliding off a precipice.
[...] with all the dazzle of those who live in the limelight, it could be easy to miss the raft of global power brokers who may have had fewer headlines recently but are among the most influential. Here's our list of the 10 to look out for. [...]
"
US Politics:
"When
Mitt Romney Came To Town" [01/13/12]
[28:07]
"Mitt Romney was not a capitalist during his reign at Bain. He was a predatory corporate raider. His firm didn't seek to create value. Instead, like a scavenger, Romney looked for businesses he could pick apart. Indeed, he represented the worst possible kind of predator, operating within the law but well outside the bounds of what most real capitalists consider ethical.
Mitt Romney and his cronies pioneered 'deindustrialization,' a process by which they searched out vulnerable companies, took them over, loaded them with debt, and collected obscene fees while doing so. He sent jobs overseas or killed them altogether, and then picked apart the remains - including pension funds - before the companies went bankrupt. [...]"
Related:
"Romney:
The Flip Flop Master"
[4:01]
and, see his true political alliances, below.
Commentary: "Mitt
Romney's Ties To Israeli Military Intelligence" [01/12/12]
"Orit Gadiesh, born in Israel in 1951, has worked closely with Mitt Romney since at least 1993, and probably much longer. Romney appointed Gadiesh to his transition team when he was governor of Massachusetts. Gadiesh is the daughter of an Israeli brigadier general and former member of the general staff from the founding days of the Israeli army.
Orit served in Israeli military intelligence. Her first position in the Israeli military was as assistant to Ezer
Weizman, the deputy chief of staff who later became president of Israel. During the early 1970s, she worked in the war room, a bunker where Gen. Moshe Dayan was in charge. As a war room assistant to
Weizman, Orit provided military leaders with documents and correspondence. Romney's close relationship with Orit Gadiesh and Israeli military intelligence is the real reason he is the chosen candidate of the Zionist establishment. Romney is being supported by high-level Zionists, the Israeli military, and their controlled media network, a fact
that should be of great concern to all Americans. [...]"
Commentary:
"Unaccountable: Private Military Contractor Abuses" [01/12/12]
"Wherever they’re deployed, they’re menacing and feared for good reason. Known historically by various names, they include mercenaries, soldiers of fortune, dogs of war, and Condottieri for wealthy city state leaders and the Papacy in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance Italy.
Ancient Greeks and Romans used them. So did Alexander the Great, feudal lords, Napoleon and George Washington against the British.
During the 1990s, America privatized military functions to let mercenaries serve in place of conventional forces. They’re used tactically as combatants, for training, advice, personal security, technical expertise, intelligence gathering, weapons systems management, transportation, and other non-combatant functions.
In May 2011, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said as of March 2011, the Defense Department (DOD) “had more contractor personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq (155,000) than uniformed personnel (145,000).”
In 2010, an estimated 260,000 of all types were used globally, including by the State Department and
USAID. Some analysts call DOD figures understated. The General Accounting Office
(GOA) says they’re approximations at best and shouldn’t be used for precise analysis. DOD acknowledges data shortcomings, including costs. Estimates exceed $300 billion annually.
Given black budgets and enormous amounts of waste, fraud, and abuse, precise figures are hard to verify. A recent joint congressional investigation estimated around $60 billion. Misappropriations, corruption, and other forms of malfeasance may, in fact, be much greater. [...]"
Commentary: "The Most Powerful Crime Syndicate In Europe" [01/11/12]
"The ’Ndrangheta organized crime syndicate has invaded Europe with a dark cloud of violence, drugs, and corruption at the highest levels, and appears poised to grow even stronger in 2012 as Italy teeters on the brink of economic collapse.
For the first time, syndicate bosses described their organization to the German newspaper “Der Spiegel” last week, some of which is excerpted in this piece. Through dominance of the European cocaine trade, the ‘Ndrangheta themselves explain how their clan has become one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Western world.
And before you decide “this is Europe’s problem,” below is relevant history and context that show the ‘Ndrangheta is already a threat to European states — and could soon cause problems here in America, as evidenced by their ties with Mexican drug cartels.
First, we have to understand the environment in which a mafia can grow and thrive.
The original Sicilian mafia formed in the early 19th century at a time of social upheaval and civil unrest across Italy. As the inhabitants of Sicily moved away from a feudal society, there were food shortages, bandits roamed the countryside, and many towns had no local police.
It was in those surroundings that the first mafia became extralegal protectors and arbitrators for peasants and merchants. From humble Sicilian origins, the mafia’s power would grow for over a hundred years. Many Mafiosi were forced to flee Sicily for America, however, when their offer of uniting with fascists under Mussolini was rebuffed and “Il Duce” tried to eliminate them. They were seen as a threat to the fascists’ power as a state within a state. [...]"
MSM: "Afghan
Government Accuses US Of Torture And False Imprisonment" [01/11/12]
"The crisis besetting the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan has been deepened over recent days. Its own puppet government, headed by President Hamid Karzai, has publicly accused the American military of torture and arbitrary detention at the largest US-run prison in the country.
Karzai made the allegations last Thursday, reportedly with no prior warning to the Obama administration or US and NATO commanders in Afghanistan. He claimed that an investigation by an Afghan government commission had found “many cases” of abuse at the Parwan detention centre at Bagram Air Base, to the north of Kabul. He declared the situation was an affront to “Afghan sovereignty” and demanded that Parwan, along with all other detention centres being operated by foreign forces, be turned over to Afghan control within one month. [...]"
Related:
"Afghanistan
Signs Oil Contract With Chinese Giant"
"China’s oil contract with Afghanistan will exacerbate tensions with the US and India.
China’s state-owned National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) signed a $700 million oil exploration contract with the Afghan government last week, the first foreign company to do so in many decades. Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani hailed the deal as “historic,” saying it was “the first time that Afghanistan has signed a great contract for the country’s oil exploration.”
The agreement will intensify geopolitical rivalries in Central Asia as the major powers compete for access to vast mineral and energy resources. It will draw Beijing closer into conflict with the ongoing US-led occupation of Afghanistan, as well as with China’s regional rival, India.
The CNPC will form a joint venture with Afghan partner Watan Group in the northern provinces of Sar-e Pul and Faryab to drill three oil blocks in the Amu Darya Basin. First surveyed by Soviet geologists in the 1960s, the basin has proven reserves of 87 million barrels of oil, although both the Chinese and Afghan sides believe that the actual deposits are much larger. In total, Afghanistan is estimated to have some 1.6 billion barrels of oil.
The project is expected to pay Kabul $5 billion over 10 years, with 70 percent of profits from oil and gas sales going to the Afghan government. In addition, the CNPC will pay 15 percent royalties, 30 percent corporate taxes and rents for using Afghan land.
The CNPC’s terms were considerably more generous than rival bidders such as British Tethys Petroleum, which said it was unable to compete with the Chinese corporation, because “it is the representative of a government and it was able to offer terms that were non-commercial.”
The CNPC’s primary aim is to ensure oil supplies to China. The three oil blocks are only 640 kilometres from the border of China’s western Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a staging base for Chinese companies to build pipelines throughout Central Asia.[...]"
MSM: "USDA
To Close 259 Offices" [01/11/12]
"The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Monday that it will close nearly 260 offices nationwide, a move that won praise for cutting costs but raised concerns about the possible effect on food safety.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the goal was to save $150 million a year in the department's $145 billion budget. About $90 million had already been saved by reducing travel and supplies, and the closings were expected to save another $60 million, he said.
The plan calls for 259 offices, labs and other facilities to be closed, affecting the USDA headquarters in Washington and operations in 46 states. Seven foreign offices also will be closed.
Some of the closings had been previously announced. The USDA said last year it would shut down 10 agricultural research stations, including the only one in Alaska, where scientists were seeking ways to use the vast waste generated by the largest wild fishery in the nation to make everything from gel caps to fish meal for livestock feed. [...]"
MSM: "Washington,
D.C., Pushes Bid To Become New Columbia, The 51st State" [01/10/12]
"With the nation's attention focused on New Hampshire, officials in Washington, D.C., are headed to the Granite State to publicize their bid to make the District of Columbia the 51st state.
A delegation led by Mayor Vincent C. Gray will appear Jan. 12 before a New Hampshire legislative committee in their first stop at state capitols across the country to build support for giving the district voting representation in Congress.
Washington's lack of a vote in Congress has been a long-standing gripe. "Taxation without representation" appears on D.C. license plates. And a D.C. councilman recently polled residents on the idea of renaming Pennsylvania Avenue to perhaps Free D.C. Avenue, 51st State Way, Let D.C. Vote Way or another name.
The district's 600,000 residents pay federal taxes and can vote for president but have a nonvoting delegate in the House and no representation in the Senate.
"We in the district have spent enough time talking to ourselves about the issue of statehood," said Councilman David
Catania. "For our efforts to be successful, we must expand the conversation. Our trip to New Hampshire marks the start of that expanded dialogue about self-determination and self-respect. [...]
A constitutional amendment calling for one voting member of the House and two senators for the city won approval of only 16 of the required 38 states before expiring in 1985.
The House in 1993 rejected a bill to make the district a state. The idea faced resistance from a number of Republicans because the strongly Democratic district would probably elect two Democratic senators and a Democratic member of the House if it became a state.[...]
"
MSM:
"Russian
Warships Leave Syrian Port Of Tartus" [01/10/12]
"A Russian naval task force, led by the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier, has left the Syrian port of Tartus after a three-day visit, Russia’s Northern Fleet said in a statement on Tuesday.
The task force called on the Syrian port on Sunday amid ongoing bloody protests in Syria against the rule of President Bashar
al-Assad. Some media reports said the visit of the Russian warships was a signal of Russia’s support for Assad’s regime but the Russian military denied any connections of the visit with the political situation in the country. [...]"
Related: See below.
MSM: "Russian
Naval Flotilla Docks In Syria: State Media" [01/09/12]
"A large Russian naval flotilla led by an aircraft carrier has docked in the Syrian port of Tartus in what Damascus state media hailed on Sunday as a show of solidarity by close ally Moscow.
The six-day port call by the carrier group in the Mediterranean port where Russia has a recently expanded naval base is intended to boost ties at a time when President Bashar
al-Assad's government is under mounting Western and Arab pressure over its bloody crackdown on dissent, the Syrian press said.
"The port call is aimed at bringing the two countries closer together and strengthening their ties of friendship," the official SANA news agency quoted a Russian naval officer it named as Yakushin Vladimir Anatolievich as saying.
"The commanders of the Russian naval vessels docked in Tartus took turns to express their solidarity with the Syrian people," the news agency added.
The governor of Tartus province, Atef al-Nadaf, paid tribute to the "honourable position adopted by Russia which has stood by the Syrian people." The
Al-Watan newspaper, which is privately owned but close to the government, reported last week that the carrier Admiral Kuznetsov was escorted by a large flotilla including submarines.
Despite strong Western criticism, Russia has stood by its Cold War ally in the face of a mounting international outcry over the death toll from security force efforts to crush nearly 10 months of anti-government protests.[...]"
Related: Tarpley podcast Jan 7, 2012, below:
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [01/09/12]
MP3 Audio
[120:00]
Select
Jan 7, 2012
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments.
Related: "US Deploys Troops In Israel For Iran War" [01/05/12]; "Mideast Showdown Builds As United States Tightens Military Ties To Israel"
[01/05/12],
see below on date specified. Middle
East Map (Large)
Study:
" Perpetuation of Ignorance: System Dependence, System Justification, and the Motivated Avoidance of Sociopolitical Information" [01/09/12]
PDF
"The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.
And the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware, according to a paper published online in APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology®
People do not passively evaluate the political systems and institutions within which they function; rather, they rely and depend
on these types of external systems to cope with a host of existential and epistemic psychological fears and threats. In
the same way that people turn to interpersonal others and social groups to help them cope with various psychological needs and
problems , so too do they turn to their political and institutional systems. As such, to the
extent that an important issue is presented to people in a way that makes it appear especially complex, rather than motivating increased
individual effort at addressing that issue, it may elicit increased dependence on the government. [...]"
Commentary:
"Elections and the Illusion of Choice" Jeffrey
Tucker [01/09/12]
"The political season has unleashed its predictable frenzy, much to delight of people who make a living off it. But to what end? There are only two types of politicians who end up holding office, wrote
H.L. Mencken: "first, glorified mob-men who genuinely believe what the mob believes, and secondly, shrewd fellows who are willing to make any sacrifice of conviction and self-respect in order to hold their jobs."
The about sums it up. The plus side of elections is that sometimes the debates, discussions, candidates and parties raise fundamental questions about what kind of society we want to live in. That's the best we can hope for.
But there is a downside to all this hullabaloo: It gives the impression that the mere existence of the electoral process gives "we the people" a fundamental choice about the kind of state we want. This is not true. The politicians we elect are veneers or facades. They are bandits, but they do not constitute what is called the state. This goes for just about every developed state in the world for the last 200 years.
The whole election process leads people to believe that the state is in embedded in leaders. Not so. In France, this system ended with the execution of Louis XVI; in Germany, with the ascent of Bismarck; and in Russia, with the Bolshevik Revolution. The personal state died in the U.S. pretty early on, as even Thomas Jefferson discovered when he became president in 1801; he felt himself powerless to do anything.
The modern state lives outside the will of a particular leader or administration. Voting and elections only change the temporary managers, but do not touch the core of the problem.
The first book that saw through the facade was by the great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer. It is called, appropriately,
The
State. It was written in 1908, just as the state had begun to entrench itself deeply into the social order -- more so than at any point in the previous thousand years. He described the state as the one class that dominates all others, obeying a different law and thriving off violence against person and property. He sums up this violence in a phrase: the "political means." He contrasts this with the "economic means," the essence of which is voluntary human association and trade. (His book came to have an amazing influence through Albert Jay Nock's
Our Enemy, the
State.)
[...] "
Related: "Jeffrey Tucker Interviewed by Stefan Molyneux"
[53:36]
Note: High volume level on video.
Commentary: "Behind
The Deepening Crisis With Iran: The Real Story Versus The Cover Story" [01/08/12]
"Recently, Obama imposed new sanctions on Iran which according to reports have been very effective, causing a sudden major devaluation of Iran’s currency. The Iranians correctly understand that they are under attack, and have threatened to respond by closing the strait of
Hormuz, through which a large percentage of oil from the Mideast flows to the global economy. If the crisis deepens and Iran makes good on its threat to close
Hormuz, there is little doubt that the US will intervene to reopen the strait. This will lead to a shooting war for which Iran will be blamed, even though the recent US sanctions were tantamount to overt aggression.
I believe the US will exploit the situation to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. But, even more importantly, the US will target Iran’s conventional missiles. Indeed, I believe this is the real reason for US sanctions in the first place, and for the buildup of tensions in recent days. Despite public perceptions, and all the rhetoric about nukes, the present crisis has nothing to do with Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. In my opinion, that is just a cover story.
The real issue is the fact that Iran has upgraded its medium range conventionally-armed missiles with GPS technology, making its missiles much more accurate. This means Iran can now target Israel’s own nuclear, bio and chemical weapons stockpiles, located inside Israel, as well as the Dimona nuclear reactor.
In short, Iran has achieved a conventional deterrent to Israel. Therefore, statements by Iranian officials that Iran has no nuclear weapons program are in my view probably correct. Presently, Iran does not need nukes to deter Israel. It can do so with its GPS-guided medium range missiles. The Israelis are no doubt gnashing their teeth over this, because they now find themselves threatened by their own WMD stockpiles, and by their own nuclear reactors, especially
Dimona, all of which have become targets. A few direct hits by Iran could cause a toxic plume, killing thousands of Israelis. A worst case might signal the end of the Jewish state.
It is important to realize that Iran would never launch a pre-emptive strike on Israel because the Iranians know that the US/Israeli response would be devastating. However, if Iran comes under attack first, all bets are off. Iran will defend itself. A counter attack on Israel cannot be ruled out because Iranian leaders understand clearly (even if the American people do not) that the crisis has been manufactured, on Israel’s behalf. [...]"
Note: The US placed sanctions on Japan which resulted in war in
the 1940's. It's the usual technique used to 'induce' conflict.
Commentary:
"Global
Economy Would Collapse In 7 Days If A Major Disaster Struck The Planet" [01/08/12]
"The global economy could withstand widespread disruption from a natural disaster or attack by militants for only a week as governments and businesses are not sufficiently prepared to deal with unexpected events, a
report by a respected think-tank said. Events such as the 2010 volcanic ash cloud, which grounded flights in Europe, Japan’s earthquake and tsunami and Thailand’s floods last year, have showed that key sectors and businesses can be severely affected if disruption to production or transport goes on for more than a week. “One week seems to be the maximum tolerance of the ‘just-in-time’ global economy,” said the report by Chatham House, the London-based policy institute for international affairs. The current fragile state of the world’s economy leaves it particularly vulnerable to unforeseen shocks. Up to 30 percent of developed countries’ gross domestic product could be directly threatened by crises, especially in the manufacturing and tourism sectors, according to the think-tank. It is estimated that the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) in Asia cost businesses $60 billion, or about 2 percent of East Asian GDP, the report said. After the Japanese tsunami and nuclear crisis in March last year, global industrial production declined by 1.1 percent the following month, according to the World Bank. The 2010 volcanic ash cloud cost the European Union 5-10 billion euros and pushed some airlines and travel companies to the verge of bankruptcy. “I would like to think we can learn from those experiences and be more resilient for longer but it won’t happen unless governments and businesses are better prepared and put in place different supply chains which can be relied on when disasters strike,” said Alyson
Warhurst, chief executive of UK-based risk analysis company Maplecroft. Costs can escalate quickly when transport or major production hubs are disrupted for more than a few days, which can in turn threaten food and water supplies and energy and communication networks, the report said. Climate change and water scarcity will only add to risks, putting even more pressure on infrastructure and resources. Experts have been warning governments over the past few years that they are not properly prepared to deal with national crises. [...]"
MSM: "Foreign
Policy And War Profiteering" [01/07/12]
[7:06]
"Last week we uncovered how many billions of dollars the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are costing the American taxpayers. We all know that war costs a lot of money. What we don't know is that the same people who profit off the wars we create have a direct influence in shaping the foreign policy that keeps America at war while putting millions of dollars in their own pockets.
Here is the way our government system is supposed to work: foreign policy is supposed to be drafted between the President and Congress, and the Secretary of State. In the present administration, this is Hillary Clinton. She is supposed to serve as the President's main foreign policy advisor. What is foreign policy? Foreign policy is a set of goals outlining how a country will interact with other countries economically, politically, socially and militarily. These days, many of our elected representatives have become merely the messengers of foreign policy prescriptions that were created by councils and think tanks comprised of CEOs and executives from the biggest corporations in the world. On these councils sit executives from every major industry from food to media and, most shockingly, national defense.
Is if there is a conflict of interest when CEOs of the largest defense corporations are advising our lawmakers on foreign policy? Before you decide ask yourself this: if you were the CEO of Lockheed Martin, the largest defense corporation in America, and 95% of your company's $35 billion dollar annual profit came directly from government contracts that employ you to supply war materials, would you want the war to end? Especially if you personally enjoyed a $21 million increase in compensation from 2005 to 2008 as a result of the War on Terror? Between 2001 and 2005, defense corporations' annual profits climbed 189%, and the CEOs of these corporations that benefited the most from this profit increase sit on councils together with our politicians to "recommend," "suggest" and "prescribe" foreign policy. [...]"
Concepts and
Practices: "The Tyranny of Military Keynesianism" [01/06/12]
"In 1961, Dwight Eisenhower famously identified the military-industrial complex, warning that the growing fusion between corporations and the armed forces posed a threat to democracy. Judged 50 years later, Ike’s frightening prophecy actually understates the scope of our modern system—and the dangers of the perpetual march to war it has put us on.
American politics is typically a grimy business of horses traded and pork delivered. Political speech, for its part, tends to be formulaic and eminently forgettable. Yet on occasion, a politician will transcend circumstance and bear witness to some lasting truth: George Washington in his Farewell Address, for example, or Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural.
Fifty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower joined such august company when, in his own farewell address, he warned of the rise in America of the “military-industrial complex.” An accomplished soldier and a better-than-average president, Eisenhower had devoted the preponderance of his adult life to studying, waging, and then seeking to avert war. Not surprisingly, therefore, his prophetic voice rang clearest when as president he reflected on matters related to military power and policy.
ke’s farewell address, nationally televised on the evening of January 17, 1961, offered one such occasion, although not the only one. Equally significant, if now nearly forgotten, was his presentation to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 16, 1953. In this speech, the president contemplated a world permanently perched on the brink of war—“humanity hanging from a cross of iron”— and he appealed to Americans to assess the consequences likely to ensue.
Separated in time by eight years, the two speeches are complementary: to consider them in combination is to discover their full importance. As bookends to Eisenhower’s presidency, they form a solemn meditation on the implications—economic, social, political, and moral—of militarizing America.
[...]"
Commentary:
"Faking It: How the Media Manipulates the World into War" [01/06/12]
[14:17]
"As the drums of war begin to beat once again in Iran, Syria, the South China Sea, and other potential hotspots and flashpoints around the globe, concerned citizens are asking how a world so sick of bloodshed and a population so tired of conflict could be led to this spot once again.
To understand this seeming paradox, we must first understand the centuries-long history of how media has been used to whip the nation into wartime frenzy, dehumanize the supposed enemies, and even to manipulate the public into believing in causes for war that, decades later, were admitted to be completely fictitious. [...]"
Commentary:
"Turkey warns against Shiite-Sunni Cold War" [01/06/12]
"Middle East powerhouse Turkey on Wednesday warned against a sectarian Cold War in the region and said rising Sunni-Shiite tensions would be “suicide” for the whole region.
“Let me openly say that there are some willing to start a regional Cold War,” Foreign Minster Ahmet Davutoglu told state-run Anatolian news agency before heading to Iran.
“We are determined to prevent a regional Cold War. Sectarian regional tensions would be suicide for the whole region,” Davutoglu said, adding such effects would last for decades. [...]"
Note: This basic 'divide' was always planned as a self-destruct
mechanism for the Arab countries in the region. Remember also that Turkey is
ultimately controlled by certain elements:
Related:
"The
Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret"
Wayne
Madsen [11/11/11]
see this story below. Parts 1 and 2.
Commentary: "China-U.S. Arms Race Takes to the Sea" [01/06/12]
"The Wall Street Journal reports at-length about the accelerating naval arms race between China and the United States, and a new ballistic missile technology China is developing to keep American aircraft carriers away from its shores:
China’s state media has said its new missile, called the DF-21D, was built to strike a moving ship up to about 1,700 miles away. [...]"
MSM: "US Deploys Troops In Israel For Iran War" [01/05/12]
"The US military is preparing a massive military campaign against Iran, sending thousands of American troops, warships and weaponry to Israel.
Commander of the US Third Air Force based in Germany Lt.-Gen Frank Gorenc said it is not just an "exercise," but a "deployment," The Jerusalem Post said.
Washington and Tel Aviv have planned to hold what they call the largest-ever joint military exercise this
spring. The US commander visited Israel two weeks ago to confirm details for “the deployment of several thousand American soldiers to Israel.”
The US General also visited one of Israel's three Iron Dome anti-missile outposts. The Israeli Air Force has announced plans to deploy a fourth Iron Dome system in coming months.
While US troops will be stationed in Israel for an unspecified amount of time, Israeli military personnel will be added to United States European Command (EUCOM) in Germany.
This is while the US is reportedly bringing its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and ship-based Aegis ballistic missile systems to Israel.
The White House has resumed its anti-Iran war rhetoric after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a report in November, in which Tehran was accused of conducting activities related to developing nuclear weapons. Iran strongly dismissed the allegations. [...]
"
Related: "U.S.-Iran Tensions: Mideast Showdown Builds As United States Tightens Military Ties To Israel"
"Storm clouds darkening over the Middle East suggest a growing peril for the United States and the possibility of a new war that could embroil the U.S., Israel, Iran and others in a bloody, costly fight.
Behind this week's exchange of threats between Iran and the United States over access to the Persian Gulf, seasoned analysts see a perfect storm of factors that could trigger armed conflict.
Iran's work on nuclear weapons is fast approaching a "red line," the crossing of which both the United States and Israel say is unacceptable and may have to be halted by force. Washington and European capitals are preparing new sanctions that would sever Iran from the international banking system, a move that would cripple its economy and that Tehran has said it would consider a provocation to war. Growing violence in Syria threatens to spill over its borders with Israel, Lebanon and Turkey, a NATO ally.
Amid the saber-rattling rhetoric from Washington and Tehran, and Arab world upheaval from Egypt to Iraq to Yemen, the United States is planning an unprecedented escalation of military cooperation with Israel, including massive joint exercises this spring to practice joint command and maneuver of ground forces in combat. [...]" |
"Obama Seeks to Distance U.S. from Israeli Attack"
"Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are engaged in intense maneuvering over Netanyahu’s aim of entangling the United States in an Israeli war against Iran. [...]"
MSM:
"Eight
Strategic (Cultural) Factors to Consider in 2012" [01/05/12]
"Rarely in the past six decades has global context counted for as much in strategic forecasting — trend analysis — as it does at the dawn of 2012. Reliance on stove-piped analysis of “strategic sectors” — such as economic and financial issues, security issues, politics, geopolitics, resources and energy, sociology and religion, and so on — will produce skewed and unreliable estimates, and will tend to favor linear extrapolations of recent experience. A study of broad contextual factors, including an expanded view of history, will show how cycles and confluences of trends potentially play a greater disruptive role than at any time since the end of World War II.
We have, in recent writings, stressed the longer-term trends and outlook, but it is important to see how the strategic environment is likely to play out during 2012. Equally, it is important that these trends (and others) are seen collectively, and not separately.
1. Global Economic and Financial Trends: ... 2. Global Energy Supply and Demand: [...]"
MSM: "China
Opposes 'Unilateral' US Sanctions On Iran" [01/05/12]
"China said Wednesday it opposed "unilateral" sanctions against Iran, after US President Barack Obama signed into law new measures targeting the Islamic republic's central bank.
Washington's move came after the United States, Britain and Canada said in November they were slapping additional sanctions on Iran, citing evidence that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
Tehran denies the allegations, saying its nuclear programme is exclusively for medical and power generation purposes, and China has repeatedly said sanctions will not resolve the issue.
"China opposes placing one's domestic law above international law and imposing unilateral sanctions against other countries," said foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei in response to a question about US sanctions on Iran. [...]" |
"U.S. Defense Strategy Plan Focuses on Thwarting China, Iran"
"The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines must combine resources to thwart any efforts by countries such as China and Iran to block America’s access to the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf and other strategic regions, according to a draft of a Pentagon review. [...]"
Note: Interesting that this exists at the same time: "Sinopec,
Total Pour $4.5 Billion Into U.S. Shale"
"China's Sinopec (600028.SS) and France's Total SA (TOTF.PA) made major purchases into the U.S. energy sector on Tuesday, pouring $4.5 billion into deals to buy into booming production from shale rock formations.
The ventures showed that the global appetite for U.S. energy assets remained strong, with foreign oil and gas producers eager to invest in several of the mostly undeveloped fields that are believed to hold billions of cubic feet of natural gas and liquids.
Sinopec's Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration & Production Corp made its first foray into U.S. shale with a $2.2 billion investment to create a joint venture with Devon Energy Corp
(DVN.N). [...]"
Internet:
"Yahoo Hires PayPal Prez as CEO"
[01/05/12]
"... PayPal President Scott Thompson has been selected to take the reins of the troubled Internet company, which has been without a permanent CEO since Bartz was kicked to the curb in early September. [...]"
Note: See also stories below on this panel: "How Pay-Pal Squeezes Merchants with Unfair and Likely Illegal Business Practices"
[12/20/11]; PayPal’s Links to
Palantir, a Metasearch Technology Used by Intelligence, Law Enforcement and Military Organizations"
[11/27/11] and related article
"Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon" [11/24/11]. Yahoo is now
an extension of the US Intelligence domain.
Related: "PayPal
Forced eBay Buyer To Destroy Antique Violin Amid Counterfeit Claims"
"An eBayer endured a “heartbreaking” experience after claiming PayPal made a buyer destroy her $2,500 violin because it was deemed “counterfeit”.
The owner, named only as Erica, made the sale to a buyer in Canada, who requested a refund, having disputed the authenticity label.[...]"
MSM: "New
York City Council Votes Against Corporate Personhood, Citizens United"
[01/05/12]
"Missoula, Montana; Boulder, Colorado; and South Miami, Florida, have all done it, but you know it's really catching on when the Big Apple jumps on board. The New York City Council voted Wednesday to get rid of corporate personhood in a growing nationwide backlash against the much-maligned Citizens United ruling.
Passed on January 21, 2010, Citizens United gave corporations the same political rights as people, opening the door for nearly unlimited political spending on elections. Though there are boundaries keeping a candidate from receiving or soliciting money directly from a corporation, the shifting of the rules and the weaknesses of the Federal Election Commission make this increasingly difficult to enforce. [...]"
Related: See below: Flashback: "Romney: "Corporations Are People, My Friend"
[01/02/12]; "The Undeclared World War of Human Rights versus Corporate Rights"
[01/01/12]; "Beware Corporate Psychopaths – They Are Still Occupying Positions Of Power"
[12/31/11].
Commentary:
"U.S.
Gave Iran It's Nuclear Industry in 1976" [01/04/12]
"President Gerald Ford signed a directive in 1976 offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The deal was for a complete 'nuclear fuel cycle'."[41] At the time, Richard Cheney was the White House Chief of
Staff, and Donald Rumsfeld was the Secretary of Defense. The Ford strategy paper said the "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals." [...]"
Note: Halliburton was primarily involved. Now that same
industry is being used as a reason to invade by the U.S. and Israel.
Historically, the U.S. has 'set up' scores of countries for later political
purposes and agendas to be fulfilled.
MSM:
"NATO
Reports ‘Incredible’ Afghan Drug Seizures" [01/03/12]
"The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said Monday it had made “incredible” seizures of drugs in Afghanistan last year and dealt a blow to the finances of the Taliban-led insurgents.
“Narcotics trafficking has been a key generator of funding for the insurgency, but that source of revenue is diminishing,” Brigadier General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, told a news conference.
“Afghan security forces, together with ISAF partners, seized an incredible amount of illicit drugs and related material in 2011 versus
2010. Opium seizures rose 13 percent and those of hashish climbed 59 percent, while the amount of marijuana and morphine confiscated soared 1,208 percent and 10,113 percent respectively, according to the figures from ISAF, which did not give the amounts of drugs seized.
UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which in October said opium production in Afghanistan rose 61 percent in 2011 from the previous year, when the harvest was hit by disease.
The UNODC estimates this year’s output at 5,800 tonnes against 3,600 tonnes last year, with a slight increase in area under poppy cultivation to about 13,1000 hectares (324,000 acres) in 2011.
After a slight decrease in 2010, Afghanistan will again be responsible for 90 percent of the global opium production, with 78 percent of the total coming from the troubled south, the UNODC said.
According to UNODC country head Jean-Luc Lemahieu, this year opium will generate about $700 million for the Taliban, who have been fighting a decade-long insurgency against the Afghan government and its NATO-led ISAF allies, and several billion dollars for criminal syndicates while also fuelling corruption in the country.” [...]"
Flashback:
"Romney:
"Corporations Are People, My Friend" [01/02/12]
[0:48]
Note: Blitzer Grills Romney over 'Corporations Are People' statement.
The actual 'blurt' , from last year , complete with spectator reaction .
Concepts and
Practices: "The Undeclared World War of Human Rights versus Corporate Rights" [01/01/12]
"The core problem of rights in general is that we have no life-value criterion whereby to tell whether a right is good or bad for society. Rights in private property are accepted from the English, American and French revolutions on, and disbelievers have been generally vilified as subversive and against freedom. Yet any criterion to determine when private property’s right to exclude others enables and disables people’ lives is not conceived by philosophers, and economists assume private property as an absolute presupposition of market exchange. Since John Locke and the private-property revolutions he provides the canonical justifications for in England and America, any idea of basing property and exchange in life needs is effectively taboo in the mass media, public political discourse and economic theory alike.
Locke specified three provisos of an individual property right claim in his historic Second Treatise of Government which was published within a year of the English revolution against James II in 1688. His conditions for the legitimacy of private property were life-grounded, but for the last time in the received literatures since. Locke’s memorable conditions of just private-property right were sound: (1) “mixing one’s labour with” the property to entitle it; (2) “always good enough left over for others”; and (3) “no waste or spoilage” of it. Yet while Locke’s rhetoric of freedom and democratic accountability was recited almost word for word in the U.S. Declaration of Independence, his life-grounding conditions of exclusionary property were ignored from then on including by Locke himself. Having made the case at length for private property as a “natural right” by these three justifications, Locke erased all of them with “the introduction of money” in a stroke of the pen, and the erasure was never acknowledged. [1] A subordinate clause within a 10-line sentence was enough, and Locke’s money shell-game has stood since – a synecdoche of the capitalist epoch. His life-grounded provisos have disappeared without a trace, with fateful implications. In this study, I explain the life-value test by which we tell whether any claimed right, however powerful it is in the world, is sound or not, and to what extent. Property right itself – from personal fixed possessions to corporate kingdoms – is neither holus-bolus justified or rejected, but grounded in and tested by its life value. [...]"
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [01/01/12]
MP3 Audio
[70:00]
Select
Dec 31, 2011
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments.
Commentary:
"Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2011" [01/01/12]
"Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL); Former Senator John Ensign (R-NV)
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL); Attorney General Eric Holder; Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL);
President Barack Obama; Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA); Rep. David Rivera (R-FL);
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA); Rep. Don Young (R-AK) Dishonorable Mentions for 2011 include:
Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC); Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA); Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA);
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY);
Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY); Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius[...]"
MSM:
"Israel's Repressive Permit System" [01/01/12]
"Under South African apartheid, pass laws segregated blacks from whites, restricted their movements, required pass books be carried at all times, and be produced on demand or face arrest and prosecution.
Evolving from the 18th and 19th century until their 1986 repeal, they restricted entry to cities,
forcibly relocated blacks, denied them most public amenities, many forms of employment, and became apartheid's most hated symbol.
Repressive Israeli occupation is worse. It's a sophisticated form of social, economic, political and racial discrimination, strangulation, and genocide. [...]"
Commentary: "How
The United States Has Benefited From 9/11" [12/31/11]
"September 11, 2001, is another date that will live in infamy. The tragic events that occurred on this day have forever changed the United States, and the world. Like similar events in history, it served as a catalyst, creating a flurry of new rules, regulations and, as we now see, serious restrictions on the freedoms we once had. Just as Pearl Harbor launched America into WWII, and the burning of the Reichstag building in Germany granted untold powers to Hitler, 9/11 has allowed America to demonstrably flex its muscles around the world, while at the same time, severely limiting our civil liberties here at home. In one fell swoop, it enabled the government to deal with many nagging problems. If one didn’t know better, I’d have to say that 9/11 was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Stop and consider how the United States has benefited from 9/11. Think of all the subsequent drastic actions that have occurred since the attack. For the relatively small price of only 3,000 souls, the US has aggressively dealt with issues effecting all totalitarian empires: controlling not only the world, but clamping down on its own people. [...]"
Commentary:
"Beware
Corporate Psychopaths – They Are Still Occupying Positions Of Power" [12/31/11]
"Over the years I've met my fair share of monsters – rogue individuals, for the most part. But as regulation in the UK and the US has loosened its restraints, the monsters have proliferated.
In a paper recently published in the Journal of Business Ethics entitled "The Corporate Psychopaths: Theory of the Global Financial Crisis", Clive R Boddy identifies these people as psychopaths.
"They are," he says, "simply the 1 per cent of people who have no conscience or empathy." And he argues: "Psychopaths, rising to key senior positions within modern financial corporations, where they are able to influence the moral climate of the whole organisation and yield considerable power, have largely caused the [banking] crisis'.
And Mr Boddy is not alone. In Jon Ronson's widely acclaimed book The Psychopath Test, Professor Robert Hare told the author: "I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well. Serial killer psychopaths ruin families. Corporate and political and religious psychopaths ruin economies. They ruin societies."
[...]"
MSM: "Israel Warmongering-News
Analysis" Press TV
[12/31/11]
[25:05]
"In this edition of News Analysis we will examine the possibility of another war on the Gaza strip by Israel and whether this latest threat underlies deeper worries by Israel due to changes in the regional landscape from the Arab Spring in which parliamentary results from different Arab countries show a break from the past with Israel. [...]"
Press TV interviews Webster Tarpley about these matters.
MSM: "Crooks
And Liars Gives Us Just A Small Sampling Of Ron Paul's Craziest Positions" [12/31/11]
"There are two important conversations going on about Ron Paul right now. The first is whether or not racist comments that came from old issues of the Ron Paul Report show that Paul is or was racist (they do). The other conversation is about whether or not progressives should support Paul because of his stances on the war, civil liberties and economic issues. The second conversation is much more important. Whether or not Paul is a racist (and I believe he is, as well as a bigot of various other types), that's not nearly as important as his stances on a myriad of other issues. Obviously, racism should automatically disqualify a candidate from serving in any office, much less president, but if he were elected, his views on race would have little impact on policy, outside of potential Supreme Court nominations. He didn't like the Civil Rights Act and opposes hate crimes legislation, but, as president, his alleged bigotry would not have a major impact on legislation, since most laws related to these issues pass with veto-proof majorities.
Anyone considering Paul as a candidate should certainly take into account his views on race, gender and the LGBT community -- all of which are atrocious -- but they should also take into account the vast array of other issues in which he is not only incredibly wrong, but where his policy prescriptions would make things worse. Some Occupy Wall Street supporters are Paul supporters, but Paul is very clearly aligned with the 1 percent [...]"
Related: See below: If all of Paul's proposals went into action,
it would befuddle society in general.
Webster Tarpley: "Critique of Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan" [12/30/11]
[60:00]
Note: Webster G. Tarpley reviews the draconian austerity plans of
Ron Paul, which if put into action would devastate the entire US population in a manner worse
than happened in Germany in the 1930's. Of course, none of the 'presidential
candidate' figureheads are relevant to any positive change for the society.
The future for latter 2012 and later, if time were to go on, would be very
dark ... the astrology of it alone, understanding all the cultural parameters,
would guarantee the collapse of the civilization. So would the geological
activity and climate shifts, combined with food shortages. What will
definitely get us out of here in the near future, before the end of 2012, is
something most people don't even understand. Matrix 5 readers, for whom the
books were written, understand, and it's the case that we will all be out of here
before people think we will. In
reality, nothing that can be done, or not done, here, will change the
eventualities on this planet which will unfold in 2012. It's a good thing.
Really. We're all finally getting a vacation worth its weight in gold. Very
good interview with Tarpley, and worth listening to. Note that
everything Tarpley talks about with Ron Paul or others would not manifest
until after 2012 ... so it shows what things would be like, were
we still here. In a sense, it's interesting that all the plans of the powerful
involve closing down society .... ironically, just after it's no longer
needed.
Commentary:
"Mossad
Hints Nuclear Iran Not Existential Threat To Israel: Report" [12/30/11]
"The chief of Mossad has reportedly hinted that a nuclear-armed Iran does not necessarily pose an existential threat to the Jewish state, Hareetz said Thursday.
The newspaper quoted Israeli ambassadors at a briefing by Mossad’s director Tamir Pardo Tuesday as suggesting that should the Islamic Republic attain nuclear-weapons capability, this would not necessarily pose an existential threat to Israel.
"What is the significance of the term existential threat? Does Iran pose a threat to Israel? Absolutely. But if one said a nuclear bomb in Iranian hands was an existential threat, that would mean that we would have to close up shop and go home. That's not the situation. The term existential threat is used too freely," one of the ambassadors, who spoke to the Israeli newspapers, quoted Pardo as saying.
The ambassadors said Pardo had not commented on whether Israel was preparing for a military operation against Iran.
"But what was clearly implied by his remarks is that he doesn't think a nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel," one of the ambassadors told
Haaretz. On Dec. 18, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that his country and the U.S. were determined to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, while President Barack Obama vowed not to take options off the table in terms of facing Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.
Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it had credible information that the Islamic Republic was carrying out "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful and medical means and power generation purposes only, as it faces punitive international sanctions over such activities. [...]"
Commentary:
"Israel
Global Propaganda Guide: Sad, Sad World Of Israel's Big-Time Liars" [12/30/11]
"It goes without saying that Israel's lie machine has an instruction manual for those it recruits into its vile business.
Stuart Littlewood looks at Israel's propaganda minister, the self-confessed racist squatter Yuli Edelstein, and takes a close look at the manual to which Edelstein and other Zionist propagandists work, the
"Global Language
Dictionary". Written by Frank Luntz, a US Republican political consultant and pollster, on behalf of the Israel Project, a US media advocacy group, the manual teaches Israel propagandists how to hoodwink people about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how to silence critics and how to avoid making statements that produce negative reactions. [...]"
Note: Amazing ... sort of like the "AP Guide to
Remembering Which Line of Bullshit to Inflict, and Why"
Commentary:
"Ubiquitous
Surveillance By Big Brother" [12/30/11]
"A recent Brookings Institution report has now confirmed what many have suspected for some time – that the United States government (and virtually every other government in the world) has the capability to monitor and record nearly every interaction that occurs within its national borders.
For years, those individuals who have tried to warn others of the creeping surveillance state were met with denials and catcalls of “conspiracy theory,” as well as the famous claims that it was not physically possible to monitor everyone.
This new report, however, shatters into a million pieces the delusional rationalities of the uninformed.
The Brookings Institution report entitled, “Recording Everything: Digital Storage as an Enabler of Authoritarian
Governments" PDF discusses the increasing capacities for surveillance due to the improvement in technology and the sinking costs of its procurement, along with the implications for human rights and authoritarianism that come along with it.
The report begins by stating: Within the next few years an important threshold will be crossed: For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders – every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner. Governments with a history of using all of the tools at their disposal to track and monitor their citizens will undoubtedly make full use of this capability once it becomes available. [...]"
Commentary:
"Israel's Revenge: Support of
Concept of Armenian Slaughter By Turks As Genocidal Holocaust" [12/30/11]
"In a strange way I found something rather amusing this morning as I was skimming through the ‘news’ on Ynet’s site. There was a report about Israel possibly recognising the Armenian holocaust as an actual event in history. There definitely is no humour involved in or connected to this very dark period of history, but what I found amusing were the reasons why the call for its recognition now, almost a century after the fact. The reasons are not out of sympathy for the Armenian nation, but because of the status of Turkish-Israeli relations. It has nothing to do with the suffering that the Armenians went through. As the report itself states; The question of what exactly happened there is irrelevant to this issue. After all, no sane historian is willing to accept the Turkish claim that it was merely a matter of a civil war and not a methodical massacre of the Armenians by the Turks. [...]"
Related:
MSM:
"Israel
Debates Whether Armenian Killings Genocide" [12/27/11]
"Over their prime minister's objections, Israeli lawmakers are debating a proposal to recognize the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.
Doing so would likely further strain already acrimonious relations with Turkey, which denies the genocide label and insists the massacres occurred in civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed during World War I, with losses on both sides.
An Israeli government official says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested that Monday's debate be canceled. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to disclose the information.
Israel has previously stopped short of recognizing the killings of 1.5 million Armenians as a genocide.
In recent years, however, ties with Turkey have frayed badly. [...]"
Related: See "Turkey Freezes All Political Relations With France Over Genocide
Row"
[12/23/11]
below, with related stories, and who ultimately controls Turkey.
MSM: "Fast and Furious’ Linked to Immunity Deal Between U.S. and Sinaloa Cartel, Trafficking Defendant Alleges in Court" [12/30/11]
"A Mexican drug trafficker awaiting trial in a Chicago federal court claims that the notorious Sinaloa cartel received weapons from “Operation Fast and Furious” under an alleged immunity agreement that the U.S. government made with cartel leaders, in exchange for information on rival gangs.
The defendant in a trafficking case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Vicente Jesus
Zambada-Niebla, also claims the immunity deal allowed the criminal cartel to “continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs” into the United States.
He wants the U.S. government to provide documents relating to the botched gun running sting operation along the southwest border, arguing that it would benefit his defense. [...]"
Commentary:
"You Are Not Your Costume: Urgent Addendum to the Modern Slave Guide to Modern Slavery" [12/29/11]
"Humans are observers in a symbolic world, and modern slavery uses this against us. The slavedrivers have kept the ancient power symbols secret from the masses as their ultimate source of power, but they has a weakness: if we become aware how they are used against us, they lose their power.
One doesn’t need to be “illuminated” to understand that costumes are symbolic representations of social order. As a species, we are very attuned to externalities; as a culture, uniforms and other costumes condition us deeply. We do much more than wear clothes: we dress a role and play the part, because without the costumes there can be no play. [...]"
Note: Interesting essay.
US
Politics: "The
Israeli Defense Firm That Tallies The Iowa Caucus" Christopher
Bollyn [12/28/11]
"Now, who really is Voxeo, and why are the Iowa caucus results tallied by
them? Voxeo is headed by Jonathan Taylor, who is the company’s President and
CEO. From 1995 to 1997, Jonathan was the founder and President of
InterResearch and Development Group (IRdg), Inc. IRdg created and licensed
iPost – the first internet powered OEM unified messaging solution – to
leading telecommunications providers including Ericsson, Unisys and Motorola.
IRdg was acquired by Elron Electronic Industries (Nasdq: ELRN) subsidiary
MediaGate in 1997.” There you have it. Jonathan Taylor’s company, which he
founded, was taken over by Elron Electronic Industries, the Israeli defense
high tech company: In its early days, Elron focused on defense, particularly
electronics and avionics, as well as the emerging medical and technology
sectors. In 1966, Elron founded Elbit, which combined the expertise of the
Ministry of Defense-Research Institute in special computer design with
Elron’s experience in electronic product design, manufacture and management....
[...] This is important information that Americans need to know and which they
will not find in the Zionist-controlled media in the United States. It needs
to be understood that the entire election process in the United States is a
fraud. More than that, it is a fraud that is being perpetrated by the Israeli
defense establishment on the naïve and gullible American public. The sine qua
non of an honest and transparent election process is the open counting of the
votes by the voters themselves in each polling station in front of the open
eyes of other citizens and members of the media. Any compromise in this most
fundamental and essential process which acts to remove the citizenry from the
vote-counting process simply cannot be accepted. This is what Americans MUST
get back to, in every polling station in the nation: paper ballots that are
hand counted in front of the public. Nothing else will do to protect their
democratic franchise in the United States – NOTHING. [...]"
Related: "Iowa
GOP Moving Vote-Count To "Undisclosed Location"
"Threats to disrupt the Iowa Republican caucuses next week have prompted state GOP officials to move the vote tabulation to an "undisclosed location," POLITICO has learned.
The state party has not yet told the campaigns exactly where the returns will be added up, only that it will be off-site from the Iowa GOP's Des Moines headquarters. The 2008 caucus results were tabulated at the state party offices, which sit just a few blocks from the state capitol.
Activist groups including the Occupy movement have indicated that they'll attempt to interrupt rallies in the closing days before next Tuesday's caucuses [...]"
Note: To 'prevent' a Ron Paul 'victory'?
Commentary:
"Canada
Shipping Weapons Grade Uranium To The US" [12/28/11]
What makes these types of shipments particularly galling is Canada's horn blowing on non-proliferation.
" Canada is proactive in its non-proliferation efforts. Through the Proliferation Security Initiative, Canada works cooperatively with other countries to prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, their means of delivery, and related materials. The Proliferation Security Initiative supports UN Security Council Resolution 1540, the first ever Security Council Resolution on non-proliferation issues."
These covert shipments sure appear to be "illicit trafficking". Is that why there is so much secrecy surrounding them? [...]"
Commentary:
"Government
Censors Document Revealing Plans To Wage War On Americans" [12/28/11]
includes 4 Video clips"... The government-linked document we posted was marked ‘Source Selection Sensitive’ but not considered classified. Further, it was listed publicly on a government website that was soliciting bids for government contracts. However, despite its public classification, it contains information that clearly is NOT intended to gain wide publicity.
As we reported earlier, the highly contentious federal government plans for Continuity of Government (COG) are largely classified, yet have come to light in shards. Congressman Peter de Fazio made waves after going on the House floor to give a speech raising hell about how the plans for COG, including martial law, were not only classified, but kept secret from Congress, the only organ of public officialdom still tied directly to the people. Similarly, this clip shows the 1980s investigations into the Iran-Contra Affair where questions about the Rex 84 plan for martial law were met with sharp calls for silence for national security reasons: [...]"
MSM:
"Putin
Ejects Kremlin 'Puppet Master' After Protests" [12/28/11]
"Facing a swelling wave of public anger over fraud-tainted elections, prime minister Vladimir Putin has rejected demands for a rerun of the vote, while the Kremlin has reassigned the architect of his tightly controlled political system to a job with no apparent domestic political duties.
The order by president Dmitry Medvedev to make Vladislav Surkov a deputy prime minister in charge of economic modernisation was variously interpreted as a sign that leaders recognise the need for significant reform and as a cosmetic move with little meaning.
Allegations of fraud in December's national parliamentary election sparked a wave of protests unprecedented in post-Soviet Russia, including two vast rallies in Moscow that attracted tens of thousands.
Putin, who was president in 2000-2008, seeks to return to the Kremlin in elections in March, and the protests have undermined his image as the inevitable winner. [...]"
Commentary:
"Putin : Protesters Are Receiving Their Funding From The West"
[12/28/11]
"WMR has learned from an eastern European intelligence source that the CIA. Britain’s MI-6, and George Soros, who actually fronts for the Rothschild family, has been funneling money to Russian protest movements through the Republic of Georgia.
The Soros-style “themed” revolution for Russia is being called the “White Revolution” or “Snowy Revolution,| with the color white being chosen as the thematic color for the attempted Russian uprising. Perhaps not coincidentally, the White Army was also the name for the counter-Bolshevik revolutionary forces composed of czarist loyalists supported by British, French, American, Japanese, and Czech troops who, from 1917 to 1922, attempted to invade Russia and restore czarist rule. The White Army invaded Russia from Poland, Lithuania, the Caucasus, and Siberia.
The western media is mocking Russian Prime Minister for suggesting during a television interview that when he saw protesters in Moscow wearing white ribbons, he thought they were wearing condoms. Putin said, “I decided it was propaganda against AIDS, that these were, pardon me, dangling contraceptives . . . I didn’t really get it . . . But on the whole, my first thought was that this is good, that people are fighting for a healthy lifestyle.” Putin said he could not understand why people unrolled a condom (gandon) before pinning it to their chest..[...]
In fact, Putin, a KGB veteran, was signaling to the West’s disruption network in Russia and neighboring countries that he is aware of how the protesters are receiving their funding from the West, including Soros, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) — the main cipher for CIA funds — and MI-6. Time magazine and other corporate media operations are trying to portray Putin as insensitive with his comment about condoms and white protest ribbons but his answer to the question posed to him was a direct message to Washington and London that he is aware of the destabilization efforts being conducted by western intelligence services in concert with Soros and the government of Georgia.[...]"
Related: "Soros'
Hand Seen in Anti-Putin Protests"
"Anti-Putin leader Boris Akunin has ties with Soros' foundations. It appears that Global financial oligarchs, obsessed with erasing national sovereignty world wide, like George Soros and others are instigating another revolution in Russia under the veil of "free and fair democracy".
On December 24, 2011 a second opposition rally was held in Moscow, with an estimated 28 to 120 thousand protesters, over the alleged "vote-rigging" that occurred on the December 4th election, won by Putin's United Russia party.
As reported by Reuters, the Russian novelist Boris Akunin asked protesters from a large stage. "Do you want Putin to return to the presidency?" Whistling and jeering, protesters chanted: "No!"
Boris Akunin is the pen name of Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili, a writer, essayist and literary translator. As of now he is the most commercially successful writer in Russia, selling around 15 million books in Russia and more than 1 million abroad.
He also happens to be the former chairman of the board for a Soros fund, called the Pushkin Library, where he helped compile a 100-volume edition of the best works of Russian Literature of all time.
Marianna Tax Choldin, chair of the Soros Foundation's Network Library Program was quoted in an article back in August of 2000, after being awarded the Pushkin medal by the Russian government. "Through the Soros program, we've helped dozens of libraries in many areas of library development, including automation, collection development, preservation, Internet access and training,"
Interestingly enough, Soros himself had received the same award previously. The medal recognizes extraordinary contributions to Russian culture and education [5] [...]"
Note: As Webster Tarpley says, Putin is the ONLY
significant obstacle to the hegemony of the West and NATO, and they're trying
hard to get him out of the way. Putin is a 'timing factor' in limiting the
speed of unfolding events.
MSM:
"Syrian NGOs Working Directly With British Government" [12/27/11]
"The coverage by the corporate-owned Western media exclusively relies on “activists inside and outside the country,” the London-based “Syrian Human Rights Monitoring Centre” which apparently has no web presence, the Damascus Center for Human Rights which boasts memberships with the National Endowment for Democracy and Tides Foundation-funded International Federation for Human Rights
(FIDH) and the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, funded by the European Union, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, and Humanity United. [...]"
Related: "Syria: Zionist Mobilization, Muslim Brotherhood
Allied"
"The hasbara (propaganda) that is spread throughout the Zionist-owned mainstream media is identical in nature to a house of cards. No matter how imposing the house may be, remove one card from the structure, and it shall immediately collapse in an almost glorious fashion. It is due to its foundation; its towering essence is overshadowed by its flimsiness. The Zionist media imposes its hasbara in terrorizing fashion; like the usurping Israeli entity’s bombs falling upon illegally besieged Gaza or Lebanon, the hasbara enters the psyche as an F-16 bombardment. But unlike the bombs, which are so unstoppably and menacingly destructive, the hasbara is weaker than the web of a spider coming in contact with a machete. Remove just one element, one detail from a news story laced with
hasbara, like the house of cards, the aforesaid story will crash to the ground, broken and dismembered. [...]
Al-Jazeera’s admission only gives further credence to what has already been exposed: the Zionist entity and the House of
Saud, allied with the US, Turkey and Jordan, have launched a full-scale destabilization operation against Bashar
al-Assad and his government. Mobilizing its forces from certain ‘hotspots,’ or joint operations rooms, the Zionist-Saudi axis has used its agents ex-Syrian VP Abdel-Halim
Khaddam, AIPAC member Farid al-Ghadry, Brookings Institution Fellow Ammar
AbdulHamid, State Dept giant Jeffrey Feltman and multiple Syrian Muslim Brotherhood leaders to fund, incite, train, guide, organize and direct its agents within Syria to drive the Assad leadership into the ground in hopes of replacing it with an anti-Iran, anti-Hezbollah regime subservient to the Zionist-Saudi axis. With weapons being provided by Jordan and armed operations initiated by Zionist agent Muthanna
al-Dhari, Syria has been plunged into chaos . Feltman’s role is crucial, as he developed the final phase of this plot with Saudi National Security Advisor ‘Prince’ Bandar bin Sultan, spending $2 billion in the process . [...]"
Commentary: "Sayanim — Israeli Operatives in the U.S."
[12/27/11]
"Israel is doing all it can to make Iran the next disastrous ‘war for
control’ and the 85% of corrupt US politicians will vote it in when the time
comes as seen in the Press TV report below. It is ‘support the war or lose
your seat’. This is why, I’ve decided to do a re-run of Jeff Gates’
timely article. Sayanim — Israeli Operatives in the U.S.
in which he best describes why Israel is successful in the US. [...]"
Note: Jeff Gates, documents ‘How the Israel Lobby led the
effort to take America to War in Pursuit of Tel Aviv’s Expansionist Agenda,
in his Blockbuster book: Guilt by Association: How Deception
and Self-Deceit Took America to War.
Commentary:
"Fanatic Rabbi Who Teaches “Goyim Slavery” Comes to
U.S." [12/27/11]
"In its 30 years of existence, Shas has evolved from a marginal ethnic political group to Israel’s fourth largest party in the Knesset and is today the unchallenged kingmaker of Israeli politics.
Its leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yossef, as quoted in Israel’s Jerusalem Post, teaches:
The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews, according to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the head of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and a senior Sephardi adjudicator.
“Goyim were born only to serve us. Without that, they have no place in the world – only to serve the People of Israel,” he said in his weekly Saturday night sermon on the laws regarding the actions non-Jews are permitted to perform on Shabbat.
Now, Shas — or in its full name, the Sephardic Torah Guardians Movement — is attempting to establish a beachhead among American Sephardic Jews and, it hopes, replicate its success in Israel. On December 4, the group launched its United States affiliate, American Friends of
Shas, based in Brooklyn. [...]"
Internet:
"Hackers Target Global Think Tank"
[12/26/11]
"Hackers targeted Stratfor, a global intelligence company, but it was unclear Sunday evening whether the breach and apparent release of credit card information was the work of the group Anonymous.
In a posting on the website Pastebin, hackers said they released Stratfor subscriber data, including information on 4,000 credit cards as well as the company's "private client" list. The posting cited
AntiSec, a Web-based collaboration with the activist hacking groups Anonymous and
LulzSec. U.S.-based Stratfor, which provides independent analysis of international affairs and security threats, sent an e-mail to subscribers on Sunday:
"On December 24th an unauthorized party disclosed personally identifiable information and related credit card data of some of our members. We have reason to believe that your personal and credit card data could have been included in the information that was illegally obtained and disclosed."
But Stratfor also said the "private clients" disclosure was "merely a list of some of the members that have purchased our publications and does not comprise a list of individuals or entities that have a relationship with Stratfor beyond their purchase of our
subscription- based publications." [...]"
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [12/25/11]
MP3 Audio
[120:00]
Select
Dec 24, 2011
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments.
Note: The general situation of the 'ruling class' and the
psychological destabilization, election observations and more.
MSM: "Swedish
Research Professor: Norway Attack Appears To Be State-Sponsored" [12/25/11]
"Swedish-born Ola Tunander is a research professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo
(PRIO), a research institute where he has spent most of his career since receiving his PhD from Linköping University in 1989.
But a recent article authored by Tunander in which he seeks to discover what might have driven Brevik to set off a car bomb outside government offices in Norway and gun down 69 people at a summer camp for young Labour Party supporters, has prompted the head of PRIO to distance himself from the piece.
PRIO director Kristian Berg Harpviken told Norwegian magazine Minerva that Tunander’s article left him with a feeling of “considerable unease”.
Harpviken was also dismayed with what he viewed as a serious lapse in judgment on behalf of Nytt Norsk
Tidsskrift, a multidisciplinary peer review journal, for agreeing to publish the contentious text in its latest issue.
In his article, Tunander reaches the conclusion that terrorist acts of such magnitude are seldom possible without the involvement of state forces, “and we can’t rule out that being the case this time too.”
In the midst of a web of alternative theories, Tunander lays out a “simple chronology” detailing the fractious diplomatic relationship between Norway and Israel in the months before the massacre, with Oslo indicating it would be willing to recognize a Palestinian state.
On two occasions, Tunander notes the significance of the date of the attacks. First, he travels back to 1973, when members of the Israeli spy agency Mossad were arrested on July 22nd after a botched operation in which they assassinated the wrong person on Norwegian soil.
He also calls to mind the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem by Zionist paramilitary group
Irgun, which took place on July 22nd 1946. “We have discussed the right-wing extremist Israeli and Judeo-Christian side of Breivik’s network, Israel’s interest in disciplining Norway, and Israel’s celebration of bomb attacks. In this respect, Breivik’s attack appears to resemble a new king David Hotel attack: July 22nd,” he writes. [...]"
Commentary: "Thousands
Of US Military Forces May Face Trial Over Torture" [12/25/11]
"Thousands of US military forces, who served in the Iraq war, may face prosecution for being involved in torturing Iraqi prisoners, a political analyst tells Press TV's US Desk.
“It's a very deep concern that as many as 10,000 Americans may face prosecution” for involvement in subjecting Iraqi prisoners to torture and ruthless treatment during the US war with Iraq, said Gordon Duff, a senior editor of Veterans Today Journal, in an interview with our channel on Thursday.
In July, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) published a detailed report on the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees under the administration of former US President George W. Bush. [...]"
MSM:
"Turkey
Freezes All Political Relations With France Over Genocide Row" [12/23/11]
"Turkey has frozen relations with France, recalling its ambassador and suspending all economic, political and military meetings in response to French MPs' approval of a law that would make it a crime to deny that the mass killing of Armenians in 1915 by Ottoman Turks was genocide.
The furious Turkish reaction to Paris's parliamentary vote marked an unprecedented low between the Nato partners.
The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, cancelled permission for French military planes to land and warships to dock in Turkey, annulled all joint military exercises, recalled the Turkish ambassador to France for consultations and said he would decide case by case whether to let the French military use Turkish airspace.
He said this was just the start and "gradually" but "decisively" other retaliation measures would be taken against France. He warned of heavy diplomatic "wounds" that would be "difficult to heal". [...]"
Note: Interesting, how Turkey seizes on certain issues the same
way Israel does. There's a reason for that. Modern Turkey is controlled by the Dönmeh:
Related:
"The
Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret"
Wayne
Madsen [11/11/11]
Part 2
"There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe...And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran [...]
Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.
The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai
Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the 'Messiah' but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as
Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan." [...]"
Flashback: "British
Intelligence Reports: Israeli Mossad Ran 9/11 Arab "Hijacker"
Terrorist Operation" [12/22/11]
"British intelligence reported in February 2002 that the Israeli Mossad ran the Arab hijacker cells that were later blamed by the U.S. government's 9/11 Commission for carrying out the aerial attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. WMR has received details of the British intelligence report which was suppressed by the government of then-Prime Minister Tony Blair. [...]
A Mossad unit consisting of six Egyptian- and Yemeni-born Jews infiltrated "Al
Qaeda" cells in Hamburg (the Atta-Mamoun Darkanzali cell), south Florida, and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates in the months before 9/11. The Mossad not only infiltrated cells but began to run them and give them specific orders that would eventually culminate in their being on board four regularly-scheduled flights originating in Boston, Washington Dulles, and Newark, New Jersey on 9/11. [...]"
Note: This is a piece of information that has not been
discussed, in general.
Commentary: "The Diabolical Genius that is Modern Government"
Bill Bonner
[12/22/11]
"You’ll recall that this series began by pointing out how worthless most “theories of government” really are. They’re not theories at all. They don’t explain anything. Instead, they are just wishful thinking…flattery…and apologia for the elite who use government for their own ends.
The “social contract,” for example, is a fraud. You can’t have a contract unless you have two willing and able parties. They must come together in a meeting of the minds — a real agreement about what they are going to do together.
But what is the ‘social contract’ with government? There was never a meeting of the minds. The deal was forced on the public. And now, imagine that you want out. Can you simply “break the contract?” You refuse to pay your taxes and refuse to be bossed around by TSA agents and other government employees. How long would it be before you got put in jail?
What kind of contract is it that you don’t agree to and can’t get out of? They can dress it up…print out a piece of paper…have a solemn ceremony in which everyone pretends it is a real contract. But it’s not worth the paper it’s not written on.
Also, what kind of a contract allows for one party to unilaterally change the terms of the deal? Congress passes new laws almost every day. The bureaucracy issues new edicts. The tax system is changed. The pound of flesh they got already wasn’t enough; now they want a pound and a half!
Every theory of government we’ve come across is a scam. So we offer a better theory: government is just a way for the insiders to take advantage of the outsiders. [...]"
MSM: "Alaska Lawmaker Takes On TSA Over Airport Scanners" [12/22/11]
"A state lawmaker in Alaska really doesn't like the TSA's airport body scanners. Democrat Chris Tuck is running ads on local TV reminding Alaskans that they, like everyone else, have the right to turn down the scans and get a patdown instead, reports the Anchorage Daily News. "And if they touch you inappropriately, call the airport police," Tuck adds. The state representative mostly cites privacy concerns, saying that "these machines still allow TSA screeners to see through your clothes" and that the TSA then stores the images, notes CNN. The agency says he's wrong on both counts.
New machines take only a generic body outline and don't store images, says a spokesman. "Might be my mistake on that one," Tuck says of the news that the devices can't store images, but he still wants to see proof. Tuck also mentions health concerns over the scanners, which the TSA similarly discounts, but his real beef is the "unnerving" routine itself. "You have people holding their arms out like they're criminals and being treated like criminals. And it's the whole psychological effect that we're imposing on society, and instilling fear and ... breeding suspicion of one another." [...]"
Commentary:
"America
Drone Wars In Africa: A Constellation Of Secret Airstrips And Drone Bases" [12/22/11]
"In 2009, The Pentagon established an agreement with the Seychelles government to establish a drone base within proximity of the country's civilian airport. The base is operated by the US Air Force.
The Seychelles islands with a population of 85,000 inhabitants are strategically located in the Indian Ocean. They are close to the U.S. combined Navy and Air Force base in Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago, from which major military operations are conducted. Diego Garcia is also a major center of the military intelligence establishment.
The Seychelles are also directly opposite Somalia and its capital Mogadishu. [...]
Reports confirm that "the base in the Seychelles is part of a constellation of drone bases that the U.S. government has expanded in the region" [officially] to monitor or attack al-Qaeda affiliates," namely as part of a counter-terrorism mandate, "to make the world safer for
Africans. [...]"
Corbett Report:
"The Manas Question: Drugs, Revolution & Terrorism on the Road to Afghanistan" [12/22/11]
[4:59] "The Manas Air Base, situated near the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek, has played a key role in the increasingly important Central Asian region since its inception. First opened in December 2001 to support the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Manas Air Base plays host to the US Ninth Air Force and serves primarily as a transit point for US goods and personnel coming and going from Afghanistan. As part of the so-called Northern Distribution Network, a key supply route for NATO troops in Afghanistan that bypasses the now-blockaded Pakistani borders, Manas continues to be a strategically vital asset for the US. At the same time, the base has also been a point of contention with the locals for years, and the controversy doesn’t seem likely to die down any time soon.
As important as the base is to the Kyrgyz people, the true nature of Manas remains an open question. For years, it has been at the centre of a string of allegations revolving around drug-running, terrorism and stage-managed revolutions.
This is our EyeOpener Report by James Corbett, presenting Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Air Base, and exploring its reported position as a center where the US conducts covert meetings and operations with various militant Islamic groups such as Pakistani Jundullah, its importance as a major transit point for Western controlled and routed Afghan heroin, the true nature of the Tulip Revolution, the incoming Kyrgyz president’s latest threats to close the base, and the nation’s position on a fault line in the tectonics of geopolitics.
[...]"
Note: This a short, preliminary 'eye-opener' report.
MSM: "UN Condemns Unilateral Coercive Measures" [12/21/11]
"The UN General Assembly condemned the implementation of unilateral coercive measures with extraterritorial effects, considering them an instrument of political or economic pressure against any country.
The rejection was adopted yesterday by 137 votes in favor and 54 against, with no abstentions.
Among the votes against are the United States, Israel and almost all European Union countries, but none from Latin America and the Caribbean or Africa.
The text is titled Human Rights and Unilateral Coercive Measures, and states that the condemned actions were intended to prevent countries from exercising their right to freely determine their political, economic and social development.
Such measures also preclude the full realization of economic and social development of the population of the affected countries, harm their welfare and create obstacles to the full enjoyment of human rights, including health, food, medical care and necessary social services.
The text also warns that food and medicines should not be used as an instrument of political pressure.
It also rejects the extraterritorial nature of unilateral coercive measures for threatening the sovereignty of States and urges not to recognize or implement them, but to counteract them with administrative or legislative decisions. [...]"
MSM:
"Official:
Israel Unprepared For Wartime" [12/21/11]
" The Israeli government's watchdog agency says the country is short on bomb shelters and is ill-prepared to protect its citizens in case of war.
The state comptroller's annual report, published in part on Tuesday, says Israel has not learned the lessons from the 2006 Lebanon war, when dozens of Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah rockets.
The report blames official bodies, including the military and the Interior Ministry, for "serious lapses" in wartime readiness. It says some government bodies are shirking their responsibilities and not investing needed funds in preparedness plans.
The report says there are not enough bomb shelters in schools and public places, leaving hundreds of thousands of Israelis unprotected in case of attack. [...]"
Commentary:
"How Pay-Pal Squeezes Merchants with Unfair and Likely Illegal Business Practices" [12/20/11]
"When Andrew Sauter decided to start taking online credit card payments for his small business, he didn’t think twice about
PayPal, the dominant Web-based money transmitter in the United States. A subsidiary of the auction giant eBay, PayPal bills itself as “the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online” and “the world’s most loved way to pay and get paid.”
In exchange for the service, Sauter paid 2.2 percent of each transaction to PayPal, along with a $30-per-month fee, totaling about $5,400 over the life of the account. For four years, everything worked.
But when he checked his account on September 3, he found an unwelcome surprise. Instead of the nearly $2,600 he expected, his available balance was only $192, with $2,399 listed as “pending.” PayPal was reserving 30 percent of the value of each of his transactions for 90 days. The reserve was applied retroactively, creating a sudden cash-flow problem that threatened to shut him down or force him to take on expensive and otherwise-unnecessary loans.
What followed for Sauter mirrors the experiences of many other merchants who rely on, and reward, PayPal to make their businesses function: a battle with an opaque corporate bureaucracy marked by frustration, desperation and dead-ends. With the help of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation,
Sauter, who lives in Chicago, would eventually get his money and compel PayPal to withdraw its reserve permanently. He also joined Zepeda v. PayPal, an ongoing class-action lawsuit representing, according to one of the principle litigants, more than 1,800 plaintiffs in similar situations. [...]"
Related: "PayPal’s Links to Palantir, a Metasearch Technology Used by Intelligence, Law Enforcement and Military Organizations"
[11/27/11] and
related article "Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon" [11/24/11]
below.
Commentary: "Stocking Up For Doomsday: It’s Not Just For “Crazies” Anymore" [12/20/11]
" ... As the world fell deeper into crisis and more information, namely from alternative media, began to emerge about the fragility of the existing financial, economic, monetary and social paradigms, more Americans and citizens of other nations came to the realization that perhaps not everything was as under control as it has been made out to be. When the financial system collapsed in late 2008 it wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth and turned once successful middle class laborers into poverty stricken recipients of emergency services. Governments around the world, led by the monetary policy of the United States, responded by attempting to infuse trillions of dollars of new debt into an already debt-laden and over-leveraged system, with Congressional members reportedly being threatened with the real possibility of martial law in the streets of America unless they took action.
The unprecedented government intervention on a massive global scale was not enough. As it stands now, the banks of Europe are set to fall, just as they did in the 1930′s. The United States, far removed from the creditor status it held during the Great Depression, is the largest debtor in human history. It’s creditor, China, is an up and coming economic giant who has made known, on numerous occasions, that it would like nothing more than to see an end to US dollar’s dominance as the world’s reserve currency and America’s military and economic might weakened. Tensions amid nuclear allegations in the middle east are heating up with Iran, while influential countries in the region like Egypt and Syria are progressively being destabilized on a daily basis.
The world, for those paying attention, is on the brink of a major paradigm shift. And many have come to the conclusion that government really has no way of mitigating the fundamental problems we face.
"
Note: No kidding. They're conceptually hobbled sequentials.
Interviews:
"Psychologists Explain 911 Denial"
[12/19/11]
[15:08]
"Listen to experts here, they explain how not just 911 but every single disaster can be carried out deliberately as the majority of the general public would never believe it possible."
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [12/19/11]
MP3 Audio
[120:00]
Select
Dec 17, 2011
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments.
Note: The world strategic crisis continues. The discussion
begins with the collapse of the United States empire and what's happening.
Commentary: "Global Economic Crisis: The USA, An Insolvent and Ungovernable Country
" [12/19/11]
"... In fact, the United States ends 2011 in a state of weakness unmatched since the Civil War. They practice no significant leadership at international level. The confrontation between geopolitical blocs is sharpening and they find themselves confronted by almost all the world’s major players: China, Russia, Brazil (and in general almost all of South America) and now Euroland (30). Meanwhile, they cannot control unemployment where the true rate stagnates at around 20% against the backdrop of an unabated and unprecedented reduction in the labour force (which has now fallen to its 2001 level (31)).
Real estate, the foundation of US household wealth along with the stock market, continues to see prices drop year after year despite desperate attempts by the Fed (32) to facilitate lending to the economy through its zero interest rate policy. The stock market has resumed its downward path artificially interrupted by two Quantitative Easings in 2009 and 2010. US banks, whose balance sheets are much more heavily loaded with financial derivative products than their European counterparts (33), are dangerously approaching a new series of bankruptcies of which MF Global is a but a precursor, indicating the absence of procedural controls or alarms three years after the collapse of Wall Street in 2008 (34).
Poverty is gradually increasing in the country every day, where one in six Americans now depend on food stamps (35) and one in five children has experienced periods of living on the streets (36). Public services (education, social, police, highways...) have been significantly reduced across the country to avoid city, county, or state bankruptcies. The success with which the revolt of the middle class and the young (TP and OWS) has met is explained by these objective developments. And the coming years will see these trends get worse.
The weakness of the 2011 US economy and society is, paradoxically, the result of the “rescue” attempts carried out in 2009/2010 (stimulus plans, QE ...) and the worsening of a pre-2008 “normal” situation. 2012 will mark the first year of deterioration from an already badly impaired situation (37).
SMEs, households, local authorities (38), public services,... have no more “padding” to soften the blow of the recession into which the country has fallen again (39). We anticipated that 2012 would see a 30% drop in the Dollar against major world currencies. In this economy, which imports the bulk of its consumer goods, this will result in a corresponding decrease in US household purchasing power against a backdrop of double-digit inflation.
The TP and OWS have, therefore, a bright future ahead of them since the wrath of 2011 will become the rage in 2012/2013. [...]"
Commentary:
"Is
The World Really Doomed?" The
Guardian, UK [12/19/11]
" ... The apocalypse," wrote the German poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger in 1978, "is aphrodisiac, nightmare, a commodity like any other ... warning finger and scientific forecast ... rallying cry ... superstition ... a joke ... an incessant production of our fantasy ... one of the oldest ideas of the human species. Its periodic ebb and flow ... has accompanied utopian thought like a shadow."
It is haunting us again. A sense of doom dominates recent films such as Melancholia, in which a vast unknown planet suddenly appears from behind the sun and converges inexorably on Earth; and Take Shelter, about a taciturn American Everyman, living quietly with his family somewhere on the suburban plains, who starts dreaming extravagantly about devastating coming storms and social breakdown. There is doom television, such as the BBC1 series Survivors, a post-apocalyptic soap opera that ran from 2008 to 2010, about the struggles of ordinary Britons after a deadly flu pandemic. There is doom literature, from the exhaustingly erudite – Living in The End Times, by the Slovenian superstar philosopher Slavoj Žižek – to the more digestible – The Coffee Table Book of Doom, by Steven Appleby and Art Lester, published in time for this Christmas, and complete with cute cartoons and would-be wry discussions of the likelihood of an asteroid strike or global food shortage or "supersize hurricane". There is doominess in pop music, not just in the usual genres such as metal, but on the fashionable fringes of dubstep and techno, where the much blogged-about young record label Blackest Ever Black issues echoing, funereal instrumentals with titles such as We Must Hunt Under The Wreckage Of Many Systems.
There is an ever louder babble of apocalypse-predicting subcultures, amplified and partly sustained by the internet: peak-oil doomers, who believe the world's energy supplies will collapse and mass famine will follow; Christians who anticipate an imminent day of rapture when believers will ascend to heaven and non-believers will perish; interpreters of the ancient Maya calendar who, contrary to mainstream scholarship, are convinced that the world will end on 21 December 2012; and traditional survivalists, stockpiling tinned goods and constructing rural "survival retreats" to sit out
Armageddon, who in recent years have been more active than for decades, according to one of their gurus, James Wesley Rawles, American author of the 2009 bestseller Patriots: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Collapse. This autumn, as the estimated world population passed seven billion, an earlier prophet of doom, Paul Ehrlich, co-author of the 60s and 70s bestseller The Population Bomb and professor of population studies at Stanford University in California, resurfaced in the British press to warn that demand for the planet's resources would soon decisively exceed supply. "Civilisations," he reminded this newspaper, "have collapsed before." [...]
Especially in Britain, the media love frightening forecasts: from the rightwing Daily Express, with its fondness in recent years for near-constant, alarmist front-page weather warnings, to the leftwing New Statesman, whose 5 December coverline read: "The death spiral: Is it too late to avert a British Depression?" Even The World in 2012, the latest edition of the Economist's annual compendium of predictions, abandons its usual relentless capitalist cheerleading for warnings about an economic "Great Stagnation" and further "mayhem on the streets" of the west. "The world won't end in 2012," writes editor Daniel Franklin. "But at times it will feel as if it is about to."
In July, the word "apocalypse" appeared 60 times in British national newspapers. In August, 70 times. In September, 92 times. In November, 100 times. Usually calm Guardian columnists have started to ponder
Armageddon. After the chancellor George Osborne's bleak autumn statement on the economy, Zoe Williams discussed the pros and cons of food hoarding. In November, Simon Jenkins declared: "Today's [economic and political] predicament is unquestionably worse than the 1970s." The same month, Ian Jack wrote: "Build a bunker with a vegetable plot on some high ground and leave it to your grandchildren: dangerous levels of climate change now look all but
inevitable. [...]"
Note: The collapse of the civilization is happening in league with
the dynamics of 'graduation' (M5) that is already underway.
MSM: "Russia,
India To Consolidate Strategic Partnership" [12/18/11]
"President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia spoke highly of Russian-Indian relations during his talks with the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Moscow Kremlin earlier today.
He described these relations as a time-tested privileged strategic partnership. Following the meeting, a Joint Statement was adopted on boosting the Russian-Indian strategic partnership in the face of challenges of the changing world.
The parties to the talks reiterated their adherence to carrying-out long-term cooperation in the field of using nuclear power for peaceful purposes. According to the statement, Russia and India will seek to commission at an early date the first two power generating units of the Kudankulam nuclear power plant. The plant is being built using the Russian technology.
The two leaders attended a ceremony to sign a protocol on rendering technical assistance to India in launching the production, in India, of the SU-30MKI Russian fighter jet, which has become the flagship of the Indian Air Force. [...]"
World Politics:
"Russia Finally a WTO Member"
[12/18/11]
"Russia finally got its secret decoder ring for the World Trade Organization today, ending an 18-year quest for admittance. The vote is likely to provide a boost for both Russia's economy and that of its top trading partner, the European Union, the AP predicts, with the latter potentially boosting its exports by some $5.2 billion a year. It will also oblige Russia to abide by the Geneva-based group's trading rules. Russia was the only G20 nation that wasn't part of the 153-nation group. [...]"
MSM: "Russia
Will Stop Any Attack Against Iran" Press
TV [12/18/11]
[46:34]
"Russia will try to stop any military attack against Iran as the two countries have mutual interests and any attack against Tehran would also be a serious problem for Russia, a Russian military analyst tells Press TV. [...]"
Commentary:
"Analysis: Global Corporate Control" [12/17/11]
"Bankers rule the world. A new Swiss Federal Institute of Technology study
PDF says so. Written by Stefania Vitali, James Glattfelder and Stefano Battiston, it's titled "The network of global corporate control," saying:
"We find that transnational corporations from a giant bow-tie 1structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic 'super-entity' that raises new important issues both for researches and policy makers."
The study says 147 powerful companies control an inordinate amount of economic activity - about 40%. Among the top 50, 45 are financial firms. They include Barclays PLC (called most influential), JPMorgan Chase, UBS, and other familiar and less known names.
Twenty-four companies are US-based, followed by eight in Britain, five in France, four in Japan, and Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands with two each. Canada has one.
Moreover, "top ranked" companies "hold a control ten times bigger than what could be expected based on their wealth."
As a result, they have enormous influence over political, financial, and economic activity.
In his book titled, "When Corporations Rule the World," David Korten said they're able to transfer enormous amounts of power, wealth and resources from public to private hands with government complicity. Money power and concentrated wealth in few hands especially harm humanity.
"These forces have transformed" financial institutions and other corporate predators "into instruments of a market tyranny that is extending its reach across the planet like a cancer, colonizing ever more of the planet's living spaces, destroying livelihoods, displacing people, rendering democratic institutions impotent, and feeding on life in an insatiable quest for money" and profits as a be and end all.
Only bottom line priorities and market dominance matter, not human welfare, environmental sanity, peace, equity and justice.
Transnational giants are the dominant institution of our time - especially financial ones with money power control of everything.
[...]"
Commentary: "America Just Says No to the Rule of Law" [12/17/11]
"In 2005, Michael Greco, the President of the American Bar Association, decided he had to come to the defense of the rule of law in the US. A variety of Bush administration practices, such as signing statements, struck Greco as dangerous transgressions against the constitution, and he commissioned three research reports on the subject from groups of ABA specialists who had deep experience working within the executive branch, including the FBI, the CIA, the
NSA, and the Justice Department. Each report identified serious violations of the constitution, and expressed alarm at the gravity of the consequences should they go unchecked. Greco made the reports public, and delivered them to the White House, only to be met with silence from the media and the political
establishment. [...] The rule of law, it seems, was no longer a concern to the US establishment, even when the legal profession's umbrella association was weighing in with stern warnings.
However indifferent the establishment may have become to the rule of law by 2005, a large proportion of American citizens were not willing to tolerate brazen illegality at the
top.I ndignation at the Bush administration's disregard for the law played a significant role in delivering the Presidency and majorities in both chambers of Congress by 2008. President Obama's own background as a one-time teacher of constitutional law conditioned optimism that his administration would honor the rule of law, and would hold many Bush administration officials accountable for their transgressions. Such was the spirit of 2008.
[...]"
MSM: "UK
Implicated In Afghanistan Drug Trade" [12/16/11]
"A senior Afghan official has accused Britain of involvement in illicit narcotics trade in Afghanistan, Press TV reports.
"There are documents and evidence that show that British forces in [Afghanistan's] Helmand Province not only did nothing to prevent the illicit drug trade, but in some cases also took part in it,"
Yousef-Ali Vaezi, an advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, told Press TV on Thursday.
"They cooperated in the cultivation, production, and trafficking of drugs," he added.
He also said that the restrictive conditions brought in the declaration of the national gathering of Afghan tribal leaders -- the Loya Jirga -- which was recently held to discuss long-term security agreement with the US, were still valid.
Based on the conditions, Vaezi said, the US-led foreign forces in Afghanistan would not be granted immunity from prosecution.[...]"
Propaganda
Ploy:
"Court Filings Assert Iran Had Link to 9/11 Attacks" [12/16/11]
"Two defectors from Iran’s intelligence service have testified that Iranian officials had “foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks,” according to a court filing Thursday in a federal lawsuit in Manhattan that seeks damages for Iran’s “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history.”
[...]"
Note: A trumped up legal decision which is not a surprise,
considering the historical record, who is involved and what they've done so
far. See the official Iran 911 Case website
which reflects this propagandistic dynamic. Flashback:
"Lawyers Ask NYC Judge To Find Iran Liable For 9/11
" [05/22/11]
"Lawyers representing 9/11 families are asking a federal judge to find Iran culpable in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, saying new evidence shows Iranian officials had advanced word of the attacks and helped train the hijackers.
The lawyers filed papers Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan saying there is “clear and convincing” evidence to conclude default judgment damages should be paid to their plaintiffs — families and personal representatives of some of those killed in the attacks.
Supporting their arguments, the lawyers cited the testimony of three defectors from Iran’s intelligence service, the Ministry of Information and Security, saying they worked in positions that gave them access to sensitive information regarding Iran’s state sponsorship of terrorism. They said the testimony, part of 28 hours of testimony by four witnesses, supports a claim that Iranian officials had advanced word of the attacks and that Iran helped train those who carried it out. [...]" |
"Judge
Says Iran Played Role in 9/11 Attacks"
[3:00]
Note: A total propagandistic fabrication, announced by CNN
US-Israeli reporter Wolf Blitzer.
MSM:
"Iraq
War Ends" [12/16/11]
"Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared the Iraq War over in a quiet
ceremony in Baghdad, saying the conflict was worth the cost because it set
Iraq on a path to democracy. After speeches, the flag of United States
Force-Iraq was "cased"—furled around a flagpole and covered in
camouflage — and the US military’s mission was declared at an end ...
eight years, eight months, and 25 days after it started. American troops will
be home for the holidays, and won't have to wait for the Dec. 31 deadline set
by a US-Iraq agreement, reports the Washington Post.
[...]"
RT
Interview: "Man
Of Mass Destruction'? RT Challenges Iraq War Architect Richard Pearle" [12/15/11]
[11:41]
"As the day draws closer for the US to withdraw its troops from Iraq, many question how Iraq will fare on its own. RT spoke to one of the chief architects of this campaign, who shared his views on the justifications and failings behind the invasion. ¬A former assistant to the US Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan and a chairman of the Defense Policy Board under George W. Bush, Richard Perle is considered one of the most controversial figures in US politics. [...]"
MSM: "Secret
Trade Report Obtained By AIPAC And Israel Compromised Sensitive US Industry
Secrets" [12/14/11]
"Following a three year Freedom of Information Act battle, US Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk has been forced to publicly release a secret report about America's first bilateral trade agreement. The 1984 report predicted which US industries would be most harmed by massive trade preferences for Israel.
In 2009 the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), a Washington nonprofit that works to improve policy formulation, sought public release of the report. The USTR refused. IRmep appealed to an outside review panel arguing that declassified FBI files revealed both the Israeli government and American Israel Public Affairs Committee unlawfully obtained the report in 1984. A declassified FBI investigation uncovered AIPAC's receipt of the report from Israel's Economics Minister, who refused to divulge how he obtained it. IRmep successfully argued that Americans most harmed by the data theft should also have access to the report.
Passage of Israel trade preferences into law in 1985 created a chronic US deficit averaging $10 billion per year. In May of 2011, IRmep's Center for Policy and Law Enforcement filed a petition with the USTR Section 301 Committee demanding $6.64 billion in compensation for exporters that suffered confidential business information loss to AIPAC and Israel. Although USTR refused to pursue the petition, the report's public release now provides crucial evidence for civil damage claims to be filed in court against
AIPAC. Stakeholders may now download released sections of the report and links to FBI files.
Commentary:
"Grand Delusion: Resisting the Siren Song of
"Specialness" [12/13/11]
"The U.S. presidential campaign is now in full swing. (In truth, it never actually ends; the savage grasping and grappling among damaged souls seeking their brief season of domination and death-dealing goes on daily without respite.) In the months to come, we will be subjected to an ever-growing, ever-roaring flood of rhetoric about the unique, unquestionable, divinely ordained goodness of America. (And how the "other side" would destroy or demean this precious moral
'specialness'.) This rhetoric will come both from the radical, society-shaking extremists laughingly called "conservatives" in our fun-house political system, and from the reactionary defenders of elite wealth and murderous militarism laughingly known as "progressives." (And, of course, from the well-fed, milky mannered, comfortably numb burghers known as "centrists.")
All Americans are marinated in this mindset from birth, and it is reinforced in them, every day, by the most powerful and pervasive media machinery in history, by enormous societal pressure, and by the dead heavy weight of tradition. Even the most hardened cynics might feel the stirrings of
atavistic response to these siren songs woven into the fabric of the American psyche.
In such cases, I recommend a reading of the following two articles. They will help remind you of the reality being cloaked by the psyche-stirring, button-pushing bullshit of the grasping wretches seeking power.
First, a remarkable piece in the London Review of Books, detailing the personal testimony of a child -- a child -- sold into years of captivity and torture at the hands of the proud, always-to-be-honored defenders of American values. It's the story of Mohammed el
Gorani, a Saudi-born teenager from Chad, whose black skin made him a special target for his captors in the gulag hellholes of Kandahar and
Guantanamo. [...]"
MSM: "Blackwater,
Er, We Mean Xe, Changes Name Again" [12/13/11]
" Blackwater's attempt to scrub clean its image by rebranding itself as Xe Services didn't really throw anyone off the scent—it was forever identified as "the company formerly known as
Blackwater"—so now the company is trying again. Today, it will formally announce its new name,
"Academi," and it's one the company is hoping you'll forget. CEO Ted Wright tells the Wall Street Journal his goal is to make the company "boring." [...]"
World
Politics: "Billionaire Prokhorov to Challenge Putin" [12/13/11]
"Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov plans to challenge Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for the Russian presidency in March elections after the biggest anti-government demonstrations in a decade emboldened Russia’s opposition.
“This is the most important decision of my life,” the owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team told reporters in Moscow today.
Prokhorov, 46, Russia’s third-richest man with a fortune Forbes magazine estimated at $18 billion, said that he’ll seek to build support from the grassroots level and that he opposes “revolution” and “populism.” He quit as leader of the Right Cause party on Sept. 15, accusing President Dmitry Medvedev’s administration of blocking the group’s preparations for parliamentary elections in December. [...]"
Related: See below.
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [12/12/11]
MP3 Audio
[120:00]
Select
Dec 10, 2011
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments.
Note: The increasing acrimony of the US-Russia clash, the
US/British attack on the Euro, and more.
Related:
"Webster Tarpley World Crisis Radio 12-10-2011"
8 Video clips
Flashback:
"The International: Oil, Drugs, Guns & Kissinger Associates" [12/09/11]
"At the nadir of Four Horsemen/Gulf Cooperation Council/CIA petrodollar drugs for guns recycling scheme quietly sit the international
banksters. Through every major scandal and behind every despotic regime stands a global financial oligarchy- ultimate beneficiary of the world’s addiction to oil, guns and drugs.
The oil wealth generated in the Persian Gulf region is the main source of capital for these bankers. They sell the GCC sheiks 30-year treasury bonds at 5% interest, then loan the sheiks’ oil money out to Third World governments and Western consumers alike at 15-20% interest. In the process these financial overlords- who produce nothing of economic import- use debt as their lever in consolidating control over the global economy. [...]
The international bankers oversee Persian Gulf oil wealth generated by their Big Oil tentacles. Chase Manhattan called the shots at Iran’s central Bank
Markazi, then looted the Iranian Treasury as insiders Rockefeller, Kissinger and McCloy whisked their Shah puppet into exile. Chase had close ties to the Saudi SAMA central bank and Venezuela’s central bank, where Rockefeller-controlled Exxon Mobil “is the CIA”. Chase launched the Saudi Industrial Development Fund which doled out contracts to Chase-owned multinationals during the Saudi modernization drive, then bought Saudi Investment Banking Corporation, which did exactly the same. [1] World Bank Presidents Eugene Black and John McCloy both came from Chase.
Morgan Guaranty Trust presided over the House of Saud oil kitty. SAMA, created as the Kingdom’s Central Bank as the ink was still drying on the US/Saudi Security Agreement, was run by IMF goon Anwar Ali, who was handled by the “Three Wise Men” or “White Fathers”, the most powerful of which was John Meyer, chairman of Morgan Guaranty Trust’s International Division and later chairman of Morgan Guaranty. Meyer funneled SAMA petrodollar royalties into Morgan, which was investment counselor to
SAMA. [2] Morgan was banker to Bechtel and ARAMCO. Stephen Bechtel sat on Morgan Guaranty’s board, as did Chevron Texaco CFR insider George Schultz and Sulaiman
Olayan, the Bechtel straw man crucial to recycling Persian Gulf petrodollars into international banks.[...]"
MSM:
"Sen.
Sanders Files Amendment To End Corporate Personhood" [12/09/11]
"Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a constitutional amendment to the U.S. Senate on Thursday that would overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling.
The decision held that corporations have the same First Amendment rights as people, and that political spending was free speech. The ruling allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, so long as their actions were not directly coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.
“There comes a time when an issue is so important that the only way to address it is by a constitutional amendment,” Sanders said.
He had previously described the Citizen United ruling as “basically insane.”
“Nobody that I know thinks that Exxon Mobil is a person,” Sanders said in November.
The Saving American Democracy Amendment would state that corporations are not entitled to the same constitutional rights as people. It would also ban corporate campaign donations to candidates, and give Congress and the states broad authority to regulate spending in elections.
“The dominance of corporations in Washington has imperiled the economic security of the American people and left our citizens profoundly disenchanted with our democracy,” said Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), who has introduced a companion measure in the U.S. House.
“I look forward to working with Sen. Sanders to save American democracy by banning all corporate spending in our elections and cracking down on secret front groups using anonymous corporate cash to undermine the public interest.”
The amendment comes only days after the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights. [...]"
Related: "Los
Angeles Votes To End To Corporate Personhood" [12/07/11]
"The Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would assert that corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights, and that money is not the same as free speech.
The resolution was backed by Move to Amend, a national coalition working to abolish corporate personhood and overturn U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling. The decision gave corporations and unions the ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, so long as their actions are not coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.
“Move to Amend’s proposed amendment would provide the basis for overturning the recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission,” stated Mary Beth Fielder, Co-Coordinator of LA Move to Amend. “The Supreme Court has no legitimate right to grant people’s rights to corporations. We must clearly establish that it is we, The People, who are meant to rule.” [...]"
Commentary:
"MIT
Study With Major Corporate “Advisers” Promotes Centralized Control Of
Power Grid" [12/08/11]
" ... Their proposed solution is for the federal government to “designate a single agency to have responsibility for working with industry and to have appropriate regulatory authority to enhance cybersecurity preparedness, response, and recovery across the electric power sector, including bulk power and distribution systems.”
We’ve seen how well centralization works, and any sane person would not continue to promote the fallacy that putting more power in fewer hands is somehow going to solve everyone’s problems.
This is exactly what happened with the Department of Homeland Security (which, incidentally, the Obama administration has said should head up securing the grid) which has become a behemoth organization so wildly out of control that it is almost surreal.
Yet the MIT study, chaired by John G. Kassakian and Richard Schmalensee, still recommends that we unify our system under the command of a single government entity.
Not to mention, so-called “advisory committee members” from corporations that could very well stand to gain considerable amounts of money if such a plan were put into action.
The most questionable individuals come from the following corporations: the Microsoft Corporation, General Electric Company, Cisco Systems, the Exelon Corporation, Southern California Edison, Nexant, Inc., and the ABB Group.
Other entities involved with the advisory committee are worth listing:
[...]"
Webster Tarpley: " The
Stimson-Marshall-McCloy-Lovett-Bundy Clique Schemed for US Defeat at Pearl Harbor"
[12/07/11]
MP3
Audio File. Very good review. Tarpley has just released a book on Pearl
Harbor. Bio: "Webster Griffin Tarpley
is one of the most incisive critics of Anglo-American hegemony. As an activist historian he is best known for his book –
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992), a masterpiece of research which is still a must read. AB Princeton 1966, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; Fulbright Scholar at University of Turin, Italy; MA in humanities from Skidmore College; and Ph.D. in History from The Catholic University of America. He is fluent in Italian, German, French, Latin and Russian.
Pearl Harbor - The Reality:
"Pearl
Harbor: Mother Of All Conspiracies"
" Roosevelt (FDR) provoked the attack, knew about it in advance and covered up his failure to warn the Hawaiian commanders. FDR needed the attack to sucker Hitler to declare war, since the public and Congress were overwhelmingly against entering the war in Europe. It was his backdoor to war.
FDR blinded the commanders at Pearl Harbor and set them up by - 1. denying intelligence to Hawaii (HI) 2. on Nov 27, misleading the commanders into thinking negotiations with Japan were continuing to prevent them from realizing the war was on 3. having false information sent to HI about the location of the Japanese carrier fleet. [...]"
Related: MSM
"FDR
Warned Of Pearl Harbor Attack Days In Advance"
"A new book reports that two days before the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor that officially brought the United States into World War II, President
Roosevelt was warned about such a possible attack in a memo from naval
intelligence. U.S. News' Paul Bedard writes more about the story: In the newly
revealed 20-page memo from FDR's declassified FBI file, the Office of Naval
Intelligence on December 4 warned, "In anticipation of open conflict with
this country, Japan is vigorously utilizing every available agency to secure
military, naval and commercial information, paying particular attention to the
West Coast, the Panama Canal and the Territory of Hawaii." [...]"
"Did FDR Provoke Pearl Harbor?"
"Today, 70 years after Pearl Harbor, a remarkable secret history, written from 1943 to 1963, has come to light. It is Hoover’s explanation of what happened before, during and after the world war that may prove yet the death knell of the West.
Edited by historian George Nash, Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath is a searing indictment of FDR and the men around him as politicians who lied prodigiously about their desire to keep America out of war, even as they took one deliberate step after another to take us into war.
Yet the book is no polemic. The 50-page run-up to the war in the Pacific uses memoirs and documents from all sides to prove Hoover’s indictment. And perhaps the best way to show the power of this book is the way Hoover does it — chronologically, painstakingly, week by week. [...]" |
"McCollum
Memo: The Smoking Gun of Pearl Harbor"
"On October 7, 1940, Lieutenant Commander Arthur McCollum of the Office of Naval Intelligence submitted a memo to Navy Captains Walter Anderson and Dudley Knox (whose endorsement is included in the following scans). Captains Anderson and Knox were two of President Roosevelt's most trusted military advisors.
The memo, scanned below, detailed an 8 step plan to provoke Japan into attacking the United States. President Roosevelt, over the course of 1941, implemented all 8 of the recommendations contained in the McCollum memo. Following the eighth provocation, Japan attacked. The public was told that
it was a complete surprise, an 'intelligence failure', and America entered
World War Two. [...]"
Note: And with 9/11, the public was also told it was a complete
surprise, an 'intelligence failure', and America entered the fascist
totalitarian fabricated "War on Terror" which has no actual
substance aside from what is perpetrated and allowed by the US government,
it's cohorts and patsies. In the end ... it's a war against the individual
... the eventual outcome when reincarnated retreads are in charge of a
corporate fascist collective. It's all predictable, and inevitable, as part of
the galaxy game on the local level.
Pearl Harbor - The Propaganda:
"How
Pearl Harbor – and December 1941 – Made America a Global Power" [12/07/11]
[8:09] "In his powerful, thickly researched new book, December
1941: 31 Days That Changed America and Saved the World, Craig Shirley
chronicles the day-by-day shifts in American culture, politics, and national
identity through that horrible month. Before December, Shirley tells
Reason’s Nick Gillespie, a solid majority opposed entry into World War II
and the “eminently respectable” America First movement was poised to help
select the next president of the United States. Non-interventionism was so
universal that Franklin Roosevelt himself had campaigned for his third term as
president on a promise to keep “American boys” out of European wars. [...]
Shirley talks with Reason's Nick Gillespie about what was gained - and lost -
in the historical hinge point that was December 1941."
Related: "Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor - BBC Documentary"
1989
[61:00]
"For nearly 50 years, the world has believed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's declaration that the Pearl Harbor attack was a
" completely unexpected assault on a neutral nation". Sacrifice at Pearl Harbor tells another, hidden story - using actual recording of intercepted diplomatic communications, declassified government documents, archival footage and interviews with diplomats and spies from around the world. We now know that intelligence operatives from the US and three Allied nations monitored the Japanese fleet's progress on its deadly mission to Oahu in late 1941. Yet neither Admiral Kimmell nor General Short received a word of warning that might have allowed them to avert the sacrifice of 4,000 American casualties in less than 90 minutes. [...]"
Note: Of course, this was all bullshit. It was murder ... they
knew it was coming, they planned for it and wanted it to happen.
MSM: "Costly
Ambition: 'With Sanctions On Iran Oil, US Chokes Own Economy'" [12/07/11]
[4:24]
"Iran is warning against new Washington-backed sanctions over its nuclear
programme, which will target its oil exports. It says they may more than double fuel prices. Jamal Abdi from the National Iranian American Council, says such sanctions will only choke already-struggling Western economies. [...]"
MSM: "BP: Halliburton
"Destroyed Evidence" [12/06/11]
"BP is accusing Halliburton of having "intentionally destroyed evidence" related to the explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that led to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
The accusation comes in court papers filed by BP Monday in federal court in New Orleans as part of a lawsuit aimed at having sanctions imposed on Halliburton Energy Services Inc., which was a contractor for BP on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. An explosion on the rig on April 20, 2010, killed 11 people working on the rig and injured 16 others. The explosion led to more than 200 million gallons of oil being released into the Gulf.
BP alleges in its filing that Halliburton destroyed evidence on cement testing and violated court orders by not bringing forth "inexplicably missing" computer modeling results.
"Halliburton has steadfastly refused to provide these critical testing and modeling results in discovery. Halliburton's refusal has been unwavering, despite repeated BP discovery requests and a specific order from this Court," the documents state.
"BP has now learned the reason for Halliburton's intransigence -- Halliburton destroyed the results of physical slurry testing, and it has, at best, lost the computer modeling outputs that showed no channeling. More egregious still, Halliburton intentionally destroyed the evidence related to its nonprivileged cement testing, in part because it wanted to eliminate any risk that this evidence would be used against it at trial," the BP papers say. [...]"
MSM: "Division of Cerberus Capital Management Buying Large U.S. Firearms Companies" [12/06/11]
"... In recent years, many top-selling brands — including the 195-year-old Remington Arms, as well as Bushmaster Firearms and
DPMS, leading makers of military-style semiautomatics — have quietly passed into the hands of a single private company. It is called the Freedom Group — and it is the most powerful and mysterious force in the American commercial gun industry today.
Even within gun circles, the Freedom Group is something of an enigma. Its rise has been so swift that it has become the subject of wild speculation and grassy-knoll conspiracy theories. In the realm of consumer rifles and shotguns — long guns, in the trade — it is unrivaled in its size and reach. By its own count, the Freedom Group sold 1.2 million long guns and 2.6 billion rounds of ammunition in the 12 months ended March 2010, the most recent year for which figures are publicly available.
Behind this giant is Cerberus Capital Management, the private investment company that first came to widespread attention when it acquired Chrysler in 2007. (Chrysler later had to be rescued by taxpayers). With far less fanfare, Cerberus, through the Freedom Group, has been buying big names in guns and ammo. [...]"
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [12/05/11]
MP3 Audio
[75:00]
Select
Dec 3, 2011
podcast and click play arrow to listen, or download. Also available as two
segments.
Note: The decline of the 'occupy wall street movement' is
discussed, as well as other current issues, including the withdrawal from Iraq
and what's happening with the world banking panic, and the convergence of
several crises. Bio: "Webster Griffin Tarpley
is one of the most incisive critics of Anglo-American hegemony. As an activist historian he is best known for his book –
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography (1992), a masterpiece of research which is still a must read. He is a 9/11 Truth Scholar and activist; AB Princeton 1966, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa; Fulbright Scholar at University of Turin, Italy; MA in humanities from Skidmore College; and Ph.D. in History from The Catholic University of America. He is fluent in Italian, German, French, Latin and Russian. A decades-long expert on international terrorism, his 1978 study for the Italian parliament “Chi ha ucciso Aldo Moro?” (Who Killed Aldo Moro?) broke open the ownership of the “Red Brigades” by NATO’s clandestine “stay-behind” networks."
Commentary:
"Walking Guns and Laundering Drug Money – The “War” on Drugs is Doing Just Fine" [12/05/11]
"If there is an argument to be made that the United States is the biggest purveyor of terrorist activities across the world which we justify with the endless “Global War on Terror” (and that argument is not hard to make), what does that say about our “War on Drugs”? Look at just a few of the recent stories from the headlines and judge for yourself…
The Justice Department lied repeatedly about “gun walking” firearms to Mexican drug cartels – There was a policy in place at the highest levels in the ATF and the Justice Department to ship weapons to Mexican “drug cartels”. This is at a time when violence in Mexico is at it’s highest level since the Spanish landed on their shores. In February the Assistant Attorney General wrote the following to an investigating body of congress; it was a complete fiction… a lie… and congress now has the emails to prove it. [...]"
Related:
"Fast and
Furious" Whistleblowers Struggle Six Months After Testifying Against ATF Program"
"Six months ago, several agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives stood before Congress to testify about the details of a U.S. government program that armed Mexico's largest drug cartel with thousands of assault rifles.
The administration denied it at the time and questioned the agents' integrity. The men were nervous and scared. They said they feared for their careers, their reputation and their families. [...]"
See also article below.
MSM: "DEA Launders Mexican Profits Of Drug Cartels" [12/05/11]
"Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.
The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.
They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents.
The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests. [...]"
MSM: "Egypt
Islamist Parties Win More Than 60% Of The Vote" [12/05/11]
Note: This is NOT what the US and Israel wanted to hear.
Related: "Muslim Brotherhood Says No to
"Islamist Government" [12/04/11]
" Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood put the kibosh on speculation that its Freedom and Justice Party would team up with the ultraconservative Salafi movement’s Al Nour party to dominate Egypt’s new parliament. The Freedom and Justice party issued a statement yesterday denying an “alleged alliance” that would form an “Islamist government.” [...]"|
"Islamist
Muslim Brotherhood Leads Polls In Egypt" [12/02/11]
[2:05]
"Egypt's Islamists claim they're leading the polls in the country's
parliamentary election. The first poll of its kind in years there saw millions
turn out to vote for their future, with results from the first round expected
within hours. RT's Anissa Naouai is in Cairo. [...]"
Note: According to Webster Tarpley and others, the Muslim
Brotherhood is a patsy of the CIA, which of course explains why they are
cryptically 'anti-Islamist' in an Islamic country. | "Israel
Finds Egypt Vote Result Disturbing"
"Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says the initial result of the Egyptian elections are “very disturbing,” amid fears that the Muslim Brotherhood will end the long-standing peace treaty between the two.
"The process of Islamisation in Arab countries is very worrying," Israel's Channel Two television quoted Barak as saying. [...]"
Note: Well, that's exactly what the Brotherhood said it doesn't
want ... just what Israel wants. No surprise. See also below.
Commentary:
"The “Free Syria Army”: Placard-Waving Protesters are Actually Machine Gun-Wielding Terrorists" [12/04/11]
"The “Free Syria Army” is literally an army of militant extremists, many drawn not from Syria’s military ranks, but from the
Muslim Brotherhood, carrying heavy weapons back and forth over the Turkish and Lebanese borders, funded,
supported, and armed by the United States, Israel, and Turkey. [...]"
Exposé:
"FOIA Documents Show FBI Illegally Collecting Intelligence Under Guise of "Community Outreach" [12/04/11]
"The FBI has been illegally using its community outreach programs to secretly collect and store information about activities protected by the First Amendment for intelligence purposes, according to FBI documents released today by the American Civil Liberties Union.
“The trust that community outreach efforts aim to create is undermined when the FBI exploits these programs to gather intelligence on the very members of the religious and community organizations agents are meeting with,” said Michael German, ACLU senior policy counsel and a former FBI agent. “The FBI should be honest with community organizations about what information is being collected during meetings and purge any improperly collected information.”
FOIA documents showing instances of inappropriate intelligence gathering include: [...]"
Commentary: "The Fruits of Globalization: Regression, Destitution, Domination" [12/03/11]
"Part of a strategy to confound Chinese expansion, part of a long Malthusian tradition of stifling human progress, the gears of progress have been ground to a halt in yet another sovereign nation at the hands of Wall Street and London's global corporate-financier interests and their stable of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). [...]" Globalists Grind Development to a Halt in Myanmar (Burma)
Commentary: "Pakistan: Gateway to the Zionist Endgame?"
Martin Iqbal [12/03/11]
"Israel’s plan to eviscerate the Arab and Muslim states, eyes nuclear Pakistan as the final hurdle. In the wake of NATO’s deadly November 26 attack on Pakistan, the
S.I.T.E. Intelligence Group rears its head to carry forward the Zionist deceptions.
In February 1982 an important Hebrew paper appeared in a Jewish journal named KIVUNIM (Directions). Penned by Oded Yinon and titled ‘A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties‘, the essay delineates strategies for Israel to become a regional hegemon in the Middle East. The short and long term strategies discussed involve the dissolution of the surrounding Arab states, and the expansion of Israel beyond its current (undeclared) borders. Over a decade later in 1996, a Zionist study group led by arch Jewish Zionist Richard Perle wrote a paper entitled ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm‘. ‘A Clean Break‘ was largely a rehashing of Oded Yinon’s essay, adapting the same strategies to the contemporary geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. [...]
Not only is Syria now undergoing the major Zionist destabilisation plot prescribed in Yinon’s strategy, but this plot is being carried out on the ground with major Turkish military, operational, and territorial support. This is something that was recommended in Richard Perle’s ‘Clean Break’ rehashing of the strategy:
"
Note: Very good article.
Related: "Islamic Scholar Explains The Libyan Conquest - Sheik Imran Hosein
"
[7:33]
Trends:
"Tucson
NSA ‘Fortress’ Under Scrutiny" [12/02/11]
" An existing concrete poured reinforced building originally engineered to be a bank in 1972 has been designated Tucson’s NSA’s central intelligence hub. Its location is said to be for the preparation to a predicted catastrophic event. This event is predicted, however not specifically defined. “It could be anything catastrophic” they announce, and the fear is mounting upon every article that posts.
There is a suspected militarized infrastructure being erected under the noses of Tucson residents. The city was epicenter to a mass murder involving a member of the U.S. Congress, in which the murder of a federal judge took place in early January of 2011.
The object of this article is to begin to illustrate a significant aspect of what is perhaps being hidden from public knowledge before its very eyes. This is a complex subject in which several articles will follow.
Rather than intimidate the reader with an influx of background informational facts that leads to this story at hand, let this study of one particular building renovation project currently under construction in planning since 2004 exemplify the activities that parallels similar projects throughout the United States.
It is as a clear example of federalization and installment of installations converted from acquired
properties. This is the continuation of the military- industrial complex. In Tucson, Arizona, there seems to be a militarized infrastructure logistically planned along a rather straight north to southerly tract. [...]"
Commentary: "Vietnam-Style
Exit: Russia Could Deliver Death Blow To NATO In Af-Pak War Theater" [12/02/11]
"Maria Sultan, defence analyst, while talking to this correspondent said that if the Russians also cut the supply line of NATO then it will turn out to be a cold death for NATO troops. “They will literally be strangled in Afghanistan with 90,000 troops, and as they admit that they have reserves for three months, which actually means they have reserves for two months, then NATO will have to airlift the troops and during the airlift only 15 to 20 percent can get out alive out of the 90,000 troops”, Maria said. [...]"
Commentary:
"Neoconservatives Planned Regime Change Throughout the Middle East and North Africa 20 Years Ago" [12/01/11]
" ... General Wesley Clark … said the aim of this plot [to "destroy the governments in ... Iraq, ... Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran”] was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the
then- number -3- Pentagon- official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq – before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.” [...]"
Propaganda
Theatre: "UN: "Syria now in a civil war with 4000 dead" [12/01/11]
"Civil war has been the worst-case scenario in Syria since the revolt against Assad began eight months ago. Damascus has a web of allegiances that extends to Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement and Iran's Shiite theocracy, raising fears of a regional ... [...]"
Note: This premise is a total media fabrication created
to promote another illegal incursion into a peaceful country.
Reality: "No
Civil War In Syria, But A Killing Spree By CIA-NATO Death Squads"
MP3
"Webster G. Tarpley on the Kevin Barrett Show [...]"
Webster Tarpley: "The Anatomy of the NATO-CIA Destabilization of
Syria" [11/29/11]
[56:36]
Note: Tarpley Interviewed by Hanaa Alsaleh of Syria’s Addounia Television.
Very good. See also "World Crisis Radio Update" [11/28/11]
below for more background. He was there
...
"UN Report on Syria: Based on Witness Accounts ... OUTSIDE of Syria" [11/29/11]
"Wall Street and London's media machine eagerly churned out headlines like BBC's "Syria security forces 'commit crimes against humanity'" announcing the conclusions of a recent UN Human Rights Council report regarding the ongoing violence in Syria.
However, even upon reading the BBC article it is soon discovered that, "the investigation team members say they were denied entry into Syria itself," and that the entirety of their "evidence" is garnered solely from interviews with "223 victims, witnesses and also army defectors to investigate alleged human rights violations."
BBC's article raises immediate suspicion over the veracity of the report, as "victims, witnesses, and defectors," interviewed outside of Syria is not evidence, but rather more hearsay by groups of people with a vested interest in painting the Syrian government in the worst light possible.
However, upon actually reading the full text of the UN Human Rights Council report, we see just exactly "how" the report was compiled. [...]"
Propaganda
Theatre:
"Turkey
Announces New Sanctions On Syria" [12/01/11]
" Adding to the pressure on Syria, Turkey on Wednesday announced tough new sanctions, including freezing government assets, suspending loans and banning all military sales.
The United Nations says more than 3,500 people have been killed since major protests erupted in Syria in March. Opposition activists reported heavy gunfire Wednesday as security forces stormed the village of Dael in the southern Dara province. At least 16 people were killed around the country, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a major opposition network.
Most foreign journalists are barred from reporting in Syria and the accounts could not be independently verified. [...]"
Note: Why does Turkey support Israel's agenda? See "The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret" Wayne Madsen
[11/11/11]
Modern Turkey: a secret Zionist state controlled by the Dönmeh" below:
World Politics: "Russia
Activates Missile Early Warning Radar System" [11/30/11]
"Russia has turned on a new incoming missile early warning system in its westernmost region in response to US plans for a missile shield in Europe.
President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the system to be activated on a visit to the radar unit in Kaliningrad, a Baltic region bordering EU countries.
The unit is equipped with the new Voronezh-DM radar system. Mr Medvedev has warned Russian missiles could be deployed on the EU's borders if the shield is installed. [...]"
MSM: "Chemical Arms Conference Opens In The Hague" [11/29/11]
"The 16th international Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) has kicked off in The Hague, with the elimination of chemical weapons across the world as its main focus. [...]"
Commentary:
"The New Authoritarianism: From Decaying
Democracies to Technocratic Dictatorships and Beyond" [11/29/11]
"We live in a time of dynamic, regressive, regime changes. A period in which major political transformations and the dramatic roll back of a half century of socio-economic legislation are accelerated by a prolonged and deepening economic crises and a world-wide financier led offensive. This essay explores major ongoing regime changes that have a profound impact on governance, the class structures, economic institutions, political freedom and national sovereignty. We delineate a two-stage process of political regression. The first stage involves the transition from a decaying democracy to an oligarchical democracy; the second stage currently unfolding in Europe involves the transition from oligarchical democracy to colonial-technocratic dictatorship. We will identify the specific features of each regime focusing on the specific conditions and socio-economic forces behind each “transition”. We will proceed to clarify the key concepts, their operative meaning: specifically the nature and dynamics of “decaying democracies” (DD), oligarchical democracies (OD) and “colonial technocratic dictatorship”
(CTD). [...]"
MSM:
"Iran,
Turkey Sign Consular Agreement" [11/29/11]
"The Islamic Republic of Iran and Turkey have signed a cooperation agreement to increase the level of consular interactions. [...]"
Commentary: "Medvedev's Address to
Russia: A Stark, Measured Statement of The Grave Strategic Reality" [11/28/11]
"Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's November 23 televised address to the nation conveyed the stark reality that the Russian leadership anticipates the outbreak of global nuclear war, and is determined both to defend Russia under those circumstances and, by warning of this, to try to deter it. [...]"
MSM:
"Sea
Alert: Russian Warships Head For Syria" [11/28/11]
"Moscow is deploying warships at its base in the Syrian port of Tartus. The long-planned mission comes, providentially, at the very moment when it could help prevent a potential conflict in the strategically important Middle Eastern country.
The Russian battle group will consist of three vessels led by the heavy aircraft-carrying missile cruiser, Admiral
Kuznetsov. Russian military officials insist that the move has 'no connection with the ongoing crisis in the region' and was planned a year ago, the Izvestia newspaper reports. Apart from Syria, the aircraft carrier and its escort ships are set to visit the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Genoa in Italy and Cyprus, says the former Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Viktor
Kravchenko. Nevertheless, he added that the presence of a military force other than NATO’s is very useful for this region, because “it will prevent the outbreak of an armed conflict,” Izvestia quoted Kravchenko as saying.
The Soviet Union, the Admiral recalled, created a special naval squadron to deter Western military forces in the Mediterranean Sea.
[...]"
Related: In reality, there are some Russian naval forces already
at Tartus. See below for context and more info.
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Update" [11/28/11]
MP3 Audio
[90:00] See
Nov
26, 2011 podcast. Absolutely
vital update Middle
East Map
Commentary:
"Senate Moves To Allow Military To Intern Americans Without Trial" [11/28/11]
"The Senate is set to vote on a bill next week that would define the whole of the United States as a “battlefield” and allow the U.S. Military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard without charge or trial.
“The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself,” writes Chris Anders of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. [...]"
MSM: "Filthy
Lucre: Afghan Drug Profits Too Juicy To Resist" [11/28/11]
[2:43]
"America's approach to tackling the flow of illegal drugs from Afghanistan is misguided. This criticism from Russia's anti-drugs chief who believes a complete eradication of poppy fields is the only solution - a position not currently shared by the U.S. However, this reluctance now has some asking if the deadly business is proving simply too lucrative to destroy. [...]"
MSM:
"Analysis:
Syria And The Unfolding Hegemonic Game" [11/28/11]
"In spite of mounting international and regional pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s regime, there is still no real prospect of a quick end to the on-going instability and instead Syria is set to enter a long and bloody civil war. And as political stalemate continues, a genuinely regional hegemonic contest between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey over this small but strategically important nation has begun to unfold. Since the fall of Mubarak, Saudis have decided to drastically reduce their reliance on the US for securing their foreign policy interests. Riyadh has not only begun to strengthen its armed forces, but it has also decided to use its
petro-dollar more aggressively seeking to buy influence in return for the provision of generous financial assistance. [...]"
Exposé:
"PayPal’s Links to
Palantir, a Metasearch Technology Used by Intelligence, Law Enforcement and Military Organizations" [11/27/11]
"The origins of Palantir go back to PayPal, the online payments pioneer founded in 1998. A hit with consumers and businesses, PayPal also attracted criminals who used the service for money laundering and fraud. By 2000, PayPal looked like “it was just going to go out of business” because of the cost of keeping up with the bad guys, says Peter
Thiel, a PayPal co-founder. The antifraud tools of the time could not keep up with the crooks. PayPal’s engineers would train computers to look out for suspicious transfers—a number of large transactions between U.S. and Russian accounts, for example—and then have human analysts review each flagged deal. But each time PayPal cottoned to a new ploy, the criminals changed tactics. The computers would miss these shifts, and the humans were overwhelmed by the explosion of transactions the company handled.
PayPal’s computer scientists set to work building a software system that would treat each transaction as part of a pattern rather than just an entry in a database. They devised ways to get information about a person’s computer, the other people he did business with, and how all this fit into the history of transactions. These techniques let human analysts see networks of suspicious accounts and pick up on patterns missed by the computers. PayPal could start freezing dodgy payments before they were processed. “It saved hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Bob McGrew, a former PayPal engineer and the current director of engineering at
Palantir. After EBay (EBAY) acquired PayPal in 2002, Thiel left to start a hedge fund, Clarium Capital Management. He and Joe Lonsdale, a Clarium executive who’d been a PayPal intern, decided to turn PayPal’s fraud detection into a business by building a data analysis system that married artificial intelligence software with human skills. Washington, they guessed, would be a natural place to begin selling such technology. [...]"
Related:
Commentary: "Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon" [11/24/11]
"A Silicon Valley startup that collates threats has quietly become indispensable to the U.S. intelligence community.
An organization like the CIA or FBI can have thousands of different databases, each with its own quirks: financial records, DNA samples, sound samples, video clips, maps, floor plans, human intelligence reports from all over the world. Gluing all that into a coherent whole can take years. Even if that system comes together, it will struggle to handle different types of data—sales records on a spreadsheet, say, plus video surveillance images. What Palantir (pronounced
Pal-an-TEER) does, says Avivah Litan, an analyst at Gartner (IT), is “make it really easy to mine these big data sets.” The company’s software pulls off one of the great computer science feats of the era: It combs through all available databases, identifying related pieces of information, and puts everything together in one place.
[...]"
MSM:
"U.S.
Rebuffed In Push To Head Off Cluster Bomb Ban" [11/27/11]
"A U.S.-led push to regulate, rather than ban, cluster munitions failed Friday after 50 countries objected, following humanitarian campaigners’ claims that anything less than a outright ban would be an unprecedented reversal of human rights law.
While the United States, China and Russia want rules about the manufacture and use of cluster bombs, activists say such regulations would legitimize the munitions, backtracking from the Oslo Convention, an international treaty that seeks a worldwide ban.
“Against all odds it looks like we’re going to have success this evening,” Steve Goose, head of the arms division at Human Rights Watch, told a press conference in Geneva. [...]"
MSM: "Pakistan Stops NATO Supplies After Raid Kills Up To 28" [11/27/11]
"NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis.
Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in just under a third of the alliance's
supplies. The attack is the worst single incident of its kind since Pakistan uneasily allied itself with Washington in the days immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. targets.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan, its ally in the war on militancy, have been strained following the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in a raid on the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May, which Pakistan called a flagrant violation of sovereignty.
A spokesman for NATO-led troops in Afghanistan confirmed that NATO aircraft had been called in to support troops in the area and had probably killed some Pakistani soldiers.
"Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what highly likely caused the Pakistan casualties," said General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force
(ISAF). He added that he could not confirm the number of casualties, but ISAF is investigating the "tragic development." [...]"
MSM:
"George W Bush And Tony Blair Found
Guilty Of War Crimes" [11/26/11]
[2:33]
"Former US president George Bush and his former counterpart Tony Blair were found guilty of war crimes by the The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal which held a four day hearing in the Malaysia.
The five panel tribunal unanimously decided that Bush and Blair committed genocide and crimes against peace and humanity when they invaded Iraq in 2003 in blatant violation of international law.
The judges ruled that war against Iraq by both the former heads of states was a flagrant abuse of law, act of aggression which amounted to a mass murder of the Iraqi people.
In their verdict, the judges said that the United States, under the leadership of Bush, forged documents to claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
They further said the findings of the tribunal be made available to members of the Rome Statute and the names of Bush and Blair be entered into a war crimes register.
Both Bush and Blair repeatedly said the so-called war against terror was targeted at terrorists.
Lawyers and human rights activists present here say the verdict by the tribunal is a landmark decision. And the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Foundation said it would lobby the International Criminal Court to charge former US president George Bush and Former British prime minister Tony Blair for war crimes. [...]"
RT
Interview: "Baltic
Gitmo: CIA 'Black Site' To Land Lithuania In Court" [11/26/11]
[3:22]
"The small Baltic state of Lithuania may face trial in The Hague for torture, amid allegations it's been harbouring a secret CIA prison. It's after a lawsuit filed by a terror suspect who was locked up without charge by the U.S. for almost a decade. [...]"
Global Research TV:
"War With Iran: History and Consequences" [11/26/11]
[12:11]
"This month's release of a new International Atomic Energy Agency report into Iran's nuclear energy program has caused a flurry of diplomatic activity, political posturing, and breathless news headlines about the supposed imminent threat of an alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program. [...]"
RT
Interview:
"Nuke
Carrier Leads US Strike Force Into Syria Waters" [11/26/11]
[5:21]
"Patrick Henningsen, a political analyst from America's 'Infowar.com' online magazine, says we are seeing initial steps of a repeat of what we saw in Libya.
It's thought the U.S. has redeployed its newest aircraft carrier from the
Persian Gulf to the Syrian coast. Washington is also urging American citizens
to leave Syria immediately. [...]"
Note: Cash Cow For Oil Companies and banks, who are behind
this, using the US military as enforcers.
Related:
MSM:
"Public Relations Campaign for Military Intervention in Syria Begins"
"France’s foreign minister, Alain Juppé, has raised the prospect of Syrian intervention.
After a meeting in Paris with Burhan Ghalioun of the Syrian national council, Juppé said “humanitarian corridors or humanitarian zones” should be established to protect civilians from the alleged abuses of the
al-Assad regime.
The effort mirrors an earlier one in Libya. In February, the Libyan League, the National Endowment for Democracy (established to do the dirty work of the CIA abroad) and various NGOs petitioned the United Nations to suspend Libya from the UN Human Rights Council. [...]"
RT
Interview:
"Syria
Then Iran And The Real Target Is Russia: Escobar: No War With Iran Before 2012
Elections" [11/25/11]
[4:06]
"Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar says that America's missile shield in Europe targets Russia - and is part of Washington's strategic plan of global dominance. [...]"
Related:
"US Deploys Aircraft Carrier to Syrian Coast"
"Violence continued in Syria today, with a number of civilian protesters killed. The focus however was off the coast, where America’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS George H. W. Bush, has taken up a position just outside of Syrian territorial waters, after a deployment near the Straits of Hormuz.
There was no official explanation for why the US would deploy the carrier there, but it comes amid growing speculation that NATO-ally Turkey is poised to launch an invasion of Syria, and the possibility that a US-backed regime change. [...]"
Commentary: "G20: One Of The Biggest Spy Operations In Canadian History" [11/24/11]
"Police organizations across the country co-operated to spy on community organizations and activists in what the RCMP called one of the largest domestic intelligence operations in Canadian history, documents reveal.
Information about the extensive police surveillance in advance of last year's G8 and G20 meetings in southern Ontario comes from evidence presented in the case of 17 people accused of orchestrating street turmoil during the summits. [...]
And RCMP records suggest that the reconnaissance continues. Report logs indicate at least 29 incidents of police surveillance between the end of the G20 summit and April 2011 — more than nine months after world leaders departed Toronto.[...]"
Commentary: "Pentagon’s
"War On Drugs" Among The Most Lucrative Sources Of Cash For Private
Security Contractors" [11/23/11]
"An obscure Pentagon office designed to curb the flow of illegal drugs has quietly evolved into a one-stop shop for private security contractors around the world, soliciting deals worth over $3 billion.
The sprawling contract, ostensibly designed to stop drug-funded terrorism, seeks security firms for missions like “train[ing] Azerbaijan Naval Commandos.” Other tasks include providing Black Hawk and Kiowa helicopter training “for crew members of the Mexican Secretariat of Public Security.” Still others involve building “anti-terrorism/force protection enhancements” for the Pakistani border force in the tribal areas abutting Afghanistan.
The Defense Department’s Counter Narco-Terrorism Program Office has packed all these tasks and more inside a mega-contract for security firms. The office, known as CNTPO, is all but unknown, even to professional Pentagon watchers. It interprets its
"counter-narcotics mandate" very, very broadly, leaning heavily on its implied counterterrorism portfolio. And it’s responsible for one of the
largest chunks of money provided to mercenaries in the entire federal government.
CNTPO quietly solicited an umbrella contract for all the security services listed above — and many, many more — on Nov. 9. It will begin handing out the contract’s cash by August. And there is a lot of cash to disburse.[...]
"
Related:
Commentary: "US Drug War Construct"
"The "US War on Drugs" is a complex and intricate intelligence
construct. For the intelligence operation to be successful, however, the various drug cartels, US law enforcement agencies and government institutions must remain unaware of the role they are performing on the geopolitical chessboard for the elite within the military intelligence construct. [...]"
MSM:
"Confusion
Center: Feds Now Say Hacker Didn't Destroy Water Pump" [11/23/11]
"A report from an Illinois intelligence fusion center that a water utility was hacked cannot be substantiated, according to an announcement released late Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Security. [...]"
Note: So they lied.
Related: See the following stories below: "Political Theatrics: "Foreign Hackers Targeted U.S. Water Plant In Apparent Malicious Cyber
Attack" [11/20/11] and
attached stories.
Commentary: "Time to Test Corporate Leaders to Weed out Psychopaths" [11/22/11]
"Given the state of the global economy, it might not surprise you to learn that psychopaths may be controlling the world. Not violent criminals, but corporate psychopaths who nonetheless have a genetically-inherited biochemical condition that prevents them from feeling normal human empathy.
Scientific research is revealing that 21st century financial institutions with a high rate of turnover and expanding global power have become highly attractive to psychopathic individuals to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and the companies they work for.
A peer-reviewed theoretical paper from 2011 titled "The Corporate Psychopaths Theory of the Global Financial
Crisis" ** PDF details how highly-placed psychopaths in the banking sector may have nearly brought down the world economy through their own inherent inability to care about the consequences of their actions.
The author of this paper, Clive Boddy, previously of Nottingham Trent University, believes this theory would go a long way to explain how senior managers acted in ways that were disastrous for the institutions they worked for, the investors they represented and the global economy at large.
If true, this also means the astronomically expensive public bailouts will not solve the problem since many of the morally impaired individuals who caused this mess likely remain in positions of power. Worse, they may be the same people advising governments on how to resolve this crisis.[...]"
Related: "The Influence of Corporate Psychopaths on Corporate Social Responsibility and Organizational Commitment to Employees"
PDF | Philosophical
Papers in Applied Ethics
Commentary:
"Gunwalker Scandal Broadens--The FBI Connection" [11/22/11]
"Confidential informants who are participating in the Congressional probe of the Project Gunwalker (Operation Fast and Furious) scandal have now zeroed in on the FBI connection. Such a connection has been hinted at in the past, but information relayed today shows that FBI involvement was much deeper than anyone imagined.
The investigation into Gunwalker has revealed a scandal involving multiple departments of the Obama Administration--Justice, FBI,
ATF, ICE, DEA, DHS, and State. These connections have been verified through previously hidden emails and documents, and sworn testimony of whistleblowers. [...]"
Note: See "Weapons and Drug Cartels"
big news link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary: "Non-Profit
Group Linked To Homeland Security Promotes Absurd Fear Of Non-Existent Threat
Of Terrorism" [11/22/11]
"A so-called “Community Awareness Program” (CAP) has been launched by the Counterterrorism Education Learning Lab (the CELL), a non-profit group directly linked to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The CELL is the same group behind the absurdist fear-mongering video entitled “Recognizing the 8 Signs of Terrorism” which is nothing more than a clear attempt to strike illogical fear into the hearts of Americans. [...]"
RT
Interview: "Webster Tarpley from Damascus: ‘CIA, MI6 and Mossad, together against Syria'"
Link Fixed
[11/21/11]
[8:19]
"Moscow has accused the west of stirring up tensions in the Arab world by calling for the overthrow of the Syrian regime. Russia says calls from certain states for the Syrian opposition to avoid dialogue with the government, are only provoking further violence. Author and journalist Webster Tarpley, who's in Damascus, says, it's very simple, western powers are behind the violence in Syria. [...]"
Commentary: "Newspaper
Publisher Caves, Agrees Excerpts Of Articles Do Not Infringe Copyright" [11/21/11]
"In a victory for fair use, the publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Stephens Media, filed papers yesterday conceding that posting a short excerpt of a news article in an online forum is not copyright infringement. The concession will result in entry of a judgment of non-infringement in a long-running copyright troll case that sparked the dismissal of dozens of baseless lawsuits filed by Righthaven LLC. [...]
"This is a hard fought and important victory for free speech rights on the Internet," said Laurence
Pulgram, the partner who led the team at Fenwick & West, LLP in San Francisco. "Unless we respond to such efforts to intimidate, we'll end up with an Internet that is far less fertile for the cultivation and discussion of the important issues that affect us all."
MSM: "Global
Economic Outlook Grim, China Tells U.S. Trade" [11/21/11]
"Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Qishan warned Monday that the global economy remains in a grim state and that an "unbalanced recovery" might be the best option, at talks where senior U.S. officials warned of a souring mood at home toward China.
Policymakers globally are expressing increasing alarm at the risks facing the world economy, mainly stemming from financial contagion in Europe. Several central banks, including those in the euro zone, Australia, Brazil and Indonesia, have cut official interest rates to support their economies.
"Global economic conditions remain grim, and ensuring economic recovery is the overriding priority," said Wang, the top official steering China's financial and trade policy, at the start of the second day of talks. [...]"
Exposé:
"Document Trove Exposes Surveillance Methods:
Huge Cell, Internet Spy Biz Operates in Secret" [11/21/11]
"Documents obtained by The Wall Street Journal open a rare window into a new global market for the off-the-shelf surveillance technology that has arisen in the decade since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The techniques described in the trove of 200-plus marketing
documents, spanning 36 companies, include hacking tools that enable governments to break into people's computers and
cellphones, and "massive intercept" gear that can gather all Internet communications in a country. The papers were obtained from attendees of a secretive surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., last month.
Intelligence agencies in the U.S. and abroad have long conducted their own surveillance. But in recent years, a retail market for surveillance tools has sprung up from "nearly zero" in 2001 to about $5 billion a year, said Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategies Inc., the show's operator.
Critics say the market represents a new sort of arms trade supplying Western governments and repressive nations alike. "The Arab Spring countries all had more sophisticated surveillance capabilities than I would have guessed," said Andrew McLaughlin, who recently left his post as deputy chief technology officer in the White House, referring to the Middle Eastern and African nations racked by violent crackdowns on dissent. [...]
The documents show that at least three companies—Vupen Security SA of France, HackingTeam SRL of Italy and Gamma's
FinFisher—marketed their skill at the kinds of techniques often used in
"malware," the software used by criminals trying to steal people's financial or personal details. The goal is to overcome the fact that most surveillance techniques are "useless against encryption and can't reach information that never leaves the device," Marco
Valleri, offensive-security manager at HackingTeam, said in an interview. "We can defeat
that.[...] "
Webster Tarpley:
"World
Crisis Radio Podcast" [11/21/11]
MP3 Audio
[120:00] "
Note: See Nov
19, 2011 podcast. Also available
in two separate hour tracks. You may also like to listen to this program via
"Video
Clips" Autoplay 8 Video clips . Tarpley
was reporting from from Beruit, Lebanon.
Interview: "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Expert Debunks Iran Weapons Fraud" [11/21/11]
[30:00]
"Clinton Bastin, a nuclear chemical engineer and former head of the DOE program on nuclear materials and reprocessing, debunked the Iran nuclear weapons fraud in a 30-minute telephone interview for LPAC yesterday. [...]"
World Politics: "India
Successfully Tests Long Range Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile" [11/21/11]
"Last week, India successfully test fired one of its longest range missiles capable of carrying a one-ton nuclear warhead deep inside China, officials said. A Defense Research and Development Organization spokesman said the
Agni-IV missile was launched at 9:00am (0330 GMT) from a test site in the eastern Indian state of
Orissa. “All the parameters have been met and it was a very successful test,” DRDO spokesman Ravi Gupta told
AFP. He said the nuclear-capable, two-stage missile which is powered by solid fuel was fired beyond the Bay of Bengal into the Indian Ocean. Agni means fire in Sanskrit. “Agni-IV has a maximum range of 3,500 kilometers (2,170 miles) but this time the launch parameter was 3,000 kilometers,” the official spokesman said. A previous test of the
Agni-IV on December 10, 2010 failed after the missile went off its trajectory and plunged into the sea. Defense ministry sources said military scientists were also giving the final shape to the 5,000-kilometre range
Agni-V, scheduled to be test-fired for the first time early next year. India has also said it may develop an intercontinental ballistic missile. The Agni series is one of five missiles being developed by the DRDO under an Integrated Guided Missile Development Program launched in 1983. India is among the world’s top 10 military spenders. It plans to splurge $50 billion by 2015 to upgrade its military. It has fought three wars with rival Pakistan since their independence in 1947 and a brief but bloody border conflict with China in 1962. [...]"
Political Theatrics: "Foreign Hackers Targeted U.S. Water Plant In Apparent Malicious Cyber Attack"
Washington Post (CIA-Influenced)
[11/20/11]
"Foreign hackers (allegedly Russian) caused a pump at an Illinois water plant to fail last week, according to a preliminary state report. Experts said the cyber-attack, if confirmed, would be the first known to have damaged one of the systems that supply Americans with water, electricity and other essentials of modern life.
Companies and government agencies that rely on the Internet have for years been routine targets of hackers, but most incidents have resulted from attempts to steal information or interrupt the functioning of Web sites. The incident in Springfield, Ill., would mark a departure because it apparently caused physical destruction.
Federal officials confirmed that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were investigating damage to the water plant but cautioned against concluding that it was necessarily a cyber-attack before all the facts could be learned. “At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety,” said DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard. [...]"
Note: In the first story, They mention nothing abut the fact
that the industrial control systems are connected to the internet, allowing
the very hacking they seem to 'fear'. However, according to the DHS a
couple of weeks earlier, Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are not
supposed to be connected to the internet. See this related article: "Feds"
Concerned About 'Hackers': But DHS Says Industrial Control Systems Not
Supposed To Be Connected To Internet" [11/06/11]
"Federal authorities are concerned about "new research" showing
" U.S. prisons are vulnerable to computer hackers, who could remotely open cell doors to aid jailbreaks.
“You could open every cell door, and the system would be telling the control room they are all closed,” said John J. Strauchs, a former CIA operations officer who helped develop a cyber-attack on a simulated prison computer system and described it at a hackers’ convention in Miami last week. [...]
The security systems in most American prisons are run by special computer equipment called
Industrial Control Systems, or ICS. They are also used to control power plants, water treatment facilities and other critical national infrastructure. ICS has increasingly been targeted by hackers because an attack on one such system successfully sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program in 2009. [...]
Sean P. McGurk, who led the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to secure ICS until leaving in September, said the department had looked into the researchers’ claims using the special ICS computer test bed at the Idaho National Laboratory.
“We validated the researchers’ initial assertion … that they could remotely reprogram and manipulate” the special software controllers that run the systems, Mr. McGurk said.
... Teague Newman, another member of their team, said ICS systems are not supposed to be connected to the
Internet.
Note: See "Social Control"
big news link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Commentary: "House of Mirrors, Part II- Living the Fantasy: How Guilt, Innocence & Facts Are Made Irrelevant"
Link Fixed
[11/20/11]
[As the U.S. becomes more and more the kind of country it has traditionally opposed, the answer to where we are headed may lie more in the arcane traditions of a dim past than in a bright future.]
"On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, numerous commentators from across a broad spectrum of opinion focused their alarm not so much on the horror of events in lower Manhattan ten years before, but on what America has become in the aftermath of that horror. Ten years on, the United States desperately expands what appears to be an increasingly irrational, corrosive and ultimately self-destructive national security mandate around the globe and here at home.
In the darkening gloom of the upcoming 2012 Presidential elections as the U.S. builds up its forces in the Middle East and returns its attention to Asia’s Pacific rim, the CIA’s focus is no longer on analyzing intelligence on terrorists, but simply killing those perceived as a threat to its existence or perhaps more cynically, its livelihood. In the hardened fortresses of endless war, American soldiers walled off from human society claim their own lives in record numbers while in beltway foreign policy circles “Peace” has become a dirty word. In the darkening gloom, robot Predator drones target those thought to be “terrorists” or those suspected of being terrorists. Those unfortunate enough to be standing nearby are targeted as well and will one day be the target of drones piloted by computer software and facial recognition, making the machine-killing completely autonomous. [...]"
Related: "House of Mirrors, Part I- Mystical Covert Agendas: America’s New Role as the Dark Force"
[11/09/11]
"If anyone (correctly) thought that the war on terror and Washington’s response to it had taken on a fantastical otherworldly quality, this recent quote on the front page of the Washington Post seemed to confirm it.
Following 9/11the elected government of the United States of America delivered the country to a whole department (of Homeland Security) dedicated to expanding the government’s fear of darkness into everybody’s life (remember the 2003 duct tape and plastic sheeting craze?) Now we also have a top secret military operation known as the Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC) that thinks it is the dark. Begun as a modest hostage rescue team, JSOC has morphed into a veritable heart of darkness, with the power to murder at will and with immunity from American legal jurisdiction (which apparently still maintains that such assassinations are illegal). [...]"
Commentary: "Interview With Neutron Bomb Inventor Sam Cohen" [11/19/11]
"For most of Sam
Cohen's life, he has struggled against politicians who, in his opinion, have sacrificed good sense when it comes to the nation's defenses. Cohen is the physicist who invented the neutron bomb, the one that kills people but leaves things like tanks and buildings intact. Plans to deploy his creations in Europe during the '70s and '80s awakened the "peace movement" across that continent, stopping its deployment.
With that and other battles lost, the 76-year-old Cohen finds solace in his Brentwood home, nestled high on a hill overlooking Los Angeles. [...]
For Cohen, the neutron bomb is the ultimate sane weapon. It kills humans, or as he puts it "the bad guys," but doesn't produce tremendous collateral damage on civilian populations and the infrastructure a civilian population needs to survive.
This meant, in Cohen's mind, that a conventional war could escalate without immediately leading to an all-out nuclear holocaust. If regular nuclear weapons were used across Europe, the radioactive fallout could turn the continent into a wasteland for decades. That wouldn't be the case if neutron bombs were used. [...]
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism as we knew it, the Bush administration moved to dismantle all of our tactical nuclear weapons, including the Reagan stockpile of neutron bombs. In Cohen's mind, America was brought back to Square One. Without tactical weapons like the neutron bomb, America would be left with two choices if an enemy was winning a conventional war: surrender, or unleash the holocaust of strategic nuclear weapons.
Other nation's haven't been afflicted by the U.S. blindness regarding neutron bombs. According to Cohen:
Evidence exists that China has neutron bombs stockpiled, and that the United States gave the Chinese the technology to build them.
Russia has a large quantity of such weapons, as well as the world's largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Israel has hundreds of neutron weapons. The neutron bombs would allow Israel to stop advancing Arab armies and tank columns - even one on Israeli soil - without permanently contaminating the land.
South Africa, which constructed a cache of neutron weapons before the end of white rule, claimed it dismantled those weapons before handing over power to the Nelson Mandela government. Cohen, however, claims to have it on good authority that white military leaders still control the secret stockpile as "an insurance
policy. [...]"
Related: Flashback: "800 Krytrons Smuggled to
Israel: The Great Krytron Caper"
"On May 12, Newsweek magazine disclosed that a federal grand jury in Los Angeles was investigating California businessman Richard Kelly Smyth on charges of violating U.S. export laws by shipping between 800 and 810 sophisticated timing devices called krytrons to a company in Israel without State Department approval. In addition to their numerous civilian applications, krytrons can be used as elegant triggering devices for nuclear weapons and limited exports are permitted only under a strict licensing procedure. Newsweek suggested the case may have "serious implications for U.S.-Israeli relations." [...]"
Interview: "Dr. Webster Tarpley:
Saudi Wahabhi Sect & Israel Fund 'Al-Qaeda' Rebels In Syria" [11/19/11]
[15:25] Part 2 [12:05]
Note: See "Syria"
big news link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Legal Case:
"Judge Declares Law Governing Warrantless Cellphone Tracking Unconstitutional" [11/19/11]
"In a succinct one-page ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn N. Hughes of the Southern District of Texas declared that the law authorizing the government to obtain cellphone records without a search warrant was unconstitutional. “ [...]"
MSM: "Watch
Nigel Farage Dance On The Euro’s Grave" [11/18/11]
[2:39]
"Nigel Farage needs no introduction: the famous Euroskeptic is one of
very few men who has had the temerity to question, often in an abnormally high
decibel fashion, the stupidity of the Eurozone leaders from day one. Now that
he has been proven correct, he has every right to gloat, which he does to
everyone’s delightful amusement in the European parliament. The look on the
unelected von Rompuy’s face, especially as he watches his decade-long
bureaucratic nirvana crash and burn every single day, is quite
priceless. [...]"
MSM:
"Kabul
Insists On Iran Ties 'At Any Cost'" [11/18/11]
"Addressing the opening session of the country's “Loya Jirga,” or grand council on Wednesday, Karzai said that Kabul will deepen its ties with Tehran despite the sour US-Iran relationship.
The president said that Afghans are thankful to the Iranian nation for extending assistance to Afghan refugees during the past three decades.
About 2,000 elders and power brokers are meeting in the Afghan capital of Kabul to discuss the future of the US military presence in the war-torn country. [...]"
Commentary:
"TSA Backs Off Independent X-Ray Scanner Safety Test Knowing Truth Came Out in 1998" [11/18/11]
"After reports as far back as 1998 surfaced and revealed that the TSA’s X-ray scanners could be causing around 100 cases of cancer per year conservatively, the TSA announced that it would be launching an ‘independent’ study over the safety of the machines... [...]"
Note: See "Social Control"
big news link at the top of this panel for related stories.
Investigations: "Washington Post Takes Editorial Direction from the CIA & the White House" [11/18/11]
"Washington Post Reporter Confirms Identity and Roles of Two CIA Officers Involved in Suppression of Critical Pre-9/11 Intel & The Post’s Knowledge of Secret Inspector General Report [...]"
MSM: "Benjamin
Netanyahu 'Turning Israel Into A Dictatorship'" [11/17/11]
"Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition has been accused of trying to turn Israel into a "dictatorship" after it introduced legislation to tame senior judges and human rights groups opposed to its settlement construction policies.
Members of the Kadima, the principal opposition party, waved black flags to mourn the "death of democracy" after Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed two bills that will tilt the balance of the country's Supreme Court sharply to the right.
The legislators involved in the protest had their flags confiscated before being expelled from the Knesset's chamber at the orders of the speaker.
The passage of the bills has prompted outrage among many Israeli politicians who see them as an assault on the independence of the judiciary, one that would undermine the country's cherished democratic foundations.
Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition, accused Mr Netanyahu of an "attempt to transform Israeli into a type of dictatorship," while her Kadima party claimed that the legislation represented the "gravest" challenge to democracy since the establishment of the state in 1948.
Under the legislation, which must go through two further readings before becoming law, legal obstacles preventing a conservative judge, Asher
Grunis, from becoming president of the Supreme Court would be lifted. [...]"
UK: "Armed
Forces Minister Sorry For Misleading Mps Over Depleted Uranium" [11/16/11]
"The armed forces minister has been forced to apologise over misleading statements he made regarding the legality and dangers of depleted uranium weapons.
Nick Harvey admitted that he had inadvertently misled MPs about a Ministry of Defence review that he said had concluded the weapons were permissible on humanitarian and environmental grounds under the Geneva conventions.
It subsequently emerged that the review had never happened, and Harvey has apologised for the error, which he said had been made "in good faith". He has ordered that a review into the weapons' legality be carried out by civil servants. The department is facing calls for the weapons to be suspended until it is completed.
The revelations come as a cross-party campaign is launched to pile pressure on the MoD to phase out the use of depleted uranium
(DU). The tank shells that depend on it have to be renewed in 2013.
DU is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal produced as waste by the nuclear power industry that is included in weapons because it is an extremely hard material capable of piercing
armour. Once the frontline has moved on, however, it can contaminate the environment, and has been linked to health problems in civilian populations.
The British army fired shells containing 2.3 tonnes of DU during the Gulf wars in 1990-91 and 2003. DU is used to harden 'Charm3'
armour-piercing shells carried by British Challenger tanks. [...]"
Interview:
"Gerald Celente - Alex Jones Show"
[11/16/11]
[80:14]
Note: The full interview from November 3, 2011.
Commentary: "Ruin
& Rebuild: Warfare Worth $300bln Libya Windfall" [11/16/11]
"Libya has big plans for its post-war future, hoping to be reborn as the next Dubai and having all the necessary sun and beaches, with oil reserves aplenty. British companies are likely to come out on top of those lining up for a piece of the action.
It was France and the UK who initially led the effort to topple Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Britain, together with France, sent their navy and fighter jets to establish a sea blockade and assault military targets on Libyan territory.
Now the National Transitional Council (NTC) of Libya says its friends will be rewarded – and these are not just words. [...]"
Commentary: "Nuclear Pots Call Iranian Kettle Black" [11/16/11]
"Here we go again. The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) long awaited, much ballyhooed report on Iran’s nuclear activities has been thunderously greeted in North America as conclusive evidence that Iran is working on nuclear weapons.
Tehran has long denied such claims. So, more tellingly, did a 2007 US combined intelligence assessment that rudely pulled out the rug from under the feet of the Bush-era neocons who were trying to engineer war with Iran. Now, they are back, in full fulmination mode.
There’s little new in this IAEA report, and a lot of déjà vu. We read the old story floating around since 2002 about a mysterious laptop stolen from Iran and passed to US intelligence. It allegedly contains scientific material about explosive compression methods to trigger a nuclear explosion, and designs to shrink nuclear warheads to fit in missile nosecones.
The UN and western powers say this stolen computer’s contents conclusively proves Iran has violated the UN’s non-proliferation treaty, to which Tehran is a signatory. Israel and its American partisans are raising a hue and cry about an impending nuclear attack on the Jewish state by Iran’s "crazy" leaders. [...]"
World Politics - Iraq: "Breakdown:
Maliki Frets Over ‘Iraqi Spring" [11/15/11]
"Moves by an Iraqi Sunni-dominated province to demand autonomy from Baghdad and rumors of coup d’etat led by Ba’athists have Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki very worried about the prospects of a rebellion. Such an “Iraqi Spring” would enjoy the full financial and political backing of Saudi Arabia’s new Crown Prince, Nayef Ibn
Abdul-Aziz. In recent years Nayef has seen his country’s influence in Iraq drop dramatically as Tehran’s star rose.
The uprising would be very different to the Arab Spring. Instead of a grassroots revolt against an autocratic ruler, this would see Sunnis revolt against the Shi’ite politicians imposed on them since Iran established its hegemony over Iraqi politics in 2003.
Saudi Arabia is determined to attack Iran’s influence once Americans troops leave this December. And as a staunch
anti-Shi’ite royal who has an old grudge to settle, Nayef sees Iraq as a perfect battlefront for a confrontation with the Iranians.
It all started with a tip from the new leaders of Libya that ex-Ba’athists and Saddam Hussein loyalists were plotting a coup
d’etat. Libya’s interim leader Mahmud Jibril revealed the information to
Maliki, dug up from papers of the deceased Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, during a surprise visit to Baghdad in October.
In response to the alleged plot, Maliki later that month ordered the arrest of over 600 Ba’athists – all Sunnis. [...]"
Related: "Mixed Reactions to Iraq Coup Plot"
"... Aseel al-Nujayfi, the Sunni governor of Nineveh and head of the Hadba bloc, came out in support of the arrested Baathists and warned that Iraq is returning to “sectarian violence.”
Nujayfi said, “We have to benefit from these people’s professions, to let them participate in civil and political life and use their expertise to rebuild the new Iraq.”
He added, “The Iraqi government is sticking to its promise to eradicate Baathism in
Iraq.” [...]"
Note: Civil war outbreak in Iraq.
MSM: "Israel
launches new missile that can reach New York and Tokyo" [11/15/11]
"Israeli military men conducted a successful launch of Jericho-3
intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday. The test was carried out at
the Palmahim air base, the Irish Times said. At the same time, officials with
Israel Defense Forces said that they had conducted the tests of a new missile
engine in the morning of November 2. The launch of the missile could be seen
from Ashkelon to Tel Aviv, Newsru Israel said. According to publications in
the media, the three-stage missile is capable of delivering a 750-kilo warhead
to a distance of more than 10,000 kilometers. If the reports about the range
of Jericho-3 are true to fact, then it means that the missile can reach such
cities as Tokyo and New York. The distance between these two cities and Tel
Aviv makes up a bit more than 9,000 kilometers. According to Western sources,
Israel passed the Jericho-3 missile into service in 2008. However, the work on
the project still continues, MissileThreat.com says. [...]"
Related: See "Israel's 'Sampson' Option" [11/13/11]
Below.
MSM: "‘Turkey
In Command Of Newly Deployed Predators’ Missions’" [11/14/11]
"In line with the US plan to pull out of Iraq, Predators will fly for the last time from Iraq on Nov. 22; from then onwards the four
predators currently based in Turkey will be taking over surveillance
missions,” Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying on Saturday. The foreign minister’s words came following media reports that the US had deployed four drones in Turkey. He confirmed that two of the Predators were already based at İncirlik Air Base in Adana and would be taking up surveillance in a timely manner so as not to leave any gaps after US forces leave Iraq. [...]"
Related: Why Turkey is supporting these dynamics
is explained by the article below, The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret"
[11/11/11],
which goes into the background alliances which make "Modern Turkey: a secret Zionist state controlled by the Dönmeh".
Note: See also, below, "America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time"
[11/11/11]
Commentary: "Israel's
'Sampson' Option" [11/13/11]
"The Samson Option is a term used to describe Israel’s alleged deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a “last resort” against nations whose military attacks threaten its existence, and possibly against other targets as
well. Israel refuses to admit it has nuclear weapons or to describe how it would use them, an official policy of nuclear ambiguity, also known as "nuclear opacity." This has made it difficult for anyone outside the Israeli government to definitively describe its true nuclear policy, while still allowing Israel to influence the perceptions, strategies and actions of other
governments. As early as 1976, the CIA believed that Israel possessed 10 to 20 nuclear
weapons. By 2002 it was estimated that the number had increased to between 75 and 200 thermonuclear weapons, each in the multiple-megaton
range. Kenneth S. Brower has estimated as many as 400 nuclear weapons. These can be launched from land, sea and
air. This gives Israel a second strike option even if much of the country is
destroyed. Seymour Hersh writes that the "surprising victory of Menachem Begin's Likud Party in the May 1977 national elections...brought to power a government that was even more committed than Labor to the Samson Option and the necessity of an Israeli nuclear
arsenal." [...] In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the
Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence. Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch" (2003) as saying: "We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe
Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes
under. [...]"
Interview: "Paul Craig Roberts - Loss Of The Middle Class, Dictatorial Executive Branch And Loss Of Law" [11/13/11]
[60:45]
"The "Father of Reaganomics" talks about the police state America has become.
[...]"
MSM: "War Crimes Court's Next Target: NATO" [11/12/11]
"Some NATO officials fear an investigation is nigh, after the ICC's prosecutor said Libya war-crimes allegations would be reviewed "impartially and independently," NATO-affiliated diplomats tell the AP. But an examination of allegations won't necessarily lead to an investigation, and in an effort to avoid a probe, NATO may soon launch an internal review of civilian casualty cases. NATO says it conformed to UN guidelines "to take all necessary measures to protect civilians."
Still, "in the event we receive a request for information, NATO is prepared to assist in any way it can," an official says. "We are not talking about any specific incident," says ICC prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo. "We are saying, 'Yes, if there are allegations of crimes we will review that." But concerns over an investigation have prompted tension among members, insiders say. [...]"
Commentary:
"The Dönmeh: The Middle East’s Most Whispered Secret"
Wayne
Madsen [11/11/11]
Part 2
"There is a historical “eight hundred pound gorilla” lurking in the background of almost every serious military and diplomatic incident involving Israel, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Greece, Armenia, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and some other players in the Middle East and southeastern Europe...And it is the secretiveness attached to the subject that has been the reason for so much misunderstanding about the current breakdown in relations between Israel and Turkey, a growing warming of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and increasing enmity between Saudi Arabia and Iran [...]
Although known to historians and religious experts, the centuries-old political and economic influence of a group known in Turkish as the “Dönmeh” is only beginning to cross the lips of Turks, Arabs, and Israelis who have been reluctant to discuss the presence in Turkey and elsewhere of a sect of Turks descended from a group of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th and 17th centuries. These Jewish refugees from Spain were welcomed to settle in the Ottoman Empire and over the years they converted to a mystical sect of Islam that eventually mixed Jewish Kabbala and Islamic Sufi semi-mystical beliefs into a sect that eventually championed secularism in post-Ottoman Turkey. It is interesting that “Dönmeh” not only refers to the Jewish “untrustworthy converts” to Islam in Turkey but it is also a derogatory Turkish word for a transvestite, or someone who is claiming to be someone they are not.
The Donmeh sect of Judaism was founded in the 17th century by Rabbi Sabbatai
Zevi, a Kabbalist who believed he was the 'Messiah' but was forced to convert to Islam by Sultan Mehmet IV, the Ottoman ruler. Many of the rabbi’s followers, known as
Sabbateans, but also “crypto-Jews,” publicly proclaimed their Islamic faith but secretly practiced their hybrid form of Judaism, which was unrecognized by mainstream Jewish rabbinical authorities. Because it was against their beliefs to marry outside their sect, the Dönmeh created a rather secretive sub-societal clan." [...]"
Note: Interesting section:
"Modern Turkey: a secret Zionist state controlled by the Dönmeh"
Analysis:
"The War Clouds Form over Iran"
Wayne Madsen
[11/11/11]
"Israel’s all-powerful lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an organization composed of Israeli collaborators, infiltrators, and outright traitors to the United States, is steamrolling through the House of Representatives H.R. 1905, which would prohibit the President of the United States, the Secretary of State, members of the U.S. Foreign Service, or any special envoy from engaging in any sort of diplomatic contact, official or unofficial, with any member or agent of the government of Iran. Only when the President informs the requisite committees may he proceed with engaging on diplomatic contact with Iran. Israel has de facto control over the foreign affairs committees of Congress, so any White House notification of the need to contact Iranian officials would be instantly transmitted to Binyamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem and Israel would then circumvent any U.S.-Iranian contact. AIPAC, with its resolution, is furth
2010 Jan-Jun 
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