Filed under: Afghanistan, bagdad, civilian casualties, civilian death toll, dehumanization, Dictatorship, Fascism, human rights, Iraq, occupation, Pentagon, u.s. soldiers, us army, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, wikileaks
U.S. Army Teaching Trainees to Kill Kids and Women
Press TV
April 18, 2010
A former US Army specialist, who was part of the same unit that killed Iraqi civilians from a helicopter in 2007, says dehumanization is part of basic US army training.
In an interview with Press TV, Josh Steiber explained the three years he spent in the US Army before he asked to be released as a conscientious objector.
Steiber said “the dehumanizing of people from other countries” was the main reason that he quit the Army.
“As far back as basic training, we were singing songs as we were marching around, joking about killing women and children,” he told the Press TV correspondent in Washington.
The whistle-blower website, WikiLeaks, released a shocking video earlier this month showing US soldiers in an Apache helicopter killing dozens of Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters employees, in cold blood.
Steiber noted that he sang the following song together with other members of his unit:
- I went down to the market where all the women shop
I took out my machete and I began to chop
I went down to the park where all the children play
I pulled out my machine gun and I began to spray
Steiber pointed out that he did not personally know the pilot in the video because they were attached to his unit only on that one fateful day.
However, the former US Army specialist was not surprised by what was on the tape.
“You’re focused on the physical aspect, but all along there is a psychological aspect.”
“I think it would be wrong to put all [the blame] on the individual soldier. I think it’s very telling that the secretary of defense, [Robert Gates], came out over the weekend and said there is no wrongdoing in the video.”
“And so if you’re only adjusting a few soldiers when the secretary of defense is putting his stamp of approval on this, then the system is not gonna change.”
Steiber concluded that there are other soldiers and veterans who are as disillusioned and war-weary as he is.
Filed under: halliburton, Income Tax, middle class, Military Industrial Complex, military spending, nation building, obamas war, occupation, Taxpayers, Troops, u.s. soldiers, US Economy, War On Terror
Tax Day 2010: 53% of your Tax Dollar goes to the Military
Examiner
April 13, 2010
Health care? Social Security? An economic stimulus bill? Wars? Bailing out Wall Street banks? Education? Our nation’s infrastructure? Each may be a good guess based on the issues that get attention in the mainstream media.
The correct answer may be that 53% of the federal tax being collected in 2010 has already been allocated for defense spending.
According to Philadelphia investigative journalist Dave Lindorff, writing for OpEdNews:
The 2011 military budget, by the way, is the largest in history, not just in actual dollars, but in inflation adjusted dollars, exceeding even the spending in World War II, when the nation was on an all-out military footing. Military spending in all its myriad forms works out to represent 53.3% of total US federal spending.
That would mean the military’s share of the approximately $3 trillion 2011 budget is about $1.6 trillion.
On the other hand, anyone can find a handy fact sheet posted on the white house’s web site that puts the department of defense’s share of the budget at a “mere” $708 billion, seemingly bringing the cost down to about 24 cents on the tax dollar.
So, who’s telling the truth? The answer is that both are, depending on how one looks at federal budget allocations.
Just like banks, airlines or a sleazy car dealer, the pentagon and white house’s initial invoice does not include hidden costs and amenities, but the final bill does. One of those add-ons is called supplemental spending.
A war appropriations bill to supplementally finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for an additional $106 billion was signed by President Obama last year. The administration is already poised to ask congress for another $35 billion this year, which they will surely get. There are estimates that supplemental war funding could reach $300 billion by the end of 2010. You can view a cost of war counter here. If supplemental war spending is based on what was spent last year, that brings the defense portion of the check to $814 billion.
A closer look reveals that the 2011 defense budget also does not include: spending on veterans affairs – that means VA hospitals, benefits, etc., for any ex-military personnel that are no longer on active or reserve status. The bill for that is $60 billion. That $60 billion does not include any public funds spent on veterans or immediate family that collect public benefits, such as social security.
Homeland security, judging by the title, can be added to the defense part of the check for approximately another $4.3 billion, bringing the bill to approximately $878.3 billion. So can NASA, for another $19 billion, since their primary function is deploying military satellites. And the National Intelligence Program for another (classified) amount, estimated at about $75 billion. Even the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gets billed separately at about $5 billion.
Without even considering the costs of foreign military aid to nations such as Israel, Pakistan, Egypt and Columbia, or the costs of purchasing services from private contractors such as Xe (formerly Blackwater) to provide security in occupied countries, or Halliburton to rebuild them, defense spending is already well over $900 billion. There are 750 U.S. military bases in 50 nations and not including Iraq and Afghanistan, approximately 255,000 service members stationed abroad. There are 116,000 in Europe and nearly 100,000 in Japan and South Korea.
Like all government spending, of course, the defense portion has to be financed, so when money is borrowed from whomever or wherever to pay for the $900+ billion tab, add more interest to the approximately $250-400 billion in interest already owed through debt created by defense spending. The huge sum will be borrowed, mostly from China and Japan, to which the U.S. already owes $1.5 trillion.
Having trouble keeping up with your bill yet? That’s because it is designed that way. It gets even more complicated when you have to consider that Social Security expenditures are included in the overall budget, even though it is a trust that is raised and spent seperately from income taxes. What you pay by April 15, 2010 goes to the federal funds portion of the budget. That makes military spending seem smaller in comparison to overall government spending. That also easily puts the figure at about 53 percent.
No matter which figure you want to believe – the $1.6 trillion or the $708 billion, it may be enlightening to put that in two other perspectives.
One is that, according to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, the U.S. accounted for 48% of global military spending in 2008, compared to 5% for Russia, 8% for China, and 20% for all our European allies combined.
The second is that, according to the non-profit National Priorities Project, less than half of the $708 billion estimate – $300 billion, could have paid for health care for 131,780,734 American children for a year, or for 53,872,201 students to receive Pell Grants of $5,550, or for the salaries and benefits of 4,911,552 elementary school teachers for that same year. Restoring roads and bridges in this country to the condition of past decades and keeping them in decent repair so that they do not fall apart would cost $166 billion a year for the next five years.
Tax day is almost here, and whether 24 cents of your hard-earned dollars, 53 cents, or something in between goes toward military spending, there may be a few things to think about. Do we really need to spend almost as much as the rest of the world combined on “defense?” Could investing our tax $’s to improve our country within our borders provide a better return of investment than occupying countries halfway around the world? If U.S. taxpayers knew how much they are paying for defense and the wars through direct taxes instead of bookkeeping fraud, how long would this continue?
Let’s not forget the human costs of war either…
Filed under: Dictatorship, Empire, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror
Fast food axed at Afghan U.S. bases
Reuters
April 6, 2010
Fast food joints where soldiers wolf down burgers and pizza will soon be a thing of the past at bases in Afghanistan, as the U.S. military reminds soldiers they are at war and not in “an amusement park.”
In the sprawling military base at Kandahar, the fast food outlets facing the axe include Burger King, Pizza Hut, and the U.S. chain restaurant T.G.I. Friday’s that features a bar with alcohol-free margaritas and other drinks — all set along the bustling “Boardwalk” area of the base.
On any given day, the giant square-shaped walkway features the surreal sight of soldiers sipping gourmet coffee and eating chocolate pastries with guns slung across their shoulders, while Canadians play ice hockey at a nearby rink and fighter jets thunder overhead.
The U.S. military says its beef with the burger joints is that they take up valuable resources like water, power, flight and convoy space and that cutting back on non-essentials is key to running an efficient military operation.
“This is a war zone — not an amusement park,” Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall wrote in a blog earlier this year.
Filed under: Afghanistan, army, Baghdad, civilian casualties, civilian death toll, dehumanization, Dictatorship, Empire, Fascism, George Bush, human rights, Iraq, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Oppression, Pentagon, Troops, u.s. soldiers, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, wikileaks
Wikileak’d video shows U.S. troops killing civilians, children and 2 Reuters reporters
FULL VIDEO
Iraqi family demands justice for US attack death
Military Massacre of Pregnant Afghan Women Covered Up as ‘Honor Killings’
Ret. intel officer: US troops violated Rules of Engagement in Reuters shooting
Filed under: 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Ahmadinejad, CIA, fake alqaeda, government crimes, Military Industrial Complex, mujahideen, Mullah Omar, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist hoax, terrorist supporting, terrorist training, truth movement, War On Terror, Wayne Madsen
CIA and Taliban working together
Are America’s Mercenary Armies Really Drug Cartels?
Congress to probe ‘U.S. funding of Taliban’
War tax proposed to pay for protecting Afghan opium fields, bribing Taliban
Filed under: Afghanistan, bin laden, bush, CIA, Coup, gulf war, Iraq, nation building, north korea, Nuke, occupation, osama, Pakistan, Saddam Hussein, State Sponsored Terrorism, War On Terror, WMD | Tags: Abdul Qadeer Khan, Khan Research Laboratories
Saddam’s Nuke Salesman Was Protected By U.S. Government
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
March 10, 2010
The Washington Post has completely whitewashed new revelations concerning how close Saddam Hussein came to obtaining a nuclear bomb by failing to mention the fact that the provider, Khan Research Laboratories, was shielded from investigation by the U.S. government for decades.
“As troops massed on his border near the start of the Persian Gulf War, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein weighed the purchase of a $150 million nuclear “package” deal that included not only weapons designs but also production plants and foreign experts to supervise the building of a nuclear bomb, according to documents uncovered by a former U.N. weapons inspector,” reports the Post today.
“The offer, made in 1990 by an agent linked to disgraced Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, guaranteed Iraq a weapons-assembly line capable of producing nuclear warheads in as little as three years.”
However, the report completely fails to even mention the fact that Khan Research Laboratories, the source from which Saddam would have procured a nuclear bomb, was protected from investigation by the U.S. government since at least the mid-1970’s, as investigative journalist Greg Palast exposed in a 2001 BBC report.
In 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb program, admitted sharing nuclear technology via a worldwide smuggling network that included facilities in Malaysia that manufactured key parts for centrifuges.
Khan’s collaborator B.S.A. Tahir ran a front company out of Dubai that shipped centrifuge components to North Korea.
Despite Dutch authorities being deeply suspicious of Khan’s activities as far back as 1975, the CIA prevented them from arresting him on two occasions.
“The man was followed for almost ten years and obviously he was a serious problem. But again I was told that the secret services could handle it more effectively,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said. “The Hague did not have the final say in the matter. Washington did.”
Lubbers stated that Khan was allowed to slip in and out of the Netherlands with the blessing of the CIA, eventually allowing him to become the “primary salesman of an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how,” according to George W. Bush himself, and sell nuclear secrets that allowed North Korea to build nuclear bombs.
“Lubbers suspects that Washington allowed Khan’s activities because Pakistan was a key ally in the fight against the Soviets,” reports CFP. “At the time, the US government funded and armed mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden. They were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Anwar Iqbal, Washington correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told ISN Security Watch that Lubbers’ assertions may be correct. “This was part of a long-term foolish strategy. The US knew Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but couldn’t care less because it was not going to be used against them. It was a deterrent against India and possibly the Soviets.”
In September 2005 it emerged that the Amsterdam court which sentenced Khan to four years imprisonment in 1983 had lost the legal files pertaining to the case. The court’s vice-president, Judge Anita Leeser, accused the CIA of stealing the files. “Something is not right, we just don’t lose things like that,” she told Dutch news show NOVA. “I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of.”
In 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea.
Having armed once branch of the “axis of evil,” it’s no surprise that Khan was also used in an attempt to arm Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons, opening up another perfect justification for Iraq to subsequently be invaded and occupied by U.S. forces.
Although the 2003 invasion was sold on the lie that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction which proved to be non-existent, it wasn’t for the want of trying, since efforts to arm Saddam with nuclear weapons via the Khan network were a mere continuation of the U.S. government’s program to provide Saddam with chemical and biological weapons, tools used to commit atrocities that were later cited by the U.S. as one of the primary reasons for the attack.
Of course, since the Washington Post is a mouthpiece for the new world order and the Bilderberg Group that owns it, in covering the Khan-Saddam connection writer Joby Warrick knows that his bosses wouldn’t be pleased if he actually gave you more than half the story, which is why his article amounts to nothing more than a misleading whitewash.
Filed under: bush, Bush Sr., chemical ali, civilian casualties, corruption, Dictatorship, Empire, George Bush, Iran, Iraq, iraq casualties, kangaroo court, Milosevic, nation building, occupation, reagan, rumsfeld, Saddam Hussein, scandal, War On Terror | Tags: Ali Hassan al-Majid, ICC, international criminal court, Iran-Iraq War
Chemical Ali Could Have Exposed Iraq-Gate
consortiumnews.com
January 26, 2010
Editor’s Note: The hanging of Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali” for his role in using chemical weapons in Iraqi wars of the 1980s and early 1990s, silenced yet one more witness who otherwise could have filled in the blanks of the Reagan-Bush-I roles in secretly assisting Saddam Hussein’s armies, the so-called Iraq-gate scandal.
If Majid had been turned over to the International Criminal Court – rather than prosecuted by kangaroo tribunals set up in Iraq by George W. Bush’s administration – he could have been systematically debriefed about what U.S. officials, including George H.W. Bush, did to facilitate Iraq’s acquisition of dangerous chemical weapons.
Instead, Majid – wearing a red jump suit, his head covered by a black sack and a noose around his neck – was dropped through the trap door of a scaffold on Monday. His potential to embarrass the Bush Family was eliminated, just as was done to Saddam Hussein three years ago, as this Dec. 30, 2006, article (slightly modified) recounts:
The hanging of Saddam Hussein was supposed to be – as the New York Times observed – the “triumphal bookend” to George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq. If all had gone as planned, Bush might have staged another celebration as he did after the end of “major combat,” posing under the “Mission Accomplished” banner on May 1, 2003.
But by the end of 2006, with nearly 3,000 American soldiers already killed and the Iraqi death toll exceeding 600,000 by some estimates, Bush was forced to savor the image of Hussein dangling at the end of a rope a little more privately.
Still, Bush had done his family’s legacy a great service, while also protecting secrets that could have embarrassed other senior U.S. government officials, both past and present.
By arranging Saddam Hussein’s execution, Bush had silenced a unique witness to crucial chapters of the secret history that stretched from Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979 to the alleged American-Saudi “green light” for Hussein to attack Iran in 1980, through the eight years of the Iran-Iraq War during which high-ranking U.S. intermediaries, such as Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, allegedly helped broker supplies of war materiel for Hussein.
Hussein now won’t be around to give troublesome testimony about how he obtained the chemical and biological agents that his scientists used for producing the unconventional weapons that were deployed against Iranian forces and Iraqi civilians. He can’t give his perspective on who got the money and who facilitated the deals.
Nor will Hussein be available to give his account of the mixed messages delivered by George H.W. Bush’s ambassador April Glaspie before Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Was there another American “green light” or did Hussein just hear what he wanted to hear?
Like the climactic scene from the Mafia movie “Casino” in which nervous Mob bosses eliminate everyone who knows too much, George W. Bush guaranteed that there would be no public tribunal where Hussein could give testimony on these potentially devastating historical scandals and thus threaten the Bush Family legacy.
That could have happened if Hussein had been turned over to an international tribunal at The Hague as was done with other tyrants, such as Yugoslavia’s late dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Instead Bush insisted that Hussein be tried in Iraq despite the obvious fact that the deposed Iraqi dictator would receive nothing close to a fair trial before being put to death.
Hussein’s hanging followed his trial for executing 148 men and boys from the town of Dujail in 1982 after a foiled assassination attempt on Hussein and his entourage. Hussein’s death effectively mooted other cases that were supposed to deal with his alleged use of chemical weapons to kill Iraqi civilians and other crimes that might have exposed the U.S. role.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, army, bin laden, Blackwater, CIA, corruption, Coup, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, fake alqaeda, False Flag, FBI, friendly fire, gangsters, government crimes, Hamid Karzai', heroin, India, inside job, Iran, Iran Contra, jihadists, karzai, McChrystal, mercenaries, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, NATO, obamas war, occupation, Opium, Ordo Ab Chao, osama, Pakistan, pakistan army, private contractors, Robert Gates, scandal, sibel edmonds, Stanley McChrystal, State Sponsored Terrorism, Taliban, terrorist funding, terrorist supporting, terrorist training, Troops, truth movement, u.s. soldiers, USAID, war on drugs, War On Terror | Tags: BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE
Blackwater, US Military Working For Taliban Drug Lords
Blackwater and India’s Intelligence Agency are protecting and supporting Taliban to carry out operations in Pakistan
Veterans Today
January 23, 2010
The following article is by Gordon Duff, a Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a UN Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East.
BLACKWATER/XE ACCUSED OF COMPLICITY IN TERRORISM AND WAR AGAINST US TROOPS
TOP TALIBAN MILITANTS RECEIVE MEDICAL CARE AT BAGRAM AIR FORCE BASE
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been briefed by the Pakistani Military High Command that they are being overwhelmed by highly trained and extremely well armed militants in the border regions and terrorists operating across the country. We have been told by the highest sources that Blackwater/Xe and other US based mercenary groups have been actively attacking police, military and intelligence organizations in Pakistan as part of operations under employment of the Government of India and their allies in Afghanistan, the drug lords, whose followers make up the key components of the Afghan army.
Investigations referenced in the Pakistan Daily Mail by abrina Elkani and Steve Nelson indicate that, rather than hunt terrorists who have been killing Americans, these groups have actually taken key militant leaders into Afghanistan where they are kept safe and even offered medical treatment by the United States military. Years ago, we all heard the rumor that Osama bin Laden had received care at a US hospital in Qatar after leaving Sudan to take over what we claim was the planning of 9/11. FBI transcripts verify that bin Laden, according to testimony by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, was working for the US at that time and had maintained contact with his CIA handlers through the fateful summer of 2001.
The Army of Pakistan has been regularly capturing advanced weapons of Indian manufacture from militants in the border region. India maintains 17 “consular” camps inside Pakistan, near the border, adjacent to Blackwater facilities, falsely designated as CIA or USAID stations. Pakistan claims these operations train Taliban soldiers and terrorists for operations against civilian targets in Pakistan. Thousands have died in Pakistan over recent months during these attacks. Pakistan also contents these same groups are, not only fighting the Pakistan military but the Americans as well.
General Stanley McChrystal had withdrawn American forces from key areas in Afghanistan across from enemy held regions under attack by the Army of Pakistan. We are now told that this allowed those areas to become safe havens for forces formerly operating in Pakistan, who are now enjoying the freedom and hospitality of, not only Afghanistan but are being ignored by the NATO forces in the region.
The untold story is the massive complicity of Americans with their private airline, now suspected in yet another war, not Vietnam, not Central America/Iran Contra but Afghanistan, for a third time, of smuggling narcotics. The pattern is impossible to ignore.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Airport Security, alqaeda, Barack Obama, bush, CIA, conflict of interest, Coverup, cui bono, DHS, False Flag, FBI, Flight 253, George Bush, Hegelian Dialectic, Homeland Security, inside job, MIHOP, mutallab, nation building, NSA, obama, obama deception, occupation, plane bomber, Problem Reaction Solution, State Sponsored Terrorism, TSA, War On Terror, White House, yemen | Tags: christmas bomber, Mark Hosenball, Michael E. Leiter, Michael Isikoff, National Counterterrorism Cente, NCTC, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, underwear bomber
SMOKING GUN: US Government Allowed Flight 253 to Happen
globalresearch.ca
January 25, 2010
Nearly one month after passengers foiled an attempted suicide bomb attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day, new information reveals that the White House and U.S. security agencies had specific intelligence on accused terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, far earlier than previously acknowledged.
Along with new reports, evidence suggests that the administration’s cover-up of the affair has very little to do with a failure by the intelligence apparatus to “connect the dots” and may have far more serious political implications for the Obama administration, and what little remains of a functioning democracy in the United States, than a botched bombing.
What the White House and security officials have previously described only as “vague” intercepts regarding “a Nigerian” has now morphed into a clear picture of the suspect–and the plot.
The New York Times revealed January 18 that the National Security Agency “learned from a communications intercept of Qaeda followers in Yemen that a man named “Umar Farouk”–the first two names of the jetliner suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab–had volunteered for a coming operation.”
According to Times’ journalists Eric Lipton, Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, “the American intelligence network was clearly listening in Yemen and sharing that information.” Indeed, additional NSA intercepts in December “mentioned the date of Dec. 25, and suggested that they were ‘looking for ways to get somebody out’ or ‘for ways to move people to the West,’ one senior administration official said.”
Clearly, the administration was “worried about possible terrorist attacks over the Christmas holiday.” These concerns led President Obama to meet December 22 “with top officials of the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security, who ticked off a list of possible plots against the United States and how their agencies were working to disrupt them,” the Times reports.
- “In a separate White House meeting that day” the Times disclosed, “Mr. Obama’s homeland security adviser, John O. Brennan, led talks on Yemen, where a stream of disturbing intelligence had suggested that Qaeda operatives were preparing for some action, perhaps a strike on an American target, on Christmas Day.”
In mid-January, Newsweek reported that the “White House report on the foiled Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing provided only the sketchiest of details about what may have been the most politically sensitive of its findings: how the White House itself was repeatedly warned about the prospect of an attack on the U.S.,” Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff disclosed.
According to the newsmagazine, “intelligence analysts had ‘highlighted’ an evolving ‘strategic threat,'” and that “‘some of the improvised explosive device tactics AQAP might use against U.S. interests were highlighted’ in other ‘finished intelligence products’.”
However, the real bombshell came last Wednesday during hearings before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee when Bushist embed, and current Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), Michael E. Leiter, made a startling admission.
CongressDaily reported on January 22 that intelligence officials “have acknowledged the government knowingly allows foreigners whose names are on terrorist watch lists to enter the country in order to track their movement and activities.”
Leiter told the Committee: “I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”
CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm, citing an unnamed “intelligence official” confirmed that Leiter’s statement reflected government policy and told the publication, “in certain situations it’s to our advantage to be able to track individuals who might be on a terrorist watch list because you can learn something from their activities and their contacts.”
An alternative explanation fully in line with well-documented inaction, or worse, by U.S. security agencies prior to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and now, Christmas Day’s aborted airline bombing, offer clear evidence that a ruthless “choice” which facilitates the murder of American citizens are cynical pretexts in a wider game: advancing imperialism’s geostrategic goals abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.
Leiter’s revelation in an of itself should demolish continued government claims that the accused terror suspect succeeded in boarding NW Flight 253 due to a failure to “connect the dots.”
However, as far as Antifascist Calling can determine, no other media outlet has either reported or followed-up CongressDaily’s disclosure; a clear sign that its explosive nature, and where a further investigation might lead, are strictly off-limits.
Taking into account testimony by a high-level national security official that terrorists are allowed to enter the country for intelligence purposes, one can only conclude that the alleged “failure” to stop Abdulmutallab was neither a casual omission nor the result of bureaucratic incompetence but rather, a highly-charged political calculation.
Filed under: 9/11, 9/11 Truth, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda Tapes, alqaeda, Asif Ali Zadari, Ayman al Zawahiri, Barack Obama, Benazir Bhutto, Bhutto, bin laden, bin laden dead, Bin Laden Tapes, Blackwater, CIA, Colonel Bob Pappas, fake alqaeda, False Flag, FBI, fearmongering, inside job, IntelCenter, Iraq, karzai, Media Fear, Media Manipulation, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obama deception, obama surge, occupation, Omar Sheikh, osama, osama dead, Pakistan, Propaganda, psychological operations, psychological warfare, Psyops, scam, State Sponsored Terrorism, surge, tora bora, truth movement, War On Terror, yemen, zawahiri
Bin Laden’s Ghost Claims Flight 253 Attack
NoWorldSystem
January 25, 2010
Yet another attempt into making sure everyone is properly scared of another devastating 9/11-style attack on US soil. According to the new Bin Laden audiotape he is claiming responsibility for the foiled Flight 253 attack on a Detroit airliner and promises more attacks if US continues to support Israel. CIA-linked IntelCenter, –a company that was CAUGHT red-handed manipulating an al-Zawahiri video– now claims that this new audio is a ‘possible indicator‘ for an upcoming attack within the next 12 months.
The only purpose for videos like this is to promote fear and to rationalize U.S. occupation in the middle east. However, many people are upset with the occupation of Blackwater in Pakistan and the 700 total deaths from drone strikes, the remorseless night-killings of Afghanis and the $57,077 a minute price the U.S. taxpayers are paying to protect opium crops. Not to mention the people are angry at the recent U.S. air-strike on Yemen that killed at least 120 innocent civilians, including children in December 2009.
The audiotape also fuses the links between Flight 253, AlQaeda and Yemen that will give the government talking points for the reason of the destabilization of the regions and the U.S. economy. The authenticity of the new bin laden tape is unknown, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that it’s probably an impostor that sounds like Bin Laden. In the November 12, 2002 Bin Laden recording, voice-recognition experts in Switzerland said that it was 95% certain the tape was not the voice of the AlQaeda leader, that “it could be an impostor”.
It seems that now more than ever do they want to keep perpetuating the notion that Bin Laden is alive and well to keep the War on Terror going and to keep the American people infuriated that this man who supposedly did 9/11 is still walking and talking. The U.S. Department and the FBI released a photoshop rendition of an aged Bin Laden that turned out to be from online photo of Spanish politician Gaspar Llamazares.
An organization with a budget of billions of dollars was resorting to comic-like methods in its pursuit of terrorists and criminals, said the daily El Mundo.
Is Bin Laden DEAD?
Many people were so traumatized from the events of 9/11/2001 that they immediately believed that an unknown group called AlQaeda and its so-called leader Bin Laden were the culprits based on fear alone. We were told by the Bush administration that if we did not act, the terrorists will hit us again, and so the country was coerced into obedience and accepted what they were told.
We are continued to be coerced by videotapes despite the many prominent men and women who say that Bin Laden is dead from either health problems, military strike or assassination:
This is what former USMC Colonel Bob Pappas had to say about the death of Bin Laden;
- “bin Laden is dead, he was killed during the attacks on Tora Bora. The pathetic political nonsense spewed by Senator John Kerry and his lackeys that the Bush administration allowed bin Laden to walk unmolested into a Pakistani sanctuary is hogwash, no, it’s bovine scatology.”
“However, the administration probably knew that bin Laden was dead, as does this current one, a notion reinforced by a statement made during the waning months of the Bush Administration by Vice President Cheney to that effect; and for that reason among others the Administration chose make Iraq the main effort in the War on Terror.”
According to Afghan President Hamid Karzai says Osama bin Laden is “probably” dead. FBI counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, also says he thinks Osama bin Laden is “probably” dead. Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari says “I don’t think he’s alive” even his counterpart Benazir Bhutto claims Bin Laden was assassinated by “Omar Sheikh”.
Regardless if he’s dead or not, his whereabouts still remain a mystery and yet still remains the big-bad-boogieman that is continually propped up every time he is needed (dropping poll numbers) in order to control the minds of the American people. It won’t be long now until there is a need for another ‘mastermind’ (one that isn’t a corpse) that will take his place as the most evil man on earth.
Osama Videos Behind the Scenes
Filed under: alaska, California, chavez, China, climate change, climate modification, depopulation, Dictatorship, earthquake machine, eco terrorism, elf, Empire, Eugenics, Genocide, geo-engineering, Global Warming, global warming hoax, government crimes, government terrorism, HAARP, haiti, Hugo Chavez, ionosphere, Iran, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, navy, New World Order, occupation, Population Control, Russia, super weapons, Troops, Venezuela, War On Terror, weather control, weather manipulation, William Cohen | Tags: Dr. Nick Begich, earthquake weapons, haiti earthquake, haiti quake, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, longitudinal wave interferometers, LWI, Russian Northern Fleets
Chavez and the Russian Fleet: U.S. Used “Earthquake Weapon” On Haiti
Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
January 24, 2010
Earlier this week, a Spanish newspaper quoted Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez as saying the U.S. Navy caused the Haiti earthquake with a tectonic weapon. The Venezuelan media reported that the earthquake “may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate,” Press TV reported on January 21.
Chavez cited a report from Russia’s Northern Fleet. According to the report, the U.S. Navy made a mistake with a secret “earthquake weapon” and the result was the Haitian earthquake. The Russians believe the intended target was Iran. “Though Russian Northern Fleets’ report was not confirmed by official sources, the comments attracted special attention in some US and Russian media outlets including Fox news and Russia Today,” writes Pragmatic Witness blog. “Russia Today’s report said that Moscow has also been accused of possessing and utilizing such weapons.”
“Speaking on his weekly television show, Chavez opined that the U.S. mission in Haiti was a ruse to initiate military occupation,” the New York Daily News said.
Venezuelan media “added that the U.S. government’s HAARP program, an atmospheric research facility in Alaska (and frequent subject of conspiracy theories), was also to blame for a Jan. 9 quake in Eureka, Calif., and may have been behind the 7.8-magnitude quake in China that killed nearly 90,000 people in 2008,” Fox News reported on Thursday.
In 1997, former U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen made the following statement:
- Others [terrorists] are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves… So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations…It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our [counterterrorism] efforts.
Cohen was talking about longitudinal EM wave interferometers (LWI) technology (also known as “Tesla howitzers”). LWI waves can effortlessly pass through the ocean and earth. Experts claim LWI waves can in fact pass through the earth and emerge on the other side. The United States and Russia have possessed this technology for decades.
Cohen would have you believe it is a technology that only terrorists would use. It depends on who you would call a terrorist.
In 1966, Professor Gordon J. F. MacDonald, associate director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee. MacDonald published papers on the use of environmental-control technologies for military purposes, including “earthquake engineering” (he also wrote about weather manipulation, climate modification, polar ice cap melting or destabilization, ozone depletion techniques).
“The revealed secrets surprised legislators,” writes Dr. Nick Begich. “Would an inquiry into the state of the art of electromagnetic manipulation surprise lawmakers today? They may find out that technologies developed out of the HAARP experiments in Alaska could deliver on Gordon MacDonald’s vision because leading-edge scientists are describing global weather as not only air pressure and thermal systems, but also as an electrical system.”
Chavez says US ‘weapon’ caused Haiti quake
Military Trained For Haiti Disaster Relief Before Earthquake
Filed under: Afghanistan, airstrikes, blackops, Blackwater, CIA, civilian casualties, Coup, Dictatorship, drones, Empire, Fascism, Hamid Karzai', Iraq, karzai, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, occupation, Pakistan, scandal, Taliban, terrorist funding, uav, War On Terror
Gates Admits Blackwater Operating in Pakistan
Raw Story
January 22, 2010
The Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan.
The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban.
Defense Department officials say Gates did not mean to suggest that Blackwater is now operating on Pakistani soil when a journalist from Pakistan’s Express TV asked him about military contractors’ activities.
In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked “about another issue that has come up and again … about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”
“Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” Gates replied. “If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Pentagon backtracks after Gates admits Blackwater operating in PakistanThe Pentagon has gone into damage control mode after Defense Secretary Robert Gates appeared to confirm that security contractor Blackwater is operating in Pakistan.
The admission, quickly denied by Defense Department officials, has set fire to long-simmering rumors inside Pakistan about the involvement of for-profit contractors in the war against the Taliban.
Defense Department officials say Gates did not mean to suggest that Blackwater is now operating on Pakistani soil when a journalist from Pakistan’s Express TV asked him about military contractors’ activities.
In the interview, which took place Thursday, Gates was asked “about another issue that has come up and again … about the phone security companies [sic] that have been operating in Iraq, in Afghanistan and now in Pakistan. Xe International, formerly known as Blackwater or Data Corp. Under what rules are they operating here in Pakistan?”
“Well, they’re operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq,” Gates replied. “If they’re contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves.”
Story continues below…
“This appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the US embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country,” investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill wrote.
In November, Scahill reported that Blackwater is operating out of a covert US operating base in Karachi, where it “plan[s] targeted assassinations of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda operatives, ‘snatch and grabs’ of high-value targets and other sensitive action inside and outside Pakistan.”
In December, the UK’s Guardian reported that Blackwater guards are patrolling a CIA airbase in Baluchistan province.
Gates’ comments have sent Pakistan’s legislature into an uproar, with at least one government official denying knowledge of Gates’ remarks.
Pakistan has been rife with rumors in recent years about private security contractors operating on the country’s soil, and “about purported US plots to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and build permanent American military bases,” as the Wall Street Journal puts it.
“Mr. Gates himself may have inadvertently helped fuel a new rumor,” the Journal stated.
Defense officials tried to clarify the comment Thursday night, telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn’t employ Xe [a.k.a. Blackwater] in Pakistan.
It was too late, however. By Friday morning, an array of Pakistani newspapers, television stations and radio programs reported that “Blackwater” had begun operating in Pakistan as well, citing Mr. Gates’s comments.
Whether it was a mistake or an unintentional admission, Gates’ comments are certain to complicate efforts by the US to prod Pakistan into refocusing away from its long-time rival, India, to the Taliban presence on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
To that end, the US has announced it will provide Pakistan with a dozen Shadow drones, smaller cousins of the Predator drones the US uses in air strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the New York Times reports.
The US has also announced a new strategy for the war effort that focuses on the “re-integration” of Taliban fighters into mainstream society. The effort will be led by Afghan President Karzai. In discussing the plans Friday, Karzai “spoke about offering money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms and return to civilian life,” according to Pakistan’s Dawn Media Group.
Filed under: Censorship, checkpoint, Concentration Camp, Eugenics, gaza, Genocide, Holocaust, holy war, human rights, infanticide, Israel, jews, media censorship, Military, Military Industrial Complex, muslims, occupation, Oppression, Racism, State Sponsored Terrorism, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, west bank, Zionism
Gaza in the eyes of Israelis
Filed under: alaska, chavez, depopulation, Dictatorship, earthquake machine, eco terrorism, elf, Empire, Eugenics, Genocide, HAARP, haiti, Hugo Chavez, ionosphere, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, New World Order, occupation, Population Control, super weapons, Troops, Venezuela, weather control, weather manipulation | Tags: earthquake weapons, haiti earthquake, haiti quake, High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program
Chavez says US ‘weapon’ caused Haiti quake
Press TV
January 21, 2010
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez Wednesday accused the United States of causing the destruction in Haiti by testing a ‘tectonic weapon’ to induce the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country last week.
President Chavez said the US was “playing God” by testing devices capable of creating eco-type catastrophes, the Spanish newspaper ABC quoted him as saying.
A 7.0-magnitude quake rattled the desperately poor country on January 12, killing an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people. As Haiti looks to the world for basic sustenance, the authorities say the biggest dangers facing survivors are untreated wounds and rising disease.
Following the quake, appeals for humanitarian aid were responded to globally. However, the nation is struggling with violence and looting as aid is still not enough for the tens of thousands left homeless and injured.
Chavez said the killer earthquake followed a test of “weapon of earthquakes” just offshore from Haiti. He did not elaborate on the source of his claim.
The outspoken leader had earlier accused the US of occupying Haiti “under the guise of the natural disaster.”
At least 11,000 US troops have been dispatched to the country to provide security for aid distribution efforts.
Venezuelan media have reported that the earthquake “may be associated with the project called HAARP, a system that can generate violent and unexpected changes in climate.”
HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, is a study run in Alaska directed at the occasional reconfiguration of the properties of the Earth’s ionosphere to improve satellite communications.
Former US Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1997 expressed concerned over countries engaging “in eco-type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.”
U.S. Military Trained to Provide Haiti Relief BEFORE Earthquake Hit!
HAARP: Secret weapon for weather modification, electromagnetic warfare?
Filed under: Coup, Cuba, haiti, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, occupation, Oil, Pentagon, resource wars, Troops, Venezuela, yemen | Tags: haiti earthquake, haiti port, haiti quake, Port au Prince
20,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Haiti soon!
Are We in Haiti because of Oil?
Peter Schlosser
Prisonplanet.com
January 21, 2010
It has been a little over a week since the devastating earthquake hit just outside Port au Prince, Haiti. Since that day, I have watched in horror as the Haitian people and their society have quickly submerged into a quagmire of social unrest and political grandstanding. Once I observed the mass-murder posse of Team Obama, Bush and Clinton begin circling the wagons and the rapid US militarization of Port au Prince, including the occupation of the Presidential Palace, to the tune of now almost 10,000 US boots on the ground, I began to get suspicious. Call me crazy. I know of the sad history of Haiti imposed upon the tiny former slave nation by one imperial power after the next. But when I see 10,000 American soldiers descend upon a nation in less than a week, my radar flies into the red zone. Just when I was beginning to brush up on the story behind the story regarding Yemen, now I’m thrashed about one more time and forced to begin scrambling for the next story behind the story for this week’s latest NWO hot topic.
After a few hours on the Internet, I discovered an article posted in January of 2008 http://www.abibitumikasa.com/forums/oppression-afrikans-economically/41112-oil-mining-haiti-worlds-elite-robbing-people-blind.html indicating that large amounts of, you guessed it, OIL had indeed been discovered in Haiti a short while back. According to the article, scientists Ginette and Daniel Mathurin indicated that “under Haitian soil it is rich in oil and fuel.” “We have identified 20 oil sites.” said ‘Daniel Mathurin stating that “5 of them are considered of great importance by specialists and politicians.”
“The Central Plateau, including the region of Thomonde, the plain of the Cul-de-Sac and the bay of Port-au-Prince are full of hydrocarbons,”he said adding that “the oil reserves of Haiti are more important than those of Venezuela.” “An Olympic pool compared to a glass of water; that is the comparison to illustrate the importance of Haitian oil compared with those of Venezuela,” he explains.
“Venezuela is one of the world’s largest producers of oil.”
We know that large amounts of oil had been discovered in Cuba a little over a year ago as appeared in a London Guardian article from Saturday, October 18th 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/18/cuban-oil .
“ Mother nature, it emerged this week, appears to have blessed the island with enough oil reserves to vault it into the ranks of energy powers. The government announced there may be more than 20bn barrels of recoverable oil in offshore fields in Cuba’s share of the Gulf of Mexico, more than twice the previous estimate.
If confirmed, it puts Cuba’s reserves on par with those of the US and into the world’s top 20. Drilling is expected to start next year by Cuba’s state oil company Cubapetroleo, or Cupet.
“It would change their whole equation. The government would have more money and no longer be dependent on foreign oil,” said Kirby Jones, founder of the Washington-based US-Cuba Trade Association. “It could join the club of oil exporting nations.” Wrote Rory Carroll, Latin America Correspondent for the Guardian.
If one looks at a map and notices that Haiti and Cuba are only about 60 miles apart separated by the Winward Passage, one might then assume that perhaps the two Caribbean nations might be sitting on the same stretch of oil field.
And the plot thickens. According to the article regarding Haitian oil: “ Daniel and Ginette Malthurin indicate that the American government had in 2005 authorized the use of strategic reserves of the United States. The door should be used by politicians to launch Haitian negotiations with American companies in the context of the exploitation of these deposits.”
“The specialists contend that the government of Jean Claude Duvalier had verified the existence of a major oil field in the Bay of Port-au-Prince shortly before his downfall.”
Hmmm, intriguing. It would seem that the Pentagon’s interest in Haiti during this crisis just might stretch a bit beyond their normal warm and fuzzy humanitarian intentions. It feels like we’ve been here before. Keep your eyes on the bouncing ball and watch for Big Oil to move into the region shortly. Perhaps this may also serve as a wee bit of gunboat diplomacy targeted at Cuba and, more ominously, a back-up plan to secure reserves in the Empire’s backyard as Obama and the War Machine get ready to take on Venezuela. More will be revealed.
Ex-minister warns of US ‘takeover’ of Haiti
US says it will stay in Haiti for long term
Chavez says U.S. occupying Haiti in name of aid
Filed under: 9/11, american revolution, aristocrats, Bank of England, Big Banks, bloodline, Bohemian Grove, brain manipulation, brainwashing, bush, cathy o'brien, central bank, Child Abuse, child porn, child sacrifice, child sex slavery, clinton, Conditioning, Congress, depression, devaluation, Dictatorship, education, Empire, Eugenics, Fascism, Federal Reserve, Gerald Ford, global government, globalist elite, Goldman Sachs, Great Depression, Illuminati, indoctrination, internationalist, jesuit, manipulation, market manipulation, mason, nation building, New World Order, NWO, obama, occupation, one world governmnet, Pentagon, Population Control, programming, progressives, Propaganda, queen, rape, ritual abuse, ruling class, secret meetings, Secret Societies, Senate, sexual abuse, slavery, softkill, Stock Market, svali, Torture, vatican, Wall Street, whistleblower, Zionism | Tags: Dissociative Identity Disorder, obama bush related
Is the Vatican Practicing Child Sacrifice?
NoWorldSystem
January 13, 2010
“Nothing, in this world, works the way you think it does.” -Jordan Maxwell
Child sacrifice, trauma-based mind control, what do they have in common? They are both used by the largest cult in the world; the Illuminati.
The Illuminati is a cult created by Adam Weishavpt on May 1, 1776. It is a culmination of secret societies that strive to create a global government called a ‘New World Order’, where the United Nations is the framework for the birth of global institutions (ex: WHO, IMF).
The main agenda of the Illuminati is to completely control all governments, religious and financial institutions of the world. Unfortunately they have succeeded in that effort, they have total dominance over the United States (the seal of the Illuminati is on the back of the one-dollar bill), Russia, the European Union and even the Vatican.
They stage military coups against opposing government, install agents and create a puppet-government so that they become in favor of a New World Order. They have infiltrated the mainstream media, all forms of entertainment and even public schools. We all live in this scientific dictatorship that many aren’t aware of, the public is in a trance, our beliefs and opinions are constantly being shaped so that we are in favor of the agenda. One example is Global Warming, promoting the idea that Co2 is a deadly pollutant that should be taxed on a global scale and that a One World Government is needed to solve this problem.
We live in a world were one family bloodline is in control of this New World Order, the bloodline is called the Merovingian bloodline that dates back to the Priory of Sion, the group was sworn to protect the bloodline that now exists in the European monarchy. Many think that all U.S. presidents are elected ‘by the people’, the reality is all 45 U.S. presidents including Obama are the heirs of the Merovingian bloodline. For example, Obama and George W. Bush are 11th cousins and Queen Elizabeth and George W. Bush are 13th cousins.
Many still believe that this country won its independence from the British in 1776, the reality this country has always belonged to the British monarchy, stolen from the Native Americans. The ‘United States’ technically means a ‘Federal Corporation’ of the British crown, and the citizens are nothing more than indentured servants to Europe. The Private Bank called the U.S. Federal Reserve (the system that is now collapsing the U.S. economy through devaluation) is part owned by the Bank of England. Many wonder why big banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan get taxpayer-funded bailouts, well it’s because they are too part owners of the U.S. Federal Reserve, private corporation.
To the elite, humans are all considered slaves that bear no ‘inheritable blood’ and they believe every aspect of human life should be regulated and taxed for the benefit of the elite. They believe that the human lifespan should be cut down by introducing toxic chemicals into our lives, they also believe they should “maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature” according what is written on the Georgia Guidestones.
We are saturated in a mirth of television, drugs and entertainment for this reason, to keep the population away from the truth of what is being perpetuated against us.
Trauma-Based Mind Control
One of the ways the Illuminati influences the masses is by trauma-based mind control, by creating physical and mental pain on a victim so that they become groomed over time for leadership positions. Many whistleblowers for this reason have come out of the dark to reveal these secrets. Trauma-based mind control is used to create Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a condition in which a person displays multiple personalities that a mind control programmer is able to manipulate.
Svali (a pseudonym for obvious reasons) explains it best, she is an ex-Illuminati mind control programmer who was born into ‘the family’, she wrote an excellent book called Breaking the Chain – Breaking Free Of Cult Programming that exposes the nature of the cult in great detail.
- Intentional programming of an infant in the Illuminati often begins before birth. Prenatal splitting is well known in the cult, as the fetus is very capable of fragmenting in the womb due to trauma. This is usually done between the seventh and ninth month of pregnancy. Techniques used include: placing headphones on the mother’s abdomen, and playing loud, discordant music (such as some modern classical pieces, or even Wagner’s operas). Loud, heavy rock has also been used. Other methods include having the mother ingest quantities of bitter substances, to make the amniotic fluid bitter, or yelling at the fetus inside the womb. The mother’s abdomen may be hit as well. Mild shock to the abdomen may be applied, especially when term is near, and may be used to cause premature labor, or ensure that the infant is born on a ceremonial holiday. Certain labor inducing drugs may be also given if a certain birth date is desired.
Once the infant is born, testing is begun at a very early age, usually during the first few weeks of life. The trainers, who are taught to look for certain qualities in the infant, will place it on a velvet cloth on a table, and check its reflexes to different stimuli. The infant’s strength, how it reacts to heat, cold, and pain are all tested. Different infants react differently, and the trainers are looking for dissociative ability, quick reflexes, and reaction times. They are also encouraging early dissociation in the infant with these tests.
The infant will also be abused, to create fragments. Methods of abuse can include: rectal probes; digital anal rape; electric shocks at low levels to the fingers, toes, and genitalia; cutting the genitalia in ritual circumstances (in older infants). The intent is to begin fragmentation before a true ego state develops, and customize the infant to pain and reflexive dissociation from pain (yes, even tiny infants dissociate; I have seen it time and time again; they will glow blank and limp, or glassy, in the face of continued trauma.)
Isolation and abandonment programming will sometimes be begun as well, in a rudimentary sense. The infant is abandoned, or uncared for by adults, intentionally during the daytime, then picked up, soothed, cleaned up and paid attention to in the context of preparing for a ritual or group gathering. This is done in order to help the infant associate night gatherings with “love” and attention, and to help the bonding process to the cult, or “family”. The infant will be taught to associate maternal attention with going to rituals, and eventually will associate cult gatherings with feelings of security.
As the infant grows older, i.e. at 15 to 18 months, more fragmenting is intentionally done by having the parents as well as cult members abuse the infant more methodically. This is done by intermittently soothing, bonding with the infant, then shocking it on its digits; the infant may be dropped from heights to a mat or mattress and laughed at as it lays there startled and terrified, crying. It may be placed in cages for periods of time, or exposed to short periods of isolation. Deprivation of food, water, and basic needs may begin later in this stage. All of these methods are done in order to create intentional dissociation in the infant.
Child Sacrifice
In this interview, Svali explains a more public technique of trauma-based programming by child sacrifice carried out during an induction ceremony at the Vatican.:
Public trauma-based mind control has been used constantly against us, for example, 9/11. Many people were so traumatized from the events of September 11th that they would have believed anything the U.S. government had put out based on fear alone. Like torture, terrorism is used to intimidate or coerce subject(s) into behaving and thinking a certain way so that the person(s) remain obedient and do what they are told. 9/11 was the mega-ritual that has accomplished many goals including the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan because we were constantly told that the terrorists will hit us again if we didn’t do something about it.
“Fear is a strong basis for mind control, whether it’s the kind of mind control that is the mass-mind control over a whole society or if it’s the kind of absolute robotic mind control that I experienced under MK-ULTRA on a U.S. Pentagon level.” -Cathy O’Brien
Cathy O’Brien is also a victim of mind control (was not born into ‘the family’), she tells her story how she was sold by a sexually abusive father to the military industrial complex; “A local politician that was sanctioning this child pornography ring was associated with my grandfather’s blue masonic lodge, when this one particular politician came to my father and told him he can receive immunity from prosecution if he would sell me into MK-ULTRA mind control. My father was thrilled, he agreed to sell me into the project and was trained in how to raise me for MK-ULTRA.”
Filed under: 2-party system, agriculture, Bill Clinton, bush, Colin Powell, corruption, Coup, DEBT, Dictatorship, Empire, food crisis, food shortage, food supply, France, George Bush, haiti, imf, left right paradigm, malthusian, Military, Military Industrial Complex, Naomi Klein, nation building, neocons, Neolibs, obama, occupation, reparations, slavery, sweatshops, third world, War Crimes, Woodrow Wilson, World Bank
U.S. Helped to Break Haiti for Over 200 Years
Common Dreams
January 17, 2010
Why does the US owe Haiti Billions? Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State, stated his foreign policy view as the “Pottery Barn rule.” That is – “if you break it, you own it.”
The US has worked to break Haiti for over 200 years. We owe Haiti. Not charity. We owe Haiti as a matter of justice. Reparations. And not the $100 million promised by President Obama either – that is Powerball money. The US owes Haiti Billions – with a big B.
The US has worked for centuries to break Haiti. The US has used Haiti like a plantation. The US helped bleed the country economically since it freed itself, repeatedly invaded the country militarily, supported dictators who abused the people, used the country as a dumping ground for our own economic advantage, ruined their roads and agriculture, and toppled popularly elected officials. The US has even used Haiti like the old plantation owner and slipped over there repeatedly for sexual recreation.
Here is the briefest history of some of the major US efforts to break Haiti.
In 1804, when Haiti achieved its freedom from France in the world’s first successful slave revolution, the United States refused to recognize the country. The US continued to refuse recognition to Haiti for 60 more years. Why? Because the US continued to enslave millions of its own citizens and feared recognizing Haiti would encourage slave revolution in the US.
After the 1804 revolution, Haiti was the subject of a crippling economic embargo by France and the US. US sanctions lasted until 1863. France ultimately used its military power to force Haiti to pay reparations for the slaves who were freed. The reparations were 150 million francs. (France sold the entire Louisiana territory to the US for 80 million francs!)
Haiti was forced to borrow money from banks in France and the US to pay reparations to France. A major loan from the US to pay off the French was finally paid off in 1947. The current value of the money Haiti was forced to pay to French and US banks? Over $20 Billion – with a big B.
The US occupied and ruled Haiti by force from 1915 to 1934. President n sent troops to invade in 1915. Revolts by Haitians were put down by US military – killing over 2000 in one skirmish alone. For the next nineteen years, the US controlled customs in Haiti, collected taxes, and ran many governmental institutions. How many billions were siphoned off by the US during these 19 years?
From 1957 to 1986 Haiti was forced to live under US backed dictators “Papa Doc” and “Baby Doc” Duvlaier. The US supported these dictators economically and militarily because they did what the US wanted and were politically “anti-communist” – now translatable as against human rights for their people. Duvalier stole millions from Haiti and ran up hundreds of millions in debt that Haiti still owes. Ten thousand Haitians lost their lives. Estimates say that Haiti owes $1.3 billion in external debt and that 40% of that debt was run up by the US-backed Duvaliers.
Thirty years ago Haiti imported no rice. Today Haiti imports nearly all its rice. Though Haiti was the sugar growing capital of the Caribbean, it now imports sugar as well. Why? The US and the US dominated world financial institutions – the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank – forced Haiti to open its markets to the world. Then the US dumped millions of tons of US subsidized rice and sugar into Haiti – undercutting their farmers and ruining Haitian agriculture. By ruining Haitian agriculture, the US has forced Haiti into becoming the third largest world market for US rice. Good for US farmers, bad for Haiti.
In 2002, the US stopped hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Haiti which were to be used for, among other public projects like education, roads. These are the same roads which relief teams are having so much trouble navigating now!
In 2004, the US again destroyed democracy in Haiti when they supported the coup against Haiti’s elected President Aristide.
Haiti is even used for sexual recreation just like the old time plantations. Check the news carefully and you will find numerous stories of abuse of minors by missionaries, soldiers and charity workers. Plus there are the frequent sexual vacations taken to Haiti by people from the US and elsewhere. What is owed for that? What value would you put on it if it was your sisters and brothers?
US based corporations have for years been teaming up with Haitian elite to run sweatshops teeming with tens of thousands of Haitians who earn less than $2 a day.
The Haitian people have resisted the economic and military power of the US and others ever since their independence. Like all of us, Haitians made their own mistakes as well. But US power has forced Haitians to pay great prices – deaths, debt and abuse.
It is time for the people of the US to join with Haitians and reverse the course of US-Haitian relations.
This brief history shows why the US owes Haiti Billions – with a big B. This is not charity. This is justice. This is reparations. The current crisis is an opportunity for people in the US to own up to our country’s history of dominating Haiti and to make a truly just response.
(For more on the history of exploitation of Haiti by the US see: Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti; Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood; and Randall Robinson, An Unbroken Agony)
Naomi Klein Issues Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert
Filed under: army, Barack Obama, berlin wall, blockade, checkpoint, egypt, Eugenics, gaza, Genocide, holy war, human rights, infanticide, intifada, Israel, jews, Military, Military Industrial Complex, muslims, neocons, Neolibs, Netanyahu, obama, obama deception, occupation, Oppression, State Sponsored Terrorism, war crime, War Crimes, west bank, Zionism | Tags: steel wall
US offers support for anti Palestinian steel walls
Press TV
January 13, 2010
 A protester holds a symbolic piece of metal wall with a placard written in Arabic: “What is on your consciences, Egyptian leaders?” |
The United States has offered its full-fledged support for the building of a wall by Egypt to disrupt the Gaza Strip’s lifeline that moves basic items underground past the Israeli-imposed blockade.
The construction of the steel tunnel-impervious wall, believed to have started some time in November, comes in line with Israeli and Egyptian accusations that Palestinian resistance fighters use the tunnels for procuring and storing weapons for use against the Israelis.
Washington, the chief Israeli backer, echoed the allegations on Tuesday and voiced support for installing the steel walls, which are reported to be designed by US army engineers.
“We believe that weapon-smuggling should stop and that measures taken to stop that weapon-smuggling should be, could be carried out, yes,” said State Department Spokesman Gordon Duguid.
The US support and even financing of numerous Israeli walls to further suppress the Palestinians come despite their repeated boasting of having rejected the Soviet-era Berlin wall, which served a similar purpose.
The Palestinian tunnel network across the Gaza Strip border with Egypt has become an economic lifeline for the 1.5 million people in the impoverished territory who face starvation due to the crippling Israeli siege that has been imposed since 2007.
The tunnels, described as ‘food tubes’ by the Palestinians, regularly come under Israeli air strikes while the Egyptian government makes attempts to flood them with water and gas.
The Cairo government announced a ban on aid convoys bound for the Gaza Strip via its soil in the past weekend, after anti-wall protesters clashed with Egyptian border police.
“Egypt will no longer allow convoys, regardless of their origin or who is organizing them, to cross its territory,” said Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced plans to build a surface wall along the Egyptian border. He said the decision was aimed at blocking entry into Israel in order to secure “Israel’s Jewish character.”
Palestine Pre-1947 (Before Israel Existed)
This is Zionism
Filed under: afghan casualties, airstrikes, Anti-War, civil disobedience, civilian casualties, Dissent, drone, Genocide, Hamid Karzai', karzai, military strike, nation building, NATO, occupation, Protest, State Sponsored Terrorism, uav, War On Terror | Tags: Garmsir district, Helmand province
13 Afghan Protesters Killed by NATO Forces
Filed under: Afghanistan, Baluchistan, big pharma, Britain, Canada, CIA, corruption, drug cartel, drug ring, drug smuggling, drug trafficking, drugs, Europe, gangsters, Hamid Karzai', heroin, Iran, karzai, mafia, medical industrial complex, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obamas war, occupation, Opium, Pakistan, scandal, Taliban, Tehran, Troops, war crime, War Crimes, war on drugs, War On Terror, Waziristan | Tags: government drug smuggling
Iran says US, UK, Canada assist Afghan drug trade
Press TV
January 14, 2010
A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan’s lucrative drug trade.
On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.
“According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the dug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs,” IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday.
Iranian officials have always criticized Western countries over their policies towards Afghanistan, where poppy cultivation has drastically increased since the US-led military occupation of the country in 2001.
Taheri added that drug catalysts are being smuggled into Afghanistan through borders that are controlled by US, British and Canadian troops.
Some 13,000 tones of drug catalysts are brought into Afghanistan every year as the war-torn country is the producer of 90 percent of the world’s opium.
The UN office on drugs and crime said last month that the 2009 potential gross export value of opium from Afghanistan stood at $2.8 billion.
Iranian police officials maintain that drug production in Afghanistan has had a 40-fold increase since the US-led invasion of the country in 2001.
“More than 340 tones of drugs have been seized all over Iran in the past nine months,” IRNA quoted the commander of the drug squad, General Hamid Reza Hossein-Abadi, as saying earlier this month.
The UN has praised Tehran for its commitment to the fight against drug trafficking.
Filed under: bush, Caribbean, chavez, CIA, colombia, Colonialism, Coup, drones, Empire, FARC, future war, Hamid Karzai', Hugo Chavez, karzai, latin america, military base, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, netherlands, obamas war, occupation, Oil, proxy war, resource war, secret war, South America, uav, Venezuela, war on drugs, War On Terror, war provocation | Tags: Curaçao
Netherlands has Granted U.S. Military Use of its Islands in the Caribbean
globalresearch.ca
January 14, 2010
The government of the Netherlands recently granted the US military use of its islands in the Caribbean, with the excuse that this is to help in the “war against drugs”. In reality, this is a direct threat to the Chavez government in Venezuela.
In the Dutch media articles have appeared about the “war-mongering” president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, who is “preparing a war against Colombia”. Now Chávez has accused the Netherlands of supporting aggression against Venezuela, because the Netherlands has given permission to the American armed forces to use the military bases on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curaçao[1].
In the media Hugo Chávez, as always, has been presented like some “crazy populist”, and of course the “civilised Netherlands” are presented as being totally innocent.
Later Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch minister of foreign affairs, said the American military were on Aruba and Curaçao, as part of the “war against drugs”. He remains silent about what is really happening on Aruba and Curaçao.
Authors such as Noam Chomsky and Eva Golinger have pointed out in different articles that the so-called “war against drugs” has nothing to do with any battle against drug smuggling, but has been used for other causes such as fighting against guerrilla movements and the spying of other countries. Since the start of the “war against drugs” there has only been more smuggling and consumption of drugs.
The fact that the Netherlands are participating in this is quite normal, because the Dutch government has a tradition of supporting American imperialism. After Britain the Netherlands are the biggest ally of the U.S. in Western Europe. The cabinet of Prime Minister Balkenende gave political support to the invasion of Iraq that was based completely on lies. Now the Netherlands have troops in Afghanistan, officially to rebuild the country, but in practice to prop up the corrupt regime of Karzai.
The bases on Aruba and Curaçao
In 1999 the Netherlands and the U.S. signed an agreement for the establishment of Forward Operating Locations (FOLs). This meant that the American military could use air force bases on Aruba and Curaçao. While the bases were originally used for operations against drug smuggling and the Colombian guerrilla movement FARC, this changed with the election of George Bush. Venezuela was seen as a threat by then, because it was a beacon of hope for the poor and working people of Latin America. In 2002 there was a CIA-backed coup attempt against the democratically elected Hugo Chávez. Since then there have only been more intrigues against Venezuela.
In 2006 there was a big military exercise by the U.S., Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, France and Canada in the Caribbean, named Joint Caribbean Lion 2006. This exercise was clearly a provocation against Venezuela. After criticisms by the Venezuelan government the then-minister of defence Henk Kamp and some right-wing MPs decided to accuse Chávez of “wanting to conquer the Antilles”. This was based on false statements from the Venezuelan opposition, that stated Chávez claimed everything within 200 miles from the Venezuelan coast as Venezuelan territory, while in that speech Chávez clearly said “12”, and not “200” miles.
Now there is a new conflict. This has everything to do with the recent militarization of Colombia and its seven military bases that have been given to American troops. Venezuela is not talking nonsense as the media keep claiming. Colombia’s military spending now is 5% of its Gross Domestic Product. At the peak of her struggle against the FARC this was 2.5%.
Also the American Fourth Fleet has been stationed back in the Caribbean since 2008. This fleet was disbanded in 1950 after the end of WWII, but now it is back and close to the Venezuelan coast.
The Netherlands are now playing the role of junior partner of the U.S. in the Caribbean. Different spy planes have been detected above Venezuela. An American Boeing RC-135 has taken off at different times from Curaçao and has been detected over Venezuelan air space.
Filed under: airstrikes, Centcom, Coup, David Petraeus, Iran, Israel, middle east, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, Nuke, occupation, Petraeus, Tehran, united nation, War On Terror, WW3, ww4
Iran can be bombed says General Petraeus
Alex Spillius
London Telegraph
January 11, 2010
The US military commander for the Middle East and the Gulf region has confirmed that the United States has developed contingency plans to deal with Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Gen David Petraeus, head of Central Command or Centcom, did not elaborate on the plans, but said the military has considered the impacts of any action taken there.
Asked about the vulnerability of Iran’s nuclear installations, he told CNN: “Well, they certainly can be bombed. The level of effect would vary with who it is that carries it out, what ordnance they have, and what capability they can bring to bear.”
He added: “It would be almost literally irresponsible if Centcom were not to have been thinking about the various ‘what ifs’ and to make plans for a whole variety of different contingencies.”
Iran maintains its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other Western nations fear Tehran wants to acquire nuclear weapons.
Israel has called Iran’s nuclear programme the major threat facing its nation. Gen Petraeus declined to comment about Israel’s military capabilities, according to CNN.
Iran had until the end of last year to accept a deal offered five permanent UN Security Council members – Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany.
It did not do so. Instead, Tehran gave the West until the end of January to accept its own proposal.
Petraeus said he thought there was still time for the nations to engage Iran in diplomacy, noting there is no deadline on the enactment of any US contingency plans.
But he added that “there’s a period of time, certainly, before all this might come to a head”.
Filed under: Africa, africom, army, Barack Obama, bush, bush = obama, Colonialism, Coup, Dictatorship, Empire, future wars, gas prices, Genocide, George Bush, gulf of Aden, impirialism, indian ocean, kenya, left right paradigm, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obama, obama = bush, obamas war, occupation, Oil, Petrol, recolonization, resource war, Somalia, War On Terror, yemen
Africom – Latest U.S. Bid to Recolonise Continent
All Africa
January 7, 2010
AFRICAN revolutionaries now have to sleep with one eye open because the United States of America is not stopping at anything in its bid to establish Africom, a highly-equipped US army that will be permanently resident in Africa to oversee the country’s imperialist interests.
Towards the end of last year, the US government intensified its efforts to bring a permanent army to settle in Africa, dubbed the African Command (Africom) as a latest tool for the subtle recolonisation of Africa.
Just before end of last year, General William E. Garret, Commander US Army for Africa, met with defence attaches from all African embassies in Washington to lure them into selling the idea of an American army based in Africa to their governments.
Latest reports from the White House this January indicate that 75 percent of the army’s establishment work has been done through a military unit based in Stuttgart, Germany, and that what is left is to get an African country to host the army and get things moving.
Liberia and Morocco have offered to host Africom while Sadc has closed out any possibility of any of its member states hosting the US army.
Other individual countries have remained quiet.
Liberia has longstanding ties with the US due to its slave history while errant Morocco, which is not a member of the African Union and does not hold elections, might want the US army to assist it to suppress any future democratic uprising.
Sadc’s refusal is a small victory for the people of Africa in their struggle for total independence but the rest of the regional blocs in Africa are yet to come up with a common position. This is worrying.
The US itself wanted a more strategic country than Morocco and Liberia since the army will be the epicentre of influencing, articulating and safeguarding US foreign and economic policies.
The other danger is that Africom will open up Africa as a battleground between America and anti-US terrorist groups.
Africom is a smokescreen behind which America wants to hide its means to secure Africa’s oil and other natural resources, nothing more.
African leaders must not forget that military might has been used by America and Europe again and again as the only effective way of accomplishing their agenda in ensuring that governments in each country are run by people who toe their line.
By virtue of its being resident in Africa, Africom will ensure that America has its tentacles easily reaching every African country and influencing every event to the American advantage.
By hosting the army, Africa will have sub-contracted its military independence to America and will have accepted the process that starts its recolonisation through an army that can subdue any attempts by Africa to show its own military prowess.
The major question is: Who will remove Africom once it is established? By what means?
By its origin Africom will be technically and financially superior to any African country’s army and will dictate the pace for regime change in any country at will and also give depth, direction and impetus to the US natural resource exploitation scheme.
There is no doubt that as soon as the army gets operational in Africa, all the gains of independence will be reversed.
If the current leadership in Africa succumbs to the whims of the US and accept the operation of this army in Africa, they will go down in the annals of history as that generation of politicians who accepted the evil to prevail.
Even William Shakespeare would turn and twist in his grave and say: “I told you guys that it takes good men to do nothing for evil to prevail.”
We must not forget that Africans, who are still smarting from colonialism-induced humiliation, subjugation, brutality and inferiority complex, do not need to be taken back to another form of colonialism, albeit subtle.
Africom has been controversial on the continent ever since former US president George W. Bush first announced it in February 2007.
African leaders must not forget that under the Barack Obama administration, US policy towards Africa and the rest of the developing world has not changed an inch. It remains militaristic and materialistic.
Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations argue that the major objective of Africom is to professionalise security forces in key countries across Africa.
However, both administrations do not attempt to address the impact of the setting up of Africom on minority parties, governments and strong leaders considered errant or whether the US will not use Africom to promote friendly dictators.
Training and weapons programmes and arms transfers from Ukraine to Equatorial Guinea, Chad, Ethiopia and the transitional government in Somalia, clearly indicate the use of military might to maintain influence in governments in Africa, remains a priority of US foreign policy.
Ukraine’s current leadership was put into power by the US under the Orange Revolution and is being given a free role to supply weaponry in African conflicts.
African leaders must show solidarity and block every move by America to set up its bases in the motherland unless they want to see a new round of colonisation.
Kwame Nkrumah, Robert Mugabe, Sam Nujoma, Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Kenneth Kaunda, Augustino Neto and Samora Machel, among others, will have fought liberation wars for nothing, if Africom is allowed a base in Africa.
Thousands of Africans who died in colonial prisons and in war fronts during the liberation struggles, will have shed their blood for nothing if Africa is recolonised.
Why should the current crop of African leaders accept systematic recolonisation when they have learnt a lot from colonialism, apartheid and racism? Why should the current crop of African leaders fail to stand measure for measure against the US administration and tell it straight in the face that Africa does not need a foreign army since the AU is working out its own army.
African leaders do not need prophets from Mars to know that US’s fascination with oil, the war on terrorism and the military will now be centred on Africa, after that escapade in Iraq.
Filed under: air strike, air strikes, Blackwater, CIA, civilian casualties, Dictatorship, drone, drone attack, Empire, government crimes, government terrorism, Military, Military Industrial Complex, nation building, obamas war, occupation, State Sponsored Terrorism, uav, war casualties, War Crimes, War On Terror, yemen
Aftermath of U.S. Air Strike in Yemen
Filed under: 2-party system, Afghanistan, airstrikes, alqaeda, Arabian Peninsula, Barack Obama, Britain, bush, bush = obama, Caspian Sea, China, Colonialism, Coup, Dictatorship, drone attacks, Empire, Europe, european union, Flight 253, future wars, gas prices, George Bush, gulf, gulf of Aden, impirialism, India, indian ocean, Iran, Iraq, islamist, Israel, left right paradigm, middle east, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, mutallab, nation building, obama, obama = bush, obamas war, occupation, Oil, Oman, Pakistan, Petrol, puppet governments, resource wars, Robert Gates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Shiite, Somalia, staged terrorist attack, sunni, Turkmenistan, uav, United Kingdom, war crime, War Crimes, War On Terror, WW3, ww4, yemen | Tags: christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, underwear bomber
Obama’s Yemeni odyssey targets China
Asia Times
January 9, 2010
A cursory look at the map of region will show that Yemen is one of the most strategic lands adjoining waters of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. It flanks Saudi Arabia and Oman, which are vital American protectorates. In effect, Uncle Sam is “marking territory” – like a dog on a lamppost. Russia has been toying with the idea of reopening its Soviet-era base in Aden. Well, the US has pipped Moscow in the race.
The US has signaled that the odyssey doesn’t end with Yemen. It is also moving into Somalia and Kenya. With that, the US establishes its military presence in an entire unbroken stretch of real estate all along the Indian Ocean’s western rim. Chinese officials have of late spoken of their need to establish a naval base in the region. The US has now foreclosed China’s options. The only country with a coastline that is available for China to set up a naval base in the region will be Iran. All other countries have a Western military presence. (are western military puppet governments)
The American intervention in Yemen is not going to be on the pattern of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama will ensure he doesn’t receive any body bags of American servicemen serving in Yemen. That is what the American public expects from him. He will only deploy drone aircraft and special forces and “focus on providing intelligence and training to help Yemen counter al-Qaeda militants”, according to the US military. Obama’s main core objective will be to establish an enduring military presence in Yemen. This serves many purposes.
A new great game begins
First, the US move has to be viewed against the historic backdrop of the Shi’ite awakening in the region. The Shi’ites (mostly of the Zaidi group) have been traditionally suppressed in Yemen. Shi’ite uprisings have been a recurring theme in Yemen’s history. There has been a deliberate attempt to minimize the percentage of Shi’ites in Yemen, but they could be anywhere up to 45%.
More importantly, in the northern part of the country, they constitute the majority. What bothers the US and moderate Sunni Arab states – and Israel – is that the Believing Youth Organization led by Hussein Badr al-Houthi, which is entrenched in northern Yemen, is modeled after Hezbollah in Lebanon in all respects – politically, economically, socially and culturally.
Yemenis are an intelligent people and are famous in the Arabian Peninsula for their democratic temperament. The Yemeni Shi’ite empowerment on a Hezbollah-model would have far-reaching regional implications. Next-door Oman, which is a key American base, is predominantly Shi’ite. Even more sensitive is the likelihood of the dangerous idea of Shi’ite empowerment spreading to Saudi Arabia’s highly restive Shi’ite regions adjoining Yemen, which on top of it all, also happen to be the reservoir of the country’s fabulous oil wealth.
Saudi Arabia is entering a highly sensitive phase of political transition as a new generation is set to take over the leadership in Riyadh, and the palace intrigues and fault lines within the royal family are likely to get exacerbated. To put it mildly, given the vast scale of institutionalized Shi’ite persecution in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi establishment, Shi’ite empowerment is a veritable minefield that Riyadh is petrified about at this juncture. Its threshold of patience is wearing thin, as the recent uncharacteristic resort to military power against the north Yemeni Shi’ite communities bordering Saudi Arabia testifies.
The US faces a classic dilemma. It is all right for Obama to highlight the need of reform in Muslim societies – as he did eloquently in his Cairo speech last June. But democratization in the Yemeni context – ironically, in the Arab context – would involve Shi’ite empowerment. After the searing experience in Iraq, Washington is literally perched like a cat on a hot tin roof. It would much rather be aligned with the repressive, autocratic government of Saleh than let the genie of reform out of the bottle in the oil rich-region in which it has profound interests.
Obama has an erudite mind and he is not unaware that what Yemen desperately needs is reform, but he simply doesn’t want to think about it. The paradox he faces is that with all its imperfections, Iran happens to be the only “democratic” system operating in that entire region.
Iran’s shadow over the Yemeni Shi’ite consciousness worries the US to no end. Simply put, in the ideological struggle going on in the region, Obama finds himself with the ultra-conservative and brutally autocratic oligarchies that constitute the ruling class in the region. Conceivably, he isn’t finding it easy. If his own memoirs are to be believed, there could be times when the vague recollections of his childhood in Indonesia and his precious memories of his own mother, who from all accounts was a free-wheeling intellectual and humanist, must be stalking him in the White House corridors.
Israel moves in
But Obama is first and foremost a realist. Emotions and personal beliefs drain away and strategic considerations weigh uppermost when he works in the Oval Office. With the military presence in Yemen, the US has tightened the cordon around Iran. In the event of a military attack on Iran, Yemen could be put to use as a springboard by the Israelis. These are weighty considerations for Obama.
The fact is that no one is in control as a Yemeni authority. It is a cakewalk for the formidable Israeli intelligence to carve out a niche in Yemen – just as it did in northern Iraq under somewhat comparable circumstances.
Islamism doesn’t deter Israel at all. Saleh couldn’t have been far off the mark when he alleged last year that Israeli intelligence had been exposed as having kept links with Yemeni Islamists. The point is, Yemeni Islamists are a highly fragmented lot and no one is sure who owes what sort of allegiance to whom. Israeli intelligence operates marvelously in such twilight zones when the horizon is lacerated with the blood of the vanishing sun.
Israel will find a toehold in Yemen to be a god-sent gift insofar as it registers its presence in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a dream come true for Israel, whose effectiveness as a regional power has always been seriously handicapped by its lack of access to the Persian Gulf region. The overarching US military presence helps Israel politically to consolidate its Yemeni chapter. Without doubt, Petraeus is moving on Yemen in tandem with Israel (and Britain). But the “pro-West” Arab states with their rentier mentality have no choice except to remain as mute spectators on the sidelines.
Some among them may actually acquiesce with the Israeli security presence in the region as a safer bet than the spread of the dangerous ideas of Shi’ite empowerment emanating out of Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah. Also, at some stage, Israeli intelligence will begin to infiltrate the extremist Sunni outfits in Yemen, which are commonly known as affiliates of al-Qaeda. That is, if it hasn’t done that already. Any such link makes Israel an invaluable ally for the US in its fight against al-Qaeda. In sum, infinite possibilities exist in the paradigm that is taking shape in the Muslim world abutting into the strategic Persian Gulf.
It’s all about China
Most important, however, for US global strategies will be the massive gain of control of the port of Aden in Yemen. Britain can vouchsafe that Aden is the gateway to Asia. Control of Aden and the Malacca Strait will put the US in an unassailable position in the “great game” of the Indian Ocean. The sea lanes of the Indian Ocean are literally the jugular veins of China’s economy. By controlling them, Washington sends a strong message to Beijing that any notions by the latter that the US is a declining power in Asia would be nothing more than an extravagant indulgence in fantasy.
In the Indian Ocean region, China is increasingly coming under pressure. India is a natural ally of the US in the Indian Ocean region. Both disfavor any significant Chinese naval presence. India is mediating a rapprochement between Washington and Colombo that would help roll back Chinese influence in Sri Lanka. The US has taken a u-turn in its Myanmar policy and is engaging the regime there with the primary intent of eroding China’s influence with the military rulers. The Chinese strategy aimed at strengthening influence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar so as to open a new transportation route towards the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and Africa, where it has begun contesting traditional Western economic dominance.
China is keen to whittle down its dependence on the Malacca Strait for its commerce with Europe and West Asia. The US, on the contrary, is determined that China remains vulnerable to the choke point between Indonesia and Malaysia.
An engrossing struggle is breaking out. The US is unhappy with China’s efforts to reach the warm waters of the Persian Gulf through the Central Asian region and Pakistan. Slowly but steadily, Washington is tightening the noose around the neck of the Pakistani elites – civilian and military – and forcing them to make a strategic choice between the US and China. This will put those elites in an unenviable dilemma. Like their Indian counterparts, they are inherently “pro-Western” (even when they are “anti-American”) and if the Chinese connection is important for Islamabad, that is primarily because it balances perceived Indian hegemony.
The existential questions with which the Pakistani elites are grappling are apparent. They are seeking answers from Obama. Can Obama maintain a balanced relationship vis-a-vis Pakistan and India? Or, will Obama lapse back to the George W Bush era strategy of building up India as the pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean under whose shadow Pakistan will have to learn to live?
US-India-Israel axis
On the other hand, the Indian elites are in no compromising mood. Delhi was on a roll during the Bush days. Now, after the initial misgivings about Obama’s political philosophy, Delhi is concluding that he is all but a clone of his illustrious predecessor as regards the broad contours of the US’s global strategy – of which containment of China is a core template.
The comfort level is palpably rising in Delhi with regard to the Obama presidency. Delhi takes the surge of the Israeli lobby in Washington as the litmus test for the Obama presidency. The surge suits Delhi, since the Jewish lobby was always a helpful ally in cultivating influence in the US Congress, media and the rabble-rousing think-tankers as well as successive administrations. And all this is happening at a time when the India-Israel security relationship is gaining greater momentum.
United States Defense Secretary Robert Gates is due to visit Delhi in the coming days. The Obama administration is reportedly adopting an increasingly accommodative attitude toward India’s longstanding quest for “dual-use” technology from the US. If so, a massive avenue of military cooperation is about to open between the two countries, which will make India a serious challenger to China’s growing military prowess. It is a win-win situation as the great Indian arms bazaar offers highly lucrative business for American companies.
Clearly, a cozy three-way US-Israel-India alliance provides the underpinning for all the maneuvering that is going on. It will have significance for the security of the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula. Last year, India formalized a naval presence in Oman.
All-in-all, terrorism experts are counting the trees and missing the wood when they analyze the US foray into Yemen in the limited terms of hunting down al-Qaeda. The hard reality is that Obama, whose main plank used to be “change”, has careened away and increasingly defaults to the global strategies of the Bush era. The freshness of the Obama magic is dissipating. Traces of the “revisionism” in his foreign policy orientation are beginning to surface. We can see them already with regard to Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East and the Israel-Palestine problem, Central Asia and towards China and Russia.
Arguably, this sort of “return of the native” by Obama was inevitable. For one thing, he is but a creature of his circumstances. As someone put it brilliantly, Obama’s presidency is like driving a train rather than a car: a train cannot be “steered”, the driver can at best set its speed, but ultimately, it must run on its tracks.
Besides, history has no instances of a declining world power meekly accepting its destiny and walking into the sunset. The US cannot give up on its global dominance without putting up a real fight. And the reality of all such momentous struggles is that they cannot be fought piece-meal. You cannot fight China without occupying Yemen.
Russia, China, Iran redraw energy map
Asia Times
January 9, 2010
The inauguration of the Dauletabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran pipeline on Wednesday connecting Iran’s northern Caspian region with Turkmenistan’s vast gas field may go unnoticed amid the Western media cacophony that it is “apocalypse now” for the Islamic regime in Tehran.
The event sends strong messages for regional security. Within the space of three weeks, Turkmenistan has committed its entire gas exports to China, Russia and Iran. It has no urgent need of the pipelines that the United States and the European Union have been advancing. Are we hearing the faint notes of a Russia-China-Iran symphony?
The 182-kilometer Turkmen-Iranian pipeline starts modestly with the pumping of 8 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas. But its annual capacity is 20bcm, and that would meet the energy requirements of Iran’s Caspian region and enable Tehran to free its own gas production in the southern fields for export. The mutual interest is perfect: Ashgabat gets an assured market next door; northern Iran can consume without fear of winter shortages; Tehran can generate more surplus for exports; Turkmenistan can seek transportation routes to the world market via Iran; and Iran can aspire to take advantage of its excellent geographical location as a hub for the Turkmen exports.
We are witnessing a new pattern of energy cooperation at the regional level that dispenses with Big Oil. Russia traditionally takes the lead. China and Iran follow the example. Russia, Iran and Turkmenistan hold respectively the world’s largest, second-largest and fourth-largest gas reserves. And China will be consumer par excellence in this century. The matter is of profound consequence to the US global strategy.
Filed under: airstrikes, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Military, Military Industrial Complex, military strike, nation building, obama, occupation, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror, yemen
U.S. Troops in Yemen Will Strengthen al-Qaeda
The Majlis
January 7, 2010
 Members of Yemen’s anti-terrorism force take part in a training session on the outskirts of Sanaa on January 9. Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh says he is open to dialogue with Al-Qaeda militants, as a top official warned that dozens of foreign jihadists are grouping in a remote part of the impoverished country. |
Rashad al-Alimi, Yemen’s deputy prime minister for security, warned today against direct U.S. intervention in his country, saying (عربي) it would “strengthen al-Qaeda.”
“We cannot accept any foreign troops on Yemeni territory,” he told a group of reporters in Sana’a.
Alimi’s remarks follow similar comments yesterday by Abu Bakr al-Qirbi, the country’s foreign minister, who told the Associated Press “there is a lot of sensitivity about foreign troops coming to Yemeni territory.” Qirbi cited the American experience in Afghanistan and Iraq to argue that “direct intervention complicates things.”
There’s a certain amount of parsing required when reading statements like this. Yemeni officials have always been reluctant to publicly discuss American involvement in their country: In 2002, for example, President Ali Abdullah Saleh was furious that the U.S. revealed it was behind the cruise missile strike that killed Abu Ali al-Harithi.
This sensitivity is motivated partly by fear of public outrage, and partly by the government’s desire to be seen as competent and able to provide its own security.
So these comments by Qirbi and Alimi are public statements intended for public consumption. Yemeni officials will almost certainly sign off on further cruise missile attacks or drone strikes, and they might also approve limited incursions by U.S. Special Forces, as long as the government retains a degree of deniability.
Speaking of “able to provide its own security,” the new offensive against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is proceeding as expected. The Yemeni government claims to have captured Mohammed al-Hanq, the AQAP “commander” behind recent threats against the U.S. and U.K. embassies in Sana’a. Hanq, and two other suspects, were reportedly wounded earlier this week and arrested at a hospital north of the capital.
Hanq was reportedly captured yesterday; Yemeni news sources don’t have any updates on the fighting today.
Filed under: Afghanistan, alqaeda, Barack Obama, Iraq, Military, Military Industrial Complex, mutallab, nation building, obama, obamas war, occupation, Troops, u.s. soldiers, War On Terror, yemen | Tags: bukar al-Qirbi, Rashad al-Alimi
Yemen tells U.S. soldiers to keep out
The Independent
January 8, 2010
Yemen insisted yesterday that it could handle its own mounting security challenges without any direct foreign intervention, pointedly warning Washington to learn the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan.
While welcoming US intelligence and technological co-operation, the Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Security, Rashad al-Alimi, told a crowded news conference in the capital, Sana’a, that the government did not want foreign troops on its soil.
That message was reinforced by Foreign Minister Abukar al-Qirbi, who told CNN that fighting militants was “the priority and the responsibility of our security forces and the army”.
On the possibility of direct US military intervention, he said: “No, I don’t think we will accept that. I think the US as well have learned from Afghanistan and Iraq and other places that direct intervention can be self-defeating.”
noworldsystem.com 